User talk:Tmtoulouse
- [Edit↑]
- [Fossil record↑]
Contents
![]() First page |
![]() Previous page |
![]() Next page |
![]() Last page |
Embedvideo
Please update the Embedvideo extension to this version. The old version has an XSS vulnerability.
bump
Trent, I want an appeal
I was 'disappeared' for daring to have the audacity to speak out against the new institution. I was exiled for two years on a razor thin margin. I have been consistently denied an opportunity to defend myself during the court martial, or the ensuing 'appeal' period. I am appealing over everyone elses head as I find it impossible to reason with the present regime, who have already terrified many long standing editors (Such as Human) into exile. I demand and I deserve an appeal. I am a long standing editor with many important contributions under my belt and I deserved better treatment than the kangeroo court I got.
Please bear in mind that I will continue to agitate for fairness until the regime relents. You are the only person who enforce an appeal trial by fiat.
This is not MarcusCicero by the way, so nobody is allowed to censor this message.
"This is not MarcusCicero by the way, so nobody is allowed to censor this message."
Oh, then you mest be....the other guy who got a two-year ban on a razor-thin margin?
I don't remember the other guy but I did offer MarcusCicero the opportunity to state his defence on his user page but he rejected it. Of course that is by the bye if this is not MarcusCicero.
Well, since nobody seems willing to talk about me, lets talk about Marcus Cicero. Khant is right that MC was offered the opportunity to defend himself; but this of course was ridiculous, no court of law in the land would call MCs highly censored and intimidated remarks for clemency a 'defence'. You cannot hold an adequate defence when you are facing judge, jury and executioner on the one bench. I say MC, and myself, are permitted a fresh trial, with a backbone of fairness. At the moment its quite evident that the moderatorship was basically designed to persecute and exile MC. And to give AD an ego buzz (A particularly arrogant individual, I've got the emails to prove it)
Another patch missing
The PlaceNewSection extension doesn't work because the patch to Article.php is missing: http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:PlaceNewSection#Download_instructions
Voter fraud
RobS has made several allegations that I used sock accounts to fraudulently skew the mod elections in favor of me for the seemingly unusual purpose of beating out DickTurpis. Now I know we all have a good laugh at Robs idiocy so I don't take him seriously but i have a question, is there anyway to match users to votes?
That would violate secret ballot. However, I have brought up that listing who voted, without matching votes to names, would not violate that condition, and would be possible to do. I think it even that would warrant some discussion, though. Here in the States voting records are public, so there is that precedent.
The database stores who voted (to only allow people to vote once, obviously) - I don't remember how, but I think it's chronological, and if so it's possible.
Enforcing desysopping by a moderator
With $wgRevokePermissions you could set up a group that revokes all the sysop rights and make it so only mods can add and remove it. Then it wouldn't matter if another sysop undid the desysopping, because the revoking group would override the sysop rights.
So for example:
#Because of https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=23934 (fixed in MW1.17), you need a dummy wgGroupPermissions entry $wgGroupPermissions['sysoprevoke']['block'] = false; $wgRevokePermissions['sysoprevoke']['block'] = true; $wgRevokePermissions['sysoprevoke']['delete'] = true; #etc...
The only problem is that I don't think you can prevent the user from changing user rights, since sysops don't have the full userrights right, their ability to make people sysops is governed by $wgAddGroups and $wgRemoveGroups, and I don't think there's a way to revoke that with a second group.
Does promote/demote have a hook?
restriction-level-moderator
So apparently when you create a new protection level you also have to create a message called restriction-level-whatever (it's for Special:ProtectedPages). I didn't know that, so I created MediaWiki:Restriction-level-moderator, but you might want to move it into setupcustomnames (or whatever that function's called) in LocalSettings.php instead where all the others are.
Update
You may or may not have heard, I've had a falling out with the powers that be at Conservapedia, including Mr. Andy Schlafly. Whatever my future is there, I just wanted to let you know I am no longer interested at any level in gathering information about Rationalwiki, the RWF, or its users to be shared and analyzed with Conservapedia sysops. They never listened to anybody anyway. Let bygones be bygones. I admire what you've accomplished here so far, considering Rationalwiki came into existence accidentally. And I want to thank you for personally being fair to me on more than one occasion when there was no reason or expectation to be. Hopefully its been an example for many others.
I'm impressed you hung on this long and didn't just give Schlafly the finger a long time ago.
I always thought he'd get his head out of his ass at some point show some leadership. But he's really no different than Ken or Karajou: a bunch of wikipedia malcontents who never lasted long enough to learn basic editing practices.
We could've told you that in 2007. Old news.
Actually, what Rob said may have been true in 2007. More recently, the pretence about it being an encyclopedia has pretty much died, so it's not in Schlafly's best interest to pull his head out any more. He's basically developed a media wiki based blog (that is, the MPR template) and ever stopping for a moment to kick some of them in the balls would damage that blog's top contributors far more than it would in 2007. Back then, there were people turning up that would have replaced them. Now he has to retain those top contributors at all costs or risk stagnation.
You tried you best, Rob, but you're just not mad enough!
Evowiki Editing?
I have recently have been going to random pages, checking "recent changes", and checking my previous contributions, but before I start to make changes I had a few questions...
- What are the priorities? Sections, Topics, Specific Articles?
- Should articles be combined, grouped, etc... basically is there a formatting protocol?
- Where would you like me to put the page that lists changes?
- Is there a time frame for anything?
- Should I continue to update "In the News"?
Thanks for your assistance.--RiverBissonnette (talk) 19:59, 8 July 2011 (UTC)
I wouldn't put much effort towards updating any sort of "current" content like "in the news" but rather try and focus on the existing content. Honestly the biggest issues with EvoWiki right now and what needs to be addressed but no one really wants to do it are the images.
I was never given the image data, and so all the images on the site are basically red links. Someone needs to go through and try and find and reupload as many of the images used in articles as possible. You can take the name of the image, google search it and usually find what it was. This is a tediously awful job but it would go a long way towards getting EvoWiki in okay shape and then other focuses could be looked at.
If there is a particular article you would really like to see developed I encourage you to bring it over here where others can join in.
Hello!
I am frequently viewing EvoWiki (as I am translating it) and I think that I can restore at least some images there (perfect knowledge of English is not needed for this). So, can you give me an access to EvoWiki?
It seems it would need to begin from the most frequently viewed articles. I believe that restoring EvoWiki may attract new users into RW.
By the way, there is ollowing discussion at talk.origins:
http://groups.google.com/group/talk.origins/browse_thread/thread/48008fd0b48c9973#
Something weird
It looks like everything the wiki produces gets prefixed with a \n. I first noticed it when a script broke because the json response text started with a \n instead of a {, but then I realized it's happening to everything outputted by the wiki. Just look at the source of any html page, it starts with an empty line. Any ideas?
Wikimedia images at ru.rw
Hello! Is it possible to enable using wikimedia images at ru.rw as it is at English version (see for examples rurw:Обсуждение участника:Bertran)?
I'd like to upgrade the wiki to MW1.17 but I need to update our extensions to use ResourceLoader first. I'll have some spare time next week, so I'll try to get that done.
Your creatures have betrayed you
You offered reassurance that the new powers afforded to moderators would not result in a mass centralisation of power and targeting of dissidents. Well there now is evidence that those reassurances are a load of bullshit, which makes you by extension, a bullshitter. Effectively I am going to be permanantly banned simply because I proposed a long winded debate title, Psygremlin decided to re-enact a one man characterisaton of apartheid era repression, and I decided to call him out for his authoritarianism. You are a wanker, Trent, because you were warned about these structural failings and you did nothing to rectify it. You are a wanker. That is all.
Seriously, go fuck yourself. You known and I know that Psygremlin manufactured this entire thing, possibly because he is a white South African living in a country that essentially despises his race. (One of many causes) This is a convenient excuse for you to get rid of me, for the simple reason that you dislike me. Spastick.
Bump: You know that obnoxious thing people do on the internet when they've said something and they feel they haven't been paid enough attention? I'm doing that.
Would you please continue the discussion we were having here? Unless, of course, you feel you've handed me my ass already and I'm just in denial or something.
It's just that I worry hostility towards religion won't really make the world a better place, you know? RationalWiki isn't yet much of a nexus but I really want to lighten the tone in some instances, so we can get along a bit.
thanks for paying my arguments attention in the first place
Lets simplify things down a bit to two basic hypotheses:
- H1: There is a god.
- H0: There is no god.
From what I can piece together you are trying to say that these two hypotheses should be treated as fundamentally on equal footing because the absence of direct evidence does not disprove H1, and that because there is no observational evidence available we can not calculate relative probabilities of the hypotheses based on empirical observation. Therefore, these things are some how axiomatic in their own separate sets.
I pointed out that at best this approach can only be taken somewhat serious in a hardcore frequntist framework where calculating the probability of data given a hypothesis can not be used to calculate the relative probability of each of the hypotheses. In this framework an absence of evidence does not allow us to be a make claim about H1 or H0. But in a Bayesian framework it absolutely does. When we observe a universe that does not show any sign of what we would expect if there were a God then that makes the relative probability of H0 > than H1.
The only way out is to keep redefining God and the predictions of what a universe with a God would look like until you have made all possible observations of universe H1 equal to H0. So in other words there is a God but he has made the universe look and act exactly like a universe without a God. At that point I feel you have argued yourself into the oblivion of the gap.
However, you are making the more practical claim that some how specific religions that do make very specific claims about how God should effect the universe can not some how be addressed empirically. Anything that makes a claim about something observable can be analyzed empirically, and if no empirical observation can be made regarding a hypothesis then it is completely irrelevant.
I'm going to reply to this tomorrow after I've gotten some sleep. Then you'll see my reply and scratch your head and ask yourself if I'm really that stupid or if I'm trying to make parody.
What I'm saying is that science is not a universal framework. There is no god hypothesis, only belief in god.
I believe RationalWiki should not characterize religion as inherently irrational because
- It's not a friendly attitude. We won't get far antagonizing people (though the question of whether obscuring the truth for the sake of diplomacy is right remains).
- Religion is not bound by such ideas as Bayesianism (is that a word? Or is only Bayesian a word?) or more specifically methodological naturalism and falsifiability. It's the difference between faith and knowledge.
I think I understand what you're saying. I'm very sorry if I'm repeating myself. I used to think I was a good debater, but later in life I figured out I was just so stubborn the people I was debating with simply gave up...
Please read special pleading.
RationalWiki is not a place where we are friendly to false and misleading ides. We don't coddle people who refuse to give their kids vaccinations, why should we coddle people who belive in a god?
You have failed to demonstrate how beliefe in god does not fall under an emperical framework other than simply stating that it deost not. I have tried to explain how it repeated observations of no evidence can be viewed as evidence against something in a Bayesian framework.
My own opinion on this matter is that religion is and should be treated here as an irrational system of understanding the world but that is not to say those that are religious themselves are necessarily irrational themselves. So while slamming religion due to its under-lying tenants the believers may not be deserving of the same treatment. If you follow me.
I agree with this, assuming that by "understanding the world" you mean "understanding the physical world." I agree with Trent on most things but not here. My personal view is that science and religion are basically orthogonal.
I think there's a big difference there. People that don't vaccinate their kids are putting their children in clear and obvious danger. People that bring their kids to Sunday school are doing no such thing.
As to you hypothesis/Bayesian stuff (forgive me for not understanding. Much of the science on this wiki is far beyond me), you keep insisting we apply this standard to things that are in my eyes irrelevant to it.
When you last read Lord of the Rings, did you scoff at the depictions of ents since plants have no muscle? Did you claim it to be improbable that Sauron affix all his power to the one ring?
Religion is not irrational because it is not based on observations of the natural world and generally admits to being unfalsifiable. Creationism is irrational because they draw conclusions that can easily be disproved and ignore and deny the body of evidence against them.
Finally, for a more pragmatic argument, "coddling" would accomplish far more than insulting. New Atheists are only widening the fissure. Pissing people off rarely teaches them anything.
BTW, thanks Maratrean and ListenerX for stepping in to help me. And if it's at all relevant, I'm an atheist. Always have been, my parents are atheists, and my grandparents are atheists.
What does your Lord of the Rings have to do with anything? No one is going around claiming that its real, and if they did, yes I would scoff at them.
Other than that your argument is amounting to "is not", "is so", "cause I said so", style statements. There is nothing to really reply to that.
Consider that in Islam, your "Sunday School" may well indoctrinate children to become fanatic suicide bombers. Much of the children's television in the Islamic world is seriously unhinged. However, your argument would count this under religion, and therefore harmless and should be respected and tolerated. I do not buy for one moment that just because we arbitrarily put one form of belief under the banner of "religion" that we should protect it and shield it from free and rational inquiry, and mockery if it necessarily flows from that. Should we not also shoehorn any political beliefs - views on taxation, universal health care, abortion and so on - into that protective bubble?
Your attempt to create a distinction that is objective and all-encompassing is noble, but currently it's very half-baked and open to many holes. Currently all you have is "that's different" when faced with some beliefs falling on the wrong side protective scrutiny free zone you're trying make. This is just special pleading and I don't think you will ever get that far without first trying to figure out a full and encompassing definition of the word "religion" first. Once you've done that, the hard part is done.
Right now you seem to be working backwards; trying to say religion is free from rational/irrational labels and trying to justify that. Instead, try to figure out what properties a belief system should have in order to make it fully immune from rational scrutiny, and why that should be so, and then try to find out what fits it. This should avoid any special pleading problems that arise from endless back-and-forth example-counter-example exchanges. You may think that you have already done this, but I think you've been too circular, effectively saying that things exempt from rational scrutiny should be religious, religious are religious, so religions should be exempt from rational scrutiny.
You need to distinguish the mere abstract idea that there is a God, from the specific claims of particular religions like traditional Christianity.
For the traditional Christian God to exist, the universe must have particular features (e.g. miracles), and from the absence of those features, we can infer the non-existence of the Christian God.
For a deist God to exist, the universe need not have any particular features at all. Hence, there is no reason from the nature of the universe to infer the non-existence of the God of deism.
So, your argument that P(H0) > P(H1), may well work for the God of traditional Christianity, but doesn't work for the God of Deism.
And before you argue the God of Deism is somehow parasitic upon Christianity, it is very similar to the God of philosophers such as Plato or Aristotle, who both predate Christianity, and whose work shows no direct signs of Jewish influence either. They are obviously based on ancient Greek paganism, but if they turned from that to a more refined philosophical perception of the deity, modern science had nothing to do with it. It seems likely to me that Platonism/Aristotelianism was a natural development out of Greek paganism.
The only way to equalize P(H0) and P(H1) is if P(observed reality | H0) = P( observed reality | H1). This means that all observed reality acts as if it can be completely explained through naturalistic mechanisms. This is Spinoza's God. The problem is that the pragmatic and epistemological weight of H0 and H1 in this case are not equal. Since observed reality in this construct acts as if there is no God, an appeal to the existence of a God is expanding the complexity of the system without gaining any explanatory power. Therefore, the principle of parsimony kicks in and we still embrace H0 as the preferred hypothesis.
Well, then it all comes down to what is the correct version of the "principle of parsimony" or "Occam's razor", which I have been debating back and forth with Röstigraben recently. A couple of points open to dispute:
- Is "God does not exist" really simpler than "God exists"? Atheists make that claim, but I am not convinced
- The principle of parsimony says to avoid unnecessary complexity. The question is, what determines whether extra complexity is "necessary" or not. You say it is only necessary if it adds explanatory power. But, it is open to someone to argue that human thought performs other purposes than just explanation, and that a complication, which may be unnecessary for explanation, may yet be necessary for other purposes
Uh seems pretty axiomatic to me. Lets set this up using a linear system just for simplicity sake.
Mo = X0+X1+X2
R = O - Mo
We have some model of reality, Mo is the prediction of our observations given the elements of our model (X0...XN). If we then take our observed reality (O) we can calculate the "residuals" left over that are not accounted for by our model. The "complexity" of the model is then defined as the number of elements with in the set. To determine if an extra element is worth adding to the model we need to compare the residuals of those two models.
Mo1 = X0+X1 Mo2 = X0+X1+X2
R1 = O - Mo1 R2 = O - Mo2
In order for us to say that Mo2 is "better" than Mo1 R2 must be significantly less than R1. Now what "significantly" means is something we work out in statistics and doesn't need to be defined here. The reason we do not need to worry about it here is because what you guys are postulating is something like this:
Mo1(there is no god) = X0+X1...XN Mo2(there is a god) = X0+X1....XN+1
R1= O-Mo1 R2= O-Mo2
R1=R2
You have therefor added an element to the model XN+1, but kept the residuals equal. Therefore, an sane system of knowledge would reject Mo2 in favor of Mo1.
As I have said many times before, if the God in question is not claimed to be a miracle worker, there will be no scientific observation that could differentiate
from
.
Wouldn't that also mean that the faith of deist (non-miracle worker) can't be harmfull to society? Also would that mean that faith in anything non-supernatural can't be harmfull either? (That's what I get by accepting Mara's and ListenerX's premises and I fully agree with them.)
![]() First page |
![]() Previous page |
![]() Next page |
![]() Last page |




