RationalWiki:Pissed at us

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If you're not pissing someone off, you're doing it wrong.

As RationalWiki grows as a site, it tends to catch the eyes and ears of people whom it criticises. And people don't like being criticised, do they? Anyway, here is a list of people who are pissed at us for one reason or another.

Notably absent from this list is Encyclopaedia Dramatica, which does have a scathingly hateful article about RW, including a guide for how to troll the site. But as this is pretty much standard on ED, it doesn't really count.

Contents

[edit] Organizations

[edit] Discovery Institute

In an article entitled "Media Promoting Misinformation about the Santorum Amendment", the DI claimed that RationalWiki were misrepresenting the Santorum Amendment by claiming it would "promote the teaching of intelligent design while questioning the academic standing of evolution".[1]

They claim the Amendment reads "It is the sense of the Senate that -- (1) good science education should prepare students to distinguish the data or testable theories of science from philosophical or religious claims that are made in the name of science; and (2) where biological evolution is taught, the curriculum should help students to understand why this subject generates so much continuing controversy, and should prepare the students to be informed participants in public discussions regarding the subject." (Ironic bits in bold.)

Top quote

The Santorum Amendment represents a successful amendment where both Houses of U.S. Congress ultimately endorsed language which supported teaching students about the scientific controversy over biological evolution.

"Teaching the controversy" being the thinking behind intelligent design in the first place.

[edit] VDARE

Out of all the denialism they could have written about and exposed, VDARE picked denialism of...(drumroll please)...the War on Christmas![2] RationalWiki, described as "a group of more-than-usually-obnoxious atheists", features prominently among their list of deniers. VDARE takes issue with the statement in our article, "The so-called ‘War on Xmas’ is a right wing demagogic neologism referring to secular progressives' attempts to keep the December solstice holiday shopping season culturally inclusive".

Top quote

Under the heading of “So what's a war without war profiteers”, the RationalWiki guys accuse the American Family Association of profiteering off [sic] the War On Christmas because of its Naughty or Nice Christmas List of retailers that “avoid, ban, or use the term ‘Christmas’ in their advertising.” ...Of course, it’s the retailers who are profiteering—to the tune of close to 600 billion dollars in pre-Christmas sales. The AFA, like VDARE.com, is supported by (tax-deductible) donations.

[edit] Internet forums

[edit] Anglo-Saxon Foundation

Members of the Anglo-Saxon Foundation forum responded to our article about them by accusing us of being "anti-English" (inevitable, really, as they seem to consider almost every site on the Internet to be "anti-English") and repeatedly complaining that we don't criticise Islam, which will doubtless come as a surprise to the members of Islamic Awakening (see below). Our article was later discovered by a seventeen year old idiot named Sobotnik, and RationalWiki was blamed for his subsequent trolling spree.[3][4]

Top quote
You have to feel sorry (NOT!) for these pissants who have nothing better to do in their pathetic lives but sit in their lonely little rooms staring at a screen, trawling for who knows what guided by their inexperience and limited points of views, so they can mock others who do not think like them (thankfully). They must also think it makes their tiny penises bigger or something. Perhaps if they got out in the real world and did something useful with their limited time on this planet instead of fabricating derision for a site nobody reads, the world would be just that much of better place. This of course does not enter their minuscule brains. We can only hope Darwin is right... [5]

[edit] Islamic Awakening

Islamic Awakening is one of those sites where Muslim extremists, pretending to be moderate Muslims, get together to fantasise about killing people they disagree with. In 2011, they had their own awakening to RW's article on them. One user blew a few irony meters by saying "I ask Allah to grant a miserable life to everyone intentionally involved in mocking the Prophet" in reference to the article, before in the very next sentence stating that "It's very easy to go on a message board and collect random statements to blow them out of proportion or purposely misconstrue them for sensationalism..." So, quote-mining and straw-manning is wrong, unless it's you that's doing the quote-mining and straw-manning. Glad to have that one cleared up.

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I hope you forget your blender plugged in and on the ground, for some reason, and your illegitimate babies stumble into it - head first. Quote that please.[6]

[edit] LessWrong

Less Wrong has an up and down relationship with RW. With a small but notable overlap in userbase and Yudkowsky's one-time insistence that hardcore rationalists can be recruited from sites like RW, it still attracts ire from LW users for one reason or another.

Top quote
Regarding the phase "Note for the clueless (i.e. RationalWiki)" (emphasis added)

Or, rather, whether that's what he meant to express; I don't believe he actually believes nobody other than RationalWiki is clueless. Roughly speaking, I would have taken it to be a subtle way of expressing that RationalWiki is so clueless nobody else deserves the label.[7]

[edit] Ludwig von Mises Institute

Members of the forum for the Ludwig von Mises Institute noticed our article about libertarians in January 2011. Considering the von Mises institute promotes the Austrian school of economics, developed by libertarian Ludwig von Mises, they weren't happy.

Top quote
RationalWiki is a product of the Progressive Dawkinsian atheist, who is so immersed in the religion of liberal statism that he is not aware it is a religion. These people are intellectually of little value, simply repeating the tropes they learned in college, but they are representitive [sic] of the 'elite' in the United States.h [sic]

[edit] Metapedia

Those lovely folk at Metapedia seem to have a problem with us because... well, because we don't seem to hate everybody else. The article on RW may be a mixture of parody and satire, however; it describes RW as a "genetic-egalitarian race-denialist propaganda website", which is fair enough but stating that Richard Dawkins is RW's messiah is a bit of a leap. It is also notable for attempting to create a "power structure" of RW, based on user rights logs.

Top quote

The website fraudulently portrays itself as being “rational”, and opposed to “pseudoscience”, yet promotes exactly the thing that they claim to oppose: the irrational spiritual pseudosciences of genetic egalitarianism and race denialism. On top of such deceptiveness, Trent Toulouse solicits donations (on the website’s main page) under these false pretenses. That fits within the definition of criminal fraud.[8]

[edit] Objectivism Online

In July 2009, RW came to the attention of Objectivism Online, a forum dedicated to Randroids. The thread, The RationalWiki Not so rational, after all, closed shortly after an RW user invited them to discuss criticism on the talk page of the objectivism article.

Top quote
Don't waste your time with it. The entire page is a poorly-written smear-job.

[edit] Ron Paul Forums

In a thread titled And you thought liberalpedia was bad from April 2009, several Ron Paul fans expressed dismay and resentment at RW's admitted left-of-centre political stance and info on Ron Paul.

Top quote
If it computers were cheaper, I'd have thrown my computer out the window in anger. It is so stupid and full rash generalizations, non sequiturs, and idiotic assumptions about the marketplace. "RationalWiki" is about as rational as the average communist.

[edit] SCEPCOP

Rationalwiki was criticised in a thread at the SCEPCOP forum started by Winston Wu himself.[9]

Top quote
Did Bigfoot piss in their proverbial Cheerios? LOL.[10]

[edit] The World Freeman Society

The World Freeman Society has a forum supporting the "freeman on the land" concept. They were not pleased with our article on the subject, but seemed confused as to what site it appeared on, as some people referred to it as a Wikipedia article.[11][12] One member referred to RationalWiki as "the communists" and pointed out that the authors' names were not listed on the article, which shows a slightly wobbly understanding of how wikis generally work.[13]

Top quote
Someone should sue wiki for spreading malicious propaganda with intent to provoke violence.[14]

[edit] David Icke.com

Weird British chap David Icke has a forum member who thinks we are the CIA.

Top quote
Every entry seems aimed at deceiving people and spreading lies, much in the same way wikipedia does about the subjects that matter to the CIA. Now, since I've heard that wikipedia is edited by the CIA, could it be that also rationalwiki is edited by the CIA, actually even more?

It seems to me that there is nothing rational whatsoever about how rationalwiki tries to ridicule the doubts there are about 911 and all the other major false flag events and assassinations engineered by the US government. It is stupid, it is aimed at stupid people, but I think it is written by smart people with a hidden agenda (convincing the stupid people).[15]

[edit] Individuals

[edit] Cathy Brennan

Man-hatin', trans-hatin' radical feminist Cathy Brennan noticed our article on her (about five minutes after it was created by a new user, go figure) and responded by taking the "yay, we struck a blow to the oppressors" tack. The most disturbing part came with a full cyber-stalking of our very own Blue, with some choice comments that don't need reprinting. A swiftly reverted edit to the article on transphobia, calling it an emotive reaction to silence "criticism" of transgendered people, also caused some pain on the blog's comments, and she then returned to call the goat-loving Rationalwiki "...a known manarchist bro space!"[16] Though where, exactly, it's well "known" as such is still a mystery.

Top quote
BTW, you should totes update that RationalWiki page to say I am standing outside of your house selling magazine subscriptions RIGHT NOW.[17]

[edit] Mohamed El Naschie

El Naschie is an Egyptian mathematician and crank. He has a particular dislike of us, though we are not sure why, as no-one here can read Arabic and the machine translation is... lacking.

Top quote
Machine translated into English: Beware as well as university students and young researchers from the dependence on Aloueckabidia source of information and there is worse, there are monster in the hands of people suspected the so-called Rashinal Wiki How is a blog written by the suspects for the purposes of far from the public good in many cases, and up to slander and assassinate the reputation of innocent In some cases, and that in return for paying small amounts, as well as to market goods through advertisements in the same page, which gives the suspicious information.[18]

[edit] Carl Gallups

Pastor Carl Gallups, aka PPSIMMONS, took offense at his portrayal in the RW article and posted a point-by-point "refutation" on his blog that makes for an hilarious read.[19]

Top quote
This rationalwiki article was so full of errors that it simply begs the question - if they are so wrong on such a simple matter (simple because the truth was so easily accessible) then how much less should they be trusted on issues that really matter? By that we mean issues of eternal consequence like eternal life, transcendental realities, and salvation. If they could not get the identity of PPSIMMONS right, how could they ever get the truth about God right? Answer: they cannot. They are living in a delusion: the most closed-minded philosophical delusion facing our time.

[edit] Karajou

Sometimes referred to as Conservapedia's "resident swabbie", Karajou holds the distinction of being the Conservapedian most obsessed with RW. Forget User:Conservative's "red telephone" messages, or Andrew Schlafly personally coining the term "Hot. Science. RationalWiki", Karajou has taken it off-wiki and to his own blog and various leaked email comments where he has been shown to fantasise about suing the site and holds delusions that the entire site is responsible for DDoS attacks against Conservapedia (as if anyone who edits RW has the technical knowledge to pull that one off...). His paranoia knows no bounds.

Top quote
It's called RationalWiki. A place called a "trash heap" by one, and "inhabited by thugs" by another. They're on record as using "cyber-terror tactics" in an effort to remove Conservapedia from the internet; they're the ones who employ DDoS attacks, major and minor vandalism, links to porn and worse...and all because they were thrown out of Conservapedia when they couldn't get their way.[20]

[edit] Seán Manchester

Seán Manchester is a vampire-hunting Bishop - seriously. But rather than being one of the cool kind from the movies that don a pair of sunglasses and go on a kick-ass killing spree against the legions of the Undead, Manchester confines himself to blog ravings. After one RW user began writing an article on him, he decided to take action by decrying it all as falsehoods, taking up most of his blogging time around January 2010. The quote below comes from one of his posts in January, summing up his opinion of the site.

Top quote
Deconverting folk from Christianity clearly appears to be a mission close to their heart. For them a Christian is someone who "must handle snakes, hate homosexuals, go door-to-door like the Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormons, roll-in-the sawdust, babble-in-tongues, rock back and forth with your eyes rolled back in your head, eschew card playing, eschew dancing, eschew Demon Rum, campaign for the prohibition of alcohol and other drugs, send the man on the TV your money, flog your children (and stone them if they object), make anti-Semitic remarks (ala Pat Robertson and Billy Graham), burn CDs (in the literal sense involving fire, not the sense of recording CDs) which spew Satanic messages (that you were explicitly looking for) when you play them backwards, watch for black helicopters, look for commies under every bed, preach that the UN is going to invade America, join a militia, take Harry Potter books out of schools, believe that your beliefs must be the law for everyone (because 'we' have to 'get right' with God), and believe that the existence of a single non-Christian anywhere in the world means that you're being oppressed."

[edit] Dennis Markuze

Dennis Markuze is a strange individual who posts barely coherent screeds on forums with large atheist populations. The term "pissed at us" does not seem entirely accurate, largely because it is hard to gauge his emotional state (he instead comes across as being a rather different kind of "pissed") but he certainly did not appreciate our article on him. In one edit he twice proclaimed it to be "JUDGMENT DAY" while insulting James Randi;[21] "for little dick pz... ATHEIST GENOCIDE" he said in another edit, linking to a forum thread which has now been deleted but was presumably another one of his rants.[22]

Top quote
lying fuckers[23]

[edit] Notedscholar, of Science and Math Defeated

Warning: Poe's Law is in full effect for this entry.

Notedscholar wasn't too happy about our article on Science and Math Defeated, as indicated by his blog post during January 2009. At one point Notedscholar seemed to get confused by the way the Internet worked, saying "losers at RationalWiki want a piece of my pageviews" after RW linked to Science and Maths Defeated. Just think about this one for a minute and the way round that interaction works regarding who gets a piece of whose pageviews.

Top quote
Look at this. Apparently thinking they haven’t been discredited enough, the unorganized hate fest oxymoronically called Rational Wiki have put up a hit job on me. As you can see, it’s not gaining any steam. There are apparently a record number of gutless users who “vote” for my blog, but no one is willing to reveal themselves. Not surprising.

The moral of the story is: if you can’t take the heat, set up your own closed Internet society. In fact, take a page from Orwell and call it rational. [24]

[edit] Denyse O'Leary

Denyse O'Leary is a journalist and proponent of non-materialist neuroscience. She discovered our article on such, which was highly critical of her, Mario Beauregard, and Michael Egnor. Obviously, she responded by making specific points about the science behind non-materialist neuroscience and didn't just attack RW for mixing up the order of authors of her book and not mentioning that others have written about the topic too. Wait, no.

Top quote
Trent: You are an embodiment of just what is wrong with your tradition.

You make your site LOOK LIKE Wikipedia, but now you claim that it is not, after all, an encyclopedia.

No, it isn’t. It is a rubbish dump of detraction.

I have given you the names of many more people to detract - every one of whom is certainly a more thoughtful and creative person than you could ever hope to be.

Thus your dump will grow. And if you seek your monument, look around you.

I am sure it’s the world’s fault if the world doesn’t think you are any Christopher Wren.

[edit] Mensur Omerbashich

Omerbashich is a small-time conspiracy-loving crank with an interest in Comet Elenin. It seems that in July 2011 his annoyance with the stuff that the Internet was saying about him reached its peak and he went on a spree of email writing and complaints to any websites that mentioned him, successfully getting Blogger to remove (albeit temporarily) the main blog post refuting his work. Before you could say Streisand Effect he had his own RW article of fair length and detail. He has a giant CAPSLOCK rant on his website declaring all of his critics a part of a grand conspiracy, including Google, NASA, Cornell University and RW.

Top quote
GOOGLE'S RATING SYSTEM ALSO LOVES ANOTHER LOONY WHO FELT PRIMEVAL URGE (CALL TO ARMS) NAMED TRENT TOULOUSE, A MASONIC-LOOKING OBESE STUDENT (PSYCHOLOGY -- COO COO) FROM HAMILTON CANADA, WHO OWNS A WEBSITE CALLED "RATIONAL WIKI" (OXYMORON). AT FIRST GLANCE HE HAS A HUGE...[25]

[edit] YouKnowIAmRight

YouKnowIAmRight (Clive to his friends) ran a now-defunct YouTube account with a number of interesting videos, including a speech by David Irving on Holocaust revisionism, footage of aliens and a conversation with the ghost of Douglas Adams.[26] A believer in the "freeman on the land" concept, Clive made a whole video expressing his umbrage at our article on the subject.

Top quote (after finding that RationalWiki's IP address is registered to Dr. Peter Lipson)
Lipson Name MeaningJewish (eastern Ashkenazic): variant of Libson, a metronymic from the Yiddish female personal name Libe, from Yiddish ‘love’.Jewish (eastern Ashkenazic): patronymic from the Yiddish personal name Lipe (a short form of Lipman).English: patronymic from Lipp 2.English: habitational name from Lipson in Devon, which is possibly named from Old English hliep ‘leap’, ‘steep place’ + stan ‘stone’ so he's an AHSKANAZIM JEW probably a fucking Zionist.

[edit] Abuz Zubair

Abuz Zubair (proprietor of the aforementioned Islamic Awakening) took exception to our article on him, moaning "My son should sue the pigs for libel."[27]

Top quote (from one of Zubair's supporters)
RationalWiki is maintained by 14 to 24 year old biased hipster atheist. Written in a patronizing and narcissistic tone their menial site gets barely any attention, so they have to seek it by being provocative in the hopes that someone will be offended enough to actually care. This is not an insult, nor am I trying to degrade anyone, it is just a fact.

Whoever gets their facts from a website like that, whether Muslim or not, isn't deserving a morsel of anyones time anyway. Besides, what would you sue them for? These are teenagers whose belongings range from dirty socks to twilight posters. Good luck brother.

[edit] Manufacturers

[edit] Dynamiclear

Dynamiclear are unusual in that they actually came to RW to discuss things on the talk page of their article and were actually reasonable in their requests. Initially an email was sent accusing the site of slander and in the pocket of Dynamiclear's competitors (could all members of RW involved in the cold sore business please raise your hand?) but it wasn't long until a user appeared to discuss more specific criticisms with the article's principal authors. Undoubtedly, the extra attention lavished on the article because of this improved it considerably.

Top quote
Hi People, by the overall tone of the Dynamiclear page it seems you still think our product is not genuine so I would like to make you an offer: If anyone of you has cold sores or herpes we would love to provide you with a sample of Dynamiclear. You can see first hand the results it offers. This offer will be available for a limited time and to only a few members. So let me know if you really want to find out if Dynamiclear actually works.[28]

[edit] H2Om

In September 2010, RationalWiki was graced by the visit of Lex Lang, founder of "H2Om:Water with Intention". Lex wasn't exactly thrilled that RW described his product as an overpriced example of water woo, and tried to whitewash the article several times. Owing to the Streisand effect, this only attracted the attention of other editors and led to increased scrutiny and the expansion of the article.

Top quote
as I said...There is a difference between a skeptic and a hater. I am skeptical of people who believe they know what is possible and what is not. This belief leads to dogmatism, and to the dismissal of ideas and evidence that do not fit in. Genuine skepticism involves an attitude of open-minded enquiry into what we do not understand, and this is the approach I try to follow. I've already taken too much time trying to share details of this business and its positive nature. It costs less than regular bottled water, it has an inspiring nature to it, it motivates people to have positive thoughts while providing clean spring water to drink.[29]

[edit] Legal threats

[edit] William Dembski

In November 2009, cdesign proponentist William Dembski posted in his blog Uncommon Descent that RW's article The Search for a Search - Measuring the Information Cost of Higher Level Search constituted copyright infringement. Though RW server owner Trent willingly provided contact information, Dembski never followed through.

Top (only) quote
RationalWiki is reprinting large portions of an article I did with Robert Marks that far exceeds anything permissible under “fair use” copyright protections. I was getting ready to contact my attorney about having them remove our article from their website (go here — I’ve saved this page in case it changes as a consequence of this post), but couldn’t find any contact information on the site.

Question: Who is running this site and how to contact them?

[edit] Ramanand Jhingade

Somebody using the name "Wth" posted to RationalWiki claiming to be Ramanand Jhingade and objecting to our article about him.[30] There was some speculation as to whether or not he was the real deal.[31] Naturally, over a year later, he left a childish rant against Tmtoulouse over on Wiki4CAM

Top quote
You have also defamed people who are licensed, qualified doctors by calling them quacks. If you delete the web-pages we asked, it's gonna be fine or else my friend, an astral projectionist is going to bring you to justice.[32]

[edit] Northants English Welfare Society

A rather curious example. The minor nationalist organisation NEWS is covered briefly and in almost entirely neutral terms on our article about the Steadfast Trust, but a representative of the group nonetheless objected strongly enough to repeatedly remove chunks of information.[33][34] In the process, of course, the society gave us a very good reason to make fun of it. The anonymous NEWS member made a brief legal threat in the process, although exactly what the group expects us to be charged with is unclear.

Top quote
Northants English Welfare Society is concerned that biased left - wing malcontents will re-edit this section and similar articles concerning the society and are seeking legal advice to counter such activities.[35]

[edit] See also

[edit] Footnotes

  1. Media Promoting Misinformation about the Santorum Amendment
  2. James Fulford: Announcing VDARE.com’s War On Christmas Competition 2011—Defy The Deniers!
  3. http://facepunch.com/showthread.php?t=1178194
  4. http://www.englisc-gateway.com/bbs/topic/34421-facepunch-asks-questions/
  5. File:Anglo-Saxon_Foundation_on_RationalWiki_page_4.png
  6. http://forums.islamicawakening.com/f38/we-have-our-own-wiki-48911/index3.html#post509331
  7. http://lesswrong.com/lw/4g/eliezer_yudkowsky_facts/
  8. Metapedia's "article" on RW
  9. http://www.debunkingskeptics.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=320
  10. http://www.debunkingskeptics.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=2818&sid=1580f9eaa47cf7e1bbc6f2f4044090e0#p2818
  11. http://forum.worldfreemansociety.org/viewtopic.php?p=100642#p100642
  12. http://forum.worldfreemansociety.org/viewtopic.php?p=100954#p100954
  13. http://forum.worldfreemansociety.org/viewtopic.php?p=99881#p99881
  14. http://forum.worldfreemansociety.org/viewtopic.php?p=91304#p91304
  15. http://www.davidicke.com/forum/showthread.php?t=214389
  16. [1]
  17. http://pretendbian.wordpress.com/2012/06/14/you-know-you-are-pissing-off-the-men-when-you-get-a-rational-wiki/#comment-407
  18. In the original Arabic and...Translated to English via Google
  19. PPSIMMONS: PPSIMMONS Slams Atheist Site Rationalwiki on Erroneous Posting
  20. http://karajou.blogspot.com/2011/03/coward-part-2.html
  21. http://rationalwiki.org/w/index.php?title=Dennis_Markuze&diff=prev&oldid=732980
  22. http://rationalwiki.org/w/index.php?title=Dennis_Markuze&diff=prev&oldid=783409
  23. http://rationalwiki.org/w/index.php?title=Dennis_Markuze&diff=prev&oldid=752687
  24. http://sciencedefeated.wordpress.com/2009/01/19/losers-at-rationalwiki-want-a-piece-of-my-pageviews/
  25. Omberbashich's website (archived by WebCite)
  26. http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/File:Capture_695d5ba9243ee92e3ae990e3cc0a2b16bfea7f88.png
  27. [2]
  28. http://rationalwiki.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Dynamiclear&diff=prev&oldid=644244
  29. http://rationalwiki.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:H2Om&diff=prev&oldid=650437
  30. http://rationalwiki.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Ramanand_Jhingade&diff=prev&oldid=708522
  31. http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Talk:Ramanand_Jhingade#Impersonator
  32. http://rationalwiki.org/w/index.php?title=Talk%3ARamanand_Jhingade&action=historysubmit&diff=955582&oldid=886181
  33. http://rationalwiki.org/w/index.php?title=Steadfast_Trust&diff=prev&oldid=1119081
  34. http://rationalwiki.org/w/index.php?title=Steadfast_Trust&diff=prev&oldid=1119071
  35. http://rationalwiki.org/w/index.php?title=Steadfast_Trust&diff=prev&oldid=1119054
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