RationalWiki:How I found RationalWiki

Start with a bullet point (*), add yourself at the top of your month of registration, try to keep it brief, and please sign your entry with four tildes ( ~ )!

Please place all new entries at the top!

It would also be nice if you would tell us which article was your "landing point" here.

=2023=

April 2023

 * I teach (university level) and find more relevant than ever to make people aware of logical fallacies. Academics do it too and I think many do it intentionally. I attended a talk today that was full of technical jargon but without any logical coherence. I landed here while trying to find the technical aspects for a "Chewbacca Defence”, the term that summarized what I witnessed today. ~

February 2023

 * I found RationalWiki a long time ago. One of my interests is dealing with the wackos you find in the 'net, from medical quackery over pseudohistory to freeman-of-the-land stories. Oftentime when I tried to find material on these subjects, I stumbled over excellently written articles on RW, giving me much needed insight, complete with further citations and written in a style which suites my viewpoints both contentwise and humorwise. I will try to become an active member now, but do not know how much of my time I can commit. Roll.christian (talk) 14:41, 23 February 2023 (UTC)
 * I found RationalWiki through its property at Wikidata, and decided to take a look. VGPaleontologist (talk) 20:57, 15 February 2023 (UTC)
 * I became aware of RationalWiki through Uncyclopedia -Gang O&#39; Shadow Wizards (talk) 18:08, 12 April 2023 (UTC)

=2022=

December 2022
-- The good: The rational wiki provides clear explanations on the various philosophical, religious, and pseudoscientific topics with a bent on pointing out the flaws in reasoning.
 * I found RationalWiki from a group talking about Doomsday. Didn't join until now John123521 (talk) 04:55, 18 December 2022 (UTC)
 * I stumbled on the Rational wiki while looking up Lesswrong.com.

-- the meh: Some of the articles are not structured very clearly and try to patch together somewhat disparate trains of thought.

-- the bad. The articles that focus on "Hot Button" issues can seem like angry rants at times which diminishes their credibility. &mdash; Unsigned, by: 192.203.137.205 / talk

found the ratwiki from a page on the back rooms wikidot wheelsontheancom  say hey  19:50, 22 February 2023 (UTC)

November 2022
I came across RationalWiki whilst looking for the name of the “photograph/entity” known as the “?” Spaceman, taken in Cumbria, U.K. . [I knew two things: [ in particular about this entity. T] the first was that it was taken , the second was] What I “saw” was a US Navy sailor in the “Standard White” uniform. No reason to think it was a “spaceman”. I found the name and then the article and claim in Rational Wiki that the “Solway Firth Spaceman” was the photographer’s wife, which does fit the circumstances. The “correction” of the photograph is good but I assume it could be wrong. Photography is not “my department” and I would need to know how the original negative/picture was treated to “reveal” what it did. (The wonders of “photoshopping” are considerable (but what has “shopping” got to do with it?) and the world is full of “dis-”illusion.) In a sensible world, school-children should be introduced to such entities as Rational Wiki almost as soon as they ask questions, such as “Why is there a Man in the Moon?”; “Has there been a man on the Moon?”; “Why no women in or on the Moon?” Of course there may not be any children for much longer, if Professor Shanna Swan is correct. She claims that we are “on course for an infertile world by 2045: median sperm count will be 0” and that “The current state of reproductive affairs can’t continue much longer without threatening human survival”.. (Professor of Environmental Medicine and Public Health, The Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai Hospital, she published her book “Count Down” in February 2021.)  This effectively means that humanity will begin to “die out” in 23 years, extinct by about 2165. It is remarkable – irrational – that her research has not been very widely publicised, refuted, dismissed, worked on, backed up… The loss of humanity might not be anything for intelligent persons to worry about. The Economist Intelligence Unit (The Economist, January 2017) called the U.S. a “flawed democracy”. It was stated that the U.S. had lost its status as a “full democracy”, heading that way for years before Trump’s Presidency and that the country’s institutions had a “legitimacy crisis”. President Barack Obama stated, in 2012, that the U.S. was not a democracy. Former President Jimmy Carter said much the same in 2014, the same year that Ukraine was “de-democratised” with American assistance. That it is thought of as a “democracy” is a little bemusing. So many questions need answers. Perhaps best to take them to the bar. Or the “saloon”: whichever it is, both are equivalent to constituents parts of the “public house” as known in England/United Kingdom. Unfortunately I don’t have the time.) There is a request: “Please sign your entry with four tildes (Martin T. Burke (talk) 00:35, 13 November 2022 (UTC)). I think that is actually a “sign-off”, an accepted/required signal of “exit”, not of “entrance”.  Whatever – Martin T. Burke (talk) 00:35, 13 November 2022 (UTC)
 * The instruction to start with a “bullet point” confuses me somewhat. At some time I may have to investigate what a bullet point is: I am sure it is not always a “superscripted asterisk”.  (The superscripting could be a peculiarity in the copy/paste process between sites/programs.)  Knowing “what” or “where” to “edit”[?] is not obvious to me, so I click on “edit”.   Perhaps I have to enter “==November 2022==” as no othere entry for the month.

October 2022
Halfsmoke (talk) 23:43, 18 October 2022 (UTC)
 * I found this wiki on October 18, in the comments section of notalwaysright.com, which is horror stories of working fast food, retail and similar jobs. https://notalwaysright.com/stick-to-grammary-rather-than-mammaries/272300/ points to https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Argument_from_incredulity
 * Found this wiki following a link in an email newsletter I subscribe to: The Picayune Sentinel – Eric Zorn’s weekly Substack newsletter. He has a section in it that lists intriguing, wacky, useful, provocative and otherwise interesting links. The link was to: https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/List_of_scientists_who_became_creationists_after_studying_the_evidence. The page is currently deleted, but I like the point of the page. &mdash; Unsigned, by: Packadayhabit / talk / contribs

August 2022

 * Found this wiki a day ago while reading conspiracy theories about the 2011 Norway attacks. 8 August, 2022.

July 2022

 * Stumbled across this wiki when I tripped down Roko's Basilisk's rabbit hole. And I fell all the way down here. Laporte12974 (talk) 14:54, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

June 2022

 * I have always read rationalwiki articles across the years. I decided to become a part when I was reading articles on U.S. Presidents. My first edit was on John Adams. And while I don't agree with absolutely everything on this wiki, it's always nice to read counterarguments/opposing viewpoints. Ffuturezx (talk) 03:19, 2 September 2022 (UTC)ffuturezx
 * I found rationalwiki by stumbling upon wikipedia outlets Wik10 (talk) 13:55, 7 June 2022 (UTC)
 * It's been so long since I first discovered RatWiki, but I can recall vividly sometime in my second year of undergrad, I had tried finally making since of whatever the fuck GamerGate was, and it brought me here. Frevangelion (talk) 01:17, 16 June 2022 (UTC)

May 2022

 * Googling "quidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur" because an investment banker sent me a pitchbook full of the word "premia". I enjoyed the entry for that phrase - the style reminds me of "1066 and all that" . ~ Rob Moore, May 31 2022, 1120 BST.

April 2022

 * Found rationalwiki by accident, I think I was searching up stuff about stonetoss being a nazi. Stumbled across his page. To be honest, I'm pretty conservative and disagree with a lot of what is said here, but I do like how it's written. Very witty, and that's why I continue to read here. I wish other sites were like this.Zodenticz Nexian (talk) 17:46, 24 May 2022 (UTC)Zodenticz Nexian
 * I found this place through TV Tropes' page on Poe's Law. Yep. That's all there is to it. (And yes, I know this entry is late.) --Luigifan18 (talk) 03:26, 2 September 2022 (UTC)

March 2022

 * I found Rational Wiki by pure accident. I was looking for the Wikipedia page of Spirit Science; the top (or second, I don't remember) result that came up in Google was the RationalWiki article for it. The article was really funny, and it was really different from most "Wikis" I knew at that point--I got a really different vibe from RationalWiki, the sarcastic humour, dumping on right-wing nonsense with style. That's why I have stuck on, coming on and off to this site reading fun articles and having a good time, if that makes any sense. Godless Heathen (talk) 18:57, 13 March 2022 (UTC)


 * I can't remember specifically what got me to RW. My history says that I was reading up on the Military Industrial Complex, and I guess I fell in love with the site from there. Your "FAQ for the Newly Deconverted" was a very reassuring find for a young agnostic-athiest trying to find his standing. NeedsAHug (talk) 18:06, 13 April 2022 (UTC) NeedsAHug

February 2022
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January 2022
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