RationalWiki:Saloon bar/Archive98

National Curriculum
Just received a newsletter from the BHA about the government's review of the National Curriculum, those who care about these things can submit their views on the Department for Education website. 19:05, 5 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Interesting that the BHA want RE put on the curriculum and taken seriously. Not the anti-religious shrills they're made out to be, eh? 19:29, 5 April 2011 (UTC)
 * I guess that by putting it on the curriculum it becomes codified rather than allowing the religious interests to promulgate their own faiths. 21:44, 5 April 2011 (UTC)
 * My mother is a teacher who feels that RE should be on the National Curriculum. She reckons its far, far too easy for teachers in the UK to talk solely about Christianity, and even talk as though it'd wholly true. A codified curriculum on the subject, including Humanism and atheist topics would be very much welcome to me. 23:52, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

gay stereotypes in video-game dragon age
I have recently come across this petition. I signed it. I can't help but agree. Maybe firing him is too drastic, but reprimanding him is certainly in order. In Dragon Age, gays are represented as promiscuous manwhores. They are represented by a stereotype. This is a root cause of homophobia, where people think teh gays are out to sex them up. Dragon Age romance options are a long foray into poorly written stereotypes.
 * In Dragon Age: Origins, the character Zevran is a goddamn bisexual sex fiend ultra-kinkster. He is the only male-male romance option in the game.  It's been implied he's been in orgies, and that he's into piss.  This would all be fine if there were foils to him, to disband any forming stereotype; there is not.
 * also in Dragon Age: Origins are Leliana and Isabela. Both are bisexual women, and again, both are quite promiscuous as well as lascivious and lecherous.

Anyways, my little rant. I don't feel as strongly about it now as I did when I began writing it, but it seems a shame to throw away this progress. Discuss if you will.--Brxbrx (talk) 01:11, 3 April 2011 (UTC)
 * In Dragon Age II, things are hardly better. Read the above petition for that.  I'm getting tired of writing.
 * The fact that games are allowing male protagonists to be gay at all has to be some kind of step forward, right? I can't recall many pre-... I dunno, 2005-ish games having overt male homosexuality in them unless it was the bad guy. X Stickman (talk) 08:47, 3 April 2011 (UTC)


 * I think this petition is a bad idea. You might not have heard the full story, but the lead developer they're trying to get fired recently defended the inclusion of homosexuality in the game, in the face of a pretty homophobic post from a fan. It's probably true that the gay characters are a little too lascivious, but then the straight characters are all pretty randy too. Dragon Age is one of the very few games to include anything other than huge, muscle-bound men causing dainty, scantily-clad women to faint with desire. I think it should be praised rather than condemned. –SuspectedReplicant retire me 08:54, 3 April 2011 (UTC)
 * I find myself agreeing with the developer. Pretty bold move. Concernedresident  omg!!! ponies!!! 09:34, 3 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Strange, I played a female character and had exactly the same male characters chasing after me. Maybe it isn't a "gay" thing.  Maybe it's a pre-programmed script where some characters are sharks and others not, no matter the sex of the main character.  For anyone interested by the way, I went for Merrill, solely because she was played by Eve Myles.  Yum.-- 10:47, 3 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Trivia: In Origins, both the "gay" characters are bisexual, and hit on you pretty frequently whether you're male or female. The other two are hetero; you can hit on them if you want, but they just get annoyed if you match. Didn't get the second game, so I can't say much about it. (At the actual topic, neither seemed particularly bad as a stereotype; every compatible character had problems and flirted constantly.) 13:09, 3 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Isn't it not the same thing as the "gay" relationship in Mass Effect? If it's the NPC that's bisexual, then you only get a "gay" relationship if you choose the right sex as a player. Or something like that. And while I can't say for sure because I don't play it, it sounds more that there's a character who is a right raving sex fiend that happens to be bi, not a character who is bi and then a sex fiend. After all, out of everyone I know who is, *ahem* "adventurous" they're mostly bisexual as a side effect of that nature. 13:14, 3 April 2011 (UTC)
 * True. In both games, it was basically that they (for biological/cultural/personal reasons) didn't care about which gender you were. Their actions and dialogue don't really change either way. 13:24, 3 April 2011 (UTC)
 * On the subject of gay relations in games, in Fallout: New Vegas I somewhat accidentally chatted up a few men (while playing a male character) and found the whole thing pretty funny, but I've read of some people complaining about how easy it is to "accidentally be gay" in New Vegas (which is ridiculous). That kind of reaction just reinforces my opinion that any non-villainous male homosexual relationship in a game, especially involving the PC, can only bee some kind of step forward (I keep emphasising "male homosexual" because I'm sure I remember woman-on-woman relationships being present in a lot of media, games included, although they usually aren't exactly flattering or subdued). X Stickman (talk) 14:52, 3 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Female homosexuality props up the porn industry. And since that's a bastion of capitalism, it's perfectly acceptable. (and in case you can't tell, I'm being sarcastic and cynical! :P) 14:58, 3 April 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm pretty sure many people only hang around here in the expectation of a seeing a hot RW lesbian editing session uploaded to YouTube. 11:03, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

Dragon Age: Origins also had an armor shop run by two gentlemen named Wade and Herren. One is the perfectionist craftsman; the other is the business manager, exasperated because his co-worker is such a perfectionist, he never finishes jobs.

It takes about two minutes of listening to them to realize they, as the saying goes, "argue like an old married couple."

This was noted on the official forum for the game, and the question was asked "are they a couple?"

One poster replied, "It's pretty obvious that they are, but the chances of Bioware admitting it are somewhere between nil and nada.".

About a dozen posts down, the lead writer responded, "Wade & Herren are definitely a couple. Always have been.".

As for the Dragon Age 2 brouhaha, I'm just happy to see a game that allows any same-sex relationships (I'm currently wooing Anders, btw.) I do have an objection to the "all the characters are excessively horny bisexuals" decision, but that's because I think it's just lazy game design. MDB (talk) 11:18, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

Theemperor's new edit break

 * I'm very disgruntled at Bioware for including a gay "romance" option. I am also very disgruntled at them for including a straight "romance" option.  In fact, I am disgruntled at the for including any "romance" option at all.  For whatever reason, the ability to have sex with a character in the game is now considered not only a bonus but also apparently a necessity to the game selling, to the point where all of the games they released recently had this, and in many cases they served no purpose but to cheapen my interactions with the character as the writers stopped seeing them as a character and more as a "OOH LOOK YOU CAN SLEEP WITH HIM/HER DON'T YOU WANT TO DO IT?".  It's seriously annoying when you recognize that orders of magnitude more time went into writing, recording, animating, and integrating the various romance paths into the game than when into things like plot or developing other characters or developing those characters outside their romance.
 * Let's look at this by the more recent games they've released. In Mass Effect 1, you have Kaidan, who is a character who received little to no development beyond "He has a tragic past and is persecuted for his abilities!  Now sleep with him!", Ashley, a character who gets about halfway through her transformation of xenophobia and hatred to tolerance and acceptance before than arc is just dropped in favor of vapid flirting, and then you have Liara (the alien lesbian that Fox was all pissed about remember?),who again gets her arc about overcome her mother's sins and dealing with her mothers death (potentially at her own hands) dropped so that the writers can instead make a heavy-handed comment about how "Discrimination is bad!".
 * Then in ME2, you have nine romance options. I won't go through them in such exhaustive details, but of the three options for female characters, one is included to assuage fans, one is a two-dimensional racist caricature who does nothing but chase after you, and the third is included in the game solely for the purpose of having a third option for females.  Of the three available for male characters, one is a stereotypical Bond girl (Miranda), one is again fanservice (Tali), and the final... actually Jack's romance makes sense given her character, so no complaints there.  And of the three available for both genders, one is you having an affair with your secretary, one results in you dying, and the final one doesn't even involve you kissing.  It is rather telling that pretty much only the last one serves the purpose of advancing and developing the character and the plot, and even does so without the gratuitous sex!  Hmm.
 * And as has been mentioned before, Dragon Age 1 isn't much better. Your romance options are evil bitch-woman who had you kill her mother (Morrigan), insanely promiscuous bisexual man (Zevran),  moderately promiscuous bisexual woman (Leilana), and naive young knight (Alistair) (note that he's only avalible for females, so you have to activley seduce him as a female, which makes you the promiscuous one :P).  And, of course, there's the various brothels and NPC's you can seduce, so it again plays into the exact same stereotypes.
 * This dosen't of course mean that any romance in games is bad- in fact, it's been quite well done before. In KotOR I, Carth Onasi's romance (the male option for female characters) explores how he's basically been either betrayed or abandoned by anyone who he's ever cared for, and he he's not sure if he wants to set himself (and you) up for that again, and Bastila Shan's (female for male characters) romance was basically her struggling with whether she should be loyal to the Jedi and the cause, or follow her hard and abscond with, which happens to be the exact same topic dealt with in the movies, so it even manages to tie it back into the franchise.  And again, there's not  any sex, and I don't think you even get a kiss from either.  So it is possible to do a solid romance with a character arc that doesn't detract from the game, and it certainly has been done before by the very same people at Bioware that seem to have turned from the RPG business to the dating-sim business.
 * tl;dr The inclusion of more romance options, more genders/orientations, longer romances, and gratuitous sex (to quantify, gratuitous sex is awesome but it almost never serves any purpose in video games and movies) has cheapened the entire gaming experience and detracted from the overall quality of the game by sucking up time and resources that would be better spent elsewhere.
 * Wow, I haven't ranted this much at RW since Avatar came out in '09. Shocking.  -- 04:53, 6 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Mass Effect's romance was much like the rest of it, in that it reminded me of sci-fi movies. I did like Tali, though, despite the oddity in the second game.
 * Dragon Age's female characters were goddamn annoying, but I liked the males well enough. Unfortunately, I went with the hetero male route, then found out Morrigan's writers just gave up entirely near the end.
 * KotoR's romance was pretty cheesy, but I actually liked those games, so it didn't matter much.
 * Bioware's romance arcs tend to detach from the story, and are generally a little contrived...but to be fair, Baldur's Gate was a great series. Its romance was buggy and melodramatic, but I loved the dialogue. So there.
 * "More romance!" would be a valid option if they made it work in their stories, rather than jamming it in separately...but since it's difficult to work multiple important options into a story, things tend to end up this way. And yeah, nobody wants to see their avatar having sex.
 * I'd like to counter-reminisce with a fuller rant, but I'm too sleepy for those mighty paragraphs. 05:35, 6 April 2011 (UTC)


 * In case people are still interested, Yahtzee Croshaw addresses this topic in his latest column. –SuspectedReplicant retire me 14:47, 6 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Meh, Yahtzee's review of the game was much better than the column. -- 02:26, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

It's "name that fallacy" time (again)
I was wondering, what is the name for it when you'll happily accept sub-par evidence for something you happily believe in. I mean, even something as clearly ridiculous as this of Adobecus photoshopicus. I thought it was confirmation bias but that's more about your methodology for acquiring information; specifically only doing "experiments" that would confirm, rather than disprove, your hypothesis. Basically, is there a proper fallacy for "terminal gullibility"? 18:37, 3 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Related to Hostile media effect perhaps? i.e. people won't believe mainstream sources for fear of conspiracies, and so only get deeper into wingnuttery, as they will only ever see the dubious evidence you mentioned. 08:41, 5 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Perhaps. That would explain why they're reluctant to read or believe certain sources despite their reputability. It's be a plausible mechanism for how people are only exposed to certain standards of evidence and their expectations can be twisted. 14:52, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Brightening up Monday morning
This helped me to lose the Monday blues. Step by step... Jack Hughes (talk) 09:25, 4 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Atheist club meeting after school? I thought that sort of thing always ended badly. 10:21, 4 April 2011 (UTC)
 * @Jack: Yes that's certainly quite an upbeat positive piece, Mr Creamer sounds like a good guy. I was amused at the bit where he had to apply to the school board in order to study The Epic of Gilgamesh because "There were board members who were concerned that the epic poem included a few sexual passages" - and the Bibull has no mention of sex at all? 10:53, 4 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Good news, but I actually found the article pretty depressing reading ("put on those smiles — people don’t expect that from atheists", "some of our students didn’t understand that there are people who don’t believe in God", etc.).  17:53, 4 April 2011 (UTC)
 * The depressing thing is the attitude of Christians to atheists. 18:14, 4 April 2011 (UTC)
 * My favorite bit:

At one point, Mr. Creamer suggested that the clubs get together and discuss their beliefs, but Mrs. Harrell, who attends Hiland Park Baptist Church, declined, fearing it would turn into a debate. “My reaction is faith in Jesus Christ is not at all logical,” she said. “When your beliefs are based on faith, you’re believing something you can’t see. Being able to prove that scientifically in a debate — it could be hard to win.”
 * 08:38, 6 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Yep, that's the point when my Monday was a brighter, better place. 09:01, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

They said it couldn't be done, but they've done it!
Well, more accurately, they said it was an April Fool's Day joke, but someone else did it.

Remember Google's gmail motion AFD joke?

Some geeks at USC implemented it with XBox Kinect. MDB (talk) 13:43, 4 April 2011 (UTC)
 * One man's joke is another man's great idea - the story of my life. 15:39, 4 April 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm starting to get really sick of kinect hackers. Occasionaluse (talk) 15:47, 4 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Wave your hand in the right way and they'll disappear... –SuspectedReplicant retire me 15:49, 4 April 2011 (UTC)
 * But the "mad professor" one that hooked it up to a pair of Tesla coils was pretty impressive. 17:00, 4 April 2011 (UTC)
 * One man's joke is another man's great idea - my brother and I joked in 1984 that we could make a fortune by getting people to pay to have their phones play tunes when they rang. How we laughed at our lulzy idea that would never, ever happen, because *nobody* would waste money like that... Totnesmartin (talk) 19:30, 4 April 2011 (UTC)
 * In college, one of my professors was working on technology that would allow a camera to read a license plate. I remarked to a fellow student, "attach that to a radar gun and you could have automated speed enforcement." If I had thought to apply for a patent on the idea, I would be:
 * Fabulously wealthy now
 * One of the most hated people in the world
 * MDB (talk) 20:20, 4 April 2011 (UTC)
 * A pity that you never got the money. But hey, 1 out of 2 isn't bad.  09:19, 5 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Now, wait just a cotton-pickin' minute here... MDB (talk) 11:55, 5 April 2011 (UTC)
 * It occurs to me that that phrase is almost completely meaningless... is there something about general relativity that says time proceeds at a different rate in cotton fields, therefore a minute is different while picking cotton? 08:34, 6 April 2011 (UTC)
 * It's probably similar to the time lost while wool-gathering. Totnesmartin (talk) 08:46, 6 April 2011 (UTC)
 * I've always assumed the phrase means that cotton picking is particularly dull and that because time seems to go slower when you're bored, a cotton-pickin' minute is longer than the usual version, giving you more time to wait. It's not in Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, though. –SuspectedReplicant retire me 08:55, 6 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Bugs Bunny, anyone? Totnesmartin (talk) 09:25, 6 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Also, Brewer's is one of the best reference books ever. Totnesmartin (talk) 09:26, 6 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Y'know, I have never until now given a minute's (cotton-pickin' or not) thought to the origin of that phrase. It's just something I grew up hearing. MDB (talk) 11:26, 6 April 2011 (UTC)
 * I suspect that is the case with a lot of idiom and culture; we absorb and repeat it without giving it a second thought. It's only when we take a step back and analyse it in isolation that we can see how odd it is. 11:38, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

It's very regional, of course. A New York City born friend of mine once used the expression "pulled a Crater", but I had never heard it. Same with another New Yorker acquaintance who used the expression "dropped a dime on someone". On the other paw, I used the expression "dollars to doughnuts" on a Pennsylvania native friend, and it puzzled him. MDB (talk) 11:49, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Human Curry
What the fuck? Police in Pakistan have arrested two men for allegedly digging up a newly buried corpse and eating its flesh in a curry. 15:52, 5 April 2011 (UTC)
 * I know there's this thing about spices being used to cover the taste of rotten meat but... 16:21, 5 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Probably makes it go down easier. ТyUser_talk:Ty 16:22, 5 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Have you got the recipe Crundster? 21:13, 5 April 2011 (UTC)
 * It tastes pretty much like pork. Don't ask how I know. Okay, you can ask, but I'm not telling. Occasionaluse (talk) 21:36, 5 April 2011 (UTC)
 * "the brothers, Muhammad Arif, 40, and Farman Ali, 37, seemed to have taken up cannibalism as an act of "revenge" after their mother died and their wives left them". Not too difficult to hazard a guess as to why their wives left them. I'm assuming that being batshit crazy is reasonable grounds for a divorce. Concernedresident  omg!!! ponies!!! 21:47, 5 April 2011 (UTC)
 * I imagine any pork curry receipe would work with human flesh. I guess you'd have to pick something Goan. 08:10, 6 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Sounds less than Halal to me. DickTurpis (talk) 13:04, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Logical fallacies
(I really should get to know these better) Okay, I was wondering if anyone here could be able to recognize this fallacy, because I can't put a name to it but I'm pretty damn sure that it's fallacious.
 * Person A: Hi, I have a technical problem with my X
 * Person B: You have a problem with your X? But almost nobody can afford X, you should be thankful you have it and not complain about problems with it.
 * Person A: I fail to see how the amount of people who can afford X has any bearing at all on the problem I'm having with it
 * Person B: Why can't you see that there are bigger problems in the world than your issues with your X?

Would it be some sort of false comparison, or maybe and ad hominem on A for being rich enough to afford X and thus smearing them? I'm not sure- help me out! -- 03:11, 6 April 2011 (UTC)
 * I love name that logical fallacy. I would go with non sequitur, because the fact that others cannot afford X has nothing to do with whatever dysfunction of X you are calling about.  ATP (talk) 03:19, 6 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Yeah, non sequitur sounds right to me. There might be something else in there, some kind of "argument from..." (novelty? perhaps?) but I can't think of anything particular. Mostly it seems to be being dickish to make a point, which isn't fallacious per se. 06:13, 6 April 2011 (UTC)
 * You have a problem with your iPad 2? 08:12, 6 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Poisoning the well? @Crundy, lol. -  π    09:44, 6 April 2011 (UTC)
 * In that case, it would be
 * Person A: I have a problem with my iPad.
 * Person B: Well that's your fault for sucking Steve Jobs' dick.
 * Which isn't necessarily a non sequitur. 10:45, 6 April 2011 (UTC)
 * The "There are bigger problems than X" part might deserve a name of its own. It's not really a fallacy, more a deliberate distraction, but I've been hearing this a lot in politics. Maybe it's a special case of a false dichotomy - suggesting that things can either be important or not, and since X is not as important as Y, it is not important at all, which is obviously nonsense. Röstigraben (talk) 11:31, 6 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Reminds me of a Creationist escape hatch. E.g. "Why are you spending all your time trying to disprove Creationism when you could be doing something to help x" 11:34, 6 April 2011 (UTC)
 * I hope Person B doesn't work for Apple Customer Support. DickTurpis (talk) 12:48, 6 April 2011 (UTC)
 * The final point is similar to the smoker's Not as bad as argument.--BobSpring is sprung! 13:16, 6 April 2011 (UTC)--BobSpring is sprung! 13:16, 6 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Why are you lot wasting time yapping about fallacies when you could be building mainspace? ONE / TALK 13:18, 6 April 2011 (UTC)
 * ^Win! 13:23, 6 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Here's a taxonomy of logical fallacies, courtesy of the Fallacy Files. Happy digging!--ZooGuard (talk) 13:26, 6 April 2011 (UTC)
 * "The "There are bigger problems than X" part might deserve a name of its own." I call it "Argument from 'More Important Things.'" It's a high-grade form of concern trolling. I always think of the JREF alt-med concern trolls who post things like "Why waste your time debunking alt med when Big Pharma wants to kill everyone?!" Technically, I guess this would be some kind of red herring or non-sequitur. Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 15:13, 6 April 2011 (UTC)
 * But isn't just another formulation of Not as bad as?--BobSpring is sprung! 20:33, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

IGN
Not sure what this has to do with computer games, but I highly approve. Some of the comments are awesome. 09:53, 6 April 2011 (UTC)
 * And what does Mrs. Crundy say? 11:47, 6 April 2011 (UTC)
 * She says "I'd love to watch while you smash her back doors in". Oh no wait, I think I dreamt that.

Censorship underway on Wikipedia
Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/User:Nmatavka/N0rp. Revan (talk) 04:30, 6 April 2011 (UTC)
 * so this wanker (in every sense of the term...) collects porn in his userspace, and they want to delete it. big deal--Brxbrx (talk) 04:39, 6 April 2011 (UTC)
 * It's a bunch of boobs and penises on a userpage that might be removed. Oooooh noooooo!
 * On a different note, discussions regarding userpage content on Wikipedia are often interesting to watch, since the line between what can and cannot be on a userpage is often not firmly established (depending on the topic). But other than that...this isn't anything noteworthy. ~Super Hamster  Talk 05:26, 6 April 2011 (UTC)
 * I don't see how that fits in even with the loosest definition of censorship. The Wikimedia Foundation pays a considerable sum to host WP. In exchange for free use they have a mission statement and terms and conditions. Hosting porn isn't part of that. Ergo, not censorship. 06:10, 6 April 2011 (UTC)
 * But Wikimedia already hosts all that stuff, all that user has done is to aggregate it into a particular gallery. Most of it consists of drawings and while they might be considered erotic or pornographic there are few that are explicit photographs. A browse of Wikimedia categories such as Vintage nude photographs brings up a lot more, Female Genital Piercings has a gallery of nearly 70 photographs (all pretty much the same) and there are many, many more categories with explicit pictures so you could say that Nmatavka has been restrained in what he chose to display. Now whether it is meet that someone links all those pictures, which may be found elsewhere on Wikipedia, on their user page (which is probably less likely to be found than in mainspace) is a different argument. One may also ask how many of those images does Wikimedia need to host to fulfil an encyclopedic purpose. 07:37, 6 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Ah yes, I forgot about that. Andrew Schlafly's accusation that WP hosts pornography is one of the more valid points - albeit with context completely stripped out. 08:29, 6 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Larry Sanger went one step further and went to the FBI with a complaint, but as yet nothing came of it. Revan (talk) 09:38, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

For me, the big question is: if it was a userpage at RationalWiki, would we have handled it any differently? I reckon we'd've probably still ended up deleting it. 18:20, 6 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Nah, we'd probably link to it from the main page. With any luck.  08:06, 7 April 2011 (UTC)


 * I just wanted to pause for a moment to applaud Genghis for his use of the word "meet" in the above post. --Horace (talk) 08:57, 7 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks. It seemed so apposite. 10:55, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

Glenn Beck out at Fox
Bout time. Discuss. Occasionaluse (talk) 17:25, 6 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Not quite. He's still going to be producing special programming for them. MDB (talk) 17:34, 6 April 2011 (UTC)
 * It's funny how that's some sort of solution. Glenn Beck is fucking crazy, so let's usher him out...then occasionally throw him on primetime. Occasionaluse (talk) 17:37, 6 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Is there any indication he's being given the boot for being too crazy? As long as he brings in viewers does Fox care about anything else? DickTurpis (talk) 18:22, 6 April 2011 (UTC)
 * More likely he's demanding a bigger salary than Fox is willing to pay.  18:26, 6 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Noooooo!! Fox won't be the same without him. Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 19:10, 6 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Nebuchadnezzar, there's also the Instant No Button for your convenience =P --Sid (talk) 19:20, 6 April 2011 (UTC)
 * I noticed that after Beck was signed onto Fox, Bill O' Reilly did a Peregrine Worsthorne and started to take a softer line on a lot of issues, particularly those concerning LGBT rights. It was almost as though he was seizing the chance to be remembered as the temperate Fox News anchor. Point being, now that the chalkboard-botherer is scooting off, I wonder if Billo will ratchet up the crazy again. Grumblejaws (talk) 20:39, 6 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Nature abhors a vacuum. Billo will have to get crazier to make the universe right. Occasionaluse (talk) 20:43, 6 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Jon Stewart said something about how Orly had become the voice of reason on Fox, and how weird that was.--Brxbrx (talk) 21:47, 6 April 2011 (UTC)
 * I thought Shep Smith was the voice of reason at FOX.--Thanatos (talk) 22:45, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

Big Brother is back.
UK version. Fuxake. 18:35, 6 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Worst thing ever to happen to television. Totnesmartin (talk) 19:21, 6 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Ach, who cares? I barely noticed the last couple of series and it's going to be tucked away in the Neighbours nursing home that is Channel 5. Grumblejaws (talk) 20:26, 6 April 2011 (UTC)
 * I heard they still make "The Real World", too. Occasionaluse (talk) 20:42, 6 April 2011 (UTC)
 * I... I... I actually enjoyed the first series. Just the first one! Honest! They had reasonably interesting people on it, and the way they didn't know whether or not the series was a success made it interesting. Every time after that they've filled it with the most vacuous, plastic assholes imaginable and while I'd never explicitly wish for someone to die, if there'd been some freakish accident like a small meteor obliterating the "Big Brother House" I wouldn't have been upset.
 * Of course, Richard Desmond is only renewing it so his equally vacuous and plastic print publications will have something to shovel into their pages. What's worse is that the herd-like mentality of the Great British Public will mean that they'll be best sellers. –SuspectedReplicant retire me 20:48, 6 April 2011 (UTC)
 * %^&&(£$^&$&$*(^£&*%£ 22:14, 6 April 2011 (UTC)
 * The only thing I ever thought was good about BB was a comment made on either QI/News Quiz/Now Show, which was along the lines of to make it fun, they should hand over directing and challenges to the public. "It's day 14 and suddenly the house is filled with wasps." -- PsyGremlin  10:50, 7 April 2011 (UTC)
 * I prefer Frankie Boyle's proposal. During evictions, they shouldn't hear screaming and applauding, they should just hear silence... and then a single gunshot. Then after 10 minutes of the rest of them discussing whether the producers were just messing with them, we dump the corpse in the garden. 14:03, 7 April 2011 (UTC)
 * As an american, I've never seen the show you're talking about. They made/make an American version, but I've never seen it.   However, I'd watch either of the two above recommendations.  In fact, I call that we mix them.   14:14, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

The Great Homeopathy Search
As part of my biology course, we are experimenting with a mutated strain of yeast that does not have the ability to repair DNA damage resulting from exposure to UV radiation. In this experiment, three petri dishes of this yeast will be exposed to a potent barrage of UV-A and UV-B radiation, sufficient to kill all the yeast caught under it, and quite possibly give you a burn if you have a body part under it.

The purpose of this lab is to protect our other two dishes as best as we can, and derive a survival ratio, relative to the dead colonies in the control. For this reason: I am looking for a homeopathic sunscreen to test if it actually protects organic cells from damage. Does anyone know of any? 20:47, 6 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Well a quick Google brought up this. The problem is that homoeopathy only claims to treat conditions rather than be a preventative. Although I'm sure that some will say otherwise. 21:42, 6 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Homeopaths seem to be anti-sunscreen though they do appear to sell homeopathic sunburn creams. ThunderkatzHo! 21:49, 6 April 2011 (UTC)
 * What the others said. Also I think there would be a big problem with homeopathic sunscreen in that the placebo effect wouldn't protect you from the sun and you'd get very few re-sales.  The product would be monumentally unsuccessful.
 * Secondly, what would it consist of? It would theoretically need to be something which produced sunburn which you then diluted to hell and back.  What would that be? The sun isn't really available. Use dilute plutonium? Now that I think about it though, weren't there some sites offering homeopathic radiation protection after the Japanese nuclear problems?  Maybe that's the way to go?--BobSpring is sprung! 16:36, 7 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Homeopathy for radiation protection - >Elixers". In consideration, I can see how it would sell on hysterical fear, and of course it would be acclaimed when the individual does not recieve radiation sickness, despite never being exposed to such an immense dose as to trigger harm. 16:39, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

This Sunday, there will protest of homeopathy in Des Moines, Iowa, in which the participants will attempt Mass Homeopathic Suicide with massive overdoses, far in excess of homeopathic recommendations, of homeopathic remedies. Some (gasp)) may even try to increase potency, again using techniques that Dana Ullmann says should only be attempted by a trained homeopath, by diluting and succussing the remedies. I can't travel there, but might raise a glass to them. It is, I think, sinful to increase the potency of a fine single malt.

Seriously, I would observe that UV radiation is not ionizing, and there's really no comparison between ionizing and nonionizing. Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 17:04, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

Why I love my company
I can wear this shirt to work without anyone complaining. MDB (talk) 11:10, 7 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Doctor Pooh? Pffft. Doctor Poo is where it's at. 12:47, 7 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Wear this one instead. I imagine you might get a few odd looks. 20:37, 7 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Doctor who now? -- 22:32, 7 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Who isn't a doctor, he's a first baseman. Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 22:42, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

Cathartic rant
My brother was held up and carjacked this morning. They put a gun to his head and made him get out of the car, after waving him down. He's shaken but fine, and as his car is a standard, the carjackers had abandoned it by the time the police got there. However, my family's reaction to this occurrence is weird. My father promptly called the police and kept calm, he gave my brother some water and calmed him down. Mother on the other hand... she began ranting about how she was going to have to pay for my brother's textbooks, and then screaming that the police were late and she was going to call the local talk radio station if they didn't get there RIGHT NOW. BR's finest showed up after another 2 minutes, having already dusted the car for prints and found a witness. The really, really weird thing was that the carjackers wanted to go to the same high school my brother was going to. They arrested a pornographer student recently, and while there has always been a high crime rate at the school(mostly drug dealing, vandalism, and theft), this is a first. Coupled with Baton Rouge's murder rate being 3Xlast years so far this year... And just to clarify, he was jacked right next to a lake front golf course in a upper-middle class neighborhood. Sorry just felt the need to get this off my chest. I need some brandy. ТyUser_talk:Ty 12:59, 7 April 2011 (UTC)
 * FFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUU... glad your brother's OK. You need to get out of there mate. ASAP. Totnesmartin (talk) 13:05, 7 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Likewise, glad your bro's OK. Shit like this just sometimes happens, nothing anyone can really do about it. 13:13, 7 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Definitely. I agree with Martin though - sounds like you need to get away from that place. –SuspectedReplicant retire me 13:14, 7 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Guns. Largely defensive. Right. 13:16, 7 April 2011 (UTC)
 * What your brother needs is a largely defensive weapon of shotgun. EddyP Great King! Disaster! 13:29, 7 April 2011 (UTC)
 * He was on his way to school. Bringing a gun anywhere near a school in Louisiana is minimum 5 years hard labor.ТyUser_talk:Ty 13:32, 7 April 2011 (UTC)
 * "The really, really weird thing was that the carjackers wanted to go to the same high school my brother was going to. They arrested a pornographer student recently..." that would be a n athesistic PUBLIC school, now, right? 13:34, 7 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes it is a public school. School site. My "Alma mater". ТyUser_talk:Ty 13:36, 7 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Glad to hear that, at least, your brother is ok. Things could've been worse, to be sure. 13:57, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

Glad to hear he's all right. In the end, that's all that really matters. MDB (talk) 14:10, 7 April 2011 (UTC)
 * He made the news ТyUser_talk:Ty 21:19, 7 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Blimey, glad he's okay. How old are these guys? You mentioned highschool, so I assume that's younger than 16? Concernedresident  omg!!! ponies!!! 22:29, 7 April 2011 (UTC)
 * 16. ТyUser_talk:Ty 22:30, 7 April 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm glad your brother is OK. It's been a long time since I've been in Baton Rouge, I didn't know it was so rough.  It sounds like the police had their shit in one sock, though, so at least that's a good thing.  ATP (talk) 01:14, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

New Lenski study
About half a month too late for a WIGO on this new study by Richard Lenski I heard about on Skeptics Guide to the Universe recently. Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 22:04, 7 April 2011 (UTC)
 * So does that mean his Cit+ E. coli didn't cut the mustard long-term? But snark aside, the guy is a fascinating experimenter. 22:22, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

I'm depressed now
I was having a nice conversation with Mei and then a troll butted in and started threatening me, and Mei left and I can't figure out what the asshole has against me. Are trolls always so full of shit? Is there any reason why they do what they do? Troll aren't useful. </3 Ex-Troll CheerleaderI'm a teenage girl; get ALLstate to protect yourself from Mayhem like me 22:30, 7 April 2011 (UTC)
 * In general, yes they are. ТyUser_talk:Ty 22:31, 7 April 2011 (UTC)
 * What makes me sad isn't as much what he said as it is that I used to be a troll like that and now it makes me feel like absolute shit. I thought it was funny but now I think it makes me a low life. Now I'm ashamed of myself. Ex-Troll CheerleaderI'm a teenage girl; get ALLstate to protect yourself from Mayhem like me 22:34, 7 April 2011 (UTC)
 * you ARE a low-life and you're a whore. you don't deserve to live but don't worry no one will ever kill you because you're not worth killing. you are worth absolutely nothing, cheerleader. and i'm going to ddos this site just like i did cp. Your Mom &mdash; Unsigned, by: Some 14 year old in his basement / talk / contribs
 * Hey, you recognized that trolling isn't as funny as you thought. That means you've grown up.  You've matured.  There's nothing to be ashamed of about that.  Everyone does things they're not proud of - it's how you recognize and deal with it that's important.  ThunderkatzHo! 22:42, 7 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes, but I almost think I'm going to cry, how could people be so mean? How could I have been so mean. I hope you're happy troll, making girls cry. You won't make many friends by making girls cry, I've seen what happens to them, they get their asses kicked by someone bigger and badder than they are. You pick on girls because you're too afraid to pick on anyone else. And thanks Thunderkatz, you're sweeet. Ex-Troll CheerleaderI'm a teenage girl; get ALLstate to protect yourself from Mayhem like me 22:49, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

you're full of shit thunderkats, a troll will always be a troll and she is a troll. and i troll on boys too you stupid cunt, it just girls are funner to troll because they react like you. User:Unregistered
 * yay i'm a cheerleader, i think i'm cool! i sleep with every boy i see and i suck up to my teachers so they give me As when i should get Fs! Ex-Troll CheerleaderI'm a teenage girl; get ALLstate to protect yourself from Mayhem like me 22:49, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

all cheerleaders are pathetic whores
 * Ok dude, I'm going to stop talking about you because I can tell you're enjoying this. Have fun with you're pathetic, boring life. Some day you'll grow up and you wish you hadn't been such an ass to people. Ex-Troll CheerleaderI'm a teenage girl; get ALLstate to protect yourself from Mayhem like me 23:03, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

403s on Conservapedia, wider implications
The server based 403 blocks on Conservapedia have finally hit me. As I have not logged onto CP and vandalised it any time in the last 3 years or so I figure this can only be from them reading anonymous edits to RW. Anyway, this got me thinking; is it the real beginning of the end? As such, could we seriously consider removing WIGO CP from the main page and from WIGO_NAV? It is dying not only from the perspective of Conservapedia itself but also from the ability of people just to watch it. Combined with CP Monitor being brought down I think it's a sign. I don't want to brand it as "giving up" but more that it's time to really move on. 21:51, 4 April 2011 (UTC)
 * ТyUser_talk:Ty 21:52, 4 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Wait until wherever Capturebot comes from is blocked. There's hope yet... Chthonios (talk) 22:11, 4 April 2011 (UTC)
 * You haven't read my userpage have you? ТyUser_talk:Ty 22:13, 4 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Capturebot has just gone down from the look of it. 22:15, 4 April 2011 (UTC)
 * I wouldn't jump to the conclusion that they have any clue as to what they're doing over there.  I was 403'd for few days last week, now I'm not.   At work I wasn't 403'd, now I am.   My gf's place has never been 403'd.   This all in the same neighbourhood of the same US city.   DogP (talk) 22:16, 4 April 2011 (UTC)
 * I've been 403'd for a week. Not that I really care. Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 22:21, 4 April 2011 (UTC)
 * What's a conservapedia? Sen (talk) 22:23, 4 April 2011 (UTC)
 * A Conservapedia is a special time in every boys life. It's when he becomes a man through fasting...I think. Ace of Spades 22:24, 4 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Wait a minute. DogP, you go to your girlfriends' place and read conservapedia? Totnesmartin (talk) 22:37, 4 April 2011 (UTC)
 * You mean you don't? Sen (talk) 22:41, 4 April 2011 (UTC)
 * I think that the 403 situation means that RationalWiki must move on from Conservapedia. I make no secret of my feelings on CP and RW, which I make clear on my userpage. But with the 403s becoming increasingly common, I believe it's time to leap away from CP. It seems that the majority of non-US users are simply no longer able to access Conservapedia, and that many Americans cannot access it, too. Entire service providers in the United Kingdom, representing millions of people, cannot view Conservapedia. If it were not Conservapedia, but, say, WND, that was in this situation, would we not act swiftly? We wouldn't dream of linking to it in mainspace articles, or even referencing it. We wouldn't have a WIGO dedicated to it. I have no objection to the continuation of WIGO CP, as a lot of people enjoy chatting there. But I think that it does not belong on the main page, whatsoever. RationalWiki is viewed widely as a response to Conservapedia, and being about Conservapedia. But as Conservapedia has gone into bunker mode, slowed in activity and blocked the whole world.... they cannot make a reasonable foundation for a site. It's like if you're a small group of friends, with lots of in-jokes... and if that group of friends grew and grew, then the in-jokes don't mean so much anymore, and eventually just start to alienate the new friends. That's how it feels to new users now. That's how it will feel to every single person who can't VIEW conservapedia, let alone edit it. It's time to cast of the in-jokes, or be left behind. 22:43, 4 April 2011 (UTC)
 * I have felt the same way for some time. We don't keep WIGO:ASK or WIGO:CZ on the main page why keep WIGO:CP if this happens. We pull out the old victory template, drink some cognac, and get on with mainspace. ТyUser_talk:Ty 22:45, 4 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Because conservapedia is great. Ace of Spades 22:48, 4 April 2011 (UTC)
 * It's about time someone had the machismo to suggest a CP boycott. That damned WIGO link has been ruining my wiki. 23:07, 4 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Essay:Dalek on RationalWiki <-- A more comprehensive response, please read. 23:10, 4 April 2011 (UTC)
 * conservapedia is just too fascinating. and it isn't like it's killing off our other great content--Brxbrx (talk) 23:23, 4 April 2011 (UTC)
 * I just can't quit CP, and I'm sorry, but that's just the way it is.  It's pointing at that thing and laughing at it that gets me out of bed in the morning feeling that at least my ship of life isn't pointed in an entirely stupid direction.  Do I gloat?   Yes.   Do I stare?   Yes.   Is it arguably a total waste of my time?   Yes.   Wouldn't we be far better off moving RW on to become a "serious anti-science refutation site"?   Yes.   Could I be arsed to be involved in that?   Errrr......hang on a sec while I have a think about that.    DogP (talk) 23:29, 4 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Exactly, had this same debate with people on the wigoaSK page talkpage actually - just because you don't pay attention to it doesn't mean others shouldn't either. Ace of Spades 23:30, 4 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Yup.  I mean, COME ON - it's comedy frickin' GOLD!   How can you drag me away from that thing?!!!!!!  --DogP (talk) 23:32, 4 April 2011 (UTC)
 * It's a bit too soon to close the door on it. WIGO:CP & its talk still get quite a high turnover of editors & readers.  When it gets to where nearly everyone is blocked, we'll likely see the WIGO slow down & grind to a halt, & then it may be time to think about taking it down from wigonav, but not yet.   00:08, 5 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Weasel has the best approach here. I agree with Ace's need for CP-related lulz. Concernedresident  omg!!! ponies!!! 00:59, 5 April 2011 (UTC)
 * For the record, let me be clear - I don't mind in the slightest if WIGOCP isn't on the Main Page. But I want it to stay as an important feature at RW.   That is all.   PS   I would love to read CP with my GF, but she grew up in that world (The South) and simply cannot tolerate what I find outstandingly funny, it gives her the creeps.   However, she cannot stop me reading it where'er I go.   DogP (talk) 02:44, 5 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Daily Mail readers like to be frightened by all the stuff that indicates that the country is going to the dogs and I think that many here get a similar frisson over the nuttery and what-the-fuckery of the religious right which is crystallised into Conservapedia. RationalWiki grew out of Conservapedia and so long as it is still living then it is an important part of our site. However, as a community we are becoming more mature in our coverage. We need to be moving further towards our mission goals and excising CP-related stuff from mainstream articles. Currently they are in a state of extreme panic which I expect to subside, but the bunker mentality has probably put them in irreversible decline for new editors and with Ken's intellectual vomit gradually infusing the whole site I expect the sysops to become bored. CP will atrophy and our WIGOs will slow to a trickle so there will be an almost natural point at which to relegate them to aSK status. 07:51, 5 April 2011 (UTC)
 * That basically sums up my thoughts too. Last time LArron produced stats, WIGO:CP and TWIGO:CP were the two top pages on the site. Judging by activity on Recent Changes, they both still have to be right up there. You can't take your most popular pages off the front page. Yes, the CP sysops' efforts to seal all the cracks has cut off their oxygen supply and it won't be long before the swollen, bloated corpse of CP finally slumps to the floor, but it's still alive at the moment and RW has to keep up with what it does. –SuspectedReplicant retire me 08:32, 5 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Even if we never get to see behind the scenes again, there will always be the actual content to laugh at. As long as Andy comes up with amazing new insights, as long as Ken makes ludicrous connections, as long as MPR says the opposite of the news it links to, there will be a CP fan club here, waiting on its every word. The main change we need to make is to screenshot pages (or parts of) as well as diffs for us outcast 403ites. Totnesmartin (talk) 09:23, 5 April 2011 (UTC)
 * I habitually used to screencap the lulz on CP but with capturebot I got lazy. 09:50, 5 April 2011 (UTC)
 * capturebot only got started to beat TK to the punch. I'm not saying we don't need it anymore, but we should realise its limitations - it only captures diffs; we have to get back in the screenshotting habit again. Totnesmartin (talk) 10:54, 5 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Capturebot can pick up any webpage it's asked to, not just difflinks. 17:40, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

Compromise proposal
I was not proposing a complete moratorium on Conservapedia. I was just wanting to removing from the main page and WIGO NAV. However, that would make finding the page more difficult. So, I propose the following: I will knock up two new portal icons for WIGO:CZ and WIGO:ASK, and perhaps WIGO:4R or maybe even try a Creation Wiki one. I'll then create a second WIGO NAV with those lumped together. Then it is priority on the main page and elsewhere is lowered (as having it at the TOP of the WIGO list takes the piss, really), but is still accessible. The page wouldn't be moved and CP wouldn't be boycotted but it would both raise the profile of other sites that are watched and lower the prominence of CP. 13:01, 5 April 2011 (UTC)
 * I've yet to hear a single good reason for doing this instead of simply waiting how things turn out. There's a good reason for WIGOCP's prominence: it's the most active part of the site, and it's the #1 entry point for new users. Pretending otherwise would be a purely symbolic move that isn't going to help the rest of the site in any way. If CP dies or people become unwilling to put up with the 403s, CP-related activity will cease on its own, and when that happens, there's a case for reducing its profile, but it's not something that should be done preeminently. Röstigraben (talk) 13:43, 5 April 2011 (UTC)
 * That's very POINTY for a compromise suggestion. WIGO:ASK was taken off the main page because nothing happens there any more - there are three WIGOs for this entire year - and even the talk page is much less active than it was. WIGO:CZ has never been very active and although the talk page occasionally comes to life, it's still essentially moribund, also averaging about 1 entry per month. I don't think I've ever seen anything on WIGO:4R and don't even know what it is so I can't really comment.
 * WIGO:CP, on the other hand, averages an entry per day - in other words it's ~30 times more active than the others. Stating that the other three WIGO pages should have the same prominence is to create a balance fallacy. –SuspectedReplicant retire me 13:57, 5 April 2011 (UTC)
 * WIGO:4R was metapedia/stormfront. ТyUser_talk:Ty 13:58, 5 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Whatever, I don't think this will go anywhere anyway, it happens every few months and I don't know why I brought it up yet again knowing there'd be a lot of resistance to kicking Conservapedia in the teeth and letting this site be its own thing. But do you want to know a good reason for doing it now? Because if CP dies and drags RW down with it there's no point in attempting to do something when that happens. It would be too little and too late. Both sites are heading towards a mutual car crash and I'd rather we stopped relying on Conservapedia long before that happens. Anyway, the point actually is that we have plenty of websites people could watch (CreationWiki, WND, Stormfront, and whole host of wierd and wonderful wikis and forums and blogs and clogs. It's a rich world out there, and we should get out and see it.) and this would be just as much about raising their prominence as it would be about lowering CP's. Unfortunately CP is easy because you A) can't go over their to discuss it and B) it's so silly it doesn't require much thought to show why it's wrong. I'm sure back in the day when PalMD was arguing with Schlafly over breast cancer and abortion it was actually intellectually stimulating but now the whole thing is intellectually stifling. "Hur!! Ken made a FUNNY about Homosexuals and kittehs!!! lol!!111" or "Schlafly blocks someone, again!!! lol..." stops being funny about the 3rd time it happens, never mind the 50th time. There's nothing really new coming up and, frankly, even when it is "new" it's hardly surprising. Let's do something better with our collective time.
 * Also, we're not Wikipedia, and unilaterally editing RW is often the only way to make a point. 14:42, 5 April 2011 (UTC)
 * ТyUser_talk:Ty 14:53, 5 April 2011 (UTC)
 * We're getting closer to that dark day, but we're definitely not there yet. CP is still a relatively huge draw for us. Occasionaluse (talk) 14:59, 5 April 2011 (UTC)
 * (EC)We'll see what happens when CP dies. Users who only care exclusively about it will probably leave, that can't be helped. Maybe it will leave RW mostly deserted as well, although I'm not that pessimistic. But I fail to see how trying to reduce its prominence ahead of time will do anything to avert this, especially since it would be a purely cosmetic measure that simply wouldn't reflect the users' actual preferences. Either we're reliant on CP for new editors and activity (there is some evidence for that), or we're not. If we are, people will either have to adapt to CP's demise or we'll eventually share its fate. Regardless, pretending that this has already happened won't do anything to improve our outlook. My hunch is that most people will hang on at least for a while, but we won't be able to find out until CP has actually vanished.
 * Apart from that, I agree that making fun of CP is like shooting fish in a barrel. But shifting our focus to the likes of WND and neo-nazi fanatics will hardly present a challenge either, their crazyness and idiocy isn't far from Andy's. Anyway, if people wanted to discuss these sites instead, there's nothing in the current structure that would keep them from doing so - say, over at clogs or blogs. Pretending that CP is less important than the rest of the loonysphere isn't going to cause users to look for new targets. Röstigraben (talk) 15:03, 5 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Ar, there's nothing stopping anyone from talking about WND, Creationwiki or other places. Personally I think that we should work on clogs/blogs/world, because that provides a lot of interesting reading, but lots of people don't look at it regularly. We need to increase their prominence somehow so that more people will look/update. EddyP Great King! Disaster! 15:19, 5 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Thing is, we know all the participants on CP and love[sic(k)] their idiosyncrasies. Where else do we have the familiarity with the characters on any website enough for us to e.g. award "Idiot of the Year" etc? Despite their total lack of any community at their own site, they do foster a community here. --Scream!! (talk) 16:19, 5 April 2011 (UTC)
 * As no awards were awarded last year... ТyUser_talk:Ty 16:21, 5 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Clogs/blogs/world are some of the most interesting things on RW, IMHO. While I know there's nothing stopping people from commenting on them, we don't do them any favours by putting them below CP on the list of prominence. I don't want to wait until CP is dead before thinking "uh-oh, we need a change of focus" because then it will be too late. Besides, we won't be able to tell CP is dead until it's too late. We may well be sitting here in 8 months time realising that it was dead 8 months ago and we should have done something then. All I am saying is that we should happily promote these other areas of the site, which are arguably better. I'm not saying shut down CP watching or deny that it's popular, but just move on a little. RW is a great resource, it's a great debating community and we should be willing to support that more than laughing at Conservapedia. I do reckon lowering the prominence of CP on the site will also be good for us. Currently we're quite a laughing stock as far as extreme left-wing and atheistic bias is concerned, and I attribute that to the fact that people who hate Conservapedia will be left-wingers and atheists. The most interesting stuff I've seen has been from those I may disagree with, MDB's Christianity essays for instance or when MC or LX make their anti-Communist points. Just sitting on TWIGO:CP with everyone patting each other on the back for who can be most disgusted or say how wrong they are the most is just... well, boring. Unless you've juts discovered Conservapedia, in which case that's fine. We can have WIGO:CP and it will be there, unchanged and for people to talk about. It just WOULDN'T be up there on the main page as if it's the official focus of the site. 16:34, 5 April 2011 (UTC)
 * I'd say just make them more prominent in general. It's not as simple as deciding to switch our focus; "And Trent decided that the focus would be switched from CP to Clogs, and lo, it was so". People will go where they want to, and right now most of them want to go to WIGOCP. We need to make them want to go to blogs, clogs and world as well; basically we need to make them realize there's tons of interesting and crazy material in there too. Rather than decreasing CP's prominence (as people will go there anyway) increase their prominence (tempt people to visit them as well). EddyP Great King! Disaster! 16:52, 5 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Indeed. But going about that is the difficult part. 17:49, 5 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Fuck what the community wants. The RATwiki way is just do it and tell people who don't like it to fuck off. Delete WIGO CP and take CP out of the front page and if people don't like it tell them to grow up and stop complaining. You're doing what is best for them.--74.117.56.84 (talk) 19:00, 5 April 2011 (UTC)
 * WIGO:CP can't be deleted. P-Foster tried a long time ago, it is too big and causes the site to crash. Besides, noone here wants it gone, just reduced in importance. ТyUser_talk:Ty 19:02, 5 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Whatever. 19:28, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

My Suggestion
For 1 week, delete WIGOCP and tWIGOCP, as well as avoiding (blocking?) all edits/comments containing cp, conservapedia ,conped etc. This will give us a chance to see what the site is like and how it functions sans CP. 10:04, 6 April 2011 (UTC)
 * So a sort of... boycott? ONE / TALK 14:13, 6 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Not as easy to avoid/ignore said boycott if all references to CP are blanked/hidden! 16:06, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Numbers
A couple posters above asserted that Conservapedia-related activity was a significant part of RationalWiki. I can't argue about site traffic, as MediaWiki's page counts arent particularly accurate, but I did investigate edit counts.

Of the last 5000 entries in RecentChanges, covering a timespan of 17:41, 31 March 2011 (UTC) to 21:50, 6 April 2011 (UTC). 23:01, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Total: 5000 edits
 * Conservapedia edits: 82
 * Conservapedia_talk edits: 425
 * CP-related subtotal: 507
 * RationalWiki edits: 744
 * RationalWiki_talk edits: 112
 * RW-related subtotal: 856
 * Article/Main edits: 1179
 * Main_talk edits: 267
 * Article-related subtotal: 1446

In short, Conservapedia-related edits make up roughly 10% of RationalWiki. Hardly "significant", and dwarfed by mainspace-related edits, which make up about 23.6% of the wiki.

To compare two high-profile pages over the given timespan: 602 edits were made to the Saloon bar alone, vs 428 edits and 36 edits to Conservapedia talk:What is going on at CP? and Conservapedia:What is going on at CP?, respectively.

To put it another way, all of the Conservapedia-related activity across the wiki doesn't even equal the Saloon bar alone. 23:01, 6 April 2011 (UTC)


 * –SuspectedReplicant retire me 23:06, 6 April 2011 (UTC)
 * I see the basic flaw with this has already been pointed out, so I'm just going to make a quick suggestion: if you'd like to measure popularity and don't want to look at pageviews, simply look at WIGO votes and the number of talk page archives. The most popular entry on WIGOCP had a score of +322, the top entries on clogs (136), blogs (74) and world (59) don't even come close. The #1 clogs WIGO is even explicitly marked as "the first non-CP WIGO to reach 100 upvotes". Downvotes would count into "activity" as well, but they should be roughly equally distributed and be small enough for such popular entries as to be insignificant. Now, these are just the top entries, but glancing at the lists, I'm pretty sure if you did some serious data mining and looked at averages, the picture would be even clearer. Next, talk page archives: TWIGOCP clocks in at 229, which is even more lopsided compared to clogs (4), blogs (0), world (8) and even the Saloon Bar (97). Historically, WIGOCP and its talk page simply are the most active parts of the site. Recent trends may signal that this is changing - I already said elsewhere that I think the 403s will do CP in, and this will obviously be reflected in editing patterns here. Still, the site's CP focus is very noticeable, and the sections that should be given more prominence simply don't measure up to the related areas when it comes to activity. Röstigraben (talk) 07:39, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

Numbers again
Page views Dec 2010 - Mar 2011 (25 most popular pages) 10:44, 7 April 2011 (UTC)


 * That's more like it. Thanks, LArron. –SuspectedReplicant retire me 10:50, 7 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Hmmmmmm.... I wonder why soooo many people are visiting my talkpage? I am nobody of importance. 13:51, 7 April 2011 (UTC)
 * That's not unprecedented. Human's talk page used to be the only userpage in the top ten for a long time (though its view count was lost in a delete-restore a while back).  Alongside Talk:Main page, it was the Saloon bar before we had a Saloon bar.  Given your prolificness, it's not too surprising to see similar page views for your talk page.  01:15, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

Why is it...
... that less than a week before I depart for my first trip ever to Europe, airplane troubles are getting news coverage?

Perhaps its just a form of confirmation bias on my part, but still... MDB (talk) 13:36, 5 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Hehe, possibly confirmation bias. Flying is incredibly safe. Where're you going in Europe? 13:52, 5 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Possibly a variant on the Matthew Effect (not sure if there's a more specific term) on behalf of the media. If one airplane story gets in there, it raises the journalistic consciousness of air travel problems and so another place may bump up the prominence of other air travel stories. So you might well be seeing a genuine higher frequency of stories and the fact that you're flying soon is an inevitable coincidence... or confirmation bias, I don't know. 14:47, 5 April 2011 (UTC)
 * I am going to Germany to visit my sister and her family. Her husband is stationed at Ramstein Air Force Base. While there, we plan to go to the Edelweiss resort for the US military and Paris.
 * We're still working on our itinerary for Paris, though the Louvre is on the list, but while we're at Edelweiss I'm hoping to see Neuschwanstein and Dachau. MDB (talk) 14:58, 5 April 2011 (UTC)
 * With regard to aeroplane safety - the most dangerous part of the journey, the bit where you're seriously in danger, is the trip from your front door to the airport. After that it's really safe. Jack Hughes (talk) 15:32, 5 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Yeah, I know. Being nervous about flying (I'm not afraid of flying, per se, it just makes me a little tense, especially since this is, by far, the farthest I've ever flown) is not rational. I know that driving the Capital Beltway is far riskier than flying. I even understand, in general, the physics of why a plane can fly. I don't care. I am getting into a winged aluminum can filled with fuel and trusting the crew to get me to Frankfurt. The entire idea just makes me a bit tense. MDB (talk) 16:19, 5 April 2011 (UTC)
 * It's because there are two things at work. 1) driving is familiar and common and you're in control (as a driver) whereas unless you're a very frequent business class flier, the opposite is true of aeroplanes and 2) the scale of the potential disaster is considerably larger (cf. Black Swan Theory), if you crash a car you might get away with cuts and bruises - indeed unless it's a high speed or head on collision you'll probably not die - whereas a plane crash is certain to end in Violent Flaming Death. So it's a considerably more salient threat than with driving. I'm not sure it's therefore completely irrational to treat it with some trepidation, just irrational from a statistical point of view. 16:25, 5 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Those were my thoughts, pretty much:
 * When I'm driving, I'm in control.
 * An airplane crash is almost certainly a major disaster; plenty of people survive car accidents.
 * That being said, my sister will be doing the driving while I'm there. I will not be in control of the car, but the thought doesn't bother me at all. Now, you could argue there's a difference between an anonymous pilot and someone I love and trust, but by the same token, I don't get nervous getting into a cab. (I got nervous once in the cab while in Manhattan, but that's just from actually seeing how the cabbie was driving.) MDB (talk) 18:07, 5 April 2011 (UTC)
 * I find the reverse to be true: I have no fear about flying because it's out of my control & in the hands of people who seriously know what they're doing so there's no way I can fuck it up. The idea of driving a car, & all the responsibilities that go with it, makes me a little anxious (I've never learned to drive, not because of fear, but because I've never really wanted to; someday maybe I will).   18:15, 5 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Having flown the equivalent of several times round the world every year since 1974, I have no problems at all with commercial air travel. I am much more concerned about driving; not because if any any insecurity in my own abilities but because of all the careless idiots on the road - eating, drinking, phoning, putting on their make-up, looking at the person in the passenger seat or the baby in the back while propelling a ton of metal at deathly speeds. 19:16, 5 April 2011 (UTC)
 * The first piece of advice I was given about driving was "treat everyone else on the road like a fucking idiot". 19:53, 5 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Flying is statistically extremely safe but potentially extremely dangerous.
 * I do it at least four times a month (and ten years ago up to ten times a week), but I still get a little nervous. Ajkgordon (talk) 21:02, 5 April 2011 (UTC)
 * The worst thing about flying is knowing that, if something goes considerably wrong, you'll have a couple of minutes to contemplate your almost certain death. Other accidents thankfully rob you of that opportunity. ONE / TALK 08:07, 6 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Really? Being trapped in a fire, circled by sharks in the open sea, waiting for that last strand of frayed rope to snap when you have slipped over a cliff while mountain climbing, or watching your blood pump from a severed artery - not all accidental deaths are instantaneous and not all flying-related deaths take time to unwind. Think about those who chose to jump from the WTC on 9/11. Also being given a terminal diagnosis for an aggressive cancer might give you only a few weeks to contemplate your extended demise. I don't think that there are any particular comforts to be drawn from the various ways of dying. 08:39, 6 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Don't forget being tied down and watching a bladed pendulum slowly lowering upon you. That's a common one. DickTurpis (talk) 13:05, 6 April 2011 (UTC)
 * I was speaking of transit accidents only. I should have clarified. ONE / TALK 13:09, 6 April 2011 (UTC)
 * You know, I feel really fucking cheery now... 14:44, 6 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Well never mind. Just remember that some people have suddenly died from rare undetected heart conditions despite being young and completely healthy and from a family with no known history of heart problems. ONE / TALK 15:11, 6 April 2011 (UTC)
 * You say that the worst thing (in regard to transport related death) about flying is "that you'll have a couple of minutes to contemplate your almost certain death". So I was wondering what you might regard as the optimum time period in which to regard the certain death that we all face. 07:43, 8 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Let me rephrase my comment hopefully to your satisfaction:

The worst thing, as subjectively judged by myself and myself alone, about flying as a passenger on a modern jet aircraft (either once or regularly) is knowing that if the aircraft suffers a mechanical failure (of any cause) that renders the aircraft unable to land at an airport (with the full and reliable use of its undercarriage), and thus presents a high probability of my certain, imminent and unanticipated death upon eventual contact with the surface of the Earth, I'll have a short period of time between the moment of the mechanical failure and the aforemention contact in which to consider this situation and come to the conclusion that I am almost certainly destined to die within the next few minutes. This is an experience I would rather go without, and as such, I would rather die in a road traffic accident instantaneously, or at least suffer such serious injury as to render my mind in a state unable to make any rational assessment of my situation that would leave me thinking about my death in any capacity. This treatise is subject to further revision, pending review by the Genghis Khant Board of Accurate and Unambigious Comments (Saloon Bar Division) ONE / TALK 08:55, 8 April 2011 (UTC)
 * HAHAHA! Ajkgordon (talk) 09:08, 8 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Very droll, but how am I supposed to mind-read your ill-composed objections? (You are not my wife.) You seem to be under the illusion that most road-traffic deaths occur instantaneously while aviation deaths occur on landing after mechanical malfunction which everyone knows about. Let's not forget the 'Miracle on the Hudson' or the British Airways Flight 9 which lost power to all four engines and where everyone survived. In fact there are many instances of emergency landing with only minor or no loss of life while the really big air disasters often occur without any warning whatsoever. In road traffic accidents there are estimated to be at least twice as many people who are seriously permanently disabled as there are fatalities and I would bet that not all those deaths were instantaneous. What you seem to be arguing is your particular choice between two specific circumstances of dying rather than the probabilities of either.
 * I'm not really arguing anything; I made a throwaway comment in a discussion that doesn't even approach formal debate, and you became passionately engaged in picking it apart. Suffice to say I can't be bothered to defend myself further. I concede everything. The comedy of this section is exhausted for me. ONE / TALK 14:35, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

Dear god
Big boss just emailed me to ask what host name he should use to FTP to www.hiswebsite.com  13:22, 6 April 2011 (UTC)
 * I thought if they were smart enough to even ask that, they'd know the answer. 14:43, 6 April 2011 (UTC)
 * I would forgive him if we were using distributed storage or similar, but he knows that it's his own dedicated server. 15:04, 6 April 2011 (UTC)
 * That's nothing. Absolutely nothing. How about our "programmer" asking me what a regular expression is? Or not knowing what a parameterized query was, let alone SQL injection? Even not knowing how to PERFORM A FUCKING JOIN OPERATION IN SQL ON HIS OWN FUCKING DATABASE. Or maybe our windows "IT" guy not knowing knowing the windows network workgroup names (specifically that we "didn't have one") or even how to properly subnet a network? I wish I could remember the really stupid ones, but usually I drink them away. Occasionaluse (talk) 15:15, 6 April 2011 (UTC)
 * it took me an hour to get my network back up after a mysterious outage yesterday. And by mysterious I mean it took me an hour to realize I kicked the plug out of my switch when I was drunk. U can haz datuhbase coded bai drunk. Hier me. 15:22, 6 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Speaking of crap SQL developers, I had to decipher some PHP code by a guy who obviously knew nothing about joins. The code was basically:
 * "SELECT CompanyId FROM Users WHERE Username='$username'" into $CompanyId
 * "SELECT CompanyName FROM Companies WHERE CompanyId='$CompanyId'" etc etc. He'd have a string of 4 or 5 of them to get a couple of columns. No checks for SQL Injection attacks. The guy was great at hardware interfaces and C, but knew bugger all about SQL or PHP. I also remember one guy (contractor, on £35/h) who asked for help because he was trying to do:
 * Public Overrides Property ToString
 * Which wasn't working unless he shadowed it (!!), so I explained that ToString is a function (as the name would imply) and he ignored me, insistent that it was a property. I gave up and walked off. An hour later he came over to me and said he'd fixed the problem. Apparently ToString is a function and not a property (Crundy headdesks). 15:34, 6 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Oh, and at the same job there was another contractor on obscene money who seemed to be trying to make my job as difficult as possible. I was in charge of the team foundation server, and one of my jobs was doing the merging and builds. This guy spent most of his time reformatting people's comments and history blocks, which would lead to shitloads of conflicts, and he also had a habit of deleting files, only to recreate them with different content (instead of just editing the same fucking file) which causes filename collisions when you merge. I ended up having to write a shell script to deal with the collisions because I'd get at least 10 of them each build and you have to resolve them manually one by one in a three step process. 15:46, 6 April 2011 (UTC)
 * I made a table in HTML, once. I even changed the colour of the scroll bar. X Stickman (talk) 18:06, 6 April 2011 (UTC)
 * In that case, you're far more qualified than most of the contractors I've ever worked with. 22:10, 6 April 2011 (UTC)
 * I like to use a lot of frames and blink tags. ATP (talk) 02:47, 7 April 2011 (UTC)
 * What blithering idiots eh? Fancy not knowing how to do PHP joins! I've just got back from a job where they had opened the PC with the NPVs charged and then closed the EQVs to engage the AHC (with the HPU lined up). Before running the BHA through the WH (in AHC) they opened the IBOP on the TDS and filled the string with WBM through the STP adding about 20MT to the WOH without filling any more N2! Obviously when they opened the EQVs on the AHC, the CB moved quickly down a few meters, and with it then whole TA (TB, TDS etc) and therefore the BHA (including MWD, LWD and DD tools)! Luckily they were far enough from the RKB that there was no damage on the DF, and the BHA was already inside the WH. Can you believe those idiots? 12:45, 7 April 2011 (UTC)
 * That reminds me of a joke I made up while at university. "I was talking to a mate the other day and he couldn't get his code to work. He'd done 'push af', 'ld c,d', 'rst 16' and it just wouldn't work! Then he realised - he was using an 8086!!!!!" I made it up as an example of a deliberately bad geek joke - but my flatmates actually laughed at it. Nerds. You gotta love 'em. –SuspectedReplicant retire me 12:49, 7 April 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm on to you. You're trying to get me to tell the story of how I had to code around a hole in Microsoft's crippleware (for your protection) X86 assembler by declaring the offending opcode to be a few bytes of data and marching right through it. Well, I'm not having any of that. Sprocket J Cogswell (talk) 13:17, 7 April 2011 (UTC)
 * @Delta: Why didn't you just tell them to insert a DGT in the FLK after reconfiguring the SSF? 13:24, 7 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Or reroute the TLDR through the WTF. 21:12, 7 April 2011 (UTC)
 * No no no no it's the WAFL that's supposed to go directly to STFU. Sprocket J Cogswell (talk) 21:21, 7 April 2011 (UTC)
 * You can only do that if you don't have an STD on your PNS. 10:49, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

Shaking with anger and revulsion
It's articles like these that maybe me so disgusted with the creationist movement. Utter lies. Ace of Spades 20:42, 6 April 2011 (UTC)
 * I've gone down the creationist rabbit hole a few times on that one. You can probably add "racist" to the things PJR would be without his Bible. Occasionaluse (talk) 20:44, 6 April 2011 (UTC)
 * (damn EC's to the bowels of bloody, pus-spewing hell) Nice to know that CMI's argument has been debased to, "yeah, well you're a bunch of fucking racists!" 20:47, 6 April 2011 (UTC)
 * They do love to bang this drum, don't they? Despite all the evidence that it's the god-bothering, bible-loving wingnuts that are the ones who have the most pro-white stances, they have to jump on anything to try desperately to prove the opposite. Pathetic. –SuspectedReplicant retire me 20:50, 6 April 2011 (UTC)
 * It's as if they are saying there was no racism before Darwin and throwing out that tired old argument that because Darwin believed one thing then all evolutionists must still believe it. Ace of Spades 21:03, 6 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Just the same way that Catholics still believe everything that medieval popes uttered and haven't altered their stance since. Oh wait, that was meant to be ironic but I forgot about Andy. 07:40, 7 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Unfortunately you are not likely to be able to comment on the article and point out its errors. Racist beliefs were/are common among Christians (and other religions) and people have used a caricature of evolution to justify racism just as they have used their religious books to do the same. Can you believe that every slave trader and owner was a "Darwinian" when On the Origin of Species was not published until 1859 while slavery in the British Empire had been rife before it had been outlawed 26 years earlier. We also get the old strawman (scarecrow?) depiction of evolution as leading to "higher" beings; the idea of certain species being more "evolved" as if there is some ultimate perfection. And if Darwin did harbour some racist beliefs then it was a consequence of society at that time, not his biological researches. There's a good article on Darwin and racism at http://rationalrevolution.net/articles/darwin_nazism.htm. 09:22, 7 April 2011 (UTC)
 * P.S. In regard to the Smithsonian evolution image culminating in white male being seen as racist - what are we to make of all the images of Jesus (and Mary or God, or Adam and Eve) as being white and occasionally blond? In reality portrayals often reflect the culture in which they are made. 10:07, 7 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Just to prove that he's an avid RW reader (despite lies to the contrary) and that he's a total shitstain, 🇰🇪 adds a link to that article on CP. Dance for us, little man. –SuspectedReplicant retire me 09:58, 7 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Nearly four in the morning and Ken is still trawling the internet. Lost your meds, Ken? 10:12, 7 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Even if we accept for the sake of argument that evolution places whites at the top of the food chain it would still not be bigotry any more than noting that people crippled by polio tend to fare pretty badly in iron man contests. We can pretty much prove the true meaning of survival of the fittest by dropping a man and a cod in the middle of the North Sea. My money isn't on the man being fittest to survive and procreate in that environment. This thinking betrays something that I think underlies their reasons for believing in God. They don't believe in God because there's proof; they believe because they want to live in a world that cannot operate without a God to personally push atoms to where they need to be. Concernedresident  omg!!! ponies!!! 11:12, 7 April 2011 (UTC)
 * It's a bit odd to jump on that picture. I've seen plenty where the skin colour doesn't change - and when it does, it's usually to emphasise the loss of hair. If you look closely at any of the preceding pictures you can tell that the base shade on the skin doesn't actually change much, if at all. It just loses hair. Yeah... quite a smoking gun CMI has there. 14:01, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

Stephen Jay Gould rolls in his grave. Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 13:56, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

xkcd (part n+1)
I'm sure everyone here has probably already seen it but the latest one seems particularly relevant to the sort of statistics abuse that RW comments on... can it be wormed into an article as fair use or are their licensing issues with using an xkcd comic to illustrate a point? ONE / TALK 08:30, 7 April 2011 (UTC)


 * XKCD is issued under Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial 2.5 so we can use them as freely as we wish. Jack Hughes (talk) 09:22, 7 April 2011 (UTC)
 * No you can't. You couldn't for example use one as an illustration in a book you are then going to sell. -  π    10:03, 7 April 2011 (UTC)
 * I am continually impressed/annoyed that we spent zillions of edits and hundreds of words making a point in favour of rationalism, then XKCD kicks our arses saying the same thing in four panels with a couple of matchstick men. Totnesmartin (talk) 10:58, 7 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Really? That comics not even really funny. As much as the media do misreport sciences it is in no way as described in that comic. For starters they rarely feed off rumors or never ask scientists to investigate anything, they usually just read what ever press releases catches their attention. Also when have journalist ever shown that much respect for statistics? The don't know what a p-value is or confidence because they studied degrees in social sciences and humanities. The comic paints such an unrealistic picture the only thing that is laughable is that it was even posted. -  π    12:05, 7 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Out of curiosity, Pi—have you heard of XKCD Sucks?  01:29, 9 April 2011 (UTC)
 * There's also Is XKCD Shitty Today? (It actually does change from day-to-day.)Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 01:31, 9 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Every time I hear that XKCD isn't funny anymore I get slightly pissed off. It's always been hit and miss but the hits so outweigh the misses that it's my favourite on line comic (with the possible exception of Doonesbury). If you happen to have a father who is a professor of statistics whose wife died of cancer the previous striphas a poignancy beyond words. Jack Hughes (talk) 11:10, 7 April 2011 (UTC)
 * I can't find it right now, but there's one where someone tells his gf/wife he loves her after he asks her to pick up something to clean up cat vomit, just in case she died while she was out, so the last thing he said to her didn't involve cat vomit. That's very meaningful to me, because two or three days before my brother died suddenly, we spoke on the phone, and the last thing I said to him was "I love you." When I was dealing with the shock of his death, it brought me some comfort that the last thing I ever said to him was to tell him I love him. MDB (talk) 13:38, 7 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Here. –SuspectedReplicant retire me 13:43, 7 April 2011 (UTC)
 * That's the one. Thanks. MDB (talk) 14:15, 7 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Ha ha. It's funny because he mentioned a game that's really popular with geeks right now. Vulpius (talk) 13:06, 7 April 2011 (UTC)
 * I thought that spoiled what would otherwise be a perfect comic. ONE / TALK 14:17, 7 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Press releases can be just as bad, but often they don't even get as far as reading beyond the title of the press release. As in the stiletto example mentioned here. In which case if they'd read the press release or the original source they would have noticed they were talking anatomy, not shoes. Often it's a case that a news site or paper doesn't read the release but picks something up off another paper or from a newswire - hence why you can often find the same story reported very similarly, but never can find a good primary source or the original event. 13:54, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

Needs SMBC and PHD. Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 15:15, 7 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Yeah, the Piled Higher and Deeper one shows it pretty accurately. 15:22, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

Speaking of xkcd
This does not work. I just tried. MDB (talk) 20:36, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

Bonjour
Bonjour RationalWiki, je sais que vos mères sont stupides et qu'ils ont des vagins malodorantes. 20:22, 7 April 2011
 * Vous ne mentionne même pas les baies de sureau! Mei III (talk) 20:26, 7 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Bonjour, mon ami, je sais que tu es un troll. Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 20:27, 7 April 2011 (UTC)
 * ^Haw haw haw 20:35, 7 April 2011 (UTC)
 * qu'elles, tu veux dire. Et puis de toute facon, j'hais ma mere.--Brxbrx (talk) 21:13, 7 April 2011 (UTC)
 * I also wouldn't have sex with my mother. 08:33, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

It's all the devil's fault
All those paedo priests are the fault of Satan! Father Gabriele Amorth said people who are possessed by Satan vomit shards of glass and pieces of iron, scream, dribble and slobber, utter blasphemies and have to be physically restrained. He claimed that the sex abuse scandals which have engulfed the Church in the US, Ireland, Germany and other countries, were proof that the anti-Christ was waging a war against the Holy See. He said Pope Benedict XVI believed "wholeheartedly" in the practice of exorcism. Humanity! Preserve us from these nutters. These people are (supposed to be) guiding a fair percentage of the world population. --Scream!! (talk) 00:49, 8 April 2011 (UTC)
 * The usual and unsurprising externalisation of faults. It's funny how the vomiting glass and super-strength part of exorcisms are never really seen on video. All it ever looks like is one person sat on a chair sobbing while someone dressed in robes shouts at them and occasionally throws water at them. 07:56, 8 April 2011 (UTC)
 * I must have missed the studies showing that Satanism figures highly in incidences of child rape. Concernedresident  omg!!! ponies!!! 09:38, 8 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Well people have tried to establish a connection with the investigations resulting in even more abuse. Ultimately it appears that very few cases stand up to scrutiny; which leads to the conclusion that while it might occasionally happen, it is just a micro-fraction of what goes on in supposedly "moral" Christian institutions. Despite atheists being labelled as followers of Satan, it seems that those who blame it on Old Nick are often some of the more "devout" followers of God. 12:49, 8 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Amorth seriously needs to be told that the film called The Exorcist is fictional, not a documentary. Jack Hughes (talk) 10:00, 8 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Hey, we overlooked an important point! Paedophiles and pederasts can be identified by by their habit of vomitting glass and iron! No more having to rely on funny eyes alone. Concernedresident  omg!!! ponies!!! 10:36, 8 April 2011 (UTC)
 * This is actually the sickening thing. By putting the blame on some mysterious force it absolves the perpetrators and those that protect them. At root this is just more of the Vatican cover up, more of the refusal to see how the institution itself is flawed. Jack Hughes (talk) 13:15, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

I lived in the Georgetown part of Washington DC when the movie was being made, and the wind machine driving people to drink. Yes, it takes place at real locations. No, it isn't a documentary. Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 06:12, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

US Government Shutdown
Will any of you be particularly affected if the US government shuts down?

I'm a Federal contractor, but my contract's customer is funded by fees paid by the entities it regulates, so it's not shutting down. My company has other contracts that could be affected, though.

MDB (talk) 14:48, 7 April 2011 (UTC)


 * I think a lot of scientific research will be affected. For example we have pending proposals that are approved on a scientific basis but are in limbo because of the budget situation and it's getting mighty late to admit grad students for next year. There's also a big workshop in my field that will become pointless if the Federal participants can't attend; it will likely be canceled, with loss of non-refundable airfares and such. What a waste. Doctor Dark (talk) 19:55, 7 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes, what with the enormous social overhaul that would have to follow such an event. Even in the UK. Seriously, this question is so stupid I don't really know why I bothered to respond. 20:40, 7 April 2011 (UTC)
 * The term "shutdown" is a bit loose in this situation. It's not a permanent or even complete shutdown (i.e., anarchy) that's at issue here. Doctor Dark (talk) 21:01, 7 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Ahhhh, he means that Congress budget thing. US political system, you so crazy. 21:41, 7 April 2011 (UTC)
 * This is reason 147 why Parliamentary Democracy beats the Presidential System  22:42, 7 April 2011 (UTC)
 * You have to remember, as Bill Murray said in the movie Stripes that "our forefathers were kicked out of every decent country in the world." Doctor Dark (talk) 01:02, 8 April 2011 (UTC)
 * NASA's plans - basically, "We've got people in f**king space, what do you expect us to do?!?" 14:37, 8 April 2011 (UTC)
 * FAQ version - i.e., human readable. 14:40, 8 April 2011 (UTC)
 * The FBI won't be pursuing RW any more. sterile 14:47, 8 April 2011 (UTC)
 * "If presented with this bill, the President will veto it." - Obama appears to have grown some testicles. 14:50, 8 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Maybe Obama is thinking of this. Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 16:57, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

Fuck you Quantas, I'll do as I please.
4:30am, Friday 8th April. Sitting at Wellington airport, the corporate box of course. Necking black coffees and dark beers while waiting for my early morning flight to Sydney. I arrive there at 8am Sydney time but my connection doesn't leave until the evening so am going to spend the day drinking and caterwauling around the Sydney opera house but the vicious banshees at Quantas reckon they'll charge me $90 just to hold my baggage. Well, fuck you assholes. I'll do as I please and I ain't fucking paying nothing. Ace of Spades 16:36, 7 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Fight the power. 21:16, 7 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Christ! You could check your bags in for a night at a decent hotel for that price. If you do play, at least have them promise that they'll treat your bags to a meal and a massage. Concernedresident  omg!!! ponies!!! 22:22, 7 April 2011 (UTC)
 * The better half and I once spent a very nice long layover at a traveler hotel in the Inchon airport: we had a number of hours to burn, but not quite long enough to get out into Seoul and back with any time to look around. So he hung out, ate, and drank in our little room.  I would advise against eating gobs of kimchi before a trans-Pacific flight, though.  ATP (talk) 01:20, 8 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Heh, those fuckers didn't get a cent of my money. Liquored up in the airport, drenched with awesomeness. Ace of Spades 05:11, 8 April 2011 (UTC)
 * So even though you checked your baggage through to a final destination they want to charge you for holding the bags during the connection? Or is there something you have omitted about the nature of your connection? $90 is a lot of money though as most international airports have left-luggage facilities where I would think that you could store your bags for about $10 max. 07:30, 8 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Baggage storage, bail money, they blur into one. 11:35, 8 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Awe fucking hell, I am about to fly with those arseholes. -  π    00:27, 9 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Don't worry Pi, it's all a big scam. Just refuse to pay. They won't bother you again. Worthless fucking scumbags. Got in real trouble in some dodgy backalley last night, rabid dogs everywhere, trash in the street and hopped up slags trying top fuck me over for a few bucks. Ace of Spades 00:52, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

Randomly pixelated images. Halp!
Sometimes when I edit a page with an image, it'll get all pixelated and crappy looking. It happened a few times when I first signed up, but it would fix itself after a refresh or two and it hasn't happened since then until I just edited the page on Michael Mann, which has crappified his picture. Am I fucking something up or is there a bug? Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 03:38, 9 April 2011 (UTC)
 * the pic is fine, mediawiki is crapping up. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c2/Mann4.jpg look, it's fine.  I've lowered the px in the meanwhile.  same stuff is happening at ED--Brxbrx (talk) 03:43, 9 April 2011 (UTC)
 * All right then. I thought I screwed something up. Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 03:44, 9 April 2011 (UTC)
 * If this happens, purge the page to fix it. Go to "Gadgets" in your preferences - there are some that allow purging with a single click.--ZooGuard (talk) 10:14, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

distributed denial of service attack
coming soon to rational wiki!
 * Anything to help you achieve sexual gratification. -- PsyGremlin  16:27, 9 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Oe noes! Teh 1337 haxors are coming to get us! –SuspectedReplicant retire me 16:55, 9 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Could you define "soon" in this context?--BobSpring is sprung! 17:07, 9 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Whenever they get their allowance from their parents and can pay someone else to do it. ThunderkatzHo! 17:35, 9 April 2011 (UTC)
 * I think I can help you visualize it:

Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 17:50, 9 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Minor Wikipedia vandal is minor. 17:56, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

Who let the trolls out?
Seriously? Whodunit? Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 17:49, 9 April 2011 (UTC)
 * idk, but as an EDiot (and thus an authority on trolls) I must say that this one is coming off as pretty desperate.--Brxbrx (talk) 18:04, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

Worst Movie Ever
Ok, so yesterday after a bit of a file swap, I sat down to watch "2012 Doomsday" thinking it was another epic about Teh Endz of Teh Whirled. Boy, was I wrong. Ok, it is about Teh Endz of Teh Whirled, but epic? No. The first give away should have been the producers - Faith Films. Yes, it's the fundies' attempt to leap on the 2012 bandwagon.

Honestly, I have no idea what the film was about. Starts off with them finding a crucifix inside an ancient Mayan temple (whilst a nearby volcano spouts smoke and fire... well, just smoke... like somebody was boiling a kettle under it. The we cut to the "US National Geographic Center" where we see lots of silent people holding phones to their ears (because if they speak you have to pay them extra!) Then some missionary chick looking for a doctor... and then I skimmed through to the end, where they we all saying a prayer for some baby about to be born, and we finish with a shot of South America, with the Amazon basin flooded.

Besides the complete lack of special effects (really, a movie about Teh Endz of Teh Whirled where we don't see a bit of Teh whirled ending?) horrendous acting and hackneyed script (between this and AD's reviews of the Left Behind books, I'm convinced that fundies in general are incapable of writing anything decent.) For example, here's the opening few lines:
 * Pouring rain, jeep pulls up, man and woman climb out, run into tent, where grumpy archaeologist stands.
 * Man 1 to arch: "This is Dr. SomethingOrOther."
 * Arch to Man 1: "What's she doing here?"
 * Long pause
 * Arch to Man 1: "Well this is a great reunion. And you picked a hell of a time to pick it."
 * Woman walks out of shot.
 * Man 1: "Is there a problem?"
 * Arch: "We have a... a... history..."

and it sort of goes downhill from there. Another example:
 * Missionary chick runs into town, looking for doctor, is approached by man
 * Man: "Can I help you, I'm a freelance photographer."
 * Chick: "No. I'm in a hurry, the people in my village are dying and there's no doctor in this town"
 * Man: "Well, I went to med school for a few years, perhaps I can help?"

Urgh... I want those 15 minutes of my life back. -- PsyGremlin  09:32, 9 April 2011 (UTC)
 * But think of all the time you've saved other people by stating how crap it is so that they don't waste their time on it. :) 09:53, 9 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Good point. All y'all biyatches owe me for taking one for the team. -- PsyGremlin  10:03, 9 April 2011 (UTC)
 * More info from Rotten Tomatoes No formal reviews, but average rating of 1.7/5 from 3,000 ratings. Best reader comment: "If eyes and ears were penises, this movie would be the fat guy in prison that rapes the living fuck out of them. I'd say this movie was a mind fuck, but it's more like necrophelia, as my mind died early on in the film ..." -- PsyGremlin  10:03, 9 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Harsh beans. But undoubtedly very fair ones. 10:07, 9 April 2011 (UTC)
 * I really wanna see this movie now. I have a strong feeling should get drink and watch it later. 10:19, 9 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Need I remind you of this and this? 10:28, 9 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Oh. look. A TVTropes link. So much for mowing the lawn this arvie... -- PsyGremlin  10:59, 9 April 2011 (UTC)
 * You know, Psy, I wouldn't have even clicked on the link if you hadn't made that comment. I thought myself strong enough to avoid the maelstrom, but here I am, two hours later, closing the 20th tab (which was an external link to a 16-page recap of Leonard Part 6). So much for that presentation Thursday on semiotics. And no, there's no way to tie TVTropes into it, I've tried many times... Junggai (talk) 12:57, 9 April 2011 (UTC)
 * I avoid the tab explosion by treating TV Tropes as a bit of a "hit squad" type affair (or how men shop for shoes, if you prefer that comparison). You plan in advance what you want to get and then you're in and out in 15 seconds SAS style. It's the only way to avoid getting sucked into it. 13:04, 9 April 2011 (UTC)
 * That does sound terrible, but I'm not sure it's the worst ever..  And I've seen the Star Wars Holiday Special..   it wasn't that bad.   13:49, 9 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Pfft. Worse than this? I doubt it. Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 14:14, 9 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Put it this way, I will watch this before I watch 2012D again. At lease House leaves your feeling like you've had a flashback. Or several on top of each other. -- PsyGremlin  14:18, 9 April 2011 (UTC)
 * That is so awsome! Talk about "dont take the brown acid". The light shade that eats people, truly wonderful. Jack Hughes (talk) 16:15, 9 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Sounds like something to download and laugh at with a few beers while my lovely wife is at work.--BobSpring is sprung! 17:03, 9 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Manos was never *that* bad of a movie. Beast of Yucca Flats and Monster A-Go-Go are both far worse. For a more modern bad movie experience (albeit ones with fairly decent fight scenes), check out anything by Godfrey Ho. The man single handedly ended Richard Harrison's career and has been credited under 40 different names because people would see his name and refuse to work with him. His films must be seen to be believed. In some of his scenes you can see security guards coming towards them and the actors start running away before the camera cuts out. We always assumed he just sneaked into hotels and private grounds to shoot scenes. X Stickman (talk) 02:29, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

Damn, I gotta check out Godfrey Ho. Sounds like it doesn't get any worse. Beast of Yucca Flats is probably worse than Manos. But I think Turkish Star Wars beats both of them, though TSW is kind of in a gray area since it rips off so much footage. Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 02:34, 10 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Pfft. Snowbeast, Galaxy Invader, Axe 'em, Raptor Island, and Blood tide. ТyUser_talk:Ty 04:33, 10 April 2011 (UTC)
 * 9 Songs - I defy anyone to find a single redeemable feature of that film. 09:32, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

Color photos
As someone who greatly enjoys history, museums, old stuff in general, and photography to boot, I found these photos to be astounding. As an American who wasn't alive even in the 1980's, color photos that are seventy years old are pretty much the oldest thing I can comprehend. Well, I exaggerate, but anyone familiar with the Eddie Izzard skit about how Americans see something fifty years old and can't believe that anyone was even alive back then? Sort of like that. Anyways, enjoy the photos; I found them really neat all around. άλφα Talk 17:55, 9 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Yeah, color photography has been around for a looong time, it was just expensive as hell back then. Those are really great pictures. If they still play it, the (pseudo-)History Channel has a great series called World War II in Color. Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 18:08, 9 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Have you seen any of the work by Sergey Prokudin-Gorsky? He took some pretty extraordinary photographs too. άλφα Talk 18:14, 9 April 2011 (UTC)
 * You bastard, I was just linking to that. Vulpius (talk) 18:16, 9 April 2011 (UTC)
 * I found somewhere a link to WWII photos in color, maybe I can rustle them up again. άλφα Talk 18:15, 9 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Here we go! I'm ashamed to say that I noticed these again while perusing the archives, but still, it reminds me of the Carbon Leaf song, The War Was In Color," one of my personal favorite tunes. άλφα Talk 18:44, 9 April 2011 (UTC)
 * And here's a blog full of black & white ones if anyone is interested. Sen (talk) 19:15, 9 April 2011 (UTC)
 * World War II? Bah, lightweights.  You want World War I in colour you do :)  09:50, 10 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Excellent! Now find me some color photos of ancient Rome and we'll call it a deal. Awh, blast... άλφα Talk 09:53, 10 April 2011 (UTC)
 * U.S. Civil Warphotos are pretty awesome, though not in colour. 10:42, 10 April 2011 (UTC)
 * I think that's all technicolor, where they added the color afterwards by hand--Brxbrx (talk) 12:06, 10 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Prokudin-Gorsky's technique is genius considering the age he was working in. Also, an intentional movement of the camera for one of the filters could lead to producing an in situ colour anaglyph. 12:34, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

Server strain
Server strain is being caused by the popularity of our Scientific evidence of evolution being a hoax. It is all over, even the Panda's Thumb (which is one of my favorite multi-blog sites). Tmtoulouse (talk) 18:42, 9 April 2011 (UTC)


 * Don't the blog sites realise this joke is actually a really old one and has been done for several other articles? Do they really need to link to it? –SuspectedReplicant retire me 18:48, 9 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Told you so --Scream!! (talk) 19:01, 9 April 2011 (UTC)
 * That hasn't always been #4, has it? sterile 21:13, 9 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Blog says the server load is 17. That seems inordinately high.  ThunderkatzHo! 23:38, 9 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Sure something isn't up? It's getting like 8000-10000 hits in 4 hours.  sterile 00:02, 10 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Oh noes! An amateur DDOS! 06:57, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

Holy shit, Project Blue Beam is all-time #6? - David Gerard (talk) 11:13, 10 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Yeah, it ranks on Alexa as a top search term for the site. RW is practically the only proper reference to it. 11:30, 10 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Passed SEOEBAH passed Lenski affair now: 16K hits over a 9 h period. sterile 20:38, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

Is there a God?
It's long been known that how you phrase a question alters your answer. "How often do you go to Church" will lead to a different answer to religiosity to, say, "Are you spiritual?" So, via Facebook questions - which is capable of asking some very blunt questions to a lot of people very quickly, if nothing else - I spotted this. The question is simple: "Is there a God?" Answers are as follows (3.2 million respondents):


 * Yes: 83%
 * No: 9%
 * "Time will tell": 8%

I like this because it's enlightening us with the question that many properly done surveys miss due to trying to focus too much on meaningful data like how often people go to church and so on or how many self define as religious. By taking the concept of belief and faith out of the question, I think it can access people's opinions in a very simple way.

Besides the obviousness of "what sort of fence sitting crap is that third answer?!?", there are a few caveats I can point out, though. The limited options discourage those who are agnostic or have some sort of polytheistic belief, and the Judeo-Christian bias in the wording (no Allah), might also discourage other religions from answering. Secondly, there would be a two level selection bias. The fact that these spread through similar contacts, which would include tight religious communities in the US in particular, means that many respondents would have similar views to those who just answer the question. As a further bias, a question on religion this blunt is most likely to be answered by proud believers and strong atheists only - arguably "strong atheists" is a smaller subset of "atheists" than "proud believers" is a subset of "believers". This could combine to boost the yes response considerably. Oh, and there's no demographic breakdown, this is spreading randomly so will be pushed up by the Bible Belt and down by the UK and Scandinavia. So we're probably looking at the upper bound for belief. But as an exercise in simplifying the question as far as it can go and putting it out there to a large group of people, I find it remarkably interesting. 09:55, 10 April 2011 (UTC)


 * Lots of other possibilities: "I don't know", "There are many", "tat tvam asi", ... Pashley (talk) 10:02, 10 April 2011 (UTC)
 * The point is to simplify it down so that the question that wants answered is actually answered. You can put plenty of other options down but that doesn't answer the question "how many people think that there is a God?". 10:25, 10 April 2011 (UTC)
 * But that question isn't going to be answered meaningfully, for all the reasons you've already outlined. & A Facebook poll is probably among the least reliable gauges of public opinion.   10:54, 10 April 2011 (UTC)
 * I don't see how it being Facebook makes it necessarily unreliable, but as I said, I think this gives us a reasonable approximation or perhaps a boundary. There is a clear trade-off between the ability to effectively answer a simple question (how many people think there's a God) and what people's more accurate attitudes are (how many are agnostic, strongly disbelieving, "spiritual but not religious" and so on) - kind of a sensitivity and resolution sort of thing. Many "offical" polls and surveys seem to cover the latter by talking about religion, this covers the former by being far more about "is God real?". 11:07, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

Try the question without the capital "G". 02:22, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

Casual racism
A while ago I was having a conversation with two friends of mine, both of them from small-town places which are almost entirely of white English/other white British descent. As a guy who grew up in multicultural London, having been vehemently anti-racist my entire life (while at the same time maintaining modest pride in being able to call myself English) I was surprised that I found myself in a conversation with two friends (a guy and a girl) who seemed to hold some preconceived notions that black people commit more crime than white people - just to be clear, neither are "racist" as in "some are genetically superior to others", and both have friends from different ethnic backgrounds. While the only thing my girl friend said on the topic was "you don't believe in racism?" (which I took as a weird comment but fairly innocent in that she's from the countryside and not used to non-white communities) to which I replied, "no of course I fucking don't", my other friend (who's half-English, half-Asian) began talking about crime statistics and saying more black people commit crime than white people. Not only this, but he basically said this was a product of nature rather than nurture, and while simultaneously insisting this was not racist, purely fact, he went on his laptop and began googling "black crime statistics" and showing me incredibly biased sites with articles entitled, "the truth about black crime". Me being me, I tried to keep calm (which was getting increasingly difficult, my friend being as stubborn as I am) and eloquently explain that he was a fucking idiot, what he was saying was inherently racist, and how crime rates were relative to environment and those from rougher, poorer backgrounds were more likely to fall into crime. He accepted this, but continued insisting that black people were more likely to commit crime than whites, because they were black. I decided to end the conversation there as I couldn't see it progressing, but only pissing me off further. Like I said, neither of them are "racist", and they find the idea of "white power" as disgusting as any rational-thinking person, but this ridiculous prejudice just got my goat.

Some of my friends accuse me of political correctness purely to piss me off. This apparently stems from me occasionally pointing out where they are misinformed on certain topics, which never have anything to do with politically correct naming conventions. I am not remotely PC (in most cases I pretty much hate it) and my friends that accuse me of it seem to be forgetting there is a huge difference in being politically correct and being anti-racist. Recently, some of my friends in general seem more inclined to make prejudiced remarks - another friend of mine was saying foreigners take British jobs, basically blaming them for him being poor despite him having a job for the past three years and retaining all the money management skills of a chain-smoking, fast-food eating, sex-addicted six year-old on meth. Him and his family are now subsequently in debt. I guess what I'd like to know, out of interest, is if anyone here has friends who exhibit this kind of casual racism. 10:41, 10 April 2011 (UTC)


 * I tend to feel that I don't wish to associate with them nearly as much. I suggest you put some effort into finding a better class of friend - David Gerard (talk) 11:02, 10 April 2011 (UTC)
 * I was thinking "that isn't racist, a lot of statistics do show that ethnic minorities tend to be involved in more crime" and then I saw the nature vs nurture part. Yeah, that's very racist. See here for the snarky version. :) 11:12, 10 April 2011 (UTC)
 * I've had some fairly racist coworkers & housemates before; people I was generally on good terms with, although not exactly close friends as I tend not to make very strong friendships with people I don't see eye-to-eye with. I can overlook it to an extent, as people's racism is usually just something they picked up from family or peer groups when growing up & doesn't necessarily make them a "bad person".  I would generally just stay off certain topics when talking to these people, as it makes me very uncomfortable when people start saying racist or otherwise objectionable things, but I'm not always assertive enough to confront them, although I feel like I should.  With my real friends, if they say something a bit out of line, I'll always tell them why they're wrong.   11:13, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

Also: proper British style racism. Fucking Muslamics!! 11:14, 10 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Russell Howard's pretty funny. It's comforting to know the latest anti-"people-we-want-to-fuck-over" protesters are uneducated fucks that can't even speak their own language.
 * Same as me, Weaseloid, I generally avoid it as a topic, as it's such an effort to continue arguing about it, especially when it's obvious that neither me nor they are going to change their views on the subject. I can't say the whole nature vs nurture thing my friend was suggesting was "not as bad as it sounds", but it was rooted in ignorance, not ehtno-nationalism - the annoying thing was him suggesting it was not racist when it clearly was. Like I said, none of my friends would identify as "racist", and actively discriminating against non-whites would never occur to them. It's just the casual prejudices which annoy me. 11:29, 10 April 2011 (UTC)
 * I've known numerous people who, when confronted with elements of structural racism in society, or something to that effect, have given me responses of "I don't see why blacks can't just work harder," etc. A peer of mine made a similar comment to me a few weeks ago, and used herself as an example. However, she grew angry when I pointed out that she, as the daughter of well-to-do white lawyers who came from affluent backgrounds to begin with, had a very different set of chances to succeed than a black youth who lives in poverty and has virtually no chances of guaranteed success (or at least security) like she did. άλφα Talk 11:54, 10 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Actually, I'm reminded of the psych experiment where a picture of a white man, dressed poorly, holding a knife, and in general acting and looking like someone up to no good, is moving to stab a well-dressed, clean-shaven, etc, black man, is flashed at the viewer briefly, and the response measured. Unfortunately I can't find the statistics, and as this is something I've heard from my father who studied psych in the 1950's, it may be an outmoded form of study, but nevertheless, the majority of middle class whites unconsciously assumed that the black man was committing a crime against the white man, even though in the picture this is clearly not the case. I think so many people, what with stereotypes built into society at so many levels, unconsciously hold prejudices without meaning to; it's when they're confronted and feel the need to defend themselves that forms of denial like "I'm not racist, but..." begin to emerge. άλφα Talk 11:59, 10 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Similar to this where people often wonder which is supposed to be the guard and which is supposed to be the prisoner. But like an inkblot test, I just see two men having some consensual adult fun. 12:40, 10 April 2011 (UTC)
 * It's really so simple that conversations like this need not exist. Blacks have crime and basketball genes. Asians have intelligence (of the crafty kind) and small penis genes. Whites have Jesus and inherent superiority genes. No need to check on this, science, just thank me.--Brendiggg (talk) 13:37, 10 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Something which deeply surprised me happened last year. I'd always had long hair, and completely shaved my head for a bet. I'm quite a big guy, and looked like a total thug as a skinhead. In the few weeks after having my head shaved, I heard more racist and homophobic comments from strangers than I'd ever experienced. And it angered me. It made me think that a far few more Brits are casual, closest racists than I'd ever thought. The grim poetry of it, of course, was that these racist types weren't just making racist judgements - they judged me too, off how I looked, and assumed I thought the same. I guess plenty of people were surprised when the thug-looking skinhead was appalled at their comments. 13:49, 10 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Just argue further that stealing is winning in capitalism and makes you an ubermensch. --85.76.5.200 (talk) 14:06, 10 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Who is John Galt?  14:34, 10 April 2011 (UTC)
 * The use of "Jew" as a verb is a good one as Jews are harder to tell apart from your average white folk, so I've had people tell me about how they just got "jewed" out of a bunch of money. Imagine someone talking to a black guy saying, "Yeah, that cab driver just blacked me out of $30!"
 * "It's hard to be a white guy" syndrome is probably the most blatant form of casual racism, though. Hard to put it better than Ta-Nehisi Coates did: Racism tends to attract attention when it's flagrant and filled with invective. But like all bigotry, the most potent component of racism is frame-flipping--positioning the bigot as the actual victim. So the gay do not simply want to marry, they want to convert our children into sin. The Jews do not merely want to be left in peace, they actually are plotting world take-over. And the blacks are not actually victims of American power, but beneficiaries of the war against hard-working whites. This is a respectable, more sensible, bigotry, one that does not seek to name-call, preferring instead change the subject and strawman. Thus segregation wasn't necessary to keep the niggers in line, it was necessary to protect the honor of white women. Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 14:59, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

Russian RationalWiki
So a Russian version of RationalWiki is being created here. To really get off the ground it needs some help getting relevant templates and layout setup. If any of our local template experts or hobbyist want to lend a hand I am sure it would be greatly appreciated. Your account and users rights are the same at both sites. Tmtoulouse (talk) 16:04, 8 April 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm traveling soon on business, but I'm happy to be prodded if crat stuff is needed - such oversighting and such. I won't be responding quickly though until the 20th of April. Concernedresident  omg!!! ponies!!! 17:10, 8 April 2011 (UTC)
 * E.g., this sort of thing? I have certainly made a hash of the translation. I'll see about setting up some templates too. 17:46, 8 April 2011 (UTC)
 * The CSS will need porting too as many of the templates rely on things like class=infobox. 17:52, 8 April 2011 (UTC)
 * I would suggest you move the russian articles here (or whatever cyrillic moonspeak that is) there, so that when I click on random article, I'm not faced with thoughts of vodka--Brxbrx (talk) 01:22, 9 April 2011 (UTC)
 * I'd help but, um, that alphabet is just Cyrillic to me. I can fake mock Welsh, but not that stuff. When will the first article saying the Russians were first to land on the moon occur? Can someone build a filter to keep an eye out for that?   07:35, 10 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Of course the Ruskies were the first to land on the moon, did you learn nothing from all that moon landing fakery? They even found dinosaur remains up there dontchaknow. ADK ...I'll devour your tong! 15:27, 11 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Welllll...--ZooGuard (talk) 15:34, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

Toy Adverts
Here is a list of the most common words in toy adverts, broken down by gender (h/t Informationisbeautiful.net)

You won't be surprised at the results, but it's still pretty depressing stuff. –SuspectedReplicant retire me 07:45, 10 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Interesting and indeed unsurprising, but not that depressing as such, IMO. But you have to wonder where the line is between intentionally and maliciously reinforcing stereotypes and just marketing your stuff to already existing stereotypes. After all, they're selling stuff and have to tune their adverts to their market - rather than try to tune their market to their adverts. The fact that toy adverts are designed to make kids relentlessly pester their parents is a far more sinister aspect. 09:36, 10 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks to that graphic I'm going to strike it rich with new line of toys: Power Battle Heroes (and for girls: the Magic Fun Love Babies). DickTurpis (talk) 12:18, 10 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Sexist advertising is pretty much a constant, in all age brackets and for virtually any product, not just the children's toy market. A couple of decades ago PC was more of a concern in advertising & there were moves towards more inclusive campaigns, but sexism made something of a resurgence (in popular culture generally not just advertising).  In practice advertisers and manufacturers are a lot more successful when they market their products aggressively to one target market rather than trying to appeal to everyone.  12:36, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

Sad News, I Fear.
I e-mailed Susan this afternoon, and the reply came, signed by Roger Bunting, telling me she died in late February and was cremated immediately thereafter, with no funeral service. P-Foster (talk) 23:41, 10 April 2011 (UTC)
 * That's very sad....... 00:33, 11 April 2011 (UTC)
 * No funeral, why not have one here? 00:43, 11 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Good idea. ТyUser_talk:Ty 00:59, 11 April 2011 (UTC)
 * A moment of reflect, please all who reads this.--Thanatos (talk) 01:04, 11 April 2011 (UTC)
 * If she didn't want a funeral in her real life, why would she want one here? --Kels (talk) 01:19, 11 April 2011 (UTC)
 * (e/c)If true, it's a sad, sad day. I sometimes disagreed with SusanG/Toast's posts (bloody LQT luddite!) but I always looked forward to reading them. I'll miss her. –SuspectedReplicant retire me 01:26, 11 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Should that be 'late March' rather than "late February", or am I missing something? --Martin Arrowsmith (talk) 02:10, 11 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Flowers and respects are probably best delivered here. 02:13, 11 April 2011 (UTC)
 * According to the e-mail, late February. Her friend was editing under her account through March. P-Foster (talk) 02:19, 11 April 2011 (UTC)
 * SusanG aka Toast dead ! say it's not true ! any info on what ? accident,illness or anything. Hamster (talk) 03:18, 11 April 2011 (UTC)
 * That is very sad indeed. I liked her a lot, especially the fact that she was not backward in coming forward with her opinions.  --DamoHi 03:21, 11 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Hamster, she was battling cancer the whole time we knew her. I suspect she lost.  03:49, 11 April 2011 (UTC)
 * According to the email I got frpm Roger, her cancer came back. She was, apparently, "cheerful to the end." She left everything to She Who Must Be Obeyed, except her computer stuff - Roger got that. This is very sad. Susan invited me to RW in the first place. Totnesmartin (talk) 06:56, 11 April 2011 (UTC)
 * I don't really know what to say. Just a simple farewell then, and my condolences to those who knew her better and longer. Röstigraben (talk) 07:27, 11 April 2011 (UTC)
 * That's really sad. A shame she's gone. :-( --BobSpring is sprung! 07:30, 11 April 2011 (UTC)
 * This year has been filled with death for me. One more sad loss.  07:32, 11 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Fuck! I'm gobsmacked and a little tearful. 08:41, 11 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Use her talk page to leave a note, if you care, since this will be archived in two days. 08:46, 11 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Vale Susan, I never really knew you (our times here only barely overlapped, if they did at all.) But I have seen much of your past contributions, and I respect them. -- 08:56, 11 April 2011 (UTC)
 * That is sad news to start the week. Susan was good people and she'll be sorely missed. -- PsyGremlin  10:19, 11 April 2011 (UTC)
 * This saddens me greatly. I'll miss Susan. I'm proud to say I was her first sysopping due to the fact that I was cantankerous-enough of an atheist to meet her standards. Bondurant (talk) 10:24, 11 April 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm gutted. 10:25, 11 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Ouch! Susan. Hmm. My favourite rabid atheist, the one who helped me overcome my personal life issues, the one who posted a pic of her car from Google Earth (did she?). This is reason enough to stop visiting Rationalwiki AStorehouseofKnowledge. Ouch, again. Editor at CPmały książe 12:13, 11 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Damn, that is sad news.-- 22:26, 11 April 2011 (UTC)
 * A sad day.  She'll be missed, not least by us.   Sympathies to her family.   --DogP (talk) 03:53, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

Serious RW Suggestion
I know Nx suggested something along these lines once or twice and was roundly shot down for his efforts, but how about banning transcluded sigs? I don't think y'all realise how much effort the MW software goes through to deal with all the template crap that happens on a page like the Bar or TWIGO:CP. I'd love to make this suggestion on RW, but it's dead for me right now. SuspectedReplicant 00:44, 11 April 2011 (UTC)


 * Is the use of non-substituted transcluded signatures producing any measurable load on the server or slowness on the site? As far as I can tell, the difference between a transcluded and a substituted signature is simply the cost of one database lookup, and even then, only when the page's cache is purged, not on every page load. 04:49, 11 April 2011 (UTC)


 * Is the use of non-substituted transcluded signatures producing any measurable load on the server or slowness on the site? Yes -- Nx  / talk 06:35, 11 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Not as much as 100,000 hits in three days on one page. 08:58, 11 April 2011 (UTC)
 * You'd be surprised. Those hits are on one, very simple page. This page currently has 86 transcluded signatures and is currently our fifth most popular page. Assuming that 86 is a representative figure, it means that during the time period documented in that table, a total of 6,848,094 sigs were transcluded - on this page alone. Now add in the figures for TWIGO:CP and you've got a serious and unnecessary drain on server resources. –SuspectedReplicant retire me 09:18, 11 April 2011 (UTC)
 * It's simpler than that. Just click this link, wait for it to finish loading, then click this link, and you should be able to notice the difference. The one with the template signatures takes 2 seconds longer to load, which is not insignificant. It's not some behind the scenes performance problem that you shouldn't care about, it's something that affects you directly. -- Nx  / talk 09:58, 11 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Um, excuse me? That's a link to purge both those pages. Of course that is going to take longer with transcluded signatures. The important thing is views (which are cached) and edits. 15:59, 11 April 2011 (UTC)
 * On a frequently edited talk page like the Saloon bar or TWIGO:CP, caching does not help that much. -- Nx  / talk 17:25, 11 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Much as I love my transcluded sig, if the system administrators think it is for the good of server resources to ban it, I wouldn't be opposed. But here's a question - how does subst deal with the #random parser function? Can we have a subst: #random? (i.e. pick a sig at random, but always insert the same one...) Maybe some code change could just make all sigs subst, no matter how many nested templates they involve? e.g. evaluate all templates (recursively) at time of insertion, and then just use that as the subst. (I used to be employed as a PHP programmer, so maybe I could help... but really I am too busy telling people about multiple pasts and circular time and evolution being false and all to do PHP programming right now...) -- 09:34, 11 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Just use --  Nx  / talk 09:58, 11 April 2011 (UTC)
 * On the one hand, yes that works. On the other hand, I've just realized it makes the wiki text of a page far more complicated to read, if you've got a nice and crazy complicated sig like I've got :) -- 10:53, 11 April 2011 (UTC)
 * I WANT MY PRETTY SIGNATURE.... (without excessively inconviencing server load or the legibility of wikitext...) -- 10:55, 11 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Just changed my sig template to be static (for old messages) and changed my sig preference to use the same text instead of using the template. Every little helps! Crundy Talk nerdy to me 10:59, 11 April 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm still holding out for a magic way to compress wiki code without...whatever the server load may be. Usability > efficiency. 11:07, 11 April 2011 (UTC)
 * You could substitute a complex signature with lots of code for an image. Would the size of a small, compressed image not be on par with a wall of coded text anyway?  ADK  ...I'll dry your steak knife! 14:57, 11 April 2011 (UTC)
 * I've changed mine to subst:expand. Sorry for not doing that earlier. I will try and optomise it next to cut the scale of the coding down.  ADK  ...I'll ablate your blimp! 14:58, 11 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Yeah, I don't really need the font faces. ADK ...I'll soak your rope! 15:02, 11 April 2011 (UTC)
 * How about svg images for complex signatures? The wikicode could pick the file out everytime but one could still change a single file to change it all? On the other hand if we have 60 svg images per talk page that could slow the server down imensely - I really have no clue if it takes longer to render a sig-template into html or an svg file into a png... (I by the way have a 30Kb/s connection so I really don't notice it, it's fucking slow anyway) -- UHM harassme  16:01, 11 April 2011 (UTC)