RationalWiki:Chicken coop/Archive123

GrammarCommie's incivility
As I trust you all know,, a once-effective RMF staff member, has recently fallen from grace, randomly cursing out people left, right and center and making threats of self-harm on multiple user talkpages (which have since been deleted), and has started a huge flame-war on his own talkpage as well, which has since rapidly devolved after numerous containment measures by moi failed. After getting a slap on the wrist from for edit-warring over a collapse that had proven time and time again to be a lost cause, I was forced to watch helplessly as GC and  began exchanging insults and "fuck you"s, while GC tried shifting the blame onto others many times.

Trying to patiently deal with this irate editor has wasted a great deal of my time, and seems to have only led to me becoming an inciter of the flame-war, rather than a firefighter of it. I think it's time we started a coop for GrammarCommie over this rapidly-escalating drama before he becomes the next Mona. I'd recommend a temporary ban from the site to give him time to cool off (given the precedent set when we recently disciplined similarly, as we have already tried a simple slap-on-the-wrist, and yet he continues to disturb the peace. -- Goatspeed.  21:25, 25 March 2021 (UTC)


 * I think we should have better protocols for dealing with such situations in the future, for example if everyone just reverted and ignored GC's inflammatory comments I don't think this situation would have blown up like it has now. Plutocow (talk) 21:28, 25 March 2021 (UTC)
 * If you'd kept a lid on your need to settle petty scores, I would have stayed the fuck away Let me be fucking clear as fucking crystal. When you post on my talkpage with your chickenshit barbs, I get an email alert. Stay the fuck off my talkpage, and keep your fucking feuds to yourself. If your too fucking chickenshit to handle your own fucking fights, don't fucking start them with someone on a fucking rage bender. 21:29, 25 March 2021 (UTC)
 * A coop for this? People don't know when to give people space, apparently. PanGalacticGargleBlaster (talk) 21:30, 25 March 2021 (UTC)
 * I move to adjourn this for a week. He's having a crisis. Piling on isn't going to help him or the site. Please reconsider spreading this to the coop. So many ECs within a minute. You've got shitty judgment, CircularReasoning. Nice going. Nutty Roux (talk) 21:31, 25 March 2021 (UTC)
 * I comment to point out that nothing I said to GC was unreasonable. 21:31, 25 March 2021 (UTC)
 * You’re not helping Duce. Christopher (talk) 21:32, 25 March 2021 (UTC)
 * I am defending myself. Nothing I said was unreasonable. 21:32, 25 March 2021 (UTC)
 * This does not need to be a coop case. We have dealt with this several times before without coops.-Flandres (talk) 21:33, 25 March 2021 (UTC)
 * (EC) Best for both sides if he takes a vacation . Let's just be honest here. Very few people did so much to RW as GC. He is a overall a very good sysop and one of the most learned and read users here (despite having his bias). We both know that a lessern known user would be permabanned for what he did. But even though I strongly believe in equality under the law, this is not a court, this is a  Internet project, and from the utilitarian point of view a user should be allowed to stay when he's capable of doing more good than harm. Is GC capable of that? I think so. But not right now. Life is shitty for many of us, and maybe if we ground him for a couple of weeks he'll come back better, the GC we all like, maybe not as a person, but as an editor. GeeJayK (talk) 21:36, 25 March 2021 (UTC)
 * UninspiringNickname's comments are frankly straight up bigotry however. It's not good that GC melted down the way he did (even if I can get where he's coming from with UN), but I'll be honest that, had I been involved in the discussion more (as opposed to looking into it afterwards and shaking my head and fearing that I'd be seen as vindictive if I had taken action), I'd probably have ATIMed or Cooped UN for bigotry. Their comments reek of ace exclusionism, which just ain't cool and if we're gonna coop anyone, let's make this coop just as much about UNs conduct.
 * As for GCs meltdowns; I personally can get past the self-harm part, although I really want us to have a discussion (and right now in this coop) on whether self-harm talk in this way is permitted. I have faith that GC isn't doing it out of suicidal ideation, as some editors have proposed (he seems to be doing it out of frustration). That being said, I have fears that even if it's not suicidal ideation for GC, it creates two very bad precedents that do need to pointed out, which is that it may cause suicidal ideation for other editors/BONs and that it creates a sort of snapback effect where people will eventually become afraid of pissing off GC in fear that they might be enabling his self-harm tedencies.
 * Outside of that, I have a question relating to some of your conduct CR; in your comments you claim that GC is giving left wing editors "more of a pass in shitposting" compared to our right wing trolls. Could you provide me with an example of this? I've been lurking a bit more recently, but most of what I tend to see is GC losing his shit at left wing editors who push crankery into pages. An example of this could be helpful to illustrate your point. 21:37, 25 March 2021 (UTC)
 * The self-harm stuff is what I take exception to. Graphically describing how one wants to cut oneself is absolutely unacceptable to me, especially when suicide comes into it. I don't know about anyone else, but I don't need to read that shit, especially since I've had experience with the latter crisis. It's horrible and it could cause serious problems for someone who reads it. 21:41, 25 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Ah yes. I was unaware that he broke with those editors; but I stand by the other reasons I gave for giving him what I initially intended to be a simple slap-on-the-wrist; particularly the abuse of banhammer and user rights modification powers on me and a few months ago for bullshit reasons, and the incivility callout part. -- Goatspeed.  21:43, 25 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Yeah, that part is unacceptable. Given that GC at the moment has stepped down from the board (can he do that wantonly? as far as I know, the board does that stuff in meetings? I guess his resignation is handled in absentia then? I privately told him to ask cosmik when he asked me to remove him from the board since cosmik runs the logistics of the RWF afaik?) he should no longer have the power to screw around with the rights of other users. The incivility callout is... needed sure, but can we both at least agree that HBC delivers it in the usual subtlety of smashing a brick in your face repeatedly which didn't help the situation? (Which I want to remind you of, is a long standing problem with HBC in general). 21:49, 25 March 2021 (UTC)
 * The staff right is mostly for show, all it lets you do is edit MediaWiki pages. Cosmik isn’t on the board, he’s been the ballot reader for some elections but that’s about it AFAIK. Christopher (talk) 21:51, 25 March 2021 (UTC)
 * (EC)Speaking of...I would like to point out how many times we ALMOST resolved this, only for some other user like HBC or circular to prod it back into action. People should know better to provoke somebody in the middle of a meltdown, even if they happen to think he is pathetic for it. Ignoring them works better. What are you expecting to happen?-Flandres (talk) 21:55, 25 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Completely agree, I admit I was tempted to just mod-lock GC’s talk page for a bit. Christopher (talk) 21:58, 25 March 2021 (UTC)


 * I hope to heaven that GC is alright. He should take a voluntary vacation, if he is as upset as he seems to be. I don't know how people can get so overwrought talking to strangers on the internet. Please stop with the recriminations, moderators included. Santa doesn't need to know. UncleKrampus (talk) 21:59, 25 March 2021 (UTC)

"This shit"
"This shit" has now been deleted from UninspiringNickname's talk. It is highly relevant to this coop, and is by a mile the most disgusting thing I've read on RW. Kauri0.o (talk) 21:42, 25 March 2021 (UTC)
 * It's an unfortunate blow-up, frankly. Disgusting? Nah. I do think it was an overreaction, but that didn't need a coop, frankly. :)
 * Minority groups sometimes do engage in their own stigmatizing, particularly in the past (eg there were a few homosexuals (example) who just couldn't fathom that bisexuals exist). I think the general sexual community overall these days is better at thinking of things in a spectrum than they used to be. Rigid labels are ridiculous. Kind of like music genres. In music, they are necessary for classification, but musicians may travel through genres in very fluid manners. Some people don't like it when musicians change (see those that or, to give a more modern example, ) but in retrospective if it is a sincere change (instead of a crass one), the over-rigid tend to look silly when looking back.
 * On the other hand, social segmentation happens. Would I necessarily expect primal play at a leather convention? Shibari at a littles convention? It certainly might happen, and if it does it should be okay. But I wouldn't expect it, and the lack thereof wouldn't necessarily mean the root cause is phobic. Perhaps there was some asexual-hostile edits that I missed (yes, asexual exclusionism is a thing), but I wouldn't think *too* much of a LGBT focused group not accepting an asexual because they wanted to focus on LGBTs. I don't think that's necessarily the right approach (IMHO any sexuality-oriented groups should be inclusive and welcome all given there is a lot of fluidity) and I would question the need to flat out reject like that, but, again, given that social segmentation is a real thing everywhere, I would initially put it more in that category, or at least factor that phenomenon before getting too angry about it. PanGalacticGargleBlaster (talk) 22:49, 25 March 2021 (UTC)

RW is terrible at dealing with drama
Whether or not we coop GC, I feel this is something that needs to be addressed here. Our systems for addressing major drama are laughably incompetent. We have collapses, which should in theory discourage editing, but people ignore and often remove them anyway. Typical ways of preventing these conflicts such as protections and blocks rarely work when everyone is a sysop. Removing comments from non-ban evaders is discouraged even when there is no productive discussion that can come from them. Ultimately, on any other wiki this situation would have been resolved immediately after it started, but because of the weak systems it turned into an entire shitstorm. We should have a discussion on potential issues to resolve this problem. I am not suggesting everyone should be desysopped or anything drastic like that, I am just suggesting that we could use clear protocols to prevent obvious drama from flaring up. Plutocow (talk) 21:44, 25 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Discussing how to prevent drama whilst drama is ongoing is a bad idea. This can wait, and should be a discussion on the CS talk page. Christopher (talk) 21:45, 25 March 2021 (UTC)

This chicken coop is stupid
Why are you catering to that random IP/accounts spammer's plea to start a chicken coop against GC? At any rate, I suggested him to lay off this wiki for a few days and I encourage everyone to do the same instead of starting this ridiculous chicken coop. MarioSuperstar77 (talk) 21:46, 25 March 2021 (UTC)
 * There is a problem, however, when he won't follow our advice. Plutocow (talk) 21:47, 25 March 2021 (UTC)
 * I am the one to give him this advice, ME. No one else has done that, all it takes me is checking the recent changes to notice that all there was is gossiping, mostly over GC losing his calm over another user. MarioSuperstar77 (talk) 21:57, 25 March 2021 (UTC)
 * In his latest unblock message he said he was only coming back to reply in the coop. It’s hard to blame him for not staying away when people are talking about him. Christopher (talk) 21:48, 25 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Except that that's not factually true at all MSS77; that comment strongly indicates that you hadn't bothered to read my coop or look at my links. -- Goatspeed. 21:57, 25 March 2021 (UTC)
 * All of it happened the same day, it is not a re-occurrence and it was provoked by UninspiringUsername who caused GC's reaction in the first place. Talk about strawmanning. When I copy a bunch of links I get called out for alleged "stalking", but apparently, you have zero problem doing it. MarioSuperstar77 (talk) 22:00, 25 March 2021 (UTC)
 * I don't really think UN is a "far-right user". Like. At all. GeeJayK (talk) 22:08, 25 March 2021 (UTC)
 * UN is not far right, but still a bigot. Read up on Asexual exclusionism if you're uncertain and contrast what's described there with what UN has said on their talkpage. 22:16, 25 March 2021 (UTC)
 * So they are a bigot. So what? You want to argue about their prejudice? Is this the place? Close the freaking coop.UncleKrampus (talk) 22:26, 25 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Yes actually. Bigotry is part of BLOCK and is against the CS. The coop is for dealing with editors and sysops who break our CS. I would prefer to have raised it in ATIM, but UNs conduct is equally relevant to this coop so we're doing it here now. 22:33, 25 March 2021 (UTC)
 * I think me and UninspiringNickname can try to talk it through. 22:35, 25 March 2021 (UTC)
 * I'm not gonna lie, I didn't read the whole thing. But as far as I understand UN wrote about an episode of her life. I don't think IRL stuff is enough to coop and ban someone (unless if you're Michael Coombs), especially when people just asked her what happened. GeeJayK (talk) 22:53, 25 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Well shit, I thought it was take a bigot to lunch week. I used to do that a lot.UncleKrampus (talk) 23:14, 25 March 2021 (UTC)
 * No. UninspiringNickname criticized the idea of asexual exclusionism from LGBT+ spaces which can be construed as similar to trans exclusionism, bi erasure, etc. She brought up an example of her life to support her argument. 23:22, 25 March 2021 (UTC)

I explain and apologize a bit
I've expressed a death wish and stated that I was engaging in self harm. I don't believe in hiding my problems from others (see also my openness about being arrested) I did not threaten to commit suicide (I've tried in the past and could never follow through). I... I apologize if my frankness dredged up emotional health issues for others. I don't want you to have to go through the kind of stuff I go through emotionally. I'm not being sarcastic, I genuinely don't want anyone to live with the toxic mix of rage and depression that I live with. For that I'm sorry. Truly I am. 21:51, 25 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Hey man, I’ve lived with a death wish for 20 yrs. You ever want to talk privately hit my email, my brother. Ace//about blank 22:09, 25 March 2021 (UTC)
 * I can sympathize with the depression and self destructive thoughts/behavior too GC. I'm better these days (despite appearances), but about 15-20 years back I was complete mess and used to harm myself regularly. The hostility/incivility towards the rest of the community is a problem, but at least I can understand that you don't necessarily have control over it always. I'd hope other editors had the sense to leave you be during such meltdowns, but knowing some folks over here it's not likely to happen.
 * I'd support the idea of mods giving GC an enforced block for few days to cool himself should something like this happen again. I don't think we need a coop for it though. Bongolian seemed to suggest that mods already have such right during the Oxy/Cory/IBF coop. 22:27, 25 March 2021 (UTC)

A proposal
This is not a thing you can have a penalty vote on, just a piece of advice I hope you take to heart. When GC starts having these fits, ''just ignore him. Stop posting in the afflicted thread.'' After he has not been active for some time, collapse everything he said, and delete the revisions of some of the worse stuff. Engaging with somebody in that headspace gets you nowhere. You don't lose anything by not interacting with him. Sure, you can never trust or respect him and oppose his election to mod or tech or something should he run, but why provoke him into continually responding with more rage? Note this could also apply with some other users associated with causing drama.-Flandres (talk) 22:28, 25 March 2021 (UTC)
 * THANK YOU! While I am here, I suggest you, Grammar Commie, to add the sick template to your userpage like I did and move off the wiki for a few days to regain your composure. Don't let this wiki get in your head. MarioSuperstar77 (talk) 22:31, 25 March 2021 (UTC)
 * I can live with that. GeeJayK (talk) 22:33, 25 March 2021 (UTC)
 * We have a “sick” template? That’s creepy and stupid. Ace//about blank 23:04, 25 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Ace, this is the dark future of this wiki - a template for all ills. Broken toe nail? template! Syphilis? template! Recreational serial killing? template! Necrophilia? template! Leucippus Talk 23:17, 25 March 2021 (UTC)

An explanation
Some of you seem to question my judgement for starting this coop, and seem to be under the impression that I was "piling on" GC- and some of you have even gone so far as to compare me to the likes of HBC and those BoN trolls with no life who try to use this page as a soapbox to air their grievances involving this person. But I'll gladly explain why I responded to him.

I only intended to call him out for reacting the way he did in a way far better than HBC did, and advise him to take a break from our site. I didn't realize it would trigger another of his outbursts. The reason why I edit-warred to keep the collapse on was because I was afraid that another flame war was coming- and I felt vindicated by the fact that, about an hour or so after he initially reverted it, Duce started to pile on in a considerably less polite manner, so I went into full-on panic mode. The reason why I resorted to starting this coop was because things were rapidly devolving, and I was mistakenly under the impression that the thing in the coop guidelines about "personal attacks" applied in this situation because of the precedent set by our recent coop of Oxy. In retrospect I should have just stopped at temporarily modlocking his talkpage, where the shitstorm seemed to be largely localized. Feel free to archive this.

As an additional note though, I think we should change the CS so that incivility can be addressed with a coop; the existing system, as others have pointed out, doesn't seem very effective. -- Goatspeed. 22:56, 25 March 2021 (UTC)


 * OK. Why not withdraw your coop case. If no one objects, we can be done with it. I imagine GC will take some time off and rest up for all the work in front of 'em.UncleKrampus (talk) 23:18, 25 March 2021 (UTC)
 * I'm just waiting for closure on my explanation, as some have made some pretty serious accusations by comparing me to HBC and drive-by concern trolls, which did not sit well with me after all I've done for this site over the past two and a half years. People need to stop jumping to huge conclusions with only circumstantial proof. -- Goatspeed. 23:23, 25 March 2021 (UTC)
 * "Comparing" is an exaggeration, all I said was that you were catering to that IP user because they were calling for me I and GC to have a Chicken Coop while claiming that we were the worst thing that ever happened to RationalWiki. And, I was not specifically talking about you, I assumed multiple people were on this Chicken Coop with all the gossiping surrounding GC at the time. MarioSuperstar77 (talk) 23:32, 25 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Anyhow, it is getting late, if you ever bother to reply, don't expect a response. I'll try not to come back here for now as I promised to myself yesterday. MarioSuperstar77 (talk) 23:33, 25 March 2021 (UTC)

Archive this shit
GC needs to understand there are firm boundaries for his continued participation here, but the key issue of the dividing line between acceptable / unacceptable ways of talking about self-harm / suicide / personal crisis is a Community Standards matter, and should be discussed, and eventually codified, there. Helena Bonham Carter (talk) 23:20, 25 March 2021 (UTC)
 * I couldn't agree more. Spud (talk) 23:33, 25 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Also agree, nothing good will come of this, GC has decided to leave of his own accord. Just end it. Christopher (talk) 23:36, 25 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Alrighty then, since closing this doesn't seem too controversial...