RationalWiki talk:Community Standards/Archive7

The unwritten rule
Should be an unwritten rule. MC can go fuck himself - signed the community. Ace wins! Acei9 15:08, 20 June 2010 (UTC)
 * I make joek: "86 the bastid!".  Actually, I don't care, but apparently he really pisses some people off.  01:46, 21 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Hear! Hear! 15:09, 20 June 2010 (UTC) TerrySmall.png [[Image:Toast s.png|alt=Toast|text-bottom|20px|link=User talk:SusanG]]
 * I feel a duddn urge to support New Zealand in the world cup. ConcernedResident  omg ponies!!! 15:10, 20 June 2010 (UTC)
 * A draw so far but I might go to bed, 3:11am on a Monday morning. Acei9 15:11, 20 June 2010 (UTC)
 * It's a draw, which to NZ is a win, and to Italy a "oh my giddy aunt" ConcernedResident  omg ponies!!! 18:21, 20 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Indeed. The US beat the UK 1 to 1, after all. Humiliated them, in fact. 'Twas a conservative Christian landslide!  01:48, 21 June 2010 (UTC)

Not really, he is violation of the RationalWiki:Community_Standards section, he does not need his own set of rules. However that said, we have ways of dealing with administrative abuse, but have no rules for dealing with conduct breaches. 02:03, 21 June 2010 (UTC)
 * What I recommend is changing Admin Abuse to something more general (I think it's just called Abuse Desk on Wikipedia & other wikis) so that the same process can be used to deal with any persistent troublemakers, regardless of whether they've technically abused admin abilities.  17:52, 21 June 2010 (UTC)
 * I agree. I also nominate adding Lumenos to Ace's OP.  03:00, 22 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Pardon me Sir, but am I speaking with a Dr. Heckle or a Mr. Jive? =) Lumenos (talk) 06:42, 22 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Weasel's idea makes a lot of sense. Adminship isn't exactly what it would be at other sites, and arsing about is arsing about regardless as to the methods used. Yup, let's make a more general abuse desk thing. ConcernedResident  omg ponies!!! 17:25, 22 June 2010 (UTC)
 * I don't know what you mean or if you are replying to me. Do you feel I have been abusive? Lumenos (talk) 18:57, 22 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Nah, I was responding to Weasel. He rocks! ConcernedResident  omg ponies!!! 19:06, 22 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Glad I asked! (elaborations) Lumenos (talk) 19:12, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

@CR and Die Wiesel, shall we hie on over to the admin abuse talk page and suggest moving it to something like abuse desk, or something more RationalWikian, ideally? 00:41, 24 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Make it so.  07:40, 24 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Damn I suck at being Poor Ed. Done as I suggested.  03:55, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

Proposal: Vote on enforcement policies (for Gerard, etc)
David Gerard does a lot of mainspace editing. Me thinks you don't want to deter this behaviour. There are now disputes among the LJ about what to do about him:


 * 05:56, 7 August 2010 Human (Talk | contribs | block) changed group membership for User:David Gerard from Bureaucrats and Sysops to (none) ? (Abuse. Will be returned to sysop in 24 hours, bureaucrat probably never.)
 * 1) (show/hide) 13:16, 7 August 2010 Ace McWicked (Talk | contribs | block) changed group membership for User:David Gerard from Sysops to Sysops and Bureaucrats ? (Human decratted unilaterally but David Gerard never abused said rights)
 * 2) (show/hide) 06:20, 7 August 2010 Ace McWicked (Talk | contribs | block) changed group membership for User:David Gerard from (none) to Sysops ?

Human's unilateral decision to undo a unilateral decision is met with a unilateral undoing. What I would suggest instead, is to use the energy of these sorts of conflicts to inspire discussion as to general principles, make policy proposals, vote on them and implement the popular ones. Is this sort of solution wildly unpopular among this community? What better way is there to resolve conflicts?

One of the "problems" is that when policies uses vague terms like "harassment", it could be abused. So avoid ambiguous terms like that and describe "trolling" using the most specific and accurate terms you can (ie not "trolling", "harassment", etc; unless these are linked to clear definitions). ~ Lumenos (talk) (other talk pages: LI1, LI2, WP) 22:17, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

Proposals: Policies for bureaucrats
Some proposals for ways bureaucrats may loose their cratship:


 * Claiming they know who anonymous editors are, without evidence. ~ Lumenos 22:22, 8 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Deleting comments without citing a popular policy, in the edit history, when comment is deleted (unless it is a privacy issue, in which case comments "should" be oversighted, although this may result in Streisand effect anyway so I'm not really recommending it). ~ Lumenos 22:22, 8 August 2010 (UTC)
 * I'd expand the first one to include "Blocking a user for using a shared IP or proxy." Which has to do with the Occasionaluse kerfuffle. 23:45, 8 August 2010 (UTC)
 * I'll use the revamp boxes so anyone can edit the contents.
 * It seems that policies for open proxies should not be the same as policies for other "shared IP's". A "shared IP" may be someone's only way of connecting to RW, but anonymous proxies such as Tor are different because anyone who uses these has the option of not using them.
 * "Shared IP" is ambiguous. I would guess most of us use Internet access providers that shuffle our IP addresses around. I guess that IAPs may assign the same IP address to two RationalWikians, but I would think this would be unlikely unless many RW use a small ISP or the ISP operators did so intentionally. I don't really know. Other types of "shared IP's" would be connection of a school, employer, open wireless router (of a home, cafe', mall, airport, etc). ~ Lumenos (talk) (other talk pages: LI1, LI2, WP) 03:48, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

Proposal: Vote on bureaucrats
Pi claims RW mostly votes on bureaucrats and Human claims that they only pretend to. I propose we vote on bureaucrats, leave polls open always, in a location where they can be easily found, so that editors may add or change their votes at any time. ~ Lumenos (talk) (other talk pages: LI1, LI2, WP) 22:46, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

Proposal: Allow fundraising to develop RationalWiki
I contend that the anonymous proposal outlined above is inherently stupid. No further action. 18:25, 20 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Much though I find it hilarious, I don't think it is very practical or workable. 19:17, 20 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Sorry Weaeloid, me again.
 * Not workable? Perhaps it is not so popular that it should appear on the Community Standard page, but since our userpage is our castle, are we not allow to put PayPal link? Or link to affiliate programs? I guess we should just try and see. I don't think it unreasonable that a donor may wish to direct funds to specific issue, project, etc. I hear those science majors are loaded! ~ Lumenos talkpage 03:36, 21 August 2010 (UTC)
 * I don't like the idea of editors receiving private donations for contributions, if you want to support RationalWiki financially that is what the foundation is for. 09:19, 27 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Some editors are more rational than others. These represent the more RationalWiki. Sponsors may be more interested in the potential of this wiki rather than its current state. This allows them to find something about the wiki they like, and donate to that specifically. Otherwise we can never rise above mediocrity, on the wings of discriminatory financing! ~ Lumenos (talk) 10:56, 27 August 2010 (UTC)
 * How much would I have to pay you never to edit here again? 11:06, 27 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Somewhere, there's a number. Currently, it is less than $24,000 and more than $420. I should ponder this carefully in my study. ~ Lumenos (talk) 21:30, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Is this the case?

 * [This section was relocated from June 2010 Revamp by Lumenos, because it makes no clear proposals.]

Hi, I haven't posted since I started the Libertarian debate but have been prowling about ever since, mainly keeping up with the WIGO pages and making the ocassional IP comment.

I'd be interested in knowing how far these Standards work, and how much they are followed. Let me premise my inquiry by stating that the spirit of this document is wonderfully Libertarian in every way, instead of a 'rulebook' you have a list of standards that members of the community consider to be the spirit of the law, as opposed to the law. In otherwords it is not a list of rules, but rather a set of aspirations. That is commendable.

What I've picked from this site is that it doesn't take itself terribly seriously. This of course is a positive, as there is nothing more irritating than a website filled with pretentious nonsense, aiming to 'change the world', as it were.

So I've decided to run through the relevent articles and enquire as to whether they actually apply, whether they actually work, and whether they are actually followed. This is merely an idle curiosity (Spurred by what I consider to be an essentially Libertarian value - placing aspiration above conformity) and I hope you may indulge me.

MISSION For a start your mission statement is admirable, but I don't see how this website refutes the anti science movement (Though i have read some decent articles to this effect) Furthermore, judging by the candour and behaviour of many of the users here, I find it hard to stomach that this website refutes and explores authoritarianism - my experiences from the Libertarian debate would seem to illustrate a decidely authoritarian tendancy amongst the users here, namely the belittling of opponents and an adversion to reasoned argument. In fact I would go so far as to say that childish sarcasm at times trumped the steady intellectual fervour of many of the users here. Another thing I've noted from the recent changes is a tendancy for excessive blocks, reversions and altering of edits - is there a particular reason/exception or is this the norm?


 * REPLY - The recent changes reverts is because of us dealing with a particularly persistent troll - User:MarcusCicero - who caused significant amounts of trouble for this site until we finally got our act together and blocked him. Because we make a point of not using range blocks, however, it's easy for him to circumvent this and carry on trolling. We respond to his trolling in the way we consider best - by reverting and ignoring. As for the authoritarian tendencies, one counter-example springs to mind; we lost a good user (who was ideologically in-line with this site) because we wouldn't let him block a anti-abortionist with whom he was arguing. EddyP (talk) 20:17, 25 June 2010 (UTC)
 * REPLY TO THE REPLY AS REPLIED - Well that makes sense. What makes him a troll out of interest? Is he a vandal? I think its perfectly acceptable to use knee jerk powers to deal with a persistent troublemaker. Does he vandal pages? Good for him that he's gone. There's no room for vandals, in a Libertarian system or otherwise. Libertarian1 (talk) 20:20, 25 June 2010 (UTC)
 * REPLY TO THE REPLY AS REPLIED AS REPLIED (?) - I always made a point of not getting involved with MC, but I remember when he logged on as his 'brother' apologising for his troublemaking and stating that it was due to severe mental illness. That didn't go down too well. Then he just caused more arguments and eventually just started vandalising, and he was blocked for good. He should have been blocked much sooner, but he's had more chances than a cat has lives. EddyP (talk) 20:26, 25 June 2010 (UTC)
 * I don't want to get into something I don't know anything about, but I will say that grown adults should be able to handle a bit of abuse without violating all of their rules in the process. But then again, I'm a Libertarian, and you are not. Libertarian1 (talk) 00:29, 26 June 2010 (UTC)
 * We're talking about a case in which someone adds nothing to the site and appears just to be a troll and a shithead. I don't think any site would put up with someone whose sole contribution is a constant "fuck you, dickheads!" People like that get banned. We probably kept the little fuck too long as it is, due to a "we're not CP" mentality, ignoring the fact that quite a few of CP's blocks actually are justified. DickTurpis (talk) 10:28, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

POINT OF VIEW I openly question the vitality and comic effect of 'snarky point of view', as often this fails to hit the mark, but most of the time it is most ungentlemanly and even verges to all out mockery of the opposition side, without even a hint of self deprecation (IE, the possibility you may be wrong) or open mindedness. I appreciate that this may not be the standard behaviour of users here, but from my personal experience, SPOV tends to mean bullying.
 * I admit sometimes the site goes too much to the mockery and not enough to the refutation. I try for the latter, in general, though there are plenty of times when we're dealing with such idiocy and shit which has been dealt with so many times before that mockery is about all you can do. DickTurpis (talk) 00:57, 26 June 2010 (UTC)
 * I once read on a website that said "[a]s a psychic medium, I talked with a Reptilian alien who called himself Dilmun". What am I suppose to do with that? Refuting that is insulting to both me and the reader, I just used it as an example to show how stupid this woman was. 01:02, 26 June 2010 (UTC)
 * How would we know it isn't a metaphor or something otherwise non-literal? Lumenos (talk) 00:08, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

HOW RATIONALWIKI IS RUN I find it hard to believe that this place is a mobocracy. In fact, the creation of the Loya Jirga would seem to contradict this. How can something be a mobocracy if its governed by a council of 8? From much of what I've read there certainly is a mob mentality here, but that is certainly not a compliment! I would appreciate clarification on this matter.
 * REPLY RW is not run by the LJ, they will only step in on occasions where there is a HCM occurring that threatens to take over the site. They have no special powers unless they are specifically called upon.  They have only been used once since their inception. --DamoHi 20:57, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

CONDUCT Many members violate the good conduct standards as mentioned, and I wonder what the point is in having these guidelines if nobody follows them?

PRIVACY This is a good idea considering you are essentially here to mock and ridicule conservapedia. Its nice to have an aspiration to not bring public ridicule to private persecution. This is to be commended.


 * The bit here about Conservapedia is a common mistake; the site doesn't focus on CP much at all anymore, no less revolve around it. It's something a large, nostalgic sideshow now. (And anyway, it's a bit of a non-sequitur, though I see what you mean.) 22:15, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

USER RIGHTS Do they exist? I see no evidence to support any of the assertions made in this article.


 * They exist as written. Nobody has edited your userpage, nobody has renamed you. You were made a sysop and then promoted by request. Seems to cover the lot. 00:24, 26 June 2010 (UTC)


 * This (I can't link it for some reason, but I found it on RC) would seem to contradict you. Seriously, it took me 5 seconds to find something which contradicts these rules. Libertarian1 (talk) 00:27, 26 June 2010 (UTC)


 * It doesn't say in the user rights "don't make articles ridiculing users". Marcus tends to bring these things on himself. As a Libertarian I thought you would enjoy the lawlessness of this approach. To be honest you need balls of steal or titanium to edit here sometimes. All joking aside if you want to make a change to the community standards do one of those side-by-side things above, with the current text, your proposed text and we will discuss and edit. 00:34, 26 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Did you read the article in question? Its talking about mucking about with his edits. Essentially thats deliberate misrepresentation and a particularly pernicious brand of censorship. But this is just an example. I don't wish to change the standards, I'm merely interrogating whether they are followed, in what cases they are followed, and if they are not followed, I'm curious to know why. Libertarian1 (talk) 00:36, 26 June 2010 (UTC)
 * If you don't want to change them this is not really the venue, unless you want to change them to put some enforcement mechanism in. In which case that brings us back to the, which are essentially an enforcement mechanism. We are currently looking at whether to extended the RationalWiki:Admin Abuse to cover conduct violation. As for that article, it is in fun space rather than project space, meaning it is far from official policy. 00:42, 26 June 2010 (UTC)
 * I was about to say basically the same thing. It isn't policy, it's sort of a joke, and it was just written today (with one edit). It is also controversial, and not widely accepted. DickTurpis (talk) 00:51, 26 June 2010 (UTC)
 * And it probably won't be there by tomorrow... 01:59, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

DEALING WITH VANDALISM The vandal bin to me doesn't seem like a good idea. Why not just use permanant blocks on vandals instead? Much more efficient.
 * The vandal bin gives them a chance add something, refute their block, etc. yet still prevents them from doing real damage. It's a little less harsh than a block, which we do in general try to avoid. DickTurpis (talk) 00:59, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

So yeah, thats pretty much it. I enjoy lurking on rationalwiki and reading some of your WIGO pages. I feel that I have a good understanding about how this community operates. I would enjoy a good tempered discussion, and please don't take offence to my dissection of your primary site document :) Libertarian1 (talk) 20:03, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

Sir, if I may remind you, this is not a place to discuss improper behaviour. I believe this section has strayed severely from the stated mission of the revamp, and therefore I propose it be relocated to the gentleman's user space, or somewhere pertaining to abuse reporting. As to his allegations, I have politely replied on the talk page. ~Lumenos (talk) 09:01, 28 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Not really, he is not continuing arguing for an unpopular proposal the way you were. Normally we move long arguments to forums or debates anyway. 10:04, 28 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Replying off wiki is so irrelevant as not to be even funny. Lumenos, please understand.  Your Lumiwikinode is not a part of this site and no one cares what you write there.  09:23, 29 June 2010 (UTC)
 * So it's like pretty serious? :P We have problem. This section is listed in the table of contents, under "Revamp, June 2010", but it is not a part of a the revamp. I propose to create a subpage at RationalWiki_talk:Community_Standards/talk and move this section there.
 * This is due to Pi creating a L1 heading for the revamp section. I will create another L1 heading at the bottom of this page so that those creating new sections can choose whether to put the section in the revamp or not.
 * I think we should put big letters with a link to RationalWiki_talk:Community_Standards/talk, or move the revamps to subpage so that one page/section can be devoted to current standards or policy proposals. Some proposals might also be moved to the "talk subpage" for various reasons. ~ Lumenos 20:53, 9 August 2010 (UTC)
 * For now I'm attempting to move this section to the bottom of the talkpage where it is out of the revamp section. ~ Lumenos talkpage 17:41, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

Proposal that censorship have sitewide limit

 * I wrote the version of this proposal that was here at this time. Others are welcome to alter this proposal in the boxes above. ~ Lumenos (talk) 10:07, 27 August 2010 (UTC)
 * [[image:Facepalm.png]] 10:12, 27 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Oh my. Virtually all reverts are vandalism. I never knew. 09:28, 28 August 2010 (UTC)
 * The proposal clearly states it is not finished. I intend to edit it until it is or I loose interest (because it is moved to seemingly unpopular page). Can't we change the proposal in the box ~ Lumenos (talk) 18:49, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

Vote to rename vandal bin since it isn't used for vandals (only)
The vandal bin is used on those who are not vandals. Here you may vote for a new name for the vandal bin or suggest another name. ~ Lumenaid (talk) 02:30, 11 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Wow, nice citation. You really made your point.   02:42, 11 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Upon reviewing the log, I've concluded that that the usage of the vandal bin for other purposes were undone. ~ Lumenos (talk) 21:53, 11 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Naughty crib:
 * yea ~ Lumenaid (talk) 02:30, 11 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Autoblock:


 * Autoblocker:

Suggested discussion area
Why do you do these things, Lumenos? 03:14, 11 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Trying to make us less hypocritical, if possible. I like the idea of democratic rule by law, although I've found it has it's limitations. I don't know why I'm not yet met with more agreement on this issue. I suspect people might try for a moment to think of a way that they are blocking "trolls" for a different reason than the Shaflervapedians, but then find this is too difficult to codify for some reason. Or maybe they just see it as us-verses-them rather than good verses bad? ~ Lumenaid (talk) 04:21, 11 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Misread the vandal log. I'm withdrawing/archiving the proposal, for the moment. ~ Lumenos (talk) 22:34, 11 December 2010 (UTC)