RationalWiki:Saloon bar/Archive105

History of Physics
There was a time when the wisest men thought physics was roughly figured out. Yet they could not explain consciousness. Applying rationality and Occam's razor, does this not mean the smartest men are not conscious? --85.78.55.247 (talk) 22:12, 22 May 2011 (UTC)
 * That doesn't sound like physics.  22:28, 22 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I had to come up with a title. --85.78.55.247 (talk) 22:35, 22 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Doesn't sound like Occam's razor neither. Can you rephrase your argument or joke or whatever it's supposed to be to make more sense?   22:39, 22 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Sounds weird to me. And we still cannot explain consciousness.  Second request that it be reworded so that it makes sense. --BobSpring is sprung! 19:37, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

So I made a thingy.
Vaguely inspired by Saloon Bar chitchat, I give you www.superinjunctions.org. Tweet, digg, post on facebook or do whatever it is you kids do these days. Probably heroin. -- 06:39, 23 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Look what I managed to get after a couple of clicks:

Imogen Thomas married Ryan Giggs in the privy chambers
 * So close to the actual truth. Crundy Talk nerdy to me 08:03, 23 May 2011 (UTC)


 * (laughing) --UnicornTapestry (talk) 08:13, 23 May 2011 (UTC)


 * P.Z. Myers bested Andrew Orlowski in a black cab -- CS Miller (talk) 08:23, 23 May 2011 (UTC)
 * On a side note, how did you get the code for the twitter integration? Have you got a link to the usage on twitter's website? I've been trying to get something similar working for a website I'm working on but the OpenAuth change buggered it up. Crundy Talk nerdy to me 08:39, 23 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Nvm, I found how you made your button. Unfortunatly I'm trying to get some server side code to automatically tweet when a new record is inserted into the database. E.g. when an admin adds an article a tweet is posted from the site account saying "New article: Some Article Title http://bit.ly/fUCrundy Talk nerdy to me 09:33, 23 May 2011 (UTC)
 * 10/10 Jeeves, although Rowan Williams breastfeeding Elton John is an image I could do without. --Scream!! (talk) 09:37, 23 May 2011 (UTC)
 * BTW, Jeeves, there's only one "g" in ogle. --Scream!! (talk) 10:36, 23 May 2011 (UTC)
 * "Carrie Underwood ensorceled Kirk Cameron in the Welsh valleys" Ha! Ha! Ha! --OompaLoompa (talk) 11:36, 23 May 2011 (UTC)
 * "Ray Comfort swabbed Ken Ham in the locker room".  Lily Inspirate me. 13:54, 23 May 2011 (UTC)
 * P.S. It's Michael not Micheal Owen .  Lily Inspirate me. 14:34, 23 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Charlie Sheen grasped Jemima Khan in the Welsh valleys. Nutty Roux (talk) 14:00, 23 May 2011 (UTC)
 * We know sheen did that hah. [Prince Harry slapped Vincent Cable in a public toilet] that would be AWESOME Ancient Greek Pegasus icon.png 14:39, 23 May 2011 (UTC)
 * AND SHE LIKED IT! Ancient Greek Pegasus icon.png 14:41, 23 May 2011 (UTC)
 * "Ray Comfort wooed Richard Dawkins in a parallel universe." Real first name and last initialTalk, talk, talk skim my contributions 19:09, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

Checkuser
Can I just ask (since I may have missed it), when did the RationalWiki community ok the installation and use of Checkuser? Was there a discussion somewhere or a vote? Bondurant (talk) 08:24, 23 May 2011 (UTC)
 * There was no vote, but there should have been. DamoHi 08:30, 23 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Definitely. Where the hell did that come from? Röstigraben (talk) 08:32, 23 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Eira's accusations that I'm a troll and User:Mark Antony is my "blatantly obvious" sock. -- Nx  / talk 08:38, 23 May 2011 (UTC)
 * (EC)I'm not sure that it definitely is installed, but there is a user group called check users. I remember discussions going back years mainly on talk CP about their use of Checkuser, and there was pretty much unanimous opposition to it ever being installed on RW. People were very uneasy about it. Even if Nx is just joking by having a fake category called check users, then it's a pretty bad joke. Bondurant (talk) 08:39, 23 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Nx, are you so thin-skinned about being called a sock of MC that you decided unilaterally to implement something that you must have known would piss off so many other people? Bondurant (talk) 08:43, 23 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Nx has definitely overstepped the mark here.It's been a longstanding situation thast RW does NOT use checkuser. Installing it to show his own dentity is disgusting! Whatever else it should be removed forthwith!! --Scream!! (talk) 08:46, 23 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Oh dear. Chicken coop in 3, 2, 1... Crundy Talk nerdy to me 08:50, 23 May 2011 (UTC)
 * That could hopefully be avoided if Nx removes it immediately. Bondurant (talk) 08:58, 23 May 2011 (UTC)
 * This is beyond Chicken Coop. Two people AFAIK have server access & one of them uses it for his own ends. Disgusting! --Scream!! (talk) 08:59, 23 May 2011 (UTC)
 * It is a huge abuse of trust to install checkuser. Maybe I'm being naive to hope that it was installed relatively innocently by someone who didn't realise the ruckus it'd cause. There have been too many HCM's recently... Bondurant (talk) 09:31, 23 May 2011 (UTC)
 * He's actually the person who deleted all the user rights in the Saloon Bar Putsch. He was reasonably aware of the consequences of his actions, and should be held accountable fully for his actions. -- 09:37, 23 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Accountable for my actions? On RW? You must be joking. Come on, we're all just having fun here. -- Nx  / talk 09:39, 23 May 2011 (UTC)
 * And so why did you get so offended as to install CheckUser and open up access over a stupid joke about sockpuppetry? Seriously, I think thou dost protest too much! -- 09:43, 23 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Some things are beyond the pale! --Scream!! (talk) 09:47, 23 May 2011 (UTC)
 * "Just having fun" - rather like someone might say when they drop a hand grenade on someone coming at them with a stick. Remove it! --Scream!! (talk) 09:49, 23 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Check user was/is indeed installed, I have refused to use it, however Nx has used it on himself and Mark Antony as well as a few IPs that were likely discovered from running those check users. Nx had no authorization from the community nor the foundation to install check user. And as noted, this is an issue beyond the chicken coop, as there is no way to enforce any actions at all against someone with server access. -- 09:36, 23 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Weren't you just telling us how the foundation has no on-Wiki authority the last time you were abusing your own rights? --67.159.5.242 (talk) 12:00, 23 May 2011 (UTC)
 * The RWF has no political wiki authority, yes. However, the RWF controls what hardware and software the wiki uses, as that is administrative process. That the Trustees have an interest in the application of the RWF's property should be readily apparent to anyone with any understand of what "fiduciary responsibility" means.
 * And what the fuck is up with this "abused your own rights" crap, I exerted no wiki rights in my edit war with Kels, I blocked one single BoN for an hour for personal attacks (sysop rights only), and blocked an editor for less than 5 minutes while I cleaned up personal attacks on RWW (of which, the RWF is seeking to sell control to Goonie). After which, Goonie came in and deleted the remarks in their entirety for being abusive. Let's call things like they really are: I took an action, and you disagreed with that action. There was no "abuse" involved, as they were all applied inline with site guidelines, policies, and traditions. -- 12:53, 23 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Let's not forget removing a user's rights while you went about your whitewash. You forgot to mention that abuse. Oh yes, I wish to protest that Rationalwikiwiki's articles on Human, SusanG and TK, to name three are also attack articles and need to be deleted or cleaned up. RWW is not an attack site, but those articles prove that statement to be false. Certainly, if what was said about Eira was an "attack" then those artciles also fall foul of the definition.
 * And calling people socks is as bad as calling them trolls and certainly isn't a joke. --41.132.53.168 (talk) 13:08, 23 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm sorry, but did you miss the part where I said that I blocked an editor for less than 5 minutes while I cleaned up personal attacks on RWW? Because I could have sworn that was in my post. So... yes, I did cover that. Again, not even the people touting signs telling me that I'm abusive can be as pedantically accurate about what I did wrong as I am... wtf? -- 13:38, 23 May 2011 (UTC)
 * 5 minutes? Let's call it one hour shall we? And you deliberately demoted a user to make it stick. --41.132.53.168 (talk) 13:45, 23 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Oh, sorry, the logs don't lie... 9 minutes. (Check the second block, it ended the block, at 11:53, when it started at 11:44.) -- 15:01, 23 May 2011 (UTC)
 * There are 2 users with Check User rights; they are Nx and Eira. The rights were granted by Nx at 23 May 2011 07:38 (server time). There is no way for a mere mortal like me to see who has used it, let alone who was checked. CS Miller (talk) 09:38, 23 May 2011 (UTC)
 * The CheckUser extension is not listed at, and Nx removed his and Eira's CheckUser rights. CS Miller (talk) 09:54, 23 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Then the matter should be closed then. Smileyface. Bondurant (talk) 09:57, 23 May 2011 (UTC)
 * It was there, Nx has removed it. Bloody stupid thing to do, installing it, that is. --Scream!! (talk) 10:01, 23 May 2011 (UTC)
 * The black helicopters are on the way. --85.78.55.247 (talk) 10:38, 23 May 2011 (UTC)
 * This is a thundering disgrace and the first sign of a major transfer of community power to Nx and his sycophants. We must condemn Nx most heartily and demand he recant his past transgressions, and he should plead for forgiveness from the RW community. Perhaps then we can work a solution to this creeping authoritarianism that threatens to destroy this site and everything it once stood for. Nx must be held to account, and punished according to the ancient law. MarcusCicero (talk) 12:52, 23 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I have to say that I agree (a bit). Checkuser is just a no-no; after four years railing at CP's use of it we cannot let it be installed here. I have a hight regard for Nx but this was a gross error of judgement and he deserves to have his botty smacked.  Lily Inspirate me. 13:11, 23 May 2011 (UTC)
 * As great as it is to have someone toil away on cheap wiki tricks and glitter, it's not worth the abuses. Yank Nx's server access STAT. Occasionaluse (talk) 13:11, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

Not having checkuser wasn't even an anti-CP thing - we had it for a short time, and a few of us used it a couple times, and it felt so creepy it was pretty unanimous to get rid of it. So we did. 15:50, 23 May 2011 (UTC)
 * [randomly tacking on my reply here - it's global and not in reply to Human's post] I like how some of the biggest asshats and trolls suddenly claim moral high ground here and pretend that this happened in a complete vacuum and isn't a byproduct of the HCM of the last few weeks that they merrily fueled. "PUNISH HIM! PUNISH HIM! What, me? Why, I didn't do anything... I mean well, and whatever bad thing I may have done was purely in jest, so it can't possibly count..." --Sid (talk) 17:05, 23 May 2011 (UTC)
 * And that, as the 4chan and ED kiddies say, is why RW now has AIDS. Nutty Roux (talk) 17:08, 23 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I hate to admit it, but you really have to be more specific about which group of asshats and trolls you're talk about... considering all sides of every issue have been calling the other sides asshats and trolls... -- 17:10, 23 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I am an asshat and always will be. Nutty Roux (talk) 17:16, 23 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Calm down dears, it's only a case of Nx installing checkuser, giving only one other person access, using it to prove what he said, then promptly removing it. It is miles away from a CP style "checkuser everyone and give them an I know where you live."  20:12, 23 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Seems it would have been a good idea to discuss this first, as some people clearly have strong feelings about this. But I generally agree with Delta. I'm much more concerned about the abuse of checkuser than its very existence. TrickyDickTurpis (talk) 01:16, 24 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Nx didn't prove anything except his willingness to use server access for personal ends. I suspect he knows how to use a proxy for a sockpuppet if he wanted to.  01:29, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

Funny solution
How about instead of banning anonymous edits like some wikis do you ban LOGGED IN edits instead?? lol that way no one can hide their ip at all and you dont ever need the chekcuser thing 12:56, 23 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I like your modest proposal. -- 13:00, 23 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Support. --85.78.55.247 (talk) 13:28, 23 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Agree 127.0.0.1 (talk ) 16:02, 23 May 2011 (UTC)
 * An intriguing suggestion, allow me to build up on it: We disallow logged-in edits, but route all edits through a single RW proxy server that doesn't keep logs so all edits on RW are done by the same IP! =D --Sid (talk) 17:08, 23 May 2011 (UTC)
 * That would actually be quite interesting! NDSP 17:17, 23 May 2011 (UTC)
 * It would FORCE people to log in to do wandalism, since the lowest block (currently) would end up being a block only to valued contributors. 17:24, 23 May 2011 (UTC) C ® ackeЯ
 * I approve of your comments and am desperate to subscribe to your newsletter! 01:30, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

No Rapture? Let's jump off a bridge to celebrate!
Some teenagers decided to celebrate the world not endin on Saturday by jumping off a bridge. One couldn't swim, and presumably drowned.

I don't think it's fair to blame this on Camping, because this is really just high grade human stupidity, borderline Darwin Award territory. MDB (talk) 11:48, 23 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I wouldn't say it's borderline; this is classic Darwin Awards material. Concernedresident  omg!!! ponies!!! 23:15, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

Cameron does a Schlafly
David Cameron (he's the UK PM for you yanks) has claimed JC as his role model ... or something ... --Scream!! (talk) 13:07, 23 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Can we crucify him, then? -- 13:37, 23 May 2011 (UTC)
 * ALL HAIL SAINT CAMERON!! lol Ancient Greek Pegasus icon.png 13:59, 23 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Presumably it's only a matter of time before Cameron gives away all of his money. I believe Jesus was rather insistent on that matter. Concernedresident  omg!!! ponies!!! 20:10, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

Fucking media
A mother wants to forgo her daughter's treatment by actual doctors in favor of holistic practitioners. They could have done this story better. Now, people will be all "health freedom" and "big government."-- 13:17, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

Leader of the free world defeated by speed bump
Snork. -- 15:58, 23 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Pretty funny, but I hope someone's head rolled for the snafu. Occasionaluse (talk) 16:05, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

Why in the holy fuck....
... Is Sarah Palin still on TV? Jebus, she's dumber than a bag of hammers. "Oh, I like him! He's not a politician, he knows how to make a good pizza!" Jebus fucking wept. Why would anyone value this woman's opinion on anything? There's something deeply, deeply wrong with this picture. -- 16:50, 23 May 2011 (UTC)
 * TL;DW. But what I found so wrong is the interviewer. I mean, FFS. America! WTF? Ajkgordon (talk) 17:50, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

Project?
I seem to remember a discussion about getting a project together to try and nurse the wiki back to health. It must be in the archives now, so I'm trying to bring it back. Does anyone have any ideas for a wiki project? One that wouldn't give much cause for argument? 19:35, 23 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Expand the CAM section of the site. ТyUser_talk:Ty 19:39, 23 May 2011 (UTC)
 * {ec}I've started an article on Osteopathy, but I'm in way over my head. It's actually a very wide scope.  Osteopathy is responsible for all kinds of bullshit (Craniosacral therapy)and certain questionable practices (Chiropractic), and in the United States, a doctor of osteopathy can prescribe medication and diagnose just like an MD.  Help would be nice.--
 * I made a stub for this goldmine. Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 19:44, 23 May 2011 (UTC)
 * TODO
 * RationalWiki:Encyclopedia of American Loons
 * Special:WantedPages
 * RationalWiki:Article-a-Week Club
 * RationalWiki:Project Citation Found
 * User:Toast/Countries

Etc., etc. --ZooGuard (talk) 19:48, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

I remember the 2008 election here. I think the 2012 season will be very good for us, at least for Murkans and other interested forners. 03:25, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

French rw

 * I just started on the french section.-- 19:54, 23 May 2011 (UTC)
 * the mugabe article is finished (HERE). What do I do with it?--  20:58, 23 May 2011 (UTC)
 * srsly, what do I do with these french articles?-- 22:10, 23 May 2011 (UTC)
 * You'll probably want to look at RationalWiki:Languages, if you haven't already. 22:45, 23 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I'll keep it all where it is for now, if I start moving everything I'll get confused. Besides, I only have, like, four articles.--  23:19, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

I fucking hate everything
Glad I’m a dual citizen and don’t have to claim this fucker as one of my own 00:00, 24 May 2011 (UTC)
 * What a shithead. Some people, particularly some people of political power, just don't get it and have zilch in the compassion department.   01:07, 24 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Do we/can we haz snartikle? 01:53, 24 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Pete DeGraaf just for easy clicking. 01:55, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

Great Comic -- He Must Read CP
Some Guy with a Website. P-Foster (talk) 01:44, 24 May 2011 (UTC)
 * OT, but this reminded me of a great comic: Liberality for All! Starring bionically enhanced Gordon Liddy!
 * What. ТyUser_talk:Ty 01:49, 24 May 2011 (UTC)


 * u guise realize CP is short for child pornography, right? So when you say "He must read CP," well...--  01:50, 24 May 2011 (UTC)
 * The above two have to be the two best talk page comments I've ever read on RW. 02:58, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

Camping on the radio
He is only letting sycophants on. Not really surprising, but it would have been awesome to hear some angry (and broke) people ring in. --DamoHi 00:40, 24 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Its insane. Tmtoulouse (talk) 00:41, 24 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Sounds like someone's typing or popping bubblewrap in the background. Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 00:44, 24 May 2011 (UTC)
 * No one is calling? Its a press conference, atleast what i am listening too. Tmtoulouse (talk) 00:47, 24 May 2011 (UTC)
 * What are you listening to? I am getting a call in show.  --DamoHi 00:49, 24 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Just went to the listen live link off the website. He is doing a monolog at the moment thats rambling and insane,he is hinting that the world will end on oct 21. He is going to keep rolling with this. But he is all over the place, just rambling nearly incoherent. Tmtoulouse (talk) 00:50, 24 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Yeah, it's not call-in, at least right now. Also something about the world ending in 1988, in addition to Oct. 21. I have no idea what the hell he's talking about. Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 00:52, 24 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Ah got it, I was listening to an archive show. --DamoHi 00:53, 24 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Its getting uncomfortable to even listen to it. Tmtoulouse (talk) 00:55, 24 May 2011 (UTC)
 * So apparently churches have become tools of Satan and brought the judgment of god upon them...or something? Guy is totally incoherent. Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 00:58, 24 May 2011 (UTC)
 * All right, it's official, Oct. 21, new end of the world! His backpedal: May 21 is just the date god put the world "under judgment." Now there are 5 months to go until the actual Rapture. Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 01:03, 24 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Yah but he is also saying he won't talk about judgement day anymore. So its a weird face saving thing I guess,but he is not really standing by it. Tmtoulouse (talk) 01:05, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

Question time. His answers are golden. Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 01:10, 24 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Despicable, condescending, incoherent, and boring all at once. Tmtoulouse (talk) 01:30, 24 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Now he is ranting about evolution. Using a tornado in a junk yard argument. Tmtoulouse (talk) 01:38, 24 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Now he is refusing to take any responsibility for those who gave away all their possessions. DamoHi 01:54, 24 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I dunno. If you buy into this idiocy I can muster very little sympathy for you. TrickyDickTurpis (talk) 03:04, 24 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Sure, but Camping should at least apologize, or offer to give assistance to those who now have nothing. At one point he said that the people who had given all their possessions away were no different to those who had been made unemployed by the latest recession.  No apology, no understanding, just a prick unwilling to admit he was wrong.  DamoHi 03:08, 24 May 2011 (UTC)
 * It's good of him to arrange these Rapture predictions for days that fall on weekends (21st Oct is on a Friday). That way, we can have another after-the-rapture party without having to suffer the hangover at work the next day. Bondurant (talk) 09:30, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

Seriously...
...can people stop 'cratting MC? Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 04:39, 24 May 2011 (UTC)
 * No. He's been here a long time and has contributed with valor. Nutty Roux (talk) 04:47, 24 May 2011 (UTC)
 * He's been a vandal and a troll. He has gone through several cycles of troll-quiescent-rights-troll, and this is another one.  But whatever, I guess I'll just stop undoing it this time around since someone's just going to do it again, c.f. definition of insanity.-- 04:49, 24 May 2011 (UTC)
 * (ec)Uh, wut? If you consider splashing "aspie virgin fascist authoritarian" across talk pages "valor." Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 04:51, 24 May 2011 (UTC)
 * You would have to be all manner of nuts to give that guy any rights. Just delete his trolls where you see them. -- 04:56, 24 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Nx has just recratted him for "moar" fun, apparently. We let his totally obvious Mark Anthony sock prattle on for a while. I think that's enough. Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 04:58, 24 May 2011 (UTC)
 * What is this crat thin you all speak of? Tmtoulouse (talk) 04:59, 24 May 2011 (UTC)
 * This is insane.  05:01, 24 May 2011 (UTC)
 * This is RATIONALWiki -- Nx  / talk 05:02, 24 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Naw, it is NxIdiotWikiMasturbationSite. !!!! 05:26, 25 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Some of us may be rational but you proved your lunacy by cratting a troll. Peace out.  05:03, 24 May 2011 (UTC)
 * No. Nx was irritated initially, but now he's resigned to taking the whole thing lightly.  It's different from having fun or playing around - a subtle lilt of resentment, I think.  I hope it lifts soon and he starts being the good guy I've always seen him to be.-- 05:08, 24 May 2011 (UTC)
 * More like BrainDamagedWiki at the moment. Seriously...and I do mean, seriously? Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 05:09, 24 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I like Marcus. Hopefully the whole crat bit will soon be nuked anyway, so this doesn't realty matter. 05:21, 24 May 2011 (UTC)
 * (EC) With Trent moving to restructure user rights, we should not "dispute about noises," as C.S. Lewis put it. 05:23, 24 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Whatever toys powerz the new "office" (that used to be "bureaucrat"), I proffer that we call it "troll" both for the lolz and since it makes such damned good sense in this instance. 05:33, 24 May 2011 (UTC) C ® ackeЯ
 * Take it to the coop, get majority vote. --85.78.131.213 (talk) 05:37, 24 May 2011 (UTC)
 * No, boring. Let's just wait until Trent reworks things.-- 05:49, 24 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Trent will fix everything. Thank God for Daddy. Sleep well and cuddles.  05:46, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

Robots!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-13510988 These two little guys are playing language/geography games. --AmazingTechnicolorCheeseWedge (talk) 15:52, 24 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I also love robots doing things! I was cheering along! X Stickman (talk) 21:12, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

PS3 can't handle Duke Nukem 3D
Over the weekend I picked up some cheap ps1 games at a yard sale. Among them were the three Duke Nukem games for the system. I had goofed around a little with them before deciding to do an actual playthrough. I start with Duke Nukem: Total Meltdown, the ps1 port of Duke Nukem 3D. (For the record, the disc is in excellent shape) I'm having fun on the first level and towards the end, things start going buggy and the game freezes. I'm pretty much in awe of the Duke right now. Sure, my ps3 froze a couple of times playing Assassin's Creed Brotherhood, but on a ps1 game, wow.--Thanatos (talk) 01:36, 25 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Ah, Trespasser. It can bring a modern PC to it's knees. What it did when it came out... ТyUser_talk:Ty 01:50, 25 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Yeah... I assume they're using the same method the PS2 did to run PS1 games.  It could get buggy at times.  I bought the FF5&6 thing after I got a PS2, and FF5 would get buggy on the save screen.  Like, I had to memorize the buttons, as it was unreadable.  I assume it's like that on the PS3, but I've never tried it.   03:47, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

Where are we now?


This maybe a bit "too long didn't read" for the internet but there has been a lot of drama the last few days, and hopefully we are making progress on pushing forward with reforms to help ease these issues in the future and conclude the current problems. Not everyone will be happy with every solution, that is an impossible task. However, I want to shift away from the drama a bit to take a look at RW and what we have accomplished so far this year.

First of all, our base traffic has increased by several folds. Last month saw the single largest month of traffic we have ever posted, and this month is on track to equal it or beat it. Our daily traffic now exceeds our total yearly traffic when we first started.

I have uploaded some numbers to look at, as well as our alexa rankings (which for those who find this of interest, 🇰🇪, is equal to or greater than CP).

While some of this traffic is drawn by our more humorous articles such as the tumble weeds or poe’s law a substantial amount of search engine traffic is coming for important on mission articles. We are getting a lot of hits for things like project blue beam, or Desiree Jennings that deals with issues of fraud in the anti-vax groups.

Social networking and book marking sites are regularly linking to us. They are linking to us as an information source, not like CP where its “go look at this insane crap”, but as a “for more information see here.”

The branding RationalWiki is working well. I have had several cordial conversations with NCSE and The Skeptical Inquirer about potentially working together. There is some talk between a few of us about getting a presence at next year’s TAM meeting in Vegas. Our user base has also expanded considerably. LArron’s graphs demonstrate that for everyone. Our increased presence on social networks and increased search engine trust, as well as our rapidly expanding readership means that when people write content here it gets read. And depending on the issue what we say has a direct effect on shaping the dialog about those issues.

RationalWiki is all about empowering the rational community both in bringing us together as a group as well as giving everyone that wants one a platform to educate the world on important topics. And we are getting both creators and consumers of our content. We have had tremendous strides in the organizational efforts of the wiki. We have moved a long way from a box in my apartment that went out every time I put a hot pocket in the toaster oven. We have a great professional grade hosting system setup, and we have raised the financial resources to keeps this going for a year!

In the past few months we have seen the most successful fundraising efforts ever, the largest growth of our community in terms of active editors and editing, as well as a huge expansions of our readership and the spread of our brand. We are doing something good here. Don’t lose heart over the occasional drama that pops up. There is a greater goal that we as a community have and can focus our energy into. Tmtoulouse (talk) 01:40, 18 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I like this. Rationalize (talk) 01:42, 18 May 2011 (UTC)
 * It is nice to know we are actually making a difference. ТyUser_talk:Ty 01:43, 18 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm feeling pretty good about this site. Maybe one day we can parallel Wikipedia as a layman's reference source.  Will our bandwidth capabilities increase, though?  Also, thankyou, Tmtoulouse, for maintaining this site.--Foucault5.jpg-brxbrx 01:46, 18 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Nice. Maybe this will put things in perspective for those a wee bit too wrapped up in site politics. Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 03:12, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

Trent, this is great. Is there any way to publish a list of RW's top 100 or so articles? I've noticed that some of RW's articles are doing fairly well Google-wise. I've been hesitant to say this, because it might be viewed as contrary to stated goals of RW, but I'd love to see RW turn into a science-niche reference site. Doctor Dark (talk) 05:33, 18 May 2011 (UTC)


 * [like thumbs-up] The site politics is puerile, but thankfully irrelevant - David Gerard (talk) 09:04, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

"which for those who find this of interest, ♥ K e n D o l l ♥, is equal to or greater than CP" I know it's old school, but I have randomly checking in on RW vs. CP on Alexa, just for amusement. Haven't for a few months though, since my presence on RW has met with so much hatred I drifted away a bit. But holy shit. You are right. That blue line now defines the existence of the red line, not vice versa. I commented out the gratuitous insults. Thanks for the data, Trent. Now please slow down on the radical rewrite of the site's user structure until the data is in on places like Blue's essay thing about potential changes? 06:12, 18 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I commented out the gratuitous insult. -- Nx  / talk 09:09, 18 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Lol! 03:36, 19 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I want no approve on it, I think polite post! 15:00, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

I'm a bit concerned about our June numbers. Do they drop off so precipitously because of the Rapture? DickTurpis (talk) 13:45, 18 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Like all here, I'm worried about the rapture too, but I'm still making plans for the future, just in case it's all shite. However, as a minor cog here, I'm pleased to see that RW is gaining popularity in the internets. I feel like Spike Milligan, who titled his autobiography "Adolf Hitler: My Part in His Downfall" - him being a private in the British Army during the war. Gomer (talk) 21:20, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

ugh
We still don't have our own TOW article ---brxbrx 01:10, 20 May 2011 (UTC)
 * We did, once.. Real first name and last initialTalk, talk, talk skim my contributions 07:34, 20 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Does anybody have a source citing RW, or discussing RW? Having a Wikipedia article would go a long way into having us established.-Tiberius Gracchus.jpg 00:50, 21 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Been there, done that, got the tee-shirt. Scrounge around WP a bit for the evidence. --Scream!! (talk) 00:53, 21 May 2011 (UTC)
 * But why don't they love us? How is an article on CP more justified than an article on us?--Tiberius Gracchus.jpg 00:58, 21 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Because CP has been written about in newspapers & suchlike. :::: 19:26, 21 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Ghost Hunters was reproduced, with attribution, in Skeptical Inquirer - albeit for its snark value. I think I'm finally seeing the value in de-coupling from CP. I don't suggest that the CP WIGO go away, more that we continue to keep it as just a small part of RW. I've been away a while, and on returning things look pretty good. The fund-raising has been bloody amazing. What works for me here, content wise, is the mixture of theology, science and snark. Concernedresident  omg!!! ponies!!! 18:58, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

Give it up liberals
Trent, you would be best off to just forget about RatWiki ever being considered a credible source. Anyone familiar with RatWiki knows it was originally created as a site to immaturely attack Conservapedia, and that since its creation it has been a no rules wiki with never ending HCMs. When I was still in high school I brought RatWiki to the attention of the IT person for the school district and he agreed that it is perverted and blocked it district wide. Most other sensible school districts would do the same. I explained to him how the site was created to attack CP (also briefly explaining what CP is), and how RW has a number of silly articles containing NSFW/S content, providing undeniable links to the content. Fact is, no matter how hard you try Trent, you can never erase that element from this site unless you tear it down and start completely from scratch. If RW ever becomes well known, it will also be well known that the same people running the site and creating the majority of the content are the same immature people who were starting HCMs and attacking CP. To save your credibility, you might be smart to shut down RW all together. If I were in your position, I wouldn't want my name associated with the immaturity on RatWiki. DMorris2 (talk) 01:49, 24 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Just for an example of how this won't work, take a look at what happened when ED was replaced with Ohinternet. Wasn't the most popular move, was it? DMorris2 (talk) 01:52, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

P-Foster (talk) 01:55, 24 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Oh Internet was a failure because it wasn't Encyclopaedia Dramatica. RationalWiki will remain largely the same, but with some clearer rules for discussion.  Our articles will be the same, they will provide the same information and refutations of pseudoscience while providing our beloved Snarky point of view.--  01:59, 24 May 2011 (UTC)
 * "When I was still in high school I brought RatWiki to the attention of the IT person for the school district and he agreed that it is perverted and blocked it district wide." "Teacher, teacher!! I saw something bad on the Internet! Aren't I so good and smart and clever a boy ??!!?"Jesus, kid, did you tell your Mommy on us too? P-Foster (talk) 02:03, 24 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Thank ye, DM(eyr?)orris! There isn't better advertising available anywhere to teenage kids than to tell them they aren't allowed. You're a genius. 02:06, 24 May 2011 (UTC) C ® ackeЯ
 * Nah, it's not a matter of telling kids they're not allowed (which would be advertising), it's a matter of RW now just being another site in the search engine that says "This site has been blocked." Kids will hit the back button and look for other sites, like Conservapedia which is accessible. DMorris2 (talk) 02:33, 24 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Yah, and the first thing they are going to do when they get access to a regular internet connection is go "gee i wonder what was blocked...." Tmtoulouse (talk) 02:37, 24 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Trent is wrong as usual; I went to the school in question and I happen to know that nobody browsing the web there pulls out a pen and paper and writes down the URL of blocked websites to look at it at home. They just say "stupid webfilter" and move on to the next site listed at Google. It's not like anybody's going to type in Rationalwiki.org from the school, if anything someone would stumble across it on a search engine. DMorris2 (talk) 14:31, 24 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Hey, we might be immature and NSFW, but at least we haven't put up a "hit list" of Senators or called for an armed coup d'etat against the legally-constituted government yet. P-Foster (talk) 02:41, 24 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Some people say that Americans don't get irony but when a pimply teenager starts crowing about how he got RationalWiki blocked from his school while his retarded Conservapedia blocks itself from being seen by half the western world demands a special kind of chutzpah. 12:28, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

Bringing this back on topic
Some of you seem to be more concerned with the webfilter bit and the Oh Internet comparison, but the real issue at hand is that RationalWiki is perverse in the eyes of normal people, and is far from being considered a credible source. The whole reason I pointed out the webfilter bit was to bring your attention to the fact that it's not just me or Conservapedia that consider RatWiki to be perverse. If your dream is to be parallel to Wikipedia, please quit while you are ahead. You are going to fail terribly and will only hurt Wikipedia's name by trying to parallel it. No, RatWiki will never be complimentary to Wikipedia, Trent. Wikipedia has different goals than this mobocracy. DMorris2 (talk) 14:43, 24 May 2011 (UTC)
 * seriously, you gotta explain this "perverse" accusation-- 14:50, 24 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Perverse? D, we're not the ones with a senior sysop with |a predeliction for porn. P-Foster (talk) 14:53, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

I don't see any references to that slander of RobSmith over on the Saloon Bar. RatWiki is perverse because a significant portion of it's membership has a bizarre obsession with members of Conservapedia, and it was created as a think-tank to find more ways to harass members of CP. It also contains perverted jokes and overall childishness. I don't care what you change about this site, that stigma will never vanish. RatWiki is not created by sensible scientists, it is created by a bunch of fools, or at least it is created by people who have no problem with publicly making fools of themselves. DMorris2 (talk) 15:17, 24 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Strange how something that is so obviously below DMorris's attention keeps bringing him back. We must be doing something right to attract his scorn. Pippa (talk) 16:05, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

CP ain't perverse. It's just has 190 articles on homosexuality. Encyclopedia of Stupid isn't likely blocked (thanks guys for vapourizing yet another article of mine--hope you can get ED and Unc at your offices), nor New Conservapedia.Civic Cat (talk) 22:12, 25 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Citizendium and Wikinfo don't even have categories for homosexuality.Civic Cat (talk) 22:22, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

Sysops at wikipedia are giant fuckheads
A shithead that claims to be an MA in philosophy is reverting articles I've edited in nanoscience because he obviously can't read the English language. And now they're accusing me of being a sock (of which I'm not-I don't have time to fuck around that much). Goddamit those halfwits are fuckheads. 05:31, 21 May 2011 (UTC)
 * HEH. I haven't messed with wikipedia in quite some time. They are rather quick when accusing people of beings socks. D:--Dumpling (talk) 05:49, 21 May 2011 (UTC)
 * It took them 10 minutes to decide I was a sock and now I'm blocked. Now I really want to give them a reason to block me but I can't be bother.  Apparently they couldn't care less about the truth.  05:57, 21 May 2011 (UTC)
 * That shit's not trivial dude. Sock blocks of established editors made without checkusering and therefore on a mere hunch are a big fucking deal. If you're in the clear it's worth it to give the offending sysop some on-the-job training. Nutty Roux (talk) 06:06, 21 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Should I tell them to run checkuser? It would be clear that we're not the same. Now they're claiming I'm blocked because I "made legal threats." My quote was "please stop the libel"  WTF?  06:29, 21 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I don't know if you can or not. The "legal threats" shit is an outrage though. People use "libel" in all kinds of colloquial ways that have nothing to do with "I'M GOING TO SUE YOU RIGHT FUCKING NOW." Sounds like you should take a break and come back to get someone else to intervene. That sucks. Nutty Roux (talk) 06:37, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

Several editors agree that mentioning of the word "libel" clearly represents a threat. The mere mention of the fact an editor is doing something he can't legally do apparently means I'm threatening to kick the shit of of them. Their loss is rationalwiki's gain. I'll be back to writing articles here soon. I stopped caring once I realized I was dealing with philosophers. They're hopeless. 06:47, 21 May 2011 (UTC)


 * *snicker* This is one of the cases in Wikipedia where it's hard to sympathise with any of the "sides". The article is this one and the dispute is about this BMC page that is used as a source. The problem is that it lists two medical schools with the same name, one in Belize and one on the Cayman Islands and that one of them is recognised, the other is not, and that the unrecognised one is listed first. So yeah, Cgb07305 is right that the guy who is reverting him is an idiot. But then...

That totally didn't sound like a legal threat, right? And a protip: If you have a dispute with Wikipedia administrators, try to "behave", that is, to write as calm as possible. "Fuck off" is somewhat acceptable on RationalWiki, but on Wikipedia makes you look like a fuckhead. Suggestions:
 * Calm down. Seriously, calm down. If you can't, limit your rage to your side of the display and don't let it affect the way you write.
 * Look up what is the procedure for requesting unblock and request it.
 * Apologise for the implied legal threat and the swear words.
 * Calmly explain that the BMC page contains two medical schools with the same name.--ZooGuard (talk) 07:15, 21 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm pretty sure the only requirements to be a sysop at WP is:

1. Be an 18 year old kid with Asperger's who spends 16 hours a day editing. 2. Be unemployed, on welfare, and living with your parents. 3. Have an obsessive interest in Japanese cartoon porn, zoophilia, or pedastry. 4. Shower, shave and brush your teeth once every 2 weeks max. 5. Become sexually aroused every time you ban an account. 6. Meeting more than just 1 of the above requirements helps.


 * And my apology to anyone here who's a WP sysop. I'm sure there are good, responsible admins on the site. But in general, the admin community is the worst I've seen on any website. If a newbie and runs afoul of an admin (and not even for breaking a rule, you could have just made a comment that rubs him the wrong way) then they'll get banned in a heartbeat and the banning admins will refuse to even discuss it with you. Or when they do, they'll just give some passive-aggressive answer or link a Wikipedia policy page which is incomprehensible to the average newbie. A lot of them really just have no lives and feel like blocking accounts makes their dicks bigger. This is really apparent if you view the block log - I see regularily see accounts banned for having "promotional usernames" (ex. the name of a company), but when I Google the names, there are no hits. So the admin banned the guy just because he "assumed" that he was using the name of a company. Or if a user has a name that is mildly crass (ex. something with "poop" in it) then the admins will block him for an inappropriate username, but when he asks for his IP to be unblocked so he can create a new account, they'll say "fuck you, wait till the IP block expires". It's pretty sad. Because at this rate Wikipedia is going to go downhill fast. Most of the regular members have been there for years, and they're losing more contributers each year than they're gaining due to moronic admins like this.70.254.44.240 (talk) 09:42, 22 May 2011 (UTC)
 * The problem is that if the sysops aren't heavy handed, then regular users complain about the riff raff coming in and messing the place up. There's a large tendency for a community to want to exclude or kick out anyone who doesn't make them warm and cuddly, or inserts any sort of diatribe that they disagree with. I've seen some massive cat fights over the pettiest of drama, and had people run around soliciting me to support them on an issue for an article because I made a spelling fix on the article 5 months ago. No system is going to make anyone happy... if you take a purely laissez-faire attitude towards users and sysops, suddenly some people will be screaming for you to kick out the riff raff, if you excert some amount of control on the people editing, and demand things like civility, suddenly the sysops are abusive fuckheads, and then, if you go for real police state, you're in TK territory, and it kills your wiki. No system will ever please everyone... regardless of what anyone thinks... but of course, that doesn't stop people from raging campaigns to have their pet system implemented, and confirmation bias keeps their head in the sand about issues with the system, or that anyone might be able to disagree with the system without being a raging asshole.
 * Simply put: politics is a no-win game. You will always piss off some of the people, and they will be the ones who make the biggest hissy fit about not getting their way... and giving them their way won't actually make them happy, nor will it actually solve anything... it will just make other people pissed off. -- 09:59, 22 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Hahaha. "worst I've seen on any website". Do you even visit web sites? There are even really good websites whose administrators are way nastier than Wikipedia's and on purpose. ElitistJerks for example. "Our name is not intended ironically" is milder now than it was at its height, but you'd better not forget to capitalise 'I' in sentences if you want to keep your account. 82.69.171.94 (talk) 09:44, 23 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I don't think I've ever been deleted (at least as Civic Cat) on Wikipedia, whereas I've had articles vapourized here (Answerbag, Fluther, Don Cherry, and Encyclopedia Of Stupid--guess it's cause I'm not in the Original 10, or 20, RW Loya Jirga or something where I can make off-mission articles). In dealing with Wikipedia, here's some articles you might want to check out. They have hundreds. Hope they help: Wikipedia:Drama Wikipedia:Staying cool when the editing gets hot Wikipedia:Explode Wikipedia:No angry mastodons Wikipedia:Don't give a fuckism  Also check out this Youtube video, Hitler Gets Banned From Wikipedia.  ;-D  Civic Cat (talk) 23:52, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

My page at RationalWikiWiki?
I was just asking if anyone who edits Rational WikiWiki could (hint, hint) create a page there for me. It does not necessarily have to be complimentary; I welcome satire.--Lefty (talk) 17:58, 22 May 2011 (UTC)
 * done . thank the editor formerly known as gooniepunk--  18:16, 22 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks Occasionaluse.--Lefty (talk) 18:25, 22 May 2011 (UTC)
 * you said that just to troll me, right? damn I'm an easy target.--  18:26, 22 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Occasionaluse said that you are his sock. Plus, you often do similar things on discussion pages.--Lefty (talk) 18:43, 22 May 2011 (UTC)
 * aargh! You stuck it right between my ribs.--  19:12, 22 May 2011 (UTC)
 * No. Brxbrx is a 20 year old virgin with a neurobehavioral developmental disorder. OU is a man about town who can focus on a task long enough to be nicely educated and gainfully employed. They're different people. Nutty Roux (talk) 16:03, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

What is Rational Wiki Wiki? It seems like a wiki about Rational Wiki users. Now I know what it is. --Leninist123 (talk) 00:20, 26 May 2011 (UTC)

Apple Mac doing my head in
I've never used a Mac before, and here I am browsing on one with FireFox, but the question is where are my fucking tabs? I know it's pathetic but it is really really doing my fucking nut in. I can open a new tab, but can't see the tabs along the top to click on them. If I close the new tab the other one is still there behind it. I have the nav bar, then a bookmark toolbar, then the web page. The guy next to me (on an exact same computer) does have his tabs viewable along the top, so why the fuck don't I? Fucking stupid fucking shit Apple wank. I'll never slag MS of again........ ^^^
 * That's odd. Then again, Firefox 4 did some redesigning, with the tab bar now being WAY at the top of the window, even above the address bar. Try "View -> Toolbars -> uncheck Tabs on Top" to get tabs between the bookmarks and the content. --Sid (talk) 20:06, 23 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Oh, or check the Preferences ("Firefox -> Preferences") and click on the "Tabs" tab. There's an option to always/never hide the tab bar. Maybe somebody selected "always hide"? --Sid (talk) 20:15, 23 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm running two instances of FF4 on two boxes, weirdly, the "mouse over to see the link" is on the left on one and the right on the other. 03:58, 24 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I've noticed that ports to different operating systems put the preferences menu item in different places. It's Tools &rarr; Options on Windows (like IE), Edit &rarr; Preferences on Linux (like on Netscape, the old Mozilla suite, and the latter's successor, SeaMonkey), and Firefox &rarr; Preferences (I think) on Mac OS. --GastonRabbit (talk) 22:42, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

Phase 1 user rights changes
I have moved forward with phase 1 of the propose restructuring of user rights. Crats no longer exist. Sysops can now add and remove sysops right. I am in the processes of setting up the tech group. If there are issues let me know. Tmtoulouse (talk) 06:02, 24 May 2011 (UTC)
 * There would seem to be a pretty big question of accountability re the tech group, since it seems that users with server access can install unwanted & invasive extensions on a personal whim.  06:36, 24 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Whoever controls the machine controls everything. There is no way around this. You might be happier in a scenario where the machine is administrated by people who are completely uninterested (in the sense distinct from disinterested) in RW. But that has the consequence that even if a general consensus existed to change something about the machine or its configuration it would be impossible to say when or if it would get done. Given that RW doesn't use SSL several other individuals / organisations also have total control by virtue of being between the rest of the world and the machine on the Internet, fortunately those people probably are uninterested. 82.69.171.94 (talk) 07:24, 24 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Eh??? Ancient Greek Pegasus icon.png 12:26, 24 May 2011 (UTC)
 * So now that sysops can create sysops, do people still get those powers based on the same "a few good days with no trouble" rule? If so, what happens if a newly-made sysop who's only been here for days or weeks starts doling out the powers inappropriately? Can we promote those folks, or do we have to go to the coop? What are the new rules, in short? P-Foster (talk) 13:43, 24 May 2011 (UTC)
 * This is not the Trent I thought I knew. Trent:  if Nx gets the Tech group I will immediately ask for him to be removed for constantly abusing his access over the last few weeks. I don't care if it's more work for you, the kid is out of control.  05:23, 25 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I am confused. What rights does Nx have now that he did not have at the beginning of this month? 05:26, 25 May 2011 (UTC)
 * The same ones he has been abusing lately. Server access.  It will be amusing to watch the dust settle on this authoritarian disaster.  05:29, 25 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Seeing Human whine about people abusing their rights must be the ultimate irony. -- PsyGremlin  07:33, 25 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Seeing psygremlin whine about the irony of people whining must be the ultimate irony. -- 08:01, 25 May 2011 (UTC)
 * See Eira being a bitch must be... oh no, that's just Eira. --OompaLoompa (talk) 08:08, 25 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Oh. I thought he had had server access for a long time. As to how Nx has been using his server access, you might mark the fable of "The Boy who Cried Wolf" before you discourse much further on that point. 05:36, 25 May 2011 (UTC)
 * That made little sense. Yes, he/it has had access for many the year now.  Lately, it/he has used it to promote his/it's personal agenda, including enabling checkuser briefly to argue a point with another user.  Abuse.  User will lose access.  The "Wolf" thing you mention makes no sense whatsoever, please speak English and use sentences.  05:40, 25 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Your well-documented spats with Nx have been highly amusing to impartial observers, but good luck now trying to convince anyone that Nx is on an authoritarian warpath. 05:45, 25 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Who owns the server? RWF as represented by Trent I believe. The server owners have the power to grant or deny server access to whoever they choose. If someone wants to influence their decisions in doing so, I am not sure this page is the most productive means of doing so. But if one just wants to vent.... 08:38, 25 May 2011 (UTC)
 * You are not entirely accurate here. The RWF owns the server in whole. Trent is simply an authorized agent (and officer) of the RWF tasked with maintaining the server. He does not however have in any way "ownership" of the server. -- 09:34, 25 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I don't see how what you are saying in anyway disagrees with what I am saying. RWF as represented by Trent. I never said anyone but RWF owned the server, I simply said Trent is the primary representative of RWF when it comes to server administration. I think you must have misinterpreted me. 10:09, 25 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Because it's not pedantically correct, the two statements are not completely interchangeable. "RWF as represented by Trent" means that Trent is representing the RWF when he is owning the server. Trent doesn't represent the board at all in the ownership. The RWF owns the server directly. -- 10:21, 25 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Wow, one can really jerk off semantically. --ǓḤṂ³ 10:33, 25 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes, one can. But in this case, a question of legal matter was asked, and thus the semantics matter. -- 10:38, 25 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Ok, but to play that postmodern game a bit further: saying "means that" if two sentences never can mean the same is a null statement. --ǓḤṂ³ 10:39, 25 May 2011 (UTC)
 * You've lost me here, because your sentence does not appear to contain a complete thought. This also isn't a "postmodern game", words have legal meanings, and legal implications of those meanings. As noted below, "ownership" and "possession" are two different legal concepts, and are not interchangeable. -- 10:47, 25 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Forget the legal stuff here. You said that two memes (I'm using this word now because it has a wider definition) never possess the exact same meaning. You explain the difference between two by equalling one to another you just formulated. But according to you (and if I haven't missread anything) two memes can never have the same meaning. → System Error! If two memes could never mean the same thing, then explaining one to someone is impossible, because the meaning of the original meme can not be repeated through anything you could say. (btw, using a theory on itself is very postmodern) --ǓḤṂ³ 10:57, 25 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Ah, ok, I understand where you're coming from now. No, I never said that two memes could not mean the same thing. I said that two specific memes don't mean the same thing. "Cougar" does not mean the same thing as "Lion", but that doesn't mean that "Cougar" doesn't mean the same thing as "Panther" "Catamount". -- 11:00, 25 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Ah I see it now: "the two" - and I overread the "the". I'm an idiot that should first get some coffein in his system before commenting on anything. --ǓḤṂ³ 15:48, 25 May 2011 (UTC)
 * It depends on how you parse my answer to my rhetorical question - is the answer all five words, or is the answer the first word, and the remaining four words an aside on how that ownership is exercised in practice? 10:25, 25 May 2011 (UTC)
 * a) There is a way to indicate that something is an aside, I believe it's called punctuation. Lacking such punctuation the only reasonable way to parse your answer is that the answer is the entirety of the statement. b) Let's break this into something more concrete that can be expressed better. I have a company, we'll call it American Company Making Everything. I am an authorized agent of ACME, and I am doing computer work for them. In order to do my work, they have given me a laptop in order to perform my duties. In this case, the laptop is owned by ACME entirely, even though I have possession of the property. However, in no way is the statement "The owner of the laptop is ACME represented by me" a correct legal statement. If such a statement were accurate, then I am representing ACME in my ownership, and as the representative of ACME, I could legally sell the laptop on behalf of ACME. -- 10:35, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

Also, PS, Trent. You can do whatever you want, I guess. Whether it's a good idea or not doesn't seem to matter to you right now. Again, strange for the trent I thought I knew fairly well. 05:24, 25 May 2011 (UTC)
 * You and MC are the only ones expressing disagreement with the general plan. Both the RW community writ large,and the RWF board of trustees have backed the plan. What more could I seek as far as consensus building? Tmtoulouse (talk) 05:46, 25 May 2011 (UTC)
 * The Board? I'm on it and I recall no such discussion.  Did I miss a meeting, or did you forget to "reply all" again?  Ferfucksake.  Best I can tell you are now lying?  Really? "the RWF board of trustees have backed the plan"???????????????  05:20, 26 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Search your email for the email thread titled "RationalWiki board: User rights change" You certainly received it, because you responded to it. -- 05:26, 26 May 2011 (UTC)
 * This is going in the Best Of. 05:34, 26 May 2011 (UTC)


 * If there is disagreement there is no consensus. --85.78.199.96 (talk) 05:48, 25 May 2011 (UTC)
 * When a community becomes large and diverse enough, it will reach a stage when it is no longer possible to obtain perfect consensus on much of anything. This is why ochlocracy often leads to despotism, and why constitutional democracies have proven more effective on a large scale. 05:52, 25 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Because consensus means unanimous right? Tmtoulouse (talk) 05:53, 25 May 2011 (UTC)
 * There are still a lot of aspects of the plan to be clarified & it's misleading to make statements about the community as a whole supporting the plan when so much is still unclear. Personally, for example, I will only support the plan if it's one where community decisions are still made by the mobocracy.  I will not support a top-down system where Mods call the shots.   06:40, 25 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Weaseloid, what is wrong with representative democracy? i.e. community elects mods, mods make decisions by majority vote? It works reasonably well (but admittedly not perfectly) in the real world. It arguably has advantages over direct democracy (entire community voting on every contentious issue). (BTW, why does drinking Indian Pale Ale so remind me of the Bay Area in California?...) 07:21, 25 May 2011 (UTC)
 * No. In a direct democracy not the entire community votes but only those who are interested in the issue. Are you from Beglium or something? --ǓḤṂ³ 10:36, 25 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I agree with Weaseloid that mods should be limited to handling disputes. I don't think it's been mentioned anywhere, though, that they should make the community decisions. EddyP Great King! Disaster! 09:54, 25 May 2011 (UTC)
 * You don't regard handling disputes as a community decision?  12:33, 25 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Not really. You saw the recent HCM clusterfucks? Too many people with too many agendas. Too many votes cast simply because the voter liked/didn't like the accused. Of course, it might be the case that moderators will vote along those lines but I'd hope that they hold themselves to a higher standard and will vote according to the actual strength of the case. And, of course, the community has the option to remove moderators if they want, which will hopefully include mods they think are biased. EddyP Great King! Disaster! 13:17, 25 May 2011 (UTC)
 * "And, of course, the community has the option to remove moderators if they want" - I'd like to see the well-written, clear policy that defines how that would be done. I'd like to see any well-written policy on any of this at all.  I haven't yet.  05:24, 26 May 2011 (UTC)

So what's the social lay of the land?
Never mind the technology. Do we sysop everyone who isn't actually insane, or what? (I am a strong advocate of this - it saves us a LOT of angst, and there's almost nothing mere sysop powers can break.) Do I just sysop people, or not? If not, why not? - David Gerard (talk) 21:35, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

Today I joined the revolution.
As some may be aware there is new protest movement in Spain called 15. I had a bit of spare time in the city today so I causally wandered into one of their open-air meetings.

There was no agenda, whenever it looked like they were approaching some resolution somebody would derail the debate with an irrelevant comment, discussions flew off at differing tangents. While some people seriously wanted to get something done others were just there for the lutz. Some people may have simply wanted to be disruptive.

The general feeling was that politicians of all stripes were not to be trusted, that banks were parasites, that "the right" was a bigger danger than "the left".

I must admit that I didn't actually see anybody say that they were leaving and never coming back but I got the feeling that it was a distinct possibility.

So all things considered it felt just like being at at any RW debate.

Anyway, I left my details with them telling that if they wanted anything in English I was their man. As almost all of them were young, (probably) unemployed, rather scruffy anti-establishment radicals; and I was was a fifty-something wearing my student-intimidating smart suit and tie I was received with some surprise. But they were happy with my offer and, come the revolution, I may avoid being put against the wall.--BobSpring is sprung! 09:40, 24 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Such is the youth of today: so aimless. I should know, as I am one of them. 14:49, 24 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Have you considered smashing things? I hear McDonald's windows go down pretty easily. -- 16:02, 24 May 2011 (UTC)
 * If it is revolutionary I will consider it. Unfortunately there are very few McDonald's here. Can you suggest a substitute in such a case?  Thank you.--BobSpring is sprung! 20:05, 24 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Starbucks seems to be a popular target. Failing that, your local Santander branch. Bondurant (talk) 20:35, 24 May 2011 (UTC)
 * When I was living in Zurich, I once saw a bunch of anticapitalist revolutionaries loot an Armani store. Might as well revolt in style, especially when it's televised after all. Röstigraben (talk) 22:05, 24 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I once saw a photo of some anti-capitalist and/or anti-globalist protesters. One of them was holding a can of Coke. And not posed to throw it; it was in a position that looked as if he'd be drinking from it. MDB (talk) 22:10, 24 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Hey, even anti-globalization protesters get thirsty. "Coke, official soft drink of The Revolution(tm)"  And I think I've seen that image.   03:52, 25 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Nothing beats the Che Guevara shirts at Hot Topic. Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 03:57, 25 May 2011 (UTC)
 * True revolutionaries should seek out anti-capitalist sources of refreshment... establish a democratic socialist beer-brewing co-operative to brew revolutionary beer... from scratch, don't even use a brewing kit... and then imbibe, comrades. 08:40, 25 May 2011 (UTC)
 * It's easy to do. Kits are for wusses.  (Really, I go out and buy the raw grain, and some locally made hops.  The yeast is from some company that just makes brewers yeast, however.  Actually, due to a recent move, I bought some beer last weekend, and it was the first time doing so in years)  15:39, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

Actually we may be tapping too far into the window-breaking rioting side of the revolution here. It's all really based on this book which is anti-violent and which uses the examples of Mandella, Martin Luther King and (in the introduction to the Spanish version) Gandhi.--BobSpring is sprung! 13:21, 25 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I suspect that in any group (over a certain size) that is theoretically committed to non-violence will have it's share of hotheads who might be theoretically non-violent but won't be in practice. I remember reading a memoir of the American civil rights movement, and the author discussing concerns that the police would pick on one elderly woman who they knew had loaded her purse with bricks. MDB (talk) 13:33, 25 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Always a problem. The original French tract was Indignez-vous!. In English the inflammatory tract is "Time for Outrage!" Looks like there is an English version here. It's only a few pages.--BobSpring is sprung! 14:19, 25 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Lol Bob, until I read the later comments, you had me there... 05:15, 26 May 2011 (UTC)

Elmer Fudd wikipedia
WTF? Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 16:46, 24 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Hahaha, sometimes it's the simplest scripts that are the most genius. 19:22, 24 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Someone needs to do that with an Encheferizer. MDB (talk) 19:28, 24 May 2011 (UTC)
 * That's so dumb, but somehow still very funny. "fwight cancewwations" indeed.   19:33, 24 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I get a 403 forbidden when trying to access Conservapedia... So I access it via Borkifier. "Best Noo Conserfetife-a Words reech 25-51-100-206 by centoory; oonly 8 terms iwey from unozeer perffect dooobling by centoory! Bork Bork Bork!". It's hard to hate them for their stupidity when they sound like the Swedish Chef. Dendlai (talk) 23:17, 24 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Ahahaha. That's so great. I love the Borkifier. Definitely makes my day when I'm down. Though, the Elmer Fudd wikipedia is pretty great too! --Dumpling (talk) 04:10, 25 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Speaking of Borkifying, every time I go through the kitchenwares department at Ikea, I find the urge to break into Chef-speak almost irresistible. And sometimes, it has proven to be irresistible. I have, at least, managed to avoid tossing cooking implements over my shoulder. MDB (talk) 12:40, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

Lulz
I just drove through a residential neighborhood when the middle school kids were getting home from school and started blowing the horn and yelling at them. Among other things, I yelled GET OUT OF MY WAY YOU STUPID CUNTS at this group of girls and it scared the piss out of them. Before I did that they were smiling. It was funny! I was lulz! Since you guys like lulz, you should try it! &mdash; Unsigned, by: 38.127.71.84 / talk / contribs
 * Just shows, they'll even let idiots have driving licenses. Pippa (talk) 21:41, 24 May 2011 (UTC)
 * You must be a godless liberal Pippa because you do not understand fun. - Uncle Ed
 * Would you like to get some antivirus software? Got some: it is called MACDefender. (Make sure that you enter in all of your credit card information, just as it asks. I figure that if you are stupid enough not to think about what those girls' parents are going to do to you that you must be stupid enough to download scareware.)--Lefty (talk) 23:16, 24 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Too bad those girls' parents never saw me and will never find me. Those girls can cry to mommy and daddy all they want but there's nothing they can do because I'm smart enough to make sure the parents are no where around when I'm doing that kind of trolling. Even if they could find me, there's nothing they could do, there's nothing illegal about road rage. 38.127.71.84 (talk) 02:38, 25 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Whatcha do, you disgusting idiot, spray paint your license plate? Use a borrowed car?  You are abominable.  05:20, 25 May 2011 (UTC)
 * It just shows how much DMorris misunderstands this site.  Lily Inspirate me. 09:19, 25 May 2011 (UTC)
 * 'If' this actually happened, we might see it on Youtube. Lots of girls carry camera phones.Civic Cat (talk) 00:24, 26 May 2011 (UTC)

I ♥ Dan Savage
This is hilarious. He's done it before, but this time it just seems like super genius.-- 01:12, 25 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Woooooow. That was most definitely an interesting read. Hahaha. --Dumpling (talk) 03:11, 25 May 2011 (UTC)
 * It reads like a fake letter, ala Penthouse Forum, but still, yeah Danny boy rulzors! 05:44, 25 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Dan Savage rules for creating the "It Gets Better" project.
 * But which part of the column prompted this? I'm assumin it was the last part. MDB (talk) 12:38, 25 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Oh, I meant the last part. I just found it to be hilarious.  "Suck my dick." lol Sorry, shoulda been clearer.  Here it is, for the uninitiated: '' THE CHOICER CHALLENGE: Last week, the leader of British Columbia's Conservative Party, John Cummins, told a radio interviewer that gay people shouldn't be covered by the BC Human Rights Act because being gay is "a conscious choice."

Like truthers (9/11 was an inside job!), birthers (Barack Obama was born in Kenya!), and deathers (Osama bin Laden is alive and well and living in West Hollywood!), choicers would appear to be just another group of deranged conspiracy theorists who can't be dissuaded by science or evidence or facts. And John Cummins isn't the only choicer out there. We have lots of choicers right here in the United States (Tony Perkins, Rick Santorum, Stephen Colbert, et al.).

But what if the choicers are right? What if being gay is something people consciously choose? Gee, if only there were a way for choicers to prove that they're right and everyone else is wrong... actually, there is a way for choicers to prove that they're right!

I hereby publicly invite—I publicly challenge—John Cummins to prove that being gay is a choice by choosing it himself.

Suck my dick, John.

I'm completely serious about this, John. You're not my type—you're about as far from my type as a human being without a vagina gets—but I have just as much interest as you do in seeing this gay-is-a-choice argument resolved once and for all. You name the time and the place, John, and I'll show up with my dick and a camera crew. Then you can show the world how it's done. You can demonstrate how this "conscious choice" is made. You can flip the switch, John, make the choice, then sink to your bony old knees and suck my dick. And after you've swallowed my load, John, we'll upload the video to the internet and you'll be a hero to other choicers everywhere.

It's time to put your mouth where your mouth is, John. If being gay is a choice, choose it. Show us how it's done.

Suck my dick. ''-- 13:54, 25 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Please tell me Dan Savage does realize Stephen Colbert is a parodist and he included him in the "anti-choicers" list for humor's sake. MDB (talk) 14:02, 25 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Yeah, he's been on the Colbert Report a few times. And he's praised Colbert in his column ("I would toss his salad" as a response to his hilarious White House correspondents dinner speech)--  14:08, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

This is funny, and everything, but I don't like the underpinning thought pattern. The fact is human sexuality is varies tremendously. There will be a bunch of people to whom the "it's a choice" thing sounds plausible not (just) because they're bigots but because they actually do have a choice. For them both men and women are sexually attractive and if they happen to be members of a religion that says homosexuality is a sin it's not so hard, they just have to stick to the other 50% of those they're attracted to.

"I was born this way" is neither a necessary nor sufficient condition. There are millions of adult men who were "born" to quite fancy girls in their mid-teens. With the exception of some fringe outfits we don't have people demanding from their government the right to fuck a 10th grader. Instead we tell them "it's OK that you feel this way, but you can't act on it, if you can't stick to adults you'll just have to go without".

What makes adult straight or gay sex different from wanting to fuck children or animals is not how you were born, it's the ethics of the situation, and that's where we need to concentrate. That's also why there's conflict with the Religious Right, because their ethics are somewhere between crazy and non-existent. 82.69.171.94 (talk) 09:54, 27 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Agreed, and what if some neo-con took him up on the offer? What if other neo-cons advocated sterilzation of GLBT as a way of ending the bilogical condition. Further, it's likely easier for straights and gays to do each other than one changes one's race or gender--those things are less a choice.Civic Cat (talk) 19:18, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

Metapedia
Aaargh, someone help me... Every now and again, I go to metapedia just to see what those Nazi fellows are raving on about now. But then, until the next time I clear my browser history, whenever I begin typing in en.wikipedia.org, my browser autocompletes it to Metapedia... and I find myself somewhere where I do not want to go... (and why does Indian Pale Ale remind me of visiting the Bay Area of California?) 07:58, 25 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Revert me if you like, but I removed the direct link to metapedia because I believe there is an unwritten convention on RW to not link to that site Bondurant (talk) 08:01, 25 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm assuming you're using Chrome. This happens when you visit metapedia more often than wikipedia. The solution (without clearing your history) is to start typing en then when the browser autocompletes it to metapedia, hit backspace, wait for wikipedia to appear in the dropdown, and select that. Do this a couple times and it will revert to wikipedia. -- Nx  / talk 08:03, 25 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Actually FF3.6.17. I think I go to WP more than MP, I think the problem is that MP comes first alphabetically? Bondurant, I'm not going to revert you, but honestly, what difference does it make whether we link to them or not? Racist idiots exist, link or no. 08:14, 25 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I don't know for sure. It's probably just to stop unnecessary traffic through to Metapedia. We have our own article on Metapedia which doesn't have a single link through to the site itself. Bondurant (talk) 08:23, 25 May 2011 (UTC)
 * (EC) Also, I must say, much as I disagree with vandalism in general, I feel like making an exception for those MP fellows, and some of the vandalism against that site involves absolutely glorious ASCII art. Can we not link to such glory? (If you are worried about e.g. Google PageRank, I should note that, which is used here, should alleviate those concerns.)  08:26, 25 May 2011 (UTC)
 * As I recall, there wasn't really a consensus about links to evil stuff (mostly because nofollow is used). They're vaguely discouraged, but it's probably fine if you're referring to something specific, etc. Capturebot usually works too. 11:34, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

The old semi-official policy of not linking to hate sites was semi-officially overturned some while back, & we now link to Stormfront & GodHatesFags etc. I don't know why Metapedia still isn't linked; there may well be a good reason for it. Mara, if you want to troll Metapedia, you go alone. FFS don't do anything on behalf of or associated with RW in any way. We've had Metapedia vandal raids on RW before & don't much want them again. And there's no such thing as Indian Pale Ale. 12:44, 25 May 2011 (UTC)
 * See Forum:Should we link to hate sites?  12:49, 25 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Oh, I haven't been wandalizing MP. And I wouldn't, I can't do funny wandalism, only unfunny, since I have a very poor sense of humour. But I've been watching their RC, and the wandals have been doing things that are quite amazing, as in really amazing ASCII art. 19:44, 25 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Sorry, I misread your post earlier & thought you were planning/advocating wandalism. Just looked through MP's RC & the only ASCII I saw was the same ☭ spammed on dozens of pages.  Not really amazing.   20:25, 25 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Actually, I'm less impressed now I realize its just LOLWUT which someone had copied from OhInternet or whatever. Nothing original, just copypasta. I hadn't seen it before though, its still pretty cool. 20:49, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

Who actually types "en.wik..."? Really? Bookmarks are your friend. 04:25, 26 May 2011 (UTC)
 * It takes me quicker to type in the address than find the bookmark. Maybe I should organize bookmarks, but I am not an organized person. I don't need the autosuggest, but anything to save typing... and then I get led astray... 09:44, 26 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I do, then I press tab and I can search on Wikipedia from the address bar. -- Nx  / talk 12:14, 26 May 2011 (UTC)
 * You don't have to clear the complete history, btw. You can just remove items from the address bar suggestions. --Sid (talk) 12:58, 26 May 2011 (UTC)
 * People still use bookmarks? Also, decent (?) browsers have a "private browsing" feature, which is extremely useful to keep the history clean while surfing all sorts of porn. --87.5.101.196 (talk) 21:33, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

memo from turner
Keith Barry http://press.discovery.com/emea/dsc/programs/deception-keith-barry/ hat tip to Eira. 04:11, 26 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Worthless... -- 04:18, 26 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Boring. Nutty Roux (talk) 12:57, 26 May 2011 (UTC)
 * So sad. September Storm (talk) 07:08, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

This rapture is actually a win-win for me
I've heard the rapture will occur timezone by timezone, at 6pm local time. So all I have to do is keep an eye on the far east, and if a rapture is happening, the sudden overwhelming evidence for the existence of God will make me a solid believer. By the time the rapture gets here, I'll be all jesused up and ready to go to heaven! ONE / TALK 08:39, 20 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Damnit, I am in NZ so no warning for me. Maybe I will just have to remember to say a little prayer at 5 to 6 just in case. --DamoHi 10:00, 20 May 2011 (UTC)
 * My mates and I have already drawn up an itinerary for our post-rapture pillaging tour. --OompaLoompa (talk) 10:13, 20 May 2011 (UTC)
 * The fact that it is to occur timezone by timezone like it is some sort of network sitcom should be enough of a red flag.  10:41, 20 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I wouldn't count on it. Perhaps Jesus has his angels make a list of the Real, True Christians the night before but he can only rapture them one timezone at a time due to lack of budget for his magic tractor beam. Or perhaps heaven is in a particular direction, and he just has to wait until the earth rotates to the correct orientation so he can rapture a segment of it. -- 11:37, 20 May 2011 (UTC)
 * 6pm local time - does that take daylight saving time into account? Is it different in the northern hemisphere from the southern? Jack Hughes (talk) 11:41, 20 May 2011 (UTC)
 * None of you are believers after the rapture. All other end of the world predictions came true, this is too. You will be burn in hell at October 21. Leninist123 (talk) 17:27, 28 May 2011 (UTC)

Being a Bear of Very Little Brain, timezones leave me confoozled. When it's 6:00 PM just past the international date line, what time will it be on the east coast of the US? MDB (talk) 11:48, 20 May 2011 (UTC)
 * 6PM on the IDT will be 6AM UTC. EST is 5 hours behind this, so it is 1AM winter time or 2AM summer time. BTW, where was it said that it's (supposed to) happen at 6PM, local time? CS Miller (talk) 13:39, 20 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm too damn lazy to look it up, but I think that's part of Camping's claims. But cool that it starts overnight for me; I'll be able to wake up tomorrow morning and check first thing. (Then get ready to go to a funeral. Sigh.) MDB (talk) 13:44, 20 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I thought it was win-win because if it doesn't happen you get to laugh at fundie loons but if it doesn't happen you don't have to put up with smug fundie loons!! lol Ancient Greek Pegasus icon.png 11:54, 20 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Tomorrow, when my wife is visiting her evango-hysterical sister, I will leave a set of my clothes draped over and around my computer chair then go and have a beer somewhere. I've already prepped her for the idea that God might save the good of heart rather than those who simply profess faith.--Brendiggg (talk) 12:00, 20 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Will Santa Claus be involved in this timezone-by-timezone rapturing, at least in some consultancy capacity? It would seem that he has all the necessary logistical expertise to pull off this kind of operation.   12:09, 20 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm desperately trying to find if any fuckheads twue believers are having a gathering near me, so I can have a good laugh as they come stumbling out of their meeting place, dreams dashed. --OompaLoompa (talk) 12:24, 20 May 2011 (UTC)
 * If I knew of any local rapture gatherings, I'd rent an Elvis costume and make a "Welcome Back, Elvis!" sign. -- 12:48, 20 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Invite them to start committing crimes like fucking kittens. Since Jesus has saved them already he shouldn't give shit about what they do now. They won't have to deal with earthly consequences so why not? Nightwish (talk) 13:03, 20 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Atheists plan rapture party - in North Carolina. --Scream!! (talk) 13:11, 20 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I want to get a bunch of blow-up dolls and fill them with helium. I don't think I need to explain further.   13:14, 20 May 2011 (UTC)
 * lol Occasionaluse (talk) 13:17, 20 May 2011 (UTC)
 * "Gosh! Jesus is going to get a whole lot of blowjobs!" -- 13:30, 20 May 2011 (UTC)
 * So, who besides me is going to go to their local church on Saturday night and place outfits all over the church so that the Sunday church crowd thinks they missed out on the rapture? 14:03, 20 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Even better, if there is a 5-7PM service, leave outfits scattered on the streets outside; make them think that others have been rapt. CS Miller (talk) 14:11, 20 May 2011 (UTC)
 * If there is a rapture I'm breaking out my apocalypse kit, which I've had since I was six and first saw Evil Dead. It was originally in preparation for zombie apocalypses only, but has over the years come to accumulate items necessary for all apocalypse situations. It includes a hunting knife, a 9-iron golf club, a spare pair of underwear and socks, a pair of black leather gloves that look totally badass, combat boots, a bottle of Jack Daniels, a carton of cigarettes and a tenth ounce of marijuana. Oh, and my childhood teddy bear. 17:53, 20 May 2011 (UTC)
 * You can keep track of the earthquakes here http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/recenteqsww/ Ancient Greek Pegasus icon.png 19:45, 20 May 2011 (UTC)
 * @ SJ, how's a lad supposed to get through a half-decent apocalypse with only 3 grams of reefer? Doctor Dark (talk) 03:24, 21 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm not a pothead, so it's for emergencies only, to be smoked rarely. In the event I run out during the apocalypse I can probably get hold of a dealer - they don't get into heaven do they? 11:44, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

Inside?
So what do Rapturists believe will happen if you are raptured whilst inside, will you go through the ceiling and will Zeusus make you/the ceiling intangible so that it doesn't hurt/get in the way? CS Miller (talk) 13:45, 20 May 2011 (UTC)
 * More to the point, what if your unrapt upstairs neighbours are having a bit of nooky at the time? CS Miller (talk) 13:45, 20 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Even better, what if you get Raptured during nooky? "Jeezus, Jesus, couldn't you have held off just two minutes? I was this close!" MDB (talk) 14:59, 20 May 2011 (UTC)
 * You mean, "Oh thank God! Now I can ask Jesus politely for a baby without the horrible experience of an orgasm." ONE / TALK 15:23, 20 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Isn't it only like 12K Jewish virgins who get raptured? Doesn't sound like an operative concern to me. -- 15:49, 20 May 2011 (UTC)
 * 144K Jewish male virgins, specifically, as per Revelation. The idea of a general rapture comes from the book of Thessalonians. Odd how the book that's supposedely is the elaborate blueprint of the end of the world gets it wrong, huh? MDB (talk) 15:55, 20 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Curse you, associative memory! The phrase "elaborate blueprint" reminded me of this. Then the Obama being the leopard king thing reminded me of this. -- 16:13, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

For those who like their raptures all groovy and retro, I present to you: Hal Lindsey's There's a New World Coming. 19:19, 20 May 2011 (UTC)
 * That's not the rapture. All those groovy kids are on LSD. -- 19:22, 20 May 2011 (UTC)
 * hot girl. if there's a rapture and she flies up, we can look up her skirt!--Foucault5.jpgFoucault5.jpgFoucault5.jpg-brxbrx 19:26, 20 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Shame most Jesus freaks tend to be fugly and fat so there's no way I'd be fucking looking up. And if they leave their clothes behind you might accidentally catch a glimpse of Harold Camping's cock. Nightwish (talk) 19:41, 20 May 2011 (UTC)
 * http://peasandcougars.files.wordpress.com/2011/05/will-you-be-raptured-flowchart1.jpg?w=1024&h=750...Rapture flowchart? XD--Dumpling (talk) 19:29, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

Anyone notice this from Harold's website?

''Each name tells us something about the glorious character and nature of God. Thus in the Bible we find such names as God, Jehovah, Christ, Jesus, Lord, Allah, Holy Spirit, Savior, etc''

Where the hell in the Bible is God called Allah?--70.254.44.240 (talk) 12:28, 21 May 2011 (UTC)
 * The whole time zone thing is a bit weird, especially as Samoa decided to switch sides of the International Date Line last week and moved forward a day. Did they want to get raptured first?  Lily Inspirate me. 18:29, 21 May 2011 (UTC)
 * P.S. The Bible is not just available in American English. There are Christian Arabs who read the Bibull in Arabic and find Allah mentioned quite a lot.  Lily Inspirate me. 18:37, 21 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Here's Wikipedia's take on it. I wonder if they had another word for God before Islam. I wouldn't be surprised if they were cowed into referring to God as Allah.Civic Cat (talk) 23:01, 25 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Why would you think that?  06:33, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

On that note
lol, we can dream-- 05:53, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

Rename user powers and techs and sysops
any chance that "rename user" might be a power available more broadly? It's sometimes handy/fun when trolls sign up with hateful names, and people shouldn't have to go begging to a techie if they want to rename themselves. P-Foster (talk) 16:02, 26 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I wouldn't do that - renaming trolls gets you taken to the Coop. --OompaLoompa (talk) 16:09, 26 May 2011 (UTC)
 * It would probably be a bad idea to give it to sysops, if we're not changing the nonexistent "requirements." Moderators should have it, I think. 16:22, 26 May 2011 (UTC)
 * yeah, you can make a mess of redirects, and if you rename someone they won't be able to log in as expected. -- Nx  / talk 16:33, 26 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Is there a way to set it up so you can only rename yourself? ТyUser_talk:Ty 23:06, 28 May 2011 (UTC)
 * "renaming trolls gets you taken to the Coop." Take me to the Coop.P-Foster (talk) 16:38, 26 May 2011 (UTC)
 * LOL, PF, your are so pwned. Bad boy. September Storm (talk) 07:07, 27 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Ah, but what would RationalWiki be without a healthy double standard?
 * Usernames which are offensive, libellous or impersonating others should be changed, but making it "fun" is just feeding the troll. I don't think large numbers of editors need this ability.   17:43, 27 May 2011 (UTC)
 * how about really really long usernames? those make things ugly.--  06:07, 28 May 2011 (UTC)
 * They do. There shouldn't be usernames made up of more than, say, two words. Real first name and last initialTalk, talk, talk skim my contributions 09:53, 28 May 2011 (UTC)
 * well, yours isn't what I had in mind. I was thinking of this gentleman--  16:08, 28 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Irony. It's not like goldy or bronzey. --OompaLoompa (talk) 16:11, 28 May 2011 (UTC)

MY Page on RationalWikiWiki?
See this. I want a page too!. Leninist123 (talk) 17:20, 28 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Talk to the creepy guy. Just don't be surprised if you suddenly find your entire life on display for the world to see. 17:34, 28 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Is he online? Leninist123 (talk) 17:38, 28 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I do not know. Try talking to him. 17:39, 28 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I wrote the message all ready!. Leninist123 (talk) 17:40, 28 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Such is the miracle of client-server technology. 17:42, 28 May 2011 (UTC)

Climate denier hypocrisy going into overdrive
Deniers are currently creaming their pants over a FOIA request regarding 10+ year old papers and continuing to flog Climategate. Meanwhile, Wegman is all but admitting he plagiarized his little conspiracy theory paper. Over at Climate Fraudit, Steve McI says: Never mind the plagiarism, it's a conspiracy! The cognitive dissonance should be skull-shattering. Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 18:39, 28 May 2011 (UTC)
 * There's no reason to let a little evidence spoil a good conspiracy theory. Doppelheuer (talk) 01:21, 29 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Good stuff. steriletalk 03:15, 29 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I was trying to enjoy the film. Now you ratted it out by proving it false. That would like proving you can't fly while watching Superman. Leninist123 (talk) 03:48, 29 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Because everything that is plagiarized is wrong. --85.78.242.249 (talk) 04:21, 29 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Try again. The thrust of the "argument" in the modified version of Wegman is a "social network analysis" showing that, guess what, Michael Mann has been a reviewer of many other papers in climatology (thus proving the conspiracy!). The point is that deniers have been flipping a shit since Climategate, declaring AGW a fraud, then declaring the multiple subsequent ethics investigations whitewashes. If some no-name climatologist in Bumfuck, Nowheresville plagiarized a paper it would no doubt be THE FINAL NAIL IN THE COFFIN OF AGW, AGW HOAX EXPOSED, AGW TOTALLY, I MEAN TOTALLY, DEBUNKED, WARMIST ECO-NAZIS DEFEATED!!! But it's totally okay if you're a denier. Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 04:33, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

Praying for people to get better
RationalWiki (and skeptics in general) tend to be very harsh on people who pray for things to happen rather than taking action. Praying for someone to return to health, for example, is seen as a rationalization to sit around and do nothing instead of putting in effort. But here's the thing: many theists really, truly think that prayer helps people, in the same way that we really, truly think other methods do. The worrisome thing about that argument is that for people who take religion more seriously - people who really think there is a mystical being pulling the strings behind everything - it makes even more sense to pray rather than doing something. I guess what I'm getting at is this: though we can harass theists for standing behind a method that doesn't work in reality, it's not fair for us to accuse them of using prayer as an excuse because they really do believe it works. Thoughts? 20:43, 22 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Prayer in itself doesn't heal people. Theists believe that God answers prayer based on His will and He will heal people if it is what He wants.--Colonel Sanders (talk) 20:54, 22 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Interesting point - I would say that the people who believe this are using prayer as an excuse, but the ones who genuinely believe that God answers well-intentioned prayers are not. 21:44, 22 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Also, some Christians use prayer much more to praise God and repent rather than for requests, which is usually last on a good Christian's prayer list.--Colonel Sanders (talk) 21:48, 22 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I, personally, will continue to pray. Even if it does not work, it definitely is a "feel good" thing to do. That doesn't mean that I support prayer over action, though.......--Lefty (talk) 21:32, 22 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Precisely.--Colonel Sanders (talk) 21:37, 22 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Amen, using prayer or even holistic remedies isn't harmful as long as actual action is taken in conjunction with it; whether it helps it or not. The problem is of course with those who think they can depend on it alone, and end up killing their children through neglect. Even though they were just doing what they thought was best for their child's health, and felt as though doing otherwise would be IRresponsible of them. 22:31, 22 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Well that's the big problem, but using a non-working treatment can give the impression that it works, or at least that it might work, especially if you footnote the real cures. And that is a problem itself. Everyone is a role model, whether they want to be or not. Ordinary Christian A prays and takes their CHOP or whatever, and the cancer is destroyed. Slightly crazier Christian B prays and goes to a faith healer and takes their CHOP and their cancer is destroyed too. But another crazy Christian C believes that B was healed by God, so they refuse CHOP and just go to the faith healer. A or B didn't make C do this, but they contributed to a social environment where it's easier. They do bear some small responsibility. 82.69.171.94 (talk) 09:20, 23 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Even if prayer worked, and all the evidence is against it, intercessionary prayer is just wrong on so many levels. Not least the fact that it regards gOD little more than some capricious despot, albeit one with magickal powers. The only thing that that public prayer does is indicate some sort of concern which could be equally displayed by slapping it on your Facebook page.  Lily Inspirate me. 13:04, 23 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I do not pray in public, and I see nothing wrong with the idea of it. Even if you are right and no God exists, living with religion provides hope, no matter the outcome. I would likely still want to believe in theism, even if someone came to me tomorrow and showed me how it was all false.--Lefty (talk) 13:18, 23 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Believe in theism? That's a Shockofgod/Ken-like statement. Perhaps you mean belief in a god because both theism and atheism do exist. I did not say that there is no god (although that is what I believe) but the idea of a personal god considering the vastness of the universe is frankly odd. However, by believing in prayer you are effectively asking god to intervene on your behalf, what makes you so special? Any just, omnipotent, omniscient god would not need to be begged to intervene in human suffering when most of the time he takes not a blind bit of notice, or has he simply overlooked what everyone else has seen? Not very omnisicent. When the previous Pope was ill there must have been hundreds of millions praying for his recovery but to no avail. If god wanted him in heaven then that surely applies to everyone else. You are entitled to your belief but don't expect me not to laugh at it.  Lily Inspirate me. 15:13, 23 May 2011 (UTC)
 * When a rationalist "really, truly" thinks something works, its because of evidence and not faith. So those who pray don't think "really, truly" believe it in the same way at all. The passion behind the belief doesnt excuse its consequences. Ancient Greek Pegasus icon.png 15:40, 23 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Nah, that doesn't work. You need to read about ontology. Our beliefs about the world are always built on a foundation of sand, no matter what we try. The example I like to use is, do you see the green "OK" indicator? The one overlaying everything you see so that you know it's real and not just some incredible hallucination? No? Damn, that means this is a hallucination. So, in this limited sense the believers are no worse off than we are. 82.69.171.94 (talk) 17:04, 23 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I think that if someone can justify praying for an ill person (to the exclusion of actual treatment) as "I believe it will work" (and claim credit if they heal) then they should be able to be charged with attempted murder if they pray for someone's death. «-Bfa-»  17:10, 23 May 2011 (UTC)
 * if a person is sick or injured and has received appropriate first aid or medical care then pray for them as you like, it cant hurt. If you cant help then call 911 and pray all you want. If however your kid has diabetes, and all you do is pray to a specific God for their recovery than I would oppose your right to do that. Hamster (talk) 17:33, 23 May 2011 (UTC)
 * If a person want to pray so what? It's only a "problem" if it actually stops them doing something effective.  And even then it's only a problem for that individual so it's their choice.
 * Having said that, if somebody rejected real medicine for their children because they preferred to pray about in illness then I think that would be a problem.--BobSpring is sprung! 19:42, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

Prayer does work, at least sometimes and to a certain degree. If someone is inclined to pray, prayer can have an effect on their thoughts and moods. Their thoughts and mood can have a positive impact on their own life and on the lives of others. This includes health — since physical health is influenced by mental health, if something improves your mental health (reduces depression or anxiety, replaces negative thoughts with more positive ones), that can improve physical health too. It doesn't guarantee a particular outcome, but it makes positive outcomes more likely. But, I think the extent of impact prayer will have, will depend on the background and psychology of the person praying. 19:53, 25 May 2011 (UTC)
 * It could have just as much of a negative effect when it doesn't work "enough". "Why won't God help me??" is probably not a great place to be. Occasionaluse (talk) 19:56, 25 May 2011 (UTC)
 * of course there's also the fact that folk remember the times when it did "work" and conveniently forget the others. Pippa (talk) 20:01, 25 May 2011 (UTC)
 * That depends on whether they expect God to help them. Someone with a very naive theology would view God as an instant wish fulfillment machine, and would quite possibly get disappointed when it doesn't work. Someone else with a more mature theology, has no expectation that prayer will change anything, just a hope that it might. 20:05, 25 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Andy prayer's advantages over good ol' secular hope are..? Occasionaluse (talk) 12:58, 26 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Maybe secular hope isn't enough for everyone. If you are seriously ill, and at significant risk of death, secular hope says "Hope you don't cease to exist soon"... religious hope says "Hope you pull through, but if you don't, there are good things waiting for you". Some people (not all people, but some people) will be much happier with religious hope than they could ever be with purely secular hope. 19:35, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

I don't see prayer as a problem when used in conjunction with other methods, mostly because it helps people feel better. Positive attitudes might help the body some as well, but it at least doesn't hurt. I don't really mind it when people decide to only use prayer for curative processes after people attempt to convince them not to. At that point they are doing what they believe in, and are self selecting out of the gene-pool (not trying to be too mean, but working in health care admin can be draining).

I hate it when people try to force their kids into it. At least let the kid get to an age where their decisions are their own responsibility, good or bad. ~ Subsound ~ 19:25, 26 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I suppsoe it's a bit like homoeopathy really. It won't do you any harm unless you use it to treat some real physical problem. Like homoeopathy the expectation of a result (the placebo effect) could conceivably do some good.
 * On the other hand, the only double blind study of prayer where people prayed for other people showed a slight worsening of the conditions in those prayed for. So if prayer has any effect it only "works" when done "selfishly".--BobSpring is sprung! 10:18, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

Was "RationalWiki 1.0" made as a place to plan attacks on CP?
Such is hinted at least in RWW, WikiIndex, aSK, and WP.Civic Cat (talk) 00:09, 26 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I don't know and I don't give a shit if it was. The Democrats were pro-slavery in the Civil war and the Republicans fought to defend the union against states asserting their sovereignty. Shit changes. -  π    03:05, 26 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I was told that it wasn't, and someone has the content on backup somewhere to prove it, but since it's not available, and CP asserts that RW is a "site that promoted vandalism", no one seems to really question it. But as Pi mentions... shit changes. -- 03:23, 26 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I have never supported vandalism of Conservapedia, firstly because it is puerile and pointless, and secondly because it makes too little of the real craziness coming from the Conservapedia sysops. The Wiki was still somewhat split on the question at the time I joined, but I think the vandal contingent here is marginal by now. 03:57, 26 May 2011 (UTC)
 * True, I welcomed the "conservative viewpoint" and wanted to help get its message out there, in the marketplace of ideas, where I was sure it'd wither and die. So, it was in my best interest to keep faithful to conservatism as I could. The problem was, of course, that Andy and the fab five were determined to stay a bit to the right of Attila T. Hun. And Andy calls Los Angeles "la-la land"! 04:06, 26 May 2011 (UTC) C ® ackeЯ
 * No, it was like the bar we hung out at after work and bitched about the boss. IE, we mocked AS and others in our own private space.  Vandalism was rampant - of each other's talk pages and anything else we could try to break.  Any "planning" didn't happen on the wiki.  This is not to say that surely one or three of the participants did mess with CP for fun, but it wasn't organized.  04:14, 26 May 2011 (UTC)
 * It was a place where people who originally got together at CP got together to talk about stuff that interested them. CP and our experience of its insanity was what we had in common so it was certainly an important toppic. We also talked about sex and swore a lot. We even wrote some articles.--BobSpring is sprung! 11:29, 26 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm down to plan some attacks on CP. Hit me up on my userpage. Occasionaluse (talk) 13:00, 26 May 2011 (UTC)

Are clickbots "attacks"? While I don't think there were any at RW 1.0, 2.0 has links to some, I'm pretty sure. TrickyDickTurpis (talk) 13:04, 26 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I think the most fun I had while a RW1.0-er was to try to put evolution stuff in CP articles. Didn't last long, though, because we were blocked....  I think everything that most people did was within the constraints of the technology: easily revertible or changed.  "If you do not want your writing to be edited mercilessly and redistributed at will, then do not submit it here."  We also played around with inconsistencies: make some pages plural some singular, use "irony" both in literary sense and to refer to the element iron, drawing irregular hexagons.  A lot about cheese and donut holes.  steriletalk 15:46, 26 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the replies. I admit to doppleganging certain accounts on Yahoo! Answers, so there's my confession: the target, his pro-Confederate stance (to the question "Why Do Southern Republicans Celebrate the Civil War? Celebrating the confederacy?," and), my question, What are the Flags of our Fathers clones--or any other clones for that matter? "Flahgs of our Faddahs"--the last link on that page--was one of my doppleganger-of-sorts accounts. I admit I did wrong, or at least possibly did wrong. The thing is, if RationalWiki was a closed forum of innocuous people complaining of stuff, why did it end? I read that A.S. and a few infiltrated (how would they do that?), found who was who, and blocked their CP accounts. Was RW2 thus making virtue out of necessity after such--becoming open, or was it some kind of next stage. If the former, should one thank CP for causing it? After all, had it not been for the blocking by CP, RW1 would never have become RW2. Thoughts would be appreciated. (More) Thanks in advance.Civic Cat (talk) 22:55, 26 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Some of this stuff is probably documented patchily at RWW, but a lot of it might or might not have taken place at a super secret non-existent forum. There is no cabal.   17:51, 27 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Answering a few questions by Civic Cat to the best of my understanding/memory:
 * "I read that A.S. and a few infiltrated (how would they do that?)" - RW had been register-to-read, but open-to-register. Some of us passed out notes to CP members who had grown frustrated with the constant shit the sysops kept giving us, and Karajou somehow got one of those notes (I think he tracked down people himself and noticed it on their WP talk page?), made an account on RW and shared the password on the SDG. In hindsight, RW's security had of course been laughable, but I think we hadn't exactly expected the Eye of Sauron to go to such lengths to find us.
 * "found who was who" - They had a list of RW accounts and a few real names from people who had given them out, but that's pretty much it.
 * "and blocked their CP accounts" - The Night of the Blunt Knives was never purely an anti-RW strike. It was a mass banning that included RW dudes, but also people with no connection to RW. It was simply TK being an A-grade dick who loved to purge the site of all those who may have opposed him or Andy.
 * "Was RW2 thus making virtue out of necessity after such--becoming open, or was it some kind of next stage." - The former, but you're missing a puzzle piece. Around the Night of the Blunt Knives, CP sysops also gloated about how they had infiltrated RW, copied everything, and forwarded it to the FBI (or rather: to the IC3). So we had three issues to consider: (1) RW had failed in being a private hang-out zone where people could chat freely without idiots like Karajou noticing. (2) Tons of us were now perma-banned for "conspiring to commit vandalism". (3) "WTF? FBI?" The second one didn't really faze us that much (even that early, general consensus had been that CP wouldn't succeed beyond "HURR HURR, LIB'RULS SUCK!"), and the third one quickly turned out to be a hollow threat (filing a complaint with the IC3 is trivial, and nothing on RW1 was on scale with the charges Karajou tried to press). However, the first one had been a problem, so we had two ways out of this: Either retreat and go home or step forward and rebuild in the open. We went with option number two.
 * "If the former, should one thank CP for causing it?" - Pretty much, and we often did, especially in the early days. CP had caused RW to make the jump from "a bunch of guys chat about whatever they like" to "public site with a mission and many active members" weeks after its creation. It's of course possible and maybe even likely that this jump would have happened later anyway, but yes, CP had pulled the trigger, so to speak. --Sid (talk) 18:47, 27 May 2011 (UTC)
 * As always, Sid tells a story well and accurately. I miss the inventor of WIGO CP and his quality work.  02:37, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

Put me down as someone who's always seen the Conservapedia stuff as a sideshow. I'm not going to go so far as to drop the "no longer on mission" bomb, but I do think CP's day in the sun has long since passed and we've got better things to snark at. EVDebs (talk) 01:48, 27 May 2011 (UTC)
 * If CP disappeared tomorrow, I think it would finally not be much more than a dent in our fender, as opposed to when we used to do boycotts and our traffic flatlined. I hereby retract my long-ago promise to Kels to oppose any boycotts. 02:37, 30 May 2011 (UTC)
 * "super secret non-existent forum"  kewl  :-D  Civic Cat (talk) 18:35, 27 May 2011 (UTC)
 * and "Around the Night of the Blunt Knives" Love the term  :-)  Civic Cat (talk) 19:13, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

To the docs here
Anyone using the GE V-scan? A rep brought one the other day and its intriguing. No one I know has done anything more than play with them. I’ve heard decent things about them but was wondering if the battery life on them is enough (I put in rounds in excess of 9 hours some days) and how well they work for diagnostics. I’m in cardiology so these things are right up my ally but they’re so new and so expensive that even most university settings don’t have them. 06:06, 28 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I got one, it, ah, "fell off of the truck". MIB, I'll be selling it on Med-e-bay. 8 Large for a medical device don't sound that much especially for a 4-d ultrasound thingamabobamajig.
 * Let me know when it’s there if you may.  05:27, 30 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Too late. I had a buyer, one of mine former...ah...associates, (when I was in the unauthorized procurement of bank vault money "business": Mae01a.jpg
 * It turns out these things are great for "seeing" through two inches of case hardened steel.
 * 03:46, 31 May 2011 (UTC) C ® ackeЯ

Gimp
Is it possible to create animated gifs (or PNGs - or whatever) in the Gimp? Or is there a simple(being a bear of little brain) program that will (linux) --Scream!! (talk) 07:44, 28 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Google is your friend, use it.  Lily Inspirate me. 08:32, 28 May 2011 (UTC)
 * The answer is yes, but it isn't the easiest way to make animated GIFs in the world. The key is that an image with layers can be saved as an animation. P.S. Animated PNGs are a totally unsupported fantasy. Give up on that idea for at least the next 5 years. -- 09:31, 28 May 2011 (UTC)
 * You can animate SVGs although I've never tried it.  Lily Inspirate me. 10:59, 28 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I tried to edit SVGs in Gimp, it doesn't know it exists. Leninist123 (talk) 17:17, 28 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Use Inkscape; GIMP is a raster image editor, SVGs are vector images.  Lily Inspirate me. 17:43, 28 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I've made them in Paint Shop Pro 6 (like 12 generations out of date), quite easily. My proudest effort was a "double" animation.  02:28, 30 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I've used GIMP before for animation and it was relatively easy and pretty good for beginner gifs., though after years of Photoshop---I really prefer using my Adobe Flash Professional. I currently have CS5 and that helps a lot for any detailed animation you're looking to do.--Dumpling (talk) 08:04, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

Ten most harmful books
A good example of wingnut anti-intellectualism I found on the Googles while writing an article. I like how Darwin, BF Skinner, JS Mill, the foundational texts of sociology and macro-econ, etc. are placed alongside Mein Kampf and various commie tracts. Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 20:04, 29 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Heh, at least one very familiar name in the judges list... --Sid (talk) 20:09, 29 May 2011 (UTC)
 * the communist manifesto is a book? I guess when you're a conservative christian in the same fashion as them, 23 pages makes for a long read.--  20:12, 29 May 2011 (UTC)
 * The absence of Dawkins is disturbing. 20:28, 29 May 2011 (UTC)
 * More books to burn. Profiles in Ghost-writing is the best tl;dr version of that book, though. Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 23:12, 29 May 2011 (UTC)
 * "Bertrand Russell, Why I am Not A Christian (1936) - Known to be harmful to your spiritual health." Is also a nice one. Probably there are just too many good reasons in there so that that evil atheist scum makes you harm your beautifull christian soul. --ǓḤṂ³ 23:47, 29 May 2011 (UTC)
 * "The Evil Empire of the Soviet Union put the Manifesto into practice." - uhm, no not completely. Actually they ignored much of it.
 * "Lebensraum" = "living room"? What the fuck, that doesn't even make sense in English! If any translation then "life space" or "space to live"...
 * "anti-Communist forces of Chiang Kai-shek" - who incidently, got their advice from - taadaa: Nazi Germany! Also they simply were nationalist fascists from all I heard.
 * And may I add that everybody who lists "On Liberty" as "harmfull" either (1) is a fascist, (2) did not understand the book or (3) did not read the book. --ǓḤṂ³ 23:36, 29 May 2011 (UTC)
 * You might wish to draw a comparison between the state founded by said Nationalist Fascists and the state founded by the man with the Little Red Book. 02:20, 30 May 2011 (UTC)
 * The current political system on Taiwan has little in common with Chiang's mini-empire. The Chinese Civil War was a contest between fanatical ideologues and corrupt warlords, and people suffered terribly under both systems. Not that politicians in both Cold War camps ever cared about such details when looking for allies, of course. Röstigraben (talk) 08:44, 30 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Nor does the current People's Republic have much in common with Mao's large empire, except of course that it is still a despotism and still executes a largish number of people. 16:19, 30 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Nothing of which changes the fact that Chiang was in charge of a brutal military dictatorship and a party that cared mostly for stuffing their own pockets. Taiwan did not begin to see serious democratic reforms until more than a decade after his death. Mere opposition to communism does not make someone a champion of freedom, and criticizing fascist dictators does not mean granting absolution to their counterparts at the other end of the spectrum. Röstigraben (talk) 18:00, 30 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I was not discussing the atrocities committed at the height of either party's despotism (that is a whole other debate), but instead the differing capacities for liberal reform in the two systems. Communism has shown itself to be almost uniquely impervious to any such reforms, so that the whole governing system (and, in most cases, the party) has to be overthrown before the despotism ends. The same cannot be said for "fascism," if I may use the Reds' term for Chiang's political agenda. 18:32, 30 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Funny that you say it's a "Red's term" my pretty liberal (real meaing) professor for Chinese history (German doctorate degree, btw) used that term to describe the Kuomintang at that time, in the next sentence he said that planned economies always fail. No really, the Kuomintang were fascists at that time, but at that time and with the political situation in China at that time pretty much everybody was. So calling them fascists isn't all that bad. This is completely beside the point, but I also consider Communists to be fascists, they rule the same way only the economic system is different. --ǓḤṂ³ 22:33, 30 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I consider any use of the word "fascism" outside of the original Italian incarnation to be down to the Reds' lumping all their opponents together, similar to the intemperate use of "communist" during the McCarthy period. 03:25, 31 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Have you ever heard of the second world war? --85.77.191.128 (talk) 19:05, 30 May 2011 (UTC)
 * The capacity for reform a given system has doesn't really depend on whether it's got a right- or left-wing flavor, it's just a basic difference between totalitarianism and "mere" autocratic rule. Fascist systems need not be totalitarian - Chiang's was certainly not, although this didn't translate into less suffering for his subjects. Taiwan under Chiang had a state-capitalist system (the kind of developmental autocracy that's not uncommon in East Asia), coupled with a massive state bureaucracy that was fused with the party structure. It awarded much prominence and resources to its military establishment and engaged in ruthless repression of dissidents (and often random citizens who were just unlucky). Nationalism, if not of the ethnic variety, was used as a tool for mobilization and legitimizing ideology. That's pretty much all the basics of fascism covered. It's also familiar for another reason: mainland China nowadays shares many of these characteristics as well, and they arrived there through reforms. Not so much political ones, but a sharp turn in economic policy that had to be pushed through in the face of massive intraparty conflict. Communism (the totalitarian element of the system) has been abolished as a concrete system as well as an abstract ideology used to legitimize CCP rule, nowadays it's all about the promise of increasing living standards for all. It's not the system that stands in the way of further (political) reform, just a lack of will on the part of the political elites. On Taiwan, such reforms came about as a result of foreign pressure at a time when they'd already fallen far behind mainland China, and Lee's personal leadership. He had to fight conservative elements and those who owed their status to the old system, just like Deng and his reformers had to when they embarked on the road to economic liberalization. Look at it this way - both systems went through groundbreaking reforms, mainland China just started out one step lower down the ladder from totalitarianism to liberalism. No system is impervious to further change, and any ideology can be quickly discarded once a better method of securing popular support becomes available. Röstigraben (talk) 19:14, 30 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I was not talking about "left-wing" vs. "right-wing" ideologies; I was talking about communism. Is there a communist state (apart from those under foreign occupation, like Cambodia) that made the full transition to democracy without being in the midst of some form of mass action? Were there any such transitions in which the communist party remained in power? 02:41, 31 May 2011 (UTC)
 * No, of course not, but that's hardly something that's exclusive to communist regimes either. Was there ever any dictatorship that was reformed or toppled only through elite action, without major protests on the streets or a foreign intervention? Autocracies simply have a habit of persisting until rising internal and external pressure makes it impossible for them to cling on to power. Taiwan's democracy was established after relentless mass protests, and its dependency on other democracies made it impossible to gun them down.
 * Apart from that, I'm also generally unaware of any party that formed the organizational backbone of an extremist dictatorship staying in power after the end of that system and maintaining its ideology, again regardless of whether it's a leftist or rightist one. However, that does not mean they don't survive the transition - usually, they have to go through reforms of their own and reinvent themselves as center-right or -left, depending on whether they started out as fascists or communists. Many of them eventually return to power after a period in which the erstwhile dissidents rule (some examples from abolished communist regimes: Poland, Hungary, Ukraine; some from fascist ones: Spain,Chile). Taiwan is one example where the ruling party managed to narrowly hold on to power in the very first election, owing mostly to its massive advantages in financial resources, organization and well-placed sympathizers (they then lost the next two presidential elections, and eventually recaptured the office in 2008). But in order to do so, they had to purge the conservative elements in their ranks and abolish some of its erstwhile tenets - Taiwan's prolonged transition period gave Chiang Jr. and Lee enough time to reinvent their party as well. So again, a system's status as a communist or non-communist dictatorship doesn't matter. If reformed parties count, there are examples from both sides of the spectrum; if you're only willing to accept cases in which the ruling party maintained its ideology and was still confirmed in free democratic elections, there are none from either side. Röstigraben (talk) 07:00, 31 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm also generally unaware of any party that formed the organizational backbone of an extremist dictatorship staying in power after the end of that system and maintaining its ideology. That is not the question I asked; the qualifier you tacked onto it forms a truism.
 * Was there ever any dictatorship that was reformed or toppled only through elite action? For starters, the Roman Kingdom (the Roman Kings were the original dictators), the Japanese shogunate, Franco's Spain, and Pinochet's Chile. Note, also, that I said in the midst of some mass action, by which I meant ongoing protests on such a scale as to destabilize the country, forcing its government to act immediately. 08:07, 31 May 2011 (UTC)
 * You asked about a communist system that was transformed into a democracy, yet with the communist party staying in power. I took that to mean that the party was still communist (=maintained its ideology). It's not something I "tacked on", it follows from the context of the debate above - we were discussing ideological authoritarian parties and their capacity for reform. But whatever, it doesn't matter either way. Either you're looking for cases in which a former extremist party stayed in power or eventually recaptured it by adapting to the new environment (in which case it did not maintain its ideology), then you'll find examples from both ex-communist and ex-fascist countries. Or you're looking for cases in which a communist or fascist dictatorship was willing to face a free election without changing its ideology and prevailed, then there simply is no instance of this ever happening, communist or otherwise. Which isn't too surprising, because if the people hadn't been fed up with the dictatorship and its system, they wouldn't have created enough pressure to force a vote in the first place. My point is that neither of these interpretations will allow you to make a meaningful distinction about the nature of communist dictatorships or single them out for "unique" imperviousness to reform. You can't reform communism into a democracy without abolishing central ideological tenets, but the exact same thing is true for the fascist dictatorships. Both require authoritarian rule and are thus incompatible with liberalism. Seriously, you're acting as if anyone who uses the word "fascism" or dares to criticize dictatorships of that persuasion is a communist sympathizer who's trying to whitewash the historical record. Acknowledging the fact that there are other horrible kinds of authoritarianism and totalitarianism does not distract in any way from the particular evils that came with communist rule. I think I've made it abundantly clear that I don't have any sympathies for radicals of either flavor, and I'm not too fond of being accused of arguing in bad faith ("moving the goalposts"). Röstigraben (talk) 10:12, 31 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Also, Lebensraum is generally translated as "living space" ("living room" is close enough, I guess) and is well-known as a plank in the Nazi Party platform. Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 03:22, 30 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Yeah, I can't use "living space" without breaking out in laughter. I have probably seen to much science fiction for that. --ǓḤṂ³ 22:33, 30 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Time to grab some eBooks and start reading I think!! Ancient Greek Pegasus icon.png 00:02, 30 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I lol'd at how Malcom X's autobiography is on both the "Best" and "Worst" books of the century lists. And I even noticed how Orwell also made the "Best" list.  What is with conservatives claiming that Orwell was one of them?  It's baffling to me.  -- 01:43, 30 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Because the orwellian society in 1984 was a socialist one. Socialism = communism = bad. So orwell must have been a True Conservative. Ancient Greek Pegasus icon.png 12:32, 30 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Orwell was one of them, sort of; he was an anti-communist and at least a little nostalgic for the Good Old Days, if what he says in The Road to Wigan Pier is any indication. Keep in mind that these are American conservatives, ideologically speaking a different lot altogether from the European conservatives of Orwell's day.
 * For works inspiring the Nazis, I would drop Nietzsche and put in something like The Passing of the Great Race (the pseudoscientific basis of Nazi racial policy), or otherwise Protocols of the Elders of Zion or Henry Ford's The International Jew.
 * For the feminist one, Andrea Dworkin's dreck has actually done some documented harm, in the area of civil liberties to be exact, but I suppose they had to let Mommie Dearest pick bones as she would.
 * Drop Kinsey, of course, and put Paul Cameron's "studies" in their place. 02:20, 30 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I love the Orwell thing. The wingers read Orwell, a socialist, the same way they read the Bible, Adam Smith, and von Hayek -- that is to say, they don't. CP even has Orwell listed in their little conservative navbox. Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 03:22, 30 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Do you think mumsy dearest was one of the ones who voted for Descent of Man? Nothing quite so dangerous as the knowledge that we was sorta evoluted from the old world monkeys. -- 04:50, 30 May 2011 (UTC)
 * @ListenerX: Respectfully, you share some of the conservatives' misunderstanding of Orwell's anti-communist stance. I had the opportunity recently to read Coming up for Air, which is as anti-capitalist a novel as you'll ever read. There's also a lot of "longing for the good old days" in that book, but it's in the context of the days before the Great War fucked up the old, simpler life. There's also a lot of parody in there of leftist agitators. At any rate, Orwell's social philosophy is too complicated to be claimed by either modern conservatives or liberals. He seemed simply to think that postwar life everywhere was FUBAR. Junggai (talk) 07:17, 30 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Has anyone here read Orwell's Homage to Catalonia? I have, although it was so long ago its all a bit vague now. But from reading it I got the impression that the group Orwell really didn't like was the Stalinists; the Anarchists he didn't mind so much, although he observed some of their foibles first hand (especially trusting the Stalinists too much). I think Orwell thought that the Soviets were one of the main reasons why Franco won. 12:39, 30 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I have read that one. I think it marks his disillusionment with communism, not so much with the ideology but with the folk running it. Not surprising as the soviets imprisoned and murdered many of friends, and made a good effort to get him too. AMassiveGay (talk) 15:46, 30 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Junggai, I am perfectly aware that Orwell was anti-capitalist and cannot be lumped in with anyone ideologically; but unlike with a number of left-wingers, his opposition to capitalism was driven by nostalgia. That nostalgia is what he has in common with the conservatives, even though the mode in which he expressed it differs. 16:19, 30 May 2011 (UTC)
 * You have heard of Marx' utopia, right? --ǓḤṂ³ 22:44, 30 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I have; your point being? 02:41, 31 May 2011 (UTC)
 * (I'm moving this here for readability) Well, the Marxist worldview is build around economy, so that is the central point I'll refer to. The Marxists belief that the first societies were classless, only later classes developed and began waring each other. They want to go back to a classless society, so they are revisionists in that matter. Off course those societies would be emensely different but the central point is still to go back to a classless and economically free society. They want to go back too, just way further back. --ǓḤṂ³ 19:41, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

I also think it's a bit sad that there was no mention of Dawkins. I was also thinking about an alternative list. Are there any books that we would like to nominate? Atlas Shrugged seems to be universally detested but I've not read it.--BobSpring is sprung! 19:52, 30 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Depends on the criteria. If you're going by "most harmful," the original list has some of the worst offenders like Mein Kampf and Mao's Little Red Book covered. If you're going by just the flat-out worst pseudo-scholarship, The Bananaman could fill up an entire list by himself. Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 20:06, 30 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I was sort of thinking of seditious left-wing tracts like the American Deceleration of Independence.--BobSpring is sprung! 20:21, 30 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Isn't all this "most harmful" business mostly a case of putting the cart before the horse? It was Hitler who was harmful, his book had very little to do with his rise to power or very much consequential evil since he shuffled off his mortal coil. Similarly the only consequential effects of randroid insanity came from a person who studied first hand at the foot of the mistress herself, rather than her books. Darwin probably qualifies if you consider learning the truth about human origins harmful, but you have to be insane to consider the damage done to fundie religions real harm. -- 21:14, 30 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Flippant dead guy quote: "It is ideas, not vested interests, which are dangerous for good or evil." -John Maynard Keynes. Though I'd say vested interests with vested ideas are even worse. Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 03:01, 31 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I disagree; ideas and actions are so tangentially linked that one cannot take ideas too seriously in good-versus-evil questions. Look at the moral law in Christianity vis-a-vis what Christians, liberated by the Gospel, get up to. 03:25, 31 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm talking about ideas more in the sense of memes than as they are explicitly written. Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 03:41, 31 May 2011 (UTC)
 * "Deceleration of Independence"? Doctor Dark (talk) 00:52, 31 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes. You can also refer to it as the American Acceleration-in-a-direction-opposite-velocity of Independence, though the other way is faster.  -- 01:06, 31 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Oh. As one of my college friends once observed, "Physics is hard." Doctor Dark (talk) 02:28, 31 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Ha! I observed that as early as high school!  Clearly I am smarter than your college friend.

I vote for Atlas Shrugged, ruining young women's minds, and the young men who want to fondle them, for decades on end. 07:23, 31 May 2011 (UTC)


 * I consider any use of the word "fascism" outside of the original Italian incarnation to be down to the Reds' lumping all their opponents together. Ohreally?

Also this: Today our National Socialist and Fascist Revolution have conquered great and mighty states- (Adolf Hitler. Feb 24, 1942).

This may have simply been a reference to his Italian allies, but national socialism is undeniably based on Fascism and shares the vast majority of (Gentilian) Fascism's core ideas, i.e. the perception of life as struggle, the organic state, the cult of the leader, the belief (contra Marxism) that there is no final stage, the development of the new man and the new woman. Both movements saw themselves as a reaction against ideology itself, openly emraced the irrational, advocated revlution as a means of preventing a Bolshevik revolution and are based on the same understanding of the Hegelian dialectic. Labelling National Socialism as Fascism does not take a great leap of the imagination. That said, the term is tossed around too much. I've heard it being used to refer to any right wing dictatorship of that period. Pilsudski was certainly not a Fascist and the Spanish Falangists were too ideologically diverse to be properly labelled as such. I do agree that referring to the Kuomintang as Fascists is a complete oversimplification though. The term ultra-nationalist would be more apt. --Danfly (talk) 09:58, 31 May 2011 (UTC)