Essay talk:Open Letter to The Young Turks

who?

Them User:Ttony21/sig2 20:00, 6 March 2009 (EST)

NO! BAD! We cannot shamlessly promote Rational wiki without a catchy name for our plans. How about Operation oh, I dont know, ALL YOUR BASE. Then, Trent or Human or RA can create a subuserpage entitles /Gentelmen and say something like

Dear Gentlemen at a rather conservative site,

It appears to be likely that your criticisms are quite irrational. As far as RationalWiki pageviews, you gloss over that Young Turks have not even recived our letter. In fact, by the latter part of next week, it is likely Conservapedia will have had no chance to survive make its time. :) :) :)

Rest assured, Operation ALL YOUR BASE is gathering steam!!! The time of stalking is over. Internet rationalists are ready to pounce!!!

Sincerely,

Trent/RA/Human/The Emperor_{Kneel before Zod!} 20:13, 6 March 2009 (EST)

We set up the Google bomb. But anyone else with less memes and more constructive advice User:Ttony21/sig2 14:02, 7 March 2009 (EST)

Definitely mention that we have an article about cats. Arithmostoutheriou 15:08, 7 March 2009 (EST)

And I don't mean CATS!! Arithmostoutheriou 15:09, 7 March 2009 (EST)

I'm not sure this should come "from" RW - because I'm not sure that anybody can really speak "for" RationalWiki. Perhaps from "some users at RationalWiki" would be better? Also not all of us regard the "ideological war" with CP as the most important thing.--Bob^{bing up} 16:15, 7 March 2009 (EST)

Well I was trying to focus it on Conservapedia to give them reason to use it, but I do mention the other ideals of the site. If you think there's a better way to word it, I left it as an "open" essay so people could edit. User:Ttony21/sig2 16:38, 7 March 2009 (EST)

I was going to make a similar comment to Bob. The "from RationalWiki" thing is a bit presumptuous, & the "idealogical war" (sic) against Conservapedia is exaggerated. I don't like RW being presented as a specifically anti-Conservapedia site. If you're going to send this, I'd suggest announcing on the intercom first, so that everyone gets a chance to look at it & discuss it beforehand. Wėąṣėḷőįď^{Methinks it is a Weasel} 16:52, 7 March 2009 (EST)

Oops, Opera spell checker didn't catch that, and I fixed some of it. Might try the intercom. User:Ttony21/sig2 17:10, 7 March 2009 (EST)

Edit: Apparently I don't have the right to use the intercom anyway. User:Ttony21/sig2 17:18, 7 March 2009 (EST)

Every registered user has the right to use it. It's just one group (the urgent one) that is restricted &/or obsolete. Use the other site-wide one - I think it's "general site news". Wėąṣėḷőįď^{Methinks it is a Weasel} 17:26, 7 March 2009 (EST)

Oh weird. I tried the sandbox one but it said I didn't have the right. User:Ttony21/sig2 17:30, 7 March 2009 (EST)

In that case, you might not be in any of the groups. Register here. Wėąṣėḷőįď^{Methinks it is a Weasel} 17:36, 7 March 2009 (EST)

Ah that makes sense, Ok I got it this time really. User:Ttony21/sig2 17:39, 7 March 2009 (EST)

Call me an old fucking fart but...

In the ENTIRE screed I didn't see no mention (even oncest) of goat. This is an outrage...but then everything seems to be an outrage these days. 17:22, 7 March 2009 (EST) CЯacke®

Accuracy and some opinions

"RationalWiki was started in May of 2007 as a counter-wiki to Conservapedia. At that point in RationalWiki's history, it's only true purpose was discussion about Conservapedia, a few articles meant to mock it, and organized vandalism of the site;"

Every "fact" in that quote is incorrect.

I think the over-emphasis on CP is embarrassing, and a letter such as this should be written by one person, not from a "group" (unless several want to sign the exact text). While getting some hype at TYT might be good, let's make it about he mission and not CP, mention some of our better articles (see category:Best of RationalWiki I think). It could say that "RW was founded in 2/07, then rebuilt in 5/07, by a group of people appalled at conservapedia's approach, who decided to build a site to [missions paraphrase]". ħuman 18:00, 7 March 2009 (EST)

Well I'll try rewriting it a bit since apparently I didn't do my research well. As for the signatures, everyone who contributes can sign it if they'd like I suppose. We could skip the signatures all together, but I was just attempting to make it sound more business formal (although they'd probably respect some humour). User:Ttony21/sig2 18:20, 7 March 2009 (EST)

The CP emphasis is probably needed to make RW relevant, but it definitely needs to give more of a "oomph" to the part about it expanding. RW now covers quite a fair amount of science and maths for something of its size. ArmondikoV^bomination 18:38, 7 March 2009 (EST)

Hmm, maybe. Anyway, Tony21, I'd recommend you hit "random page" a few dozen times to get a feel for the face we present to the world outside the CP namespace. (Been meaning to do it myself again lately) ħuman 22:29, 7 March 2009 (EST)

What's the point of this?

I don't think I understand the point of this. It just seems incredibly tacky, the kind of the thing Ken might do. The way I see it, if you want the media to cover a story there has to be something attention grabbing about it. Try writing an imaginary headline for the story you want them to run. From the letter, the only thing I can think of is "People disagree on the internet, film at 11." It just isn't news.

Now if you were doing this during the Lenski affair, I'd have heartily supported you. I also think there are some current news stories that could be squeezed out of CP, primarily "Incompetent shyster criminally miseducates children" but none of these stories involve mentioning RW significantly.

Oh yeah, and if you open any writing with variants on the theme of "I don't want to seem like I'm begging, but..." then that's a pretty sure sign you're begging. --JeevesMkII ^{The gentleman's gentleman at the other site} 00:24, 8 March 2009 (EST)

What about "moar pimp"? Oh, yeah, I agree. This is embarrassing. ħuman 00:30, 8 March 2009 (EST)