Forum:Pre-mortem

< Index | Site-related discussion

Let's have a thought experiment. Imagine that in one year, RationalWiki has failed. Describe what kind of failure you find most likely - what happened, why it happened, and what you, individually and as the user community, did to result in such a failure and what you didn't do to prevent it.--AndYourFoesShallRejoice... (talk) 20:41, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

Failed at what? writing about idiots? OK, suppose we stopped writing about idiots for some reason. I guess the most likely cause of that would be getting lost in our own little snarkiverse. I guess my role in that would be thinking all the articles I want to write have all been written, and restricting myself to commenting in the Saloon Bar whenever another old-timer turns up. Sophie^Wilder 21:21, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

RationalWiki would have failed because it failed to produce popular articles, either by producing articles on unpopular topics, producing bad, not-linkworthy-on-other-sites articles, or by not producing articles. The community and I would presumeably either have been unaware of popular content, stupid, inactive, or trapped within the Talk-Page-iverse. Fuzzy "Cat" Potato, Jr. (talk/stalk) 21:35, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

Alright, I'll give this one a shot. I'll go for the creative route: let's say RationalWiki "fails" due to a perfect storm of an uptick of rampant trolling (GG, fundies, berts, whatever) leading to polarized perceptions and opinions of these people triggering some bad, high-profile RL-behaviour on behalf of sysops the envy of Dick Dorkins eventually bestowing infamy and the ensuing media drama. I wanna go off script a bit and talk about what I or even we didn't (or possibly wouldn't) do to save RW from irrelevance and/or oblivion, which is likely not engage enough with the community either within RW or on its Facebook page; I've been a fixture on the Internet in one form or another for a while now and I'm not very interested in engaging in lengthy, drawn out debates anymore - I've been through enough of them and I'm tired. I guess all I'm after at this point is a safe space where I don't have to contend with someone slack-jawed dickhead's unsubstantiated idiocy nor do I want to go down their harrowing descent of a rabbit hole only to hit a brick wall signifying this person's compartmentalized mental boundaries. Granted, I have and on occasion will go down that dark path, but it's limited and I just feel drained after trying to slog through the next troll's PRATT that I just dealt with, but AHA! I didn't address this point specifically therefore Gold standard or Atheism is Wrong or MONSATAN or whatever stupid crank idea is in vogue at the time. I have a family and career to worry about these days so I'm wont to wrack my mind and soul for this shit for extended periods of time; also, I suspect that there are many a user out here in RW that feels the same way. Thereafter, I will likely retreat back to my only other refuge for expression online amongst friends on various social media outlets or on more controlled forums, like Something Awful. Space Turbo (talk) 01:53, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

I do think that the site's list of official truths is a bit too long, especially on political and politicized subjects. I'm interested in more or less traditional scientific skepticism, and have an enduring literary interest in eccentric discourse, which is why I stick around. On the other hand, politically I suppose I'm a socially liberal paleoconservative with libertarian tendencies, though my libertarianism is more of the Playboy Philosophy type than the Randian or economanic varieties. (This doesn't fit well with actual politics as practiced, well, anywhere.) Our articles on political subjects are occasionally informative, but do little to convince anyone that a contrary position is false; nor can they, when what's at issue is clashing values rather than facts. - Smerdis of Tlön, ^{A ⇒ ¬A.} 04:40, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

Dude, the thing with "scientific skepticism" is that you need not only apply it to the hard sciences. Applying it to things like the humanities and social sciences will steer you towards the conclusions found on this site's bias - much like it has done for me. Especially in regards to economics! Space Turbo (talk) 16:14, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

Most likely cause of failure: Hardware failure and apathy 208.29.163.248 (talk) 07:30, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

Some kind of funding crisis, due to departure or apathy of previous substantial contributors & dwindling intake of new long-term editors. Perhaps the RMF will also disband or split from the site. Wěǎšěǐǒǐď^{Methinks it is a Weasel} 15:12, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

The thing about decreasing regular editor count is that I'm pretty sure that regular editors make up plurality of bandwidth usage. Now every wiki that does burn itself out follows a pattern of collective apathy until zero edits per day, then per week, then the owners don't care, but such a dwindling takes a long while from a 500 edit per day active rate. Ikanreed (talk) 16:40, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

It's succeeding because I finally found a forum where 99% of people don't believe in God.. YAYAY Pitzy 20:22, 15 January 2015 (UTC) ^{— Unsigned, by: Pits Brazil / talk / contribs}

Simply and literally untrue. It doesn't speak well to your intentions to discuss anything here honestly. Ikanreed (talk) 20:06, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

CRAP sorry I don't review what I WRITE I meant to say I am happy becauseI can talk with NON-BELIEVERS I DEFINITELY BELIVE IN GOD but it didn't sound like that. I will rewrite it now :D Pitzy 20:22, 15 January 2015 (UTC)