RationalWiki:Saloon bar/Archive179

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, (new)(back)

Hurricane Sandy

How many of you have the guts/sense of humor to tell those who blame it on the gays...

• That God loves a preemptive strikes which causes self-fulfilling prophecies (Maine/Maryland ballot measures passes after it hits)?
• That maybe something else in the area hit is the things to blame, like Conservapedia?

(Append the list as you please, although climate change is omitted because they don't seem to listen to reason) [[User:K61824|]][[User_talk:K61824|]] 16:05, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

I've started showing them this SMBC strip from about a week ago. Simple and Easy reaction to stupidity. --Mikal ^{Harass Follow} 18:01, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

Update to Divine retribution?--Weirdstuff (talk) 09:32, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

Rocky Mountain High

Gotta say, of all the things that passed last night, the single most surprising one is that Colorado has now legalized pot for recreational use. Wow. or rather, "duuuude!" One good thing, Taco Bell has announced 25 new all night chains.--GodotI hate waiting! 01:01, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

It'll be great for the economy. If I had money, I'd lease out the spaces in the strip malls off Federal, Sheridan and Havana where the dispensaries like to set up shop, and just sell snacks and drinks. Name of the story: "Munchies". -- Seth Peck (talk) 17:56, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

Contrary to the delusions of Tipper Gore, Rocky Mountain High has nothing to do with drug use (according to word of god, and IMHO any sane informed commentator). It's still funny though. LiberalOfAnUnknownVariant (talk) 21:29, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

What will antropologists think about internet memes in thousands of years?

They're very closely connected to the culture where they were made, so it's unlikely they'd be understood. It could also be that if they could be understood, they would become an extremely academic resource in evaluating people's thoughts of the time. Or they wouldn't be understood and could start a religion. Inquisitor Sasha Ehrenstein des Sturmkrieg Sector 06:45, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

If they have access to memes then they will probably also have access to the rest of the internet, and with it the appropriate historical context. Peter ^{Subsisting on honey} 06:50, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

Pretty sure the OP was referring to the mythical 'culture outside of the internet' as well as internet culture. Tielec01 (talk) 08:40, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

You are all assuming there will be anthropologists 1000 years from now, or that there will be any trace left of bits and bytes in digital storage to reconstruct that there was ever such a thing as an "internet", whatever that is. December 21, 2012 baby. Mayan calendar apocalypse. Can't wait can't wait. This'll be more fun than Harold Camping. Secret Squirrel (talk) 09:07, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

To rephrase Peter's point - If the hypothesised anthropologists have access to "internet memes", then presumably they will also have access to the internet on which said memes must necessarily exist in order to qualify as "internet memes".--Weirdstuff (talk) 09:18, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

Any prediction about how life will be ten years into the future is flawed, twenty years - seriously flawed, fifty years - forget it. I'm still waiting on my flying car. Innocent Bystander (talk) 09:50, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

Personally i'm waiting for the Fax Machine revolution. --Mikal ^{Harass Follow} 13:59, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

What is the point of fax machines? At least people never got into email machines JHC. Inquisitor Sasha Ehrenstein des Sturmkrieg Sector 17:22, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

Fax machines were mostly for those who needed to send quick correspondence in Oriental characters before UTF-16 (Unicode) made it obsolete. My grandfather had an email machine...but he was in his eighties, and didn't need a computer for any other reason. It dialed right into his home phone line! -- Seth Peck (talk) 17:58, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

They existed solely for the best unintentional double joke in BttF2, and for drama in movies. --Mikal ^{Harass Follow} 19:19, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

Not really good enough for WIGOW

South African arrested with 'nephew's genitals in his wallet' -- what kind of sick fuck would do this? --AmazingTechnicolorCheeseWedge (talk) 20:08, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

Wasn't me! That said, the answer you're looking for is probably muti. PsyGremlin^講話 22:04, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

Unskewed Pollster admits that he was wrong

In other news, Hell freezes over. -- Seth Peck (talk) 21:33, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

AiG's excellent science

The Answers Research Journal has really outdone themselves this time. In their determination to figure out how many mammalian "kinds" there were on the ark, the crack geneticists on staff at AiG turned to the most up to date scientific methodology, using google images and figuring out which animals look kind of similar. The best part? Check out fig. 18. That's a fucking stuffed toy. How creationists even manage to dress themselves is a mystery to me. --JeevesMkII ^{The gentleman's gentleman at the other site} 07:51, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

Wow yea. A puppet. They link back to the source site so I wonder if that means they asked for permission to use the image? I'm trying to imagine the email request.

"I represent an important and respected scientific organisation and I wonder if we could use a photograph of your soft toy to demonstrate the complete biological truth of the Ark story? We promise that it will be given equal billing with the real biological examples." --Weirdstuff (talk) 09:08, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

The toy in question comes from this site, but the author Jean Lightner seems to think that red hair is proof of intelligent design. You also have to wonder at the intelligence of someone majoring in Veterinary Medicine -"Jean and her husband were surprised when she fell pregnant before she graduated". Генгис^evolving 09:22, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

While I agree with nearly everything else, I must protest your slur against vet students. (In the USA at least,) [V]eternarian schools are significantly harder to get into and require higher grades than normal (human) medical schools do--after all, you have to diagnose and treat a patient that can't explicitly tell you what's wrong. Also, the biggest difference between a doctor and a vet? Vets can actually cure diseases (like cancer), instead of just treating them. -- Seth Peck (talk) 16:50, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, but I wasn't impugning the intelligence of vet students in general, just one in particular who seemed to be unaware of the facts of life. I am fully aware that vet students have to study to a similar level as regular medical students. Furthermore, at least in the UK, vets often have a much more stressful career and are four times more likely to commit suicide than other healthcare professonals. Our own vet took a shotgun to himself only just a few months ago. Генгис^{RationalWiki GOLD member} 18:17, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

Holy shit. -- Seth Peck (talk) 18:25, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

It can't be easy having to put down so many family pets or sick farm animals, even if you know it's for the best. Генгис^{Our ignorance is God; what we know is science.} 18:38, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

I doubt it helps that they also have to witness people's cruelty and stupidity toward pets and livestock. I often think the world would be a better place of dogs ran things -- priorities would be running and playing, getting enough to eat, snoozing in the sun, and being rubbed on the tummy. Doctor Dark (talk) 18:53, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

While the gaffe over the stuffed toy is laughable, the fact that the author is supposedly a qualified vet makes it an epic fail. We should have an article on this woman. Генгис^{Is the Pope a Catholic?} 09:52, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

This delighted my coworkers, particularly the bit where they link to the site selling the stuffed toy - David Gerard (talk) 10:32, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

Interesting red hair argument. Some mutations are sub-lethal. Because some mutations are sub-lethal we must have been designed to not be killed by sub-lethal mutations! Of course we are killed by lethal mutations - so we must (presumably) have been designed to be killed by lethal mutations!

This is fun - it works for everything. Look! Leaves are green - so they must have been designed to be green! Some leaves are not green - even more proof of design! Great begging the question example I think.--Weirdstuff (talk) 10:39, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

That red hair page of hers which Genghis Khant linked to above seems to suggest that an article in "The American Journal of Human Genetics" supports her Creationist ideas. It also sorta implies that she wrote it. In fact the article in question does no such thing. A brief skim brings up the line: "Dating of some of the mutations under a coalescent model that assumes neutrality suggests ages of ∼25,000–50,000 years." Hardly a creationist time-scale.--Weirdstuff (talk) 11:09, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

Preserved for posterity. Sophie^Wilder 11:30, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

Some more great stuff from her

Dr Lightner has always been impressed with the amazing design of God’s creatures. Recently she has come to see redundancy as another powerful evidence for creation. Redundancy is seen in DNA sequences that have known roles, yet when they are ‘knocked out’ in mice they show no ill effects. Jean: “At first I thought it was wasteful to have such an overlap in function.” But her oldest child, who pilots MAF airplanes, explained how important redundancy is to ensure the safety of aircraft. “It provides a built-in safety mechanism by allowing a second system to take over in the event the first one fails. But such redundancy doesn’t just happen by accident; it requires intelligent design.”

Генгис^{You have the right to be offended; and I have the right to offend you.} 13:11, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

This still isn't as good as Harun Yahya using a fishing lure in his Atlas of Creation. --PsyGremlin^Sprich! 13:15, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

It's certainly from the same intellectual stable. I wonder if there are any more examples?--Weirdstuff (talk) 13:21, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

I blogged this and am getting quite a few hits. Генгис^marauding 16:08, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

Ditto. I'll be damned if that Genghis gets whore his blog alone. --PsyGremlin^Zungumza! 17:53, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

Damn you Psy, I finally got off my arse and posted something and you had to upstage me. Генгис^{RationalWiki GOLD member} 19:42, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

Sorry! Yours has the better title though :) --PsyGremlin^{말하십시오} 14:05, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

Georgia Purdom's take is hilarious. There might be problems with the evolutionary model^tm, therefore creationism. It's also hilarious that Lightner specifically says they won't use sequencing in their first ARJ paper, but now she claims that she is, except she doesn't. ADD: Actually that's the previous ARJ paper she's referring to. sterile^{sporadic heavy hitter} 16:29, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

"Chimps are more closely related to humans based on genetics, but orangutans are more closely related to humans based on morphology—so which should be used in determining evolutionary relationships and phylogenetic trees?" Obviously someone who really understands how evolution works. Генгис^{Our ignorance is God; what we know is science.} 16:38, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

Soft toys being on the ark certainly solves the caring for the animals in Noah's ark problem. I may have to write a paper on this. Morwen (talk) 17:03, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

It also solves a longstanding question I've had about the Ark: did Noah get to hug every animal on it? Radioactive afikomen ^{Please ignore all my awful pre-2014 comments.} 18:15, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

So I'm really late to the party, but it basically looks like all they have done is change "kind means species" to "kind means Order" give or take a few 100 orders. yes?--GodotI hate waiting! 01:07, 8 November 2012 (UTC)edit - family, not order. sorry. GodotI hate waiting! 01:09, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

• On the plus side, this kind of stuff has equipped me well to "discuss" with a creationist why his review of "why evolution is true" on Amazon is (a) wrong and (b) never going to be anything but wrong. So, not all bad. JzG (talk) 01:28, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

assistance requested by a newbie

I have been attempting to post some commentary on the CP (talk) page. Having typed it in and finished it off with four tildes, I then cannot determine how to actually post the comment. The only preference tabs that show at the bottom of the page are Save Page, Show Preview, and Show Changes- same as on this page (I was afraid of that...). But hitting "Save Page" does not seem to upload my post. So... I am trying over here, in the saloon bar, to see if I can learn anything. What am I doing wrong? Leopardskinfez (talk) 23:39, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

Are you remembering to do the capatchas? Peter ^{Subsisting on honey} 23:43, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

Lately I find that I need to do a page refresh before I see newly added bits. Even a copy of the page in a newly opened window needs an F5 before I see its most recent state. This is something newish-- maybe in the last month or so? Sprocket J Cogswell (talk) 00:36, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

We now have a squid proxy in front of the actual web server, but I thought it was flushing OK for everyone when a page was changed. Anyone else seeing this? - David Gerard (talk) 08:06, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

On occasion the edit page is slow to close and refresh with the original, but opening RC in a new tab shows it fine. ^sshole 17:34, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

Same here as with Cogs. Evil fascist^{oh noez} 17:40, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

Community standards

Some people think that the community standards forbid the removal of any comment from a talk page, others seem content that a message which has served its (transient) purpose need not be immortalised in all its glory. Specifically, [1]. Now, I think I have honoured the spirit of the community standards and Hipocrite agrees, bot others (at least one of whom comes bearing grudges) seem determined to enforce the retention in full public view of what reads to me as an unnecessarily rude and aggressive message which has absolutely no further purpose as I have understood the point the commenter was making and won't make the same newbie error again.

So: do the community standards request the retention in full of every comment, no matter how obnoxious? I think it unlikely, since RW is notionally less rule-bound than Wikipedia, and even Wikipedia has long since recognised that enforcing the retention of snarks and the like is asinine, but I'd like clarification from people with no axe to grind. Thanks. JzG (talk) 16:41, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

It also bears acknowledging that said grudge bearer believes that it's ok for him to remove content from other people's talk pages - ref [2] removing "Thank you, I was confident that this would be acceptable since it serves 100% of the purpose of the community standard. I'd be grateful if you could counsel Abd to leave me alone, you will be well aware of my reasons for having no interest in dealing with him I believe and I suspect you have no interest at all in importing old Wikipedia battles. JzG (talk) 16:32, 8 November 2012 (UTC)" Hipocrite (talk) 16:47, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

Actually, no, I don't "believe it's ok." JzG removed comment and added comment at the bottom, and I missed that, an error easily fixed. But Hipocrite, with the diff above, just reverted (as I had), and so removed comment himself. I'll fix it with one more edit, then, I don't continue revert warring, but at least I should assert the correct version. --Abd (talk) 18:34, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

You seem to make a lot of mistakes. You should probably be more careful, and stop making mistakes. Hipocrite (talk) 18:36, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

I recall we had a vote on this, and it was decided offensive material can be removed from one's talk page. So if you find it offensive, remove it. DickTurpis (talk) 16:48, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

OK, thanks, I will look for the archive, as I (plainly) do, have, and have been reverted and even blocked for doing so. I am pretty confident that the RW crowd are vastly too relaxed to enforce the verbatim retention of snarks, but it it also clear that I am not going to be allowed to peacefully remove this without external review. JzG (talk) 16:57, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

• Said "offensive material* was discussion of JzG's actions by many RW users, it was not "snark." Users with comments deleted: PintOfStout, Matty the Damned, Blue, Scream!!, and JzG himself, who replaced it all with his own critique, in the archive, where we expect no live discussion. Archives are not the place for the Last Word.^TM
• By policy, it's "obviously vile comments," that can be removed, snark is the RatWiki norm. Dick's comment is not wrong, but does not apply to this context.
• Hipocrite, an open troll and JzG, from Wikipedia history, can be expected to troll together. JzG's deletion from Talk archive had nothing to do with me, though he's now removing comment directly from his talk page,[3], and Hipocrite and JzG are tag-team reverting in several places, especially trying to stir up Cold fusion. Your wiki, folks. --Abd (talk) 17:35, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

Care to define the word "obvious"? If it's obvious to him, who's to say otherwise? Or do we need to vote on it? DickTurpis (talk) 17:55, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

Dick, have you read the comments? Your interpretation would allow *anything* to be removed, if the user doesn't like it. No, we don't need to vote, unless this is not handled short of the coop. It's now easily coopable, given that discussion and action by multiple users is not working.

This piece of trolling] is egregiously offensive. If we allow a user to tell another to go rape his kids, it would mean that RatWiki has totally lost it. Hipocrite is practically demanding that this be cooped,[4] revert warring on user talk pages, and doing everything he can to stir up trouble. He is, in fact, skilled at it, he wasn't kidding on his user page. --Abd (talk) 18:18, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

Did you not advocate including on this wiki the stance that fucking children is not abuse? Just to be clear, and all, you believe that fucking children is not child abuse, right? Hipocrite (talk) 18:36, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

No. I did not advocate that, and the question itself is abusive. And Hipocrite is doing exactly what Hipocrite has long done, turn the simplest things into HCM. He will say whatever he thinks will get the largest response, and he often manages to suck others along, as he's doing with JzG here, who is merely clueless (and very much holding a grudge, it's obvious, but so what?). --Abd (talk) 18:43, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

So you believe that the essay insinuating that fucking children was not abuse was JAQing off? Hipocrite (talk) 18:50, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

My point about Hipocrite. Attempting to hook into an HCM episode on RatWiki. Whether the essay did or did not do that is irrelevant. I did not write that essay. I supported its deletion. And arguing the point is exactly what Hipocrite wants, because it gets people fired up. Yet he brought up the rape of children here. Why, we might ask? What does this have to do with deleting inoffensive comments from a Talk page archive? To Hipocrite, it has everything to do with it, because he's promoting hatred, and imagines that I reverted JzG out of hatred for him. No, it was just policy here. --Abd (talk) 18:59, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

Show me one instance of you engaging with anything on this wiki that isn't related to your own pet causes, or your long-term hate for people who stifled you on Wikipedia or here. Can't do it. Everyone knows you are here to promote Cold fusion and your tiny-minority views on Islam and crap on your old adversaries. It's what you do everywhere. Hipocrite (talk) 19:05, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

Fascinating. He's talking about himself. It's an interesting form of delusion: one expects others to behave as one behaves oneself. --Abd (talk) 19:23, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

Yep, that's basically my take. Anything you don't like on your talk page can be removed, as long as it isn't oversighted. I don't see the problem with that, as long as it's not done in a selective manner that misrepresents what another user is saying. DickTurpis (talk) 18:32, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

I'd have thought so, Dick, and that is Wikipedia policy, until I was dinged for it here. Your view is contrary to RW policy and actual practice, with little exception I've seen. Meanwhile, I've been told to "go rape" my kids, and I'm interested if anyone cares. Do we need the coop to handle this? Or the mods? --Abd (talk) 18:47, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

I don't think anyone cares. You should consider crying about it. Hipocrite (talk) 18:52, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

Also, haven't we gotten to the part where you start abusing your tools and blocking and banning people who hurt your fee-fees? Hipocrite (talk) 18:53, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

Again, pure trolling, beautifully demonstrated, daring me to abuse sysop tools. --Abd (talk) 19:04, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

You already did, by using them on someone against you have a long-standing grudge. Genius. JzG (talk) 12:11, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

WTF happened?

• JzG attempted to remove material from his Talk page, months ago, he revert warred over it. (When he talks about being blocked, above, that was then, he has never been seriously blocked).
• The material was archived by Armondikov. JzG just attempted to delete the same material from the archive, replacing it with a new comment.[5] This kind of removal ("archiving to history") is allowed on Wikipedia, and JzG is a Wikipedia sysop, he'd expect it.
• I noticed it in Recent Changes and reverted it in. Hipocrite reverted it out, Psygremlin reverted it in, JzG again reverted it out. JzG and Hipocrite also tag-teamed to remove fresh comment from JzG talk.[6][7][8] Neither Hipocrite nor JzG are experienced here. Hipocrite is attempting to make me the issue. That is a red herring, there is a policy question, and policy is clear. I would not have brought this to the Saloon, but JzG and Hipocrite bantered and made it personal from the start, above.
• There is now a separate issue, Hipocrite's egregiously offensive trolling, ("Go back to raping your kids.") also confirmed here ("Fuck kids") The original issue was coopable, if maintained. The offensive posts are beyond the pale, I'd think, but I prefer to see if this can be directly resolved by the community. I'll wait. --Abd (talk) 20:11, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

You are functionally unable to convince anyone to agree with, or even read, what you write. Hipocrite (talk) 20:17, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

White People Mourning Romney

http://whitepeoplemourningromney.tumblr.com/ Is it wrong that I kind of feel bad for these people?Ryantherebel (talk) 21:19, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

Rednecks in mourning? The rest of the world calls it Schadenfreude. Osaka Sun (talk) 21:26, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

Plenty of lulz to be had here. Thanks for the link. DissidentRage (talk) 17:44, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

Crystalline canopy

Has anyone come across the Crystalline Canopy "Theory" before? It seems even more wacko than Walt Brown's Hydroplate theory. Генгис^{Is the Pope a Catholic?} 15:21, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

I skimmed it (learned that from Andy) - seems to be a weird way of explaining Starlight problem? "The universe might be behaving like a birefringent crystal in which light moving in one direction behaves differently from light traveling in another direction." Needs an article, methinks. --PsyGremlin^Fale! 15:26, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

Interesting use of "science words". ^sshole 17:12, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

"As discussed previously, the extreme pressures required could be compensated by intense magnetic energies." Erm... I don't think this works the way they think it does. Certainly "magnetic energies" is a nonsense word, considering that electromagnetism is a force and not "energy". I know these people have a vague concept of "energy" that doesn't quite gel with what thermodynamics actually describes it as, but still, that doesn't make any sense. ^pathetic 17:22, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

Another question

Psygremlin (who seems to have made it a mission to slap me down) has deleted Francis Urquhart as off-mission. I am a bit concerned; I have no interest in grudge matches so I'm trying to assume good faith but falling a bit short here. Is there some sort of community standard on taking privileged actions against people with whom you have a running dispute, or is it just me being over-sensitive? JzG (talk) 16:16, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

I suppose you could make the case for missionality at Talk:Francis Urquhart. Evil fascist^{oh noez} 16:32, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

Excuse me? "a mission to slap you down?" Really? Because you delete archive comments and post an article on a character in a fictional TV show. We are not Wikipedia. Get over yourself ok? And stop concern trolling. Oh yes, and if I was going to slap you down, your grandchildren would be born bruised. --PsyGremlin^Tala! 16:36, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

If that were all then yes, but it's not, is it? You are being rather aggressive, I think. Asking a question nicely is not a cause for comments like "get over yourself", I am a newbie with virtually no activity outside mainspace and I'm trying to explore the local mores. Oh, and if you do choose to slap me down I'll send my son round. He's a 240lb rugby player, whereas I'm only a 180lb cyclist :-) JzG (talk) 16:55, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

Then feel your way around if you're new. All I see you doing so far is rubbing people up the wrong way. Also, last time I checked, whingeing "Wah I'm being slapped down" before asking your question, does not constitute "asking a question nicely." And tell your son I know karate, jujitsu, kendoll and several other Japanese words. --PsyGremlin^Hable! 17:04, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

If you have an issue with an article, bring it up on the talk page, but frankly I can't see many people seeing the need for it, having checked the relevant WP article and found that it really isn't needed here. Other than that, don't make me break out the troll template. ^pathetic 17:09, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

To his credit, he's rubbing Abd up the wrong way, a strong point in his favour - David Gerard (talk) 17:26, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

Actually, it's not JzG, he's just being his usual idiot. (This "you are being rather aggressive" thing is hilarious, for anyone who knows his history. He was the Dick of the Year on Wikipedia Review, a number of times. It's Hipocrite, from whom this would be expected, he's a self-declared professional troll, and it's you, David, who should know better but apparently don't. --Abd (talk) 23:38, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

Also appears to have done some good anti-altie work. Evil fascist^{oh noez} 17:43, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

Though starting to whining SB sections in quick succession is kinda rubbing more people up the jacksie too. ^moral 17:32, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

Sorry about that. Just trying to work out the lie of the land. The first was rapidly sorted, anyway. I have no real interest in internal politics or meta-blah here, I really am mainly here for the quackbusting, I just don't want to waste effort. One or two things have been moved to Fun, which is fine by me. I am mildly irritated that the Abd has chosen to pursue me here but as long as he leaves me alone I am happy to sit in the peanut gallery and watch the inevitable unfold in that regard. I think I have all the guidance I need for now, thanks all. JzG (talk) 01:40, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

I didn't "pursue you here," JzG. You let Hipocrite and Devid Gerard and something else from your past stir you up. My presence here had zero to do with you, you can look at the contributions. I didn't even notice you had an account here, until that revert war broke out on your Talk page August 10. Look at my first edit to your talk page. It was friendly, was actually helpful -- I was confirming your claim -- and that was sincere. --Abd (talk) 04:25, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

That article was not conceivably on mission. Maybe Psygremlin could have taken a minute to slap a template and say "I'm gonna delete this because it's off-mission" as a courtesy, but honestly, nothing of value was lost--"Shut up, Brx." 18:24, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

I've requested review at ATIM of the situation with talk page deletion, mentioned by PsyGremlin above, policy is now being openly flouted by more than one user. There is a Wikipedia grudge being pursued here, not so much by JzG but by one egging him on. These topics should never have been started here. Ruins the atmosphere. --Abd (talk) 23:47, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

Interesting looking show in NY.

A Charlie Brown Apocalypse. "It's Judgment Day, and Chuck Black can't wait to meet Jesus! But things seem to go terribly awry when he has a crisis of faith. Who can blame him? All his pals seem a bit more interested in getting presents from ChristCo than trying to save their souls. And don't even get Chuck started on Mocha Mint Mel, the know-it-all atheist with 2 moms. Inspired by "A Charlie Brown Christmas," this new comedy by Matt Fried examines what happens when faith, commerce, and Kirk Cameron collide." Theory of Practice Still tryin' to figure it all out. 05:17, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

An Antiwomanist just denied the Holocaust in an argument

I suspect he may have been running out of reasons to prove his point.

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=444073205629122&set=a.438476709522105.89749.355391301163980&type=1&comment_id=1037568&offset=0&total_comments=22

Feedback on my argument would be good.

FYI, that's a page I'm posting with, not an account.

Inquisitor Sasha Ehrenstein des Sturmkrieg Sector 04:07, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

He also mentioned Hitler first, so I believe that means he auto-lost the argument. That's ignoring the fact that the OP was a total Godwin post. Inquisitor Sasha Ehrenstein des Sturmkrieg Sector 04:15, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

I would guess that he considered your "a pinecone is not a tree..." argument to be an argument by assertion and was trying to make an argument that he considered equally absurd, by way of a reductio ad absurdum. ListenerX^TalkerX 04:25, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

I don't know why I wasted my time with the last post here. Trying to convert believers is like talking to the wall. Agnosticism though might be more likely, since it's more in between. It's also the true path.

http://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=10151293331385149&id=66792595148&comment_id=25789298&notif_t=feed_comment

TAA did a video on this.

Inquisitor Sasha Ehrenstein des Sturmkrieg Sector 17:21, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

I'm wondering, do we have an article about I can't be prejudiced against X because I am X? This seems to be a big claim of women in the Antiwomanist movement. Right, and Jews who fought for Hitler weren't Antisemitic. [9] Inquisitor Sasha Ehrenstein des Sturmkrieg Sector 22:41, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

Schedule 2013

So, as with last time, I am asking those who are more knowledge in college then I am to comment and possibly/likely criticize what I've chosen for my next semester schedule.--Mikal ^{Harass Follow} 05:00, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

Well if you don't like getting up early, those 9 AMs aren't going to be too fun. Having classes back to back like that could be difficult if they're far away from each other. I seem to have at least some back to back classes myself each quarter and unless they're relatively close, I've had to leave the previous one a little bit early (it'd be a bit better if you have a bike). (Oh and that late one...ouch.) Sam ^Tally-ho! 05:08, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

Well, the only reason i picked the three morning classes back to back was they were all in the same building and thus i can get from one to another in the 10 minutes between, just different floors, and the last one on thursday is a Club, not a class :P I avoided at all possible a thursday class so that I wasn't stuck around waiting (i live 20 minutes from campus, i'm not wasting what amounts to an extra hour of gas when i only have 2 weels just going to campus and back) --Mikal ^{Harass Follow} 05:17, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

Having four courses three days a week seems much worse than evenly distributing them, but that's just me. Blue (pester) 06:05, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

You're going to have fun getting up on Friday morning, aren't you? Especially if it takes you 20 minutes just to get there by car. Peter ^{Subsisting on honey} 06:48, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

They look fine to me. Speech, Political Science, and Anthropology are all fairly squishy subjects that won't require a lot of prep beforehand, except maybe for Speech (which you have first, so you can prep if necessary). You have a lunch break, and then German - well-planned, since you might need a break before that. And you have a very regular schedule that leaves your afternoons almost completely free (I hope and assume you're a self-motivated person?) so it looks very manageable.--^talk 21:11, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

Um, talk to your adviser. sterile^{sporadic heavy hitter} 22:38, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

In contrast to Blue, I really preferred this kind of schedule when I was in school. Of course, I worked all through both undergrad and grad school, usually full time, so throwing classes as close together as possible enabled me to have a decent work schedule and still have some time to prepare for classes. Looks good to me. — Unsigned, by: ORavenhurst / talk^{Do You Believe That?} 14:32, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

Now that's my kind of schedule! :-D This is just what I recommended last semester, M-W-F with Tues&Thurs off to sleep in or work or whatever. Up early, done early, good little lunch break at just the right time. Definitely agree with AD and ORavenhurst, this looks great! Refugee^{talk page} 09:20, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

So, the 2012 election has been over for two days...

Who's going to run in 2016?

For the Democrats, Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden seem the most likely candidates. I'd like to see Elizabeth Warren run, but I think a 2016 candidacy on her part would be more likely to build for 2020.

For the Republicans, you'll probably see several of the more successful from this time run again: Gingrich and the Ricks (Santorum and Perry). Ron Paul is apparently retiring, but his son Rand will probably take up his father's mantle (and zealous followers). Paul Ryan might decide to run for the big job, but he was a very quiet VP candidate this time, and certainly won't be as remembered as, say the Republican's 2008 VP nominee. Huckabee might decide to try again.

Thoughts? (Other than, "dear sweet FSM, it's too early to discuss that.") MDB ^{(the MD is for Maryland, the B is for Bear)} 16:56, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

You forgot Jeb, the same way you once forgot Poland. Hipocrite (talk) 16:59, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

There was an election? Passed me by. Ajkgordon (talk) 17:00, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

I really do need to get out more often. --Abd (talk) 17:38, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

Given that Romney was runner up to McCain, it's likely Santorum will be the GOPs candidate... unless they take a long, hard at themselves during the next 4 years and decided that being insane hasn't worked for them. --PsyGremlin^Zungumza! 17:18, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

I don't think it will be Hillary or Joe. Hillary will be 69 and Joe 73 in 2016. Elizabeth Warren is certainly a possibility. As for the Republicans, if they drum up the usual list of morons (Santorum, Huckabee, Perry, Palin), they're going to lose and lose hard. They may learn their lesson and try out Marco Rubio or Bobby Jindal, but the primary voter nutcases might reject them. Cow...Hammer^time! 17:20, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

Reagan was 69 when he took office. I don't think Hillary is too old. Biden was reportedly offered his choice of VP or SecState. I think if he considered himself too old, he wouldn't have chosen VP. Anyway... wouldn't it be fun to have Bill Clinton back in the White House without that silly "Presidency" thing to keep him distracted?

As for Psy's point about Santorum being the runner-up: yes, the Republicans do have a noted tendency to nominate "the guy who came in second last time". However, the last time they broke with that tendency (in 2000), they won. MDB ^{(the MD is for Maryland, the B is for Bear)} 17:28, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

I don't think the Republicans will go for Santorum; he was just such a clearly horrible choice. The "runner up rule" or whatever you want to call it I would think would apply only when you have a slew of pretty good candidates, and you chose the best last time. In this case, they had just a terrible group in which even the best was subpar. To think they'd choose a guy who had proven himself worse would be a decision too lousy even for the Republicans. At this stage, I'd say the frontrunners are Jeb, Ryan, and Christie, though it's obviously way too early to make any real predictions. A lot can change.

As for the Dems, I'm going to say Biden is out; I just don't see him as a serious candidate. Hillary, if she runs, would probably be the frontrunner. I don't think someone as liberal as Warren allegedly is, let alone a woman from Massachusetts with only 4 years in the Senate under her belt, would be strong candidate. Gillibrand's been mentioned, but from what I've seen of her in interviews and such I don't think she's got the necessary substance. There's always Andrew Cuomo, I guess, or even Deval Patrick. There are probably some strong candidates would could benefit from a higher office between where they are now and the Presidency, but might not be ready yet. Guys like Booker, Castro, and Villaraigosa have been mentioned, but going from mayor to Pres is a big step. If they successfully run for governor first they could have better potential. DickTurpis (talk) 17:50, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

Nah, they'd never nominate a woman with only four years in the Senate. Why, that would be as crazy as, oh, I don't know... nominating a black guy with only two years in the Senate. MDB ^{(the MD is for Maryland, the B is for Bear)} 18:57, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

Four years, not two. Plus Obama had time in the state legislature, while I don't believe Warren has any political experience at all (people can debate whether or not that is a bad thing, though). Obama was an exception in a lot of ways, and his lack of experience was a significant detriment to him, which he did overcome. I don't know much about Warren, but I doubt she's a Barack Obama, and I think she'd seriously struggle in the swing states. Hillary would be a better candidate. DickTurpis (talk) 19:03, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ My best mate and I included a "just a bit of fun" question in our predictions: who would be president in 2016 and who would they beat? We sent each other our predictions at the same time and the results were a little surprising: he said Chris Christie would beat Andrew Cuomo and I said Andrew Cuomo would beat Chris Christie. The other name that gets mentioned a lot for the Dems is Martin O'Malley. One possibility I saw today is Clinton vs Bush - Hillary vs Jeb. I doubt it, but it would be fun. rpeh •T•C•E• 19:14, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

I personally hope its Palin.--Weirdstuff (talk) 19:37, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

I may be weird, but I'm hoping some combination of Bob Kerrey, Chuck Hagel, and Chris Christie run. I doubt Kerrey or Hagel will, but it would be nice to see them. Christie I think is a possibility. He tweeted a pretty epic "Touring Jersey with President Obama. Yes, he's a Democrat and I'm a Republican. We're also both adults, and this is how we behave" which is making its rounds on Facebook. --Logic and Empricism (talk) 20:00, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

"Reagan was 69 when he took office." Reagan was full of Alzheimer's by the middle of his second term. Not a great argument. Theory of Practice Still tryin' to figure it all out. 04:19, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

And by contrast to the present GOP crop, Reagan had brain cells that could rub together. Clinton 2016 sounds glorious now, but may not in four years time. Most of Obama's career took off in that sort of time, so who knows who will crawl out of the woodwork over this term. ^{d hominem} 09:30, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

I thought Hilary was going to retire? But even, if she doesn't she'd have no chance without doing something with her hair. Генгис^pillaging 10:18, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

Mohawk. Bitches love mohawks. ^moral 17:30, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

Yeah really. What is up with her hair? I know she can afford a good stylist. (oh how shallow of me. We are not supposed to care about hair, but about a person's views and abilities.) But she really should do something about her hair. Refugee^{talk page} 09:26, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

The Onion has already found [the Republican front-runner].

Another one not quite good enough for WIGO:W

Rachel Maddow could be speaking to Assfly, Chuckarse, Ken

and Karajerk directly. rpeh •T•C•E• 21:20, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

That rocked. I read another article about Romeny and the Republicans being "totally shell shocked" about the loss. they really do live in their bubble world, where reality never penitrates?--Godottout sont finissent- dormir encore 14:27, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

Yes. Back in the Bush Jr. days I heard a conservative pundit on TV deriding someone for "fact-based thinking." Doctor Dark (talk) 14:40, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

What amazes me is that at no point did anybody in the GOP go "Ok, we've pissed off women, the poor, gays, blacks, latinos, other religions... do you really think that pandering to rich, white men is enough to win?" --PsyGremlin^Hable! 14:51, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

Americans asked for answers. The GOP gave them "Obama was born in Kenya". I don't even want to gloat. I'm genuinely distressed we're in for more of this nonsense at least until the 2014 mid-term elections. --TheLateGatsby (talk) 22:38, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

Ugh, don't remind me. Evil fascist^{oh noez} 22:45, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

WoW!

Remember Colleen Lachowicz? No? She was the Maine state senate candidate who was being smeared by the GOP because she liked playing World of Warcraft.

Well, she won! --PsyGremlin^Tala! 11:37, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

Someone has to say it. FOR THE HORDE! MDB ^{(the MD is for Maryland, the B is for Bear)} 13:02, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

Disappointed that her campaign literature didn't have Lok'tar Ogar! on it.-- ^{Jabba de Chops} 13:14, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

Perhaps the voters saw her as a 'real person' rather than PlasticPoliticianModel[insert number here] (TM). 82.44.143.26 (talk) 16:54, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

If her guild gets shit done, there are few complaints, and allocates gear with fairness and minimal ragequitting, I'd even say her WoW experience might be a credit in her favor. Online games with user-driven power structures, with shared campaigns to raid a dungeon or even to simply pool resources (the online economies are usually crapshoots, especially WoW with its whole marketplace controlled by how many poor chinese people can be paid 10 cents an hour to grind raw materials and gold, so guilds pool resources to help people work on their crafting and other skills without having to camp resource nodes before some low wage worker gets them) are actually seriously complicated in both logistics and diplomacy matters. If she can get WoW players to work together in harmony, I actually would have MORE confidence in her abilities as a politician. Getting WoW players to do anything together without whining at each other and blaming each other and grabbing for the gear and ragequitting and generally being arses is like herding cats. Long distance. While on fire. ±KnightOfTL;DR^{sufficiently advanced argument still distinguishable from magic} 17:41, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

Being able to sustain a guild long term, particularly a raiding guild where you need fresh meat to cope with the inevitable turnover of players, is definitely a serious people management exercise that would be good on the CV for a Senator. A raiding guild needs a handful of good people at the top, able to motivate the rest of the guild despite having few carrots and essentially no sticks at their disposal. Below the leaders, I'm not so sure long-term guildies are displaying any skills of value in the Senate. The guy who keeps the bank full of current-tier ingredients is not doing anything I need from a politician, ditto for Mr "Shows up every raid night on a decently geared healadin, plays whack-a-mole during the fights and then vanishes again". The person who grows bored of every toon before they hit level 40 is likewise of no interest, the person who has figured out every boss fight in detail might make a good choreographer but I'm not convinced it's relevant experience for politics. 82.69.171.94 (talk) 20:38, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

I've no clue what you guys are talking about (and I'm happy enough about this). As for the senator winning, I imagine it just reflects the fact that people don't give as much of a fuck as they used to about made up controversies and smears. Damo^Hi 23:22, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

Evolutionwiki down

ohhhhhhh moral panic! Will it be back up soon?Nogods4you (talk) 06:03, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

The first fruits of the Question Evolution! Campaign. Aceⁱ⁹ 07:07, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

Appears up now. What happened and for how long? - David Gerard (talk) 09:02, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

On the David Petraeus sex scandal

Chuck Klosterman's going to be shaking his head on this one. Osaka Sun (talk) 09:14, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

EDIT: It's somebody else. That means there's another government official spilling his seed all over the place. Osaka Sun (talk) 23:45, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

According to what I've read here, Petraeus didn't just have an affair, he had an affair with a journalist type person. So maybe this goes beyond prudishness.--"Shut up, Brx." 02:45, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

For you old-timers who understand the meme (I don't)...

This popped up on Imgur. -- Seth Peck (talk) 19:49, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

Down with the dirty Jerboaites! Blue (pester) 19:53, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

Memes are the mind-killer. Radioactive afikomen ^{Please ignore all my awful pre-2014 comments.} 20:45, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

Meres are the mind-killer is the mind-killer!! ^narchist 21:22, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

Memes are the mindkiller is the mindkiller is the mindkiller, and I am surprised that you are surprised that I am not surprised that you don't not like memes. Radioactive afikomen ^{Please ignore all my awful pre-2014 comments.} 22:09, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

It is a sign from Mighty Lord Jerboa! Time to rise up and smite the heathen lovers of the goat for once and all! Quail before His Furry Cuteness! PsyGremlin^{말하십시오} 22:23, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

Leave the meres out of it! Генгис^{Gum disease} 22:27, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

May His Goatness smite those who produce such filth. Those with beard and hoof will prevail. sterile^{sporadic heavy hitter} 12:14, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

All hail the jeroboam! Secret Squirrel (talk) 20:04, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

2012 Popular Vote

Forgive me for posting without logging in. I signed up for an account at some point but frankly never use it, can't remember the name, and can't be arsed to dig it up/sign in, because I am the most slothful fucker to ever sit at a keyboard.

Anyway, I was wondering about something and was hoping someone here could give me some insight. Every single source I've dug up so far shows that Obama had a slight lead in the popular vote as well as landing the electoral college votes. Despite this I keep seeing everywhere people whining that he lost the popular vote so it wasn't "fair," Bush's 2000 win notwithstanding nor coming into the conversation at all.

Am I wrong in thinking he won the popular vote? Is the popular vote even fully counted yet? Where are people getting this information? I'm finding it difficult to google a source for the statement but then again the google-fu is weak with this one.

Thank you :O ^{— Unsigned, by: 108.212.198.189 / talk / contribs}

At the point that everyone started saying "he won" he was trailing in the popular vote (hence the complaints) but by now that's no longer the case. Peter ^{Subsisting on honey} 03:33, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

And anyone who knew anything at all about the voting habits of the West Coast knew that it was very unlikely to remain that way. Trump was the main offender, but nobody expects him to know anything about the election, so that's ok. Damo^Hi 03:53, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

The Internet is full of idiots, BoN - Obama would have to have 3 million votes invalidated to lose the PV. But it's disappointing that the only way we can talk about how shit the Electoral College is when it's the GOP raging about it. Osaka Sun (talk) 05:18, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

I'm sure many Americans will try to justify the Electoral College but to an outsider it seems an odd system - a sort of first past the post on steroids. Especially as the distribution of voters means that the candidates usually only have to campaign in a handful of states and can take the rest for granted. Генгис^{RationalWiki GOLD member} 10:07, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

You only need to win/campaign in parts of those states as well. --Mikal ^{Harass Follow} 22:51, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

Before Election Night, there was (reasonable) speculation that Obama might lose the Popular Vote, but win the Electoral Vote. Early in the evening, before the west coast's votes were tallied, Mitt did appear to have a Popular Vote lead. Once the election was called for Obama, Republicans basically stopped paying attention. As a result, many still think that Obama lost the Popular Vote. The modern Republican Party is defined largely by its denial of reality, so this doesn't really come as a surprise. Apokalyps2547 (talk) 10:57, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

Give you friends this link this link to the Republican-supporting Fox News. They, in this weirdly rational article for Fox, fully acknowledge that Obama won the popular vote. --Weirdstuff (talk) 11:11, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, the popular vote was close when most networks called it for Obama, and Romney had been leading for a while, so these people probably tuned out at that point. Though, if they were paying any attention at all, the vast majority of California still had to be counted and there was no way Romney was going to stay in the lead. Q0 (talk) 03:08, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

Interesting statistic: in the last century, there have been four Presidents who won >50% of the Popular Vote twice. Roosevelt, Eisenhower, Reagan, and now Obama. Apokalyps2547 (talk) 22:43, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

Interesting indeed! Which century are you talking about?--Weirdstuff (talk) 11:39, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

Oh, I don't know... how about the hundred years previous to last Tuesday? Sprocket J Cogswell (talk) 14:27, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

Mr. Cogswell has it. Sorry if my wording was ambiguous. Apokalyps2547 (talk) 17:59, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

On the weird electoral trivia front, this is the first time in nearly 200 years that America has had three successive two-term presidents: Clinton, Bush 43 and Obama. Before that you have to go back to Jefferson, Madison and Monroe. rpeh •T•C•E• 18:02, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

Well, that statistic won't be technically true until 2017. DickTurpis (talk) 18:21, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

Another factoid: the only multi-term presidents who won less of the popular vote for their second term than their first are Andrew Jackson, Grover Cleveland, and... Barack Obama. The other twelve multi-termers got more popular in their second-term election (even Reagan and Bush II). Radioactive afikomen ^{Please ignore all my awful pre-2014 comments.} 09:08, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

I think this is because it's harder to get in than stay in. Challengers are an unknown quantity and undecided voters tend to stick with the candidate they know, unless he's really messed up. In 2008 of course there were two challengers, as the vice-president chose not to run. Sophie^Wilder 22:01, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

Cracked's 8 Ordinary Photos Hiding Mind-Blowing Details

http://www.cracked.com/article_19894_8-ordinary-photos-hiding-mind-blowing-details.html Number 1 is pretty amazing.Ryantherebel (talk) 14:50, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

I'm skeptical of that one, as I don't think Hitler had that moustache until after WWI. If you google pictures of him from that era he has a much more standard moustache for that time. DickTurpis (talk) 17:12, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, I thought that too. I googled it for a while and there are a few reports that the shaved it into that shape so that a gas mask would fit securely during the war. But there doesn't seem to be anything absolute on it.--Weirdstuff (talk) 17:41, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

Well, I doubt he shaved it anticipating this on the very day war was declared. DickTurpis (talk) 18:25, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

Exactly.--Weirdstuff (talk) 16:26, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

They gave some decent background for the photograph. The guy who snapped it later became Hitler's photographer, Hitler claimed he was in the old photo, and the photographer found the old photo and confirmed this.--"Shut up, Brx." 18:27, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

I greatly enjoyed the non saluting guy. X Stickman (talk) 18:46, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

The Tank Man pic is pretty amazing. PsyGremlin^Sermā! 07:51, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

CMI Rubbish part nth

This article has caused Ken quite a stir over on CP but it fundamentally comes down to the How come there are still monkeys? argument. So you found a dinosaur that ate a bird? Well I can find a man who ate a fish there for humans weren't evolved from fish. How about a chip that ate a colobus monkey? A shark that ate a frog? If dinosaur's were birds how come there were still dinosaurs? Really scrapping the barrel with this one in assuming all dinosaurs all evolved into birds. Aceⁱ⁹ 08:50, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

I read that and found myself thinking "I don't understand this... unless they're saying... oh holy fuck, they are saying..."

Do these people really think we mean that all dinosaurs evolved into birds at the same time, or is this all an elaborate plan to kill people who believe in evolution by causing us all to headdesk too vigorously? rpeh •T•C•E• 09:07, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

Hey Ken, pick up the red telephone, and explain/handwave away these guys. -- Seth Peck (talk) 16:45, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

I think we set the bar too high with Essay: Question Creationism!, they're obviously too stupid to answer anything in a coherent fashion. Генгис^{You have the right to be offended; and I have the right to offend you.} 20:28, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

The way I generally think about acts of dumb like this, is sort of the same way I think about why professed 'smart' characters in somebody's rough draft of a novel can seemingly act incredibly stupidly before an editor gets a word in edgewise. Nobody can write something that they physically can't think of: that they may not be clever enough to do so, or may not have the context to think of the idea that's being discussed. Someone who has thought that things happen a certain way all his or her life, in all aspects of their life (a person grows up expecting miracles and magic and for thing X to turn into thing Y, and they will fail to see shades of grey and intermediate stages and dead ends and branching possibilities EVERYTHING from nature to the workings of politics; magical thinking invades EVERYTHING), they honestly cannot think of the other side's argument. They may not be able to hold it in their mind; they may not have the context or plain understanding to grasp it. For me, the question is not so much 'how could anyone be this stupid,' but more 'what the heck have these people been thinking and living all their lives that would make understanding simple concepts totally impossible?'±KnightOfTL;DR^{going galt: the literal crazy train} 20:41, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

When it comes to evolution most creationists completely misunderstand it, they only comprehend it in the way they have been told. I'm sure people like Behe has some comprehension, but they choose to ignore it. However, the likes of Ray Comfort (or the CP morons) have obviously never read a decent scientific book which explains evolution properly. When Comfort debated AronRa, he claimed to have studied evolution for 10 years but just regurgitated all the old cretinist arguments and AronRa had to try and explain it to him. The problem is that they don't want to understand it because it challenges their ideology and they cannot bear to confront that reality. Генгис^{RationalWiki GOLD member} 21:27, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

It's true there's a basic misundertanding. I often see claims that we worship evolution or worship Darwin, not realising that we accept evolution because we looked at the evidence and were persuaded by it. It's a total mismatch of mindsets. Sophie^Wilder 21:45, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

Well, what do you know? When you're raised in a heavily-reinforced belief system that presupposes the existence of God, discourages critical thinking, and chooses to demonize, not comprehend, the unknown and the different, you make wildly incorrect assessments about the mindsets of people unlike you. This also pretty much explains any religious-driven conflict in history. Ochotonaprinceps^{not a pokémon} 22:31, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

Dole/Kemp '96!

their website is still up. Sophie^Wilder 21:47, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

Lots of dummy "links"...per the last line, "This Web Site is Presented for Educational Purposes by 4President.org" -- Seth Peck (talk) 22:02, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

Nothing will top space jams website. It still looks like the thing i made for my HS "advanced computer skills class"--Mikal ^{Harass Follow} 05:13, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

Goats

Is this about Targ and Puthoff, as portrayed by George Looney? I just wondered. JzG (talk)

A few months ago, we visited a couple in Vermont with a "spinner's flock" of sheep and a few goats on the place. I did not stare at them. As I sat on a rock under a tree, a few of the goats came up and nuzzled me. I don't know if they recognized a kindred spirit, but more than the other house apes on the scene, I felt special. That's all I've got to say about that. Sprocket J Cogswell (talk) 00:03, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

World War Z - trailer

This shit looks off the hook. Aceⁱ⁹ 01:23, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

Wow, I was honestly just about to create a thread about this. And if by "off the hook" you mean an absolute fucking disaster in the making I would sadly agree from what I have seen Judge Holden^{The Judge Smiles} 03:47, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

Well, after a few beers with friends and a discussion about the book my initial excitement has turned to suspicion. Aceⁱ⁹ 06:37, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

The book was a documentary - not some dude and his family. Aceⁱ⁹ 06:41, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

Exactly, this is looking far too much like the bastard child of Roland Emmerich and the fuckwit who did the Day of the Dead remake both in terms of story and effects. I mean really? An actual Zombie Tsunami? And while I have no particular problem with running zombies (28 days later, Dead Set, and Zombieland are all awesome), running zombies in WWZ pretty much ensure that 90% of the material in the book is now rendered impossible to film Judge Holden^{The Judge Smiles} 17:05, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

"This shit looks off the hook." Could someone recommended a good side where I could take an elementary course in Contemporary Argot? Thanks.--Weirdstuff (talk) 07:54, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

Start here. Aceⁱ⁹ 08:05, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

Actually I tried here but left feeling little wiser.--Weirdstuff (talk) 09:38, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

You're a long way from home, sport. Aceⁱ⁹ 10:25, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

I was not a fan ofthe book, so the trailer looks like an improvemnet. As for 'not some dude and his family', I seem to remember each chapter being a different persons account of things, focusing on one chaps experiences would fit. Not that some dude and his family was a version of events in the book AMassiveGay (talk) 18:29, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

The thing is, the "zombie apocalypse from one survivor's perspective" has been done to death. The reason the book was so great was because it focused on the ZA on a global level, and the chapters were the different camera angles. The only difference from all the other zombie movies I can infer from this trailer is that this particular survivor has a functioning helicopter. --CoyoteSans (talk) 03:44, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

Although Zombieland, and to a lesser extent Dead Set were fun, I really prefer my Zombies slow, I agree with the "Zombies as symbolic of our mortality and the inevitability of death" thing and for that purpose the fast zombies are a mistake, adrenaline is the wrong thing here. I don't like some of his popular stuff but the short story "Bit Rot" by Stross actually justifies zombie brain hunger etc. in SF although admittedly it has to uh, change the parameters of the genre a bit to make it work. That's somewhere interesting to go with Zombies, yet another "lone survivor" story is not. Still haven't read WWZ but I've heard very good things about it from friends who insist on having detailed zombie invasion plans (and not the "would also work for a natural disaster" type either, I'm pretty sure longbows are of no use in an English natural disaster) 82.69.171.94 (talk) 20:18, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

Zombies are just another movie monster now, and that bugs me. They've all become the same. Vampires, werewolves, zombies, mummies, whatever. They're things that run after you and don't stop unless you perform x action on them. That makes me sad. X Stickman (talk) 01:42, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

All of the above suck as movie monsters in the 21st century. A monster movie has to do what Jaws did by accident, avoid showing the monster. Make the audience imagine the monster because that's much worse than anything your FX team could have made under budget and got past the censors. Every scene where the shark didn't work and they said "Fuck it, strike that scene - get the actors to improv something" makes Jaws a better movie. Alien is a good monster movie. Aliens is not a monster movie at all. Cloverfield is a pretty good monster movie. I think a zombie-based monster movie is possible on this basis, but it's really hard. It's also incompatible with slow zombies and thus pointless IMO. If directors want to use zombies I think they should probably stick to comedy (Peter Jackson did OK) or provide the zombies only as backdrop to interpersonal drama (Night of the living dead, etc.) 82.69.171.94 (talk) 15:47, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, it's not the zombies themselves that are scary, but the situations they force survivors into. Night/Day of the Dead are scary because of what humans will become in the face of such an extreme survival situation. Again, that's something book WWZ does great: in order to survive, humanity is forced into global triage to try and preserve a fraction of the surviving population. It's horrible, the characters know it, but it's the only reason anyone was alive to interview for the book at all. There are examples both in micro and macro of humans doing horrible things to survive (and, to counter-weight, a few humans doing noble things). --CoyoteSans (talk) 18:23, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

The reason Zombies suck is that they aren't scary at all if you sit down to think about them. The human body is build for endurance, not strength, so in reality, boarded up windows and doors should be plenty to keep the Zed out of your face. Second, and perhaps most key, is that a zombie nightmare would last 3-4 days at the MOST as dehydration would turn most zombies bodies into little more then human jerky even if it didn't flat out kill them. Hell, one Semi-truck fueled up could stop a hoard pretty fucking fast. Human bodies are not known for being able to soak massive amounts of trauma. Hell look at all Zombie media today. The only way they work is A) When they get basically magic powers (Super speed, and strength) and B) When the humans are all murderous, anti-social fuckwits with no survival instinct. --Revolverman (talk) 20:31, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

Are you seriously suggesting that zombies shouldn't really be scary because science dictates that they will not be dangerous very long? Zombies are the reanimated corpses of the dead, and science dictates that they not exist at all (commentators please forestall any interjections about disease-based pseudozombies, because shut up). Zombies only have to dehydrate if it is necessary for internal consistency or verisimilitude, and that is very seldom the case because of how easy it is to avoid. Thus: "And the T-virus stops their cells from degrading from dehydration, and we're not even sure how!"

Movies like Return of the Night of the Living Dead are scary because they have good horror-movie fundamentals (karmic structure, appropriate setting, calculated unreality, and a creeping sense of doom) but also because the prospect of dead human beings coming back to life and attacking is intrinsically scary. Like all movies, zombies movies only have to be realistic enough so that we won't notice how ridiculous it is.

Also, this book was not very good, and if this trailer is any indication, the movie will not be very good either - be wary of any trailer that appears to essentially be a showcase of special effects.--^talk 21:13, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

So, are there vegetarian zombies and how frightening would they be? Генгис^{You have the right to be offended; and I have the right to offend you.} 21:18, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

"Nnnnnnnggggg... graaaaaaainnnsss...."--^talk 23:50, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

Happy Birthday and get well soon

Today is the 90th anniversary of the first BBC radio broadcast in 1922. Генгис^{Is the Pope a Catholic?} 08:11, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

In honour of this event I propose s/radio/Wireless/ -gi in the database. JzG (talk) 10:35, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

Jamaica bans bus preachers.

Those of us who have ridden and will again be riding the buses in Jamaica will probably be happy with this. Theory of Practice Still tryin' to figure it all out. 16:07, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

Picture of the day

The Guardian had this as their centre spread today. For some reason it reminded me of Ace. Генгис^{Our ignorance is God; what we know is science.} 19:19, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

Ants on a phallus reminds you of Ace? When you say Ace I in the very least expect some stubble and rugged good looks. Radioactive afikomen ^{Please ignore all my awful pre-2014 comments.} 19:31, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

Is it because I have climbed a few mountains? Aceⁱ⁹ 19:47, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

Those people are far too horizontal for my liking. --Revolverman (talk) 20:19, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

Another victim claimed

RationalWikiWiki is not the first of RW's victims. Someone call Wikipedia and tell them to wear gloves when handling us! And seal Telfpedia in a sterilized chamber before it's too late! Radioactive afikomen ^{Please ignore all my awful pre-2014 comments.} 21:58, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

And protect TVTropes also. I like them. --Logic and Empricism (talk) 22:26, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

I don't know that Bob M ever intended Teflpedia to be a "large" project with such a specialized mission, and there is value to using a wiki as a way to maintain a website. sterile^{sporadic heavy hitter} 23:34, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

Good point — wikis don't have to be actively edited to have value. Still, of the five or so minor wikis that RWians have flooded before, I was surprised to see only Teflpedia had anything in RecentChanges. Radioactive afikomen ^{Please ignore all my awful pre-2014 comments.} 01:00, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

There are oodles of dormant, inactive, and dead wikis. It sorta makes sense if you think about it: smaller projects just don't last if there is no draw or marketing. (Although the post-CPers will balk, RW was lucky it had the draw from CP to build its base. We warned Philip abt marketing ages ago.) I would say that from a network connectivity analysis it makes sense (cf, complexity theory). Wikipedia as large and "well connected" while something like MCWiki which is small and "poorly connected." RW is probably "moderately connected." I realize you're being funny, however! sterile^{sporadic heavy hitter} 03:06, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

Flush with pride

'World's first toilet theme park' opens in South Korea --TechCheese^refuse 22:10, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

I'm more hyped for Napoleonland. Vulpius (talk) 22:35, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

That's a good park, at least until you get to "Its a Siberian winter after all." --Revolverman (talk) 22:47, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

I'd go to NapoleonLand. I'll bet the lines would always be really really short! #le rimshot#

(Yes, I know, Napoleon was not, in actuality, especially short.) MDB ^{(the MD is for Maryland, the B is for Bear)} 19:49, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

And you thought CONservapedia was bad

Distraught woman runs over her husband for not voting. Reckless Noise Symphony (talk) 04:56, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

This is on WIGO World under "Obamacare just got a new patient." And, yes, this is a whole new level of crybaby butthurt. You've got this dumb fucker boycotting Democrats entirely (Boss voted for Obama? Quit your job! Your wife voted Democrat? Divorce!), crybabies filing petitions for 19 states to secede from the US because the nig--I mean President won, and politicians refusing to accept that they've lost their seats, but this is just a new level of what the fuck. I question whether or not the US is actually mature enough to hold democratic elections anymore, because the population, as a whole, has some serious judgement problems. (And I'm assuming there are just as many fucksticks that would be raging if RMoney had won, so I'm being condescending in a non-partisan way.) Ochotonaprinceps^{not a pokémon} 07:09, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

To be fair, these are only the most fucking insane poor losers around. 50 million plus republicans just went "Damn it we lost" --Revolverman (talk) 07:14, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

Granted. We're hearing about these because they're man-bites-dog stories. But still, it's yet another sign that the political atmosphere is really no better than a daycare squabble over toy cars, only the cars represent the global economy, the most powerful military force on the planet, and the lives and livelihoods of several hundred million people (not counting the rest of the world relying on the economy). Ochotonaprinceps^{not a pokémon} 07:19, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

Whats sad is that, it might better then back in the cold war, when groups like John Birch and the such opening called for the fucking end of the world (basically) to stop communism. --Revolverman (talk) 07:22, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

I think a huge factor in it is that now we don't have to consider actually ending the world to throw massive temper tantrums; all you have to do now is find enough weeping white people mourning Romney and ask them to click a button online. Notice that a lot of this stuff, while touted as massive fits, consists of a lot of low-effort actions such as complaining and asking other people to do things (OTHER people divorce your wives, don't use google!) or consists of lazy stuff like clicking a button. Most of these people are not actually picketing, organizing rallies, doing actual things. Most of these fits are localized, low-effort-high-noise babywhines with absolutely no investment or personal sacrifice involved.±KnightOfTL;DR^{critical thinking is the key to success!} 16:14, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

Hey, Republicans, remember "Love it or leave it"? Or does that only apply when you've got a deathgrip on the nation's brainstem? --Gulik (talk) 19:23, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

Then there's this poor chump: Gay Republican commits suicide because of Obama victory. --Gulik (talk) 19:23, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

RationalWikiWiki issues (again)

Is there any particular reason why RWW is telling me I need to log in to view any of the pages? --CoyoteSans (talk) 05:18, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

Yes. Because, after months of struggling to justify coinciding RationalWiki's mission with RationalWikiWiki's mission, I decided the two sites are incapatable with each other. As a Trustee of this site, I put the goals of this site first and foremost over the goals of my hobby site. Reckless Noise Symphony (talk) 05:21, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

Thank you, Punky. It was about time. Aceⁱ⁹ 05:27, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

Ace is just happy someone finally turned nite mode on for his article.±KnightOfTL;DR^{longissimus non legeri} 05:37, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

I am glad you found it necessary to make this comment and apply blame because....well I can't figure out why. Aceⁱ⁹ 05:40, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

The decision to shut it down was mine, and it was 3 months in the making. If you want to get mad, take it out on me. I can hack it. Reckless Noise Symphony (talk) 05:43, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

Could you turn it back on or something for an hour so I can get something off of my userspace?--^talk 05:44, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

The people support your decision in that you have., while defeating the common people, also removed the corrupt bourgeoisie! Oneday, a statue will be made in your honor RNS. --Mikal ^{Harass Follow} 05:49, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

Done. Thanks. I wish you would have given some warning before doing this, incidentally, or given some opportunity for discussion. It's not a bad idea, but it's a little dismissive to just make it on your lonesome.--^talk 05:51, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

the fucking place was moribund anyway with about 5 users. Aceⁱ⁹ 05:58, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

Though I have to admire it for being a cesspool of 5 users that didn't spend all its time not yakking on a Saloon bar instead of contributing to articles on the site. The chatter there was pretty minimal; lots of mainspace edits were made. A rate I can only wish were true here; unfortunately this cesspool of hundreds users hasn't provided such a great community to enable that as of late.±KnightOfTL;DR^{going galt: the literal crazy train} 06:02, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

Though I have to admire it for being a cesspool of 5 users that didn't spend all its time not yakking on a Saloon bar instead of contributing to articles on the site You must be new around here. Aceⁱ⁹ 06:04, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

Uh.... what? Well this is annoying as fuck. --Revolverman (talk) 06:14, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

It's time had come. Radioactive afikomen ^{Please ignore all my awful pre-2014 comments.} 07:36, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

Agree. Its time had come and gone long ago. Reckless Noise Symphony (talk) 08:51, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

Perhaps it would be a good idea to put a more meaningful message on the site? It is possible that not every visitor there will be aware of this thread.--Weirdstuff (talk) 09:16, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

It is very possible. The easiest way may be to just alter the system message for permissions, currently displayed for all visitors. I believe the relevant message is badaccess-groups.--^talk 09:38, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

Yes, where's our long, rambling sitenotice? Peter ^{Subsisting on honey} 19:37, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

"Like." "+1." High-five. sterile^{sporadic heavy hitter} 11:54, 14 November 2012 (UTC) ADD: If there is anything truly useful abt the history of RW, I'd be supportive of porting it over, although I don't know what that is. sterile^{sporadic heavy hitter} 11:58, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

It started as a site to whine about RW, then it became a database of users, then it went back to butthurtology. It was marginally useful for documenting complex events such as May 2011, but that was it. No great loss really, apart from the cute logo. Sophie^Wilder 12:26, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

RationalWiki Awards

So we're not doing it anymore? Osaka Sun (talk) 15:20, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

This does sadden me. I rather like funky community gag awards.±KnightOfTL;DR^{more at 11} 15:36, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

By funky community gag awards i assume you mean grudge perpetuating accusations by a set of about 5 people using socks because that is what it had become. By all means have awards but ditch the negativity. Aceⁱ⁹ 19:44, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

Start a page here. Theory of Practice Still tryin' to figure it all out. 15:48, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

What? No no no no no no no. Let the petty Awards drama die with RWW. Radioactive afikomen ^{Please ignore all my awful pre-2014 comments.} 19:27, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

God no, that whole thing went from fun to grudge politics in one short year - let the fucker die. Aceⁱ⁹ 19:42, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

They are an embarrassment for the project. Silly in-jokes and personality prizes just don't hack it. sterile^{sporadic heavy hitter} 19:48, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

I think it's possible to continue it, so long as you don't just focus it on users. There was a lot of positive stuff that popped up (there were things like "best potential"), but no, it's more fun to mud-sling. ^sshole 21:52, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

It's amusing how some grew to oppose the awards so strongly once it became clear that they were likely candidates for the negative ones--"Shut up, Brx." 23:55, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

Shut the fuck up Brx. The whole thing was extremely negative, no matter was nominated for what. It was a farce. As it was last year. Aceⁱ⁹ 23:57, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

And I'll tell you what - if you wanna award me biggest asshole or whatever the fuck else you want you can do it here. Aceⁱ⁹ 00:05, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

Don't worry. He predictably nominated me and Human for biggest asshole and some other inflammatory junk. I've completely reversed my position on banning Brxbrx. I was originally opposed because I don't trust this community not to just start banning people because it's apparently something that's done. But he's such a tremendously negative presence here that there's no good reason to pull punches anymore. 06:00, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

It's amusing how brx complains about people not liking some of the awards when he was so determined to shit all over it last year. Sophie^Wilder 20:02, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

Site notice now up

A notice alerting users to the shuttering of RationalWikiWiki is now up. Hans Johnson as in "keep ya hans off my" ^{(cover your eyes!)} 21:21, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

Retrieval of material

There are a couple very good documentation articles I would like to retrieve. The Chicken Coop article I spent tedious hours collecting data for and writing, for one. I must say it was poor judgment to shut the whole site down without any prior warning. Blue (pester) 23:05, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

Nothing on the site is gone (minus a couple pages I deleted outright that are obsolete). It's just that everyone but Tyrannis, RA, and I has been locked out. That being said, retrieval of material should be easily available on request. There is a chance that RWW will come back in some form, but the persistent drama fest that it was needed to die. Reckless Noise Symphony (talk) 23:54, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

The whole site itself was an exercise in poor judgment. Aceⁱ⁹ 23:09, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

On that note, anybody who wishes to retrieve material needs only to let me know, and I can give them access to it. Reckless Noise Symphony (talk) 00:15, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

Can it not be transplanted here as a read only archive? There is a lot of history of RW contained within that site that I for one would be sad to see gone entirely. It tracked our evolution as a site and had some pretty funny pages within it. Damo^Hi 23:31, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

[EC] I think the merit of the articles should be a criterion for putting them here (at least outside user space). There were a lot of CP articles that took a lot of time that were deleted. There is some value for institutional history, although I still don't know what I would really want to bring over here. sterile^{sporadic heavy hitter} 23:32, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

We do need some sort of institutional memory. The dedicated folks like Blue should identify some of the articles that list a lot of our past events and history and import them here to RationalWikispace. The individual user articles can probably be ignored, and a lot of the smaller articles can be safely combined into larger things, but I suspect that it's valuable to have a record and description of past conflicts and evolutions.--^talk 23:48, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

We should definitely bring some over (the TK article for example and RW's history) however we should be careful that they come over as archive not editable articles to avoid perpetuating the same snipping at each other. Aceⁱ⁹ 23:51, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

Actually, some of them might need to be edited if they are the snarky shit they had over there. In addition, some of the "event" articles including arguments, conflict, etc. are summaries of things that happened here. That is, the "primary literature" is already here. sterile^{sporadic heavy hitter} 01:10, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

This is the same with user articles. The history is already here. Aceⁱ⁹ 01:15, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

The Internet Archive, FTW! 78.110.164.198 (talk) 05:26, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia's TK/Karajou

Hey, you guys that are always bashing TK and Karajou for being block happy, check out these sysops on Wikipedia known as Materialscientist and A. B., they seem to have unilaterally banned some IPs from editing Wikipedia (mostly schools, but with a few non-school IPs thrown in for seasoning), and they reblock them on sight if edit anyway that hints at imperfect after whatever block they previously issued expires. And their blocks on such IPs are often one year or longer. Nobody quacks about this kind of activity at Wikipedia, a place where a heavy handed administrators' blocks are certain to cause collateral damage, yet you guys, including Rob Smith, seems to think it's insane for Conservapedia to be tough on vandals and those that resemble vandals. Gee, maybe RationalWiki should start a WIGO WP? 78.110.164.198 (talk) 05:16, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedias who and who? Second... why should we care? if Some sysops are being heavy handed, Contact non-abusive sysops to get something done. --Mikal ^{Harass Follow} 05:32, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

Also, you make it sound as if all of us here are super-sensitive about the on-goings and practices at Conservapedia. The best people to complain about this to are the folks who actually do obsess over it at WIGO:CP. Sam ^Tally-ho! 06:11, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

Copied/pasted. 184.7.157.90 (talk) 06:17, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

...and removed from there, I guess at least partly because it isn't reallly a CP issue. IMO it isn't really a RationalWiki issue either, and I would suggest taking it up with the good folk at WP. Concern about collateral damage notwithstanding, I don't think you will get very far with it. I don't follow A.B.'s doings, but Materialscientist is prolific and prompt with the anti-vandalism bit, from what I see there.

Best course of action would be to get onto an unblocked IP and register an account. That way you can take responsibility for your own edits, without being tarred with the same brush as other editors at your school who may be morons. Sprocket J Cogswell (talk) 14:34, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

It's not really an issue. ^sshole 17:42, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

Men who ride with goats

I feel a movie coming on... --PsyGremlin^Parlez! 10:59, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

Today is a bad day for KenDoll! Even more people will see RationalWiki thanks to our army of cyclists that is taking RationalWiki to even more people, like an army! Within days KenDoll will have been destroyed within days!!!!! Olé olé olé!!!!!!!! rpeh •T•C•E• 14:22, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

A well known cyclist in Upper Volta has told us that they may consider possibly acquiring a sheep! 20123 will be a bad year for KenDollIsm! MDB ^{(the MD is for Maryland, the B is for Bear)} 14:52, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

I love how the animal is gripping the guy with her legs. Not something I would have attributed to a quadruped --"Shut up, Brx." 20:56, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

I suspect that the legs are tied and he's wearing the goat like a backpack, rather than it being trained to hold on. Генгис^marauding 21:03, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

That is not a goat. It is Satan!!! Can't you see how he is holding on to the man and slowly eating his Soul! There are even horns!--Weirdstuff (talk) 21:48, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

The man is a shop window dummy being operated by the goat so as not to arouse suspicion. Sophie^Wilder 23:49, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

Ken is that you?!

Moved to WIGO:CP.20:57, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

i gots some new(ish) tech

I just got me a nice shiny nexus 7. I think I am in loveAMassiveGay (talk) 20:51, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

"Dozens of black people."

Remember, it's not limited to the old South. Theory of Practice Still tryin' to figure it all out. 21:29, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

isUserAGoat()

[10] Damn those teleporting goats! Crundy^{Talk nerdy to me} 14:05, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

Hahaha nice! Reckless Noise Symphony (talk) 11:51, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

According to documentation, the function always returns false. Seems legitimate to me! -- Seth Peck (talk) 15:14, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

Curious political graphics

You know when you're surfing then et and you come across some crank who's drawn a bizarre image that's meant to rally supporters? I thought it'd be interesting to gather some together.
Here's one to start with. It's not one of the most outrageous examples out there, but somehow, it hasn't convinced me to go out and kick three guys off a plank just yet either. Balaam (talk) 15:13, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

You might be looking at the picture wrong...the plank is only being supported by the weight of the people on the cliff. If the white guys walk away, the rest three darkies on the plank will fall into the abyss below (still horrible, yes). -- Seth Peck (talk) 15:28, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

Goal of the season

Just watching the Sweden-England match on TV and Ibrahimovic's fourth goal was truly spectacular! Генгис^unbelieving 21:22, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

It was incredible. Graham Taylor just called it the greatest goal he's ever seen. rpeh •T•C•E• 21:26, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

For those who haven't seen it. rpeh •T•C•E• 06:14, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

Holy shit. -- Seth Peck (talk) 15:28, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

The ITU Conspiracy

Friend linked me to this site protesting an upcoming December UN vote "give the International Technical Union (ITU) greater authority over the Internet." Personally, this feels a little too New World Order for my tastes, and is trying to ride whatever fumes are leftover from the SOPA/PIPA fervor. That and ACTA are clearly malicious, but I'm not seeing too much obviously wrong with this one. --CoyoteSans (talk) 04:05, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

So, there are a few things going on here. I don't know that RW is the right place to unpack them all. First there's the usual American exceptionalism. Right now the US claims that it controls the Internet, in the limited sense that it's possible to "control" the Internet. Roughly it claims that the Internet's resource management bodies are being allowed to manage a resource that ultimately belongs to the US Federal government. It has so far not tried to substantially interfere in the day-to-day work of these bodies. I'll clarify what these resources are below. Anyway, the ITU has made noises about it being the most logical choice of body to hold this dubious power. Americans don't like that because they see the US as a free country fighting a lonely battle against... I don't know what they're fighting these days, maybe still Communism? Anyway, "USA, USA, USA" is basically the response. Note that the UN is just a talking shop, a vote which says "The ITU runs the Internet" is no more binding in practice than, say, the vote which said Israel can't build on the occupied territories, or the numerous votes demanding Russia stop doing this or that during the Cold War.

In practice though a talking shop is exactly the place where new treaties get agreed. International telecommunications (the thing the ITU exists for) are a treaty matter, and in theory at the UN everybody (or indeed everyone but the US and its clients and satellites) could agree to a new treaty which does almost anything, and it would have the same force (or lack of) as any other treaty. It could say that communicating across international borders without a government permit was a grave crime for which you could be tried and executed anywhere in the world. But of course it won't say that. But it might invent other crazy and onerous rules, particularly because of course there are huge corporate interests lobbying to have the treaties changed in their favour. It makes good sense to ensure your government's representatives aren't in the pockets of any corporation even one from your own country and to ensure that somebody smart gets the job of reading any proposed new treaty before it's signed.

Anyway, back to the resources. The Internet has two key types of resource which have central management. The first are numbers. Unlike telephone numbers (which the ITU has responsibility for already) these are range-constrained integers, not just strings of digits, and the most important of those numbers are addresses, since every system connected to the Internet needs an address. Address management is distributed hierarchically, IANA gives large batches of addresses to regional authorities (RIRs) like ARIN or APNIC, and they give smaller batches to more local organisations (LIRs) like AT&T or JANET which then pass on individual addresses and yet smaller batches to end users. It is hard to imagine what political purpose there could be in interfering with the management of the number resources, it would be a most unsubtle type of sabotage like building an enormous radio transmitter just to mess up the FM radio stations in adjoining countries.

The second type of resource, more visible to the ordinary person (and thus to politicians) but less vital to the running of the Internet, is the name resource. The most important name resource is the host name, which makes it possible to type "rationalwiki.org" into a web browser and have that do something useful. These too are managed hierarchically, but the contentious part is the "root" which controls the far right hand end of the name up until the dot. Names are meaningful to people in a way that numbers mostly are not and the ability to create, control and destroy names on the list in the root gives you power over how everything is named on the Internet. Ideally this power would be neutralised by some universal agreement not to do stupid stuff with it, but commercial pressure has bent people's resolve. Today the root is cryptographically secured, so only a relative handful of operators have the practical ability to make changes, but politically these organisations are subject to the claimed authority of the US government. Many of them are even US employees or contractors (NASA, the DoD and other US government agencies are among the root operators). In my opinion it would be better if the political authority of the US were diminished in this respect, but obviously not at the cost of a treaty which substantially changes things for the worse in other ways. 82.69.171.94 (talk) 12:40, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

Lotta geeks, and not just in the US, are not happy with the idea, seeing the possibility of a serious reduction in transparency of governance. Not just conspiracy nutter stuff, not at all - David Gerard (talk) 12:54, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

I'm fascinated though, although there can be a "serious reduction" in transparency, what value does that transparency have today? Right now this governance that you're worried about is done by the NTIA within the US government's executive branch. That is, Obama can wake up tomorrow morning, write an order, and the NTIA (and thus if you believe their authority is real, the Internet) must obey. If you're a US citizen you can "shape policy" by voting a different person into the White House four years from now. If you're not a US citizen you have no influence whatsoever. The UN proposal pushes this authority (again, to the extent that it's even real) to the ITU, where the indirection is shared by everyone. If US citizens don't like ITU policy they can ensure the US sends people to the ITU who make that felt, and the same for Israel, France, New Zealand, Russia and everywhere else. Mostly this is a recipe for deadlock, but as I explained above, that works out OK because the actual work is all done by organisations like RIPE or the TLD registries and those function well enough on the whole already. Actually deadlock might be an improvement, the US Dept. of Commerce was able to bring into existence ICANN, the body responsible for silliness like .biz, .aero, .xxx and soon .disney, .pepsi etcetera. 82.69.171.94 (talk) 14:20, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

Immoral moralisers

I think most people here are aware of the many religious hypocrites who are less than pure in action. Now I know that hypocrisy and illegality are not the domain of any one ideological group but should we compile a list of egregious transgressions by the religious who claim that only religion can provide a moral framework? It was this incident of a toilet-cam which prompted the idea. Генгис^{RationalWiki GOLD member} 13:18, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

Do we have the quote from this guy making said claim? - David Gerard (talk) 13:23, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

We do have this page.... -- Seth Peck (talk) 15:32, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

There is a rabbid pro-lifer politician in the US who's all over the news cause he encouraged his ex to have not one, but two abortions and by the way has several lovers while married. [11]--Godot She was a venus demilo in her sister's jeans 17:38, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

Enjoy

An awesome de-construction of UFO theories. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U7cWOaRful8 --Revolverman (talk) 05:36, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

Responding to 'requests from Microsoft' phonecalls

As there is debate over whether the page should be kept - what are people's best/most amusing ideas for dealing with the nuisance calls? (Apart from 'I charge £/$ per hour for answering such questions - where should the receipt be sent? 'You are a window-cleaner? When can you start?) 82.44.143.26 (talk) 17:40, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

I keep a referee's whistle by the phone. Theory of Practice Still tryin' to figure it all out. 18:02, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

If I'm bored then I drag the call out for as long as possible. Генгис^{RationalWiki GOLD member} 19:09, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

I tend to just let my freak out when annoying people call me. --Mikal ^{Harass Follow} 19:19, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

I'm a telemarketer... :( X Stickman (talk) 20:32, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

I find a 'no thank you' works wondersAMassiveGay (talk) 20:47, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

(reset) In a recent newspaper magazine article suggestions included asking whether the person had been saved, and, pretending to follow the instructions, responding to 'what do you see on the screen' with various improbable images.

Ask if it works for Windows 95/a ZX 80/an Apple Mac/dial up. Complain about how many times you have already had Windows talk you through 'several times' (or 'those on the other line wish to do the same - do you wish to confer?). 'Are you sure you are not one of these scam merchants? Can you prove it? (continue in this vein as long as you have the time.) '16 year old computer adviser is at school - can you phone back later?' 'This is the mothership, finalisng plans for invasion: explain yourself further.' 82.44.143.26 (talk) 16:31, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

My Dad always used to say "what a pity you didn't call half an hour ago" - to which they always asked why?. The response, of course: "Because I was out. <click>". Me, I ask for the name and full address of the firm, at this point they almost invariably hang up as they know they are in violation of the Telecommunications Act. JzG (talk) 22:28, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

Let's talk about Benghazi

Petraeus confirms embassy attacks were linked to Al-Qaeda. Republicans go "meh." So why are we here again? Osaka Sun (talk) 23:59, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

There are two issues here. The first one is a real issue: did the Benghazi consulate have insufficient security, and/or did they ask for more? I am inclined to think that there's nothing to be upset about there, and nothing I have read has made me think there was any misfeasance, much less malfeasance. But this possibly-legitimate point of investigation has been swamped by a bigger and stupider "soft on terrorism" idea. This criticism alleges that Obama and/or U.N. Ambassador Rice were not willing to call the attacks a "terrorist attack." You'd think the exchange between Romney and Obama in the foreign policy debate ("Please proceed, Governor.") would have gotten the GOP's attention, but that's not so. It's difficult to imagine what Obama might have gained from such a deception, but nonetheless it's what the Republicans want to talk about.

It's part of their never-ending lust for a scandal. They've tried really hard to gin one up with Solyndra as well as Fast and Furious, but Obama just really hasn't given them much of anything. They won't stop until they find a scandal or make one up.--^talk 07:19, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

I notice the Republicans are being very quiet about the fact that they passed massive spending cuts on embassy security - $128 million in 2011 and $331 million in 2012. --PsyGremlin^Khuluma! 07:36, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

No one's going after that; Obama's proposed budget also cut it somewhat. And in fairness, those cuts didn't pass, and worldwide embassy security probably does need to be cut.--^talk 08:09, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

As far as I can tell, the entire thing is centered on their perception of Benghazi as a terrorist attack being an October Surprise of sorts. The underlying claim is that Obama would be 'guilty' of allowing such an attack, so he instead tried to shift the blame to some crappy movie. Just the usual type of distraction to keep people from actually asking the real questions about why attacks like these happen in the first place. Speaking of that, Israel has been openly bombing Gaza again the last few days, with every report indicating things will escalate. Q0 (talk) 10:16, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

aStoreHouseofKnowledge

aSK was dying nicely. Even Philip seemed to have lost interest. The the protoprophet Zachy surfaced. Oh well, the death watch continues. Awc wherever you are, be well and prosper. Hamster (talk) 03:45, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

Ah, Zack. sterile^{sporadic heavy hitter} 19:54, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

Least surprising news conceivable. But I am sure PJR has known this was inevitable for a long time. Poor guy.--^talk 22:56, 18 November 2012 (UTC)

Bloody hell, it does look pretty quite over there, just the same 2 spambots posting spam + sum wang goatsing the place at least bradley was around to clean it up. Naca (talk) 05:46, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

Science porn!

That is all. --PsyGremlin^Khuluma! 17:52, 18 November 2012 (UTC)

I assume you folks are on top of Kendoll's latest silliness?

http://questionevolution.blogspot.com/2012/11/atheist-and-evolutionist-women-are.html

I hope so, anyway. Not that he has an audience or anything. ħuman 03:22, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

As I read further, I think I may have been Poed. But wait, didn't I get there via a random visit to CP? Now I am not so sure... ħuman 03:26, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

ERMERGHERD CERNSERVERPERDIA Sam ^Tally-ho! 06:24, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

A sad day , Hostess ceases business

A sad day indeed. Hostess has closed the bakeries so no more twinkies, ring-dings, ho-hos or cupcakes. Little Debbie must be smiling now. Hamster (talk) 00:12, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

It was an interesting game of chicken. when you play this game often enough, you stop being able to tell when there are real problems. do you blame the union for asking for more money? Do you blame ownership though they did drastically cut upper managment and board salaries - was it too little too late? --Godot She was a venus demilo in her sister's jeans 00:21, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

They'll be back, just licensed to other bakeries. The employees got sacrificed on the altar of capitalism. -- Seth Peck (talk) 00:32, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

The real victim here is the Twinkie. Doesn't matter what goes on in the company — the big question will always be How does a company that makes Twinkies go out of business? Sam ^Tally-ho! 02:16, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

Come now, is this not a triumph of the free market? If they fell apart due to something simple like not being able to keep their workers in line, they deserved to go out of business. I say: where were their strikebreakers; why did they not call in the militia? Fools! Surely, a better capitalistic venture will rise in their stead. Q0 (talk) 10:30, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

"So Twinkies, which were supposed to survive a nuclear war, die three weeks before December 21st 2012? Well played, Mayans, well played." - David Gerard (talk) 14:28, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, how am I supposed to stock my survival bunker now that there are no more Twinkies? We're truly doomed this time. Watch for Ramen noodles and Spam to disappear from the market over the next few days too. The Trilateral Commission has to be behind this for sure. Secret Squirrel (talk) 15:45, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

I can honestly say I've never eaten a Twinkie in my life. Somehow, I doubt my life is poorer for that. --PsyGremlin^講話 15:58, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

• FSM be praised. Seriously, people ate that shit? JzG (talk) 22:22, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

a true delight was a twinkie, dipped in batter and deep fried, then sprinkled with powdered sugar. dont have more than 1 a month Hamster (talk) 23:20, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

Speaking as a good Southern boy, Little Debbie beats Hostess any day of the week.

If you remember the sitcom Night Court. In one episode, they had a man on trial for eating a park bench. The man argued that it contained "three of the four basic food groups." Judge Stone (the lead on the series) responded, "Okay, sir, I have to ask... just what are the four basic food groups?" And the defendant replied, "wood, metal, plastic... and that stuff inside Twinkies." MDB ^{(the MD is for Maryland, the B is for Bear)} 23:25, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

Little Debbie is far better, paraffin wax beats the sludge any day of the week. Evil fascist^{oh noez} 23:42, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

Neither Little Debbie nor Hostess will ever have anything on Moon Pie. Secret Squirrel (talk) 00:40, 18 November 2012 (UTC)

You forgot the RC Cola. In the county where I grew up it was illegal to purchase a Moon Pie without an RC. Doctor Dark (talk) 16:44, 18 November 2012 (UTC)

Hey, I like RC cola. All we ever got was banana moon pies, which were bleh. Evil fascist^{oh noez} 19:49, 18 November 2012 (UTC)

My grandfather distributed RC Cola for a while, along with Grape Nehi, aka "grapedrink". (That's one word, almost one syllable.) It's family tradition he introduced Little Debbie to our hometown of Knoxville, TN. I cant remember if he ever distributed Moon Pies or not, but he did distribute lots of candies and snacks.

Why, yes, I do have weight problem. Why do you ask? MDB ^{(the MD is for Maryland, the B is for Bear)} 12:22, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

Banana "Moon Pies" are yucky and aren't real Moon Pies. Chocolate and marshmallow, baby. Accept no substitutes. Secret Squirrel (talk) 02:06, 20 November 2012 (UTC)

Teh Flying Kittehs

And a follow up of the story by CNN. (h/t WEIT) Генгис^{Our ignorance is God; what we know is science.} 12:39, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

Once again proving that human dumbassery knows no bounds. --PsyGremlin^Parlez! 13:03, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

I am not not not going to comment on this. Secret Squirrel (talk) 02:03, 20 November 2012 (UTC)

Genghis's big erection

After months of preparation the erection is scheduled for next Tuesday. I promise to post pictures afterwards. Генгис^mutating 14:21, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

You know, you can get pills now where you don't need to plan ahead. --PsyGremlin^Fale! 14:29, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

The anticipation is part of the pleasure. Генгис^{You have the right to be offended; and I have the right to offend you.} 09:59, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

• Do I really want to know that Genghis' erection is sticky? Please tell me I don't. JzG (talk) 20:11, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

You don't. --TechCheese^kvetch 07:32, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

It's up and magnificent. My 12-incher is might pleased but I can't play with it until the silicone hardens. In the meantime Mrs K has been sending pictures to all her friends. Генгис^{Our ignorance is God; what we know is science.} 21:31, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

As promised:

The big white one

Генгис^{Our ignorance is God; what we know is science.} 19:56, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

Awesome! So we're counting on you as our advanced warning system when Planet Nibiru hoves into view... --PsyGremlin^Fale! 09:24, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

I'm just relieved that Genghis' big erection is no longer sticky. rpeh •T•C•E• 09:38, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

That's a huge trashcan. --2.39.39.47 (talk) 09:56, 18 November 2012 (UTC)

EX-TER-MI-NATE

JzG (talk) 10:30, 20 November 2012 (UTC)

New users

We seem to be being blessed with a remarkable number of new uses at the moment.--Weirdstuff (talk) 17:00, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

Obligatory. --PsyGremlin^Praat! 17:09, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

Well, yes. But they don't actually seem to be feeding us any. I would have thought that if they could get past the account creation spam filter then they would be able to bypass anything which lets then deliver it as well.--Weirdstuff (talk) 17:21, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

My God, the shrieking in that skit. Why do people like Monty Python again? Radioactive afikomen ^{Please ignore all my awful pre-2014 comments.} 22:35, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

I believe the shrieking was part of the point, Stabs. Osaka Sun (talk) 03:59, 18 November 2012 (UTC)

I haven't looked lately, but is passing a CAPTCHA part of the account creation process? Sprocket J Cogswell (talk) 15:10, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

Yep. Tysock (talk) 15:27, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

So, sort of a semi-automatic thing where the human just has to hold their eyeballs in front of a screen for a moment for each instance, and then their fingertips onto the keyboard? Either that, or someone is doing a lot of repetitive "work." Sprocket J Cogswell (talk) 15:47, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

Find a bunch of art majors, pay them a nickel a time to fill out captchas. Evil fascist^{oh noez} 15:52, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

What I don't understand though, is that very few of them actually make any spam posts. Can we expect some massive coordinated onslaught at some point? Генгис^{Gum disease} 16:39, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

Is there an echo in there?--Weirdstuff (talk) 20:50, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

...in there? Генгис^{RationalWiki GOLD member}<

Possibly. Nothing has hit the filter yet. Evil fascist^{oh noez} 16:44, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

Spam filter hits. They really wanted to sell us Bitcoins back in March. Evil fascist^{oh noez} 20:59, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

Does it make sense to issue preemptive blocks (til something like Valentine's day) in the meantime, or would that be useless dancing? Sprocket J Cogswell (talk) 17:16, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

Well there are genuine new editors amongst them so we can't really block someone until they actually do something. Генгис^{Is the Pope a Catholic?} 17:29, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

Too expensive, you only get a measly 20 CAPCHAs per dollar that way. Just get some Asain sweat-shop labor to do it en masse. You get more bang for you buck; specifically a thousand CAPTCHAs per dollar. --CoyoteSans (talk) 19:01, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

A typical pattern of a bona fide new editor is to register an account and then do something with it. Considering the number and timing of these accounts, along with the lorem ipsum style of their usernames, I think it is safe to say that a vanishing fraction were registered in that kind of good faith. The obvious solution (to me, at least) is a lengthy block with talk-page access enabled, and something like "tell us what you're about and we will apologise" in the block reason. Sprocket J Cogswell (talk) 19:05, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

Blocking a new user who hasn't done anything on the grounds that they haven't done anything seems a bit severe. Would it not be best to block for actions that people take rather for those they don't take?--Weirdstuff (talk) 20:49, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

@Sprocko First off, the spammers have learned about that one and spam the talkpage. There are a variety of server side solutions that, depending on which ones we use, could affect site performance i.e. server side blocking confirmed spammer ips (200,000 from just one list IIRC). Evil fascist^{oh noez} 20:54, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

@Weirdstuff, it isn't "a user" it is several hundred, all registered in the last couple of days. That in itself is an action.

Ty is on it, along with other heads much more adept than mine in matters like this. Sprocket J Cogswell (talk) 21:16, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

Well yes..... That's why I started the thread. But blocking users (one or two hundred users) who have made no posts and who have not hit the spam filter looks like overkill to me.--Weirdstuff (talk) 21:19, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

Maybe we could be frank and upfront. Using judgment about the "smell" of the user name, block the account if it's suspicious but leave talk page access open. Put a canned message on the talk page like "We're sorry this is necessary, but we get so much spam that we'd like to know just a little more before confirming your account..." etc. Doctor Dark (talk) 23:08, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

In my view, editing each talk page for this would be wasted motion. There may be more than three hundred of them by now; I haven't counted lately. For that reason, I favor putting the "sorry--tell us more" message in the block comment. If a good-faith editor happens to flunk the sniff test, they will get the message, and will have to show some persistence, but not to an insurmountable degree. If that seems too onerous, kindly consider that we are looking for proactive adult editors who do not need a lot of hand-holding. Sprocket J Cogswell (talk) 02:05, 20 November 2012 (UTC)

I strongly recommend blocking users on suspicion of spamming. If they don't spam in a few days, they likely won't spam ever. I doubt that there's ever been any case of a mass spammer attack post mass account creation. If there was then it was an act of vandalism, and any intelligent vandal wouldn't make the names formulaic like that. It sends the completely wrong message, plus people with very unusual seeming usernames can get banned, and they might not realize that they can edit their talk pages, or they might foolishly not know what to do and never contribute. Before anyone says that they shouldn't contribute if they can't figure out what to do, keep in mind that a lot of people don't want to invest a lot of time in getting registered, and who would quit of they need to request unblocking from someone; after all it does send a GTFO message. I debated this with the Sturmkrieg Administration Committee back when we had a serious troll and vandal because one of our fantasy stories was supposedly some sort of Judeo-Bolshevik indoctrination method. Dondrekhan raised the point that people don't want to do anything complicated to register, and little things that pop up will stop them altogether. We need new people; existing editors won't be around forever. Unless we want to end up like Citizendium, we should follow the very simple concept of assume good faith. It's not like it's hard to block spammers anyway. Inquisitor Sasha Ehrenstein des Sturmkrieg Sector 03:48, 20 November 2012 (UTC)

Surely we don't need to do anything unless the presumptive spammers show signs of finding a way around whatever existing anti-spam measures are in place and dump some spam on us. Furthermore if they are spambots then a message on their talk page will be a waste of time as they won't read it. The only people who might read it would be real human beings who had signed up but were then too shy to actually do any more. Blocking such people and suggesting they were spmbots would be counter-productive. --Bob^{"I thought this was supposed to be "Rational" Wiki?."} 10:50, 20 November 2012 (UTC)