RationalWiki:Saloon bar/Archive246

So how am I supposed to use talk pages?[edit]

This may look like a glaringly obvious question for some, but I've never really understood how to use "talk pages". The problem is that I don't know how to reply to a message; someone left a message on my talk page and I got a friendly email about that, but how is one supposed to reply? Do I go add a new indented reply on my talk page? Or go to the user's talk page who left the message and add a new subject "Re: David Icke for president" and post my reply there? Help:Contents doesn't seem to have any info on this. It seems to me that if I post on my talk page, the other person will probably miss this? But if I post on his/her talk page, it quickly becomes a hard to follow conversation... Carpetsmoker (talk) 12:02, 13 July 2015 (UTC)

No, put it on your talk page - I'm watching and waiting on it. Doxys Midnight Runner (talk) 12:04, 13 July 2015 (UTC)

It looks like you missed out on the welcome template. See here. :-) --Bob ^{"I think you'll find it's more complicated than that."} 15:02, 13 July 2015 (UTC)

Okay, thanks ;-) So how does that work? Do you also get a notification on my reply? Or are you just expected to put the page on your watchlist and, well, watch it? Carpetsmoker (talk) 21:41, 13 July 2015 (UTC)

If you reply on your own talk page and no-one sees or responds then perhaps they weren't really bothered and are intentionally letting the matter drop. On the other hand if they are interested then they'll notice your edit. Scream!! (talk) 11:54, 14 July 2015 (UTC)

Does this page condone an anti-Israel / anti Zionist slant?[edit]

Just look at articles like Zionism or Hamas for a starter. The former erroneously claims that "the United Nations" consider Zionism to be racist. The latter has had a recent edit war concerning the blatantly obvious war crimes of Hamas, among which the use of human shields and the misuse of the red crescent symbol are just the most glaring. Why are edits that state things like that immediately reverted even if they provide more than one good source? Is this just one User:AgingHippie going rogue or is it a general tendency of this site to play apologist for groups like Hamas and the general anti-Zionists out there? Best wishes, a leftist who supports human rights 141.30.210.129 (talk) 18:03, 14 July 2015 (UTC)

Personally: Yup!

Israel has manufactured Hamas by constantly and repeatedly beating down the Palestinian people for over 50 years. As ye sow so shall ye reap. Scream!! (talk) 21:14, 14 July 2015 (UTC)

It was "manufactured" by the Muslim Brotherhood.--Arisboch (talk) 21:19, 14 July 2015 (UTC)

I see, so User:Scream!! is apparently willing to disregard the constant human rights violations perpetrated by Hamas. What is your opinion regarding the stance of Hamas on Atheism, Homosexuality, the existence of the state of Israel, Jews in general and their politics in general, if I may ask? Zionism was founded as the ideology to eliminate antisemitism and if this proves impossible (which it sadly has) to at least provide a place of refuge for all the people threatened by antisemitism. Israel has been fortunately enough rather successful in protecting human live. Jewish and non-Jewish. If the plight of the Palestinians is indeed so important, where is the article on the Black September in Jordan? Or the article on the massacre of a Palestinian "refugee" (quotes for the fact that refugee status can't be inherited, much less in the third generation) camp in Syria perpetrated by not Israel? Best wishes 141.30.210.129 (talk) 21:39, 14 July 2015 (UTC)

There is none. It is not, as if they'd really care about them.--Arisboch (talk) 21:41, 14 July 2015 (UTC)

One has to wonder, why that is... 141.30.210.129 (talk) 21:46, 14 July 2015 (UTC)

Your freakouts over us 'badmouthing' Israel (read: mention Israel in any negative context) are getting old. Zionism isn't all rainbows and sunshine, you know. 141.134.75.236 (talk) 21:45, 14 July 2015 (UTC)

Battle of the 141's! Narky Sawtooth

(Nyar~) 21:47, 14 July 2015 (UTC)

I always find it rather funny when the position of the opposition is so mis-characterized. I never said nor implied, that Zionism (a hugely diverse ideology with aspects I don't support as well as aspects I do support) is "all rainbows and sunshine"... 141.30.210.129 (talk) 22:02, 14 July 2015 (UTC)

Well, then change the title of this section, because "Does this page condone an anti-Israel / anti Zionist slant?" is basically synonymous with "How dare you talk about Israel / Zionism negatively!" 141.134.75.236 (talk) 22:11, 14 July 2015 (UTC)

141.30, you are going a bit off the deep end. Israel isn't innocent in the whole thing. Yeah, the majority of the world is biased against Israel, but you are biased in the other direction. CorruptUser (talk) 22:17, 14 July 2015 (UTC)

How so? I do think, things like the war crimes of Hamas deserve a mention. And creating a false equivalency between Saudi Arabia and Israel (as in the current version of the Saudi Arabia article) is not only intellectually dishonest, but does this project a disservice. But that is - you know - just my opinion, man 141.30.210.129 (talk) 22:22, 14 July 2015 (UTC)

Both sides have committed war crimes, in theory, leaders of both sides should face justice. Israel has committed the worse crimes, not because Hamas is any 'better' but because Israel has access to better weaponry. I guess what gets my goat is that I know that if any justice is meted out, it will only be delivered to one side. There's a power imbalance; it always looks worse when a UFC fighter punches a baby in the face (as incomplete as that analogy is). If our articles don't reflect that, then they should. Tielec01 (talk) 22:32, 14 July 2015 (UTC)

Er... I quickly read both pages mentioned (Zionism & Hamas) and the Hamas one is not exactly positive and Zionism one is not exactly negative. If you want to add a section about Hamas war crimes, and it is well sourced, then do it; I hardly think RW can be accused of bias on this issue (except for the normal SPOV bias). Tielec01 (talk) 22:36, 14 July 2015 (UTC)

I tried to insert (well sourced) info on Hamas war crimes (see the revision history). It quickly got reverted and I am currently unable to edit it back in. And the fact that Zionism is described as "racist" in the lede, does smack of it being considered a tad negatively by whoever put that there. 141.30.210.129 (talk) 22:43, 14 July 2015 (UTC)

I'll take it to the talk page of the article. Tielec01 (talk) 22:49, 14 July 2015 (UTC)

Thanks 141.30.210.129 (talk) 22:54, 14 July 2015 (UTC)

Isn't Zionism racist though? It maintains that since members of your race were "given this land by god" thousands of years ago, you are entitled to that land over any other races.TheriziπosaurusG (talk) 23:09, 14 July 2015 (UTC)

It doesn't. There is nothing about "races" in Zionism. And the bible, neither.--Arisboch (talk) 23:13, 14 July 2015 (UTC)

That is not what Zionism is about. Zionism is only "racist" to the same extent as any patriotism/nationalism and therefore the existence of any single nation-state (including the US or France) is racist. Zionism is the ideology that in a world of nation states, the Jews should have their own state just like the Germans or the French do. If that is racist, than French patriotism and nationalism is racist. And as Zionism is the conditio sine qua non for the existence of Israel, somebody who is opposed to Zionism but does wish for other nation states or a limited number of them to continue existing has to explain how Israel is different from any other nation on earth. 141.30.210.129 (talk) 23:17, 14 July 2015 (UTC)

It's more of a bog standard nationalist movement with some religion tacked on as far as I am aware. Tielec01 (talk) 23:16, 14 July 2015 (UTC)

Where I live we don't aim to kill innocent people in our wars and take other people's land by force. Granted, Israel is not the only country to do it, albeit they may be the most egregious current example of this kind of behaviour. Tielec01 (talk) 23:24, 14 July 2015 (UTC)

Well, Israel doesn't aim to kill innocent people, either and for "other's people land"... Well, depends, on who's interpretation of the international law you use.--Arisboch (talk) 23:31, 14 July 2015 (UTC)

Every war in history has basically been about taking other people's land (or stuff). And in every war innocent people die. Usually the first to die is the truth. But that is the nature of nation states. Their very existence is based on violence or the credible threat of it. Even Costa Rica, which officially does not have an army can only maintain its borders, as there is the very credible threat of somebody not respecting said borders being killed either by Costa Rican police or - in the case of a serious military operation - the US military. Hamas knows full well that their attacks on Israel will end in dead people. If they hide behind civilians, the dead people are more likely to include civilians. Not even the US, arguably the best equipped military in the world has figured out a way to harm the terrorist and let the civilians live (whatever legitimate criticism there is for the drone program, and there are many, there is no reason to assume they maliciously target small children. They are just "incompetent" not to hit them when the intended target is among them...). And to make it abundantly clear once more: Israel does not aim to kill people and whose land Gaza and the West Bank is or should be depends very much on definitions. Jordan still considered the West Bank "theirs" up to the 1980s.... 141.30.210.129 (talk) 23:38, 14 July 2015 (UTC)

I guess it's possible that 70%+ innocent civilian casualties could have been a mistake. Tielec01 (talk) 23:45, 14 July 2015 (UTC)

Imagine an organization hiding behind schools and hospitals while there are hundreds of civilians in them fires rocket after rocket at you. At what point do you start thinking... "Well fuck it, kill 'em all, they don't deserve any better"? Fortunately, the state of Israel does not do that. They broadcast warnings before striking in densely populated areas, they abort attacks if the risk of civilian casualties is too high, they respect the red cross and red crescent symbols (even though Hamas doesn't), yet still from time to time Hamas gets the "martyrs" they want. I will ask one simple question: What on earth should Israel do? 141.30.210.129 (talk) 23:51, 14 July 2015 (UTC)

Call the real killers of JFK and ask them for the magic bullet.</sarcasm>--Arisboch (talk) 23:53, 14 July 2015 (UTC)

Give back the occupied lands and stop killing people (as should Hamas). Or just keep killing innocent people, you know, whatever works. Nothing makes an occupied people more calm than killing their mothers and fathers, or brothers and sisters. Both sides in this contemptible war are pathetic, I just find the Israeli side slightly more so. Tielec01 (talk) 00:06, 15 July 2015 (UTC)

Because they have no retracted Cold War UN resolution behind them or because Israel doesn't have access to the magic bullet?--Arisboch (talk) 00:12, 15 July 2015 (UTC)

Because they are an occupying force and because they murder innocent people. Tielec01 (talk) 00:15, 15 July 2015 (UTC)

That about murdering innocent people is a lie and about occupying force a matter of opinion.--Arisboch (talk) 00:17, 15 July 2015 (UTC)

Again, BoN, human rights groups don't agree with the narrative that they are using human shields, which would be a war crime. Even if they did Israel has no right to fire on those locations because that is a war crime. You seem to be okay with Israel killing civilians in Gaza, and assuming that they are mistakes, because it is a densely populated area, but you repeatedly say it isn't okay for Hamas to fire from that same area because there are civilians. I don't care if Israel calls the Palestinians before they eviscerate their homes they still are committing war crimes by fire on those places in the first place. Also, no, I wouldn't attack them with missiles when I have several well trained special forces groups who can capture the individuals responsible and try them in an international court of law and I can defend myself from inaccurate Qassam Rockets with my advanced missile defense, the Iron Dome. I would also leave the Palestinian lands alone as autonomous areas instead of occupying and settling on their land. Btw Israel doesn't respect, civilians, medical staff, schools, or the UN.--Owlman (talk) 00:22, 15 July 2015 (UTC)

You see, I don't think, that the international law forces any country to do such high-risk missions you proposing to minimize civilian casualties and the Iron Dome is no magic bullet, either. According to cursory reading of the articles they're either based on rumors or well, the Israelis not having the magic bullet.--Arisboch (talk) 00:38, 15 July 2015 (UTC)

The mental contortions you must do to justify war crimes is breathtaking to watch. Tielec01 (talk) 00:25, 15 July 2015 (UTC)

It is always surprising how Amnesty and HRW are continued to be held in such a high esteem while their anti-Israel bias is so blatantly obvious. Just compare the rivers of ink they have spilled denouncing Israel to the meager statements on Darfur, the Congo, the slaughter (en masse and with weapons of mass destruction) of innocent civilians in Syria... The list does indeed go on for a horribly long time. One can't help but wonder: What is different about the state of Israel that its human rights violations - alleged or real - deserve so much attention and the human rights violations of the Assads and Al-Bashirs the Front for the liberation of that and Peace and Democracy this are handled in footnotes. Is Israel a perfect shining city upon a hill? Of course not. Is all nationalism bad? Ultimately, yes. Does that mean Israel has to be singled out or judged according to a totally different yardstick from the rest of the world? No. Oberst Klein killed more people in one swift strike than Israel has in all of this year, yet he has been promoted and his acts are largely forgotten outside of Afghanistan and Germany. Do you at least acknowledge that there might be some double standard some of the time with regards to Israel? 141.30.210.129 (talk) 00:56, 15 July 2015 (UTC)

Really, Arisboch, that is high risk when killing civilians isn't. Then why would you even have special forces if they are just going to sit on their ass all day. I have the same problem with Obama's drone programs that are usually kill civilians and the assassinations have no warrant. BoN, you have only edited the Hamas page, so yo made this abut Israel/Palestine. If you want to add the Kunduz airstirke go ahead. The issue is you have literally justified torture and the bombing of civilians as 'fair' since Hamas does it. Oh and look at that pages on Darfur, the Congo, and Syria.--Owlman (talk) 01:11, 15 July 2015 (UTC)

I did not say Amnesty is silent (though the Anti-Zionist outrage machine generally is) about what happens outside of the are between Jordan and Mediterranean Sea, I just said, there is an undue focus on Israel and its (alleged or real) faults. I also do not know where to add the Kunduz airstrike and how it would be even remotely within scope... And also I fail to see how I justified torture and the bombing of civilians. I have said that civilian casualties are sometimes unavoidable and I doubt that Israel does in fact torture. Hamas does that if they can get their hands on people worth torturing in their eyes, which thanks to the IDF is not often the case. Whatever you can say against the IDF it is a highly efficient fighting force that does take its mission to keep Israel a safe place for all its citizens (Jew or not) very seriously. Unlike the useless and incompetent fools that pass for the German military (which I am glad about, as the last thing the world needs is a competent German military; that's gone wrong several times now) 141.30.210.129 (talk) 01:19, 15 July 2015 (UTC)

Was that one of the worst attempts at a joke I have ever seen, or genuine stupidity? You think ze Germans want to start another war or something? Tielec01 (talk) 01:23, 15 July 2015 (UTC)

Well as of now the German government is content on achieving hegemonic status over Europe through non-military means (the treatment of Greece, if you don't know, what I am talking about). As for the right wing in Germany.... They are currently marching against refugees (real ones from Syria) or outright burning the places they are planned to be given shelter in. So while you might deride it, the ugly side of German nationalism (there hardly is a nice side to it) is anything but dead. And quite frankly: If Germany does not get into wars, why have a military?141.30.210.129 (talk) 01:45, 15 July 2015 (UTC)

Well, now you start talking bullshit. Neo-nazis have no political power (You know this quip by Franz Josef Strauß, that "there is only the wall to the right of myself" (holy shit, my English is so fucking broken. shame on me. Scheeeeeeeiiiiiiiiiße T_T)? He's right. No political party party to the right of the CDU/CSU could achieve significant political power in the modern German state and the AfD is right-wing, but they're not extremists) in Germany. The Bundeswehr was created to fight off the Reds, of course and now they keep it (downsized) for, well, just in case (and for disaster relief). And you're also do massive panic-mongering about German influence in Europe.--Arisboch (talk) 02:00, 15 July 2015 (UTC)

I am not saying Germany is going to start the next war tomorrow, I am saying that the less influence Germany has the better. And if the German military ever again becomes involved in a large scale war, I will hopefully get at least an ocean of distance between Germany and myself. And yes I know the old adage of FJS (can't say I miss him, but he sure was better than some of the jokes the conservatives now have. At least he knew how to quote his Latin stuff), but precisely that is faltering as we speak. PEGIDA (an anti-islam movement mostly confined to Dresden) or the AfD (which recently had yet another rightward turn kicking out its founder in the process) are just the tip of the iceberg. A right wing extremist terrorist group murdered people for a decade and a half and the police just stood by watching cluelessly. Yes Germany may not currently be as bad as - say - Hungary, but it is still a country of eighty million that is dangerously influential. Should a nationalist movement (and the flagpins are getting bigger already) ever come to power in Germany again, the world should bomb Germany once more, even though that will destroy a bunch of beautiful old towns (not to mention kill some innocents among the fanatics). Germany is the only currently existing country that tried to exterminate several ethnic groups at once (Jews, Slavs, "Gipsies", Blacks and a bunch of others) and came as close to succeeding as anybody ever has. If one nation state could be wiped of the map (without killing any of its citizens) at no cost, I would make it Germany. 141.30.210.129 (talk) 02:20, 15 July 2015 (UTC)

My god, keeping history in mind and being cautious is one thing, but being insanely paranoid is another (wiped off the map at no cost??? What in the motherfuck is wrong with you?!?!?!?!). The NSU affair was them being stupid, not malicious.--Arisboch (talk) 02:28, 15 July 2015 (UTC)

I said that if the end of the existence of a German national state were possible to accomplish without doing any person any harm (that was meant with "wiped of the map with no cost"), I would gladly take it. What good does German nationalism do anybody anyway? It's not like people would start murdering Germans for the fact that they're German if there were no Germany. The continued existence of a German state after 1945 is an error by the allied powers. The resurgence of German nationalism since 1990 is proof of that. 141.30.210.129 (talk) 13:21, 15 July 2015 (UTC)

Because the special forces are not the magic fucking ninjas you think they are and you don't fight a war with arrest warrants.--Arisboch (talk) 01:14, 15 July 2015 (UTC)

Indeed it seems you fight wars by murdering innocent civilians. Tielec01 (talk) 01:16, 15 July 2015 (UTC)

Because the killers of JFK hold back the magic bullets, these stingy fuckers.--Arisboch (talk) 01:18, 15 July 2015 (UTC)

You know what I'm wondering about the way countries like the US and Israel wage war? Why do missiles and airdropped bombs seem to be the only option used these days? I'm not saying boots on the ground is a magic fix-all solution (long-duration occupation by ground troops specifically is almost always a horrible idea), but at least human soldiers are theoretically capable of differentiating non-combatants from combatants. 141.134.75.236 (talk) 01:34, 15 July 2015 (UTC)

Cause the US and Israel ain't like the fucking Hamas or Hezbollah and actually give a fuck about the lifes of their soldiers, since governments, who let wars drag on too long get booted by the voter.--Arisboch (talk) 15:27, 22 July 2015 (UTC)

The problem is the allegations you're providing against Hamas have not been documented by human rights groups. The point about human shields is propaganda as I've stated many times. If you want to cite actual war crimes committed by Hamas, you can reference their torture of Fatah members and their socially conservative bent, which are not propaganda but are in fact well documented. I am not an apologist for Hamas, and Hamas fighters should be held responsible for war crimes when an Israeli civilian is killed, but I don't tolerate fabricated evidence of human shield use when human rights organizations have not found evidence for this. You are not providing evidence, but rather the Israeli press release. ~ChrisAmiss

And the whole whining about Israel being singled out is just immature whataboutery. That's the excuse Islamists use when anyone criticizes Islam. "WHY ARE YOU SINGLING OUT ISLAM? EVERY RELIGION IS VIOLENT". It's a red herring meant to distract from the criticism being issued and frankly is absurd. ~ChrisAmiss

This is a non sequitur. Islam is (as of pretty much now) a religion with more violent extremists actually killing people (including Hamas, Daesh, Hezbollah and other groups) than any other religion. In the 17th century, that distinction would have gone to Christianity. In 1381 in Tenochtitlan the Aztecs would have held this honor (human sacrifice and all). But Israel is not the worst offender in any category (well apart from being the most Jewish state there is) by a large margin. So the question why it is singled out does naturally arise... 141.30.210.129 (talk) 01:48, 15 July 2015 (UTC)

Not necessarily a non-sequitur. Most of the heinous crimes committed in history are not by religious fanatics, but by secular, bureaucratic maniacs. Saddam and Assad's violence easily outdo religious extremists in terms of sheer violence and crimes against humanity, and they're both relatively secular governments. Assad's crimes is far worse than what Islam does. I would counter that by saying that Israel is the only Western country actively engaging in colonization of a foreign territory. Not to mention, they're one of the very few countries that legalized torture, and they're the only other country I know besides Saddam who legalize punitive home demolitions. Saying that Israel isn't the only human rights offender doesn't help your case either, it actually makes you look more biased than you let on. ChrisAmiss (talk) 02:00, 15 July 2015 (UTC)

Other than Turkey with North Cyprus, and Russia with Crimea and Abkhazia and Ossetia, or however you spell those regions. CorruptUser (talk) 04:04, 15 July 2015 (UTC)

I think you got it right. 142․124․55․236 (talk) 04:10, 15 July 2015 (UTC)

I don't really consider Turkey Western in the historical sense. True, they've been secular since Ataturk and are part of NATO and have a liberal democracy, but their foundation and heritage are Islamic (not to mention their Islamic flag). I consider Russia to be more an Eastern Orthodox country than Western compared to say the US/Canada/the EU. ChrisAmiss (talk) 04:13, 15 July 2015 (UTC)

I think you have a rather narrow definition of "Western"... after all, Russia currently owns territory (the Kaliningrad Oblast) that was historically part of Germany. "Western" by no means implies democracy. As evidenced by the "western" countries of Spain, Italy, Germany and a bunch of minor ones becoming fascist in the first half of the 20th century. In a sense it is precisely the Dialectic of Enlightenment, that "Western" countries were the first to fall victim to fascism. Turkey's history also firmly puts it into Europe. They came this close to conquering Vienna, after all. If Turkey is not Western or at least a country with Western elements to it, neither is Israel. And furthermore, the whole Cyprus issue is due in no small part to acts of the Greek Cypriots and Greece. I don't know nearly enough about the history of the conflict, but I do assume some blame to lie on both sides... 141.30.210.129 (talk) 13:27, 15 July 2015 (UTC)

I personally dislike the radicals on both sides, but I do think that more time and space needs to be spent criticizing the Israeli military for war crimes in Gaza. RationalWiki is all about facts and digging into stories to find truth and break down bias, and if we added sections on pro-Israel bias in US media and politics, I think that can only be a good thing (informative). Pbfreespace3 (talk) 00:42, 19 July 2015 (UTC)

What, more Cold War bullshit (even the UN retracted this resolution calling Zionism racist, after the Cold War was done) and bulldozers like in the Zionism article?--Arisboch (talk) 15:18, 19 July 2015 (UTC)

"I think you have a rather narrow definition of "Western"... after all, Russia currently owns territory (the Kaliningrad Oblast) that was historically part of Germany."

That's a rather limited view of history, considering that "Germany" didn't exist as a state before 1870 and the Kaliningrad area was traditionally split in a way similar to much of East Prussia: Largely Germanic urban centres (a legacy of the Germanic eastwards migration and the Hanseatic League trading network of the Middle Ages) combined with heavier elements of Slavs (mainly Poles) and/or Balts (Lithuanians) in the countryside. Not to mention that this part of Prussia owed fealty to the King of Poland (or Poland-Lithuania) when that state was a powerhouse of north-eastern Europe, was an independent monastic crusader state formally only owing allegiance to the Pope before that, and a patchwork of Baltic tribal entities before that. ScepticWombat (talk) 10:35, 19 July 2015 (UTC)

Interesting, but long, article I found on Atheist Republic[edit]

http://www.science20.com/writer_on_the_edge/blog/atheism_peaks_while_spiritual_groups_move_toward_convergence-156528

Beyond the kneejerk reaction some might feel to try to deny it's central theme, the article does raise some very good points about the future of religion in modern society. However, it's central claim does rely on communist imposed atheism, which is WAY different from modern atheism. What do you think? Master Necromancer^{What is dead may never die} 04:01, 15 July 2015 (UTC)

Communist imposed atheism? I think you are going to make me bleed internally. LlamaPastor31 ^{There's a lot of tube cloggage.} 04:49, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

Please tell me you aren't going to try to deny that the USSR was traditionally atheist. They may have had a personality cult for Stalin, but they still didn't believe in the traditional idea of gods. So yes, they were atheist, although a very different kind of atheist. Master Necromancer^{What is dead may never die} 14:46, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

traditional atheism is a new one on me. AMassiveGay (talk) 11:19, 18 July 2015 (UTC)

Traditional communism, not traditional atheism. Master Necromancer^{What is dead may never die} 03:03, 20 July 2015 (UTC)

I think I just misread your post AMassiveGay (talk) 14:10, 20 July 2015 (UTC)

You used two adjectives "interesting" and "long". Unfortunately, as the second is undeniably true, I find myself unable to comment on the first. However a very quick scan of the intro rather shouts balance fallacy - but that may be unfair.--Bob ^{"I think you'll find it's more complicated than that."} 21:26, 19 July 2015 (UTC)

Do we have an existing page about "liberal universities"[edit]

I was browsing journal articles, and I happened across one that would make a pretty good cite if we had an article about academic liberal bias or whatever it might be called. I did a search or two to track down an existing article, but the closest I found was Atheist professor myth, which is pretty irrelevant.

Do we have an existing article I'm missing? If not, do we want one about the subject(I'll need more than one good ref in that case)? ikanreed ^{You probably didn't deserve that} 13:28, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

Nevermind. found it. ikanreed ^{You probably didn't deserve that} 13:32, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

Pluto[edit]

This says a part of Pluto's surface looks like it formed recently. Any sign yet of the creationists jumping on it? Bicycle^wheel 20:01, 17 July 2015 (UTC)

Yes. [1][2] FuzzyCatPotato of the Cozy Alcohols (talk/stalk) 20:07, 17 July 2015 (UTC)

Recently as up to a 100 million of years old, but creationists tend to ignore anything that doesn't fit with what they agree with. -EmeraldCityWanderer (talk) 22:08, 17 July 2015 (UTC)

Can't have the conspiracy theorists feeling left out of this, can we? Bicycle^wheel 08:26, 22 July 2015 (UTC)

Apologies for the spam[edit]

All of EvoWiki's project pages have been ported over. FuzzyCatPotato of the Congruent Hostels (talk/stalk) 02:27, 18 July 2015 (UTC)

Well, the ones that weren't glitched HTML wastelands, anyway. 32℉uzzy; 0℃atPotato (talk/stalk) 02:32, 18 July 2015 (UTC)

Was it really that important that we copied over the mainpage?--"Paravant" ^{Talk & Contribs} 03:18, 18 July 2015 (UTC)

We can always delete it later - David Gerard (talk) 11:27, 18 July 2015 (UTC)

And just what im proposing: We have no reason to host Evowiki's policy pages here, because they themselves neither improve our coverage on evowiki nor improve our own wiki in any way because they aren't RW policy pages. What relevant info we could get from them either is or could be mentioned in the Evowiki article itself. At best, we have a bunch of policy pages that go "this is how Evowiki was run before we cannibalized all it's articles into RW articles" but I'm not seeing the benefits of it.--"Paravant" ^{Talk & Contribs} 18:07, 18 July 2015 (UTC)

"neither improve our coverage on evowiki" -- how do you argue that?
"nor improve our own wiki in any way because they aren't RW policy pages" -- the wiki was, for awhile, a somewhat successful skeptic site with policies we might like to look at. Seems relevant to RW policy, at least tangentially.

FuzzyCatPotato of the Unnatural Hybrid engines (talk/stalk) 18:31, 18 July 2015 (UTC)

Because we fail to keep copies of the policy pages of literally every other website we cover, which means we don't consider having pure copies of policy pages to be improving coverage. and it was so successful it no longer exists besides a corpse we are stealing body parts from to add to our own body! What are our own community with our own ideas, what policies are we might take from them do not require us to keep copies of -their- policy pages to do it.--"Paravant" ^{Talk & Contribs} 18:39, 18 July 2015 (UTC)

Your DDOS attack on AFD, however, is distinctly unhelpful behaviour. Please clean up after yourself - David Gerard (talk) 20:40, 18 July 2015 (UTC)

what'd I do wrong with the afd? Atleast I went bot and didn't clog rc with it. --"Paravant" ^{Talk & Contribs} 23:36, 18 July 2015 (UTC)

You did nothing wrong with the AFD. I'd be inclined to delete 'em all & just copy over what's worth having. Too much rubbish else. Scream!! (talk) 23:46, 18 July 2015 (UTC)

You put what is really one AFD in ten pieces - David Gerard (talk) 09:36, 19 July 2015 (UTC)

What happened to the page that had links to all of the pages that had to be deleted?-KOMF's Userpage /Talk Anonymous user will die. 21:05, 20 July 2015 (UTC)

Half of the pages have been purged[edit]

The non-AFD-tagged ones are:

Can we discuss their merit (if any) here, rather than on 10 additional AFDs? FuzzyCatPotato!™ (talk/stalk) 23:19, 19 July 2015 (UTC)

I deleted the ones I would have nommed if I'd known about them (i really did just lazily go through the list i saw on your contribs) and which, given all of the rest lost, also would have been deleted.--"Paravant" ^{Talk & Contribs} 23:28, 19 July 2015 (UTC)

I'm completely fine with keeping an archive of the discussions so long as those discussions are of any practical value to go through, since we keep archives of our own discussions. And the Taxonomy template might be of some use to us, maybe.--"Paravant" ^{Talk & Contribs} 23:31, 19 July 2015 (UTC)

Aight. Hopefully now RC isn't synonymous with the deletion log. The FCP Foundation (talk/stalk) 23:52, 19 July 2015 (UTC)

Cover nomination: Roko's Basilisk[edit]

I've nominated this memetic hazard for cover, see discussion - David Gerard (talk) 11:26, 18 July 2015 (UTC)

If more regulars could stop by and opine (even just "+1" if you like the idea), that would be good to evidence consensus - David Gerard (talk) 11:47, 22 July 2015 (UTC)

Sovereign Citizens and the Grateful Dead? Can anyone explain?[edit]

So I recently stumbled across this blog post debunking a "Sovereign Citizen's Cut-Out Kit", a bit of legal woo to help sovereign citizen types make their case. Those of you who are fans of a particular 1960s rock band with a dedicated fan base and questionable musical virtue will notice an appropriation of their trademark logo as a "sovereign authority seal."

Question to the hive mind: is there a link between one of my favorite rock-and-roll bands and the sovereign citizen bunch? Not so much in terms of the members supporting the movement (from all I've read, they were generally apolitical except for supporting some environmental causes), but in terms of Deadhead culture being a feeder for the movement? Peace. AgingHippie (talk) 14:22, 18 July 2015 (UTC)

It is red, white, and blue. Narky Sawtooth

(Nyar~) 01:09, 19 July 2015 (UTC)

And a skull. It just fit in with everything else seen there, so they plagiarized it. Narky Sawtooth

(Nyar~) 01:10, 19 July 2015 (UTC)

I just looked at the Amazon page for it... Warning! Poe's Law in action! Narky Sawtooth

(Nyar~) 01:20, 19 July 2015 (UTC)

Okay, the ham. This is... Really hard to take seriously. "Looooook what just slipped under THE DOOR!!!!!!!!!!" Narky Sawtooth

(Nyar~) 01:27, 19 July 2015 (UTC)

Time Cube? Narky Sawtooth

(Nyar~) 01:31, 19 July 2015 (UTC)

I don't know about SovCits, but MRAs must love "Friend of the Devil" <3 C^{Sapphire bullets of pure love} 18:40, 1 August 2015 (UTC)

It's no secret that while the majority might be on the left, many republicans and libertarians enjoy the grateful dead. The whole system the grateful dead created is essentially voluntarism. There are also GD fans that are anti-government or back to the land and so forth. There are Grateful Dead fans who believe society is going in a wrong direction and seek to drop out of it and form their own, which is a key part of the whole survivalist mentality. It isn't surprising. And everybody knows about Ann Coulter and Tucker Carlson. These two articles might provide some food for thought.

http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-07-02/why-republicans-and-millennials-love-the-grateful-dead-all-the-same

http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/new-bipartisan-poll-finds-grateful-dead-popular-across-political-party-lines-all-age-groups-300106129.html?tc=eml_cleartime Burkean (talk) 20:51, 7 August 2015 (UTC)

archivebot[edit]

Whoever one of you cunts who is in charge of the archiving bot needs to get your fucking shit together, had to manually do wigocp. Ghost (talk) 11:23, 19 July 2015 (UTC)

Why u so mad bro? Wėąṣėḷőįď

^{Methinks it is a Weasel} 11:36, 19 July 2015 (UTC)

Unpleasant.--TheroadtoWiganPier (talk) 11:54, 19 July 2015 (UTC)

You should definitely fucking put in for a refund on that shit - David Gerard (talk) 14:33, 19 July 2015 (UTC)

Question About GoodGopher[edit]

So, I was looking at GoodGopher to see if it was open for public use, and it is! Now that it is useful, should we make a page for it, as it will be the first search engine (that I know of) to contain mostly pseudoscience material. BTW, the link's here. [3] KOMF's Userpage /Talk Anonymous user will die. 21:09, 20 July 2015 (UTC)

Ha. The link at the bottom redirected to "Welcom.asp" instead of "Welcome.asp" Narky Sawtooth

(Nyar~) 21:17, 20 July 2015 (UTC)

Favorite first impression: all page results all run through a .tolower() conversion. Presumably done to make indexing easier, it has the nice side effect of making every single result look lazy and unhinged.

Second favorite first impression: for any sane query ("president of the united states" e.g.) there is no relevant information whatsoever. ikanreed ^{You probably didn't deserve that} 21:18, 20 July 2015 (UTC)

Let me try a sane search! "Mad Max: Fury Road." Oh, look. Gun nuts. Edit: And "New World Order" Narky Sawtooth

(Nyar~) 21:20, 20 July 2015 (UTC)

Looks like a conspiracy theory search engine.--Arisboch (talk) 21:22, 20 July 2015 (UTC)

I know that. It might be an important source of information about woo, so that's the only reason that I'm interested in it.

KOMF's Userpage /Talk Anonymous user will die. 21:32, 20 July 2015 (UTC)

Add criticisms pls. Fuzzy "Cat" Potato, Jr. (talk/stalk) 21:55, 20 July 2015 (UTC)

We ought to thank Mike Adams for making our work easier. Bicycle^wheel

09:36, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

EvoWiki essays[edit]

EvoWiki's got quite a few decent essays. Anyone mind if I port them over? The FCP Foundation (talk/stalk) 23:32, 20 July 2015 (UTC)

Don't see why not, we have an essay space. Any that are mainspace-worthy, even better - David Gerard (talk) 23:49, 20 July 2015 (UTC)

I already ported one of the pages over, but not as an essay. Still, I don't mind.

KOMF's Userpage /Talk Anonymous user will die. 23:50, 20 July 2015 (UTC)

Took a shine to the page on Human mating strategies and sexual preferences, but it too seemed more like an article over here to me. - Smerdis of Tlön, ^{LOAD "*", 8, 1.} 02:39, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

Why am I completely unsurprised...--AndYourFoesShallRejoice... (talk) 08:08, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

Question For Banning...[edit]

In my opinion, we should let banned users edit their own talk pages. They should be able to argue for them being unblocked, and watching them throw a temper tantrum might be fun... KOMF's Userpage /Talk Anonymous user will die. 03:47, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

Who are you talking about? Wèàšèìòìď

^{Methinks it is a Weasel} 06:52, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

Looks like it was Naqoyqatsi.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 08:01, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

In general, we do. And when someone pulls that permission away, I tend to give it back(link-spammers excepted). ikanreed ^{You probably didn't deserve that} 12:45, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

Fat Aardvark got gagged because they continued their tedious 'banter' (there aren't enough scare quotes in the world) on their talk page, in between whining about how a comedian of their calibre shouldn't be banned at all. Queex _{chthonic murmurings} 13:10, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

A dilemma.[edit]

When is it appropriate to put a question I have into the Debates section, and when should I just stick it in the Saloon Bar? Or how about the neglected fora, for that matter? I ask this because I often like to bring a question up before a group of people, and watch the verbal fisticuffs to gain new insight, rather than just insert question->get answer. ¹⁰⁷ Ag⁴⁷ 05:38, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

The useful rule of thumb whether to post something to the Saloon Bar is "Is this going to balloon to more than a screen of text?". The Debate format usually implies that there is some concise proposition that can be stated in advance and argued for/against. As for "bring a question up ... and watch the verbal fisticuffs": fuck you.--AndYourFoesShallRejoice... (talk) 08:21, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

It bemuses me when people use forum/dabatespace just to say "hey, how about having an article on...?" perhaps they're more used to PHP forums. And while we're on this, why do we have two spaces for the same thing anyway? Bicycle^wheel

09:33, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

Well, getting to the article suggestion vote page is a bit of a chore--"Paravant" ^{Talk & Contribs} 19:35, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

Can Capturebot2 take s screenshot of a page every week?[edit]

Because that might be useful for taking pictures of frequently changing websites. If anyone turns it back on. K O M F 18:31, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

I think the amount of space each capture takes up is a limiting factor. It might not be a huge amount now, but a year or so down the line, it's going to pile up. ℕoir LeSable (talk) 19:02, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

Space really isn't a problem - David Gerard (talk) 19:03, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

I tend to add "#20150721" or similar (a nonexistent anchor) to the end of a URL to get a current version - David Gerard (talk) 19:03, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

that works?!? ikanreed ^{You probably didn't deserve that} 19:06, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

What do these user rights do?[edit]

I was looking through the different user rights, and did not know what the meaning of several of them were. The following groups were:

Tech
Ninja
Sysoprevoke

Could someone please answer this?

K O M F 666 03:33, 23 July 2015 (UTC)

Techs can edit various things on the wiki like the edit filter, which can autoblock people. Ninjas are a usergroup who can give and take the bot category, which hides you on RC by default, and Sysoprevoke is meant to enforce sysop removal on a website where most users can add people to it. --"Paravant" ^{Talk & Contribs} 03:38, 23 July 2015 (UTC)

What does RC mean? K O M F 666 04:03, 23 July 2015 (UTC)

Recent Changes Super ^{Dude,Where's my car?} 06:41, 23 July 2015 (UTC)

Tech - rulers of the wiki, getting this will eventually spiral into an orgiastic abuse of power and LANCBing 5-3000 times before it sticks.
Ninga - no idea, sounds vaguely racist.
Ninja - this gives you the ability to hide your edits from everyone except the most obsessive-compulsive of article owners. Most effective when used to insert subversive trolling into innocuous articles. Only ever used to mass assign categories to articles in a transparent attempt to inflate edit counts.
Sysoprevoke - reaching this level means you win RationalWiki, congratulations!

Tielec01 (talk) 07:30, 23 July 2015 (UTC)

Troll Variants[edit]

Maybe it's me but we seem to have had a rash, recently, of a troll variant - or are they - which, for the sake of the argument, I'll call Trollus Ignoramus. The symptoms are

Generally well mannered.
Persistent - they keep coming back again and again and again
Reliant on YouTube and/or obscure refs
A complete inability to read or understand the article they're commenting on or any explanations thereon
An insistence on generalising from the specific - typically "One X said Y in an obscure YouTube video, therefore all X's believe Y"

The thing is, as with the concern troll, it's hard to spot the malevolent from the confused. I know we should always assume good faith but sometimes I feel we're being played. Doxys Midnight Runner (talk) 08:45, 23 July 2015 (UTC)

Examples would probably be useful. ₩€₳$€£ΘĪÐ

^{Methinks it is a Weasel} 08:58, 23 July 2015 (UTC)

BoN 106 on Talk:Feminism and User:bdpatton2 on Talk:Hitler_and_evolution#On_Marxism_and_Darwinism. Doxys Midnight Runner (talk) 09:04, 23 July 2015 (UTC)

There's a BoN on Israel/Palestine/Germany too who's quite in that vein. Scream!! (talk) 09:50, 23 July 2015 (UTC)

Looks like run-of-the-mill sealioning. ΨΣΔξΣΓΩΙÐ

^{Methinks it is a Weasel} 17:08, 23 July 2015 (UTC)

Maybe we should have a 'You have been thrown a fish. How do you react?' page. Link 'em to that, which includes an explanation of how to demonstrate they're not complete tools. If they don't follow those simple instructions, bring out the banhammer, because even if they're not sealioning deliberately, an inability to read stuff and respond inteeligently is probably grounds to muffle them. Queex _{chthonic murmurings} 22:08, 23 July 2015 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ wouldn't it be a nice idea to contact whoever is meant with this on her/his talk page? 141.30.210.129 (talk) 23:28, 23 July 2015 (UTC)

If it was only one person, it wouldn't be a recurring problem. Queex _{chthonic murmurings} 12:25, 24 July 2015 (UTC)

Donald Trump Insult Generator[edit]

Give him a name and see him rant!--Arisboch (talk) 15:08, 23 July 2015 (UTC)

Best: Goofball atheist Batman never stood a chance.TheriziπosaurusG (talk) 16:53, 23 July 2015 (UTC)

"Uncomfortable looking ArcticVixen calls me to ask for favors and then mockingly smiles." Oh wow. ArcticVixen (talk) 18:10, 23 July 2015 (UTC)

"Why does Bicycle Wheel constantly seek out trivial nonsense?" - sounds almost like something the Schlafly Quote Generator would say. Gibber. Bicycle^wheel

20:06, 23 July 2015 (UTC)

Schlafly believes what he says, though. I still can't quite buy the Trump does. ikanreed ^{You probably didn't deserve that} 20:08, 23 July 2015 (UTC)

(EC)"Boring guy MarmotHead". OK, that's actually accurate. MarmotHead (talk) 20:09, 23 July 2015 (UTC)

Please don't use donotlink.com[edit]

It's unnecessary, as all external links on RationalWiki have rel=nofollow by default anyway. And it makes cleaning up broken links unnecessarily painful (e.g. on Liberty Beacon and Manosphere glossary just now) - David Gerard (talk) 20:11, 23 July 2015 (UTC)

My main reason for using it was from the other end: don't tell "them" where you're linking from. Scream!! (talk) 11:19, 24 July 2015 (UTC)

Why not?--Arisboch (talk) 11:20, 24 July 2015 (UTC)

I know this isn't that, but didn't one guy somewhere set his website up to take links from here to some goatse? Walker Walker Walker 11:29, 24 July 2015 (UTC)

A few have reacted badly. We have Template:Unref to screen against that - David Gerard (talk) 11:31, 24 July 2015 (UTC)

Ah. Good to know. Walker Walker Walker 11:36, 24 July 2015 (UTC)

Thx, gonna add to my template collection.--Arisboch (talk) 11:39, 24 July 2015 (UTC)

Template:Unref does that particular job without leaving us with mystery-meat links that are a maintenance PITA. We use it extensively on NaturalNews - David Gerard (talk) 11:31, 24 July 2015 (UTC)

Naturalnews? Do they goatse visitors from RW or something?--Arisboch (talk) 11:43, 24 July 2015 (UTC)

See the banner down in the footnotes; do compare. Walker Walker Walker 11:47, 24 July 2015 (UTC)

Coverstory cull[edit]

On Category:Cover story articles:

I'd like to remove the two CP articles, as they are both bad and CP:

Several other articles are not coverworthy:

Autism omnibus trial is insufficiently referenced (27), short (21399 bytes), without an image, and weakly argued
Chelation therapy is insufficiently referenced (26), short (11479 bytes) and without an image
New Age is insufficiently referenced (10) and short (22014 bytes)

The others seem pretty fine, though having two articles on Behe (Expelled: Leader's Guide and Behe: The Edge of Evolution, Interview) seems overkill, especially when the latter is a meh side-by-side. Mʀ. Wʜɪsᴋᴇʀs, Esϙᴜɪʀᴇ (talk/stalk) 00:07, 24 July 2015 (UTC)

Conservapedian relativity is actually slightly famous, it caught Brian Cox's attention so is crankery that's made it into the wider world.

Being "Conservapedia" isn't a reason.

Almost certainly what you should do is try for a fix first if possible. You've even stated the fixes - David Gerard (talk) 09:57, 24 July 2015 (UTC)

Fine, CP relativity seems fine. The mathematics one, though... 32℉uzzy; 0℃atPotato (talk/stalk) 12:20, 24 July 2015 (UTC)

I think it just needs work. The strange aversion to imaginary numbers is a notable crankery.

Pretty sure both could do with polishing up, of course - David Gerard (talk) 12:35, 24 July 2015 (UTC)

I'm not objecting to the articles, just their coverstory status. CP rel probably fits, CP math not so much. The FCP Foundation (talk/stalk) 12:42, 24 July 2015 (UTC)

I guess they're just too... complex for Andy. Walker Walker Walker 12:46, 24 July 2015 (UTC)

I culled CP:Math. Are there any arguments for keeping the 3 non-CP articles as cover? The FCP Foundation (talk/stalk) 01:23, 26 July 2015 (UTC)

And I've unculled it. You've completely failed to gather anything like consensus for this - David Gerard (talk) 08:42, 26 July 2015 (UTC)

Cull CP Math[edit]

Yes[edit]

The article is poorly written and formatted. It currently is essentially a collection of embarrassing math mistakes by Conservapedia (aka CP cruft). The gold status itself was given without any consensus on the talkpage; it's questionable whether it needs consensus to remove it. The article has been proposed for decovering three times (1,2,3); 6 people opposed cover, and only David Gerard even considered trying to improve the article. 32℉uzzy; 0℃atPotato (talk/stalk) 12:23, 26 July 2015 (UTC)

Cover status was given in 2008; I added the goldbrain two years later to reflect the article's status, not to upgrade. I can't recall if there was a conversation elsewhere about putting on the cover. Anyway, you're right, our standards have risen and this is article has been left behind. Bicycle^wheel

10:54, 27 July 2015 (UTC)

There might've been a conversation in the saloon bar, but I can't find it. It isn't on the talkpage. Herr FüzzyCätPötätö (talk/stalk) 13:30, 27 July 2015 (UTC)

That was so long ago (less than a year after RW started) the saloon bar hadn't been opened. I tried trawling through the WIGO CP talk archives but was overcome by nostalgia. Bicycle^wheel

21:18, 27 July 2015 (UTC)

Decovered. Fuzzy "Cat" Potato, Jr. (talk/stalk) 12:03, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

Cover nomination: 9-11 conspiracy theories[edit]

Article is good, well-referenced, illustrated. Any opposition? Talk:9-11 conspiracy theories. FuzzyCatPotato of the Nefarious Microwaves (talk/stalk) 00:56, 24 July 2015 (UTC)

FCP Foundation nominating things? Gee, I must be living post-Citizens United. Walker Walker Walker 11:05, 24 July 2015 (UTC)

Before you go around arbitrarily golding things because you feel like it, why don't you fix the problems noted on the talk page, that's what the discussion is for - David Gerard (talk) 10:17, 2 August 2015 (UTC)

Since you've abandoned your "keep it cover, fix issues" mentality, can I decover the three articles above? oʇɐʇoԀʇɐϽʎzznℲ (talk/stalk) 13:45, 2 August 2015 (UTC)

I see nothing wrong with Autism omnibus trial that warrants decovering, it's excellent coverage of its topic - the other two I'd concur on decovering (I did try polishing up New Age in the past, couldn't really get it up to scratch) - David Gerard (talk) 21:17, 2 August 2015 (UTC)

Welcome to planet Zloot[edit]

Excuse, but I believ sight is racist against whites in manner violating Public Order Act 1986. By encouraging reader to commit acts of so-called reparation against white society, it dessiminates racist material. 109.228.22.219 (talk)

Excuse, but sight is amurkin and British lor dusunt appleye tu it. Bicycle^wheel

09:13, 25 July 2015 (UTC)

But I am not in Britain. 109.228.22.219 (talk) 01:26, 26 July 2015 (UTC)

Birds' rights activist, please go. Walker Walker Walker 10:14, 25 July 2015 (UTC)

No all birds are man. 109.228.22.219 (talk) 01:26, 26 July 2015 (UTC)

Sweeping talk pages[edit]

What's the general practice at RW for archiving talk pages please? Yesterday I noticed Talk:Feminism was archived by a user (not Pibot) and that the archiving included discussions that were on-going on that day. --TheroadtoWiganPier (talk) 01:41, 26 July 2015 (UTC)

Don't worry; I made sure to leave the good stuff. ;) Walker Walker Walker 01:45, 26 July 2015 (UTC)

That is open to interpretation and does not answer my question.--TheroadtoWiganPier (talk) 01:51, 26 July 2015 (UTC)

There isn't really a specific policy about it. Personally I'm not keen on fast archiving. Щєазєюіδ

^{Methinks it is a Weasel} 02:32, 26 July 2015 (UTC)

The policy is "when it takes too long to open the whole page in edit and you get mad, you archive it". FuzzyCatPotato!™ (talk/stalk) 02:49, 26 July 2015 (UTC)

EvoWiki[edit]

Over 100 articles done. Anyone else want to have fun porting? Mʀ. Wʜɪsᴋᴇʀs, Esϙᴜɪʀᴇ (talk/stalk) 13:41, 26 July 2015 (UTC)

Reddit/Bad politics upset with us[edit]

Apparently they do not like our Horseshoe theory article for not being critical enough. Should we add more citicism of it in the article or what? ClothCoat (talk) 21:31, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

Walker Walker Walker 21:33, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

Looking at that subreddit, or what few things i wanted to click or look at on it, I can't imagine why we should really care that they don't think we're critical enough of something.--"Paravant" ^{Talk & Contribs} 21:35, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

Yeah it's not a big deal just wondering if anyone cared. I left a comment saying it was mostly descriptive anyways and that the extreme centre can abuse it as well but there you go. I wrote up good chunks of the Horseshoe theory page so they'd probably hate me too. ClothCoat (talk) 21:40, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

To be fair, the horseshoe theory is a piece of shit (specifically false balance) and the article is a piece of shit - David Gerard (talk) 21:49, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

I recall thinking I'd invented something like the horseshoe theory when I was nine or ten - while at junior school. That's all it's worth - the insight of a preteen. Scream!! (talk) 22:07, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

Maybe we could expand the criticism section to take the horseshoe theory with a grain of salt because not all ideologies can be fit on a two dimensional plane? ClothCoat (talk) 01:34, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

At least it's an improvement on the one-dimensional left-right dichotomy, though. 141.134.75.236 (talk) 02:01, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

Agreed. I think it's useful insofar as it explains similar tactics and authoritarian streaks that can pop up on the extremes of the Western Political systems but again it needs to be taken with a grain of salt. I also think the "horseshoe" should be split down the middle horizontally, with one side representing "centralization" and the other "decentralization", so the ends of the centralized system might be totalitarian communism and Fascism (with Third Positionist/National Bolshevist like ideologies bridging the gap between the two) while the ends of the decentralization are composed of anarcho-capitalism and anarcho-communism, with truly fringe ideologies like primitivism, post-left anarchism, and National anarchism almost bridging the gap between the two. ClothCoat (talk) 02:09, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

There is a sliding scale here. At the top of the curve is "the more political zeal you have, the more social conventions you're willing to defy for the Cause". And towards either side, it's "the more political zeal you have, the more civilian casualties you can accept." All the horseshoe theory says is that this dynamic applies to both Right, Left, and causes in between. You don't have to accept the right/left dichotomy to see the dynamic in action. - Smerdis of Tlön, ^{LOAD "*", 8, 1.} 04:32, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

How to tell if Horseshoe Theory is stupid[edit]

Do a blind test. The center and moderates are as similar to the extremes as the extremes are to each-other. The only similarity not shared is "they are extreme." This is especially notable when you add in all those "lol look how above politics I am" nutbags; the people so willing to believe that they don't blindly follow that they will blindly follow anybody telling them that following them means that they are not blindly following anybody. Narky Sawtooth (Nyar~) 22:10, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

Oh, also: The "evidence" for it seems to be just a running tally. No negative points awarded for not being similar. Narky Sawtooth

(Nyar~) 22:12, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

I doubt many people consider it as a rigorous, trustworthy theory that should be expected to apply in all cases, but it's interesting—sometimes even eery—to observe some of the similarities between certain movements from opposite ends on the political spectrum. 141.134.75.236 (talk) 23:09, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

For what it's worth the Rote Armee Fraktion started out as a leftist terrorist group (in rebellion to the generation of their parents who were mostly Nazis) and ended up singling out Jewish passengers when their allies of the PFLP (a particularly nasty "left wing" Antisemit terror group of mostly Palestinian membership) hijacked a plane in 1977. And that is coming from somebody who thinks the horseshoe theory is horse-shit. 141.30.210.129 (talk) 23:53, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

Too many 141s again! Narky Sawtooth

(Nyar~) 00:15, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

You're not prejudiced against 141s, are you? >.> 142.124.55.236 (talk) 05:29, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

I think the other 141 may have skipped some quality control in their early edits because we were trained to ignore the barrage of ! 141. Narky Sawtooth

(Nyar~) 12:02, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

As .236 pointed out, the horseshoe theory is not supposed to be an all-encompassing predictive theory that holds true for each and every or even necessarily a majority of cases. It simply highlights that the left/right spectrum can obscure commonalities between those placed at either end and explain (or at least offer suggestions as to) why people can "jump" from one extreme to the other without "passing through" the middle on the way.

Also, as with much of social science, viewing it the same way as a theory from the natural sciences and insisting on similar scopes of testability and predictability is simply demanding something that it's not going to deliver (nor does it pretend to). ScepticWombat (talk) 13:04, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

It's not much different from turning the "political spectrum" of right and left into a "political compass" by adding a different axis, only this one's added axis is neighborliness versus activism rather than libertarianism versus authoritarianism. - Smerdis of Tlön, ^{LOAD "*", 8, 1.} 13:44, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ than why is it that populist figures like Berlusconi or Beppe Grillo (to take two examples in Italy) almost always say they are "neither right nor left" and "not a politician"? Also what's with all this calling your party a "movement"? 141.30.210.129 (talk) 15:59, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

Pedantic language notice: In English "then" involves time and "than" is for comparisons. Basically the opposite vowels as in German with wann/wenn. 142.124.55.236 (talk) 16:15, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

This is one of the things in English that stumps me to this day.. It just doesn't make any sense. The whole your / you're and the whole their/they're/there makes sense, but this? I will have to get into my square head once... By brute force if need be 141.30.210.129 (talk) 16:29, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

My guess as to the "Grillusconi" phenomenon is that terms like "politician" and "political party" don't have much of a positive ring to them in Italy. It's a pretty classical populist trick that has also been used by extreme right wingers (compare third positionism and Front National's slogan under Le Pen sr.: "Tous pourris!", meaning "They're all rotten to the core!"). One example that I know of from the left is the Danish Eurosceptic organisation the People's Movement against the EU which, although it began as a genuinely "cross-political party list" (as it still describes itself) back in the 1970s has today simply become little more than the left wing Red-Green Alliance's EP branch (the latter doesn't run its own candidates for EP elections, but instead run them as PMaEU candidates). Nevertheless, the PMaEU still has some cross-political aspects left, such as allowing dual party membership and independents and some "zombie parties" (e.g. the Danish Georgist party) also run for the PMaEU. ScepticWombat (talk) 17:35, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

The reason why so many people accept it is because it is a convenient way to explain why authoritarian groups that are seemingly opposed to one another end up behaving similarly. I tend to accept the basic idea that those authoritarian groups are similar, especially as they get more extreme. The reason why the theory is so popular is because the people on the extreme ends of politics reinforce it by denouncing regimes which claim to follow their political ideology but do so in an a way that is embarrassing to people elsewhere who adhere to that political ideology. To give an example, take communism; it may be true that Stalinist Russia and North Korea aren't what Marx had in mind when he though of a communist society. However a communist (specifically a Leninist) who denounces them as fascist and tries to distance themselves from the actions of those regimes is not being truthful to himself or to those around him. The fact of the matter is that it is irrelevant what those regimes look like now, they defended the notion of the dictatorship of the proletariat, they almost always defended the actions of those regimes and considered their actions superior to those of the capitalist west. If they themselves actually believed that they were fascist reactionaries then they would talk about those regimes as if they actually were fascist reactionaries, but they didn't and don't. It is therefore easy for people to come to the conclusion that those nominally communist regimes are indeed fascist and that communism and fascism are therefore close to each-other on the political compass then people would ordinarily assume. That being said, the biggest problem with the Horseshoe theory is that while it may help explain radical politics is does a lousy job of explaining normal politics. Alsto003 (talk) 17:14, 30 July 2015 (UTC) Alex

Shouldn't we concern ourselves with being right rather than being convenient? 141.30.210.129 (talk) 18:07, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

Indeed we should focus on being right rather than convenient. But in doing so you have to explain why the convenient answer is inaccurate and at the same time you have to recognize that the question it answers is actually worth answering. Alsto003 (talk) 18:36, 30 July 2015 (UTC) Alex

What is the obsession with Gamergate?[edit]

I honestly don't understand why there is so much hype around Gamergate. I'm not saying it's not significant, I just find it... generally uninteresting. It's petty and childish, yes, but it's so asinine as to simply not arouse interest in the slightest. I just don't get the hype. QuantumDude ^{I am beyond your understanding} 03:48, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

Hard to disagree with that on a personal level. It does at times seem as if RW is obsessed with this saga but I suspect that is nothing more than a reflection of the demographics here. --TheroadtoWiganPier (talk) 03:56, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

There really isn't any hype nor has there been any for a while. The only reason it's even still being brought up is some people still use the name, otherwise it's just another front in the fight against entrenched sexism of the gamer community. As for RW, we aren't either - one user in particular is and others have a less singular interest in the fight of which is currently represented by gamergate here.--"Paravant" ^{Talk & Contribs} 03:58, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

Hype? Obsession? Not sure where you're getting this impression from. 141.134.75.236 (talk) 04:03, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

Outside of one user, it doesn't get all that much buzz around the site. ArcticVixen (talk) 04:21, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

It used to, as I recall -- there were moments quite some time ago where the "Recent Changes" were filled with Gamergate (edit wars for the most part). Things have drastically calmed down by now, though, as it has mostly fallen from the collective memory of the internet, save for several pockets. ℕoir LeSable (talk) 04:32, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

Most of that had nothing to do with hype about gamergate and instead issues with how the article is being managed by Ryu. --"Paravant" ^{Talk & Contribs} 04:45, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

I'd say most of that would be from GGers being hellbent on making every site support them Narky Sawtooth

(Nyar~) 07:23, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

Oh, wait, just remembered all the AH/DG/RL stuff. Still, a good portion of it... Narky Sawtooth

(Nyar~) 07:25, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

They can barely make gamergate.me support them tho Walker Walker Walker 07:26, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

Hmm? Narky Sawtooth

(Nyar~) 07:44, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

What's the obsession with evolution? What's the obsession with religion? You lot seem to be obsessed with how this one topic gets all of 3 pages. Does this always happen when a topic shows up here that doesn't have to do with atheism or scientific woo?—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 10:30, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

Those are directly on-mission. Narky Sawtooth

(Nyar~) 10:43, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

And what makes Gamergate vaguely off-mission such that it requires questioning its validity every month?—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 10:49, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

Because not everybody has spoken. Everyone's an individual person. Once every person that would bring it up has brought it up, it won't be brought up again. 'sides, the conversation's more relaxed each time. Narky Sawtooth

(Nyar~) 11:00, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

That strikes me as very poorly thought out of a mission-criteria. At some point we decided our mission includes fighting things like sexism. Gamergate is the latest bubbling of Reactionary Sexism in Video Games, and is thus missional. Does that mean we need a detailed account to the degree we have in our pages? no, not really and ideally once GG fades to nothingness (as it is currently doing) our article on it will be purged of more crufty elements that won't be as necessary for a post-GG look at GG. But to act like there's all this undue hype on RW for Gamergate is overestimating the importance of Ryu, giving far to much credence to a bunch of Trolls and making something else out of a editorial disagreement.--"Paravant" ^{Talk & Contribs} 13:30, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

Seems on several points in the mission and continuously active making people more notable. Doesn't seem as productive to go through the same arguments over and over while every single person questions if it is. Easier to refer to what has been argued before and see if new people have something different to add. -EmeraldCityWanderer (talk) 13:59, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

Paravant, can you stop pinning this on me when I didn't make the page and it's about the same size (AFAIK) it was from before I signed up? And the level of detail exists because it's as much a conspiracy theory as anything else covered on RW but very few other topics are perpetuated by net savvy mobs.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 20:39, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

That's pretty funny since you spend nearly every waking moment shitting up those articles. Have you ever considered writing about something useful? Captain Weeaboo (talk) 00:50, 1 August 2015 (UTC)

Like my Bobby Fischer article. It's on mission and useful. It's not huge, but it's something. :) Although don't get any ideas about shitting up my article! Only good and useful things belong there! QuantumDude ^{I am beyond your understanding} 01:15, 1 August 2015 (UTC)

I should certainly listen to Captain Weeaboo, whose only purpose on this website has been to harass me.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 03:32, 1 August 2015 (UTC)

What's the difference? You don't listen to anybody, ever. People here have told you, repeatedly, to knock off the OCD asshole shit and you never fucking listen. It's almost like you can't help being a giant douchecanoe. Captain Weeaboo (talk) 00:39, 2 August 2015 (UTC)

How about we all ponder these very constructive words and never mention it again? Vulpius (talk) 03:02, 2 August 2015 (UTC)

Really obvious attack sock is really obvious - David Gerard (talk) 21:17, 2 August 2015 (UTC)

So who's sock are you, boy? --Castaigne (talk) 14:10, 3 August 2015 (UTC)

Wow. I didn't expect so many replies on this one. I'm just glad we can focus on other more interesting stuff now :) QuantumDude ^{I am beyond your understanding} 05:11, 1 August 2015 (UTC)

`{{Person}}`[edit]

Should it or something like it be standard on talkpages of living persons (and extant organizations?)? FuzzyCatPotato!™ (talk/stalk) 22:39, 25 July 2015 (UTC)

Yes. And something like that should appear when editing those pages too. Spud (talk) 04:56, 26 July 2015 (UTC)

Agreed - all editors should be reminded of this. In my part of the world, libel is frequently used as a weapon by public figures. I would not even have written Lee Kuan Yew with any element of snark if he were still alive with his defamation suit and friendly courts ready and waiting! --TheroadtoWiganPier (talk) 07:57, 26 July 2015 (UTC)

With nearly 1,200 articles in the Living persons category, perhaps someone could write a bot to insert {{Person}} on each of those talk pages? That's way beyond my capabilities I am afraid. --TheroadtoWiganPier (talk) 01:01, 2 August 2015 (UTC)

Stalking & harassing[edit]

Is anyone here guilty?: "their editors have intruded in my personal & private life"? If so I would suggest they stop now. Scream!! (talk) 20:44, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

(It's Gamergate btw about which I know nothing!) Scream!! (talk) 20:47, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

You know how I feel about the alleged private/public distinction, so I'd say... no. Walker Walker Walker 20:54, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

For reference, that's Parogar, and this might be relevant, for those who don't just chortle by default at claims of privacy. Walker Walker Walker 21:13, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

It's also not entirely clear that Mr. Weinberg is an innocent bystander in regards to "Paige". Sir ℱ℧ℤℤϒℂᗩℑᑭƠℑᗩℑƠ (talk/stalk) 21:25, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

Soundcloud's not working for me today. What's the important bits there? Narky Sawtooth

(Nyar~) 22:04, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

Weinberg says he was going to / had doxxed Paige. The clip ends with someone saying, "we never own up". Fuzzy "Cat" Potato, Jr. (talk/stalk) 23:02, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

Imagine this: A person posts on a forum. Someone reads that post and mentions it elsewhere. Is that second someone a contributor to that forum? As another example, what if the person posted to a pro-GG website, and the person mentioned that as being where they know the guy from? They wouldn't blame the site.

In short: The person is instantly assuming RW is involved just because the name was mentioned, when even a pro-GG website's name could be used in its place to the same effect. Narky Sawtooth

(Nyar~) 21:45, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

Called it. The user that Parogar was complaining about isn't even auto-patrolled and stays mostly on talk pages. Parogar insisted that the blue grue could only be green. And that is why induction is bad, bad, bad. Narky Sawtooth

(Nyar~) 07:05, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

Parogar gets mad when people look up the shit he used to do on GoodReads and Wattpad where he was banned from both for harassing women who used the service which was both under his screenname "Parogar" and under his real name which he has used in multiple places here, like in that talk archive pointed out above. He's currently railing on about how John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt set up an abuse filter to prevent Gamergaters from specifically harassing me and framing it as some sort of anti-Gamergate censorship wall.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 02:44, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

So, Parogar is an asshole, fine, what else is new? Is there any particular reason to pile onto the "And look what else he did!"-thread or should we just leave it at "Oh well, Parogar is bullshitting off-site"? Of course if he's persistent in his "RW-conspiracy"-allegations, his user page might have to go into RationalWiki:Pissed at us. ScepticWombat (talk) 13:39, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

Look I made an edit to this section, now i'm involved in this chat! :) -Fat Aardvark (talk) 14:11, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

What gets me is that he is complaining about RW intruding into his personal life after he plasters it everywhere on the site without anyone desiring it, and a few people asking him to stop posting his personal bullshit. It's likely, given all the history plainly visible here, this "harassment" is just people disagreeing because he's the smartest and most rational person in the world in his own mind since he can't point to anything. -EmeraldCityWanderer (talk) 14:18, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

what gets ME is that he promises to quit something and he never does. So for archival purposes, him having a giant disagreement/meltdown with rationalwiki editors on Twitter just suggests that he'll be back, with a vengeance, blaming us in general for existing for whatever he's threatening to do next. And that's not exaggeration, "you made me do this" is what he's ranting about right now. --Tfp (talk) 14:40, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

Cover nomination: Genetically modified food[edit]

Article is sane and well-referenced. It could use some images and more detailed rebuttals. Objections? Sir ℱ℧ℤℤϒℂᗩℑᑭƠℑᗩℑƠ (talk/stalk) 19:48, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

None here my good sir. Just wish people would stop demonizing the stuff. The argument almost always devolves to "Scientists are playing God with our food!" or some variation thereof. QuantumDude ^{I am beyond your understanding} 03:35, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

It's still got that one page referenced in it, right? The one with a boatload of studies? The one I wish would have been slammed onto Bill Maher's desk one study at a time in a condescending manner after his "but there are zero studies not funded by Monstanto!!11!!111!!!" nonsense. Narky Sawtooth

(Nyar~) 09:29, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

Why are all my edits being reverted?[edit]

I'd like an explanation. That last one wasn't anywhere near suggesting that something against your ideals wasn't true. ^{— Unsigned, by: 71.222.121.101 / talk} 04:49, 1 August 2015

Your edits to WikiLeaks were NWO conspiracy theory garbage and I think your edits to deliverance ministry was reverted "just in case", but why not post to the actual reverters' talk pages? ScepticWombat (talk) 05:06, 1 August 2015 (UTC)

I was going to but I kept screwing up with the editing.--71.222.121.101 (talk) 05:08, 1 August 2015 (UTC)

Does RW need an Unwelcome/IP template?[edit]

Hiya mob!

If you have time between your pitchfork-sharpening and torch preparations, I invite you to consider whether RW needs a bastard child between the Template:Welcome/IP and Template:Unwelcome? Just off the top of my head, I can think of one argument for and one against:

For: Encouraging a BoN to get an account while making it clear that their edits are crap (but in a nice and pedagogic way).
Against: Risking to turn off/away others who happen to use the same IP.

One thing that might be worth including is a an auto-link to the BoN edit history in the bit about their edits being crap (what in Unwelcome is rendered as "due to the nature of your initial edits").
Anyway, what do you think? ScepticWombat (talk) 08:29, 1 August 2015 (UTC)

A great idea, sign me the fuck up![edit]

Well, me obviously. However, I'm not even a grasshopper at wikifu, so could a venerable master of the art please spare a sec.? ScepticWombat (talk) 08:29, 1 August 2015 (UTC)
Make it say something about bonbons being less trusted. Narky Sawtooth (Nyar~) 10:35, 1 August 2015 (UTC)
All for it, encourage the bonbons notification. --Castaigne (talk) 14:13, 3 August 2015 (UTC)

A crap idea, obviously, shut the fuck up![edit]

I think {{meh}} and {{unwelcome}} should probably never be used; why be mean via template when you can be mean via words? FᴜᴢᴢʏCᴀᴛPᴏᴛᴀᴛᴏ, Esϙᴜɪʀᴇ (talk/stalk) 20:35, 1 August 2015 (UTC)
Why be mean via words when you can use fists or a gun? Wëäŝëïöïď ^{Methinks it is a Weasel} 22:32, 2 August 2015 (UTC)

For those times when a new account warrants some amount of attention, but isn't impressive enough for said attention to warrant actual effort. --"Paravant" ^{Talk & Contribs} 03:31, 2 August 2015 (UTC)
If I understand correctly, you'd add that template to a talk page if you thought a BoN had the potential to be a good editor, even though all their edits so far had been shite. I can see it happening. I can't see it happening often enough to warrant a template, though. Also, the personal touch would be needed in such a case. You'd need to leave the BoN a fairly lengthy message, explaining what is and what isn't welcome here. I think you're best off just writing that message without a special template. Spud (talk) 05:52, 2 August 2015 (UTC)
Obviously. --65.101.119.25 (talk) 23:29, 3 August 2015 (UTC)
No cunt ever welcomed me. Tell them all to fuck off. #Sphincter (talk)
- But... Pi did. Narky Sawtooth (Nyar~) 19:10, 5 August 2015 (UTC)

Meh, who gives a fuck...[edit]

I logged in just to post this. *head explodes* Fonzie (talk) 15:02, 2 August 2015 (UTC)
Our IPs are remarkably drive-by for the most part, I'm not sure this achieves anything. Though if we do one, expressly luring them in (and e.g. creating an account) would be good to encourage - David Gerard (talk) 21:44, 2 August 2015 (UTC)
Trying to formalise a sliding scale of levels if welcomeness seems like a waste of energy that will serve no purpose other than to please those doing it. I saw somebody saying "you're neither welcome nor unwelcome" to a new editor recently, which struck me as a particularly rude & baffling thing to say somebody who is unfamiliar with the site. Wēāŝēīōīď ^{Methinks it is a Weasel} 22:42, 2 August 2015 (UTC)
404. Fuck not found. Walker Walker Walker 04:27, 4 August 2015 (UTC)
Weak nay. I can't fathom what could possibly be accomplished by this. |₹Λ¥$€₦₦ ^{So you're telling me cocaine comes from scorpions?} 17:02, 8 August 2015 (UTC)

![edit]

This makes me wonder what the world's coming to. (Or at least the bit of it between Canada and Mexico.) Scream!! (talk) 13:43, 4 August 2015 (UTC)

Americans have perfected the ability to see things as other people's problem. -EmeraldCityWanderer (talk) 13:56, 4 August 2015 (UTC)

Nah, that's your problem, not ours. ikanreed ^{You probably didn't deserve that} 14:07, 4 August 2015 (UTC)

Wells it's a biiig country with all them illegals runnin' around what does y'all 'spect mebbe y'all should stop disrespectin' the law GUBMINT GET OFF MY LAND CAN'T TELL ME WHAT TO DO EMPEROR OBUMMER ArcticVixen (talk) 14:18, 4 August 2015 (UTC)

I guess Colorado is surrounded by America then and no longer part of it. -EmeraldCityWanderer (talk) 14:25, 4 August 2015 (UTC)

And Mormonland too. Walker Walker Walker 15:32, 4 August 2015 (UTC)

Well, some places just have their own reality... -EmeraldCityWanderer (talk) 15:55, 4 August 2015 (UTC)

Whelp. Glad I don't live in your patch of world. >.> 141.134.75.236 (talk) 15:44, 4 August 2015 (UTC)

Bad title[edit]

[[Talk:Talk:Adolf_hitler/vandalism]] It won't even link! This is messing MiniNyar up horribly. It breaks the script that pulls pages, and I'm not getting anywhere by checking for exceptions. Narky Sawtooth (Nyar~) 05:28, 4 August 2015 (UTC)

Here's a link. Narky Sawtooth

(Nyar~) 05:30, 4 August 2015 (UTC)

[[Talk:User_talk:Elassint]]? Narky Sawtooth

(Nyar~) 08:34, 4 August 2015 (UTC)

Rbutr open source[edit]

http://blog.rbutr.com/2015/08/making-rbutr-open-source/

Rbutr's pretty useful, they're looking for a few coders. αδελφός ΓυζζγςατΡοτατο (talk/stalk) 22:12, 4 August 2015 (UTC)

AHHHH! MY EYES![edit]

Okay. No idea who did this, but when I clicked the new message button on the top of the page it went to (Please don't look at this) File:Frot.jpg. How did this happen, and is it a ban-worthy offense?

K O M F 69 23:43, 4 August 2015 (UTC)

Old things are old. also, The only eye hurting thing about the picture though is that neither are the kind of guy i find attractive. Why is it so MY EYES to you?--"Paravant" ^{Talk & Contribs} 23:59, 4 August 2015 (UTC)

Hashtag Triggered TheriziπosaurusG (talk) 00:17, 5 August 2015 (UTC)

Komf, by any chance, were you at User:FuzzyCatPotato/lulz? Fuzzy. Cat. Potato! (talk/stalk) 00:25, 5 August 2015 (UTC)

Haha, derp. -EmeraldCityWanderer (talk) 00:54, 5 August 2015 (UTC)

I was at that particular page. K O M F 666 05:31, 5 August 2015 (UTC)

There's no goatse here on RW?--Arisboch ☞✍☜☞✉☜ 05:36, 5 August 2015 (UTC)

Hold up while I try to procure a crude drawing of a goat ramming a jerboa. That'll be our goatse. Narky Sawtooth

(Nyar~) 05:51, 5 August 2015 (UTC)

There can only be ONE TRUE GOATSE!!--Arisboch ☞✍☜☞✉☜ 05:52, 5 August 2015 (UTC)

The true goatse will be a drawing of a goat, see. Narky Sawtooth

(Nyar~) 06:03, 5 August 2015 (UTC)

SHU JERBOA UKE MOE! Narky Sawtooth

(Nyar~) 19:04, 5 August 2015 (UTC)

I'm putting it in the back alley, heathens! Narky Sawtooth

(Nyar~) 07:56, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

Opinions of Larry Sabato[edit]

So I have been following Larry Sabato's Crystal Ball for election predictions and whatnot. What do you guys think of him? Is he a VSP? Blitz (Complaints Box) 21:07, 8 August 2015 (UTC)

Got any links for us to look at? 141.134.75.236 (talk) 19:15, 7 August 2015 (UTC)

His blog is here. Blitz (Complaints Box) 21:07, 8 August 2015 (UTC)

Is it just me or does this Chick tract have serious bestiality overtones?[edit]

See for yourselves--Tanis (talk) 07:59, 26 July 2015 (UTC)

That mouse is an just right, please. Narky Sawtooth

(Nyar~) 09:36, 26 July 2015 (UTC)

God appears to be the Slender Man. Ŵêâŝêîôîď

^{Methinks it is a Weasel} 13:51, 26 July 2015 (UTC)

The man leaving his parents to get married appears to be over 50 - and they're not invited to the wedding. Bicycle^wheel

17:11, 26 July 2015 (UTC)

The whole thing is overall rather creepy. TotallynotTipuSultan (talk) 17:30, 26 July 2015 (UTC)

Actually, is there a non-creepy Chick tract? Bicycle^wheel

17:55, 26 July 2015 (UTC)

I guess it's official now. Alfred E. Newman is a sinner. - Smerdis of Tlön, ^{LOAD "*", 8, 1.} 00:55, 27 July 2015 (UTC)

I'm just wondering whether anyone recognise any of the other figures in that "panel of sinners" (apart from Alfred E. Newman, of course) or if the rest are just "generic sinners"? ScepticWombat (talk) 20:11, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

I just noticed: It has that hilarious and childish "Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve" line. The line which can be shifted around ever-so-slightly to become "It's Adam and Eve, not Adam and Laqueasha." What a racist line. Narky Sawtooth

(Nyar~) 22:30, 27 July 2015 (UTC)

I didn't know that chickens, horses, and apes were monogamous.

Talk to Civic Cat 19:56, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

And Mr. Chick doesn't seem to have a problem with chimpanzees shagging gorillas. Spud (talk) 13:27, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

Funny thing is, there's plenty guys called Eve, it's just written differently, usually. Also, her name's actually Hawwah, not Eve. Does that mean Christian guys ought to marry women with Hebrew names exclusively? *shrugs*

Hey, don't look at me like that. I'm not the one who came up with this silly argument. 141.134.75.236 (talk) 18:48, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

Someone used the whole 'its Adam and eve, not Adam and Steve' line at work today, while complaining about persecution of Christians. I felt a little bit sad inside. Apparently we are going to destroy the world again. I assume the flood was the first time. AMassiveGay (talk) 21:37, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

It's cool, we're much better at building boats, now. We can handle a giant ass flood.-Tanis (talk) 15:58, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

I dunno, that was one hell of an ark... Walker Walker Walker 23:43, 8 August 2015 (UTC)

Or, I don't know, maybe take a few aircraft carriers and put walls and tents. They last, waay longer than Moses. Last I heard they could stay out at sea for 50+ years. Zexcoiler Kingbolt (talk) 03:49, 20 August 2015 (UTC)Zexcoiler Kingbolt

When I was a kid and went trick or treating me and my siblings would get those chick tracts. I found them to be stupid and hateful. I guess the authors of them never heard "judge not less he be judged" before. On a side note- for the link that says "Rationalzombie94 is paranoid" I will say this: I know I am paranoid from time to time. I also admit I am nowhere near sane--Rationalzombie94 (talk) 03:00, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

Vandal bin expiry date[edit]

Is there some sort of technical or practical reason for not incorporating an "expiry date" into the vandal bin? That way we could put BoNs in the bin, unlike now when it's discouraged because they have to be "manually" pulled out again and editors have a tendency to forget this. ScepticWombat (talk) 08:42, 1 August 2015 (UTC)

Yeah, Nx didn't write one - David Gerard (talk) 09:37, 1 August 2015 (UTC)

Would it be possible to? αδελφός ΓυζζγςατΡοτατο (talk/stalk) 20:33, 1 August 2015 (UTC)

Here's the source code. As you can see, it's a big old swath of PHP, which you are free to try and figure out how to incorporate a vandal brake expiry time into. Good luck. 184.97.177.236 (talk) 21:23, 2 August 2015 (UTC)

Where would the source code for the block non-extension be? oʇɐʇoԀʇɐϽʎzznℲ (talk/stalk) 22:36, 2 August 2015 (UTC)

Blocking is a built in function. You could fairly easily to hack up the vandal bin to make all vandalings expire after a set interval. If you want an expiry period per vandal, then you'd need to edit to the database table and that'd be a pain in the arse. --JeevesMkII ^{The gentleman's gentleman at the other site} 22:55, 2 August 2015 (UTC)

(EC) As with the suggestion above, this might be a lot of pointless effort to fix a more-or-less non-existent problem. I see no problem with putting IPs in the vandal bin as-is. There's only a very slim chance of a different RW editor havibg the same IP address at a later date but if this does occur the later editor is likely to ask about the restriction & get it lifted. It's a better option than blocking IPs. Weaseloid

^{Methinks it is a Weasel} 23:03, 2 August 2015 (UTC)

Okay, I can see there's a good practical reason for not simply changing the vandal feature to incorporate an expiry date.

As for Weaseloid's last comment about binning BoNs, I was originally thinking along the same lines, but was told that it wasn't good form, so apparently opinions are divided on that point. As things stand now, however, the description of the vandal function discourages its use on BoNs, recommending a short block instead (and I'd have to agree that this usually ends the trolling of most BoNs). ScepticWombat (talk) 21:36, 3 August 2015 (UTC)

As far as I know, when you vandal bin a user, you also vandal bin their current IP address. I might be wrong about this, but it's certainly the case with blocking, which makes it rather arbitrary to refrain from blocking/binning a user simply because they're editing as an IP rather than a named user. As it stands, there are a lot of IP addresses that are either vandal binned or long-term blocked (directly or via a user account) & I can't see how the blocking option is preferable. Some of the infinite blocks have been handed out by edit filters. So if you're looking for a consistent site policy that's soft on offending IP addresses in the hope that they might one day be used for good, there really isn't one. ₩€₳$€£ΘĪÐ

^{Methinks it is a Weasel} 23:10, 9 August 2015 (UTC)

If anybody wants to help a bot out[edit]

Mini Nyar is currently set to sign every page, because why not? The only major issue he had was signing reverted edits and signing additions to lists, which should be totally fixed now. Here's his record. Some of his edits are manually approved by me, but I keep missing some things (none of his recent accidents were automatic) Narky Sawtooth (Nyar~) 03:29, 3 August 2015 (UTC)

Oh, also, I disabled the "user talk page battle plan" for Operation Sign All Your Damn Comments. If he touches a user talk page over something from a long time ago, block him. Narky Sawtooth

(Nyar~) 03:31, 3 August 2015 (UTC)

no u ^{unisggled by Frothy Santorum Potato}

Now we just wait about six hours for MiniNyar to finish with every single page and then he'll sign FCP's post. Narky Sawtooth

(Nyar~) 03:45, 3 August 2015 (UTC)

Oh, wait, no he won't; he only signs if it's the last revision. Narky Sawtooth

(Nyar~) 03:47, 3 August 2015 (UTC)

Okay, so, he doesn't count signatures if they're in "ignore" lines. Narky Sawtooth

(Nyar~) 05:58, 3 August 2015 (UTC)

Finished![edit]

Look at all those freshly signed posts! I'm going to run him on the first few letters of the alphabet, again. Narky Sawtooth (Nyar~) 10:22, 4 August 2015 (UTC)

He did a good job. Narky Sawtooth

(Nyar~) 02:11, 5 August 2015 (UTC)

Daily Heil Mail article of Saturday, 20 May 1938[edit]

To anyone with access to an archive of old Daily ~~Heil~~ Mail issues to scan, could you please scan the article depicted in this File:Daily mail 1938.jpg image file? It's quality sucks more than a vacuum cleaner.--Arisboch ☞✍☜☞✉☜ 11:52, 3 August 2015 (UTC)

I just saw a Chick tract in the wild[edit]

It was this one, in which Death physically grabs a soul out of the soon-to-be decedent's back, and in which Chick literally puts words to pray into your mouth/tract, because God couldn't possibly know what you're thinking, words or no. Walker Walker Walker 04:37, 4 August 2015 (UTC)

A guy gave one to me the other day after I helped him pick up some stuff he dropped. It was oddly exciting, since it was the first time I saw one in person. Wasn't very good, though. Related: why do non-born-agains always look so tired in Chick's art? Does he think you can't sleep without the grace of god? The good looks good, evil looks evil aspect of his artwork is hilariously dumb. Does he ever wake up in the middle of the night, look in a mirror, and think "uh-oh, I must be an atheist again"--Tanis (talk) 13:48, 4 August 2015 (UTC)

I dunno, that crazy kid in the dystopian tract looked like he'd had two or three too many cans of Red Bull... ℕoir LeSable (talk) 15:08, 4 August 2015 (UTC)

This is certainly the most popular one. I always see a couple of Chick tracts sitting at the exits of our local Korean/international food marts (alongside religious pamphlets for other religions and burned CD recordings of sermons), this particular one a plurality of the time as it's one of the more "sensible" ones that focuses largely on the message of Jesus. Aside from a small collection I've been developing, I tend to leave most of them alone, largely because a number of them are pretty counterproductive. I know a LOT of people from my old church who still facepalm whenever they see them. It's almost as if Chick (or whoever writes these) doesn't understand the concept of seeing things from the perspective of someone who doesn't believe in Christ. ℕoir LeSable (talk) 15:08, 4 August 2015 (UTC)

I would actually describe that last as a relatively common struggle, yes. Walker Walker Walker 15:31, 4 August 2015 (UTC)

Yeah, it seems like most evangelism suffers from assuming people are already Christians. I guess it's easier to prey on people that already make the fundamental assumptions behind your religion. It's funny, though, that the Jehovah's Witnesses, Mormons, and born-agains are just cannibalizing Christianity in order to grow--Tanis (talk) 02:20, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

We saw some on the subway platform the other day. My partner picked up "Congratulations" and "Bed Time" (as curiosities, we don't have to break up now). <3 C^{Sapphire bullets of pure love} 01:11, 7 August 2015 (UTC)

Religious colleges and their responses to sexual abuse[edit]

I read about sexual abuse on the campuses of religious colleges and how they blame the rape victim. I am wondering how people who claim to be Christian will cast judgement on the woman? Last time I checked it was "Judge not less ye be judged Matthew 7:1". I am no bible scholar nor do I intend to be but blaming rape on what a woman wears is stupid, rape has always existed. These colleges should have a better response to rape and stop blaming the victim.--Rationalzombie94 (talk) 01:48, 5 August 2015 (UTC)

Mistake number one was expecting people to perfectly follow the myriad of things the bible says.--"Paravant" ^{Talk & Contribs} 01:57, 5 August 2015 (UTC)

Yeah, the Bible isn't exactly as cohesive as it is claimed to be. I once heard from someone who had claimed to have studied the Bible that they believe it's true because "it's so consistent!". Needless to say, this is nonsense. It's horribly internally inconsistent. Also, even if it were self-consistent, that doesn't prove anything, the Harry Potter series is self-consistent, but that doesn't make it true. How can one be expected to follow all the things listed in the Bible when they contradict themselves? QuantumDude ^{I am beyond your understanding} 02:54, 5 August 2015 (UTC)

Actually, how many people know whether that books was compiled of smaller books over the centuries of history LONG AFTER Jesus's death?

Aliens cause autism[edit]

I have no words... |₹Λ¥$€₦₦ ^{THAT IS STILL LEGAL TENDER. I AM SANDWICH LAWYER.} 22:20, 5 August 2015 (UTC)

That is BEAUTIFUL! Scream!! (talk) 22:24, 5 August 2015 (UTC)

Do aliens cause altruism? Narky Sawtooth

(Nyar~) 00:45, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

I wonder how bad the Goddidit versions of this get... Walker Walker Walker 06:09, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

Surely that must be Satandidit, rather then God. And there must be some corner of the Internet where someone does blame Old Nick for autism. Spud (talk) 06:43, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

Haven't you read the Bible?

“”I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these things.

—Isaiah, 45:7

It's all God's doing; both good and evil. 141.134.75.236 (talk) 08:35, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

Stan did it. Narky Sawtooth

(Nyar~) 10:01, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

So I was born as a result of aliens stealing my parent's eggs and sperm? AWESOME!!!Master Necromancer^{What is dead may never die} 14:47, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

Who cares? This is just too wonderful for words. Leuders (talk) 20:49, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

Leuders, are we looking at the next tinfoil hat here?'Legion^{what do you want from me} 03:45, 7 August 2015 (UTC)

It's the same principle as the tinfoil hat. They are lining hats with Velostat conductive foil. The goofier looking hat, the better. As everyone knows, your thoughts are contained in your upper skull, so no need to shield your neck or your face. Leuders (talk) 15:36, 7 August 2015 (UTC)

Perhaps the person who wrote this didn't know, but human females don't lay eggs after orgasm... Samstr (talk) 23:06, 7 August 2015 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure it's because they're inexperienced in human sexuality for, *ahem*, obvious reasons. 'Legion^{what do you want from me} 02:11, 8 August 2015 (UTC)

They're alien disinformation agents? Walker Walker Walker 11:42, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

Well I don't have any...first hand...experience, but I assume that's one of the things that porn actually gets right. Samstr (talk) 16:48, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

This is great, and why we can't have nice things. -EmeraldCityWanderer (talk) 17:13, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

Trump out crazies the crazy[edit]

I have to tell all of you that as a Democrat seeing videos like this one bring tears of joy to my eyes. Watching this runaway train rampaging through the Republican primary is nothing short of amazing. This man is awesome, his chutzpah is at stratospheric levels. We could nominate literally anyone at this point and they could probably win. I wish nothing bad every happens to him. Alsto003 (talk) 04:12, 7 August 2015 (UTC) Alex

But he won't run against himself, so he's safe... or something. Walker Walker Walker 07:29, 7 August 2015 (UTC)

To be fair to Trump, it's kind of crazy that in a system that's supposed to be democratic and in a country that's allegedly all about freedom, not being loyal to a party and considering to run as an independent candidate makes him look crazy. Which isn't to say that a lot of his views aren't crazy, of course. 142.124.55.236 (talk) 08:09, 7 August 2015 (UTC)

True. Walker Walker Walker 08:10, 7 August 2015 (UTC)

Yeah, agreed. It's amazing how many people would vote for a head of lettuce if it was nominated by their party no matter what it's positions are. -EmeraldCityWanderer (talk) 14:35, 7 August 2015 (UTC)

Heads of lettuce are really fun to smash. Beats cutting them meticulously any day. Walker Walker Walker 02:23, 8 August 2015 (UTC)

All this talk about heads of lettuce reminded me of this. 141.134.75.236 (talk) 03:43, 8 August 2015 (UTC)

A great philosophical question[edit]

If someone burns down a ship, and a sysop reverts that change... Is it still the same ship? Narky Sawtooth (Nyar~) 21:21, 7 August 2015 (UTC)

Only if it is your OTP. Walker Walker Walker 21:33, 7 August 2015 (UTC)

You cannot stop the Ship train Narky. --"Paravant" ^{Talk & Contribs} 22:03, 7 August 2015 (UTC)

Jerboa x Goat OTP Narky Sawtooth

(Nyar~) 03:51, 8 August 2015 (UTC)

I've ah noticed. Walker Walker Walker 17:20, 8 August 2015 (UTC)

That depends on if the restored ship has the same essence as the original ship, which might differ based on the exact process by which the reverting operates. Though this talk of essences is all rather silly if essentialism is false. 141.134.75.236 (talk) 03:59, 8 August 2015 (UTC)

Trigger says he's had the same broom for twenty years. It's had seventeen new heads and fourteen new handles. Spud (talk) 05:13, 8 August 2015 (UTC)

John Dies at the End has a nice variant of the handle/head variation. Narky Sawtooth

(Nyar~) 06:07, 8 August 2015 (UTC)

TI 15[edit]

Any of you guys watching? Apparently us yanks might finally win.'Legion^{what do you want from me} 01:33, 9 August 2015 (UTC)

What's a TI15? Scream!! (talk)

The International 2015, it's a Dota 2 tournament with a prize pool of $16,000,000 'Legion^{what do you want from me} 01:43, 9 August 2015 (UTC)

Looked @ the web page- am no wiser. Enjoy, anyway. Scream!! (talk) 01:48, 9 August 2015 (UTC)

Looking at the characters at the bottom, I'm guessing it's some kind of fantasy video game competition. 141.134.75.236 (talk) 02:10, 9 August 2015 (UTC)

Our public broadcasting company was airing the finals for some reason, so I ended up watching a couple of games feeling like there's some kind of history being made here and I should probably witness it. I, uh, didn't understand much. Vulpius (talk) 02:49, 9 August 2015 (UTC)

Then let me tell you! Narky Sawtooth

(Nyar~) 09:34, 9 August 2015 (UTC)

A very basic calculator that looks less basic. Walker Walker Walker 13:17, 9 August 2015 (UTC)

The Rules, Explained[edit]

The object of DOTA 2 is to destroy the opposing team's ancient. This is done by destroying lots of towers. Each team has five players, each with their own unique abilities that nobody else on their team or the opposing team has. Non-player-controlled units are called "creeps." They are fodder for experience and gold. Players get stronger from... I think it's just being near defeated enemies. However, players get richer by being the last person to land a hit on an enemy. Some player characters make better use of gold than other characters, leading to lots of shouting at the damn moron that keeps last-hitting everything while Viper is trying to grind up enough gold to get his ultimate ability's cool-down to three seconds.

In the start of the game, players chill out near their towers while last-hitting the opponent's creeps for money and last-hitting their own creeps to deny the enemy gold. Very little combat occurs during this segment, as players are just trying to bluff each-other out. Eventually, players get strong enough to kill. The winners of these bloodbaths get to "push" on the enemy, which means they stay behind the creeps while the creeps get shot to pieces by the towers. Going up against a tower without creeps is dangerous, y'see. After a while (in a public match) someone complains that a carry is too OP because they're playing support and keep trying to single-highhandedly take down said carry.

tl;dr: It's football, but the ball is a bunch of little monsters running around three lanes. Narky Sawtooth (Nyar~) 09:34, 9 August 2015 (UTC)

They made a documentary about it. PsyGremlin^Sprich! 11:17, 9 August 2015 (UTC)

Oh, hey, PsyGremlin. I was just reading your blog. What a coincidence that you showed up around the same time. Narky Sawtooth

(Nyar~) 11:51, 9 August 2015 (UTC)

It's clearly God's way of telling to give up everything and come be my butler. Or something. Hope you enjoyed the read! PsyGremlin^Sprich! 13:23, 9 August 2015 (UTC)

Pointless Poll[edit]

Seriously? Twice as many people on here think Mad Max is the best movie of 2015, as the next in line? You think the cinematic version of Nascar, sans corners but with dumber dialogue, is the best film of 2015?? I weep for the future of mankind. PsyGremlin^Sprich! 13:23, 9 August 2015 (UTC)

Many tears from this direction also. I watched the original trilogy to cheer myself up.--TheroadtoWiganPier (talk) 13:40, 9 August 2015 (UTC)

Narky Sawtooth

(Nyar~) 13:45, 9 August 2015 (UTC)

Mad Max hit all the things I wanted to see in a Mad Max sequel, such as insane ideas, amazing practicals, the beauty of the desert, ontop of some good actually doing anything female characters. --"Paravant" ^{Talk & Contribs} 16:02, 9 August 2015 (UTC)

203.129.52.43 (talk) 11:49, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

I'd vote for Ex Machina and Maggie, personally. Fury Road is pretty cool too. Who needs corners when you can have a post-apocalyptic future full of explosions and crazy violent people, right? So what movie did you like best, PsyGremlin? 142.124.55.236 (talk) 12:15, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

I voted for Ex Machina, although Maggie was a pleasant surprise. PsyGremlin^Sprich! 14:15, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

Sanders in Seattle[edit]

So, if you haven't heard, a rally set up by Bernie Sanders in Seattle got shut down by protests led by the founders of #BlackLivesMatter Seattle, which kinda included calling Sanders and the audience "white supremacist." A lot of bloggers and news sites of the right-wing and racist variety are absolutely having a field day over this, and there are mutters among the more conspiracy-minded that the whole thing is actually being funded by Clinton to ruin Sanders' chances.

Personally, I think it was a poorly thought-out/executed protest. BLM has done a lot of great work in the past, but it's the things like this that the media latches onto and the average joe remembers, especially in what is such a charged group. I mean, justify it as much as you want on Facebook, but as a PoC living here in the semi-deep-South, all I've heard about it along the grapevine (which is admittedly a small sample size) are people losing sympathy for BLM over this regardless of race or political stance. What do you folks think? CMV? ℕoir LeSable (talk) 17:38, 9 August 2015 (UTC)

Most protests are created by the people who care the most to protests; the fringe loonies, the attention whores, and etc. No worse than any other protest group. CorruptUser (talk) 18:00, 9 August 2015 (UTC)

Yean, like Occupy. You people really do eat your own, don't you? Burkean (talk) 14:19, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

The revolution devours it's own children.--Arisboch ☞✍☜☞✉☜ 14:26, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

...Or the people that have been wronged past the breaking point. I wouldn't call them "fringe loonies" or "attention whores." Narky Sawtooth

(Nyar~) 18:11, 9 August 2015 (UTC)

When they wrestle the mic from the candidate the crowd came to hear... yes, I would call them that, and many worse things than that as well. - Smerdis of Tlön, ^{LOAD "*", 8, 1.} 15:34, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

But the statement was that "the people who care the most" are "[bad thing], [bad thing], etc.", and although it begins with "most protests," the "people who care the most" is, grammatically speaking, not linked to the "most protests" and is entirely independent of this incident. Narky Sawtooth

(Nyar~) 01:10, 15 August 2015 (UTC)

"I would call them that, and many worse things than that as well" That's because you're a worthless authority worshiping tool that cares more about respectability politics that stopping this genocide. It must be so hard, constantly having your voice silencing by those crazy, "fringe loonies" [haha fuck you. IN FACT IS WHINY SHELTERED HONKIES THAT DON'T LIVE IN THE REAL WORLD]. Calamondin (talk) 18:49, 28 August 2015 (UTC)

My personal bunch of grapes (also in the South) doesn't seem to think less of BLM for it, just that it backfired. Walker Walker Walker 08:10, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

"people losing sympathy for BLM over this" Oh noooo, sheltered privileged people that condone systems of economic and social white supremacy aren't sympathetic to fighting the dehumanization of black people. Calamondin (talk) 18:49, 28 August 2015 (UTC)

Well, yeah. Here's the thing, social movements depend on a degree of popularity to make progress. Losing some people because they were never truly sympathetic happens a lot and naysayers go "Evidence of your DOOM" while great things are still in the future. But some movements do really become so unpopular as to make their goals infeasible. And my inspection of history provides me with very little context that separates the one from the other. ikanreed ^{You probably didn't deserve that} 18:55, 28 August 2015 (UTC)

Yeah, because it's entirely impossible to be sympathetic to peoples' plight while finding the methods one of their groups uses unproductive... seriously, that's an entirely false dichotomy. And bandying about the word "privilege" as the snarl word it usually is on this site (because white people totally aren't allowed to hold opinions on these matters that aren't both self-loathing and effusively gushing about people who aren't as well off, or something) isn't convincing either. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 00:11, 29 August 2015 (UTC)

In my opinion, social change happens only if there is both a Martin Luther King - figure and a Malcom X figure. One figure willing to "constructively engage" the old power structure, arguing for non-violent means and all the shebang. The other figure is either oblique about violence or openly endorses it. The other figure is much more radical and talks about compromise rarely if at all. This figure is not supposed to be popular with the old ruling structure, au contraire. However, the Malcom X figure is incredibly useful to the MLK figure. Every time the old power structure plays "deaf guy" the MLK figure can say "okay, you don't want to talk to me, the reasonable voice, that will only make people turn to the Malcom X voice". This creates panic on the part of the old power structure and some wiggle room for compromise can be achieved. The problem is, the BLM seems to not know whether they want to be MLK or Malcom X. And I for one think that Bernie Sanders is the wrong target to attack, but thaen again, what do I know? Avengerofthe BoN (talk) 00:23, 29 August 2015 (UTC)

I would tend to agree, although I'd add that it's necessary from the Malcom X types to distinguish themselves from the outright lunatic fringe (Louis Farrakhan and Malik Zulu Shabazz and their ilk). I've had the unfortunate experience of running into the Farrakhan types more than a few times (Connecticut is an odd place in that you can go from suburbs to inner city to in about 5 minutes, and everything in between is 10 minutes in the other direction, so you get to see about everything), and I'd totally understand people turned off to these social movements if that's what they run into. Obviously BlM isn't anywhere near there, but the iron law of institutions has gotten hold of similar organizations before and steered them that way. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 01:09, 29 August 2015 (UTC)

Good website to create GIFs?[edit]

I tried ezgif, but couldn't upload more than one picture at a time. K O M F 666 22:55, 9 August 2015 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure any "create a GIF" websites are going to be crappy ad- and malware-laden sites. GIMP is free and available for all desktop/laptop OSes. Assuming you want to create animated GIFs, there are plenty of tutorials. --Ymir (talk) 00:36, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

Gimp is a good choice, though the interface for telling it what frames are in a gif is kinda not the clearest(hence your tutorial links). ikanreed ^{You probably didn't deserve that} 11:34, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

Dangit. I had a good link on last year's algebra Ins. page. It's gone. I think the name of the site is called GIFmaker or something of the variety... Zexcoiler Kingbolt (talk) 04:11, 21 August 2015 (UTC)Zexcoiler Kingbolt

This must be embarrassing for you[edit]

Conservapedia looks and works better on my mobile device (7-inch Android tablet) than RW. 205.250.251.181 (talk) 15:52, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

Feel fee to benefit from their marvellous site. No one forces you to come here (- or do they?)! Scream!! (talk) 17:20, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

BTW - works just fine on my 10.1" Android but is even better on my laptop & best of all on my desk-top machine. Scream!! (talk)

I know, fellow annoying socklet! SockTheory 15:53, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

Here, have some reading material. SockTheory 15:59, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

*cough* David pls upgrad wiki *cough* Mʀ. Wʜɪsᴋᴇʀs, Esϙᴜɪʀᴇ (talk/stalk) 16:00, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

Works just fine for me on a smart phone with a 4.5" (diagonal) screen. Most "mobile friendly" sites look brain-damaged anyway. Not broken, doesn't need fixing IMO. Alec Sanderson (talk) 22:49, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

Can't we use the open source mediawiki software to get a mobile view at least?—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 00:10, 11 August 2015 (UTC)

What did we conclude last time? Narky Sawtooth

(Nyar~) 01:36, 11 August 2015 (UTC)

WP's fancy new mobile view is shit compared to what we have going now imo. 104.5.9.13 (talk) (a logged out User:PacWalker) 02:59, 11 August 2015 (UTC)

RationalWiki looks like shit on a 4.3" screen, the WIkipedia mobile view is MUCH, MUCH better. David, get the mobile view already!--Arisboch ☞✍☜☞✉☜ 07:17, 11 August 2015 (UTC)

RW on my 4" screen looks like... the desktop version, but narrower. WP looks like... where are my buttons. I want them back. Walker Walker Walker 09:54, 12 August 2015 (UTC)

What buttons?--Arisboch ☞✍☜☞✉☜ 10:04, 12 August 2015 (UTC)

The mobile version is probably better for looking at things like the Main Page when on a cellphone/smartphone, but I don't think it makes a major difference for regular articles. 141.134.75.236 (talk) 10:06, 12 August 2015 (UTC)

Looks fine on my laptop, considering it's a touchscreen. Zexcoiler Kingbolt (talk) 02:14, 21 August 2015 (UTC)ZK

roosh V[edit]

Sorry if this has already been posted but have you all seen roosh get the fuck humilitated out of him in Canada ? Oldusgitus (talk) 20:03, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

What's hilarious is the part where his gang said it was "the most historic victory for free speech since the '60s." Narky Sawtooth

(Nyar~) 21:46, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

whtm reports that he claims to have filed charges. I'm pretty sure that (if true) the police will filed them in turn - in the cylindrical metal filing cabinet in the corner of the office. Queex _{chthonic murmurings} 22:04, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

Why liberals pretend to be scientific[edit]

moved to Forum:Mr 74 said something 20:40, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

Why avocados pretend to be guacamole[edit]

This explains everything in the universe (check out, great site!) But no doubt its come across several recipes in response to questions about what to dip chips in. It might have something to do with government microchips. What do you all think? Mr. Sawtooth (Talk) 23:10, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

Not sure what to make of this Atlantic article.[edit]

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/09/the-coddling-of-the-american-mind/399356/

Basically it's the second article the Atlantic has posted in a week about how out of control "political correctness" is on college campused. The first one was talking about how political correctness is making students infantile and oversensitive. Would this be considered a clog? I'm honestly conflicted since the Atlantic is usually left-leaning (though the comments are populated by conservatives and libertarians slinging mud to "challenge your childish beliefs" - one of them said that to me). Blitz (Complaints Box) 03:52, 11 August 2015 (UTC)

EDIT: Never mind, it was written by the CEO of FIRE. That explains a lot. Blitz (Complaints Box) 03:57, 11 August 2015 (UTC)

Target Removing Gender Based Signs[edit]

Targets removing the Gender-based signs for toys and such in their stores. It's a rather recent decision. I wonder how people (Christian conservatives) are going to react. I mean it seems like a good course of action but it gives them more reasons to cry persecution. Clyde Winters The Tribal Chieftan Of the Black Celts from the Battle of Teutoburg Forest (talk) 05:20, 11 August 2015 (UTC)

It'll get their panties in a wad. And I love it!!--Arisboch ☞✍☜☞✉☜ 07:19, 11 August 2015 (UTC)

Makes them a slightly less awful company at least. I've MORE than had my fill of them. ArcticVixen (talk) 06:18, 11 August 2015 (UTC)

Would be interesting to hear about your experiences. Clyde Winters The Tribal Chieftan Of the Black Celts from the Battle of Teutoburg Forest (talk) 06:20, 11 August 2015 (UTC)

I fail to see how this change will make shopping more difficult. They'll still have all the toy cars in one place. They'll still have all the dolls in one place. If you want to buy a toy tank or a Barbie, you won't have much difficulty finding one. It's already happened in some British shops without much fuss being caused. Spud (talk) 07:23, 11 August 2015 (UTC)

How would you know what's happening in Brit shops? Do I smell a limey? Kosterortiizbrock (a normal sig for once while I think of a new one) (talk) 10:19, 11 August 2015 (UTC)

Careful, Koster. We are everywhere. Bicycle^wheel

11:00, 11 August 2015 (UTC)

I meant Lime Cats of course. Kosterortiizbrock (a normal sig for once while I think of a new one) (talk) 11:03, 11 August 2015 (UTC)

Yet another thing to file under "WallyWorld get it together" Walker Walker Walker 13:05, 11 August 2015 (UTC)

Steptwo, as I said when I reblogged this on tumblr, is to now start mixing the toys so it isn't obvious which aisle is for girls and which is for boys still. Taking the nameplate off the stereotype enforcement doesn't stop it from being a stereotype enforcement. --"Paravant" ^{Talk & Contribs} 13:09, 11 August 2015 (UTC)

Step three should be doing away with toys that have obvious gender cues. Bright pinks and purples on the "girl" toys are wholly unnecessary; they have demonstrated the capacity to enjoy toys without those color schemes. Blitz (Complaints Box) 13:53, 11 August 2015 (UTC)

Fox and Friends is super confused. HOW DEY NO WICH TOY 2 GET?! Narky Sawtooth

(Nyar~) 13:13, 11 August 2015 (UTC)

Because Reagan forbid that our children pick the "wrong" toy and become "confused." They could become gay, or worse, trans! /sarc Blitz (Complaints Box) 13:53, 11 August 2015 (UTC)

Fox is confused about everything. Paravant might have been living under a rock if he things Target is going to progress that far in the next century. Kosterortiizbrock (The WhiteKnight Mangina) (talk) 13:15, 11 August 2015 (UTC)

I never said they will, i said they should. It's a token move and now that they've given me an inch, i hunger for a mile. --"Paravant" ^{Talk & Contribs} 13:23, 11 August 2015 (UTC)

Yes, but how far can they go before people start to fight back against this persecution of their *ahem* American Christian Family values? Kosterortiizbrock (The WhiteKnight Mangina) (talk) 13:32, 11 August 2015 (UTC)

Science tells me we should conduct a thorough experiment regiment of this question to find out. --"Paravant" ^{Talk & Contribs} 13:35, 11 August 2015 (UTC)

Might be bad for their business but remember that Coke (the soda) incident with America the Beautiful and the thousands of closet-racists exploding into racist insanity and going LANCB about Coke? I doubt any still follow it- and Coke is still profiting. The truth is- Conservatives NEED Target (if not Walmart) and are some of their biggest fans. It will definitely cause controversy though. The Christer Cons are going full paranoid-defensive mode after SCOTUS. I don't think such a traditional if you will and American company will do such anytime soon out of fear for their reputation among their main consumers. Kosterortiizbrock (The WhiteKnight Mangina) (talk) 13:41, 11 August 2015 (UTC)

I guess i have to say this part again - "I never said they will, i said they should.". I don't particularly care whether it will offend somebody in my statement of "should", because equality isn't something that needs to be put off because not everybody will like it. --"Paravant" ^{Talk & Contribs} 13:45, 11 August 2015 (UTC)

I heard you but I was explaining why it's not probable. They morally SHOULD yes you are absolutely right, but they can't have moral panics among their customers now can they? Kosterortiizbrock (The WhiteKnight Mangina) (talk) 13:49, 11 August 2015 (UTC)

Believe me, you didn't need to explain why it's not probable. I live in the fun land of jesusland already. --"Paravant" ^{Talk & Contribs} 13:52, 11 August 2015 (UTC)

Do we have a citizen of the noble, honest hard-working and moral Bible Belt here? Kosterortiizbrock (The WhiteKnight Mangina) (talk) 13:53, 11 August 2015 (UTC)

Bit north of the "Traditional" Bible Belt, but more or less. Except in the Fall. In the Fall my states god is FOOTBALL.--"Paravant" ^{Talk & Contribs} 14:51, 11 August 2015 (UTC)

My 8yo and I fight over who gets any gadget that's hot-pink. She always wins. She even talked her mother (who hates pink) into using a hot-pink phone case - David Gerard (talk) 14:42, 11 August 2015 (UTC)

My internet is having issues as well as my house phone but I don't really care as I'm reading a long article and it has a lot of insight. May not be able to anything for a while. Just a general note. And David that's very amusing. Kosterortiizbrock (The WhiteKnight Mangina) (talk) 14:59, 11 August 2015 (UTC)

Anyone have GRE advice?[edit]

I took a practice test and did pretty well, but seeking advice never hurts. ikanreed ^{You probably didn't deserve that} 15:03, 11 August 2015 (UTC)

Don't sweat it. Focus on your statement and other application materials. The whole exercise is irrelevant: If you're applying in the humanities, nobody cares about your math results; if you're applying in the sciences, they don't care about your vocabulary or essay writing. If you don't get accepted, it won't be because of your GRE score. If you do get accepted, it won't be because of your GRE score. Peace. AgingHippie (talk) 15:59, 11 August 2015 (UTC)

Oh that's bad, because my old GPA sucks, and I was hoping high percentiles would help me. ikanreed ^{You probably didn't deserve that} 16:08, 11 August 2015 (UTC)

In my experience: GPA matters, ut what matters most is your proposal and your letters. Get your referees to explain away your GPA or talk about why the GPA doesn't accurately reflect your abilities ("He blew off his first year/had a sophmore slump/whatever, but has amazing whatever it is you are looking for in a grad student.") Proposal. Letters. Establishing a relationship with a potential advisor who will then want to go to bat for you with the graduate acceptance committee. That's what gets you in. Gods peed. Peace. AgingHippie (talk) 16:21, 11 August 2015 (UTC)

MOAR: The proposal needs to answer these questions: Why this project? (What is so important about your research idea) Why now? (What will it do in terms of where the scholarship is these days? Are new scientific advances/new historical archives making it possible to do new things with the subject matter at hand) and MOST IMPORTANTLY, why you? (What skill sets make you the perfect person to do this researh: because you read both French and Swahili/are a master of this particular software/worked in a lab dealing with similar reactions). I will gladly read any application materials you want to share with me. Peace. AgingHippie (talk) 16:27, 11 August 2015 (UTC)

Thanks, there's a good chance I will take you up on that. I have a stupid place-holder "career plans" essay that I need to rewrite before submitting. I might run it by you. ikanreed ^{You probably didn't deserve that} 18:14, 11 August 2015 (UTC)

How "sucky" are we talking here? If it's too sucky, it might be kind of crippling as a number of schools have GPA cutoffs, and you might want to consider taking a few degree-req'd courses on a non-degree basis and aceing them if you don't get in this year (Non-Degree students generally have a LOT lower req's). I'm agreeing with Hippie here to focus on your essays and getting good letters from the folks you're asking, and expressing direct interest to people already in the places you're applying to. Just speaking from personal experience here -- totally tanked mid-undergrad due to severe anxiety and clinical depression problems and left with a terrible cumulative (FML, at least I graduated on time), which was far from enough to get me into the schools I applied for this year despite having high-percentile V/Q + a 5 essay. However, I was contacted by one of the profs at my first choice who used to work with one of my letter writers, and we discussed the best way forward to become a student at that particular school while hobbled by my shit GPA.

There's always a way, as long as you fight for it. Best of luck! ℕoir LeSable (talk) 18:46, 11 August 2015 (UTC)

Ouch. But there's options. ikanreed ^{You probably didn't deserve that} 16:57, 12 August 2015 (UTC)

From the terms you're using, I'm gathering you're applying for an American college/university (or planning to). My advice would be not to waste money on the American higher education system or be complicit in funding said vastly overpriced system. Since you'd likely be moving anyway, why not move to Europe and go to one of the many dirtcheap-by-comparison yet prestigious universities available there (countries where higher education is actually subsidized? *gasp*)? The requirements for entering such universities are usually also pretty limited; "getting in" generally shouldn't be a problem. To sweeten the deal, Europeans are generally speaking also nicer people than Americans. ;) 141.134.75.236 (talk) 20:07, 11 August 2015 (UTC)

And living in a different country is a great way of broadening your horizons. Bicycle^wheel

20:26, 11 August 2015 (UTC)

It's awfully flippant to advise young Americans to move to another country where college is cheaper, then neglect to discuss the high up-front costs of moving to said country.

Radioactive afikomen ^{Please ignore all my awful pre-2014 comments.} 21:03, 11 August 2015 (UTC)

High up-front costs? Do tell. 141.134.75.236 (talk) 21:10, 11 August 2015 (UTC)

I've never been in trouble financially, cause, you know, software engineer. The awful broken American System works just fine for you once you're in that top 20% band. I'll throw in an application for AI research programs elsewhere in the world though. And grad school in the hard sciences here often comes with waived tuition and a research stipend. ikanreed ^{You probably didn't deserve that} 21:13, 11 August 2015 (UTC)

Still, having a lot of money doesn't mean you have to waste it (or, as I mentioned earlier, make yourself complicit in upholding the current broken system). Not throwing away thousands of dollars means you can spend that money to support humanitarian causes. Surely that's morally preferable, no? 141.134.75.236 (talk) 21:24, 11 August 2015 (UTC)

Take the expected costs of traveling long distance, and add the costs of living in temporary shelter while you spend however many weeks it takes to find long-term housing. That's at least a few thousand dollars. (I'm assuming that students bypass the immigration bureaucracy that sucks thousands of dollars from conventional immigration applicants.) This is much higher than the costs of continuing to live with your family and commuting to the closest university, which for many American students is all they can afford. Fuck, my parents zeroed out their (tiny) life savings just so they could go to my brother's wedding in Canada, and that was for four days, in the cheapest motel they could find, doing no tourist stuff, and sponging off relatives for food. "Move to another country for the low, low cost of a couple grand" is a huge fuck-you in a country where millions of people can't even afford $50 college application fees (yes, that's a thing here).

Now add the psychological and social costs of moving to a different country. That puts first-year college students, who are already under enormous stress that they have no experience dealing with, under even more stress. (Moving to another country is in a completely different league of anxiety and stress than moving from one state in the U.S. to another. They are not equivalent experiences.) A foreigner has no real social network they can rely on. (And don't give me that nonsense that "people in Europe are nice"; Europeans are plenty shitty to each other based on perceived ethnicity, class, and religion. Being foreign makes this worse, not better. I can't wait to get assaulted for wearing a kippah!) As for financial costs, most so-called affordable universities in Europe only have free tuition—costs of living are not covered. The cost of housing and other necessities makes the average debt of college graduates in countries like Canada, Sweden, and England comparable to US levels of student debt (with average debts of $28,000, $19,000, and $40,500, respectively). Even German colleges aren't truly free, requiring foreigners to cobble together a patchwork of part-time work, grants, and yes, loans. Just like in America! Except with the added up-front costs and psycho-social costs I've already mentioned, meaning the people who would most benefit from any savings gained by attending school in Germany are the ones least able to access the opportunity in the first place.

Tl;dr It's mighty rich to tell the poor to move to another country to solve their financial problems.

Radioactive afikomen ^{Please ignore all my awful pre-2014 comments.} 22:45, 11 August 2015 (UTC)

Mʀ. Wʜɪsᴋᴇʀs, Esϙᴜɪʀᴇ (talk/stalk) 23:11, 11 August 2015 (UTC)

Where did I tell the poor anything here? I was assuming Ikanreed had at least an averagish money supply. Honestly, I don't know where you'd get the money to buy yourself into the American higher education system if you're poor. Sure, you can put yourself in huge debt, but you could just as well, rather reasonably, decide not to take that gamble. I'm poor myself but because I live in Europe I was able to attend university for a while. Living an adultish life in a capitalist society without earning a living isn't exactly sustainable though, so that was one of the reasons why I dropped out. Are you saying Americans don't have that problem? Either way, since American universities are notoriously expensive, I just thought I'd bring up that European universities might be an alternative worth considering (and Germany and Sweden aren't the only options). Also, don't be too pessimistic about the psycho-social costs. These things can vary a lot from person to person and don't forget these are all Western societies. Many Europeans also understand English, if you're worried about a language barrier. 141.134.75.236 (talk) 13:22, 12 August 2015 (UTC)

Okay, all done with the GRE part. Nutso crazy good scores. Which is nice. I'm happy. ikanreed ^{You probably didn't deserve that} 00:30, 15 August 2015 (UTC)

What are the real chances the Demos will nominate anybody but Clinton?[edit]

?--"Paravant" ^{Talk & Contribs} 16:59, 12 August 2015 (UTC)

Betting odds are currently 1:6 on Clinton. Walker Walker Walker 17:03, 12 August 2015 (UTC)

0% or 100%. Narky Sawtooth

(Nyar~) 17:12, 12 August 2015 (UTC)

Feynmann sum over ~~histories~~ conventions Walker Walker Walker 17:13, 12 August 2015 (UTC)

Well in a recent poll one Bernard Sanders of Burlington, Vermont has pulled ahead of her in the New Hampshire primary. Which might after all increase the chance of her not being the nominee... Avengerofthe BoN (talk) 21:15, 12 August 2015 (UTC)

And supposedly evens on her getting elected elected. Walker Walker Walker 03:22, 13 August 2015 (UTC)

Basically no way Clinton loses the nomination. The consensus among political scientists is that presidential candidates with the most endorsements from party actors are the ones most likely to win the nomination. Clinton has 300+ endorsements from sitting senators, governors, and representatives. That's more than almost any other presidential candidate in modern presidential primary history. No other democrat running for president in 2016 has even come close to that number of endorsements this early in the primary. She probably won't get all 50 states (Vermont is on Super Tuesday) but she'll win in a landslide. If Clinton somehow manages to lose the nomination, everything we know about presidential primaries are wrong. [4] RaQuanV (talk) 19:37, 13 August 2015 (UTC)

Wouldn't it be awesome to be wrong in this case, though... ? The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 22:41, 13 August 2015 (UTC)

She polls like a clear frontrunner, her endorsements indicate clear frontrunner and overall she appears like a sitting vice president, not like a political has been (that most figures with her record sans being married to a former president would be considered to be). That being said, she also has one huge downside: People know her. There is no way for her to come out and surprise everybody should she fall behind in the polls. It is unlikely that people would believe a "re-branding" of Hillary. Especially her corporatist high income persona; this she is stuck with. There are many people who dislike her (even in the democratic party). Maybe she can drown them out by getting her base riled up. But maybe she has short her powder in 2008 already. I may be biased, but it ain't over till the fat lady sings. And right now, there is not even a skinny lady on stage... Avengerofthe BoN (talk) 23:01, 13 August 2015 (UTC)

On rebranding, not onlywould no one believe it, I would go farther and say it would confirm the negative buzz about her from the left. <3 C^{Sapphire bullets of pure love} 00:58, 14 August 2015 (UTC)

I would say it is impossible for her to win. I know many people who wouldn't vote for her even if it meant a Republican would win especially if that person wasn't a hardliner like Pataki, Kasich, Rubio, or Paul. Hell, Ben Carson is in third place for the GOP nomination; that is how much people hate the established candidates. Conventional wisdom would tell me that Martin O'Malley should be leading with his views, but instead it is an independent who is openly a socialist. Many of the conservatives I have talked to about the social democracy in Scandinavia agree that the would rather have that than Reagan's supply side economics, which shows with how Scott Walker is polling. I also know that many Republicans are now more closely aligned with non interventionist thinking and want to cut military spending, end the War on Drugs, and end domestic spying. I don't think that anyone in still believes that millennials need to pull themselves up by their boot straps to pay for student loans forces many of them to live with heir parents. So I don't think people realize that he has an even bigger advantage when it comes to moderates and Trump is going to force more of the Republicans to leave unless they are batshit insane racists. People also don't share her views and that she isn't open makes it even harder for people to believe she is honest; just look at how she put BLM in the overflow room because she was afraid of being embarrassed on stage.--Owlman (talk) 01:24, 14 August 2015 (UTC)

The race ought to be the Democrats' to lose. The Republican Party today is one big right-wing echo chamber. Like the anti-abortion nuts and the animal rightsers, the rhetoric is so extreme that the candidates' sincerity is always in doubt. Hence you get insults like 'RINO' and 'cuckservative' for anyone who dissents even slightly from the party line. Even the candidates who got some buzz for mild dissent from the party line like Rand Paul have toed the line for the primary season.

Still, Hillary Clinton manages to suck all the air out of the room. There seems to be a vague sense that she's somehow entitled to the nomination, she's earned it and she deserves it. I don't care how many endorsements she has; I can't imagine anyone particularly excited by the prospect of her becoming President. Her husband was a weak and ineffectual president, hassled by a thousand scandals; and nobody doubted back then that she was the brains behind the operation. If the nomination is still up in the air by the time the primary gets here (and in May, it hardly ever is) I might register as a Democrat to vote against her. - Smerdis of Tlön, ^{LOAD "*", 8, 1.} 01:41, 14 August 2015 (UTC)

Well Smerdis I don't know about you, but in my state we have open primaries so I don't have to register for any party at all. Her militarism is what makes me the most sick so I will only vote for Sanders and then no one else. I don't think that the Republicans can win either with Trump leading to self destruction for anyone that follows him.--Owlman (talk) 01:49, 14 August 2015 (UTC)

Rand Paul just shot himself in the foot by releasing this video that makes Trump look thoughtful, statesmanlike, and the most reasonable guy in the room. That's an amazing achievement, and I mean fucking amazing. - Smerdis of Tlön, ^{LOAD "*", 8, 1.} 02:21, 14 August 2015 (UTC)

I can't believe he is actually wanting to be to the right of Trump. I think Paul is going to have the hardest time if he is against healthcare subsidies because most people like the ACA and many poor people are on it. That and businesses know that it costs less to do business if they don't have to pay for healthcare. Trump also happens to be pro choice even if he doesn't say it and his 'defense' of Planned Parenthood makes him the ironic moderate on healthcare.--Owlman (talk) 02:34, 14 August 2015 (UTC)

If I were old enough to vote, I would obviously vote for the Democratic candidate against the Republican, even if it was Rand Paul, but I really dislike Hillary. She tastes like bad cough syrup. Bernie Sanders is such a breath of fresh air, even compared to Trump, who is nice to talk about, but I could never bring myself to press his image in the voting booth, even against Hillary. Bernie Sanders absolutely deserves every damn Democratic delegate, but 1 big mountain is in his way. The question is if he can scale that mountain. If he beats Hillary we will easily trounce pretty much anyone the Republicans put up there, except for maybe Trump, who the GOP establishment probably won't let get the nomination.

The best thing Bernie can do is try to conserve momentum before he gets to the debates, then step hard on the gas during the first debate. If he makes a good first impression and presents himself as an ideological, experienced alternative to Hillary, he should be able to pull ahead by the amount necessary to win, because regardless of what the news says, most Democrats can't stand Hillary. If he beats Hillary, he will easily trounce pretty much anyone the Republicans put up there, and win the general election with a fairly good popular mandate.

tl;dr: Go Bernie, go. Pbfreespace3 (talk) 02:46, 14 August 2015 (UTC)

The thing is fivethirtyeight has an amazing track record of getting their prognosis right. Even more than any of the polls they rely on get by pure chance in any given year. And while they acknowledge that primaries are a somewhat different beast they mostly dismiss Sanders and say he won't win with the liberal crowd alone... We shall wait and see... Avengerofthe BoN (talk) 23:09, 14 August 2015 (UTC)

Things have gone horribly wrong for me.[edit]

My father died in a traffic accident last night. Narky Sawtooth (Nyar~) 18:03, 12 August 2015 (UTC)

I'm sorry for your loss.

Radioactive afikomen ^{Please ignore all my awful pre-2014 comments.} 18:23, 12 August 2015 (UTC)

Scheisse! Sorry to hear that. Scream!! (talk) 19:06, 12 August 2015 (UTC)

Jesus christ, I'm at a loss for words. "Sorry" doesn't cut it, but - I am so sorry for your loss, Narky. I know I'm pretty much the new guy here, but - feel free to write to me if you want somebody to "talk" to. Stay strong buddy. Reverend Black Percy (talk) 19:11, 12 August 2015 (UTC)

Oh no. I hope you have good people around you. x Bicycle^wheel

19:12, 12 August 2015 (UTC)

[Insert something comforting here] Sorry, I'm not good at this sorta stuff. :/ 141.134.75.236 (talk) 19:22, 12 August 2015 (UTC)

Dude. I can't even imagine where that puts your head and feelings. Yes, I hope you have good people around you, both for the emotional support, and to deal with the mundane issues of picking up where he left off. Alec Sanderson (talk) 19:25, 12 August 2015 (UTC)

Oh fuck... I'm so not good at comforting people, but I try anyways, so my heartfelt condolences, we, the RW mob, are giving you our moral support to help you weather this crisis *raises flag at halfmast*.--Arisboch ☞✍☜☞✉☜ 19:29, 12 August 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for the support, everyone. The most difficult thing for me right now is seeing all the unfinished projects he was working on and remembering the plans he and I had for this week. I wasn't crying at all until I thought about how we were supposed to get ham and olive pizza tomorrow and how he was going to make pasta tonight. They're small things, but they're what cause the most tears. Narky Sawtooth (Nyar~) 20:19, 12 August 2015 (UTC)

Probably serve that at the wake?--Arisboch ☞✍☜☞✉☜ 20:25, 12 August 2015 (UTC)

My condolences - Herzliches Beileid. --larron (talk) 20:45, 12 August 2015 (UTC)

Very sad. Sorry to hear. InfinitelySingular 17:57, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

I am probably bad at finding words that help, but please know that you are not alone with this. Avengerofthe BoN (talk) 21:14, 12 August 2015 (UTC)

Now where did I put those Dragon Balls? Seriously though, sorry for your loss. PM me if you want to talk. Super ^{Dude,Where's my car?} 22:34, 12 August 2015 (UTC)

My condolences.--Owlman (talk) 23:40, 12 August 2015 (UTC)

Oh bloody hell :( . So sorry to hear that Narky and thoughts, of course. --TheroadtoWiganPier (talk) 00:19, 13 August 2015 (UTC)

I'm so sorry, Narky... *hugs* Wehpudicabok [話] [変] [留] 00:29, 13 August 2015 (UTC)

does my best to offer you a hug over the wiki* Tfp (talk) 00:37, 13 August 2015 (UTC)

^that.

I'm so sorry, Narky. I've lost loved ones out of the blue, too. You're not alone. --Maxus (talk) 01:05, 13 August 2015 (UTC)

In good news, my father's close friends are currently coordinating an effort to assist me and my mother. My parents were divorced and I was living with my father, and we were in the middle of moving. Thankfully, my mother was able to push back the deadline for leaving this house, and my father's close friends were already planning on helping us move. Narky Sawtooth (Nyar~) 01:15, 13 August 2015 (UTC)

I don't know what I can say that nobody else has said already, but I'm still really sorry. Kindest wishes. ¹⁰⁷ Ag⁴⁷ 01:49, 13 August 2015 (UTC)

I am extremely sorry to hear of this, and will remember you and your family in prayers. - Smerdis of Tlön, ^{LOAD "*", 8, 1.} 02:29, 13 August 2015 (UTC)

I don't really know what to say. I'm sorry for your loss.Samstr (talk) 03:10, 13 August 2015 (UTC)

You have my deepest sympathy. And I'm sending you my love. Spud (talk) 10:11, 13 August 2015 (UTC)

I'm so sorry. I was feeling bad for myself over what seems like nothing in comparison, but that's absolutely horrible. I can give little comfort over the internet, but you have my deepest sympathies. ikanreed ^{You probably didn't deserve that} 13:32, 13 August 2015 (UTC)

I'm really sorry to hear of your loss, Narky. It's good to hear that you're getting help with picking up the pieces in this sudden situation. If there's anything we can do to help you out, please let us know. ℕoir LeSable (talk) 18:02, 13 August 2015 (UTC)

Sorry to hear that, Narky. I'm not good at finding comforting words but I would put them ->here<- if I was. Fonzie (talk) 22:27, 14 August 2015 (UTC)

My condolences to you, Narky. Bongolian (talk) 06:31, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

My condolences. Vulpius (talk) 10:59, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

Damn, man. Can't even begin to express how sorry I am for your loss. Master Necromancer^{What is dead may never die} 14:58, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

Watson Personality Insights.[edit]

This tool uses the underlying technology of watson, in conjunction with a library of common psychology personality test results, to assess your score on big five personality characteristics(and a few others) based on text you enter(or copy and paste). You get one of those blurbs that seems like it can apply to anyone, but they're just English representations of your personality approximation.

“”You are skeptical, shrewd and unconventional.

You are unconcerned with art: you are less concerned with artistic or creative activities than most people who participated in our surveys. You are intermittent: you have a hard time sticking with difficult tasks for a long period of time. And you are proud: you hold yourself in high regard, satisfied with who you are.

Experiences that make you feel high connectedness are generally unappealing to you.

You are relatively unconcerned with tradition: you care more about making your own path than following what others have done. You consider achieving success to guide a large part of what you do: you seek out opportunities to improve yourself and demonstrate that you are a capable person.

And some of this is actually things that would rule out other people. On the scale from "astrology-like bullshit" and "genuine psychological science", I'd wager this falls somewhere in the middle. ikanreed ^{You probably didn't deserve that} 13:44, 13 August 2015 (UTC)

So... taking text from a different site than where I did my first test yielded substantially different results. High precision, this ain't. ikanreed ^{You probably didn't deserve that} 13:49, 13 August 2015 (UTC)

"Experiences that make you feel high connectedness" What's that even supposed to mean? 141.134.75.236 (talk) 13:59, 13 August 2015 (UTC)

They're trying to be polite about the introvert-extrovert spectrum. ikanreed ^{You probably didn't deserve that} 14:04, 13 August 2015 (UTC)

But in the process they make social events sound like being high on drugs or having spiritual experiences. >.> 141.134.75.236 (talk) 14:15, 13 August 2015 (UTC)

I got much of the same text, and several apparent contradictions. These are the differences:

“”You are shrewd and somewhat inconsiderate.

... You are laid-back: you appreciate a relaxed pace in life. ...

You consider helping others to guide a large part of what you do: you think it is important to take care of the people around you.

The response to legal pleadings I wrote is quite different:

“”You are inner-directed, skeptical and can be perceived as insensitive.

You are adventurous: you are eager to experience new things. You are imaginative: you have a wild imagination. And you are independent: you have a strong desire to have time to yourself.

Your choices are driven by a desire for prestige.

You are relatively unconcerned with both taking pleasure in life and helping others. You prefer activities with a purpose greater than just personal enjoyment. And you think people can handle their own business without interference.

I suspect a palm reader could have done better. - Smerdis of Tlön, ^{LOAD "*", 8, 1.} 15:22, 13 August 2015 (UTC)

Fair. Although... I think legal pleadings are skeptical and insensitive. ikanreed ^{You probably didn't deserve that} 15:24, 13 August 2015 (UTC)

“”You are inner-directed and shrewd.

You are independent: you have a strong desire to have time to yourself. You are reserved: you are a private person and don't let many people in. And you are intermittent: you have a hard time sticking with difficult tasks for a long period of time.

You are motivated to seek out experiences that provide a strong feeling of efficiency.

You consider achieving success to guide a large part of what you do: you seek out opportunities to improve yourself and demonstrate that you are a capable person. You are relatively unconcerned with tradition: you care more about making your own path than following what others have done.

I bolded everything that isn't a total load of crap. Narky Sawtooth

(Nyar~) 23:20, 13 August 2015 (UTC)

What kinda astrology is that??--Arisboch ☞✍☜☞✉☜ 23:27, 13 August 2015 (UTC)

It is introverted astrology, but sometimes extroverted. It can be hard-working astrology, but sometimes it is slacking. It always speaks like it know what the hell it's talking about, though, so it doesn't have much room for error. That's going to be its biggest undermining. Narky Sawtooth

(Nyar~) 03:24, 14 August 2015 (UTC)

Thank you all[edit]

One thing I've always loved about RW, even 5 years ago when I was doing this before--I can make almost any kind of random page that speaks to me, and people will come along and make it better, even if only making it look better. You all have no idea how much I appreciate that. Researcher (talk) 14:29, 13 August 2015 (UTC)

Thank you. We all owe each other a reacharound at this point. Jokes aside, this is a pretty kewl place to participate in and I hope I've been pulling my own weight here, if nothing else. I've got some major article stuff upcoming, I'll look forward to your comment then (when it's not just a lot of fancy talk). Reverend Black Percy (talk) 15:53, 13 August 2015 (UTC)

I'm fairly new to the community, and I've found the same thing with these Saloon bar pages. Here's to RationalWiki! Zexcoiler Kingbolt (talk) 01:02, 21 August 2015 (UTC)Zexcoiler Kingbolt

2 questions[edit]

I'll probably be severely ostracized for asking these questions, but here goes:

What's the deal with freedom of speech? Why can't we just ban hate speech? Or woo speech?
What's the deal with goats on RW? Is it just because "goat" sounds kinda similar to "god"? Or because Baphomet is a goat?

*activates their anti-tomato force field* 141.134.75.236 (talk) 09:55, 14 August 2015 (UTC)

To understand these - and they're linked - you need to understand how RW was formed. I may not have this 100% right because I didn't come along until a while after. Basically a group of people who were trying to install some sanity on Conservapedia got pissed off/banned and decided to set up their own wiki to counter it. One of the founding principles was that the blocking and banning that went on at CP would be replaced with an assumption that everyone was good until proven really bad. As such there should be no blocking for unpopular points of view and everyone becomes a sysop after a few good edits.

Nowadays the CP element is all but gone. There is a WIGO:CP but it's no longer a central part of RW and more for the old guard who like to hang out there.

And, of course, with any bunch of people setting up something new, there will be in jokes (there is no cabal) and the one that stuck was the Goat/God thing. I don't suppose there's more than a dozen of us left who really remember those early days but it's just one of those things.

OK? Doxys Midnight Runner (talk) 10:42, 14 August 2015 (UTC)

Regarding free speech, start by reading this. The right to communication belongs to every sentient being. No rational person would ever try to combat any supposed evil via banning speech. Overt opposition to free speech is itself fringe crankiness. Reverend Black Percy (talk) 11:26, 14 August 2015 (UTC)

A lot of what you just said sounds like pure assertion. Of course people have a right to communicate, but that doesn't automatically mean all speech should just get a pass. Words can cause pain and be used to terrorize people and the spread of misinformation and extremist/supremacist ideologies can be very harmful. As to the argument "Conservapedia bans speech they don't like, so banning speech is bad/we should do the opposite." that's just the argumentum ad Hitlerum with Hitler replaced by CP. 141.134.75.236 (talk) 11:49, 14 August 2015 (UTC)

OK, so try this, RW's free speech policy has worked well for the last eight years. If it ain't broke.... Doxys Midnight Runner (talk) 12:21, 14 August 2015 (UTC)

Sure, but I wasn't arguing about RW's policy specifically, though. Why should governments, or society in general, tolerate harmful acts as long as they are 'merely' verbal? 141.134.75.236 (talk) 12:28, 14 August 2015 (UTC)

We Brits don't.

“”there is a broad sweep of exceptions including threatening, abusive or insulting words or behavior intending or likely to cause harassment, alarm or distress or cause a breach of the peace (which has been used to prohibit racist speech targeted at individuals), sending another any article which is indecent or grossly offensive with an intent to cause distress or anxiety (which has been used to prohibit speech of a racist or anti-religious nature), incitement, incitement to racial hatred, incitement to religious hatred, incitement to terrorism including encouragement of terrorism and dissemination of terrorist publications, glorifying terrorism, collection or possession of a document or record containing information likely to be of use to a terrorist, treason including advocating for the abolition of the monarchy (which cannot be successfully prosecuted) or compassing or imagining the death of the monarch, sedition (no longer illegal, sedition and seditious libel (as common law offences) were abolished by section 73 of the Coroners and Justice Act 2009 (with effect on 12 January 2010)), obscenity, indecency including corruption of public morals and outraging public decency, defamation, prior restraint, restrictions on court reporting including names of victims and evidence and prejudicing or interfering with court proceedings, prohibition of post-trial interviews with jurors, scandalising the court by criticising or murmuring judges, time, manner, and place restrictions, harassment, privileged communications, trade secrets, classified material, copyright, patents, military conduct, and limitations on commercial speech such as advertising.

It's contentious but, in general, it works for us. Fred Phelps would not be allowed over here, for example. Cue flame war. Doxys Midnight Runner (talk) 12:38, 14 August 2015 (UTC)

Whew, that's a lot of exceptions. Well, obviously there are governments that don't pay much attention to the principle of free speech, though I was wondering how proponents of the principle would argue for speech to be protected even when it's harmful, with very few exceptions. 141.134.75.236 (talk) 13:11, 14 August 2015 (UTC)

What I want to know is, how do do you murmur a judge? Sounds like fun. - Smerdis of Tlön, ^{LOAD "*", 8, 1.} 15:02, 14 August 2015 (UTC)

Aye, weel, murmuring will be telling yon judge he's a crooked bast'd, ye ken the noo? [5] Doxys Midnight Runner (talk) 15:33, 14 August 2015 (UTC)

The right to communication belongs to every sentient being.- Reverend Black Percy

The only right that belongs to every sentient being is that of "You will die at some point." Physics recognizes no other rights. No, I do not believe in "natural rights". I'm not a libertarian.

No rational person would ever try to combat any supposed evil via banning speech.- Reverend Black Percy

A rational person wouldn't try to combat "supposed evil", recognizing that evil is a purely subjective and personal viewpoint. A rational person identifies their goal and then uses whatever method is most practical - including banning speech - to achieve it.

Overt opposition to free speech is itself fringe crankiness.- Reverend Black Percy

I'm a fan of Popehat and even I think that's a bullshit assertion. --Castaigne (talk) 21:10, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

Hate to be pedantic, but if you say "physics only recognizes every being's right to die someday", then you've just defined a natural right. Whether it's a right that's desirable or not doesn't matter. 142.124.55.236 (talk) 21:36, 17 August 42015 AQD (UTC)

That aside, I agree the notion of "natural rights" is bogus. "Morality" and "rights" are mere subjective inventions of sentient minds. That said, moral constructivism doesn't necessitate moral nihilism. 142.124.55.236 (talk) 21:46, 17 August 42015 AQD (UTC)

The real question is: what is gained from these hypothetical bans? I'm not a free speech absolutist. Speech can and does bring real (if minor) harm in extreme cases. An environment where racists are wasting considerable amounts of everyone's time is a case where they are doing harm to the wiki by being a distraction. An idiot regurgitating an old talking point, getting shut down by a counter-argument, and then eventually giving up? We don't lose much. The benefit from hearing different points of view almost always outweighs the cost. Someone has to be a really awful to cross that threshold. ikanreed ^{You probably didn't deserve that} 15:31, 14 August 2015 (UTC)

I guess I shouldn't have phrased it with 'we' and followed it with an RW-specific question. I'm not talking specifically about RW's freedom of speech policy (not that I'm a fervent supporter of it). I can see the merit in allowing people to put forward and defend their views, no matter how silly or offensive, on a skepticism/rationalism website like RationalWiki, but I don't see much point in tolerating hate speech or woo BS in real-life. 141.134.75.236 (talk) 16:45, 14 August 2015 (UTC)

It's really unclear what sort of speech regulations you're arguing in favour of that don't already exist. Lots of governments and jurisdictions have hate speech laws of some kind, including laws about incitement to violence, incitement to racial hatred, etc. Plus of course private endeavours such as workplaces and websites have their own in-house policies on these things. As for banning "woo speech", well, what the hell do you mean? Wěǎšěǐǒǐď

^{Methinks it is a Weasel} 18:27, 14 August 2015 (UTC)

I can't speak for what he means, but I find the legal tolerance (I'm speaking from the US side of the pond) of say the marketing of homeopathic remedies or the dissemination of wildly false information about the safety of vaccines to be perhaps unnecessary. On the other hand, limiting such practices comes with the problem of delimiting the limitation. Walker Walker Walker 18:43, 14 August 2015 (UTC)

Um, I didn't know this was a legislature... I'm not here to make proposals for regulations, I just wanna find out and discuss why some people value freedom of speech to the point that they'll defend even blatantly harmful speech. As to woo speech, I mean the endorsement/dissemination of woo bullshit, like some of the stuff Walker³ mentions. 141.134.75.236 (talk) 23:57, 14 August 2015 (UTC)

Um, your questions were "Why can't we just ban hate speech? Or woo speech?". Everyone assumed you were talking about RationalWiki, then you said you were talking about "in real life". Now apparently we're back to talking about RW, unless the this in "I didn't know this was a legislature" is supposed to refer to something else, in which case what? Wéáśéĺóíď

^{Methinks it is a Weasel}

Notice the "I'm not here to make proposals for regulations" right behind it, as in "Why do I need to make proposals for regulations? Did I end up in a parliament or something?" The "this" refers to the place the discussion is taking place, which happens to be RW, but that's inconsequential to the point I wanted to make. 141.134.75.236 (talk) 00:35, 15 August 2015 (UTC)

Sure you don't need to make proposals but when you say "why don't we ban hate speech?", that's what you are doing. Wèàšèìòìď

^{Methinks it is a Weasel} 00:49, 15 August 2015 (UTC)

If you're annoyed that I didn't introduce the topic optimally for the discussion I had in mind, believe me I know the feeling. But bygones etc. I hope it's clear what I want to discuss by now. 141.134.75.236 (talk) 01:00, 15 August 2015 (UTC)

The world is full of echo chambers, and evidence of the bad effects of echo chambers. It is useful to respectfully listen to the views of people whose view of the world and value system differs sharply from your own. Of course, it helps a lot if the discourse you're taking in invites that kind of respectful consideration. (Which is why dismissing the "tone argument" is nonsense. If you have a message, your first task is to engage my interest and make me want to listen. Fail at that and you may as well shut up, because you won't be heard anyways.)

At any rate, there is this, and there is also an intrinsic value to self expression. From time to time people will hate their neighbors. There may be some value in catharsis here. And it may just make things worse. And "woo" is never going to go away, either, so long as humans have minds with a knack for seeing patterns that aren't there.

What I don't believe is that free speech leads inevitably to truth. Nor do I believe that free speech improves politics all that much, mostly because most political speech is as self-serving and deceptive as advertising. I do, however, tend to discount the credibility and sincerity of people who claim to be traumatized by mere words, suspecting them of narcissism and love of drama. The bottom line is that free speech is good in itself because freedom is good in itself, and claims to be harmed by words or images come at a very steep discount. - Smerdis of Tlön, ^{LOAD "*", 8, 1.} 19:05, 14 August 2015 (UTC)

Generally, I think the line has been drawn where it is no longer about expression. "I like pizza," is expression, "I'll have the deep pan pepperoni, please," is probably an attempt at something else. When somebody is blocked for spamming the same thing all over RW, that isn't really an exception to the free speech rule; they are allowed to write what they're writing, just not allowed to do what they're doing.

Although having said that, some people have been banned for just being too plain horrible in the views they express. Fonzie (talk) 22:48, 14 August 2015 (UTC)

Eh, I don't like pizza. Also... 141.134.75.236 (talk) 23:09, 14 August 2015 (UTC)

Oh, right, my mistake. Except the not liking pizza thing, that's obviously your mistake and you will have to live with it. Fonzie (talk) 18:40, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

Well, if you removed the crust, the vegetables, the cheese, any fish or non-properly-baked meat, and any and all mushrooms from it, maybe I could enjoy eating a pizza. 142.124.55.236 (talk) 19:44, 17 August 42015 AQD (UTC)

Anyone ever hear of Anita Fuentes?[edit]

She's this batshit crazy evangelist(and possible troll) on YouTube where she talks about the Illuminati, the guy agenda, and other such nonsense. Link 'Legion^{what do you want from me} 08:10, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

The guy agenda? >.> 142.124.55.236 (talk) 08:26, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

Has a real church that will accept your donation. So not a "troll" per se - David Gerard (talk) 10:46, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

What the fuck is the "guy agenda"? "Gay agenda" misspelled?--Arisboch ☞✍☜☞✉☜ 12:34, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

The guy agenda? I would presume it means the stereotypical one thing on a guy's agenda. Walker Walker Walker 12:44, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

My hypothesis: they misspelled gay agenda (a term used by some fundies to make it seem like the LGBT scene is a scheme against society/religion/order/family values/etc.) G, U and Y are extremely close together and already form a constantly used word. Searching guy agenda has no immediate results with that term- only the "gay agenda". I conclude that this is the most plausible explanation. TheAtheistComrade (talk) 12:52, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

I need to clean my glasses. I read one of those as the goy agenda. Oy veh! Spud (talk)

Don't you mean the G0y agenda? TheAtheistComrade (talk) 13:24, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

I think she's probably quite sane but a money-grubbing scumbag taking the gullible for a ride.

Генгис^{Is the Pope a Catholic?}

09:14, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

For a second there I thought you were talking about Tammy/Jimmy Bakker. \<.<\ />.>/

Lotto[edit]

Not a maths sorta guy but:
UK lotto (15 Aug):

3 numbers prize = £25

4 numbers prize = £89

BUT

perm any 3 from 4:

123
124
134
234

: there are 4 different lots of three numbers in four numbers, ∴ the four number prize should be at least four times the three number prize, i.e. £100. Amiright? Scream!! (talk) 22:06, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

Lotteries are a tax on people who are bad at math. In Vegas, the more hard core casinos advertise the payback of their slots, and some claim to pay out 98% or more. In government lotteries, the vigorish is much higher, and the house's cut is often 50% or more. So no, it's not surprising. The three number game may be fairer than the four number game, but you won't make money playing either. - Smerdis of Tlön, ^{LOAD "*", 8, 1.} 00:04, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

True, although it's worth noting that the gambling is not the only source of income provided by gambling at casinos. Walker Walker Walker 03:11, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

Also, Scream isn't right. First of all, let's talk about an imaginary world where you're being rewarded directly for the odds of your "feat" in guessing randomly generated numbers. In that world the 4 number prize is almost 20 times larger than the prize for only getting 3 numbers right and a Jackport would be about £6M every draw.

So, that's clearly not what's going on with the UK National Lottery. Instead there are three distinct categories of winner. First of all, they add up all the money paid for tickets. Most of it (just over half) goes away. That's not coming back, not to you, not to anyone who entered the lottery. If you want that money then you need to run a lottery, not enter one. But about 47% becomes the "prize pool". All the £25 wins come out of that pool immediately, regardless of its size. What's left is shared out to the other two categories of winner in a fixed ratio. If few people play but lots win, you don't get much. If many play but few win, you get a lot of money. About a third goes to people with four or five numbers (and perhaps the "bonus ball") split evenly among them based on how many won. The Jackpot winner gets the rest. However, if nobody wins the Jackpot, that money is put to one side (the first few times) to make the next Jackpot even bigger. No other prize category keeps "roll over" money in this way. This is because Lotteries prey on stupid people, so headline amounts are much more important than an equitable split of prizes because stupid people mistakenly judge rewards based on outlier headlines. Smart people aren't going to enter a lottery anyway, so it doesn't matter what they think. Tialaramex (talk) 14:14, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

I hear some people saying that it's a bit of fun. As games go, the buy-a-piece-of-paper game has to be one of the least fun, unless I'm missing something. Fonzie (talk) 18:48, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

In these parts the lottery is used to fund sports bodies and charities and the like. I think of my occasional participation as a generalized donation.......although as a group they would be better off if I donated directly to any one of them!!--Aloysius the Gaul (talk) 23:37, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

The UK National Lottery was specifically told they weren't allowed to claim or imply that a lottery ticket was like a charitable donation - David Gerard (talk) 09:36, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

... Sanity? What is a country with sanity like to live in? ikanreed ^{You probably didn't deserve that} 12:48, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

Sanity would have been awarding the National Lottery to Richard Branson's consortium, which was bidding on the basis of running it as a non-profit enterprise, giving much more to charity. Actually the chances of a 3-ball match are 0.0104 and a 4-ball match 0.000459. So the 'fair' payout for a 4-ball match in proportion to the 3-ball prize would be £566. Queex _{chthonic murmurings} 13:01, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

So there's still a country out there that has any sanity left? I mean, what is it like?

Conservapedia on Goats[edit]

Did anybody know Conservapedia has an article on goats? "Wild goats are usually found in mountain habitats, their agility enabling them to leap from rock to rock, and a subunquis inner layer of the hoof acting as a shock absorber and sure-footed grip on rocky terrain(...)" makes them sound quite badass. TheAtheistComrade (talk) 22:00, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

So there's a lone rose growing on the pile of dung that is Conservapedia?--Arisboch ☞✍☜☞✉☜ 22:01, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

I just made an account and decided to look around. The goat page is protected to prevent "vandalism" and normal editors (even those who make an account) can't even touch it. Lol. The funny thing is, looking through the history shows very few edits and no vandalism whatsoever- paranoia. TheAtheistComrade (talk) 22:04, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

I'm sure, that Andy knows how the RW is thinking about goats and thought, that RW users gonna troll him on this page a lil.--Arisboch ☞✍☜☞✉☜ 22:08, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

I don't know if Conservapedians know that much about rational wiki- I mean surely they get it in search results occasionally due to the subjects they have interest in and the fact it's basically a backlash but I doubt they would care that much about "liberal bias". Maybe they're just scared of the goat. They have one on the (obviously) inferior Long-eared Jerboa which is editable. TheAtheistComrade (talk) 22:16, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

You know what gets my goat? When people write about Conservapedia here in the Bar instead of in the place where such talk belongs. Spud (talk) 05:35, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

In Soviet Russia, goat gets YOU!!--Arisboch ☞✍☜☞✉☜ 15:25, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

My recollection is that the page was deleted and made anew instead of restored, so you aren't necessarily seeing the whole history. Walker Walker Walker 19:35, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

Also last I checked that article said goats were domesticated ~8k years ago. It's a more or less YECcer wiki. See the issue? 104.5.9.13 (talk) 15:23, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

8,000 years? Are they trying to date goat domestication to the time of the Bible? Or am I wrong? Zexcoiler Kingbolt (talk) 21:21, 21 August 2015 (UTC)Zexcoiler Kingbolt

Longer ago than that. The universe is only 6,000 years old. So goats were domesticated fully 2,000 before God even created them. Spud (talk) 05:38, 22 August 2015 (UTC)

How to deal with an omniscient god[edit]

(NSFW)Scream!! (talk) 23:44, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

Uhh, what? I'm very scaredZexcoiler Kingbolt (talk) 23:57, 19 August 2015 (UTC)ZK

Gotta love some oglaf. --"Paravant" ^{Talk & Contribs} 00:56, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

Sithrak's gonna get you for that one. Not that you have a choice. - Smerdis of Tlön, ^{LOAD "*", 8, 1.} 01:54, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

So you've heard the Bad News contained in the Book of Dismay? Pay no heed to scurrilous heresies claiming it was just 'teen poetry'. Queex _{chthonic murmurings} 13:21, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

Exactly how's it NSFW? Just trying to decide whether I should risk clicking it. 142.124.55.236 (talk) 05:00, 20 August 42015 AQD (UTC)

Gay sex.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 05:17, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

Lots of gay sex. So much gay sex. Narky Sawtooth

(Nyar~) 06:19, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

Okay. >.> 142.124.55.236 (talk) 06:34, 20 August 42015 AQD (UTC)

Also slug sex.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 06:44, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

Oglaf is a great comic. ikanreed ^{You probably didn't deserve that} 12:49, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

Stem Cell Dental Implants[edit]

I've got a friend who keeps touting this as being a thing. Is there anyone who knows anything about this "technique"? Advice on where I could look to vet? --Castaigne (talk) 14:18, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

It's a thing, with a few different versions, but as I understand it the technique is still in very early research stages. This seems like an advance of the technique that uses something similar to bone morphagenic(sp) protein. It's hard to say how to vet new techniques than to see where they are published and researched at this point. -EmeraldCityWanderer (talk) 14:30, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

Yisrael, Yesha and yawnfully repetitive discussions[edit]

So, as those who look at RecentChanges regularly might've noticed, there's been something of a conflict dispute over what our article on Zionism should and should not say. It's an important and interesting subject, so I thought it'd be useful to bring this before the community. What should RationalWiki's stance on this issue be? I hope we might reach some sort of consensus at the end of all this. 142.124.55.236 (talk) 16:12, 20 August 42015 AQD (UTC)

On a related but rather unimportant note, I just found out people pronounce it as Iz-ray-l or Iz-ree-l in English. >.> 142.124.55.236 (talk) 17:54, 20 August 42015 AQD (UTC)

Israel has a right to exist, but so does Palestine. Israel cannot use past historical claims/irredentism (Germany argued that it was okay to conquer Eastern Europe and oppress the Slavs because the had a historical tie to the areas in the 7th century) to deny Palestinian sovereignty and rights in the West Bank through settlements, and vice versa. 2 states on the 67 borders is the ideal solution. We should not be endorsing colonialism on the basis of everyone doing it. ChrisAmiss (talk) 17:57, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

The Balfour declaration:

“”"His Majesty's Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country."

—(my emphasis)

I know it was 1917, but Britain gets blamed/praised for it quite often. Israel are not abiding by the spirit of this letter. In fact they're shitting all over it. Scream!! (talk) 18:28, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

~~The political rights being... paying the Sultan monehz. Cool. Walker Walker Walker 18:58, 20 August 2015 (UTC)~~

There we go. The first intellectually dishonest post of the section. :) 142.124.55.236 (talk) 19:41, 20 August 42015 AQD (UTC)

~~...it is dated shortly prior to the British conquest, isn't it? Or am I backwards? Walker Walker Walker 19:44, 20 August 2015 (UTC)~~

On Israel, I have little knowledge, I agree with ChrisAmiss that both countries have a right to exist, and that neither should be able to take land or rights from each other based on ancestry or history. In other news, putting a smily face after a negative comment is possibly the most annoyingly stupid shit I can think of. Fuck you for doing that. I have no opinion on the rest of your comment. Σigma (talk) 20:37, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

If you'd seen the masses of intellectual dishonesty at Talk:Zionism, you'd be cynically smiling along with me. Believe me. 142.124.55.236 (talk) 20:39, 20 August 42015 AQD (UTC)

It's worth noting that even the Wikipedia page on Zionism is incredibly controversial—a quick check of their article's talk page reveals a whopping 15 archives over 12 years, as well an ArbCom ruling created specifically to minimize fighting over it and other articles dealing with the Arab-Israeli conflict. So we're not going to be able to avoid controversy ourselves, it'll just be on a smaller scale. (And for the record, I am Jewish and have a very strong opinion about this subject, but I think it's for the best if I hold off and see what other people have to say).

Radioactive afikomen ^{Please ignore all my awful pre-2014 comments.} 20:09, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

I'm always uneasy with appeals to the Balfour Declaration, as they beg the question of the legitimacy of British imperialism -- who were the British to have a say in who has sovereignty over territory several thousand miles from London? Peace. AgingHippie (talk) 20:31, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

My general take on the business was that the Jews lost any claim to that particular bit of territory when they repeatedly annoyed the superior Hellenistic and Roman civilizations. In some sense the Maccabees and the guys at Masada were the Middle Eastern terrorists of their day, and the armies of Antiochus IV and Vespasian are us.

What Israel is today is a failed social experiment and a failed state. It was started with the best of intentions, and supported by genuine horror at the Holocaust. But it wants to simultaneously be democratic, Jewish, and keep all of the territory it now occupies, and it can't do all three of those things at once.

I certainly don't hate Jews, not just for being Jews. It would be better for everyone if there were more Jews here and fewer over there. But Jews ought to be strongly discouraged from settling in Israel, and current Israeli Jews should be given every encouragement to leave Israel and return to the Americas or Europe. The policy I would favor would involve the winding down of Israel as something that we now know cannot achieve the ends it tried to achieve. Jews will never be able to live in peace in Israel, and the Middle East can know no peace so long as Israel is there. - Smerdis of Tlön, ^{LOAD "*", 8, 1.} 20:52, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

The Middle East knew no peace even before there was even a notion of any kind of Israel, also, the shooting war now has not much to do with Israel and no, the Jews won't leave Israel, you saw what not having a state was like. Israel is on the map to stay and fuck the Hellenistic and Roman civilizations, they're gone and we're still there.--Arisboch ☞✍☜☞✉☜ 21:04, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

I realize that Israel is there to stay for the foreseeable future and that the insight that it's a failed social experiment will likely be long in coming. What seems more achievable in the short term is the revival of the USA's traditional foreign policy of disengagement from the Old World's tribal conflicts. I would cut them off without a penny and stop selling them weapons and earth-moving equipment. - Smerdis of Tlön, ^{LOAD "*", 8, 1.} 22:16, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

Yeah, 'cause sticking your head in the sand and hanging your allies to dry is such a gooooooood idea</sarcasm>.--Arisboch ☞✍☜☞✉☜ 22:23, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

If your allies are doing this sort of thing it sounds like an idea. Scream!! (talk) 23:56, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

Building stuff without a building permit is rather frowned up.--Arisboch ☞✍☜☞✉☜ 23:59, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

If someone could explain to me exactly what benefits we here in the United States get from our joined at the hip relationship with Israel, and how they more than compensate us for the grief we get from the Muslim world over it, I might be inclined to change my mind. All I know is that I am weary of the wars of Israel. Especially given their "let's you and him fight" act on Iran. - Smerdis of Tlön, ^{LOAD "*", 8, 1.} 00:47, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

Whatever else one may say about the nuclear deal, I took some joy in watching Netanyahu squirm and scream bloody murder about it like a spoiled child. I wouldn't want him to be the leader of a one-man Indian tribe, and I can't for the life of me figure out what appeal such a corrupt degenerate excuse for a prime minister has. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 01:17, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

His English is pretty good for a non-native speaker. Avengerofthe BoN (talk) 01:19, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

Yeah, if you remember, that e.g. Eli Yishai speaks no English at all, even though he was a minister quite a few times (I met him in the Dvar Yerushalayim yeshiva coupla times when I was staying in Israel for something you can call soul searching).--Arisboch ☞✍☜☞✉☜ 01:29, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

I don't think that politics of the Greeco-Roman times should dictate what is done now, and neither should the politics surrounding Israel's creation. Using history to justify disrupting people's lives is the same logic that led to the conflict in the first place.TheriziπosaurusG (talk) 00:29, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

Basically what has to happen is what happened with Northern Ireland; people on both sides need to realize that blowing each other to smithereens isn't accomplishing anything, and then figure out where to go from there. I don't see it happening anytime soon, but if it ever does I get the sense (whether right or wrong) the Israelis will need to make the first move. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 00:30, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

I will try to raise a point that has not been significantly addressed thus far and try to divorce my opinion from it. This will be hard but here comes... Many people agree (including moderate Israeli and Palestinian politicians) that a durable solution to the conflict would include some borders based on the 1967 lines with one (or more) states for some Palestinian entity and one state for Israel. Almost all realistic peace proposals further agree that there is a big need for a guarantee of some kind of Israeli security. In short this can be summed up as land for peace. Minor issues that sometimes complicate the thing include the question of what to do with people that left their homes in 1948 or 1967 and their descendants and what to do about the holy sites, but I think neither of those minor issues would stand in the way of a compromise that deals with the points I mentioned first. This does beg the question if a conflict has been going on for so long and has never had anything but the full attention of most of the world, why is there no solution - whose broad outlines we already know - in sight? This is an honest question because I think in the answer to that question may be the solution of this whole mess. Avengerofthe BoN (talk) 00:44, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

The question wasn't "How do you think the Israeli-Palestine issue should be resolved?"[edit]

While certainly an interesting question, the specific issue at hand is what content should go in our article on Zionism. Don't let me stop you from continuing the previous discussion, but could we also talk about the specific issue of the Zionism article? 142.124.55.236 (talk) 08:20, 21 August 42015 AQD (UTC)

Sure. Go ahead and add a subsection on that, please. Avengerofthe BoN (talk) 10:41, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

I already did. *points slightly above this line of text* 142.124.55.236 (talk) 12:19, 21 August 42015 AQD (UTC)

The answer is nothing. Because Zionism is so barely tangentially related to anything of actual relevance to RationalWiki's mission. If there are parts of the Zionism article that involve debunking crackpot claims or religious fundamentalism, then we should focus specifically on those parts and cut everything else. We are not a shitty Wikipedia.

Radioactive afikomen ^{Please ignore all my awful pre-2014 comments.} 20:08, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

That seems like a rather odd assertion. It relates to religious beliefs and is used to justify the displacement and oppression of an ethnic group, surely it's missional? 142.124.55.236 (talk) 20:36, 21 August 42015 AQD (UTC)

I don't disagree that there should be a more detailed treatment and debunking of Zionism-related crackpot claims, however. 142.124.55.236 (talk) 20:39, 21 August 42015 AQD (UTC)

I meant creating this subheading on talk:Zionism Avengerofthe BoN (talk) 14:19, 22 August 2015 (UTC)

*facepalm* Did you.. do you really.. no, never mind. Let's just move on from that silly suggestion. 142.124.55.236 (talk) 14:22, 22 August 42015 AQD (UTC)

ze coop case, please do the relevant[edit]

RationalWiki:Chicken_coop#RESOLUTION: - and if so-far-uninvolved editors could watchlist it and help sort out the BS, that would probably actually help in this case - David Gerard (talk) 20:38, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

Debate space[edit]

Perhaps this section could be hived off into a debate space? That way we can confine the discussion to a debate page and the talk page of the article in question.--Bob ^{"I think you'll find it's more complicated than that."} 21:29, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

Confine the discussion to yet another page most people pay no attention to? Are you trying to create a Talk:Zionism 2.0? >.> 142.124.55.236 (talk) 22:03, 21 August 42015 AQD (UTC)

The coop case's gonna mutate into Talk:Zionism 2.0 any time now or did so already.--Arisboch ☞✍☜☞✉☜ 21:42, 22 August 2015 (UTC)

Whatever it mutated into, it's been archived for several hours now. 142.124.55.236 (talk) 21:46, 22 August 42015 AQD (UTC)

I didn't knew that (I wasn't checking up anything up until coupla minutes ago since about a day).--Arisboch ☞✍☜☞✉☜ 21:48, 22 August 2015 (UTC)

Tagging[edit]

In another wiki I edit on (no, not WP, though I have on occasion put a comma here or there) you can "tag" people by posting their Username like this: User:Avengerofthe BoN - this results in said user getting a notification and is imho a good way to draw attention to something. Could we enable this at least as an optional feature that you can switch on getting a notification after being tagged? Avengerofthe BoN (talk) 23:45, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

I kinda agree with you to some degree, but I worry. That feature might get abused. Avengerofthe BoN Zexcoiler Kingbolt (talk) 00:24, 21 August 2015 (UTC)Zexcoiler Kingbolt

The talk pages get abused all the fucking time and we were able to dealwiddit.--Arisboch ☞✍☜☞✉☜ 00:26, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

Well the "special" culture of this wiki might lead to that (which might in turn lead to bans being handled out left and right) which is why I propose it to be (at first at least) something users can "switch off" if they so wish. They could still be tagged from here to Chongqing, but they would not get any notification about it; if y'all catch my drift. Avengerofthe BoN (talk) 00:47, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

Oh, well that makes more sense. Thanks for clarifying. I'm a fucktard for not asking earlier...oh well. Zexcoiler Kingbolt (talk) 03:41, 21 August 2015 (UTC)Zexcoiler Kingbolt

The "special" culture of bitching about other users rather than addressing problems with them directly doesn't seem likely to go away anytime soon & won't be helped by a feature that people only use when they want to. If you do want somebody to know they're being talked about, it only takes a moment to drop a message on their user talk page. Wẽãšẽĩõĩď

^{Methinks it is a Weasel} 07:50, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

Sure but this is more complicated. Over at (other wiki I am active at) you can just tag the users you think might be interested in a discussion (this may even be done when starting the discussion) and don't have to go through the tedious process to post on everybody's talk page and link to the issue at hand. In short I see more than one major upside and no possible downside, especially not if the feature be made optional Avengerofthe BoN (talk) 10:45, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

Linking a bunch of people's usernames doesn't sound a whole lot less tedious than copypasting a small message on a couple users' talkpages. The latter also has the added benefit of not littering discussions with superfluous mentions of people's usernames. 142.124.55.236 (talk) 12:23, 21 August 42015 AQD (UTC)

It's also generally unnecessary since users tend to use their watch list to keep track of pages they have a stake in. Wèàšèìòìď

^{Methinks it is a Weasel} 12:44, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘@Avengerofthe BoN Did this work? Zero ^{(talk - contributions)} 22:16, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

@Zero Did this? Sir ℱ℧ℤℤϒℂᗩℑᑭƠℑᗩℑƠ (talk/stalk) 23:39, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

Negative. I think we're too many mediawiki versions behind to use this feature. Zero ^{(talk - contributions)} 23:43, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

Nope it did not work. As an aside, I don't keep the saloon bar in my watchlist as quite a lot of the discussions over here do not interest me all that much and I don't want to have a Watchlist that is too cluttered. This might be a very good use indeed of tagging if (when) it ever gets implemented... Avengerofthe BoN (talk) 00:02, 22 August 2015 (UTC)

I think we're too many mediawiki versions behind to use this feature. HEY DAVID, HOW'S RATIONALBETA GOING?! ^_^ FuzzyCatPotato!™ (talk/stalk) 00:05, 22 August 2015 (UTC)

"An up to date RW is not a world i desire to live in!" - David, from his cave in the wilderness | --"Paravant" ^{Talk & Contribs} 03:53, 22 August 2015 (UTC)

That's not the wilderness per se, just that funny blob north of France. Quite a silly place. Walker Walker Walker 03:45, 22 August 2015 (UTC)

That foggy island in the middle of the Atlantic that calls the wrong sport "Football"? Avengerofthe BoN (talk) 14:20, 22 August 2015 (UTC)

North America? 142.124.55.236 (talk) 21:50, 22 August 42015 AQD (UTC)

Since when is North America an island? Avengerofthe BoN (talk) 21:12, 23 August 2015 (UTC)

Since it became a piece of land surrounded by water. Σigma (talk) 21:02, 25 August 2015 (UTC)

Actually, North America is part of the super-island Americas.--Arisboch ☞✍☜☞✉☜ ∈)☼(∋ 21:05, 25 August 2015 (UTC)

Template:Outdet(le conflict du edit) That makes every piece of land an island. As to the issue, what about tagging? Avengerofthe BoN (talk) 21:06, 25 August 2015 (UTC)

Tagging? My goodness, David has been saying stuff about RationalBeta or something like that as a testing ground for newer versions of the Mediawiki software, but I didn't hear anything on that front ever since. There is so much stuff RationalWiki's software is behind in, my head starts to spin (and the main problem is not the tagging, but the bugfixes and the mobile view).--Arisboch ☞✍☜☞✉☜ ∈)☼(∋ 21:10, 25 August 2015 (UTC)

Creation Research Society[edit]

I have an idea for an edit- have a new section and title it "Affiliations with religious colleges". There are several YEC schools that are involved with the group.--Rationalzombie94 (talk) 02:51, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

Can I help out? I think Liberty and Pensacola Christian are involved... Zexcoiler Kingbolt (talk) 03:08, 21 August 2015 (UTC)Zexcoiler Kingbolt

Go right ahead, I will try to find material--Rationalzombie94 (talk) 12:49, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

Here is some links that mention the CRS-

https://www.cedarville.edu/Academics/Science-and-Mathematics/Geology-and-Geoscience/Faculty-Publications.aspx There are mentions of the CRS is publications section
https://www.creationresearch.org/index.php/about-crs/board-of-directors- Two of the board members are also faculty at BJU
http://www.bju.edu/academics/faculty/facultymember.php?id=bhill

Sadly I did not find much but from what I have got, schools like Bob Jones University, Pensacola Christian College, Liberty University, Cedarville University, Loma Linda University train students to work for the CRS.--Rationalzombie94 (talk) 13:51, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

Cool. I'll do more research on those programs on Liberty, Pensacola C.C., and Loma Linda. Zexcoiler Kingbolt (talk) 17:02, 21 August 2015 (UTC)Zexcoiler Kingbolt

I think Loma Linda is nearby so I'll see if I can at least pick up some pamphlets on the CRS there. Zexcoiler Kingbolt (talk) 20:09, 21 August 2015 (UTC)Zexcoiler Kingbolt

Essay Help, Ideas, and Tips[edit]

How do I actually create an Essay on the Personal Stories page? I'm new here so I have no idea about how wikis work at all. What I propose is doing a collection of different perspectives on life. So my story as a Mexican-American atheist in the West Coast is one part of the collection, and someone else can go and write their story if they're, say, a French Muslim in Russia or a Brazillian Jew living in the state of Mississippi. If anyone is interested, well, just say so. I just need help on this sort of thing. So can I get some help please? Zexcoiler Kingbolt (talk) 03:39, 21 August 2015 (UTC)Zexcoiler Kingbolt

Same here. ~~I ended up here looking for the place to post essays.~~ It turns out, it's here -> http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Category:Essays. It was hiding in plain site on the home page. InfinitelySingular 18:19, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

Dammit, I was on Personal Stories. Thanks InfinitelySingular Zexcoiler Kingbolt (talk) 18:57, 21 August 2015 (UTC)Zexcoiler Kingbolt

Armoured Skeptic[edit]

Armoured Sceptic has criticised his write up at RationalWiki:Vlogroll in this video [[6]] skip to 9:25s. I don't think he's mentioned gamergate on his channel and the conspiracy thing seems to be a stretch. Grim23 (talk) 16:58, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

What are his specific criticisms? --Castaigne (talk) 17:13, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

He takes issue with being put on Controversial secularists list as opposed to the Pro-Rationalism Campaigners list. He says he's "not involved in Gamergate" and something about a Joss Whedon conspiracy. Grim23 (talk) 17:37, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

Did he just come up with a Joss Whedon conospiracy? No wonder he's not on Pro-Rationalism Campaigners.

The former is wrong because of a twitter conversation I had with him and the latter is basically the nonsense of "Joss Whedon left twitter because of feminists". I was the one who put him on that list. Zero ^{(talk - contributions)} 18:51, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

And according his latest video, he worked with Sargon of Akkad on...something. Whatever. Zero ^{(talk - contributions)} 19:44, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

His updated entry is pretty justified. The one before was laughable. FuzzyCatPotato!™ (talk/stalk) 00:06, 22 August 2015 (UTC)

Can we expect one (or more) new users inspired by his (rather recent) video to suddenly appear and make a huge fuss? Avengerofthe BoN (talk) 00:28, 22 August 2015 (UTC)

Yeaahhh...I'm gonna have to play janitor here. While criticisms of AS and TBR may be valid, having a few controversial videos does not equal being controversial. Thunderf00t and TAA deserve their spot, not those two. Come back when you have better reasons for classifying them as controversial than "I disagree with them". Master Necromancer^{What is dead may never die} 03:19, 22 August 2015 (UTC)

Erm... it doesn't? While having only some few controversies to one's name might make one less controversial, it hardly seems right to call him pro-rationalism unconditionally. Walker Walker Walker 03:27, 22 August 2015 (UTC)

I wasn't saying we advocate his as pro-rationalist. It's just dishonest to say AS is "controversial" when he's not. Hence the switch. Don't like it? Too bad. Evidence or GTFO. Master Necromancer^{What is dead may never die} 03:36, 22 August 2015 (UTC)

You admit (above) he has made controversial videos; proceeding on that premise, he is therefore a subject of controversy. Walker Walker Walker 03:38, 22 August 2015 (UTC)

Sorry, correction: He made videos on a controversial subject. If we're going by who's controversial, AronRa should also be on the list, because there's been debate as to whether he goes too far on his claims about the bible. As I said, find me any evidence of actual controversy surrounding them and I will be glad to switch them back. Master Necromancer^{What is dead may never die} 09:30, 22 August 2015 (UTC)

How about a third category? Or subdividing the "controversial secularists" by the reason they are controversial? If I got the comments on the youtube video in question right (it is always good to actually hear the guy out) most of them are either connected to each other and/or to the Amazing Atheist and share at least some of his views on - say - feminism. And no, I am not getting into this whole other snafu... Avengerofthe BoN (talk) 14:24, 22 August 2015 (UTC)

I like AS's anti-creationist stuff, but he is way less neutral on the subject of feminism than he lets on. And I don't really feel like he's practicing what he preaches about not writing of viewpoints that differ from yours or criticize someone you look up to. And while I think he made a fair point about the content of the descriptions, & am glad to see them updated, the fixation on how many videos of his are controversial is a non sequitur.67.234.54.93 (talk) 02:00, 26 August 2015 (UTC)

A quick check of his timeline and he's defending TJ - so he has at least some blind spots wrt rationalism. Found this gem: "She'd definitely lose. Her mouth can take three dicks max." Clearly no issues there at all. Queex _{chthonic murmurings} 09:57, 26 August 2015 (UTC)

On Failbook? I don't see them, but honestly, I can't say it would surprise me at this point. Which is weird, because I'm pretty sure I recall him saying he finds Thunderf00t sexist & I know he doesn't like Amazing Atheist.67.234.54.93 (talk) 05:21, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

Article for false rape accusations.[edit]

Given how a lot of crank ideas surround it, with your help I would like to create a balanced article for false rape accustions. I'm going to need a lot of Sysops to help play janitor on it though. Master Necromancer^{What is dead may never die} 02:22, 22 August 2015 (UTC)

Oh, oh! Can I help out? I can do something about the perspective on rape/false rape in Latin America. Zexcoiler Kingbolt (talk) 02:41, 22 August 2015 (UTC)Zexcoiler Kingbolt

Sure thing. Just please make sure any claims are reliably sourced. Unsourced claims make us look bad. Master Necromancer^{What is dead may never die} 02:48, 22 August 2015 (UTC)

Okay, I'll make sure to find some sources. Zexcoiler Kingbolt (talk) 03:17, 22 August 2015 (UTC)Zexcoiler Kingbolt

I don't know that I'll have time to contribute much (I'm busy with another topic), but this is an area in which I'm somewhat informed and hold somewhat unique views.---Mona- (talk) 23:27, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

Articles in Spanish[edit]

I'm thinking of porting over/translating as many articles as possible to Spanish so that the growing Spanish-speaking audience can understand the RW mission better. Anyone want in? It could start out with using Google Translate to put out a rough starting base and going from there, fixing errors in punctuation, grammar, spelling, and the like. We can do this for as many articles possible as it takes. As I said earlier, anyone want in? Zexcoiler Kingbolt (talk) 02:46, 22 August 2015 (UTC)Zexcoiler Kingbolt

I think i'm weary of hosting on RW other languages if it's going to be a dedicated effort with a lot of articles - a community that can't speak english is somewhat useless to a english wiki (and we can hardly service them either when the articles aren't enough) but one that has it's own RW - affilliated place (like that russian site we have) seems more useful to everybody.--"Paravant" ^{Talk & Contribs} 02:49, 22 August 2015 (UTC)

We can ask Trent or David if they're willing to set up a dedicated Spanish subdomain of RationalWiki.

Radioactive afikomen ^{Please ignore all my awful pre-2014 comments.} 02:55, 22 August 2015 (UTC)

That sounds pretty great, too. I was just curious because a) the Spanish language world is one of the largest, and b) that in the Latin American nations, there is a lot of creationist/conservative rhetoric that influences most of daily life there. Let's just say that when your own ethnic homeland brutally murdered hundreds of student protesters during a Dirty War, you might want to rethink the effectiveness of the dominance of conservative policies in the government. Zexcoiler Kingbolt (talk) 03:18, 22 August 2015 (UTC)Zexcoiler Kingbolt

I will inevitably make a few minor edits to any newly created pages in Spanish. In the unlikely event that a new Spanish only version of RationalWiki is set up, I'll register there too. Spud (talk) 05:31, 22 August 2015 (UTC)

Google Translating a pile of English articles strikes me as a terrible idea. If someone wants to write skeptical stuff in Spanish that'd be great. We usually do it by putting them in mainspace with a suitable category - see the French articles for examples.

Main thing is having more than one person interested - see the recent kerfuffle with the Portuguese articles that turned out to be self-promotional complete shit - David Gerard (talk) 09:47, 22 August 2015 (UTC)

I'd go along with that. Leave machine translation out of it. Well, I see that, apart from me, the category Hablantes de espaňol includes six other people and one template. Unfortunately, only one of those six other people has edited here in donkeys years. Still, I can promise you that nobody will post self-promotional complete shit (or Jew baiting) in Spanish while I'm around. Spud (talk) 12:15, 22 August 2015 (UTC)

What Gerard said. Remember the last time a noob showed up and started writing articles in a language other than English and we had to go through the wiki and delete a bunch of off-topic stuff, articles based on personal crankish grudges, and anti-semitic passages written in Portuguese? Unless a serious number of established editors who are proficient readers of a language will commit to monitoring this, it's a bad idea. Peace. AgingHippie (talk) 16:45, 22 August 2015 (UTC)

judgementally wags finger[edit]

I think it's pretty disappointing how the main reasons cited in favour of resolving this issue over here were "this is embarrassing, hide it away in the archives already" and "this is ugly, get this out of my sight!" Meanwhile there was very little talk about actually addressing any problems. Sadly, I can't say I'm surprised. Also, while I do apologize for being the arrogant moralist in the ~~room~~ bar, I thought this was something that should be brought up, and since no one else was gonna do it... 142.124.55.236 (talk) 09:57, 22 August 42015 AQD (UTC)

I think there were some editors who just thought this should never have been a coop case to begin with. Most of what was discussed there could have been dealt with on the article talk page. --TheroadtoWiganPier (talk) 10:41, 22 August 2015 (UTC)

Maybe it could have (it probably should have), but despite oblong discussions (interspersed with repeated derailings, trollish BS and petty quips) it didn't. The whole reason why the issue spilled over into the coop was because there was a lack of sane non-trollish voices to oppose all the bullshit. Admittedly there were a few people that tried to involve themselves in the discussion, but their points mostly amounted to superficial "you damn kids are making too much of a ruckus, be quiet" arguments (and for some reason seemed to focus mainly on pointing out Mona's argumentativeness and the fact Chris often writes sizable blocks of text, leaving much of the actual bullshit largely unaddressed). So maybe when an issue does spill over, perhaps the best way to react is not "quick, wipe it underneath the carpet". 142.124.55.236 (talk) 11:51, 22 August 42015 AQD (UTC)

This reminds me of when people were arguing "this is a fucking ugly issue, let's cut the article back as much as possible to minimize the ugly shit there is to look at" in regards to the Gamergate article. Using that same retarded reasoning, you could argue for the deletion of most of the wiki, because it's about ugly issues. 142.124.55.236 (talk) 13:12, 22 August 42015 AQD (UTC)

Embarrassed about being a member of the RW community, that's stage 2 of being an editor. I'm sorry son, it's terminal. Tielec01 (talk) 14:22, 22 August 2015 (UTC)

I'm hoping to genetically engineer a stage 3 where we all stop being assholes and start taking the debunking of bullshit more seriously. 142.124.55.236 (talk) 14:26, 22 August 42015 AQD (UTC)

Yeah I also think the coop case was buried to fast (swept under the rug if you may) before there was actually any resolution of any issue Avengerofthe BoN (talk) 14:31, 22 August 2015 (UTC)

Yeah, I hate to be the one that tells you, there's no stage 3, it stops at stage 2. It ends here... Tielec01 (talk) 14:37, 22 August 2015 (UTC)–

Bah, that's fatalism and an appeal to nature. There's no physical law or moral rule keeping us from engineering a stage 3. 142.124.55.236 (talk) 14:50, 22 August 42015 AQD (UTC)

That's just what an in denial stage 2-er would say right now.--"Paravant" ^{Talk & Contribs} 14:54, 22 August 2015 (UTC)

The next stage is LANCBing and when you return you go back one stage. Het is niet goed. I'm sorry, all the best humble BON, you were one of the best. Tielec01 (talk) 15:07, 22 August 2015 (UTC)

Ah, dang, now I got pulled into RW recurrent problem #2: humorous derailings when we're talking about serious issues. 142.124.55.236 (talk) 15:13, 22 August 42015 AQD (UTC)

If it makes you feel better you're right, this is one of a million issues that was buried quickly to stop everyone feeling uncomfortable about breaching the cardinal rule of RW. You're still only at stage 2. Tielec01 (talk) 15:18, 22 August 2015 (UTC)

What is the cardinal rule? All cardinals have to be shot on sight, lest they become pope? Avengerofthe BoN (talk) 15:22, 22 August 2015 (UTC)

No, it's that you should always keep smaller birds in mind when setting up a feeder. Walker Walker Walker 18:40, 22 August 2015 (UTC)

Basically it was at "Don't make me come over there" stage, where the mods would actually have to get together and decide something, and ain't nobody wants that (particularly mods: "what? I have to think about this idiocy?"), and a lot of it was stupid bullshit that should never have happened. Anyone who feels dissatisfied by the conclusion should try being less of an arsehole and see how it works out - David Gerard (talk) 16:58, 22 August 2015 (UTC)

I don't think you did anything particularly wrong in the resolution and archival process, but calling what happened a 'conclusion' is being rather generous. A sentiment expressed by many was that the issue and how some were dealing with it was blatantly stupid/ugly/embarrassing (I agree up to that point) and that it should therefore be quickly hushed away to then be swiftly forgotten about by anyone not involved in it. I think the latter part of that is very problematic. This proactive apathetic/dissociative sentiment is not conducive to the furthering of RW's goals. 142.124.55.236 (talk) 17:14, 22 August 42015 AQD (UTC)

Not actually dealing with the underlying issues is a well honored and oft-tested Rw tradition. --"Paravant" ^{Talk & Contribs} 17:28, 22 August 2015 (UTC)

Down with traditions! Viva la revolucion! 142.124.55.236 (talk) 17:33, 22 August 42015 AQD (UTC)

Let's break, archive this nonsense, and get back to debating the cranks. --"Paravant" ^{Talk & Contribs} 17:36, 22 August 2015 (UTC)

But arguing against crank ideas is something I'm already doing in this very section! 142.124.55.236 (talk) 17:49, 22 August 42015 AQD (UTC)

Zionism is not a crank idea. It might have been when Theodor Herzl came up with it (at least in the minds of other people), but if we say it like that the American Revolution was even crankier. Avengerofthe BoN (talk) 20:25, 22 August 2015 (UTC)

Hello Avenger! While I consider nationalism in general a pretty cranky category of ideas, I actually hadn't argued against Zionism—or even mentioned it by name—in this section so far, so that wasn't what I was referring to. 142.124.55.236 (talk) 20:28, 22 August 42015 AQD (UTC)

That awkward moment when... Walker Walker Walker 20:30, 22 August 2015 (UTC)

...One's dishonest biased tactics are laid bare? 142.124.55.236 (talk) 20:38, 22 August 42015 AQD (UTC)

I'd've worded it "one fails to read and presumes the evil anti-Zionists are busy spreading their Iranian propoganders," but you can say it that way. Walker Walker Walker 20:42, 22 August 2015 (UTC)

Well I may have misunderstood, we are a bit slow in (place I come from), so which crank ideas were you refuting if not Zionism. (which just to be absolutely clear is not a crank idea) Avengerofthe BoN (talk) 21:15, 23 August 2015 (UTC)

It was primarily an unnnecessary shitshow between two anti-Zionists - includes you - and a couple of people who disagree with you. Do not be surprised that people lost patience with your shenanigans so quickly. --Castaigne (talk) 22:43, 22 August 2015 (UTC)

Sure, that's a very objective non-opinionated presentation of events. And here I thought you were so big on facts, Castaigne. 142.124.55.236 (talk) 23:02, 22 August 42015 AQD (UTC)

Bah. Facts are inconvenient things. Walker Walker Walker 03:20, 23 August 2015 (UTC)

Facts have a well known atheist bias. Avengerofthe BoN (talk) 01:41, 25 August 2015 (UTC)

You make my point for me. ;) Walker Walker Walker 03:33, 25 August 2015 (UTC)

I HAVE RETURNED!!!![edit]

DUN DUN DUN!!!!!!! well im back from my summer absence, i just decided to take a break for the summer, but now im back! NOW SHOWER ME IN GLORY!!!! BWUHAHAHAHAH! Bubba41102 ^{Anonymous user is almost, but not quite, entirely unlike an editor} 18:54, 22 August 2015 (UTC)

I forgot you existed. ikanreed ^{You probably didn't deserve that} 19:07, 22 August 2015 (UTC)

Is this guy supposed to be important or something? Avengerofthe BoN (talk) 20:26, 22 August 2015 (UTC)

He's just a regular editor. No need to be overly dismissive nor overly reverent of him. 142.124.55.236 (talk) 21:25, 22 August 42015 AQD (UTC)

'sup.--Arisboch ☞✍☜☞✉☜ 21:45, 22 August 2015 (UTC)

on my part this was a terrible attempt at forced humor I posted a lot late April through May this year. Bubba41102 ^{Anonymous user is almost, but not quite, entirely unlike an editor} 21:56, 22 August 2015 (UTC)

Modern scientists have long since passed the power and strength afforded to your feeble god[edit]

The onion on GMOs ikanreed ^{You probably didn't deserve that} 19:11, 22 August 2015 (UTC)

Noted, prior. oʇɐʇoԀʇɐϽʎzznℲ (talk/stalk) 22:12, 22 August 2015 (UTC)

My first essay[edit]

Shameless plug (what did you expect me to link to, honestly?). My first essay is now fully written. I would love to engage y'all in a - hopefully civil and productive - discussion about something entirely unrelated to Zionism. Thanks. Avengerofthe BoN (talk) 22:09, 23 August 2015 (UTC)

I'd say instead of "terrorism", "DAESH, a couple less murderous oppressive regimes, and terrorist groups supported by any of these regimes" would be more accurate. I'm also skeptical of how big an effect raising the tax would really have. As Arisboch proposed on the talkpage, making everything fossil-fuel-free would be much more effective. 142.124.55.236 (talk) 22:21, 23 August 42015 AQD (UTC)

Sure that is the lofty end goal - getting rid of all fossil fuels. But we need a workable solution to get close to that lofty goal 'now. Also, I'd appreciate if you could discuss that at the essay talk page and not here, as I don't have the Saloon bar on my watchlist. Avengerofthe BoN (talk) 22:31, 23 August 2015 (UTC)

Given the US political landscape, widespread adoption of renewable energy might be likelier to happen than raising taxes. Queex _{chthonic murmurings} 09:58, 26 August 2015 (UTC)

Despite some renewable energies being "mature" enough to be cost-competitive right now, they will need some sort of subsidy / guaranteed loans / the likes for at least the next two years. And cars don't run on renewables. For the most part, cars run on gas. The percentage of electric cars is negligible and will remain so until and unless gas gets more expensive Avengerofthe BoN (talk) 11:04, 26 August 2015 (UTC)

The technicalities are sound, I just don't believe that the political landscape will support it, even if that turns out to be to the country's detriment. Queex _{chthonic murmurings} 21:48, 26 August 2015 (UTC)

I know. That's why I formulated my proposal in a way that would please the right wing. After all, who could ever be for terrorism? Avengerofthe BoN (talk) 15:21, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

My second essay[edit]

This one on constitutional amendment is now out. check it out Avengerofthe BoN (talk) 01:13, 26 August 2015 (UTC)

Of primaries and conventions[edit]

2017 Project puts out some stupid at times, but this caught my eye recently. It's one of the more interesting proposals for revamping presidential primaries that I've seen in a while, possibly because there aren't many beyond "make campaign season shorter somehow" and "it costs too much" and "holy shit Trump w0t" floating around that I've seen. Thoughts? Walker Walker Walker 09:03, 26 August 2015 (UTC)

A pretty sensible Republican nomination reform suggestion. Zexcoiler Kingbolt (talk) 04:28, 27 August 2015 (UTC)Zexcoiler Kingbolt

Well, compared to the rest of the site, it is fricking genius... Zexcoiler Kingbolt (talk) 04:42, 27 August 2015 (UTC)Zexcoiler Kingbolt

Peer reviews[edit]

Very many companies sell fantasies that their food produce are healthy or play down unhealthy aspects of their products. And some just might advertise with Wikia. I hope that’s not an issue. Wikia runs yet another wiki called, Healthy Recipes Wiki. How healthy are the ideas in that wiki?

Before spring 2015 the page on Sugar didn’t mention health problems with sugar at all though there were plenty of suggestions about cooking with sugar. I tried to put that right. Also previously the category for Dessert Recipes had no warnings about sugar being harmful. I tried to put that right. Then a webpage from Harvard University on Carbohydrates and the Glycemic Load was moved or went offline. I haven’t had big trouble with Wikia though a recipe appeared in June that, I felt needed a warning about sugar.

I also greatly expanded the coverage about Salt and health which I felt previously was far too brief.

Anyway the problem is I’m not a qualified dietician but I know the RationalWiki team does a great deal about food woo. I’m asking for peer review of the whole Healthy Recipes Wiki website and specially of my contributions. This is also at Talk:Food woo#Peer reviews. Proxima Centauri (talk) 12:47, 26 August 2015 (UTC)

UNICE global brain project[edit]

Wat. Why is RW mentioned? oʇɐʇoԀʇɐϽʎzznℲ (talk/stalk) 03:49, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

Well, apparently RationalWiki is a much better place to host its UNICE site over Wikipedia because "Wikipedia articles are required to be written in an often tedious, encyclopedic neutral point of view (NPOV), but RationalWiki allows original research, opinion and humor." Neato, I'd say. For a formal organization to choose this place is an honor. Zexcoiler Kingbolt (talk) 03:54, 27 August 2015 (UTC)Zexcoiler Kingbolt

Last I checked, your characterization was quite iffy, and someone got a bunch of pages speedied here a while back doing that. But my memory is not the best. Walker Walker Walker 04:08, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

Former Florida gubernatorial candidate, I think. Walker Walker Walker 04:09, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

RW is mentioned because the author twice tried to host it here after Wikipedia purged it from there. The first attempt was deleted as it was a straight copy of the (very soon after deleted) Wikipedia page while the second was removed as spam after some AfD discussion. WatcherIntheDark (talk) 04:10, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

From the Wikipedia page on former Florida gubernatorial candidate Michael E. Arth, "Arth founded the UNICE Global Brain Project in February 2015. UNICE is an acronym for Universal Network of Intelligent Conscious Entities, a term coined by Arth in the 1990s to describe the transformation of our species that might be the result of a new form of intelligent life developed from a hive-like interaction of computers, humans, and future forms of the Internet. Arth established the website www.UNICE.info in 2007. In a 2015 article, Arth further refined the concept to refer to the development of a public-policy answer-engine, which will involve both an independent web site (where cognitive-UNICE is being developed) and an existing public policy wiki at www.UNICEwiki.org. Arth has written a number of the seed topics on UNICEwiki, which are duplicated for collaborative topics that anyone can edit. Cognitive-UNICE will at first utilize Artificial Intelligence (AI) and later Artificial General Intelligence (AGI)." I'm a fuckwit. Zexcoiler Kingbolt (talk) 04:13, 27 August 2015 (UTC)Zexcoiler Kingbolt

For bonus points, actually scroll down to the references: ipse dixit, ipse dixit, ipse dixit, ipse dixit, look IBM is doing real things, and look! IBM is doing real things (that aren't actually tied to my project at all). Walker Walker Walker 04:17, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

Why IBM, though? Zexcoiler Kingbolt (talk) 04:18, 27 August 2015 (UTC)Zexcoiler Kingbolt

Wait, wouldn't UNICE fall under some sort of wingnut/pseudoscience woo type of category? Or is this actually sane science? Because one of the footnotes mentions the Science of Consciousness Studies Journal. Zexcoiler Kingbolt (talk) 04:21, 27 August 2015 (UTC)Zexcoiler Kingbolt

The citation is to their summary of a conference which... I know jack about. Uno momento. Walker Walker Walker 04:24, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

Real conference; he at least shared the room with actual science, philosophy, etc. (it's pretty specifically interdisciplinary). That said, I dug up his abstract. Some excerpts: "UNICE also refers to a cosmic Internet, or cosmic consciousness, that might already exist... If UNICE already exists... certain mystical states or spiritual practices (such as meditation or the use of psychedelics) might currently allow for fleeting glimpses of UNICE" and "Important decisions that govern all aspects of life could eventually be made almost automatically, without the involvement of physical bodies." Walker Walker Walker 04:34, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

Doesn't exactly sound like the type of guy to ramble on about science woo like a certain other medical professional... Zexcoiler Kingbolt (talk) 04:38, 27 August 2015 (UTC)Zexcoiler Kingbolt

You're right, I can hardly call this science woo given the lack of, well, ya know. Science. Walker Walker Walker 04:59, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

Bonus lulz: [7] Walker Walker Walker 04:59, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

Mr. Arth here seems to have a lot of articles across Wikipedia to spread his new form of urban design he's called w:New pedestrianism such as w:Out of the Woods (film), w:New Urban Cowboy: Toward a New Pedestrianism, and w:Democracy and the Common Wealth. He's even got people to translate his bio and pet projects into French, German, Spanish, Chinese, and Japanese. He even listed himself as a straight ally on the Japanese Wikipedia.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 10:43, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

Let's just hope he doesn't go batshit crazy. Or maybe yeah. It'd be worse with another one, but I'd like to see the stupid things he has to say. Zexcoiler Kingbolt (talk) 15:16, 27 August 2015 (UTC)Zexcoiler Kingbolt

You want to see stupid things he has to say? Look no further than what he said when I called his shit spam. "Keep Forever"! What a twat! Spud (talk) 15:31, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

Be careful for what you wish can apply to this situation right now... Zexcoiler Kingbolt (talk) 18:11, 27 August 2015 (UTC)Zexcoiler Kingbolt

I would've agreed with him on some level had his little pet project been a forum for actual, sane science that is concurrent with the RationalWiki Mission. Zexcoiler Kingbolt (talk) 18:20, 27 August 2015 (UTC)Zexcoiler Kingbolt

I'd be interesting in seeing his plan for an algorithm to analyze wikiedits in an attempt to discern truth... Though I'm not waiting up on its actual creation, horribly flawed or ~~not~~, tbh. Walker Walker Walker 14:49, 28 August 2015 (UTC)

Who's hungry?[edit]

—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 12:07, 29 August 2015 (UTC)

It was the maple bacon donuts that did it for me. (She'd only heard of this thing, so she got donuts and put bacon and maple syrup on them.) - David Gerard (talk) 13:39, 29 August 2015 (UTC)

What amazed me is that I've watched so much subtitled stuff with Japanese audio that I was able to understand about a fifth of what she was saying. Recognizing food names helped. OTOH, the problem with Japanese cuisine is that Japan is an island. This means that it is surrounded by the ocean on all sides. - Smerdis of Tlön, ^{LOAD "*", 8, 1.} 22:26, 29 August 2015 (UTC)

Wh-where does she put all that food? 142.124.55.236 (talk) 23:31, 29 August 42015 AQD (UTC)

If you watch the video I posted you can clearly see it's in her stomach. Also look at her go to town on this giant potsticker.

—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 01:15, 30 August 2015 (UTC)

I was watching another one of her videos and it turns out that when she overeats, while her stomach expands to fill up her whole abdomen, her body can't actually fully digest it all. And she gets by on other days by simply eating slowly and to where she's about 60% full, which she acquired the ability to do because she grew up poor.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 09:52, 30 August 2015 (UTC)

Parody of Vox Day as written by Theo Pratt and read by John Scalzi[edit]

Enjoy ClothCoat (talk) 22:53, 29 August 2015 (UTC)

Yet another coop case[edit]

And once again, it may or may not be related to User:-Mona- but is definitely related to Zionism... Check it out. Avengerofthe BoN (talk) 00:58, 30 August 2015 (UTC)

No need to post that in the saloon bar, Avenger. The users that like to comment on coop cases tend to have the page in their watchlist. Also, calling this a coop case is being rather generous. 142.124.55.236 (talk) 01:14, 30 August 42015 AQD (UTC)

Well there might be some that don't. The last coop case was mentioned here as well. Furthermore, what should I call it instead? Juan José? Avengerofthe BoN (talk) 01:17, 30 August 2015 (UTC)

Probably not enough headless chickens for the HCM?--Arisboch ☞✍☜☞✉☜ ∈)☼(∋ 01:18, 30 August 2015 (UTC)

The issue isn't a lack of headless chickens, it's that they're the ones making the 'case'. >.> 142.124.55.236 (talk) 01:20, 30 August 42015 AQD (UTC)

And it wasn't even amusing. Seriously, where the fuck is the humour guys? Walker Walker Walker 04:21, 30 August 2015 (UTC)

It was deemed a Zionist trait, and as we don't want to get into the claws of Mona and her ilk, we don't want to be accused of Zionism. Hence... Avengerofthe BoN (talk) 19:39, 30 August 2015 (UTC)

At this point you're blatantly being the problem - David Gerard (talk) 11:46, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

Definition of a Miracle: A conservative commentator sees the need for gun control.[edit]

Okay, so a week ago I came across an article by conservative columnist Michael Brendan Dougherty of The Week. While he's not jumping on board with the Brady Campaign, and he still has complete faith in the Second Amendment like any good conservative, he says in this article that after the on-air killings in Virginia, we can't ignore that our gun culture is fueling the volume of mass shootings.

Some points he makes (heavily paraphrased by yours truly):

1. An armed citizenry is not the same thing as an armed consumer base: Our gun culture has reduced guns to just another consumer good. It is the duty of a pro-gun society to ensure that gun owners are responsible and qualified to keep and bear arms. As it stands, we have a gun culture that markets overpowered "tacticool" hardware to angsty mall ninjas, and that's not healthy.

2. Our gun culture is one of the factors driving the militarization of our police force: Maybe our police wouldn't be so heavily armed, armored, and trigger-happy if they didn't have to engage in an arms race with the general population. There are other factors such as the War on Drugs and federally subsidized military equipment, but it cannot be denied that police have to assume that every person they pull over might be armed and dangerous.

3. It is entirely possible that Americans are more violent than people from other countries BECAUSE of all the guns: Ownership of a gun can make people envision themselves taking a life more easily, and may make it easier to perceive threats that would warrant the use of a firearm.

4. America leads the developed world in gun-related deaths, and that is embarrassing.

He does not support most of the traditional forms of gun control outside of a universal background check. He also brings to the table proposals that he hopes will be more friendly to the Second Amendment. The one I was most interested in was mandatory gun club membership. But overall, what I am most impressed about this article is that we finally have found a conservative who doesn't try to cherry pick the data or try to pass off mass shootings as false flag conspiracies. Could we perhaps call this progress? Blitz (Complaints Box) 15:21, 30 August 2015 (UTC)

I call it someone unexpected looking to make progress. Walker Walker Walker 19:36, 30 August 2015 (UTC)

Castration[edit]

So I'm thinking of creating the Castration page that;s been requested from our todo list. What does it need to have to actually be a worthy article? So far I'm thinking...

Types (emasculation, castration, neutering)
Reasons (punishment, Castrati, population control, slavery)
More on slavery (especially Crimea)
Crime effectiveness (castrated rapists/pedophiles can and do reoffend in... different ways)
Social norms/suppression (Turing goes here)

What else would it need? CorruptUser (talk) 03:31, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

Snarky hatnote with a link to a page that the reader definitely wasn't actually looking for. Walker Walker Walker 03:34, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

Yeah well when I tried the edit button at the top my computer more or less froze. We should archive the SB soon. CorruptUser (talk) 03:36, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

Eunuch culture. Mostly historical I guess and related to the slavery point, but the Indian Hijra and the concept of a "third sex" is a modern day reality.--TheroadtoWiganPier (talk) 03:38, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

Ooo that's important too. China had Eunuchs as well in important positions, since it was assumed that they were less corruptable (not true). CorruptUser (talk) 03:45, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

Reginald Johnston's Twilight in the Forbidden City will be a helpful reference for the influence of eunochs in the late period Qing court.--TheroadtoWiganPier (talk) 03:54, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

Fucking Hell...[edit]

Rational wiki has been a mess over the past few months (i doubt it was no less than usual but it piles up after you go away for awhile) that is the most full i've ever seen the coop, and that is only one archive, and another thing, is it over? if not any bets on when it will end? Bubba41102 ^{Anonymous user is almost, but not quite, entirely unlike an editor} 19:36, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

Given that the coop cases mostly deal with a conflict (I am trying to state it as neutrally as possible) between one user on the one side and several users who either disagree with her on content grounds or on account of her behavior, I fear this will only end if (when) either said user leaves or ceases in (part of) her disruptive behavior. Avengerofthe BoN (talk) 19:42, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

This? This is nothing to the great conflicts of yore between the heavies we've seen in the past--"Paravant" ^{Talk & Contribs} 19:53, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

Yeah, unlike with GG, no-one was demoted and/or perma-b& over the Israel/Palestine-topic... Yet.--Arisboch ☞✍☜☞✉☜ ∈)☼(∋ 19:55, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

2 users on one side, but I haven't seen ChrisAmiss since he stuck his foot in his mouth about hate crimes in Europe. CorruptUser (talk) 19:57, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

Not even GG compares, i'm talking stuff like the fights between Human, Blue and Nutty. This isn't anything compared to the fight that brought down Crats and ended with Trent imposing Mods (the gold standard of HCM). This stuff is barely a blip on the radar compared to how bad things could be here in the past.--"Paravant" ^{Talk & Contribs} 20:01, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

Is that the way those things should be measured? "Well it's not as bad as,...." Avengerofthe BoN (talk) 20:13, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

When people are trying to make this out to be bigger than it is, yes. Bubba said "this is terrible the fuck is going on!" and it really isn't anything compared to what we've gone through before. --"Paravant" ^{Talk & Contribs} 20:21, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but I had to think of this Avengerofthe BoN (talk) 20:36, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

I'll add my pfft to the above pffts. Although it's the biggest row in a while, it's a gnat's fart compared to the civil wars of September 2009 and May 2011. It seems to be on HCM 4 at the moment. Bicycle^wheel

21:43, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

But it has been simmering on ever since Mona appeared and it has by now spread across several sites. Ah I wish RWW were still around to document this particular HCM Avengerofthe BoN (talk) 22:18, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

Partially because you people keep dragging it to other pages.--"Paravant" ^{Talk & Contribs} 22:30, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

Who is "we people"? Mona? Avengerofthe BoN (talk) 22:38, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

That you only find fault in the other side for this HCM should give you the answer to your question.--"Paravant" ^{Talk & Contribs} 22:40, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

You people. Who, for instance, posted this. Yesterday. Bicycle^wheel

23:00, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

I have decided to not even bother reading Talk:Zionism any more. But the unholy combination of axe-grinding, whitewashing and blind stubborness is migrating fast across related articles also.--TheroadtoWiganPier (talk) 01:07, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

Was there a problem prior to the arrival of Mona? Avengerofthe BoN (talk) 21:58, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

That you only find fault in the other side for this HCM should give you the answer to your question--"Paravant" ^{Talk & Contribs} 22:06, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

Hill figures[edit]

Are they RW-notable enough? There is a 'certain amount of woo' (and one may have been constructed 'purely to annoy Oliver Cromwell and the Parliamentarians' (yes, that one). 82.44.143.26 (talk) 18:00, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

I say go for it. - Smerdis of Tlön, ^{LOAD "*", 8, 1.} 18:43, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

Yes, there's a bit of silliness about them, although probably not as much as with Stonehenge. Bicycle^wheel

18:55, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

I've seen the one at Cerne Abbas. My host told me that he was represented as a tailor, with a pair of scissors in his lap. There may or may not have been winking going on. And nudging. SmartFeller (talk) 22:26, 1 September 2015 (UTC)