RationalWiki talk:All things in moderation/Archive27

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, (new)(back)

So, uh

Back on the subject of treating Oxy like a butt monkey, I got blocked by @Gunther1987 for an edit that wasn't vandalism, only because he didn't like it. Oh, and before we reproach the subject, no, I was not edit warring, unlike what a certain Swiss troll would say. A single reversion doesn't count as an "edit war." — Oxyaena ^Harass 15:38, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

Oxy, you spent most of your RW career blocking people for vandalism when it clearly wasn't. I don't think you are in a position to act like the aggrieved party here. Ace^Moderator 22:14, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

Given your recent toxic and inflammatory edits, I’m not inclined to be sympathetic. Chef Moosolini’s Ristorante Italiano^{Make a Reservation} 15:48, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

Toxic and inflammatory how, exactly? Everything I've done is in response to people being toxic and inflammatory towards me. Raven's outright said on the Discord his "ultimate goal is to get rid of me." — Oxyaena ^Harass 15:51, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

Your swearing and personal insults are almost always uncalled for and yet constant. Your behavior is why so many people are unhappy with you. Chef Moosolini’s Ristorante Italiano^{Make a Reservation} 15:55, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Unfortunately you were unblocked by Spud, who is willingly or unwillingly enabling your behavior. I want to note that you have been reverting my edits systematically ([1][2][3][4][5][6]), you attack people personally as a principle (when you called Hastur a "piece of shit" on his talk page [7], when you called me a "dumbfuck" [8], a "miserable piece of shit" [9], an "asshole" [10]). You also called Gunther, with whom you barely interacted, a "jackass" [11], along with other users you maligned. You're toxic, and this has to end if RationalWiki is to survive. Otherwise I have no interest in further participating. — Godless Raven ^talk_stalk^walk_balk 🌹 15:52, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Which is understandable, given how you tried getting rid of him when he first started editing here. You created a hostile environment and now you're acting like the victim when said environment doesn't work out the way you wanted it to--Hastur! (talk) 15:54, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

Also this. You’re not being persecuted, you’re being shunned as a toxic personality. Chef Moosolini’s Ristorante Italiano^{Make a Reservation} 15:56, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Furthermore, nobody mentioned or called you, but you came to call me an "idiot" here [12], a "dumb fuck" there [13]. Like, how much toxic sewage does Oxyaena have to inject into this website to end her poisonous theater? — Godless Raven ^talk_stalk^walk_balk 🌹 15:57, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

You've been persistently negative towards me, and Gunther is a jackass, blocking me for no reason, making fun of my disabilities behind my back, I called you a dumb fuck because you threatened to coop me for doing something I didn't actually do, I called Hastur a piece of shit for, among other things, blocking me without a coop etc etc etc. You have a really zero-sum way of looking at things, and also, you reverted my edit to the socdemnav, I reverted your edit to the Zionist article because Zionism is Islamophobic, and the Marx issue has already been resolved. You make shitty edits, don't whine when others take issue with them. I'll get the diffs shortly. — Oxyaena ^Harass 15:58, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

Here we see Oxy refusing to be introspective or cooperative. I’m hitting the end of my patience. Inability to hear criticism is a serious character flaw. Chef Moosolini’s Ristorante Italiano^{Make a Reservation} 15:59, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

Before we get more off-topic, I think we should actually let Oxy present her case, and let Gunther talk about their justification. So @Oxyaena @Gunther1987 what was the edit in question that was considered "mindless generic vandalism?" RoninMacbeth (talk) 16:03, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

Here — Oxyaena ^Harass 16:06, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

I propose we give Gunther a warning. That ought to be sufficient and expedient--Hastur! (talk) 16:04, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

Already was warned by Crow (see block log). Oxy did editwar; I think the choice for vandalism was poor, but the block was definitely warranted. Hell, we block autopatrolled for less. Oxy should not receive special treatment when she misbehaves. — Godless Raven ^talk_stalk^walk_balk 🌹 16:07, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

One reversion. One. Last time I heard, it takes more than one reversion to count as an "edit war." — Oxyaena ^Harass 16:09, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

We are looking at the greater context, Oxy. Reverting Raven "once" all over the wiki is definitely edit warring. You need to stop with this campaign against him.--Hastur! (talk) 16:11, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

Fair enough, how about we topic ban both of us from political articles? It's no secret that Raven's political edits tend to piss quite a few people off. Almost every political edit he makes is mired by controversy. — Oxyaena ^Harass 16:13, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

You do not need to assume this is only personal, Hastur. They are interested in a similar set of topics but have differing opinions on them they feel very strongly about. It makes sense they would contest each others edits a lot on ideological rather than personal grounds. She is not that active on his edits to biology articles, for instance. Topic banning them both from articles related to left wing politics would probably help.-Flandres (talk) 16:17, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

I also haven't reverted any of Raven's edits in a while now, my sole reversion today (besides eliminating vandalism) was in response to his reversion of my edit. In fact, Raven's been the one edit warring ([14] [15] [16]). No one comments on that, however. Odd. — Oxyaena ^Harass 16:18, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

(edit conflict) What? Most of my edits are appreciated and uncontroversial. You can check here: [17]. If you think "almost every political edit" I make is controversial, I would be in a coop case. The edits you and the usual suspects don't like are controversial, and almost always when it is critical of the far-left. You haven't editwarred over Martin Sellner, have you? Or European Union? Or Computing Forever? Stop pretending I am in the mud just like you. You want to drag me into it. — Godless Raven ^talk_stalk^walk_balk 🌹 16:19, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

(edit conflict) It IS personal. Oxyaena was extremely hostile to Raven when he first started editing here and she has made it clear that she has a grudge against him. And Oxyaena, Raven is willing to hold discussions over his edits and reach a synthesis. Hence why he is far more tolerated than you are--Hastur! (talk) 16:20, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ Evidence for Hastur's claim: [18] Besides, all of this is irrelevant. — Godless Raven ^talk_stalk^walk_balk 🌹 16:22, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

Hastur, I said it was not ONLY personal, not that it had no personal component. As for what GR said the articles you cited were not just about left wing politics. I would still be okay with both of you editing articles on right wing or centrist topics, and in your case the biology contributions are pretty good.-Flandres (talk) 16:24, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

Well thank you, Flandres, the very first ever nice thing you said about my contributions. Did it burn your fingers to type it out? — Godless Raven ^talk_stalk^walk_balk 🌹 16:26, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

Uh, no, I have actually stated this opinion before, you just did not bother to note it. Despite what you like to tell yourself I don't have any strong feelings for you personally, so it would not anger me to type this. Why should it? We just happen to encounter eachother when you make bad edits on a certain set of articles.-Flandres (talk) 16:38, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

Motion to close

Spud had already unblocked Oxyaena and Gunther has already been given a warning. This case ought to be archived. No need for pointless arguing and drama--Hastur! (talk) 16:21, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

Let's not argue with Oxyaena either. What she wants is to make it impossible for any mod to make sense of this (you know, how Putin blows misinformation into American and European politics so that nobody can find or bother to find the truth midst the chaos?). Let's wait until a mod is online to handle this. — Godless Raven ^talk_stalk^walk_balk 🌹 16:24, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

Thank you for the endearing comments about me and Flandres, Raven. They are most certainly helping your case. Comparing me to Putin, insulting Flandres being fair to you ("did your fingers burn to type that?") etc etc etc. As for my edits, I always go the talk-page, at least I do that. — Oxyaena ^Harass 16:36, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

You didn't here [19], nor here [20], not here either [21]. Oxy, don't lie. — Godless Raven ^talk_stalk^walk_balk 🌹 16:40, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

GR keeps being GR. His days are numbered. P.S. Oxy, insulting GR never helps your case, even if he's being a pointlessly passive agressive asshole. Best not to directly insult. ShabiDOO 16:41, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

And yet I did here, here, and here as well. Also, as for this talk about me being "toxic" and you not being toxic, see above. How is comparing me to Putin not toxic, Raven? Maybe if you didn't keep making bad edits we wouldn't have this problem, now would we, Raven? — Oxyaena ^Harass 16:43, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

Well, actually, we would. [22] I wasn't involved and yet you were reverting here as well. Oxy, a lot of people are unhappy with your toxicity and aggression (which is why you are autopatrolled). Some people hate me because of ideological reasons. There's a difference. — Godless Raven ^talk_stalk^walk_balk 🌹 16:45, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

Reminder that edit was made by a vandal using ableist language, and said vandal went on to deliberately misgender me. People don't hate you for ideological reasons, please, you're not that important in the grand scheme of things, we dislike you for your "toxicity and aggression." Ie, the thing that got you banned in the first place. — Oxyaena ^Harass 16:47, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

Here's another edit wherein you were edit warring, today even. — Oxyaena ^Harass 16:49, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Ok, last words of mine before I stop replying (unless a mod steps in and asks for my input): I was never banned and I am a sysop. I am trying my best to help this community. You instead make it so unpleasant that people leave (such as jaydogg) or want to leave. I try to make people join it; you make people wanna leave it. Notice the difference? — Godless Raven ^talk_stalk^walk_balk 🌹 16:50, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

Reminder that Jaydogg made deliberately inflammatory edits, got toxic when called out for those edits, and was sharing screenshots of it behind my back. You make current editors groan in frustration, complete with a full on persecution complex, including terms like "the usual people," you call me toxic yet compare to Putin and insult Flandres for a fair comment, and you weren't even here for Jaydogg. You still didn't answer for comparing me to Putin and insulting Flandres for no reason as well, fyi. — Oxyaena ^Harass 16:52, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

Oh, is insulting only justified when you do it? Nothing Raven said was half as bad. Chef Moosolini’s Ristorante Italiano^{Make a Reservation} 17:29, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

Comparing people to a murderous dictator is pretty bad, Duce.-Flandres (talk) 17:31, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

Idk, I think it's a lot worse than just calling someone an asshole, but YMMV. Personally I think such comparisons are disingenuous at best, outright offensive at worst, to compare some internet nobody to a man who's oppressed millions. — Oxyaena ^Harass 17:34, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ @DuceMoosolini I fail to see how calling someone an asshole is equivalent to comparing some random wiki editor to a murderous tyrant, but YMMV of course. — Oxyaena ^Harass 17:38, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

Crow's response

Oh jeez. Okay, so, basically yeah, I gave Gunther that 0 second block. Reason should be obvious, we don't block people for vandalism if it's just an edit conflict, blatant violation of our blocking policy yada yada. I didn't think it had bearing to coop Gunther, so I didn't, because Gunther didn't have a pattern of doing it from what I know. As for Socdemnav, that wasn't an edit war. No editor involved seems to have broken the 3RR or seems to have meatpuppeted. Oxy has 2 revisions so she couldn't have broken it, Raven has more but most of those aren't undoes. Technically speaking, we could suggest that Raven instead has been claiming to own the template (WP:OWN), given his subsequent short lived conflict with GC, but I don't really feel that is here or there, nor do I personally give enough of a fuck to coop Raven over this (since WP:OWN isn't really in our CS, but is still something that is implied by the wiki being a collaborative project). That said, Raven, your attitude frankly is dissapointing me on this page. Your sysopship was granted back on the basis that your attitude seemingly improved, but all I'm seeing you do here is making passive agressive slights at other users and frankly rather appalling personal attacks on people you obviously dislike. Don't compare people to hyper-authoritarian dictators, it's not a high bar, jeez. Also, I just want to quickly clear up a misconception you and a few other editors seem to have (which is why I linked you to WP:OWN). If someone disagrees with you on an edit, don't take it as a slight against your personal worldview, which is something you and a couple others seem to consistently do (this is a both sides thing, and I kinda want both sides to take note here, but this one is mostly aimed at Raven). Instead, try to sit down with them, talk it over and figure out a way to proceed that makes both of you satisfied. You outwardly consistently claim to take it to the talkpage, but your exchanges on talkpages are often exceptionally agressive and only seem directed at working people against you, in the hopes that you can get them to be unreasonable so you can then go ahead and claim that everything hinges on a very simple question ("Was Karl Marx a racist/anti-semite" jumps to mind from another conflict, whereas the real question should have been "If Karl Marx was a racist, how did that influence his works into the present day", and whilst that thing has now died down, well... read ahead).

The edits that cause conflicts have nuggets of good stuff in them, but you never seem to try to make those nuggets work. For instance, I recently went back to the disastrous edit war over Martin Luther King Jr. and wrote a segment about MLK's stance on LGBTQ+ rights because that is very interesting in terms of how it is a microcosm of King's life being appropriated by everyone on the political spectrum. With Marx, there is an anti-semitism and racism problem within "the left" that some groups have troubles addressing (the stupidpol crowd jumps to mind), and there is interest in pointing out how present day people from stupidpol-type crowds could have found their anti-semitism and racism in Marx' works. I will not continue to get caught up in these hangups, because I hope you get what is wrong with your edits that produce conflicts with people. Don't try to write cheap, bottom feeding dunks, try to write something that actually informs people about something interesting.

As to why we don't demand folks to clear this bar with neonazis, far righters, conspiracy theorists, whacko libertarians and so on and so forth (which is your go-back defense; nobody complains about your dunks on those people), it's because our aim is different with those people. The people in the aforementioned group made bigotry their identity specifically, and as a result, documenting their bigotry is useful in that it informs people to stay away from them. Someone like Marx, whose work may have had racism and anti-semitism in them due to historical biases or internal issues, didn't deliberately choose to make racism and anti-semitism his identity, even if people in our current day use some of those works to defend their own internalized bigotry (or to attack people who follow his belief system over internalized bigotry). The same goes even more doubly so with MLKs activism efforts. There's a different bar here because for the most part, their identity isn't something that clears the bar of "mission" in and of itself, so we need to explain why it's on-mission to document and talk about it. I hope that this uhm makes sense (I've been racking my brain for a good 15 minutes over this paragraph, and I really hope I'm getting my message across).

As for how to proceed, I would prefer to not have to deal with a stupid edit conflict like this again, and I hope that at least @GR reads and learns from what I posted up above, but frankly I also think @Gunther1987 could get some use out of reading what I just posted. Techpriest ^{(I am Alpharius! / / / )} 17:40, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

Slight correction, I only have one revision. The other was a legitimate edit. — Oxyaena ^Harass

Amazing. Oxyaena harasses users, insults people personally and Crow does a half-hearted both-sides while claiming I am to blame for this. If Oxyaena isn't punished in any form, I will prefer to leave this website. I will follow the steps of people like Jaydogg, Kazitor, and so forth, people who are tired of the toxic nonsense of people like Oxyaena and their enablers. If that is the decision RationalWiki wants to make, fine. — Godless Raven ^talk_stalk^walk_balk 🌹 17:51, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

With Kazitor, I presume you're referring to his essay? In which case, can I applaud you for being a self-aware wolf? Because the specific thing that he complained about (the pointless snarking and hating in articles with no real educational point to it), is exactly what is causing people to get into dumb conflicts with you, because you do exactly that. I tried to spell it out for you above, but if it doesn't land, I'm afraid there's no helping you. Techpriest ^{(I am Alpharius! / / / )} 18:00, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

Have you read any diffs that I provided? Oxy does this to multiple people. You are partisan, so I don't assume you care about this. Again, if Oxy goes unpunished after all of this - which is thoroughly documented - then I have no hope in reforming RW. — Godless Raven ^talk_stalk^walk_balk 🌹 18:09, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

Also, I see GR is taking a page from Oxy and will now grandiosely threaten to leave when we all know he will not go through with it. You know, one of the favorite things he liked to mock Oxy for doing. -Flandres (talk) 18:09, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

If you don't think I am serious about this, then let Oxy scrap away unpunished from this. Then you can mock me all you want. — Godless Raven ^talk_stalk^walk_balk 🌹 18:10, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

Punished for...what? Crow excellently laid out why she did not do anything necessarily punishable in this specific incident.-Flandres (talk) 18:15, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

If you want Oxy punished, make a proposal. Chef Moosolini’s Ristorante Italiano^{Make a Reservation} 18:16, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

A month long block. Or indef block. Either would we be fine with me. — Godless Raven ^talk_stalk^walk_balk 🌹 18:17, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

Seems excessive. ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 18:21, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

Again GR, I must ask "on what grounds?"-Flandres (talk) 18:22, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

I don't think the most valuable user (not you) on the wiki could get their way by threatening to leave so good luck with that. Nobody is stopping you from leaving and I don't believe for a second you'd follow through with this threat of yours to the community. The door is over there so... ShabiDOO 18:20, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘If you want to LANCB over a small dispute like this... well, don't let the door hit you on the way out. Techpriest ^{(I am Alpharius! / / / )} 18:39, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

I would like to see a short-term block for Oxy, as her toxic behavior has exhausted any and all patience I’ve had. It’s been going on for weeks, and it makes the whole wiki seem more hostile and on edge. She’s almost a troll at this point. Chef Moosolini’s Ristorante Italiano^{Make a Reservation} 18:49, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

I think I speak for more than one user when I say any settlement that punishes Oxy like she is the only source of the problem and leaves GR entirely scott free is unacceptable and should be rejected.-Flandres (talk) 18:55, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

I fail to see any reason to block Oxy over this dispute. Say whatever you want, if she handled her disputes like this more often, she wouldn't be toxic. The person being toxic here frankly is GR, who seems to mostly dedicate himself to hurling insults to try to get those that he dislikes to be unreasonable during this so that he can claim a victory by getting everyone else into trouble for incivility. It's rather obvious when folks don't take that bait and pushing the fault for it on Oxy is almost victim blaming in this situation. Techpriest ^{(I am Alpharius! / / / )} 18:57, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I think a weeklong block would go a long way to show her that the community is sick of her constantly causing conflicts. It seems she's constantly at the center of some drama of some sort. Attempts to give GR equal blame for her misbehavior ignore her months-long campaign against him that started without provocation--Hastur! (talk) 18:57, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

GR is also often at the center of drama. Would you block him? Also, having political disagreements alongside a personal feud is not a campaign against GR. He has made scores of good edits she has not contested at all.-Flandres (talk) 19:01, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

Again, you ignore entirely the difference in demeanor. GR can be annoying. Oxy is toxic as hell and hasn’t done or said anything positive in ages. Chef Moosolini’s Ristorante Italiano^{Make a Reservation} 19:07, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

I would recommend that you read crow's posts again.-Flandres (talk) 19:08, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

I don't see how anything in this dispute is worthy of either user being blocked...but the coop is there if anyone really feels like creating yet another coop this summer. I don't recommend it over this. ShabiDOO 19:11, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

@DuceMoosolini And I don't think we should punish someone who for once doesn't take the bait and is in the right. Again, if Oxy would have behaved as per usual, perchance I could agree with you, but for once she didn't take Ravens bait. To be clear, at the time of writing I don't support blocking either Raven or Oxy and I'm more than a little bit annoyed that we somehow think that either deserve a block over this. Raven's threat with a LANCB if Oxy doesn't get a block is frankly pathetic and we shouldn't fall for that kinda low-tier bait crap. If he wants to LANCB because an editor he doesn't like get banned, let him. If we cave to that stuff, he'll pull it again with the next editor he dislikes. Techpriest ^{(I am Alpharius! / / / )} 19:13, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

Duce, how is comparing me to Putin equivalent to me calling Raven an asshole? There's an entire scalar difference here, I implore you to realize that. — Oxyaena ^Harass 19:15, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Though I am also uncertain about blocking him I would recommend he be topic banned from articles related to leftism. But yes, we should not condition GR into thinking this is a valid pattern of behavior, especially when he has no grounds for such long blocks in this specific instance.-Flandres (talk) 19:17, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

Okay, I’ll agree with Crow on the precedence argument. No action, and now I do see that Raven hasn’t been behaving super great either. Chef Moosolini’s Ristorante Italiano^{Make a Reservation} 19:34, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

Discord

Of late, it seems that multiple users, myself included, have been using discord to resolve talkpage disputes. Given the lack of transparency involved, I would like to ask the mod team their opinions. We could require transcripts of the Discord conversations posted to the relevant talkpage, or such behavior could be banned outright. Alternately some other solution could be devised. ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 17:37, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

Would prefer some input on this as well. Discord seems like a giant two-edged sword. It makes a lot of communication so much more quicker when it comes to working on a project together, but at the same time, we're stuck seeing backroom talk leaking over into conflicts on the wiki or discussions getting needlessly escalated because editors try to rile each other up by demonizing the other side of a conflict. I've had good experiences using Discord to try to defuse situations, but I've also seen it used to put a metaphorical match on gunpowder so to speak, and I'd prefer some sort of opinion/stance from the mod team on this. Techpriest ^{(I am Alpharius! / / / )} 17:43, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

I think multiple users are not fans of edits or policy being resolved on discord including myself. ShabiDOO 18:16, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

It leaves users who do not use discord at a pretty big disadvantage in a lot of spheres. I agree with these objections.-Flandres (talk) 18:21, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

Probably need to let users know Discord is being used as another means of communication. There's no stopping and regulating because there's the email option and the Skype option of instant messaging. --It's-a me, LeftyGreenMario! 18:58, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

Yes, Discord is it's own sphere and should not be used to make judgments here. ^{— Unsigned, by: Bongolian / talk / contribs}

I have long said that Discord should not be used to settle disputes. I go over there to write haikus and drunkenly abuse people. Any and all RW decisions should take place on-wiki. Ace^Moderator 22:19, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

Since I'm not using Discord, and since I've reached the age where learning to use new technical things is too much effort, I wholeheartedly endorse keeping anything that happens at Discord away from the Wiki. If some shittery happens there, surely the shitheads in question can be blocked from Discord. Only reason for allowing Discord drama to have Wiki consequences is doxing, legal threats or any other extra-wiki stuff that's considered banworthy here.Coigreach (talk) 22:32, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

I am also of the opinion that all arguments and disputes regarding ratwik should take place in ratwik, if for no other reason than having a record in the archive. CoryUsar (talk) 22:36, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

For those who have posted saying they agree that Discord drama should be kept off the wiki, I wasn't referring to that. I was referring to the recent trend of using the Discord servers as extra talkpages, rather than the actual wiki talkpages. ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 22:41, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

No, I know. I wasn't saying Discord should be brought over here - only anything related to bans, dispute settlements, RW guidelines etc etc should be kept off discord. Ace^Moderator 22:45, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

I think that using discord to resolve talkpage disputes is okay, if all the involved parties are part of the discussion on discord. If one or more of the people involved in a dispute don't use or don't wish to use discord, then the use of the side channel should be strongly discouraged. —cosmikdebris ^talk stalk 23:06, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

@Ace McWicked I wasn't aiming that at you. My opinion on this matter is largely the same as yours, possibly more hardline. But I also didn't want to single anyone out and start a fight, as that would be counterproductive. ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 23:21, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

You just made an enemy for life!!! Chef Moosolini’s Ristorante Italiano^{Make a Reservation} 23:26, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

I'll never forget this slight against my character. I'm sending in the bees. Ace^Moderator 23:36, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

Coming late to this. I would say that in no way should RW disputes be resolved on any other platform than on RW itself. I would say any conclusion which someone claims has been reached on any site other than this one should be automatically regarded as invalid. I would further say that this should be explicitly stated in CS itself.Bob^{"Life is short and (insert adjective)"} 17:23, 23 August 2020 (UTC)

Editor retention issues

Apparently this isn't clear, perhaps y'all have your hivemind stuck up your fucking ass, but I swear to fucking G-d that you are completely unable to de-escalate yourself out of a wet cardboard box. I come here to this burning trashfire of incompetent morons after a week, a WEEK, and there are no fewer than 30 fucking pages of bickering over fuck all filling half of recent changes and my watchlist. Why? Who the fuck even knows why? Does anyone care? Nope. Did anyone even notice the wiki became 5 or 6 editors smaller this week? Nope. Does anyone care about that? Did anyone even fucking notice? Nope. Why? Because y'all cunts still fighting some stupid discord drama from 2018. Patently fucking absurd mob of dumb cunts who trash almost everything y'all touch. Idiots. Please be so kind as to post your irrelevant comments below, so that the dozen people who actually bother to use this fucking wiki can fucking ignore them and carry on acting like morons. — Dysk (contribs) 23:36, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

Recently I think this community is in dire need of moderators that can attend to matters and exert power before this gets out of hand. The current set up is not enough, as conflicts erupt while I'm asleep, and I've been exhausted trying to attend to these matters. When I can attend, I try to de-escalate and steer the conversation to more productive terms. I feel when I miss just ONE of this, there's a whole drama erupting and then there's this above comment what feels like castigating me for not trying hard enough.

Guys, I'm trying. I'm trying so hard. I can't be awake 24/7. I feel I'm making so many decisions on my own and reading through what feels like an endless amount of angry comments.

This has been going on for longer than a week, Dysk.

I'm trying. --It's-a me, LeftyGreenMario! 23:47, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

I try to be less violent in my approach but unless things are specifically brought to me (or the other mods) we can't be everywhere at once. Mods aren't required for petty disputes - that's up for the individual users to manage. Mods can only work when approached. Ace^Moderator 23:55, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

That's not a petty dispute though? We should've monitored and bitten it in the bud once the first uncooperative/passive aggressive flaming gets let out. "Let the individual users to manage"? We just tried that! And here we are, wondering what went wrong? Are you advocating we continue letting individual users manage?? --It's-a me, LeftyGreenMario! 00:05, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

It's definitely a shame if Raven really isn't coming back. He was one of our more productive editors. It's definitely a flaw in the site that a consistently problematic user is able to drive away good editors with impunity--Hastur! (talk) 00:07, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

Yes, it's a real shame that someone left because they weren't allowed to ban with impunity in blatant violation of Coop decorum. A real shame. I'm weeping openly right now. Fucking hell... ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 00:15, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

That's a different topic now, guys. Please be civil. --It's-a me, LeftyGreenMario! 00:17, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

Mods can't be everywhere and monitor every disagreement. Ace^Moderator 00:17, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

You know I`m right here, right? — Oxyaena ^Harass 00:18, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

Raven was a productive editor, but his own personality flaws and conflicts with others really made something like this inevitable. Chef Moosolini’s Ristorante Italiano^{Make a Reservation} 00:20, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

(edit conflict) This situation tells me otherwise, Ace. It's not a matter of "disagreement". People are slinging insults at each other and are promoting a hostile atmosphere around there that's scaring off users. This conflict has been going on for literally months now. I've actually blocked myself for 3.6 days and got off the Discord for that amount of time in response to monitoring this conflict. Something isn't working, and you're telling me we shouldn't be part of this?

And, guys, let's not talk about Raven here. I want to talk about this entire community. And seeing the quick responses here is telling me about the necessity of having a mod team that can discuss in private how to deal with conflict without inviting drama and other things. --It's-a me, LeftyGreenMario! 00:21, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

I'm talking about the current conflict - I mean we can't be everywhere to stamp out every disagreement. Ace^Moderator 00:31, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

In my opinion, this dispute has discredited the hands-off mod style we inherited from the old guard...but that sort of sentiment should wait till election time I guess. Not sure if this is the place for it.-Flandres (talk) 00:23, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ I have no doubt another self-righteous twat will imminently mistake this as personally relevant to the morons on the coop recently, instead of a grave structural issue with the moderation and the wiki, then post that Raven was a necrophile troll, who should have be bullied off the wiki at all costs, meaning everyone is justified entirely in being cunts. This will further entrench the fucking toxic atmosphere, and perhaps contribute to someone else quietly removing rationalwiki.org from their bookmarks and disappearing forever unobserved except for the mostly unseen comment on Discord... such is the nature of my complaint... which like all similar complaints will be ignored by the majority I am sure. — Dysk (contribs) 00:23, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

Yo, again, be civil? I have no clue if you're directing this at me or not. --It's-a me, LeftyGreenMario! 00:26, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

The problem with a private mod channel is that it makes decision making opaque, leading to greater distrust of mods, and an actual cabal. Bongolian (talk) 00:29, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

Something does need to change. Raven and I agreed that this place is getting more toxic and more unwelcoming to new users. Chef Moosolini’s Ristorante Italiano^{Make a Reservation} 00:30, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

There is a real risk of creating a cabal but moderation in many circles (I'm thinking Discord; yes we aren't Discord but think about the reasoning behind the channels rather than where they're used) is carried out in that manner. Even without a mod channel, there are ways people can communicate to each other through direct messages or email.

Ace: the current conflict is actually more of the same since maybe May. Maybe we can't be literally everywhere, but stop downplaying this as "disagreement"; that implies civil decorum, slightly heated, but manageable. This isn't that. It's ongoing. It's far more exhausting. It's taking a toll on me. That's what this is to you, a "disagreement"? I don't think it's just that. --It's-a me, LeftyGreenMario! 00:35, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

I've been very busy the last few weeks so I haven't been checking as often as I would normally so I'm a little behind on this. But I have stayed out of it because no matter what I do it'll always be seen as me picking on Oxy. I need people to understand if I am moderating Oxy I am not picking on her. Ace^Moderator 00:57, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

I get that, Ace, but you need to figure out why you were applied this kind of caution approaching Oxyaena. Fairness on your part, it's really hard to approach her without trying to seem like you're picking on her because she makes it really hard for you to interact with her without making her angry (she's thrown really strong insults at me before). But try to cooperate with people like her too? If they're nasty to you, keep your composure and still exercise respect. It's how I managed, it's how I can deal with her without people thinking (incorrectly or not) I have a bone to pick on her. --It's-a me, LeftyGreenMario! 01:02, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

We seem to have an overall problem with civility, including people who have agreed to civility, have apparently read the de facto policy on civility, and have continued to be uncivil. There is also a problem with people waiting until things get so bad that they decide to go straight to the coop rather than trying to de-escalate. If someone starts using inflammatory language against an editor or is otherwise acting uncivil, the process should be but does not seem to be: 1) ask them to stop 2) if that fails block them for a short time, and/or call in a moderator 3) if that fails, bring it to the attention of all the moderators on this page 4) if that fails bring it to the attention of all interested parties on the coop. Bongolian (talk) 00:36, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

I agree that users need to be more proactive in bringing in a moderator, but I do think moderators should step in if something is clearly not going well. We're too reliant on people asking us to initiate moderation when I think this conflict could've been handled if a moderator exercised discretion on their own and put a stop to a flame war. --It's-a me, LeftyGreenMario! 00:39, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

Yes, I would like to see a more active mod team. Chef Moosolini’s Ristorante Italiano^{Make a Reservation} 00:44, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

We need more interventionist mods. Not despotic mods who ban people at whim or something, but people who go out of their way to show up at potential conflict zones. The issue is that this describes a pretty big commitment. I know few who are able, let alone willing to do such a task. It would also probably be very stressful, I must concede...-Flandres (talk) 00:52, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

Alright - I shall try harder. Ace^Moderator 00:58, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

It's not easy and you'll be presented with some tough decisions regarding word choice and actions. Don't worry about asking others for assistance (I do all the time, through Discord - why I said having mod teams can be beneficial - generally gathering opinions before I make a judgement). But one thing you can do, refrain from moderating while drunk. --It's-a me, LeftyGreenMario! 01:10, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

Here's a little secret...I am always drunk. When I am polite - I am drunk. When I am swearing and shouting - I am drunk. When I am quiet and considered - I am drunk. Alcohol is not a factor in my behaviour. Ace^Moderator 01:17, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

That reminds me of the Mark E. Smith quote, "If it's me and yer granny on bongos, it's the Fall." Bongolian (talk) 02:22, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

Alcohol is the source of Ace's power. Chef Moosolini’s Ristorante Italiano^{Make a Reservation} 02:41, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

Bongos are the source of my power. Bongolian (talk) 02:46, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

Alcohol is my mystic, my Jesus. It's a sick love affair but I'm a hopeless romantic. It gives me life and will one day come back to me to pay my debts. I was born in the swill bucket of life but will die in the warm comfort of liquor. One day it will kill me.Ace^Moderator 02:50, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

I'm here now. I can't be here 24/7 either. And the worst drama always seems to happen when I'm asleep. I think that comes from me being in the UTC+8 time zone. But in case anyone doubts my commitment to being a mod, well, why would you? I take this role very seriously and I'm always trying to be firm but fair. Spud (talk) 02:36, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

The mods were specifically designed to be less proactive and more reactive. So the issue is systemic rather than the mods as individuals. Ace^Moderator 02:43, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

I think that overall the criticism Dysk has (totally in a not at all hypocritically toxic way) so poetically and diplomatically suggested is pretty unfair. I think the admins do a good job. Could they be a little more proactive sometimes? Yes. Does the community want them to be more forceful in discipline? I don't think so but I might be wrong. Your characterisation of "the person who shall not be named" was a new user is way off (he was no longer a NEW user but had his tentacles well inserted into the life of the wiki) and that he was leaving as though he's some innocent victim who was for no fair reason bullied out of this wiki is fucking ridiculous bullshit Dysk. Having said that, I agree that brand new users ought to receive a far friendlier welcome, a much more gentle approach the first time someone reverts them and a very constructive explanation when correcting no nos that they may do. It's an issue that a lot of wikis deal with and I've seen other wikis do it a lot better. So Dysk...are you volunteering to do a "new user" patrol and personally welcome them to the community and help them integrate into the community? ShabiDOO 02:56, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

Having said that, I agree that brand new users ought to receive a far friendlier welcome, a much more gentle approach the first time someone reverts them and a very constructive explanation when correcting no nos that they may do. Shit man - I have been advocating this for ages. After I came back from a 3 year absence it was because I was watching Oxy toss new users into the vandal bin without any guidance, welcome or explanation. And before you say I am picking on Oxy I am not - I am just telling you what happened. Ace^Moderator 03:01, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

As for what ace said, I would not say oxy has no problems but I would not treat her as the sole problem for some "decline of the site" narrative which I feel is all too often what ends up happening when she is engaged with. As for what Shabidoo said, D casting the Giordano wannabe as some sort of doomed moral victor is so inaccurate as to not be worth engaging with. It is remarkable that lefty managed to take that first screed and start a legitimate conversation based on it at all. Remember, when community consensus started to drift toward a topic ban for both of them on leftist related articles, oxy was willing to agree with it even though leftism is a critical part of her life, whilst the Giordano wannabe fell on his sword swearing that he would rather leave the site than do it. To tie both of these responses together, it's not that some of us think oxy is an angel who can do no wrong but that some of her accusers sometimes come off as kinda...myopic about it, willing to tolerate similar behavior from someone who dislikes her. So ace, that is why I think you get some push back. I can't really confirm it, but it does seem to be brought up a lot.-Flandres (talk) 03:47, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

I don't blame Oxy for the whole thing - I just used Oxy as an example. I can be...uh... caustic at times myself but I try to be more forgiving to new users. Ace^Moderator 03:52, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

Let's be honest, we all know which users are most responsible for driving away new editors. And anybody who doesn't think it's a shame that Godless Raven LANCBed clearly doesn't have RationalWiki's best interests at heart. What if Sqrt or DuceMooselini LANCB as well? Mainspace matters.--Hastur! (talk) 05:37, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

It would be a crying shame if DuceMooselini left the wiki. He's a delightful user. If Sqrt-1 left then we would have a valuable contributor which would be an uber-bummer. Note that both of them are zero-drama and haven't threatened to leave before. You're under the impression that GR isn't going to come crawling back soon. ShabiDOO 08:19, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

Duce did LANCB in March for about two weeks after being abused over political differences by some of the usual suspects.[23] Fortunately he came back, but we shouldn't take him for granted.Coigreach (talk) 08:43, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

I was referring to "threatening to leave" as in "if you don't do this then I am out of here". ShabiDOO 08:51, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

Fair enough. Coigreach (talk) 08:53, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

@Hastur I'd appreciate it if you just dropped it already, we all know you have a bone to pick with me. As for Raven, he was not the doomed moral victor you and Dysk make him out to be. I am also not the sole cause of the wiki's problems, and it's high time you and others acknowledged your responsibility in this. — Oxyaena ^Harass 11:14, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

You know, I just came online into the wiki, clicked on recent changes, saw this, clicked, and was surprised to find my name, and was about to write that “at least we haven’t flung accusations and are currently dealing with this in a peaceful manner, so there should be no toxicity and HCM 0 now.” I tried to save the page, then the screen showed me that “ Someone else has changed this page since you started editing it.“, and I saw the comment above me. Oh well. Just a sec, I am setting timer to see how soon HCM 0 hits lets break some records baby. The 𝗦𝗾𝗿𝘁-𝟭 ^{talk stalk} 11:35, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

HCM 0 isn't going to be reached because of this. We might be near or at HCM 1, since this shit has lasted months and spread far and wide. Basically it's Israel-Palestine debate level of destructive insanity. But it's not going to cause full-wiki meltdown. Coigreach (talk) 11:47, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

The idea that such a petty thing could destroy this wiki is insulting to every editor who has contributed thus far, Raven included. ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 11:54, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

Lol this is still nowhere close to the Israel-Palestine drama. Chef Moosolini’s Ristorante Italiano^{Make a Reservation} 15:09, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

Yes, those were the days. There was one permaban and one sysoprevoke for the two warring parties. Bongolian (talk) 16:22, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

You give me hope that RationalWiki has seen worse, guys. I haven't followed Israel-Palestine drama. I just know it's bad. But remember guys, if you're feeling tense or dramatic from RationalWiki, just remember, it's probably just the rhythm of a wiki's life. It happened before. A lot worse. It'll probably happen again. Just take a break if you need to. --It's-a me, LeftyGreenMario! 19:56, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘It doesn't have to be so bad. That's why we implemented the revised RationalWiki:Community Standards, which includes a specific call for civility. The rules mean nothing though if people don't agree to follow them. If you see someone being uncivil to someone else: 1) tell them to stop 2) If that fails, give them a short block 3) If that fails, call in a moderator or others for support. Bongolian (talk) 20:16, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

Well that went well. — Oxyaena ^Harass 20:23, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

In short, fuck all happened as I predicted. Continue as before. — Dysk (contribs) 22:14, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

You truly are the Lord's prophet after all, Arthur. — Oxyaena ^Harass 22:39, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

@D What do you want to happen? If you've got some specific ideas on how we can improve things and do better in the future, let's hear them. Spud (talk) 00:15, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ Spud, I intend to create a roadmap for the future of this wiki. Followed by using this roadmap as a strategy document to direct changes, which update and reform the wiki both technically and socially, in order to better reflect the media landscape of 2020 and beyond. The reason for this is that I believe this website is slowly sliding into irrelevance due to neglect and action to reinvigorate the relevance of the wiki itself is badly needed. While editor retention is important to me personally and to the wiki as a whole, it is only one aspect of the strategy that must be formed. Therefore, your input and input from everyone is of great assistance at this stage. — Dysk (contribs) 14:46, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

it's admirable that you're going to put thought into making positive changes to the website and roadmap sounds like a good idea I look forward to reading it. Perhaps some of us will take it seriously if you could explain to the community why you torpedoed the discord. ShabiDOO 15:13, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

My Discord was a trashfire used mainly by morons and most of the members were alts of banned trolls. I kicked everyone off again. Why again? This is the third time I've kicked everyone off that server since founding it. Sometimes you just need to start fresh y'know. — Dysk (contribs) 23:32, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

Fair enough. ShabiDOO 01:12, 23 August 2020 (UTC)

My two cents on your "retention issues"

I apologise for this great wall of text, but I am sleep deprived right now and my judgement is not the best. Ace is often unapologetic about being drunk. So it is with me and my lack of sleep. I know I am a newcomer to the wiki, but this is a mobocracy, so I figured I would chime in (if this is the wrong time and place, I'm sorry. I meant no offense).

Anyway:

I know I am not one of the veterans, but since I am a member of the group that this discussion is concerned with I just thought I would throw in my two cents. Although I am a newcomer, I have lurked on the Wiki for a hella long time before deciding to make an account. I have read about the history of the Wiki (like that time when the current mod system was being proposed and some people got pissed off), and occasionally stumbled upon arguments that angry users had, years and years ago. So I guess you could say I am not a complete newbie. Still, I would like to offer my thoughts on this.

The first point I would like to make is that I knew what to expect before signing up. I knew that there are trolls, maniacs and mindless vandals who would go out of their way to ruin the wiki and annoy the users because they are ideologically opposed to our mission statement, or because they are assholes looking for someone to annoy, or simply because they are bored and this is their way of getting their kicks. I have played games online and spent time on YouTube and Reddit, as well as Facebook, so I have learned not to get upset by faceless strangers on the internet who say shit to me. Perhaps I am unique in my ability to not care that some stranger said nasty things to me, but I doubt it. In fact I suspect that most people, above a certain age who have been exposed to the world wide web for a certain period of time DO NOT set impossibly high expectations regarding their encounters with cowards who are protected by their anonymity, and are sitting safely in front of their screens. So in that respect, the wiki isn't unique. It's like every other place on the web that has an unregulated comments section. If new users decide to leave over the trolls and stay in the more tame and wholesome parts of the web (which frankly, I don't blame them for), there is not much that could be done by the mob. The world is what it is. If you volunteer you should know what to accept.

My second point concerns the other type of users people get into conflict with: their fellow mob members. The people who agree with the mission of the wiki. The people who are intelligent and articulate. The people who care about the Wiki. How could these people ever be at odds with each other? Well, it's quite simple really: we are human. Humans get angry. Humans make mistakes. Humans are imperfect, and different, and sometimes incompatible. Humans sometimes have horrible things going on in their real lives and will take it out on others. It almost feels more hurtful to get into an argument with these people, because you feel like they should be on your side. You feel that maybe they should understand you, because you are not a neo-nazi anti-vax flat earther, and neither are they. When they do petty things, or make it personal, it's different. Trolls you ban, or make fun of, or block. Your fellow RatWikians? You coop them, and give them due process, and try to talk to them. You ask other members to intervene on your behalf.

These are the people we are talking about now, our mob. Are they toxic? Do newcomers leave because of the mob members? I have only my subjective experience to offer, so make of this what you will... but fuck no. You are all great. The Crow, GC, Voraciousarchivist... I would list you all had I the time. You have all been nothing but friendly and polite to me, offering me advice on the article I am working on, or just engaging in general left-of-center memeing. Even Raven. I know people are angry with him, and that he has an annoying personality when he is pissed off, but he has also been polite, both in public and in DMs, just another science nerd and lefty shitposter. Both on the official discord server and the other, larger one, people have been great, as well as on the wiki (granted interaction here is VASTLY different than there on discord, and you may find this to be a false equivalency. But I was given a welcome and NOBODY came up to me to harass me. Who knows, gimme a few months and I will think you are all shitheads XP). Yeah people have meltdowns, so what? I know GC had a meltdown. I know Ace loves to get drunk and curse at people. I know almost all of you get down sometimes, and lose hope and LEAVE AND NEVER COME BACK... but so what?

Ye are all human beings for fuck sake. Ye are not saints. Nor robots (although some of you want to be, I think? I'm looking at you, trans-humanist crowd ;D). If I had a dollar for every time I had an internet meltdown I would have like... I don't know, like 60 dollars or something. So don't for a moment think that the fact none of you are angels makes the place a shit hole, because it doesn't. If nobody cursed or acted like a dick every now and again I would be worried. Genuinely. I have lived life, and studied history and science, and I KNOW that humans are flawed, I KNOW this... why would I expect anything else? But it's okay, and I forgive you all, because when I close this laptop and go off to bed, my real life will take over, with my real job, and my real rent, and my real religious wingnut mother, and it won't have mattered who reverted whose edits or who called who a shithead nazi assfuck. And the same is true for all you, because you all also have real lives. When the screen is turned off, none of this will have really mattered.

So in conclusion, are some of you assholes? Toxic? Stubborn? Stupid? Ignorant? Annoying? Yeah, sometimes. But guess what? That's NORMAL. THAT'S LIFE. THAT'S HUMANITY. And none of you are perfect 100% of the time, but I forgive you all, and I think you should all forgive yourselves. This is a great project you have going. Remember that, and take pride in it.

Lastly, I referenced the history of the wiki early on, the moment where the act of "pretending to be bureaucrats" made some folk angry, so angry that they just had to leave. One of the bystanders pointed out that there was no need to leave, because NOBODY FORCES YOU TO BE SOCIAL WITH THE REST OF THE WIKI! You don't have to be on discord. You don't have to post in the saloon bar. You don't have to vote for mods. If you think it's all made up drama bullshit over nothing then you can just read and edit. Dysk reckons that most don't give a shit about the things the community gets up to, or reads things like policy proposals or coop cases. And that's their right. The wiki is full of users who you have never seen, or talked to, but who made good edits, or just enjoyed the dumb jokes. It's their right to be that way. So don't worry about retaining these people, or driving them away, because the vast majority already doesn't give a shit. As for those who would leave because of toxicity on a random wiki filled with hipster atheist nerds between the ages of 14 and 24... how the fuck do you expect to keep them? You can't. They take this too seriously, and so all your attempts are already doomed. There is no need for affirmative action. None would work anyway. - Rairyu75(Talk) 01:30, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

@Rairyu75 I like you already! I don't agree with everything you just said. I don't accept that nothing has to be done to improve editor retention. But, hey, it's only human to disagree a little with other people, isn't it? But you've written an excellent summation of what RationalWiki is. You should do well here. Spud (talk) 06:20, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

I haven't read any of this text wall yet apart from the first line and just want to say Ace is often unapologetic about being drunk - why the fuck would I apologise? I am a consenting adult drinking legally. Ace^Moderator 06:36, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

@Ace McWicked I think that's the point of that comment, that you are within your rights to get drunk. ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 13:14, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

Damn fucking straight my brother. In fact it's almost 10am. Cocktail hour in the City of the Weak. Ace^Moderator 21:54, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

Does RationalWiki have an editor retention problem?

How does RationalWiki compare to other wikis when it comes editor retention?

Is RationalWiki's editor retention rate declining? If so, when did it start declining?

If RationalWiki has a editor retention rate problem, what are the causes?Rintintin (talk) 12:52, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

Wikipedia also has editor retention issues, that said, RationalWiki has consistently lost it's original editor base over time, attracting new editors is extremely difficult due to the culture here. In short activity is way down, often featuring more posts on the saloon than the entire mainspace contributions of the wiki. Articles untouched for years and outdated. Et al. — Dysk (contribs) 14:34, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

Editor retention from what I can see comes from a case of being a bit uh... biting towards newbies. I try not to bite newbies myself, but it's a reasonably frequent enough issue that we might want to do something about it. The problem is... I find it difficult to really suggest what that would be. To be clear, I'm trying to think of this as a general thing, not as the "hating new newbie" problem that a certain recent self-pretentious martyr was thinking about (no matter how much he thinks otherwise, he wasn't a "bitten newbie" by the time he LANCBed, and any casting of that is very disingenuous or uninformed on the part of anyone making that argument). Whilst not blocking newbies who make one edit that can be seen as terrible is a good begin (and is one that thankfully doesn't really happen anymore, although I'll be the first to point out that it used to be a massive issue just a few months ago), the step after that is a difficult one. The best response to a bad edit is to use the undo button of course, but that leads to a situation where a user sees their edit being undone, thinks their contributions aren't welcome and then leaves.

Having written out this hypothetical, I can think of a few ways forward to possibly reduce this issue.

1. Don't undo bad newbie edits. I will be the first to admit, this doesn't excite me. Leaving up bad edits lowers the quality of pages, and sometimes expanding or patching up a bad newbie edit is more trouble than it's worth. I generally do try this if it's not an extremely thorough problem, but I would oppose making this a permanent rule.
2. Create a template that informs a new user that one of their edits was undone, and that they might want to review our style guide/allow the sysop undoing to enter their own reason. The advantage here is that we can easily inform new users that an edit was undone and the recommended resources for figuring out how to make their edits fit in better in the future. The disadvantage is that it feels about as welcome as slapping a Welcome template on someone's userpage, which while nice, it's also a bit trite and might not cause people to read them.
3. Require that a user who undoes a newbie to leave a comment on their talkpage. Basically, the same as point 2, just not with a template. I don't mind this, but there's practical issues that make this hard compared to point 2. It's not feasible on BoNs for instance, and whilst I don't know how much of our activity/users come from people who started as BoNs, we shouldn't undervalue their potential in becoming full editors either.

Finally, I also do want to make it clear that I have no real patience for beginner users who make it their life's work on the wiki to post flamebaiting content in places like the Saloon. They're fundamentally trolls, but they're also the type that is easily able to basically put people up against each other and some people tend to stick up for that and use them as an example of "newbie biting". When talking about editor retention issues, I seriously don't care for people who just are looking to arson the wiki we can do that just fine on our own.

As for what produces LANCBs that aren't bad edits, but moreso that are tied to fringy or badly made arguments, after pouring over some recent and not so recent discussions, the main reason just appears to be clashing with regular editors. One person has a fringe for on the wiki idea, they make an edit, someone challenges the edit and they leave, possibly after a hefty discussion. Unfortunately, I'm not sure how to proceed here. I'd argue that it's just an appliance of RW:CD and there's a not insignificant part of me on this that's just "if you can't take the heat, get out of the kitchen". I've had a very early suggestion of mine challenged here with... some hostility, but I just opted to respond without hostility, the subsequent discussion lacked it, and the result was that for better or worse, I staid.

I really see this type of not having editor retention as a too double edged sword to do anything about. Try to curb it, and we will quickly turn into the Balance fallacy since we now have to accomodate every viewpoint, since a fringe or bad argument can't be challenged and removed because it's a bad argument, since we don't want to bite the newbies. The alternative is what we have now, where editors risk LANCBing over challenged. I kinda think of this one as one we just "have to deal with", and from what I can tell it's the one that WP tends to regularly face on their more controversial articles as well. (Granted, I don't edit WP, but I have seen enough talkpage drama on their site to figure out that one).

Finally, we have LANCBs like the recent one, because I do have to get this one out of the way, even though I really don't want to, but if we're addressing editor retention issues, here goes. The recent LANCB incident seems to have occurred a few times during RWs history. They superficially get our mission, but when it comes to edits, they often end up clashing with established editors over similar reasons to the previous point due to a more overwhelming desire to dunk on people than to follow the mission. They probably mean well (I genuinely believe Raven was a good faith editor), but they fundamentally have some very populistic ideas about the wiki which results in them falling in their own sword when they get challenged. The problem is that they do edit, and since RW suffers like any other site from the internet's general starvation of content, this makes their eventual LANCB a loss for the wiki when it comes to their edits that don't cause issues. The only realistic answers I have right now is to issue interaction and topic bans on these editors for the segments in which they do clash, and to apply them early. I don't know the alternative path for example that our most recent incident could have taken, had we decided ASAP (as in, like three months ago) to do a two sided interaction ban Raven from interacting with Oxy and GC and ban him from writing on articles related to leftism, but I do think that if we had put our foot down quicker, we wouldn't need a three months long drama over what amounts to the same problem and there's even a potential chance it would have fizzled out on it's own.

Those are my thoughts on our editor retention problem. I'm more than open for a discussion here, so feel free to respond. Techpriest ^{(I am Alpharius! / / / )} 15:36, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

Okay, let me add to that last point about "what if we had topic banned GR, perhaps a few others, from Leftism-related articles early on." While I think that would not have worked here specifically because, well, he kinda shot that down himself as "oppressing his genius" or something, I do agree with the principle of what you are suggesting. If properly applied, I could see it superseding blocks as the main punishment in coop cases because it leaves the users intact, and if they really are so obsessed with a given topic like the Giordano wannabe, they will just leave(no big loss then). If they have potential, they will probably stay and just edit main space in a different capacity. Also, do you believe this relates to the discussion of more active mods we had above? I could see some of these ideas intersecting.-Flandres (talk) 15:57, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

Personally, I see mods mostly fulfill the role of being community leaders. What I mean by this is that when it comes to a dispute or a discussion, the way a moderator behaves should be as close to the golden standard of behavior. (Most of the current mod team also seems to get this). I really would find it a useful idea to suggest topic and interaction bans first in coop cases, and I'd be very much in favor of suggesting something to this extent on the Chicken Coop page as something to attempt first. If you've ever kept track of Wikipedia's incidents board (I don't recommend it, our shitshow here is but a piss drop in a sea of piss compared to ANI), you'll notice that most often, the punishment doled out is a topic/interaction ban, rather than a full fledged block (or sometimes a short block for cooling and a topic/interaction ban afterwards). Within regards to more active mods, I think that our mods mostly work fine as is, although I do notice some lack of cohesion. A part of that is expected since the position is elected, so it's basically a popularity contest, and popular people don't always get along. I'd personally think that what I'd want from mods is basically to watch and keep track of talkpages in recent changes and attempt to be reasonable if a situation risks going out of control (the absolute last thing they should do is try to stoke a fire). "Mods don't get issues delivered on their doorstep" isn't really a good excuse for situations exploding like they do. This does happen with a select few moderators (who generally overlap with the mods who are acting like community leaders), but I don't think you can really expect 3 moderators to carry the work of a team double that size to track the wiki, so I wouldn't mind making this some sort of rule. I hope that answers your question. Techpriest ^{(I am Alpharius! / / / )} 16:28, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

I don't think a topic ban would have solved the problem. I really find it pretty surprising that some people don't see the clearly menacing behaviour from Raven who would randomly respond to things entirely unrelated to contentious article edits in a snarky way (not the good snark but the roll your eye snark) usually directed to a couple users...where if those pointless comments weren't made, a micro-drama moment never would have happened. While I can easily admit Oxy does that once in a while (that is instigate a pointless snarky comment out of nowhere with no one having first said something ridiculous or offensive) I'd say its so uncommon to be negligible, her issues mostly being an over-reaction after she has been provoked by someone and yes she over-reacts which we all wish wouldn't happen but she is also frequently provoked for no reason which definitely shouldn't happen with Raven recently being the number one instigator. With Raven I saw mostly provocation initiation, especially pre-first block and he certainly cut down on it afterwards but it did NOT stop. Yes, some of the issues came from edit disputes, but some of it was pointless goading and the bad kind of pointless snark. Not a single case was worthy of taking away his rights, but in the aggregate I think should be a reason to block. Topic ban may have been helpful but it would not have solved what, at least I and a few others saw as the more serious problem. ShabiDOO 17:08, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

Well, the application of the topic ban should probably be a case by case thing rather than a hard-and-fast "you should do this first." Sometimes, like what happened back in march, there is just a topic people feel very strongly about, so tempers are inevitably heated between people who might otherwise get along. In this recent case, it would not work because GR actively enjoyed the conflict that he caused. The topic ban solution requires that the people who suggest it know some background knowledge about the people they are applying it to. A part of a coop case could be gathering evidence to see if a topic ban would work(which GR made very, very, easy).-Flandres (talk) 17:14, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

Who is talking about not undoing bad edits? Undo bad edits all you like. But they need to be undone with explanation. People can't just be rolling back without commentary, that's far too repressive. Also, there is currently already a function notifying people of when one of their edits has been reverted. And as for posting to a new editor's talk page to inform them of a reversion... Isn't that what edit summaries are for? If you need more space, THEN by all means take it up to the talk page.

No, RationalWiki's real issue is excessive ideological slant. Our presented worldview is, and ought to be, much simpler than what some editors want it to be. We are pro-scientific method (we're doing alright there, although a lot of our science articles need some updating/expansion. Too bad we lost Raven, who was eager to do that), and we are anti-authoritarianism and skeptical of religious fundamentalism. Anti-authoritarianism has seen a great deal of mission creep. That is our biggest issue. We don't need political fancruft in mainspace. We should be covering basic authoritarian concepts, issues, and ideologies. We don't need massive articles on anarchism. Speaking of anarchism, the reason Godless Raven left was the result of an editor, Oxyaena, who throws a fit whenever somebody makes an edit to an article that challenges her world view (HER worldview. Not RationalWiki's). Well, it wasn't just Oxyaena. It was also her enablers: Shabidoo, Flandres, etc. Oxyaena made it her mission to oppose Godless Raven at every turn, and created a very hostile environment for him from the very beginning. So yeah, he was going to be tilted. And the dogpiling continued long after he had established himself as a good faith editor (and a particularly useful one). This was somebody who was willing to take time and discuss edits he made. He had no issues with reasoned discussion. Unfortunately the relentless dogpiling was bound to have its toll.

We know exactly what happened, here. We lost a good editor for the sake of Oxyaena, who has a history of toxicity.--Hastur! (talk) 22:02, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

Hastur is right. RW was never "Left-Wing Wiki". It didn't have a political ideology but has developed beyond that. This was always a site that took a scientific direction. Not political. Ace^Moderator 22:47, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

"At every turn?" What about all those science related edits Oxy did not contest?-Flandres (talk) 22:22, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

Oh wow, you've gone and done it. You've proved that Oxyaena is not toxic /sarcasm--Hastur! (talk) 22:29, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

Oh,no. You made a factually inaccurate statement and I pointed out that you are simply wrong. I assume your response, sarcasm and only sarcasm, means you can't actually defend your own inaccurate claim.-Flandres (talk) 22:31, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

Whatever point you're trying to make doesn't advance the discussion. But while I'm here, a good example of Oxyaena bullying Raven would be her unexplained revert of this edit.--Hastur! (talk) 22:34, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

The political pages on RW are just not that great except when they veer into dealing authoritarians and authoritarianism, hence they are often a source of fighting with little overall benefit for RW. For the most part, one is better off reading WP about politicians or politics, as the pages about politicians on RW primarily show the editors' political slants. I had to fight to get some dose of reality onto the Bernie page because it has been fiercely defended by his supporters. Bongolian (talk) 22:37, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

Exactly. Bongolian, you are dangerously close to agreeing with me. I'm also told there was a great deal of poison surrounding the Israel/Palestine debate, too. That's the kind of shit that drives people away. Our mission is concise. If a homeopath or a creationist becomes disgusted with us and leaves, that's fine. But we're losing valuable editors for the sake of mainspace content that isn't even relevant to what we do. If somebody wants to make a political wiki, then they ought to do so instead of colonizing RW--Hastur! (talk) 22:42, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

Exactly right. This site was never meant to be directed by political ideology. Ace^Moderator 22:50, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

(edit conflict)But it is relevant, hastur. A critical part of your argument is that Oxy harassed GR at every turn, proving she is inherently toxic and a massive problem to the site. She did not in fact harass GR at every turn. She may have disliked him, but than again so did a large portion of the community. GR made several good edits she let slip by. Again, I can't help but notice you are trying to shift the discussion. Can't defend your own inaccuracy? As for what Bongolian said, may I ask what your solution to this problem is?-Flandres (talk) 22:39, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

If anything, Raven was harassing me. I was also the one to first propose a topic ban in the first place, but Hastur ignores that as usual and assumes bad faith on my part. Raven compared me to a murderous dictator and blocked me multiple times during a coup against the wishes of the mob. — Oxyaena ^Harass 22:45, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

You are toxic. Your commentary here and over on Discord speaks to your toxicity. When you can't get your way you lose your nut, blame unspecified mental health issues, calm down and then do it again. You're also power hungry and unable to see your own faults. I have plenty of faults but I admit them up front. You, sir, are in denial. Ace^Moderator 22:53, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

First of all, a topic ban operates under the assumption that you and Raven are equally at fault. Second of all, it would have worked out better for you since you wanted the topics in question to stay the same and Raven was the most motivated to correct them. Trying to claim that you were being conciliatory for proposing a topic ban is, to me, clearly in bad faith. As far as comparing you to a dictator... Don't be ridiculous. That was a ludicrous hyperbole and if you took it seriously it says more about you than it does about him. Finally, he blocked you fully knowing that you would promptly be unblocked (also, "against the wishes of the mob" is a little generous)--Hastur! (talk) 22:51, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

A lot of GR's edits were opposed on quality grounds by a lot of non-leftists. Have you read the talk pages of the disputed articles? Have you in fact read the testimony of users like crow on this very page? Also, when you talk about "against the will of the mob being to generous, have you read the archived coop case?-Flandres (talk) 22:54, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

Raven's edits had varied levels of quality. He attempted, at various points, to add some counterweight to certain articles that he was dissatisfied with (for example, Anarchism). Admittedly, some of what he added was clumsy. However he was largely willing to discuss these edits and those discussions generally led to a consensus on improving the articles. We are still working on a new version of the Anarchism article and maybe eventually I'll hold true to my promise to rewrite the article on Karl Marx. With regards to your objection to my parenthetical about the will of the mob, ask yourself again, does this further the discussion? I will answer you this time but I don't really have much patience for your pointless nitpicking. I said it was a bit generous because the mob really doesn't favor Oxyaena and I'm certain there'd have been editors who'd have voted to block Oxyaena (such as myself) had the vote stayed open longer. At the very least present her with some sort of censure or rebuke.--Hastur! (talk) 23:03, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

If you can't defend your inaccurate statements, then don't make them. This is not that hard.-Flandres (talk) 23:05, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘I appreciate your putting effort into creating a roadmap for better editor retention, D. Removing bad newbie edits is important and should not be part of that roadmap. If people want to get rid of the rollback, and thus have more impetus for comments on reversions, that's another matter. I think getting reverted as a newb (by David Gerard in the olden days) actually made me a better editor. Leaving garbage edits around is worse than getting rid of (or containing) bad editors. Quality attracts quality. Bongolian (talk) 18:06, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

If User:Dysklyver is right about attracting new editors being extremely difficult due to the culture here, what are some specific things that are wrong with the culture at RationalWiki and how could they be changed?Rintintin (talk) 18:25, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

Did you know that in NZ you can buy a box of bees and have it delivered anywhere you want? For a nominal sum you can buy a box containing 49 bees a single queen which will arrive at your doorstop in a ready made hive. I have yet to do this however the thought keeps occurring to me - a friend opens his door to a knock and finds a box at his doorstop. Wondering what it is he or she picks it up thinking "I didn't order a package - whatever could this be?". Taking it into the lounge they feel the box thrum with internal pressure. They shake it, hold it up to their ears wondering "Whatever could that noise be". Entering the lounge they strip the packing off and open the box. Then suddenly... BEES!

As to editor retention. If a new user comes aboard we should always use the welcome template and if their edits are reverted just post to their talkpage letting them know why. This isn't fucking rocket science. Ace^Moderator 22:04, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

How many of you have looked outside of the wiki to see how we're viewed, who cites us, what they cite us on, and how often? Anyone? I hate to break it to the likes of Hastur, but getting rid of the anti-authoritarian stuff, cutting it back, or whatever isn't going to attract scientific minded users. It's going to attract a very specific demographic who is perfectly happy with the ascetic of civility and science, but has far more dishonest intents. I know it's tempting to try to act as if politics is politics, and science is science, and people will just listen if you explain things to them, but looking outside... Well, there's only one group calling a pandemic a hoax and trying to drink bleach. Like it or not, basic scientific truth has become political, and well... It's not evenly distributed. Further, if you look at coverage of the wiki outside of citations, it's pretty old. We were never really headline material outside of the drama of CP's creation and its brief stint in relevancy. It's been years since then. We're largely known for our articles on conspiracy theorists and wingnuts these days, especially since 2016 when such topics became far more relevant. What I'm getting at here is that we shouldn't rollback our coverage of political subjects, we should instead become more familiar with them. Here's our Alexa data if you want to dispute conclusions. In my opinion, our problem isn't necessarily user retention, though I admit there's likely problems there, but rather getting users to begin with. Wikipedia has a decent sized user turnover rate, but that's offset by its user recruitment and prominence, but as we're want to point out, we aren't Wikipedia. ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 22:56, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

Adding to what GC said, have we not had this basic discussion before? "politics is inseparable from what we do" versus "politics is extraneous?" Has it also not always ended the same way every time?-Flandres (talk) 23:07, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

But who fucking cares, man. We have always been a niche site and I do actually find RW linked to on NZ forums and blogs upon occasion - as well as internationally. I think the problem here is taking ourselves too seriously. Let the cards fall where they may. Welcome new users, let those that leave, leave. This navel gazing won't help. I think it's the pearl clutching worry that drives people away. Ace^Moderator 23:11, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

(edit conflict) If we've had such a discussion I do not recall it. Anyways, getting rid of the anti-authoritarian stuff, cutting it back, or whatever isn't going to attract scientific minded users. It's going to attract a very specific demographic who is perfectly happy with the ascetic of civility and science, but has far more dishonest intents is a bizarre assertion. Are you saying that if we focus on our mission we're going to get swarmed with crypto-nazis or something? As to our Alexa stats, I don't think we should be making too many changes to our mission because of them. You know what would really draw in high stats? Becoming a porn site. But we're probably not going to do that because we're about something and it isn't porn. Much like we're not about anarchism or even socialism. Should we still have articles on anarchism and socialism? Yes, if only to serve other mainspace articles about authoritarianism. And so long as they are snarky. People need to stop trying to make RationalWiki something that it isn't. --Hastur! (talk) 23:16, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

Right-wing populism is on the rise. If it's hard to attract editors now, imagine how tough it is going to be down the pike.Rintintin (talk) 23:20, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

Christ, man, get a life. Although I suppose you're better off annoying us than harassing teenagers--Hastur! (talk) 23:22, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Ace, you know...I have to admit you are probably right. It seems anything that could be gleaned about how to proceed in the future has been gleaned. Anything people want to take from this has been duly taken. This is beginning to be a pointless re-ligation of issues best discussed elsewhere. Should we archive? The point where this might have led to amending the community standards or something seems to have passed.-Flandres (talk) 23:21, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

This isn't politics wiki. I'm not as far left as some here are but that doesn't make science any less relevant. Getting bogged down in this shit will push people away. There are far right people who are also scientifically minded. Who fucking cares about your politics, my man. We welcome your skepticism. Ace^Moderator 23:24, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

I doubt that, and asides. Fascism and right-wingism is a serious problem nowadays, we already had this discussion back in 2014. Why the fuck are we having it again? You old guarders are irrelevant. — Oxyaena ^Harass 23:28, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

Such a pleasant person you are. Being old guard speaks nothing to relevancy. I'll say it again, but perhaps with a little more stridency.... this isn't fucking politics wiki. Oxy - you need to get used to the fucking idea that just because I don't follow your narrow, adolescent politics does not make me any less of an editor here. And that's the fucking problem. You judge people on their politics - not their empirical knowledge of the world. YOU are the problem. Ace^Moderator 23:38, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Too much political slant doesn't just push editors away, it also prejudices readers against us. People are far less likely to take, say, our article on homeopathy seriously if they dismiss us out of hand for supporting an ideology they don't like. Which means we become less effective at pursuing our mission of combating pseudoscience. I see it as a matter of public service that we stick to our mission. RationalWiki is a good resource. Let's not let it go to waste. I'd also like to add that I am pretty far to the left. I am not now nor have I ever been a moderate. I certainly have my reservations as to certain decisions leftist movements make and my own ideas on what can feasibly be implemented in the world as it is now but I am not a centrist or moderate by any means. I just want to say that before anybody accuses me of trying to infiltrate my own political slant onto the wiki--Hastur! (talk) 23:31, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

Hastur...I have never once defended Oxy's overreactions but have only stood up for her when someone was pointlessly starting up drama with her or misgendering her or other dickery which you seem to be utterly blind to. As I think any user should be supported when it happens whether they do other non-praiseworthy things or not. I have also suggested multiple times that insults are not called for from her part and have clearly said that I could not defend it on her own talk page. On the other hand you have defended Raven's dickery and didn't do a single thing to hamper it. So in terms of enabling...you've certainly taught us how it works. So thank you for being the scorched tea-pot calling the charred kettle the same colour. ShabiDOO 23:38, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

The notion that I enable Raven is laughable. Didn't I once vote against him that time he had that meltdown? Haven't I reverted him? Haven't I contested edits he's made? I promote productive discussion and oppose mission drift and toxicity. I also promote editor retention. I believe that I have been consistent about this.--Hastur! (talk) 23:43, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

This isn't politicswiki

RW was never political. It isn't right-wing or left-wing. Read the 4 goals... no where does it say RW stands up for left wing, right wing, social justice nor is it ideological grounded in stance. Problem here is people judging edits based upon their political persuasions. We stand for anti-authoritarianism, from the left and the right, pro-science and anti-religion. People like Oxy (sorry love, I'm going to call you out) judge edits on their political stance, not their emperical stance. That's the fucking problem here. Ace^Moderator 23:50, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

I agree. And combined with the fact that she has such a toxic approach makes it harder for us to retain good editors. I don't think anybody here can honestly say that we're better off with Oxyaena than Godless Raven.--Hastur! (talk) 23:54, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

I'm not digging at Oxy specifically here. She is just a good example. I'm addressing the entire wiki. Politics is not the mission. We ain't trying to get Biden elected. RW has no political stance. Ace^Moderator 23:58, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

Really? So Atheism is apolitical? There's no politics involved in fundamentalism? Debunking conspiracy theories happens in a bubble? Something tells me if this was any of those topics, you wouldn't try cowering in ignorance, you'd fucking study up and wade into them. But because this shit makes you uncomfortable, because it maybe makes people you dislike happy, you cower like overgrown children. You stick your heads in the sand and argue we should live in fucking fantasy bubbles, while some of us actually fucking read up on these topics. Great. Smart move. Nuke the fucking site then, because every fucking topic we cover involves politics in some way. ☭Comrade GC☭^{Ministry of Praise} 00:05, 23 August 2020 (UTC)

Yes, atheism is apolitical. Ever read any PJ O'Rouke? RW should accept right-wingers. Why not? Are you saying we should only accept, or tolerate, left of centre? That's the fucking problem, brother. Someone with right tendencies comes here, as an atheist, and feels unwelcome? I'm a fucking moderate and seeing some of the fucking nonsense here from the left grates me - but I'm scientifically lierate, Ace^Moderator 00:29, 23 August 2020 (UTC)

That's a strawman, GC. We will always have some political articles, insofar as they're related to our mission. But the idea that all political articles are missional is incorrect.--Hastur! (talk) 00:10, 23 August 2020 (UTC)

Most anti-religionists skew left of center. It was inevitable that the left would eventually take over the wiki - especially during a time of political polarization.Rintintin (talk) 00:06, 23 August 2020 (UTC)

This is all moot. Please indef ban Raven and revert next time he posts. --It's-a me, LeftyGreenMario! 02:27, 23 August 2020 (UTC)

Just my too sense (it's a pun on "two cents" because I'm trying to say something that makes sense too, get it? Get it? ...I'm so lonely *sob*) here, but while I rarely agreed with GC, I could at least talk with him (her?) without getting too pissed off. Same goes for GR. I can't say the same about Oxy, I only voted "don't ban her" because I don't believe 'being annoying and/or a burden on the public' is a reason to kick people out of RatWik even if I would never be friends with her IRL, not because I think she adds a significant amount to the wiki. Part of being in a society is realizing that even if you are "right", people that disagree with you aren't "wrong", and a more important part is realizing that if you have the ability to kick out people you find annoying, other people that find you to be annoying also have that ability. I hope some people come back, but not freak out when someone else is being a twit. CoryUsar (talk) 04:57, 23 August 2020 (UTC)

This wiki is obviously centre-left, with elements of centrist and socialist influence. To claim it's intended to be apolitical is stupid, it was openly liberal from the start and has remained largely the same. — Dysk (contribs) 13:29, 23 August 2020 (UTC)

I disagree. The wiki started with many of us who had been editing CP and trying to put science into it. And, to be fair, some people whose "contributions" might have some somewhat beyond that. But RW2 was always intended to be a skeptical rational wiki. Those traits are often associated in the US with people who are politically liberal. But there is nothing in the mission statement which is overtly left-wing. You do not need to be "on the left" to oppose authoritarianism and fundamentalism. (At least not where I live.)Bob^{"Life is short and (insert adjective)"} 17:35, 23 August 2020 (UTC)

That is correct, Bob. Notably, one of our current moderators, RWRW has been openly conservative from the beginning. It is perhaps inevitable that the drift of mainstream conversvatives towards anti-science/authoritarianism/pro-conspiracy has left RW with a more liberal userbase. Bongolian (talk) 17:45, 23 August 2020 (UTC)

By the Way

By the way, this attempt to disassociate from politics is naïve. Laughable. It's on par with saying that Tom Clancy games are apolitical. Any statement, including on pseudoscience is going to be political. Science is firmly associated with politics and it's complete denial if you disagree. --It's-a me, LeftyGreenMario! 02:42, 23 August 2020 (UTC)

I just came online and missed the drama, and now I am just confused. So I have decided to make this to keep the debate or whatever on track...

• We are dying due to retention issues, and this debate isn't really helping. It is now about something totally else. Now if a new user was to enter right now, he would think this wiki isn't going to last too long and leave. And we haven't figured out a solution yet, which was the topic of the debate (except GR, who has decided that banning the users he picked would solve it, most disagree)
• This isn't Politics Wiki, and GC disagrees.
• Oxy is used as an example to prove the above statement, and Flandres wasn't pleased.
• GR came back after the sheer joy of discovering that Oxy and GC have left, and has decided to kill of three other members, and found out that being toxic to other toxic members isn't going to help either very much, or save the wiki from extinction.
• Banned GR. For better or for worse, it did calm down stuff a bit.
• Now, we have literally killed off more members by this debate, which was ironically made to fix it.

Quite the drama, eh? Feel free to correct me, or add on to the list. Or remind me that I am being rude. Don't take me too seriously. I don't. The 𝗦𝗾𝗿𝘁-𝟭 ^{talk stalk} 03:30, 23 August 2020 (UTC)

I couldn't agree more with LGM. Everything under complex human interaction is nondetachable from the lens of a world-view. I think it's silly to call it leftist...it's such a vague watery blanket term that explains little. More specific (though still inadequate) is to call most of our content: humanist and progressive. I think it represents the overwhelming majority of users here. So why should we pretend not to be humanist or progressive? A few people taking more extreme views doesn't make the overall tone of articles extremist, just as the few users here who add non humanist-progressive content a problem either (it can be a good thing). I don't think an ideological shift is necessary nor a cleanse of content. I think just the occasional moderating of more extremist flourishes would be useful (and only the moderating of it...not the erasing of it). ShabiDOO 03:33, 23 August 2020 (UTC)

Science is non-political. People are political. If you are stuck on a particular political POV you will eventually abandon some aspects of science, because science isn't fair. It's just a bunch of facts. Make of them what you will.Ariel31459 (talk) 03:57, 23 August 2020 (UTC)

What influences science is, and science doesn't mean anything if you disconnect and don't translate in to better understanding ourselves and conducting policy with that knowledge. It's really hard to do science without politics. --It's-a me, LeftyGreenMario! 04:06, 23 August 2020 (UTC)

That's why I said "everything under complex human interaction" (that is, anything social, historical, political, ideological etc). I wasn't referring to strictly scientific articles or the fallacies for example. But even then with science, its naive to think there isn't a degree of world view which inserts itself into it. I'm not talking of the Kuhnian kind (which overstates things) but the basic human tendency to put a lens over even the most seemingly objective enterprise. Are there any scientific articles or articles on fallacy which are particularly tainted by progressive ideology? I cannot think of any. ShabiDOO 04:09, 23 August 2020 (UTC)

Maybe science shouldn’t be political, but it totally is and it should be acknowledged as such here. We can’t talk about racialism without discussing the political motives behind it. We can’t talk about COVID stupidity without bringing up that one side of the US spectrum is a lot worse on it than the other. And also relevant to our mission: we can’t talk about authoritarianism without noting that many US politicians are very prone to it. You can’t strip politics out of RationalWiki Chef Moosolini’s Ristorante Italiano^{Make a Reservation} 04:35, 23 August 2020 (UTC)

I do not believe that anybody is arguing that we should remove all political arguments from RationalWiki (@Ace McWicked, if you wish to clarify please do so). I firmly believe that some political articles are necessary, according to our mission. However the proliferation of political articles ought to be addressed in some manner, as well as ideological creep. For the reasons I've stated elsewhere on this page--Hastur! (talk) 05:44, 23 August 2020 (UTC)

Of course there’ll be political opinions. But RW is and should be apolitical. Ace^Moderator 09:34, 23 August 2020 (UTC)

Apolitical? I can't agree with that. Sadly, we lve in a world where saying, "I think the Big Bang explains the origin of the universe", and, "I think evolution explains the origin of species", is still making a political statement. I wish that were not the case. But it is. Probably less so in New Zealand than in the States. Certainly less so in Britain than in the States, although that seems to be changing. I know the right doesn't have a monopoly on believers in pseudoscience, although it sometimes seems like they do. I hated it when GR called this a communist/anarchist wiki, just as I hated it when Ken called it an atheist/agnostic wiki. There should be room for more diversity of opinion among our users than that. But we can't pretend to be apolitical. Anyway, what most attracts me to this wiki is its stance against racism, sexism and homophobia. And, sadly, there's nothing apolitical about that either. Spud (talk) 12:50, 23 August 2020 (UTC) "

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘I think the problem really boils down to the fact there are RW editors who treat the entirety of their political beliefs as though they are as obviously correct and valid as, say, their stance against creationists or anti-vaxx nuts. This would be merely comical if confined to general debate on talk pages, but becomes more of an issue when it degenerates into zero-sum knife fights over article content.

I'm not sure how to go about effectively discouraging this policy-wise, but a good starting point would be a blanket ban on using articles as vehicles for contemporaneous coverage of unfolding events like election campaigns and candidacies. Axes can be ground & knives sharpened in WIGO Elections instead. Helena Bonham Carter (talk) 16:28, 23 August 2020 (UTC)

I think the problem is that people think political beliefs and science beliefs work as mutually exclusive concepts. I want to say, any time you argue about what should be done after you get results from an experiment, you're advocating a policy position. i.e. you're being political. When you say the climate is globally on average getting warming, you're summarizing science. When you say we should reduce emissions to prevent extinction and protect poorer communities, that's an opinion, a political position. It's founded on good science, sure, but it's still politics. I don't agree with a ban on contemporaneous coverage. What's the point of our mission then, if we can't go on debunking talking points that aren't founded on research, such as on the ongoing gun control debate? --It's-a me, LeftyGreenMario! 17:53, 23 August 2020 (UTC)

I don't think anyone thinks that. The problem that one must face, in creating content for a wiki dedicated to scientific authenticity, is the gullibility of editors when dealing with their ideological opposites. When dealing with ideological targets, editors can fail to diligently check information they use. My favorite example is William M. Briggs, who is quoted extensively debunking a scientific paper by Sam Harris. A few google attempts disclosed that Mr. Briggs advertises himself as "Statistician to the stars," and himself has been roundly criticized as incompetent for misunderstanding high-school level data. I added this information to the article out of curiosity, several years ago, to see if the reference might be removed by someone, anyone, embarrassed by this absurd person referred to as some kind of an expert. But no, it's still there. I should also add that Mr. Briggs is a Trump supporter, has claimed that there is no evidence that lockdowns save lives, and is a self professed climate denier. Ariel31459 (talk) 03:35, 24 August 2020 (UTC)

Unblock Raven, blanket interaction bans

Might seem odd that I’m sticking up for Raven since we got off on a rocky start, but it’s hard to deny that he’s done good work here and I think banning him is a shame (IMO banning any established user is always a shame). But this drama has been going on for months and something needs to happen.

I would suggest an interaction ban between Raven and Flanders (and GrammerCommie and Oxy if they return). Under threat of blocking, Raven would prohibited from talking to them/reverting their edits. I also think It should also be a 2 way street so Raven can’t be reverted/antagonised without responding. One last ditch effort to keep people on the site and keep the peace. --RWRW (talk) 11:53, 23 August 2020 (UTC)

May I ask why it was me you specifically mentioned? He also threatened to drive Shabidoo and Crow off the wiki so I highly doubt he would have fruitful interactions with them.(note I am not saying I support your plan-I am asking you to clarify it.)-Flandres (talk) 12:14, 23 August 2020 (UTC)

No. Don't unblock him. I feel used. Raven tricked me into thinking he'd changed his ways. His above screed shows that he clearly had not. It also show that he's an arrogant cunt who ,given half the chance, will treat everybody else like shit. Yes, he could have done a lot of good for the wiki. But he could potentially do a lot more harm to it by further antagonizing its user base. Spud (talk) 12:33, 23 August 2020 (UTC)

It's a moot point as the circumstances are more or less; Raven got fed up and fucked off of his own accord, stripped his own userrights and asked someone to indef him. I took the opportunity to give his userrights back cause y'know LANCB lasts a few days generally, and he followed this up with the same AMAZING idea, only this time making sure to get LGM to add sysoprevoke so it sticks longer. He quit, unless you can convince him to return there is no argument to be made here. — Dysk (contribs) 13:22, 23 August 2020 (UTC)

I think Oxy and GrammarCommie will be back. They have quit many times before. The only way to truly quit this website is to scramble the password then you can't log back in, but I don't think they will ever do that. Johns (talk) 13:25, 23 August 2020 (UTC)

Registering a new account takes a few seconds, truly to quit here, you must have sufficient mental stamina to quit of your own accord... a rare quality in current year. No technical barrier can help you quit, no social technicalities can stop you editing. — Dysk (contribs) 13:36, 23 August 2020 (UTC)

Now that I can defend myself

Here I am. What happened above was venting, I was angry and wanted to let out frustration that has existed for very long. I want you to notice that before all of this, both in here and the archived coop, I was very polite and civil.

I am not ban evading. I created a new account because I scrambled my password and removed my email address. LGM is pretending that I am ban evading when I am clearly not. I requested to be indef blocked; and as such, I have every right to be unblocked whenever I request it.

I was insulted multiple times by Oxy and GC, harassed and gas lit. So I wanted to have one moment to release the steam of anger I had stored. I am okay with an interaction ban between me and Flandres, Shabidoo, etc. If they stay away from me, it should be fine. I had polite and civil disagreements with @CorruptUser (see above comment), @Sqrt-1, @D, @Hastur and we resolved it with talking. When newbies asked my help (such as @Fowler, @Sqrt-1, among others), I was there to help. To think that I am the only cause of conflict is disingenious horseshit. If you think me being "toxic" was a problem, why was this scrutiny NOT applied to Oxy and GC? Why was GC allowed to tell people to kill themselves [24] and nothing was done? I want equal treatment. I have been blocked without due process nor a vote - which is quintessential to RationalWiki, at least formally. Yet when it comes to me, no rules apply at all. Or, when they do, its cherrypicked to attack and hurt me. Do a vote to block me. Apply equal standards. If insulting people is not okay (therefore banworthy), why has Oxy been allowed to do it?

List of personal attacks by Oxy that went unpunished

Here is a list of personal attacks that I presented to the coop. (https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/RationalWiki:Chicken_coop/Archive108)

• [25] "asshole"
• [26] "miserable piece of shit"
• [27] "jackasses", "fuckers" (not only me but also against Gunther)
• [28] "dumb fuck"
• [29] "idiot"
• [30] "fucker"
• [31] "ass"
• [32] "incapable of learning/reading"
• [33] "fucker" (2)
• [34] "piss off"
• [35] "piece of shit" (against Hastur)
• [36] "this liberal" (as a pejorative, against user Nerd)
• [37] (against HBC)
• [38] "asshole" (2; against me, Ace and Scream)
• [39] "asshole (3; against Ace)

Was Oxyaena banned? No. So why should I?

GC without punishment told someone "Fuck you fucking ass shits. Go get Covid and die"

GC has made several users leave, such as Kazitor, who did maintenance on the Archivebot. Was GC banned? Nope. Was GC banned for telling people to kill themselves for disagreeing with him? [40] Also not.

If you want to be fair, apply equal standards. I have NEVER told someone to kill themselves. And you want to ban me? Read your own guidelines.

A way out of this

Finally, what do I want? Give me a two-way interaction ban with users like Flandres and Shabidoo. I think Crow will not misbehave now that Oxy and GC are gone. Make them leave me alone and everything will be fine. Contrary to what multiple people say, I am willing to disagree with people politely and engage in dialogue with them, see: https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Debate:US_Voting_2020 for example.

— Godless Raven ^talk_stalk^walk_balk 🌹 14:19, 23 August 2020 (UTC)

Yeah I think the way forward is to get better communication, or less harmful communication, not more bans. See below. — Dysk (contribs) 14:22, 23 August 2020 (UTC)

(edit conflict) With regards to @Spud, I did do A LOT for the wiki. Have you checked who redesigned all the portal icons? Here, you can watch for yourself: https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Special:ListFiles/GR~2020. I redesigned 11 portal icons to fit existing standards. I edited multiple country pages to feature well made maps. I edited biology articles such as Vestigial structures. I employed a lot of effort into those, and to pretend I didn't is gross. Oxy, GC and the others always antagonized me, provoked me, and this was from the start. [41] Oxy went to harass me on 27 April 2020 (UTC), when I made no edits whatsoever. She wanted to create a hostile environment from the start. I tried to disengage, she wouldn't stop. Worse, she would use other users (like the aforementioned ones) to pile in. I have employed a lot of work on the wiki and I think I deserve a just treatment. I have made in total more than 3000 edits to very different articles, going from science to politics. — Godless Raven ^talk_stalk^walk_balk 🌹 14:25, 23 August 2020 (UTC)

In regards to LGM, she wanted me gone way before I vented. A discord message in the other discord server (21/08/2020) reads:

“”I'm tempted to put Gr in sysoprevoke so they won't make the mistake of unbanning but ek might come in and reinstate sysop and I might get resistance on those that insist procedure

She was planning to execute a mod action on discord (which people already objected to) WITHOUT procedure. I didn't abuse my sysop tools in order for it to be revoked. When she was challenged by Hastur to conform to procedure (see: https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/User_talk:LeftyGreenMario#sysoprevoke), another discord message (23/08/2020) reads:

“”I'm off for tonight. If there's a new coop/all things in moderation regarding my indef ban and sysoprevoke for Raven and that thing explodes I will hit a giant giant POW block. There might be one coming up

As you can see, people wanted me gone regardless of what I do. I ask for all the others with an independent mind to keep this on the back of their head when people suggest to ban me. — Godless Raven ^talk_stalk^walk_balk 🌹 14:29, 23 August 2020 (UTC)

Discretionary Sanctions

I proposed something a lot like this already on a Coop, however, I really think we need to topic ban Oxy, GC, and Raven (etc) from all articles related to far-left politics, and impose some kind of interaction restriction on the same. Possibly this could be expanded, but preliminary thoughts on the idea would be useful so I can write up the actual proposal in a way that people will actually agree with. — Dysk (contribs) 14:20, 23 August 2020 (UTC)

I don't agree with a topic ban. Oxy and GC also obstructed me on other subjects (like, for example, Zionism or No true Scotsman) and it also went sour. Now, in total fairness, I disagreed with Hastur on Karl Marx and we resolved it amicably. Why? Because Hastur talked to me. He treated me like a human instead of a pest. In the editwarred Template:Socdemnav, @Rairyu75 edited the template without problem. Why? Because he talked to me instead of bad faith reverting. If you talk to me like a human being, all things go well. It's not a topic issue, it's an issue with how some people treat me. An interaction ban is more than enough, honestly. — Godless Raven ^talk_stalk^walk_balk 🌹 14:40, 23 August 2020 (UTC)

Raven, any sanction must include a provision to stop Oxy, GC, et al from repeatedly edit warring, flaming and similar with editors who aren't you on these same articles... the problem isn't just you and Oxy, there are multiple editors on each side of the recent conflicts. Whilst an interaction ban would prevent your own fight, it ain't going to solve the entire problem. — Dysk (contribs) 16:06, 23 August 2020 (UTC)

I don't think topic bans are likely to be effective. Why do you GR, have virtually no edits[42] in your professed areas of expertise (those marked ★ or ☆)?[43] It seems to indicate that you're here for trouble rather than making valuable contributions. Your incendiary comments above (e.g., "Good luck with that. By the way, aside from spamming Saloon Bar with verbal diarrhea, what do you do for RW? Also, I got my way. I am happy now. 2 out of 5 people who consistently shit up the wiki are gone (temporarily at least). What's holding you behind?") and your hitlist[44] of editors is highly unbecoming of an editor is highly unbecoming of a sysop. For these reasons, I support sysoprevoke; if someone wants to make coop case of this then fine. Also, someone bolloxed up the GR accounts: one account (User:GR) has a fossil record of the user page but no record of the older edits, and the other account (User:GR~2020) has a record of the older edits but no record of the user page. Bongolian (talk) 16:38, 23 August 2020 (UTC)

Then apologise to the users you insulted and maligned in the last 24 hours and promise to the community that you will actually change this time. This, I think, is a stellar opportunity to show people that you actually mean it. Anything less, I don't think will cut it. I would actually endorse giving you a third chance if you did (under even sharper probation of course). As for banning interaction between Raven and I...that's fucking ridiculous. I never had anything to do with the guy except when he was goading another user or acting up. Banning such interaction would effectively silence someone from calling out a user's dickery and sticking up for another user when they are being harassed. Are we going to do that? ShabiDOO 16:42, 23 August 2020 (UTC)

Overall, I don't think a topic ban is feasible. An interaction ban moreso, but of course when it comes to editing mainspace we'll need people to act as intermediaries so productive editors can still contribute and discuss things on talk pages. @Bongolian: You mean edits like this?[45][46][47] Of course, Raven is very much a political junkie, as he'll readily admit. So he does prefer to edit more political articles. And yes, he can be petty when he loses his temper. But he has calmed down. And as far as sysoprevoke, I believe it should only be used for people who abuse their sysoprights. Being a sysop has never been subject to a personality test, to my knowledge. @Shabidoo: Personally I think that Godless Raven has already proven his worth to the community, even if he's reacted poorly to the hostile environment he faced. --Hastur! (talk) 16:50, 23 August 2020 (UTC)

Hi @Bongolian, if I wanted to just cause trouble, why did I redesign all the portal icons? (https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Special:ListFiles/GR~2020) Why did I do a major overhaul of Vestigial structure, Microevolution and macroevolution? Why did I do major overhauls of the Help section? Also, I wanted to edit List of amino acids/Amino acid, but nobody reacted to my question (since it is on AfD).

Furthermore:

— Godless Raven ^talk_stalk^walk_balk 🌹 16:52, 23 August 2020 (UTC)

Fair enough. I was wrong in making that assessment. Bongolian (talk) 17:31, 23 August 2020 (UTC)

@Shabidoo If you promise to treat me fairly and apologize as well, I will happily apologize, too. Please don't pretend it is a one-sided conflict, that's all I am asking. — Godless Raven ^talk_stalk^walk_balk 🌹 16:54, 23 August 2020 (UTC)

That sounds good to me. We can't just pretend like Raven wasn't "welcomed" with a great deal of hostility, or that said hostility didn't persist--Hastur! (talk) 16:58, 23 August 2020 (UTC)

Oh, and before I forget: @Bongolian, how long do you think it took me to do this? Italy#Regions_of_Italy Switzerland#Cantons France#Regions Germany#Bundesländer Austria#States? Why would a troll waste their time doing those? — Godless Raven ^talk_stalk^walk_balk 🌹 16:57, 23 August 2020 (UTC)

Raven are you going to apologise and promise to change or not? ShabiDOO 17:03, 23 August 2020 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Also, will you sysoprevoke GC for saying "Fuck you fucking ass shits. Go get Covid and die" [48] @Bongolian? — Godless Raven ^talk_stalk^walk_balk 🌹 17:04, 23 August 2020 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ @Shabidoo If you promise to treat me fairly and apologize as well, I will happily apologize, too. Please don't pretend it is a one-sided conflict, that's all I am asking. — Godless Raven ^talk_stalk^walk_balk 🌹 17:05, 23 August 2020 (UTC)

I haven't done anything that requires an apology. I never edit warred with you once. Every single time I interacted with you it was pointing out that you were goading or taunting other users or saying something disruptive. Take responsibility for the last 24 hours of your dubious treatment of users here and for your lately shenanigans. This is a great opportunity here Raven. ShabiDOO 17:15, 23 August 2020 (UTC)

(edit conflict) If you won't apologize, Shabidoo, neither will I. If you want peace and cooperation, I am offering a hand. I won't admit something I don't actually believe in (that I am the only problem here and that you never provoked me). — Godless Raven ^talk_stalk^walk_balk 🌹 17:17, 23 August 2020 (UTC)

With Dysk on this one. If anyone gets bothered about the boundaries; we can always define this stuff better/use your brain for a moment. The pages that produce conflicts between GR and other editors aren't "obscure philosopher from the 1950s that nobody aside from 5 people on twitter have heard of". It's the general pages, the ones about left wing activists, popilar leftist philosophers or about far left ideologies. Topic banning at least him (and likely Oxy too, I'm meh on topic banning GC, but both Oxy and GC -and possibly Flandres- definetly need an interaction ban with GR and he needs an interaction ban with them that also includes passive agressive behavior) from those subjects in particular should prove sufficient. If he can't abide by that... the door is that way as far as I'm concerned. I also suggest that we apply this ignoring any LANCBs that a user might choose to pull during this. Basically, the fact that neither Oxy or GC have currently returned from their LANCB shouldn't have bearing on the appliance of this, nor should it have bearing if GR chooses to LANCB over these sanctions. They should be applied either way, a LANCB shouldn't be a way to avoid sanctions.Techpriest ^{(I am Alpharius! / / / )} 17:16, 23 August 2020 (UTC)

If GC/Oxy/etc. find an issue with an edit I made to a topic concerning the far-left, why not use a neutral intermediary to negotiate? Hastur disagreed with me on Karl Marx. See: [49] What happened? I gathered more and BETTER sources. Hastur helped me improve the article by actually challenging me in good faith, he didn't editwar or harass me. Why can't this be done that way, you know, the way it actually produces positive results? — Godless Raven ^talk_stalk^walk_balk 🌹 17:20, 23 August 2020 (UTC)

You haven't changed. ShabiDOO 17:24, 23 August 2020 (UTC)

I will however apologize to the community for creating a hit list. That was uncalled for and immature. — Godless Raven ^talk_stalk^walk_balk 🌹 17:25, 23 August 2020 (UTC)

You ran out for me. --It's-a me, LeftyGreenMario! 17:26, 23 August 2020 (UTC)

If Oxy and GC are topic banned from far-left politics, their retirements may be permanent. Would they still want to edit with a topic ban on far-left politics imposed upon them?Rintintin (talk) 23:26, 23 August 2020 (UTC)

Of course, neither made any substantial edits to that area of the wiki in any case. Recently, it's all those two undoing contributions added by others. — Dysk (contribs)

Le Vote

Proposed remedies for the trashfire of recent weeks, calculated to prevent the main combat without losing editors, hopefully. Many of the editors listed have LANCBed multiple times, namely Oxy, GC, Raven, this vote will carry on even if certain people ain't here, as they will be back soon enough. For the sake of clarity all restrictions are indefinite, and can be reviewed or lifted at a later date. Punishment for breaking a restriction is a 3 day block, enforced with temporary promotion if self-removed.

Topic restriction

Covering all pages related to the far-left particularly communism, socialism, anarchism. Listed editors prohibited from reverting any changes to articles falling into the topic, including restoring their own changes if removed, including asking others to revert for them.

• Oxyaena (Oxy)
• Godless Raven (GR)
• GrammarCommie (GC)

Two way interaction bans

Editors listed prohibited from editing the same page as another within 48 hours of the edit, from editing each others talk pages, from mentioning each other by name, from reverting each others edits, from replying directly to each other on talk pages, subject to the following.

Editors will not post in the same thread as another on the Saloon Bar, but may edit the page itself without the time limit.

Editors may interact normally on election, mod, and coop pages, although this is of course discouraged, it is required to defend oneself on occasion.

• Oxy — Raven
• Oxy — Gunther
• GC — Ze
• GC — Raven
• Raven — Flandres
• Raven — Shabidoo
• Raven — Crow

To be clear, interaction restrictions do not apply to Discord et al, other platforms may take their own measures to mitigate conflict.

Let's hear it. — Dysk (contribs) 02:08, 24 August 2020 (UTC)

Aye

1. — Godless Raven ^talk_stalk^walk_balk 🌹 08:36, 24 August 2020 (UTC)
2. I initially suggested interaction bans above. My reasoning stays the same, I think it’s the best way to prevent squabbling and keep people on the site. --RWRW (talk) 18:21, 24 August 2020 (UTC)

Nay

1. Meh. Too much bureaucracy. Unenforceable as stated. Attempted enforcement of this will almost certainly cause more drama. —cosmikdebris ^talk stalk 03:12, 24 August 2020 (UTC)
2. I seriously resent being jammed into interaction restrictions with Raven and I'm pretty dissapointed with you Dysk that you would do it (the same should go with Crow). I never edit warred with him and my interaction with him was limited to calling out his dickery and I won't ever be silent when any user is harassing any other. I fail to see for a second why Crow and I should be punished for Raven's incivility fest. I also think banning a user from commenting on an entire thread in the Salon is at all reasonable, especially when threads go into border line policy discussion or become huge community wide debates about a large and interesting topic. I'm with you per the three users not editing withing 48 hours on political and related articles (thats entirely reasonable) but I'm fairly flabbeghasted about everything else. ShabiDOO 03:12, 24 August 2020 (UTC)

   If you feel like I am harassing someone, you can ask a moderator. You aren't the local Sheriff here as far as I know? — Godless Raven ^talk_stalk^walk_balk 🌹 10:10, 24 August 2020 (UTC)

   Or you can stop being so disruptive Raven. I haven't seen anyone who has caused so many problems and generated as much drama since Unlicensed Thinker left last year. 16:35, 24 August 2020 (UTC)

3. The saloon bar restriction is my main breaking point, but what our other two users voting here say is very valid.-Flandres (talk) 03:17, 24 August 2020 (UTC)
4. --It's-a me, LeftyGreenMario! 03:21, 24 August 2020 (UTC)
5. Yah this is a dumb idea. If the children can't stop squabbling they LANCB for all I fucking care. Ace^Moderator 03:49, 24 August 2020 (UTC)
6. (ec)the interaction restriction thing is just unworkable and sets up everyone up for further conflict. are threads in the saloon bar going to be on a first come first served basis, for instance? are we saying someone cannot contribute if they have something to add because someone else got there first? its just setting the ground for some disingenuous wikilawyering at the next flare up. whats more it does not address the behaviour that has brought us here. this discussion has pointedly failed to address such behaviour, seeing how its managed to not just misrepresent whats been going on, but blameless parties have been saddled with an equal share of blame with no discussion, letting them be falsely and vindictively maligned by the more culpable party who's own disingenuous misrepresentations are taken at face value without question while they accept no responsibility for their own greater part in this, all the while playing the victim. if we are going to be pushing a premise of civility to counter this perceived toxic environment, if all the focus is on some name calling, its dead in the water. AMassiveGay (talk) 04:23, 24 August 2020 (UTC)

   That there's a convoluted proposal of such a ban at all suggests me Raven is too troublesome to keep around. --It's-a me, LeftyGreenMario! 04:32, 24 August 2020 (UTC)

   Notice how there is a ban between Grammar "Fuck you fucking ass shits. Go get Covid and die." Commie and Ze? — Godless Raven ^talk_stalk^walk_balk 🌹 08:39, 24 August 2020 (UTC)

7. Overly complex. Bongolian (talk) 04:53, 24 August 2020 (UTC)
8. What Shabi says. I've maybe reverted Raven like... Once? And that was during his coop meltdown. Beyond that, I think my interactions with him at least on the wiki (other platforms non-withstanding) have been amicable outside of coop cases and ATIM. The same goes honestly for Shabi as far as I'm aware. Instead it seems that this interaction ban is designed to prevent anyone from being critical of Raven. Voting nay because of overreach. Techpriest ^{(I am Alpharius! / / / )} 07:29, 24 August 2020 (UTC)

   The problem here is not reverting but your and Shabidoo's toxic behavior towards me. Just don't interact with me and it should be fine. — Godless Raven ^talk_stalk^walk_balk 🌹 08:45, 24 August 2020 (UTC)

9. Enforcing this would be a nightmare. Chef Moosolini’s Ristorante Italiano^{Make a Reservation} 16:41, 24 August 2020 (UTC)

Goat

• Regardless of the outcome we have a promise of civility (no name calling or ad hominem attacks of fellow editors, no hitlists) from these editors on pain of instant permaban? There has been repeated bad behavior in this regard from at least one of these editors. Bongolian (talk) 02:24, 24 August 2020 (UTC)

  Since when do we permaban so readily? Escalating blocks ought to be sufficient, IMO--Hastur! (talk) 02:31, 24 August 2020 (UTC)

  Escalating blocks is only effective for non-sysops. Bongolian (talk) 02:55, 24 August 2020 (UTC)

  Fwiw, Hastur, seems like LGM and adjacent really want to get rid of me. — Godless Raven ^talk_stalk^walk_balk 🌹 08:51, 24 August 2020 (UTC)

• I will see what the rest of the community has to say. I'm not pleased with a topic ban as that may limit productivity. However if it's limited to reversions that should be okay--Hastur! (talk) 02:30, 24 August 2020 (UTC)
• So many rules. How will this be remembered, let along enforced? Why not just have a house rule, when there's an edit war, we revert the page to what it was before the war and lock it for a bit and force the people to discuss it or not touch it. CoryUsar (talk) 04:51, 24 August 2020 (UTC)

Okay

Counter-proposal: an interaction ban between me vis-à-vis GC and Oxy? Since Crow and Shabidoo apparently really want to interact with me (for some reason). — Godless Raven ^talk_stalk^walk_balk 🌹 16:58, 24 August 2020 (UTC)

There is unanimous consensus that an interaction ban is a bad idea. Also...could you please cut down on the provocative snark? ShabiDOO 17:34, 24 August 2020 (UTC)

That's not what unanimous means (since I voted for it); also, the proposal was very specifically for an interaction between between me and the gang of 5. Proposing an interaction ban between me and GC, Oxy and Flandres is a different proposal. — Godless Raven ^talk_stalk^walk_balk 🌹 17:37, 24 August 2020 (UTC)

Chef Moosolini’s Ristorante Italiano^{Make a Reservation} 17:47, 24 August 2020 (UTC)

Topic ban for GC, Raven and Oxy

Is a topic ban feasible for the three? Political and related articles? ShabiDOO 17:34, 24 August 2020 (UTC)

Revert ban for GC, Raven and Oxy

Is a revert ban for the three (reverting edits on mainspace) feasible? ShabiDOO 17:34, 24 August 2020 (UTC)

Bongolians block policy for GC, Raven and Oxy

Would blocking the users for increasing lengths of time for incivility be feasible? ShabiDOO 17:34, 24 August 2020 (UTC)

Just block GR (not a vote)

Honestly, I'm just gonna put it up here. Right now, we're basically seeing more or less a repeat of RationalWiki:Chicken coop/Archive104. Or rather, we saw. Raven got his ass in trouble over a dispute boiling over, words were slinged around, Raven LANCBs, he drags a few editors with him (or rather, GC and Oxy again) and a few days later he comes crawling back and nobody really wants to do a prolonged block or punishment because it's been a bit. I do believe in second chances, but for me, he basically blew it by doing a functional repeat of that coop, which mostly just proves that the coop failed to do it's duty in giving him a second chance.

We can either end this charade now or have to deal with this every few months. If it's not GC and Oxy, it will be someone else, that much I know of, because while they're the most vocal ones, they're hardly the only ones, and we might be lucky that all those two do is LANCB. Either we can end up interaction banning all of his critics from talking with him, giving him a special exemption that we don't really extent to other editors, just because he's active. An interaction and topic ban, which I could have supported seems to be a minority opinion (again, I only rejected out of overreach), so I feel it's time to just do a vote on perma-ing GR, since it seems a more softer approach doesn't appear to be desirable, and leaving him to go scott free will only keep attracting ire from other editors and basically gives him a free pass to drive off whatever users he doesn't like.

Furthermore, I want to quickly echo AMGs point that our entire previous discussion at defusing while a nice goal, is also having the side effect of causing Raven's actions to be equated to that of his critics. Whilst I won't place myself above having screwed up here (telling Raven to grow a pair was out of line and a result of frustration), it is something that seems to be his way of winning arguments, by getting his opposition to act so much out of line that he can basically finger wag them, all the while passive agressively stoking them on and painting himself as the victim. I personally only see one real way out of defusing this thing and that is to just permanently block the editor who keeps stoking up fires when they get thrown at his feet.

I'd say that we end this here and now. Votes go down below for a permanent block on GR. Techpriest ^{(I am Alpharius! / / / )} 18:00, 24 August 2020 (UTC)

Permanently block GR (not a vote)

1. Per upwards paragraph. Techpriest ^{(I am Alpharius! / / / )} 18:00, 24 August 2020 (UTC)

Goat (not a vote)

1. This is a coop case. Hold on. --It's-a me, LeftyGreenMario! 18:04, 24 August 2020 (UTC)
2. You need a 48h timeframe to start votes. Therefore, this is an invalid vote (hehe: https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/RationalWiki:Chicken_coop/Archive108) — Godless Raven ^talk_stalk^walk_balk 🌹 18:07, 24 August 2020 (UTC)

   Wasn't a coop vote and the ATIM discussion has been going for well over 4 days, but we have a coop case now, so I'll suspend this vote and move the conversation to there. Techpriest ^{(I am Alpharius! / / / )} 18:13, 24 August 2020 (UTC)

3. I don't know why the moderators are so reluctant to give disruptive sysops a time-out. Don't think of it as punishment. More like a visit to the drunk-tank. You do it to yourself, really. Ariel31459 (talk) 18:25, 24 August 2020 (UTC)

   The issue is that we technically cannot do that. Sysops can't be timed out without sysoprevoke and we can't apply sysoprevoke without a coop case. Real catch-22 here. Techpriest ^{(I am Alpharius! / / / )} 18:32, 24 August 2020 (UTC)

   It was a dumb idea to give Raven sysop back in the first place, and there technically wasn't even a vote on it IIRC, but I digress. — Oxyaena ^Harass 18:41, 24 August 2020 (UTC)

   Raven has never unblocked himself after a serious block, a variety of other editors have simply unblocked him. Ergo, sysoprevoke makes no difference to the situation. Oxy, you don't require a vote to grant userrights to a user. — Dysk (contribs) 00:32, 25 August 2020 (UTC)

4. If it were entirely up to me, I would have permabanned Raven after the Coop case before he disappeared for a week in May. If it were up to me, I would have permabanned Raven after he went off on one earlier on this page. If it were up to me, I would have permabanned the new account he created after asking to be indefinitely blocked just a few hours earlier. If it were up to me, I would have permabanned Raven after he made the hit list of users he wanted to leave. And if it were entirely up to me, I'd want to make sure the block stuck. But as it is, I have to reluctantly say, "Lets give him ONE last chance." If he ever has another meltdown like the one he did earlier on this page, it's Coop time. And if he does an LANCB before the Coop case come to a conclusion, I won't hesitate to permaban him then. Spud (talk) 04:45, 25 August 2020 (UTC)

   When I posted the above, I had no idea that a Coop case had already started. Oy, gevalt! Spud (talk) 09:10, 26 August 2020 (UTC)