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User talk:BobJohnson

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Welcome

New logo large.png Welcome to RationalWiki, BobJohnson!

Check out our guide for newcomers and our community standards!

Tell us how you found RationalWiki here!

If you are interested in contributing:

Because of your edits to and time on the wiki, Autopatrolled has been added to your user rights. This lets you bypass most of the abuse filters, bypass the CAPTCHA, and edit more frequently. If you have questions, bleat ask away.

We hope you enjoy your newfound POWER — and these external tools:

cosmikdebris talk stalk 04:08, 20 November 2022 (UTC)

Sysop

Because of your edits to and time on the wiki, wizard Sysop has been added to your user rights. Feel free to let your newfound POWER course through your veins. Once the high wears off, see RationalWiki:Sysop guide for more information. If you have questions, bleat ask away. Bongolian (talk) 18:50, 12 January 2023 (UTC)

Tireless worker award

HardWork.jpg Tireless Worker Award
For excellence in new page creation and assorted edits

Bongolian (talk) 22:29, 24 June 2023 (UTC)

Thanks! BobJohnson (talk) 02:48, 25 June 2023 (UTC)

Board nomination

You've been nominated to the RationalMedia Foundation election. Please accept or decline here; if you accept, you may wish to campaign.

Arcadium Trancefer (talk) 21:17, 22 July 2023 (UTC)

You know

Paywalled studies, like the one you mentioned, can often be read using Sci-Hub. Sci-Hub entries shouldn't be directly used on citations (copyright reasons), or probably even linked on talk pages, but many people use the site to read such papers. Chillpilled (talk) 18:35, 28 July 2023 (UTC)

Good information to know, thanks. BobJohnson (talk) 18:40, 28 July 2023 (UTC)
Yes, Sci-Hub is blocked in some countries because of copyright lawsuits. Bongolian (talk) 20:09, 28 July 2023 (UTC)
It's sometimes blocked on the ISP level as well. I know some British ISPs do this. In such cases people use Tor, VPN/proxies, or bots on Telegram which retrieve papers. Chillpilled (talk) 20:38, 28 July 2023 (UTC)

Misunderstandings

On second thought, I think there's been a misunderstanding. I do not in anyway condone the actions of Hamas. I misread your statement as being you don't empathize with the victims of Israeli, or that you empathize with the Israeli victims more. I took issue with that. My apologies. Carthage (talk) 06:40, 13 October 2023 (UTC)

Mod nomination

You've been nominated in the upcoming moderator elections. See the nomination at RationalWiki:Moderator elections/Nominations. Arcadium Trancefer (talk) 17:00, 5 November 2023 (UTC)

What songs keep you grounded?

It helps sometime to ground ourselves. It's not ever final, but it's kinda on always on the mind You don't have to rank them and of course I will go first. Reel Big Fish - Sell Out; Harvey Danger - Jack the Lion; Mystikal - Mr Hood Critic; John Prine - Knockin' on Your Screen Door.Torrent (talk) 05:55, 13 November 2023 (UTC)

I kind of like to bounce around random songs so not sure. :) Currently I'm listening to Modest Mussogorsky's Boris Godounov, but today's playlist had artists ranging from Herbie Hancock ("Mimosa") to Crosby Stills Nash and Young ("Carry On") to Me First and the Gimme Gimmes (their punked up cover of Scott McKenzie's "San Francisco"). BobJohnson (talk) 22:27, 13 November 2023 (UTC)
suggestions were good, but nothing grounding. Big distrust. https://youtu.be/qlc4uFqs7ao?feature=shared [User:Torrent|Torrent]] (talk) 02:26, 23 November 2023 (UTC)

Johns is spreading rumors about me

I know you're not interested in the internet drama between Johns and I, but he's been baselessly spreading rumors and conspiracy theories about me being the owner of the original channel he's attacking with anecdotal evidence. Can you please tell him to stop? To disprove this, here's my actual channel DaRealPrinceZuko (talk) 03:09, 11 February 2024 (UTC)

Simon Webb responded to his article

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1WEoey2LFMk

Johnson! (At the end of this video...)

Nah, for realsies. What do I call you? Baby doll? Honey boo? Babe? - Rairyu75 (Talk) 21:17, 6 March 2024 (UTC)

The name is a Mystery Science Theater 3000 reference actually, and of that list the name was chosen simply because I am *not* an ex-football player in a cheesy 1980s sci-fi movie. :)
But you can never have enough Bob (All hail slack!), so you can just call me that. BobJohnson (talk) 21:37, 6 March 2024 (UTC)

Discord

Can we speak on Discord? If so, what's your Discord user tag?

2600:8800:8809:1C00:20E6:9466:E4DF:5EF0 (talk) 18:19, 15 June 2024 (UTC)

I'm not on Discord, sorry. BobJohnson (talk) 23:50, 15 June 2024 (UTC)

Yeah, but where can we discuss in private? I don't want sickos seeing my planned discussion between us, because I don't want them causing harm to any innocent.

2600:8800:8809:1C00:A55D:1BAA:EE3E:CBCB (talk) 15:19, 16 June 2024 (UTC)

Troll collapse

Why did you "troll collapse" part of the Wikipedia bias conversation at the Saloon bar?Brokenglass (talk) 23:30, 31 July 2024 (UTC)

Mod nomination again

You've been nominated in the upcoming moderator elections. See the nomination at RationalWiki:Moderator elections/Nominations.


I neglected to put this here earlier. Bongolian (talk) 18:08, 9 November 2024 (UTC)

Hello!

Hello! I hope you’re doing well. Unfortunately I was unable to reply to you in the chicken coop, but I ultimately ended up seeing your comment and I just wanted to clear up a bit of confusion, because there were a couple of things you said there (mostly a few assumptions regarding both my intent and a bit of misunderstanding the content) that I’d like to clear up just so that we’re on the same page. Would you be free talk at some point soon? The other guy is not interested in having a discussion about this, and all of the issues regarding the Spengler article boils down to people not understanding what is meant by certain terms and context in the text. I think after talking with you, you’ll definitely be on my side, in the greater scheme of things. Hope you’re doing well, and happy new year. 2600:1003:B126:D618:9DF1:3D3C:78C7:A76B (talk) 12:04, 31 December 2024 (UTC)

Delete?

Hello Mr. Johnson, I just saw that you were talking about deleting the Racialism article. By pasting it into the search bar, I was able to find many links to it made from solid articles like the Murray Rothbard one. Is this really necessary? Maybe we could rename it to "Scientific racism" and make it a bit more concise instead? Rothbard-Blackbeard (talk) 14:18, 12 March 2025 (UTC)

Abe’s religion

What religion is Abe supposed to be? Trump face.pngWe need brain! Give us brain! 16:27, 7 April 2025 (UTC)

I could not find any article that said he actually belonged to any church. Instead, he seemed to merely support any church who was willing to advance his cause. This included Christian churches (Catholics and Moonies) as well as Shinto and Buddhists.
"Japanese nationalism" in other words seems to be his "religion" if any. That's my take. I will say that Shinzo's funeral was held at a Buddhist temple, so maybe that's where he aligned "the most"... maybe. BobJohnson (talk) 17:00, 7 April 2025 (UTC)
But wouldn’t he at least be Christian-aligned too with his close ties with the Moonies? Trump face.pngWe need brain! Give us brain! 21:53, 7 April 2025 (UTC)
Yes, but that's not the same thing as "being a Christian".
The Japanese Wiki article on Shinzo seems to confirm that his primary religion was Buddhism, if the auto-translation is right.

The Abe family temple is the Choan-ji temple of the Jodo sect in Nagato City, and his funeral was held at Zojo-ji temple , the head temple of the Jodo sect. He also served as a long-time caretaker of the Jokko-kai, a social group made up of Jodo sect members and Jodo sect parishioners in the Diet. He also had ties with religious groups other than the Jodo sect.

Jodo is a sect of Mahayana Buddhism.
Now... what does make things a "wee bit difficult" is that the ties to the Moonies are pretty strong and not surface-level. Thing is, the Moonies are more of a bullshit personality cult than a religion, but a lot of today's Christianity seems to be throwing itself in that direction these days. If you use the current low standards of the "Republican Jesus" brigade, I suppose he's just as much of a "Christian" as those Dominionist idiots are. BobJohnson (talk) 22:17, 8 April 2025 (UTC)
I see. Just wanted to ask, thanks for explaining. Trump face.pngWe need brain! Give us brain! 23:35, 8 April 2025 (UTC)

discord

Two accounts joined the discord today: bobjohnson_88928, and bobjohnson601. Either you created two accounts, or someone is impersonating you. Mind clearing things up? Christopher (talk) 18:36, 12 April 2025 (UTC)

BobJohnson601 is the real account. Nuke the other one. BobJohnson (talk) 20:02, 12 April 2025 (UTC)

That person...

...who didn't want to get involved due to immigration etc I think was GeeJayK ['I like travelling to the US']. But I'm a nosy bastard... what 'RW operational paradigms' do you take umbridge to, if you don't mind me asking? KarmaPolice (talk) 16:51, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

One of my general disagreements concerns the Wiki's reluctance to embrace some logging functionality (such as CheckUser) as well as tighten down VPN editing. From a purist point of view, I suppose it sucks, but I feel that in the current climate, and given the lack of eyeballs who can watch all pages of the wiki, the threat of brigading / coordinated attacks is stronger than the benefits of hands-off free editing.
The "old guard" have barely peeped up recently, but prior to that, that segment of RW... "did not fit my ethos", let's just say. Many of them still seemed to yearn for the old Conservapedia-trolling style; some of them actively hated Rationalwiki's post-Conservapedia days. Yet they still popped up on votes, often to argue against banning trolls or against any sort of civility. My opinion is, the shitshow of Encyclopedia Dramatica should have told them what the fate of a troll wiki in a modern age would be.
These are "personal opinions" and very much subject to debate, I'm not saying "right or wrong" per se. I did feel I was somewhat against the Wiki paradigm though from an operational perspective, and eventually my opinions would clash with such if I pursued moderation / board roles. This did not stop me from editing mainspace or anything like that.
Ultimately, too, I also feel that these are "small potatoes" compared to the much, much bigger problem for this Wiki of American democratic backsliding and the subsequent problems with the freedom of the press. Which is why I didn't mention them in that thread, these are personal opinions unrelated to the far bigger problem RW faces. BobJohnson (talk) 17:56, 20 April 2025 (UTC)
I agree with the idea of stuff like CheckUser and locking down VPN editing; one of the sadder incidents I saw was some shiny new user suggesting things sorta along those lines and the response was kind of 'tumbleweeds and shrugs against'. I think there's a general lack of RW embracing anything remotely 'new'; we've utterly foresworn the use of AI [even when used as a tool under supervision it could help improve mainspace editing productivity], we still don't have a mobile mode [in 2025!] and there's been almost nil use of social media management to attempt to entice and engage folks outside of the project.
As for the last bit; it's why I'm urging the Board to go away and have a chat about such things. Because if even after moving to Oregon RW won't be able to afford to fight anything, or if the RMF are unwilling to put themselves in the firing-line to do said defending, there is frankly zero point in RW continuing with mainspace coverage of any person or org which can file a suit if pissed off enough. KarmaPolice (talk) 18:18, 20 April 2025 (UTC)