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User talk:Bongolian
Attention trolls: Don't bother me here. I am busy impersonating Michael Coombs on Rightpedia.
Ban Evasion Edits[edit]
Multiple sockpuppet accounts are editing here. Could you ban them? I'm not a sysop yet. Thanks.[1].βπΆπΎπ³ π 11:59, 10 February 2025 (UTC)
- Looks like they've already been banned by Oldman4. Bongolian (talk) 17:50, 10 February 2025 (UTC)
- Yes and by others too. βπΆπΎπ³ π 18:38, 11 February 2025 (UTC)
Demotion req[edit]
User:Bongolian Is it possible to get demoted now? I've been here for almost two weeks (mostly active) and know most of the policies. I hope I can get demoted, or I'm ready to be demoted now so I can kick those vandals a** with my own mop. --πΆπΎπ³ π 21:03, 11 February 2025 (UTC)
- @KSH, I'm a bit too busy today to review your past edits. You can request user rights on this page: RationalWiki:Requests for user rights. I would caution you about being over-eager about blocking people. There was a recent case of a dispute about over-eager blocking. Bongolian (talk) 23:30, 11 February 2025 (UTC)
- ...so I reviewed the edits. Most of the mainspace ones [as far as I can tell] were putting in redirects, some addition of refs and an argument regarding the use of circumflexes. Account started to be active on the 3rd of Feb. No obvious 'bad' activities'. Speaking purely personally, I would like to see a bit more time/effort elapse first but others might feel different. KarmaPolice (talk) 23:57, 11 February 2025 (UTC)
The Longtermist / LessWronger / Race-and-IQ Nexus[edit]
Re: Futurism, it seems relevant that in one of these movements people have talked a lot about 'so yeah we are kind of a conspiracy misleading recruits and donors about our real goals.' I think Siskind's 2014 email also implied that he wanted to spread the word he was learning from far-right bloggers.
I don't like the term TESCREAL as an academic tool but I see how it was politically useful in giving a name for these interconnected movements and shutting down the dodge of "we rationalists are not scientific racists, we just let them hang out in our comments sections, talk about IQ and genetics, and have three leaders who say they believe some races are much smarter than other races" or "we Effective Altruists are not transhumanists, we are about public health - wait, where did you say my donation was spent?" — Unsigned, by: Polydamas / talk / contribs
In the meantime, I edited the page on Effective Altruism to be clearer about the tensions between shorttermist and longtermist approaches. GiveWell seemed serious about their empirical, shorttermist approach and I'm not sure they would have agreed with Bostrom or MacAskill or Yudkowski that they were just the start of a sales funnel for transhumanism and longtermism. Polydamas (talk)
Tech group privileges[edit]
Please add me to the Tech group. I would like to edit the Interwiki table. I plan to update links to https as needed, to remove dead links, and to add some new ones. Insanity (talk) 14:37, 17 February 2025 (UTC)
- @Insanity, you can request user rights on this page: RationalWiki:Requests for user rights. There needs to be a vote for you to become a tech, as per RationalWiki:Techs#Request rights. Bongolian (talk) 16:25, 17 February 2025 (UTC)
email failed[edit]
It appears that the wiki software isn't sending emails. You can email me directly at radio[at]zappahead[dot]net βcosmikdebris talk stalk 16:03, 12 March 2025 (UTC)
Question about my topic ban[edit]
Does my topic ban permit me to participate in this discussion? My topic ban is from "HBD and HDF related articles", and it isn't clear whether that applies to only the articles themselves, or also to meta-discussions like that one.
There is something related to the background of these lawsuits that I've been trying to decide whether it's worth mentioning there, but if I'm not allowed to do that anyway, it's a moot point. Tetrapteryx (talk) 01:49, 15 March 2025 (UTC)
- I ordinarily, I would say that the ban applies, but since it's lawsuit related, I'm not so sure. You could send an email to one of the board members with the information you think is relevant, or you could ask for a moderator consensus on the question at RationalWiki talk:All things in moderation. It is generally inadvisable to discuss details of an ongoing lawsuit in public, so I communicated some information to board member User:DuceMoosolini earlier this week by email. Bongolian (talk) 02:24, 15 March 2025 (UTC)
- Are you a board member? One of the things I was going to mention is something that it's mainly important for the board to know. So if you're on the board, I could email it to you and you could share it with the other board members.
- EDIT: Okay, I see from this page that you aren't a board member. Which board member(s) do you think it would be best to contact with information related to the lawsuits? Tetrapteryx (talk) 04:53, 15 March 2025 (UTC)
- DuceMoosolini seems to be the most active now, so him probably. Plutocow (talk) 05:19, 15 March 2025 (UTC)
- OK, thanks. Tetrapteryx (talk) 06:03, 15 March 2025 (UTC)
- DuceMoosolini seems to be the most active now, so him probably. Plutocow (talk) 05:19, 15 March 2025 (UTC)
- Based on the discussion at ATIM, would you say that I'm allowed to participate in discussions about the lawsuits? I haven't been told that my topic ban covers those discussions, but I haven't been given explicit permission either, and I think it's best for me to avoid any ambiguity about this before I comment there. Tetrapteryx (talk) 20:48, 11 April 2025 (UTC)
- You only have 2 moderators' and 1 boar member's agreement at this point in time, so it's not really clear. Pinkerite does have a point about what you could possibly accomplish by making your comments public rather than sending private communications to board members, particularly to DuceMoosolini. Bongolian (talk) 21:01, 11 April 2025 (UTC)
- I tried emailing DuceMoosolini a month ago to ask if I could communicate with him about the issue privately, but he never replied, and based on his contributions he now appears to have gone completely offline. Part of why I'd like to be able to comment about the issue in public is that it isn't at all clear which of the board members I should be contacting about it. But presumably, a public comment would eventually be seen by whoever is making decisions about these matters. Tetrapteryx (talk) 21:19, 11 April 2025 (UTC)
- I also sent an email to DuceMoosolini but did not receive any reply. DuceMoosolini had said that he would step up to the plate try to get a lawyer. That's basically the last we've heard from him. The board members do have other means of communicating with each other. I think cosmikdebris would be the next most likely choice at this point since he replied on the mod noticeboard. Spud has also been editing recently. Bongolian (talk) 23:24, 11 April 2025 (UTC)
- Do you have any information about which of the board members will be in charge of preparing a legal defense, if RationalWiki ends up not finding a lawyer or not being able to afford one? I'd like to know who's actually making decisions related to the lawsuits, not just who's been active recently. Tetrapteryx (talk) 00:30, 12 April 2025 (UTC)
- No, I do not know. All that I know is that DuceMoosolini said that he was the only board member willing to do anything (RationalWiki talk:RationalMedia Foundation#Duce is back. Bongolian (talk) 02:20, 12 April 2025 (UTC)
- Do you have any information about which of the board members will be in charge of preparing a legal defense, if RationalWiki ends up not finding a lawyer or not being able to afford one? I'd like to know who's actually making decisions related to the lawsuits, not just who's been active recently. Tetrapteryx (talk) 00:30, 12 April 2025 (UTC)
- I also sent an email to DuceMoosolini but did not receive any reply. DuceMoosolini had said that he would step up to the plate try to get a lawyer. That's basically the last we've heard from him. The board members do have other means of communicating with each other. I think cosmikdebris would be the next most likely choice at this point since he replied on the mod noticeboard. Spud has also been editing recently. Bongolian (talk) 23:24, 11 April 2025 (UTC)
- I tried emailing DuceMoosolini a month ago to ask if I could communicate with him about the issue privately, but he never replied, and based on his contributions he now appears to have gone completely offline. Part of why I'd like to be able to comment about the issue in public is that it isn't at all clear which of the board members I should be contacting about it. But presumably, a public comment would eventually be seen by whoever is making decisions about these matters. Tetrapteryx (talk) 21:19, 11 April 2025 (UTC)
- You only have 2 moderators' and 1 boar member's agreement at this point in time, so it's not really clear. Pinkerite does have a point about what you could possibly accomplish by making your comments public rather than sending private communications to board members, particularly to DuceMoosolini. Bongolian (talk) 21:01, 11 April 2025 (UTC)
- EDIT: Okay, I see from this page that you aren't a board member. Which board member(s) do you think it would be best to contact with information related to the lawsuits? Tetrapteryx (talk) 04:53, 15 March 2025 (UTC)
@Tetrapteryx, It looks like there's now a consensus that it's OK for you to post on the RMF noticeboard about the lawsuits. Bongolian (talk) 00:23, 13 April 2025 (UTC)
Plan B?[edit]
So, I just found out that the site has only a week before the plug gets pulled. Isn't there anything that can be done? Arcadium Trancefer (talk) 22:42, 16 April 2025 (UTC)
- Barring any sudden appearance of legal representation, the best case scenario is for @David Gerard to make an XML archive of the site and place it on the Internet Archive. That would enable someone(s) to restore the site from a state with better anti-SLAPP laws. Bongolian (talk) 01:04, 17 April 2025 (UTC)
- Could a tech not use Special:Export? — Unsigned, by: 207.104.43.105 / talk
- It looks like someone could do that but would have to list every single page. It's not designed for a full export as far as I can see. Bongolian (talk) 02:58, 17 April 2025 (UTC)
- Is there any way to perhaps spread word of the site's plight to people who might be willing to help? --BeautifulMind (talk) 03:36, 17 April 2025 (UTC)
- Making a plea at r/datahoarder and/or IA itself [I think RW is worth archiving and they could do it over this weekend]. On the more serious note while utterly backing up RW would be 'nice', in reality what *must* survive is the mainspace. I also suggest *somebody* starts assembling a master email list of folks who are willing/able [in some way] to help launch a RW 3.0 in Oregon [not all of us have the time/inclination/capability to do Discord]. KarmaPolice (talk) 10:33, 17 April 2025 (UTC)
- The good news about Rationalwiki in this regard is that there really isn't a whole lot of articles in mainspace, so exports are very reasonable to do. So using a screen scrape of this URL, I was able to create a text file list of article titles (in mainspace only) as well as an XML backup from Special:Export of current mainspace only from this list of titles, using the Special:Export function. (These are currently on a Google Drive; I couldn't quickly figure out how to store these on an Internet Archive).
- Someone with PHP/root access to the server obviously can do more; I didn't push any further. What's also good is that, being an "old school" site, the Internet Archive in itself has pretty good copies of most articles that I checked. BobJohnson (talk) 11:28, 17 April 2025 (UTC)
- I'm backing up PDF copies of various pages to my Google Drive as well. It probably won't be as thorough as an XML backup, but at least it'll be something that survives. --BeautifulMind (talk) 11:57, 17 April 2025 (UTC)
- For what it's worth I did the same technique and made an XML dump of Category, Help, Template and Rationalwiki spaces (the later mainly for the Annotated Bible stuff). Along with *cough* Fun. :) I didn't see any other space that seemed like it *needed* an XML dump for now.
- Nothing will be more effective than an admin doing a full DB/file system backup and XML dump but bits and pieces can help, I suppose. The big issue with the XML dump is you lose the images. BobJohnson (talk) 16:35, 17 April 2025 (UTC)
- I'm backing up PDF copies of various pages to my Google Drive as well. It probably won't be as thorough as an XML backup, but at least it'll be something that survives. --BeautifulMind (talk) 11:57, 17 April 2025 (UTC)
- Well, a bit more than 'just mainspace'; other bits like the Help section, front page etc. The 'stuff we could easily lose' are the talk pages, user-space, archives such as the SB, draft/essayspace, funspace etc. Even if we do manage to salvage all of it *and* get it up and running again I honestly do not see why we should merely carry on where we left off - for example, I would suggest we hive off SB into it's own dedicated forum running on actual forum software. After all, it is looking most likely that RW 3.0 is going to be a 'spiritual successor' to RW 2.0 as we very well may lose domain, name, logo etc [including 'inherited' stuff like EvoWiki.org]. KarmaPolice (talk) 12:31, 17 April 2025 (UTC)
- I asked IA a few days ago about making a full archive. They have a paid service for websites that want periodic archiving. Their reply was that for a one-off archiving, I should use the https://web.archive.org/ with "Save Page Now" on the main page (https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Main_Page), which is supposed to archive a single website. It doesn't appear to be that effective on our website because 1) Close to all of our website has already been archived there. 2) It doesn't seem to do that when pages have (recently?) been archived. 3) There seems to be no effective way to date-restrict archive links (i.e. to the most recent successful archive). Bongolian (talk) 15:27, 17 April 2025 (UTC)
- 'It's not that effective' because they're talking BS. Archiving the frontpage only continues to work 'as a frontpage' if the innards have been separately archived. Otherwise, it's akin to a cardboard wall they use in the theatre - just a mainly non-functional frontpage.
- Making a plea at r/datahoarder and/or IA itself [I think RW is worth archiving and they could do it over this weekend]. On the more serious note while utterly backing up RW would be 'nice', in reality what *must* survive is the mainspace. I also suggest *somebody* starts assembling a master email list of folks who are willing/able [in some way] to help launch a RW 3.0 in Oregon [not all of us have the time/inclination/capability to do Discord]. KarmaPolice (talk) 10:33, 17 April 2025 (UTC)
- Is there any way to perhaps spread word of the site's plight to people who might be willing to help? --BeautifulMind (talk) 03:36, 17 April 2025 (UTC)
- It looks like someone could do that but would have to list every single page. It's not designed for a full export as far as I can see. Bongolian (talk) 02:58, 17 April 2025 (UTC)
- Could a tech not use Special:Export? — Unsigned, by: 207.104.43.105 / talk
- Anyhows, I have been thinking of future communications. RW is only really guaranteed to continue to exist until the morning of the 21st and Tech's nuking of the Discord has basically ended that method. It's a very basic makeshift, but what about I set up one of those free forums which folks can then join? I strongly suspect we're not the only ones having conversation like this and we need to make sure we're not duplicating effort. KarmaPolice (talk) 15:44, 17 April 2025 (UTC)
- The Discord server was brought back to life yesterday. The benefit of the server is that people can verify who they are on RW while the wiki lasts. Bongolian (talk) 15:52, 17 April 2025 (UTC)
- Don't have Discord myself, but I control this webpage and can use it to vouch for my presence on a different website, should that become necessary. I know this isn't the best place to do this but the wiki might be short on time.
- β Regards, Avarice 17:26, 18 April 2025 (UTC)
- The Discord server was brought back to life yesterday. The benefit of the server is that people can verify who they are on RW while the wiki lasts. Bongolian (talk) 15:52, 17 April 2025 (UTC)
- But is that secure? Last thing we want is 'Them' to know our actions etc. Esp as the main goal here is 'not die'. KarmaPolice (talk) 16:10, 17 April 2025 (UTC)
- "They" are already watching and even commenting on the RMF Talk page, so the HDF already knows everything it could gleam from the Discord, at least plan-wise. Hardly a good thing, but there's no way to change that now.
- β Regards, Avarice 17:26, 18 April 2025 (UTC)
- It's never too late. Start a new Discord, and use a form of verification; say Bongolian was the admin; I would have to apply and then confirm it was me applying by leaving a message on this page. KarmaPolice (talk) 20:07, 18 April 2025 (UTC)
- Anyhows, I have been thinking of future communications. RW is only really guaranteed to continue to exist until the morning of the 21st and Tech's nuking of the Discord has basically ended that method. It's a very basic makeshift, but what about I set up one of those free forums which folks can then join? I strongly suspect we're not the only ones having conversation like this and we need to make sure we're not duplicating effort. KarmaPolice (talk) 15:44, 17 April 2025 (UTC)
Question[edit]
Hi, I noticed you locked "Noah Carl Controversy: FAQ (rebuttal)" for "pending lawsuit". Now Carl's main article was removed can you delete the page? 142.93.250.102 (talk) 12:21, 20 April 2025 (UTC)