User talk:Burnt Toast

What is going on? World Blogs Clogs Elections The Bar (talk) (talk) (talk) (talk) (hic) Welcome to RationalWiki, Burnt Toast! Check out our guide for newcomers and our community standards! Tell us how you found RationalWiki here! If you are interested in contributing: Read what our articles are intended to be Check out the to-do list See our help page and Wikipedia's formatting cheatsheet If writing a new article, consider writing up a draft And most importantly: Pull up a goat and have some fun!

Arcadium Trancefer (talk) 15:04, 5 May 2024 (UTC)

Hi, thanks! Will I have to do a captcha every time I add something? Kinda annoying but I get why it's probably necessary. Burnt Toast (talk) 19:28, 19 May 2024 (UTC)

Not for so long. After some more edits, customarily members are given "autopatrolled" status that lets them bypass that and more. The captcha is kind of dated as a solution, actually, but technical changes are some time away. --ApooftGnegiol (talk) 19:44, 19 May 2024 (UTC)

Thanks, good to know! Burnt Toast (talk) 20:03, 19 May 2024 (UTC)

Autopatrolled

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:

• Google Scholar Button ^{(Chrome, Firefox)} searches your highlighted text in Google Scholar. Easily check academic citations!
• web.archive.org and archive.today, among other tools, can save permanent copies of webpages. Never lose a crank website or racist Tweet ever again! Carthage (talk) 23:12, 28 June 2024 (UTC)

This should be helpful, thanks Burnt Toast (talk) 23:14, 28 June 2024 (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) 01:32, 11 August 2024 (UTC)

I just want to say

Your work in creating the Cass Review article is exceptional. Well done! Chef Moosolini’s Ristorante Italiano^{Make a Reservation} 04:54, 14 August 2024 (UTC)

Thanks! It seemed like a relevant topic given how it's being used to shape policy. There's still some stuff I'd like to add though. Burnt Toast (talk) 07:32, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

I suggest you read this, for some considerations on presentation. It's tricky, and I'd rather we have imperfect presentation than none but something to consider. Chillpilled (talk) 15:04, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

Hmm, that looks more like a tiny psychology stub than a policy page or style guide with clear direction on writing good RationalWiki articles. Have a go if you'd like, though. I've done what I can for this article. Burnt Toast (talk) 20:12, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

I may have been rude by accident. I appreciate your additions too, that goes without saying. That's exactly why I wanted to show a consideration that can make them even more effective, in terms of how a lay reader will remember them. Use it or don't, but it's relevant to the topic I promise. RW's style guide is looser than the other wiki so a range of styles are good to go. Chillpilled (talk) 23:28, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

And I may have been primed to read your comment less charitably than usual due to circumstances outside RW. However, given that the "illusory truth effect" article is currently a stub (and has been so for several years), it frankly doesn't strike me as a concern on level with, say, confirmation bias. It doesn't seem like it warrants making a conscious effort at self-correction when writing articles. Wouldn't this also be more of an issue with Fox News-style outlets that exist to uncritically spout garbage 24/7? RW is a pro-science wiki that needs to reiterate and explain crank ideas in order to effectively debunk them. We can't realistically control for every possible reader response. Some people will reject information regardless of how carefully or neutrally it's presented to them. We're not going to inception transphobia into someone's brain by presenting trans-hostile claims in the process of debunking them. Someone who comes away from the Cass article thinking, "actually, CSA sounds like a good causal explanation for transness" can't be helped. I like offering concises examples to illustrate "TERFs claim X" statements. I think telling readers that anti-trans activists make extreme and unsupported claims is less effective than showing that they do. Burnt Toast (talk) 05:02, 17 August 2024 (UTC)

Yes, a counter-consideration I've thought of was you probably want to mention the claim at least once so it will show up in Google results for people looking into it. But for an example, at that part with a proposed trauma-dysphoria link for instance, Parents of ROGD Kids and Genspect's claims were quoted separately from the original statement of claim, which had an effect of restating the claim multiple times, probably unnecessarily. I was thinking about this by the way, and I wonder how they get it in their head that even if someone's gender identity stemmed from trauma, that would then allow or even obligate them to stamp that gender identity out. It strikes me as really presumptive and offensive in a way I find difficult to even articulate, just like the thing where people act like autistic people "can't know themselves", which you just added on the page it seems. Chillpilled (talk) 17:40, 18 August 2024 (UTC)

Archiving

Currently there's a way to archive it if someone reposted something on X, which is to use Ghostarchive on their profile (if you wanna be extra thorough I suppose it's also possible to run the resulting archive through Wayback Machine). If you like you can use that in a scenario like with KJK's recent one, especially if they're prone to deleting soon after. This method might eventually not work since Twitter hasn't really been archive-friendly in years and is constantly effectively changing which ones have access to what. Chillpilled (talk) 21:03, 2 October 2024 (UTC)

Thanks! This is helpful. Archive.today still works for tweets sometimes. The Wayback Machine usually fails. Didn't see KJK's tweet while it was live, but managed to get back-ups of the screenshots. I just prefer linking to the original tweets where possible so it's clear they're real. Burnt Toast (talk) 22:06, 2 October 2024 (UTC)

Screenshot back-ups are here and here. Burnt Toast (talk) 22:09, 2 October 2024 (UTC)

Protection

We only protect very controversial pages that are prone to excessive vandalism.[1] That doesn't seem to be the case of the pit bull article as it hasn't vandalised since 2017. I'm not removing the procection myself and I'd like to hear your reasoning first though. GeeJayK^{Where all evil dwells} _{Where every lie is true} 11:39, 6 October 2024 (UTC)

Users are also liable to protect their own userpages if they so wish. Carthage (talk) 12:11, 6 October 2024 (UTC)

Which is why I didn't remove the protection. Burnt Toast is a a sysop, and they can protect the page. That doesn't mean they should. GeeJayK^{Where all evil dwells} _{Where every lie is true} 12:14, 6 October 2024 (UTC)

Pitbull isn't a userpage. Carthage (talk) 12:21, 6 October 2024 (UTC)

Yes, that's another reason why I don't think the page should be protected. We protect user pages, not mainspace pages. See RationalWiki:Sysop_guide#Protection. GeeJayK^{Where all evil dwells} _{Where every lie is true} 12:25, 6 October 2024 (UTC)

Look, I'm not interested joining in this debate club. Pit bulls and BSL are a lightning rod on Wikipedia. There's a decent potential of RW's article becoming one now that I've shifted the focus in a more critical and science-based direction. Semi-protection is a light intervention. People can still edit the article, but this will cut down on drive-by edits, and force people to take complaints to the talk page. I think my time on RW is better spent researching and writing article content than getting pulled into preventable edit wars. I've encountered anti-vax levels of denialism among some pit bull advocates. I just don't see any benefit in leaving the gates open to the insertion of potentially libellous claims and pseudohistorical nonsense about pits having been "nanny dogs" in Victorian England. Burnt Toast (talk) 12:49, 6 October 2024 (UTC)

Hey, calm down, no one is edit warring here. As I said I'm not going to revert your decision. I still disagree with it, but you are a sysop just like me, so you can protect the page, even if in theory our community guidelines say otherwise. GeeJayK^{Where all evil dwells} _{Where every lie is true} 12:53, 6 October 2024 (UTC)

Given recent events on RW it seems prudent to safeguard against edits of this sort. That was inserted into the article by a drive-by IP and stayed there for seven years. A claim that an (amateur?) statistician is a "charlatan" based on a single HuffPo op-ed from a self-described "novelist and photographer." That might've been passable if it had been presented as an opinion of the HuffPo columnist. But pit bull advocates aren't interested in that kind of restraint or nuance. They're interested in strawmanning a guy with a couple of methodically-sound websites that unfortunately have a janky Web 1.0 conspiracy site look because that's easier than countering articles in surgery journals. I can't guarantee that I'm going to watch this article hawkishly. If that claim gets reinserted into the article, there's a chance it'll go unnoticed again. Burnt Toast (talk) 13:37, 6 October 2024 (UTC)

Protecting an article now because of a doubtful edit seven years ago might be a bit like overkill.Bob^{"Life is short and (insert adjective)"} 14:53, 6 October 2024 (UTC)

I've reduced the "impoundment" duration to a month for reasons stated in my edit summary. Burnt Toast (talk) 16:06, 6 October 2024 (UTC)