User talk:Tmtoulouse/Archive13

Logical positivism

Ok, I've been doing some reading. You were right in assuming that I wouldn't really support logical positivism. First, the strongest form, in which the philosophy renders itself meaningless when it says that anything that can't be verified is not worth considering, is certainly not very useful. The RW LP page is right that no philosophy can explain everything and be self-consistent (at least it's probably right; I guess we'll know after we've had infinite time to study the issue), but living by strong logical positivism isn't even practical. Certainly, there are a lot of things we can't verify now, but that doesn't necessarily mean they should be completely ignored. Our capabilities are constantly growing, and I believe that every well defined problem has the potential to eventually be testable. Note that I say testable, not verifiable, which is my second problem with LP. I'm not a "verificationist"; I'm a scientist. We don't prove things, we falsify them. For the sake of simplicity, we consider things "true" if we are repeatedly unable to falsify them, but we never really prove anything. This, I think, is the biggest misconception out there about how science works. In math and computation science, things can be proven, because there is no uncertainty or error, just your set of axioms and logic. Unfortunately, physical science isn't so neat and clean. OneForLogic 22:28, 4 August 2008 (EDT)

I would never argue that science attempts to prove anything true, but the fact that we can not make pronouncements about something being true does not negate our ability to pronounce that something is false. At the very least we can create scales of "wrongness" and know that some ideas are more wrong than others. The fact that we cannot say that the theory of evolution is true in an epistemological sense does not change the fact that we can say it is less wrong than young earth creationism. The only way that we have of reliably gaining data about an ideas "wrongness" is through empirical testing and the scientific method. There is no other tool that I know of that compares to the scientific methods ability to use empirical evidence to demonstrate where ideas are wrong. This presents us with a problem when ideas are formulated that can not be tested using the scientific method. At that point the idea is "not even wrong."

All of this is fairly established in the Popperian tradition, with the demarcation line being drawn at falsifiability. The question though is what do we do once that line has been drawn. What is the value or inherent meaning of ideas that don't make it across the demarcation line and remain unfalsifiable. The logical positivist tradition makes the claim that these ideas do not have an inherent meaning because we have no way of sorting them out like we do for ideas that make it across Popper's line. The retort that logical positivism then invalidates itself because it is unfalsifiable is to me not a very fulfilling objection. We are still left with the original problem of how do you create meaning from ideas that are "not even wrong."

This is a nice little philosophical box that is, to me, akin to the brain-in-a-vat problem or last thursdayism. The claim is that the world was made last Thursday and any memory of a prior world or any evidence to the contrary was created at the same time to create an illusion of age. How do you get out of that box? You can't, its solipsism. If someone wants to come at me from the perspective of solipsism then there is not much to argue. But this is to me is another non-fulfilling conclusion. The way I personally get out of the solipsists' box is an argument of pragmatism. Last thursdayism does not gain us anything as far as understanding the world around us, and it is boring. I want out of the box so I make the decision that my senses while fallible offer me a shadowed perception of reality, and those things that allow me to better understand the relationship between my senses and that reality are what we are after. Ideas that make it across the line of demarcation, ideas that can be wrong, that are not unfalsifiable hold meaning because they can be wrong. Being able to be wrong is what gives them meaning, so we are right back at the previous fork in the road. While I admit my epistemology and metaphysics contradicts itself at the same point logical positivism seems to, I appeal to pragmatism and a desire to avoid boredom as my "get out of jail free card."

So that is where I am coming from. This originally started from your disclaimer that all extreme ideas should be rejected and that truth lies down a more moderate path. I think the major point of divergence isn't with a Popperian falsifiability criteria for demarcation, but rather what happens after the demarcation. How do I pull out meaning and value from all those ideas that are "not even wrong"? What is the middle path? tmtoulouse ^torment 00:41, 5 August 2008 (EDT)

My answer, on how to value unfalsifiable ideas, is to archive them and wait. Assuming the idea is sufficiently well defined and internally consistent to allow for at least the potential that it could eventually be tested, then it could potentially be useful in the future. My practical concern here, since practicality is often the final argument in my thoughts, too, is that we must not sound like we're telling the well-intentioned Christian, for example, that their ideas are useless or valueless. It's really easy to argue that many of their beliefs are, but what do you accomplish by telling them that? Rather than saying that the untestable idea is without value, I say nothing about it at all. Like the Zen master said, "We'll see."

I should point out that there are some ideas about which I won't equivocate if asked directly. If it has been tested by by a process consistent with the scientific method and found false, then it's false. The young earth creationist hypothesis that the earth is ~6000 years old is definitely false, for example. But, allowing practicality to prevail again, what do you gain by telling that to the YEC when they don't understand or value the scientific method? It seems to me like you need to convince them that the scientific method works before telling them their system is wrong.

For now, one last thing I'm curious about: if a person mostly accepts logical positivism, but rejects the notion that our theories explaining the physical world must be verifiable, that it must be possible to absolutely prove them to be true, then what difference remains between that philosophy and a philosophy of simple acceptance of the scientific method? Is there any difference left other than the treatment of unfalsifiable ideas? This kind of thing is why I generally don't have much interest in formal philosophy; it all seems to come down to quibbling about details and definitions. I really don't enjoy trying to explain why an idea is wrong; if there is any doubt or lack of clarity in the idea, I prefer starting over and making a new idea of my own. That, really, is the reason that I reject labels, like I described on Conservapedia. As soon as you accept a label, someone will misinterpret it or try to tell you what you believe because "that's what other x-ists believe". So I apologize if it ever sounds like I'm doing that here. OneForLogic 10:42, 5 August 2008 (EDT)

Compound replies

Don't worry about it, take your time. OneForLogic 15:26, 13 August 2008 (EDT)

Indicator strip

I wanted to play with tables :(. Not it is not automated. tmtoulouse ^torment 20:08, 5 August 2008 (EDT)

Why is one of them yellow? Anyway, have fun with your 3 or 4 squares worth of salt-mining. OneForLogic 23:00, 5 August 2008 (EDT)

Change of Name?

Hey is there any way you could change my name to just "Damo". I use Damo2353 on other websites where there are too many people for Damo to be used. The numbers here seem somewhat redundant. Damo^Hi 23:16, 10 August 2008 (EDT)

I'll do it in about twelve seconds. One thing you should do afterwards is re-register the old username so no one can dopplelgang you. ħuman 23:30, 10 August 2008 (EDT)

Are you not also

Chaos!/Jellyfish/whatever? Hot Coffee 15:53, 11 August 2008 (EDT)

Me? Er, no. tmtoulouse ^torment 15:59, 11 August 2008 (EDT)

That's strange. Chaos!/Jellyfish/whatever's listing on the sysop list says you are the same person. Red Baron 22:31, 11 August 2008 (EDT)

No it doesn't, it lists him as: Jellyfish, Sight Owner, Stewart, Supercrat, Sysop, Tickleuser, Timtoulouse. tmtoulouse ^torment 22:33, 11 August 2008 (EDT)

For someone who is supposedly experiencing increased intrusion from the real world due primarily to school and what his university calls "work" (salt-mining might be a better euphemism), you sure do have a lot of time on your hands to delete perfectly good articles. Red Baron 22:37, 11 August 2008 (EDT)

Good thing too, huh? tmtoulouse ^torment 22:40, 11 August 2008 (EDT)

highlighting refs

That feature I was on about a while ago seems to have "started working". Very nice! ħuman 18:18, 11 August 2008 (EDT)

!!!

Please don't try to retcon your grievous schooling at the hands of Denyse Thingy. The truth must remain forever <font=""; face="Comic Sans MS">Jellyfish!^{Quite possibly a fruitcake} 13:57, 13 August 2008 (EDT)

Also, on a more serious note, could you drop "Stewart", "Supercrat" and "Timtoulouse" from my nonexistent powerz, please? I think they're a bit too much...

Thanks. <font=""; face="Comic Sans MS">Jellyfish!^{Quite possibly a fruitcake} 14:00, 13 August 2008 (EDT)

Eventually, sure. tmtoulouse ^torment 14:12, 13 August 2008 (EDT)

Hello World

Hey Tmtoulouse, where did all the Hello Worlds come from? $\approx$$\pi$ 21:17, 14 August 2008 (EDT)

Me. It should be gone now. The idea has been proposed to create something akin to the "you have a new message" but is site wide that allows us to alert people to important discussions or announcements since there is no localized place for it that everyone checks. The first test was learning where in the software exactly Mediawiki creates the pages and how it might be possible to alter it. The Hello World! was my test to see if I had figured it out. tmtoulouse ^torment 21:20, 14 August 2008 (EDT)

Did it work? $\approx$$\pi$ 21:34, 14 August 2008 (EDT)

Well I now know how to make something appear on every page on the site :). Converting that into a workable and feasible intercom type system will require many additional steps. tmtoulouse ^torment 21:38, 14 August 2008 (EDT)

Oh well. Keep up the good work, you are doing great. If you need a break watch the video I added to Law of Attraction. $\approx$$\pi$ 21:41, 14 August 2008 (EDT)

Thanks, I plan on checking it out :). tmtoulouse ^torment 21:41, 14 August 2008 (EDT)

Feedback - that Remove button is indeed disappearing when I click it. This on Safari on OSX. DogP 18:06, 15 August 2008 (EDT)

TRENT

You fixed the wiki before I could have the pleasure of doing so. :( --λινυσ^(☮) 22:35, 14 August 2008 (EDT)

And I will keep breaking it as well. It is breaking on a line of code that it shouldn't be braking on damn it. So I figure if I keep uncommenting and recommenting it will eventually learn...right? tmtoulouse ^torment 22:40, 14 August 2008 (EDT)

Hold still while I sedate you, please. This is for your own good... <font=""; face="Comic Sans MS">Jellyfish!^{Quite possibly a fruitcake} 22:46, 14 August 2008 (EDT)

Just keep hitting "reload" until it works. At least, that's what I did... (part of a classic RW slogan) ħuman 23:28, 14 August 2008 (EDT)

Wait, so I spent (approximately) seven minutes trying to figure out why a commented line of code was causing issues, when the whole time I had a version that was outdated after a couple of seconds? --λινυσ^(☮) 01:23, 15 August 2008 (EDT)

Sounds about right. Aren't you used to how things get weird for roughly seven seconds at a time when Trent is playing working? ħuman 01:32, 15 August 2008 (EDT)

TRENT! Why the hell is "RationalWiki" appearing everywhere? <font=""; face="Comic Sans MS">Jellyfish!^{Quite possibly a fruitcake} 01:34, 15 August 2008 (EDT)

Various reasons :). tmtoulouse ^torment 01:36, 15 August 2008 (EDT)

I hereby chastise you. <font=""; face="Comic Sans MS">Jellyfish!^{Quite possibly a fruitcake} 01:37, 15 August 2008 (EDT)

Whoa, that was cool. [wipes brow]. I tried to fix it but it went away. Do it again! ħuman 01:39, 15 August 2008 (EDT)

Yes - the same

I consider the whole world to be friendly territory, so I'm not digging any trenches. Yet.

My father recently quit a national atheist organization when their magazine printed a list of the 10 things all atheist believe in and although he actually, as far as i could tell, believed in all of them, he was so outraged at being told what he did, or worse, should believe in that he was outta there. i am the bane of his existence, poor man, but he has had to invent new ways of looking at the miracles or coincidences or whatever that keep happening around me/us. Abraham/Esther tells us that life is supposed to be fun, and . . ........... I bought it. Einar aka Carptrash 23:27, 14 August 2008 (EDT)

The bane of rationality is calling a "coincidence" a "miracle" just because it was pretty... ħuman 23:30, 14 August 2008 (EDT)

I think it was in Terry Pratchett's Witches Abroad when at the start he is rambling on about miracles and he points out that if some million to one freak chance someone survives something people call it a miracle, but if there is some long string of improbable events that causes someone to die then it is still a miracle even if it is unpleasant. Though I would add that 2 cents. $\approx$$\pi$ 00:46, 15 August 2008 (EDT)

Then I'll add "or ugly". Or simplify to: The bane of rationality is calling a "coincidence" a "miracle". EOF; ħuman 01:06, 15 August 2008 (EDT)

I'll go into some examples of what I consider to be "magic" or "miracles" at some other time when it seems as if someone might actually by listening instead of just branding me a cult member ( "Esther Hicks people are a cult.") and lumping all my thoughts opinions etc. into that black hole. I'm not here to make converts, I just made the mistake that I've made frequently in the past (I was labeled a slow learner in 4th grade or so and it has proven to be a pretty accurate assessment) of believing that "scientific" and "rational" are synonymous with "open minded." Silly me. Einar aka Carptrash 18:03, 15 August 2008 (EDT)

I have an unfinished essay that deals with that as part of a larger whole Essay:Bayesian Inference and the Power of Skepticism. An open mind is about being willing to review all hypotheses but it does not mean we can not assign relative probabilities to each hypothesis. Something that has a 1 x 10^-23 chance of being true can pretty much be ignored as reality till some substantial evidence is forth coming. tmtoulouse ^torment 18:10, 15 August 2008 (EDT)

Well I took a peek at your essay and am interested, however TIME is working against me right now, Tonight is opening night for the Dixon Players production of The Fantasticks in which I play the Mute and percussion in the "orchestra" for 5 or 6 songs. And there is more. However I will likely return to it. I was interested to read that its purpose is to "to show that skepticism and the scientific method are the optimal systems for discovering knowledge." since i have opinions about that, namely that what you learn by the scientific method is scientific stuff and that there is a lot of knowledge out there that is not really reachable (at least yet) by science. if you remember the scene in "Flatland" where the two dimensional beings absolutely deny the existence of another dimension because, well how could there be/ Well that, in my opinion, is us. Carptrash 19:06, 15 August 2008 (EDT)

Carpy dime

I hope you think we were nice to your friend. ħuman 03:28, 15 August 2008 (EDT)

Meh, whatever, the Esther Hicks people are a cult.

Fight the cult

Speaking of the Esther Hicks cult, they have taken over the wp:Esther Hicks article. Anyone visiting this page should go over there and revert back to the real version of the article. tmtoulouse ^torment 12:39, 15 August 2008 (EDT)

Override? 24.36.227.74 17:08, 15 August 2008 (EDT)

Message

It seems to be working fine for me… if the lurid orange color is what you intended. Also, the "remove" button works beautifully. --λινυσ^(☮) 18:43, 15 August 2008 (EDT)

Ditto here --Arcan ¡ollǝɥ 19:13, 15 August 2008 (EDT)

The lurid orange color is an artifact of historical contingency. But the basic principle and the major pieces seem to be in place and working. tmtoulouse ^torment 19:25, 15 August 2008 (EDT)

Someone broke the wiki

WTF?

The default font in IE is enormous. Genghis^{You have the right to be offended; and I have the right to offend you.} 03:40, 16 August 2008 (EDT)

That usually happens when you forget to close a div on a page, as it is effecting the whole wiki it probably is in the system somewhere. $\approx$$\pi$ 03:56, 16 August 2008 (EDT)

See also Talk:Main_Page#More_techical_issues.3F   ^Contribs_Talk 08:54, 16 August 2008 (EDT)

Bored

Wow, I guess you are... ħuman 01:54, 18 August 2008 (EDT)

Intercom vs. (and) AotW

Should we send a message to all to come to talk:proposed AotW and get one fired up?

Also, you seem to have stalled on the intercom "programming". It's ironic that higher your real-life intervention level is, the more time you spend here, and vice versa.

Let's a get a new AotW going first, and then shall we worry about how many fancy features we want the intercom to have? If any? ħuman 23:59, 18 August 2008 (EDT)

Yes, how about we throw up a skeleton AOTW for CP:atheism on the proposed page and then spam everyone? tmtoulouse ^torment 00:15, 19 August 2008 (EDT)

Or, how about asking the mob to do the work? I'm sure many care, but just don;t see it on RC? ħuman 00:23, 19 August 2008 (EDT)

We need something for them to work on at the moment isn't it just the moon landing one redux style? tmtoulouse ^torment 00:31, 19 August 2008 (EDT)

Zen and the art of programming

Actually not stalled believe it or not. Watch my programming habits closely and you will find that major programming jobs will have a delay between "concept" and "start of implementation." This is because figuring out how to do some of what you people want done is not really easy. I just take the problem at hand and set a solution algorithm to run in the background for a few days until I come up with something. Then when I come up with an idea I can get started programming. And the thing is "live" programming is particularly rough cause there is not much room for "experimenting" when the thing I am programming is being used at the same time I am programming it.

I understand. Don't we still have a "beta" version you can break at will with no consequences? Or is it hopelessly out of date? Anyway, I think we should sort of start to use the intercom, even though there are many ideas for "more" features. Even if you are the only one (beotch!) who can post them. ħuman 00:23, 19 August 2008 (EDT)

RationalBeta is existing in a very weird form of pseudoincarnation, it will shortly be hosting the new mediawiki 1.13 version for me to start playing with. tmtoulouse ^torment 00:32, 19 August 2008 (EDT)

ParserFunction

Hi Trent. Do you know why I get this error using PhaserFunctions,

3

It should give me 3. It says "Expression error: Unrecognised word "ceil"". $\approx$$\pi$ 02:27, 19 August 2008 (EDT)

3. There ya go. (It's right under the # sign) ħuman 02:40, 19 August 2008 (EDT)

Thanks Human, I don't know how I have managed to log in until now.

You're welcome :) ħuman 03:09, 19 August 2008 (EDT)

All set? tmtoulouse ^torment 02:46, 19 August 2008 (EDT)

Thanks Trent that is great, I see you had to break it to fix it. $\approx$$\pi$ 02:48, 19 August 2008 (EDT)

The extended parser functions for some reason didn't get installed correctly but it should all be working now. tmtoulouse ^torment 02:49, 19 August 2008 (EDT)

If exist seems to be having a problem now,

Yes

$\approx$$\pi$ 02:53, 19 August 2008 (EDT)

Fucking mediawiki. I reverted back, this will probably have to wait till I get a few hours sleep. Something is not making sense. tmtoulouse ^torment 03:02, 19 August 2008 (EDT)

I have a vague idea what is going on but I wont be able to finish it up before crashing and don't want to leave shit broken or I get lots of e-mail :). I will get it done tomorrow so you can write your code "assuming" it is working. tmtoulouse ^torment 03:07, 19 August 2008 (EDT)

Alright Trent thanks for all you done. I'll work on a work around in the mean time. $\approx$$\pi$ 03:09, 19 August 2008 (EDT)

I have solved my problem without the ceil function so unless you want to use it don't let it worry you. Thanks once more for everything. $\approx$$\pi$ 03:23, 19 August 2008 (EDT)

Actually I will need them again after all. $\approx$$\pi$ 05:29, 19 August 2008 (EDT)

Any luck yet with the ParserFunctions? $\approx$$\pi$ 01:04, 20 August 2008 (EDT)

Hi Trent, thanks for coding up the ceil function, is it possible to do the trunc function as well? $\approx$$\pi$ 19:09, 21 August 2008 (EDT)

Hi Trent. This will hopefully be the last parser functions I need to automate the Holydaze templates. Can you include the Iranian and Hebrew date functions by any chance? Thanks. $\approx$$\pi$ 00:09, 27 August 2008 (EDT)

Oh noes! Is it just me?

I'm getting this on the wigo page:

Notice: Undefined variable: themessage in /home/rationa1/public_html/wiki/includes/SkinTemplate.php on line 349

Notice: Undefined offset: 1 in /home/rationa1/public_html/wiki/includes/SkinTemplate.php on line 350

Notice: Undefined variable: themessage in /home/rationa1/public_html/wiki/includes/SkinTemplate.php on line 351

Notice: Undefined offset: 1 in /home/rationa1/public_html/wiki/includes/SkinTemplate.php on line 352

Notice: Undefined variable: themessage in /home/rationa1/public_html/wiki/includes/SkinTemplate.php on line 352

Notice: Undefined variable: row in /home/rationa1/public_html/wiki/includes/SkinTemplate.php on line 354

Refugee^{talk page} 03:18, 21 August 2008 (EDT)

It's not just you, it's just you ;) Trent probably busted the wiki working on the intercom. Hopefully (he usually doesn't) he didn't pass out go to sleep and leave it unbroken. ħuman 03:25, 21 August 2008 (EDT)

Thanks, I think you are right, he must be working on it, since now I have a pretty pink box on top of my screen that says "next message" (which actually doesn't work, but displays this message: "Warning: mysql_fetch_array(): supplied argument is not a valid MySQL result resource in /home/rationa1/public_html/get_intercom.php on line 18") - so I'll just be patient and leave him alone to fix whatever he's working on. :p Refugee^{talk page} 03:35, 21 August 2008 (EDT)

Okay it is bed time, anyone still seeing anything weird? tmtoulouse ^torment 03:43, 21 August 2008 (EDT)

Nah, you're good. All fixed. Thanks for understanding, Refugee (you don't - have- to live - like) ħuman 03:59, 21 August 2008 (EDT)

Stumbled on

this   ^Contribs_Talk 16:18, 21 August 2008 (EDT)

{{urlencode}}

Is there any chance the urlencode extension could be installed? Or is there some other way to do the equivalent? When {{cp user2}} is used with a username that has a space in it (as is the case with the default "Example user"), the space doesn't get converted into an underscore, so the after-the-space part gets interpreted as not being part of the "block log" URL.

View source on wp:Template:User13 to see the example of using {{urlencode}}. --Toiretni 14:53, 22 August 2008 (EDT)

The extension page claims that the function is built into the current parser code. Is it not? tmtoulouse ^torment 15:03, 22 August 2008 (EDT)

This exists? Excellent. --λινυσ^(☮) 20:38, 23 August 2008 (EDT)

Your delinquent bots

One question, how? $\approx$$\pi$ 23:57, 22 August 2008 (EDT)

Um I forgot to add the article title when I ran the edit function, and so it defaulted to "http://rationalwiki.com/wiki" which is the main page. :). tmtoulouse ^torment 23:58, 22 August 2008 (EDT)

Oh well far enough. I know I would do worse. ;)$\approx$$\pi$ 00:03, 23 August 2008 (EDT)

Do we need it to be that long?

<font=""; face="Comic Sans MS">Jellyfish!^{Quite possibly a fruitcake} 16:34, 23 August 2008 (EDT)

Meh, but let us discuss new wording first if you want to change it. tmtoulouse ^torment 16:35, 23 August 2008 (EDT)

Should be "ur money; gives it to uz". <font=""; face="Comic Sans MS">Jellyfish!^{Quite possibly a fruitcake} 16:39, 23 August 2008 (EDT)

I had tithe to rationalwiki but that was deemed offensive :). Anyway, come see me on the talk page. tmtoulouse ^torment 16:40, 23 August 2008 (EDT)

Squirrel...

...was really, really bent over whether Clinton should be in the chickenhawk category or not. And still is, I guess, after all the work I done so far digging out data on the Iraq War vote for him... He thinks we are Democratic Party/Daily Kos apologists. Guess he never read "really embarrassing liberals", which I created in immediate response to "really embarrassing conservatives", and to which I added Edwards the moment the affair story was admitted to. Oh well. ħuman 19:56, 23 August 2008 (EDT)

Trent, are you sure this random IP address is Secret Squirrel? <font=""; face="Comic Sans MS">Jellyfish!^{Quite possibly a fruitcake} 20:00, 23 August 2008 (EDT)

Positive it is him, no question. Oh well, he is not the first, nor the last ex-rwian(?) to go to wikipedia to express aggression towards us. It is similar to a CP user coming here after having had enough I guess, cept wikipedia is probably not as satisfying :). tmtoulouse ^torment 20:10, 23 August 2008 (EDT)

I don't mean to pry, but how do you know? <font=""; face="Comic Sans MS">Jellyfish!^{Quite possibly a fruitcake} 20:30, 23 August 2008 (EDT)

He doesn't have to tell you. Secret Squirrel 20:47, 24 August 2008 (EDT)

True, but I wouldn't like to equate you with an anonymous user without a little bit of analysis first. I'll drop it now, though. <font=""; face="Comic Sans MS">Jellyfish!^{Quite possibly a fruitcake} 20:50, 24 August 2008 (EDT)

What anonymous user? I know nothing. Secret Squirrel 21:38, 24 August 2008 (EDT)

Uh, me neither. Nope. <font=""; face="Comic Sans MS">Jellyfish!^{Quite possibly a fruitcake} 21:40, 24 August 2008 (EDT)

Guilt trip (me). I demoted him to sysop - shame on me   ^Contribs_Talk 20:14, 23 August 2008 (EDT)

If you hadn't have done it I was getting ready to at the time he requested it. The "mostly harmless" criteria for adminship had been met....now however.... tmtoulouse ^torment 20:24, 23 August 2008 (EDT)

Probation? <font=""; face="Comic Sans MS">Jellyfish!^{Quite possibly a fruitcake} 20:30, 23 August 2008 (EDT)

Probation in what sense? You mean desysops him? No, as far as I can tell he hasn't done anything to warrant that. His blocks have all been against editors that can unblock themselves (and fairly short duration) and the only deletion of articles were his user page and talk page that he has not deleted again once they were restored. To me loosing ones sysopship should only happen if one is aggressively using it to harm the site or to gain an advantage in a dispute. So far he has walked that line as far as I am concerned and does not merit any action. tmtoulouse ^torment 20:42, 23 August 2008 (EDT)

I agree. By my comment, I meant a state in which probation and sysopism are combined. <font=""; face="Comic Sans MS">Jellyfish!^{Quite possibly a fruitcake} 20:46, 23 August 2008 (EDT)

Well as someone that has studiously avoided any conflict with any of our resident libertarian trolls I don't feel qualified to really decided what if anything should be done. tmtoulouse ^torment 20:52, 23 August 2008 (EDT)

A) I don't think SS is a libertarian, akshully. B) He probably just needs a stern talking to. <font=""; face="Comic Sans MS">Jellyfish!^{Quite possibly a fruitcake} 20:58, 23 August 2008 (EDT)

What exactly has SS done wrong here that we are having a kangaroo court over it? Very minor edit warring at WJC and chickenhawk? ħuman 21:10, 23 August 2008 (EDT)

Firstly, what does it matter where you do something? Secondly, no one's proposed any kind of judgement on SS other than a vague air of disapproval, and I doubt anyone will go any further than that. <font=""; face="Comic Sans MS">Jellyfish!^{Quite possibly a fruitcake} 21:14, 23 August 2008 (EDT)

What does it matter? I guess I think all that matters in terms of an RW user is what they do here? Are we gonna start running background checks (joke!)? I do see the word "probation", and there was edit comment mention of a new "user group". ħuman 21:21, 23 August 2008 (EDT)

I think the gist of the conversation can be summed us as, lets do nothing cause nobody cares. tmtoulouse ^torment 21:24, 23 August 2008 (EDT)

(EC) The "new user group" thing was a feeble joke, and my vision of "probation" in this case might have been better described as "asking him to calm down". <font=""; face="Comic Sans MS">Jellyfish!^{Quite possibly a fruitcake} 21:26, 23 August 2008 (EDT)

I agree with Trent. Also, Chaos edit commented " And you don't have to run background checks to recognise the implications of behaviour on other sites *cough* *TK!* *cough*" I can't think of anything TK did elsewhere that did any harm to RW, except perhaps twisting a few peoples' chains via pmail. If anything, over the "long term", his night of the blunt knives propelled us towards RW 2.0. Ironic, isn't it? ħuman 21:41, 23 August 2008 (EDT)

I was thinking of his pre-emptive banning of Kels' IP address. If it weren't for his actions at CP, he might have had some weight behind his demands to be made sysop here. <font=""; face="Comic Sans MS">Jellyfish!^{Quite possibly a fruitcake} 21:47, 23 August 2008 (EDT)

I'll concede the first point, I guess. Although, blocking Kels IP from CP did not actually affect RW in any way. The second, however, was never going to happen, no matter what interesting lies he came up with. ħuman 23:00, 23 August 2008 (EDT)

bestofbot

Re: EZ edit system, I'm impressed. Nice work. What can't you do? ħuman 00:04, 24 August 2008 (EDT)

Oh where to begin, pick a category: school, work, relationships, family, life style management, financial solvency, spelling, grammar.... tmtoulouse ^torment 00:05, 24 August 2008 (EDT)

That explains a lot. You forgot commas and apostrophes (I guess those are included in grammar). How humble a response. Quite healthy. ħuman 00:29, 24 August 2008 (EDT)

Bot & other ideas to prevent Trent getting any real work done

(nicked from Wp:

• Pretty pastel shades on the indents on talk pages?
• Auto archiving of talk page threads that've been quiet for (say) 4 days?
• Edit toolbox - find out how to add some of the things that Wp has got (specially tables see Wp they've got it down for action).
• Bot to do the unsigned thing automatically. - I could go on ...   ^Contribs_Talk 03:38, 24 August 2008 (EDT)

RationalWiki 3.0 meets Web 2.0

Hi Trent. Whilst doing the dishes I was thinking about all the stupid videos I have seen on youtube and the recent godtube one I have never bothered to look at and I was thinking under our current side-by-side comparison we have limited ourselves primarily to text. From my guess we are both in our mid 20 and around the internet that makes us well past our prime. From what I hear these kids have these new fangled web cams and such like and are posting videos on the internet and they don't even know how to html (or know what that is). Back when we first got a wiki at uni and I thought it was going to go somewhere I had a list of extensions I requested ITS install that they promptly ignored (maths was one of them if you want to know how low tech you can go). The one I was thinking of here was EmbedVideo or the still beta YouTubeTag this would allow us to embed videos of wingnuts to laugh at rebuttal maybe even upload our own to this YouTube thing and go side-by-side high tech like without all the text the youngsters can't read. $\approx$$\pi$ 08:24, 24 August 2008 (EDT)

Thanks for that Trent. We are like so with it now. $\approx$$\pi$ 18:34, 24 August 2008 (EDT)

?

Warning: require_once(extensions/CharInsert.php) [function.require-once]: failed to open stream: No such file or directory in /home/rationa1/public_html/wiki/LocalSettings.php on line 24

Fatal error: require_once() [function.require]: Failed opening required 'extensions/CharInsert.php' (include_path='/home/rationa1/public_html/wiki:/home/rationa1/public_html/wiki/includes:/home/rationa1/public_html/wiki/languages:.:/usr/lib/php:/usr/local/lib/php') in /home/rationa1/public_html/wiki/LocalSettings.php on line 24

Marghanita Laski 12:30, 24 August 2008 (EDT)

General tip of the day using wild cards in delete commands is a bad habit...all fixed now :). tmtoulouse ^torment 12:31, 24 August 2008 (EDT)

You are a far braver man than I. --λινυσ^(☮) 18:11, 24 August 2008 (EDT)

If that means what I think it means: yikes. <font=""; face="Comic Sans MS">Jellyfish!^{Quite possibly a fruitcake} 18:18, 24 August 2008 (EDT)

I made a suggestion for a new project for you at RationalWiki talk:NavTree at the end of the "pinhead" section. ħuman 17:55, 24 August 2008 (EDT)

And added more detail about what I meant at the lower part of the werewolves/Paris section. ħuman 19:14, 24 August 2008 (EDT)

intercom

OK, now you have to add a "preview" function to test your links & such if you're not gonna sandbox your messages. ħuman 20:59, 25 August 2008 (EDT)

tmtoulouse ^torment 21:01, 25 August 2008 (EDT)

THanx 4 promohshin

What new powerz do I have? :P δλερνερ ^{διαλέγομαι | συνεισφέρω} 22:33, 25 August 2008 (EDT)

The ability to change user groups for other users. That's about it. All the usually fun stuff like oversight, checkuser, and the like have been removed from our wiki. We iz no fun :(. tmtoulouse ^torment 22:36, 25 August 2008 (EDT)

I tried to sysop DLerner last night but "special pages" was teh borken :( ħuman 23:33, 25 August 2008 (EDT)

I notice that DLerner has been granted bureaucrat powers. This, despite the fact that his edit history only goes back to March. Surely this man does not have the experience required for such awesome responsibilities! Not when there are so many more experienced editors who have not been given such powers. I notice that DLerner is a member of a minority group (teh Jewz), leading me to believe that DLerner is Rationalwiki's first Affirmative Action Bureaucrat! He clearly has no executive or military experience. What is this website coming to? DickTurpis 22:45, 25 August 2008 (EDT)

I spoke to Mandy Patinkin (a joo and your savior), and he told me that in no uncertain terms that you will be spend eternity in the bowels of Tripoli's sewers. δλερνερ ^{διαλέγομαι | συνεισφέρω} 22:51, 25 August 2008 (EDT)

Tripoli, Libya or Tripoli, Lebanon? DickTurpis 23:14, 25 August 2008 (EDT)

Do I has powerz now 2?

Am I bureaucrat now? Am I also a bot? Nothing seems different, except for all these circuits and wires. DickTurpis 23:22, 25 August 2008 (EDT)

Yes, you are. Find your edits in recent changes......your first task as a crat is to undo your bot status.... tmtoulouse ^torment 23:23, 25 August 2008 (EDT)

Homework!?!?!?!?!! I didn't even get the manual! DickTurpis 23:28, 25 August 2008 (EDT)

Exactly. tmtoulouse ^torment 23:29, 25 August 2008 (EDT)

So who is it?

I was taking a walk through the Wikipedia Gardens lately, when I noticed a persky little troll seems to be giving you quite a bit of trouble.... Any idea who it is? SirChuckB^{A product of Affirmative Action} 12:19, 26 August 2008 (EDT)

If you look up the ip on RW you will see it has made a couple edits that another of our users has been pushing for a while, that should tell ya. tmtoulouse ^torment 02:13, 27 August 2008 (EDT)

<vote>

Any chance you could add class="vote" to the top-level <table> generated by your nifty <vote> thing? I'd like to try some CSS stuff. (it's not any sort of template that I can edit myself, is it?) --Toiretni 23:18, 26 August 2008 (EDT)

Hey, Toyrenty, any chance you can get your "tool" (the edit tracking one) installed here? ħuman 23:26, 26 August 2008 (EDT)

Yeah, I will at some point. I have to rewrite the backend to use api.php instead of the scraper. Also^{evil pinky} one wonders how hard it is to combine that tool with something that effectively mirrors all of the per-revision metadata, particularly in cases where things get burned. But all of that is very ambitious, so I haven't jumped in with both feet yet. --Toiretni 00:15, 27 August 2008 (EDT)

Well, if it's any help, we have only used "oversight" about three times... as far as I know. I did like that tool you installed at CP though. I think I even emailed you via WP to ask you if we could get it here, like a year ago. Thank for answering. ħuman 00:21, 27 August 2008 (EDT)

Yeah, the rev-metadata-mirroring would only be for CP. I was just thinking of all the modifications as being done in one go, but I suppose I could break them into "phase 1 deliverable" and "phase 2 deliverable" like the managers at work are always doing to try to make things fit into preset schedules.

Well, I've got a lot going on personally in the next month, but maybe I can get the scraper→api.php rework done after that.

Yeah, I kind of stopped responding to Wikipedia email. Starting over with a new account, an empty watchlist, and an empty talk page can be so liberating sometimes. --Toiretni 00:43, 27 August 2008 (EDT)

I can see how that could work, although, you weren't particularly controversial, were you? or just too many people "asking you to do work"? hehe ħuman 01:07, 27 August 2008 (EDT)

I felt a lot of obligation to do work, generally (admin duties, watchlist, etc). Combined with the fact that I was starting a new job and really couldn't keep spending as much time at Wikipedia as I used to. (I know it's something that doesn't have a lot of credence yet, but I almost think "Internet addiction" can be a real problem for a few people)

No worries about the requested changes. Right now, it's hard to make the edit counter work on other wikis. This change would make it work on nearly any wiki since api.php is a much better interface, so it's something that would be very widely useful. --Toiretni 09:18, 27 August 2008 (EDT)

Added. tmtoulouse ^torment 02:13, 27 August 2008 (EDT)

Thanks! --Toiretni 09:18, 27 August 2008 (EDT)

Got Goat?

Why am I buying? To keep it simply, I need a goat so my life is complete as currently I own not a single one! --EricB 15:25, 28 August 2008 (EDT)

I am sure my land lord would be happy if I sold some of mine....she is complaining about the yard. tmtoulouse ^torment 15:27, 28 August 2008 (EDT)

I think there are links for both purchase and rental arrangements at goat. ħuman 15:30, 28 August 2008 (EDT)

This might be up your street...

You seem to like tinkering with things, so I wonder if you can think of some rationalwiki type uses for this mobile barcode printing stuff I'm working on. I had the idea of maybe plastering real world irrational objects with links to rationalwiki pages. It'd be fun in the creation museum, I reckon :D --JeevesMkII 18:57, 28 August 2008 (EDT)

EZ edit button bot

It's working great, and a real time-saver (IMHO). However, it's leaving a linefeed (or two?) behind when it moves the "section end" thing. No big deal, but it looks a bit ragged. ħuman 20:36, 28 August 2008 (EDT)

Yea I seen it....I will figure it out. tmtoulouse ^torment 01:06, 31 August 2008 (EDT)

Make me a bureaucrat

<font=""; face="Comic Sans MS">Jellyfish!^{Quite possibly a fruitcake} 21:59, 30 August 2008 (EDT)

Oops, sorry, I thought you said Vandal.   ^Contribs_Talk 22:03, 30 August 2008 (EDT)

*looks daggers* <font=""; face="Comic Sans MS">Jellyfish!^{Quite possibly a fruitcake} 22:05, 30 August 2008 (EDT)

I made a request...

On the userpage of Chaos, I asked to be made into a Sysop, Grand High Llama, and Honourary Tomatoe, but was told that I need your divine assistance in order to make such a group. Would you be kind enough to make me into aforementioned groups? ĴάΛäšςǍ₰ No comment

Maybe you can make it so any beachrat can create pretend user groups? ħuman 01:19, 31 August 2008 (EDT)

Problem, for whatever reason, when I make an edit, it doesn't seem to show up in the recent changes, and I honestly have no idea as to why. Would you care to help me look into this? ĴάΛäšςǍ₰ No comment

NEVERMIND. I fixed it by making myself no longer a bot =D. ĴάΛäšςǍ₰ No comment

Article of the feeble pun

I vote for Andy's new "Things to teach your children". <font=""; face="Comic Sans MS">Jellyfish!^{Quite possibly a fruitcake} 09:52, 1 September 2008 (EDT)

George Spena

There is a blog at RationalBlogs called George Spena that is very possibly a splog. Would you care to look into it? Thunderkatz^Ho! 15:31, 2 September 2008 (EDT)

What's a "splog"? Oh, I see. A "spam blog". Yeah, that one's junk. ħuman 20:21, 2 September 2008 (EDT)

Meh, I saw, should bug Linus it is his baby. tmtoulouse ^torment 20:22, 2 September 2008 (EDT)

Idea

We should change "upload file" to say "upload image" in the toolbox. As it is it's unclear, and the only kind of files we upload are images (right?). I'd a dunnit but I couldna find where to muck it up. ħuman 02:31, 7 September 2008 (EDT)

• Done. The page for that is MediaWiki:Upload. In the future if you want to find a certain interface page try going to Special:Allmessages and do a 'find in page' for text you know to be associated with whatever you are tying to find. - Icewedge (*bleet*) 02:40, 7 September 2008 (EDT)

Thanks! Yeah, I know about that page, but I can never remember where it is to go play :(. Mebbe I should, um, "bookmark" it... ħuman 03:35, 7 September 2008 (EDT)

Vandal brake

We've noticed that the vandal brake only works on the particular user rather than the IP address. Not sure if that was what was intended, but it allows Tit and his/her Fre* socks to do repeated vandalism in a short timeframe, probably off the same address. It also does not prevent him/her from creating new accounts, so we end up reverting five or six acts of vandalism each time he/she logs on, pretty much negating the effect of the vandal brake. Bondurant 10:05, 8 September 2008 (EDT)

More proposed uses of your time

Edit conflicts get on my tits, since the procedure for merging them is so pointlessly cumbersome. I had the idea of modifying mediawiki to present an interactive merge tool to fix this problem, like any self respecting source control system has. Prototype it on rationalwiki and then contribute it back upstream to mediawiki proper. Want to help? --JeevesMkII 18:20, 14 September 2008 (EDT)

I support Jeeves' proposal. Radioactive afikomen ^{Please ignore all my awful pre-2014 comments.} 18:38, 14 September 2008 (EDT)

As long as we're on the subject of improvements to the wiki, could you enable the mergehistory ability (for sysops or bureaucrats—your call)? Occasionally—admittedly not very often, but enough to be troublesome—it becomes advantageous to merge the history of two pages. Currently, in order to do so, it involves the task of deleting article A, moving article B to the former location of A, and then resurrecting the deleted edits of A. All of that is more inconvenient than it sounds. So if you have no objections, would you please enable it? Much obliged, Radioactive afikomen ^{Please ignore all my awful pre-2014 comments.} 18:38, 14 September 2008 (EDT)

Yea I am interested, though school is starting to kick my ass. You should e-mail me what you are thinking about how best to implement it and what you want me to work on and I can get back to you about whether or not I think I will actually get it done. Good idea though. tmtoulouse ^torment 11:32, 17 September 2008 (EDT)

Not to be impatient, but I never got your answer regarding the mergehistory ability. Radioactive afikomen ^{Please ignore all my awful pre-2014 comments.} 15:51, 17 September 2008 (EDT)

You know, you're not thinking laterally about your college work. You should just post it here, and all your rationalwiki minions would do it for you. Your faculty advisers like goat jokes, right? Anyway, I'll do some preliminary poking and email you later. --JeevesMkII 21:53, 17 September 2008 (EDT)

The main thing I am suppose to be doing right now is writing up a paper. I am really tempted to start posting it up here for feedback and quality/copyediting control. But I can't release it under GNU FDL. tmtoulouse ^torment 21:56, 17 September 2008 (EDT)

Can you make a way for some part of the wiki not to display the gfdl copyright, and legally not be gfdl? (You know, instead of writing the paper...) ħuman 22:35, 17 September 2008 (EDT)

I am not so sure that I it is legally possible to write anything on the wiki and not release it on GNU FDL. tmtoulouse ^torment 22:36, 17 September 2008 (EDT)

Is that because of entanglement with the code copyright? Surely there are non-gfdl wikis? ħuman 22:38, 17 September 2008 (EDT)

Not sure. I am not an expert. But I think if you use MediaWiki you have to use copyleft for content. tmtoulouse ^torment 22:40, 17 September 2008 (EDT)

Yeah, I know none of us knows, but that does seem absurd. That's like saying MS owns my word docs, kinda. I'm sure google knows, though. ħuman 22:56, 17 September 2008 (EDT)

There are plenty of wiki-farms that use MediaWiki which allow you to set your own copyright policy. Besides, how would WikiMedia enforce a GDFL-only policy? Suing every violator into oblivion? Radioactive afikomen ^{Please ignore all my awful pre-2014 comments.} 04:49, 20 September 2008 (EDT)

Recently had a long discourse with a non-native-english-speaker on Wikiversity (colloquium) regarding proof-reading his thesis - upshot was: probably not a good idea. Use email to selected persons rather.   ^Contribs_Talk 00:49, 20 September 2008 (EDT)

Commas, damn you, commas!

Pink_{(Astronomy Domine)} 22:24, 17 September 2008 (EDT)

Fuck commas. Fuck apostrophes. tmtoulouse ^torment 22:26, 17 September 2008 (EDT)

Be careful, Trent; I have a semi-colon. Pink_{(Astronomy Domine)} 22:31, 17 September 2008 (EDT)

I get my commas from wikipedia, they have lots they don't need or aren't using. ħuman 22:36, 17 September 2008 (EDT)

I get mine from, Yerranos. Pink_{(Astronomy Domine)} 22:48, 17 September 2008 (EDT)

I don't need to borrow commas from other websites. I use my awesome mindpowerz to pull them out of thin air! Radioactive afikomen ^{Please ignore all my awful pre-2014 comments.} 01:18, 28 September 2008 (ED

There's also a button on your keyboard, on the lower right. ħuman 02:28, 28 September 2008 (EDT)

But that only proves *I* exist

You'll have to do better than that. Pink_{(Astronomy Domine)} 23:20, 17 September 2008 (EDT)

Ahh, my little solipsist friend, pragmatism is the only way out of the box. tmtoulouse ^torment 23:22, 17 September 2008 (EDT)

Then I pragmatically suggest that the nobility of mankind demonstrates the existence of God. Pink_{(Astronomy Domine)} 23:25, 17 September 2008 (EDT)

PS: Not allowed to call mowses "little" -- is bullying. :P Pink_{(Astronomy Domine)} 23:26, 17 September 2008 (EDT)

I spent 1 year drilling into mouse skulls and dropping weights on their occipital lobes. You don't even want to know about profusion. More to the point nobility of mankind sort of begs the question no? tmtoulouse ^torment 23:28, 17 September 2008 (EDT)

Does it? In what way?

I shan't even mention your hideous crimes against the Mowsepeople. Pink_{(Astronomy Domine)} 23:31, 17 September 2008 (EDT)

Well let us make it simple, who says mankind is noble? tmtoulouse ^torment

Me. But we needn't go that far, TMT; I was only making the point that it's a little silly to treat solipsism pragmatically and then demand a completely rigid logical positivist^{(is that the right term?)} outlook on other philosophies. Pink_{(Astronomy Domine)} 23:36, 17 September 2008 (EDT)

I believe there is several threads around the site and forums that details the steps, but essentially logical positivism, or something similar, falls out from the phrase "some ideas are more wrong than others", but if that concept is denied, you wind up with relativism, solipsism, last thursdayism, what-have-you. These concepts are air tight, there is no way to argue against last thursdayism, it can't be done. If you decide to go that route you are stuck at that point. The way out of that trap is to agree that yes, some ideas are more wrong than others, from there you can derive empirical based philosophical naturalism. The question is why agree to that in the first place? The only answer I have found is pragmatism. 23:47, 17 September 2008 (EDT)

Sorry to intrude, but I just had to add a few commas to that. I know you don't like them, but I need them to read things :P

Anyway, I think I agree with the "some more wrong than others" bit, but I'm not sure I followed the rest. And, more importantly, I must hibernate now. Night night. Pink_{(Astronomy Domine)} 23:57, 17 September 2008 (EDT)

Your extensions

Trent have you ever placed any of your extensions on MediaWiki? You are doing a great job on some of these and, no offence meant to RationalWiki, but it would be a waste to see all your good work only used here. $\approx$$\pi$ _Mowse 01:08, 18 September 2008 (EDT)

I have thought about it but there are several problems. The first is that I am not really an expert programmer in PHP, javascript, etc. My programming hayday was back when C++ was king, and you still sometimes dropped into assembly code to tweak things out. I didn't start to learn the new web programming languages till this summer. Which is why there was such a plethora of random extensions, it was practice and learning. So many of these extensions were programmed in order to learn PHP. So I didn't know how to do what I wanted to do, and my solutions are probably sub-optimal and some maybe problematic. Compare the first wigo voting extension to what we have now. You would see substantial improvement because I went back to it and updated it with new found knowledge. I would still classify myself as fairly armature within these languages so they are probably not up to snuff for general use.

Another problem that stems from this is that many of the extensions are written for RW. There are generic ways to do certain operations using MediaWiki as sort of an emulator but I am still not familiar with all of them. Instead when I need to do something and can't figure out how to interface it with MW I just hardcode it based on the RW site. That means many of the extensions would require non-trivial setup to get working elsewhere. Again not ready for primetime.

The final point is more abstract. Basically I am a "hacker" more than a programmer. I don't hack other computers (not anymore, that was so highschool :) ) but rather my philosophy in dealing with programming and existing programs is not really one that would be viable for a large scale project. When I want to do something that mediawiki doesn't want me to do I just go in and drop a few else if statements to bypass it. Essentially "hacks" to the software, not really upgrades. This works pretty well for a smaller project with only one or two server administrators but something like the open source project around MW would be appalled at my approach.

To make them viable outside of RW on any scale would require sitting down and tweaking them to be general purpose apps that play will with existing MW structure and don't rely on hardcoding or hacks. I think my knowledge is almost to the point I could do that but would require going back and doing it for each one. A fairly time consuming proccess. Instead I am sort of waiting in limbo to see if any interest develops for an extension. If I start getting multiple requests I will go back and rewrite it to fit within the proper paradigm of MW extensions. tmtoulouse ^torment 15:12, 18 September 2008 (EDT)

WIGO World voting system

Trent, I know that you're busy but can you sort out the WIGO world voting. Some idiot misspelled world "wordl" at entry 253, then someone else later corrected the spelling but increased the number by 1000 at entry 260. Can the votes be reassigned to correct numbers or should we just carry on with the mess we have? Генгис^{You have the right to be offended; and I have the right to offend you.} 08:08, 18 September 2008 (EDT)

Should be all fixed. tmtoulouse ^torment 15:13, 18 September 2008 (EDT)

Great! Thanx. Генгис^{You have the right to be offended; and I have the right to offend you.}

Happy birthday!

Hell, why didn't you let us know! (is it 8/18 or 8/19?) Anyway, many happy returns. ħuman 00:51, 19 September 2008 (EDT)

Thanks, tis today, 19th. tmtoulouse ^torment 11:08, 19 September 2008 (EDT)

Happy Birthday to my favorite logical positivist! Radioactive afikomen ^{Please ignore all my awful pre-2014 comments.} 15:17, 19 September 2008 (EDT)

You say it's your birthday (nahnahrahnanahna) We're gonna have a good time. So now it's you're birtdhay, happy birthday to ya! (thank god you don't ahve to hear me sing that. ;-)--En attendant Godot_{"Such is life."} 15:23, 19 September 2008 (EDT)

I have no idea what song you're supposed to be singing is. Radioactive afikomen ^{Please ignore all my awful pre-2014 comments.} 15:38, 19 September 2008 (EDT)

That was "Birthday" by the Beatles. ħuman 20:24, 19 September 2008 (EDT)

MAGIC WORDS

Trent, the set of CURRENTDATE and LOCALDATE magic words only give UTC or server time. As I see edits that use my own time zone is it possible to have a set of equivalent MAGIC WORDS that take account of the user's time zone? I know that this isn't implemented in the normal MediaWiki software it would have to be some sort of hack. Генгис^{You have the right to be offended; and I have the right to offend you.} 12:01, 20 September 2008 (EDT)

having fun?

RW went all funny there... thought it was the white event! Totnesmartin 16:22, 20 September 2008 (EDT)

Oh yes, I always have fun :). tmtoulouse ^torment 16:26, 20 September 2008 (EDT)

I'm a bit concerned about this, to tell you the truth.

What should we do? -- λινυσ^(☮) 22:16, 20 September 2008 (EDT)

BEANS!!! And my nose. ħuman 23:56, 20 September 2008 (EDT)

Suggestion to keep Trent busy #77

The tabs @ the page head: make 'em fixed to screen rather than to page. So they track down with you on long pages. Talk pages mainly and only popular ones. (Probably CSS & beneath the mighty programming skilz of TMT?.) If it can be done - also user switchable or applied to pages over a certain size?   ^Contribs_Talk 15:22, 21 September 2008 (EDT)

That's a good idea... we could even do a horribly hacked method with one of those floaty boxes, filled with the appropriate links... no programming needed! ħuman 17:18, 21 September 2008 (EDT)

Look @ my talk page - look @ the code & at the 'target' of the links top right, it's stuttering - help?   ^Contribs_Talk 18:43, 21 September 2008 (EDT)

Version

Re: MediaWiki version numbers. Is V1.13 later than our current V1.11.1? There's a Magic word I'd like (PAGESIZE)-last entry in "other" that doesn't work (apparently) (in passing, do we have MediaWiki as an abbreviated thing - like [[wp: & [[cp:?)   ^Contribs_Talk 07:48, 26 September 2008 (EDT)

Yea, upgrading the mediawiki software is a much more substantial project than ever before because of all the various custom modifications we have made. I am waiting for 1) a really good reason to upgrade (I don't think 1.13 is a good enough reason yet) and 2) a block of time to devote to the project as no one would be happy if RW was down for two weeks while I was busy elsewhere. tmtoulouse 16:10, 27 September 2008 (EDT)

OK, you da boss.   ^Contribs_Talk 16:13, 27 September 2008 (EDT)

I'm sure everyone will recall what happened the last time an update was made… Yeah. It's not a project to be undertaken lightly. -- λινυσ^(☮) 16:14, 27 September 2008 (EDT)

Well, do you know of any way to tell how many lines a page has or how far down a page you are? I can't find any Magic Words or parser functions.   ^Contribs_Talk 22:13, 27 September 2008 (EDT)

How far down? Doesn't that little slidy widget at the right of the window tell you? What do you want these toyz for to do? ħuman 22:20, 27 September 2008 (EDT)

I want to switch my "Pagelinx2" on when the top's gone waaaaay out of screen, but off the rest of the time. Just playin' really - OK?   ^Contribs_Talk 22:26, 27 September 2008 (EDT)

It's all OK, I was just wondering if there might be a kludge that would work without the magic word(s), if I knew what you wanted. Since I don't understand what you want, I can't help :( ħuman 00:49, 28 September 2008 (EDT)

clog fix

Thanks for fixing my clog error, I am, errrr, a little under the weather due to heavy drinking last night and dont have my A game today. Ace McWicked^{cast ye the first stone} 19:19, 27 September 2008 (EDT)

Bah! Just means you dont drink enough then! I took a shot for every "we need to move on" and I stumbled out of bed and have done...well nothing really...nevermind. tmtoulouse 19:22, 27 September 2008 (EDT)

As soon as I finish the sixer in the fridge I'll be top notch again. Ready to face the world in all my unshaven glory. Ace McWicked^{cast ye the first stone} 19:25, 27 September 2008 (EDT)

I'm underage. Is is legal to be talking about this around me? Radioactive afikomen ^{Please ignore all my awful pre-2014 comments.} 00:53, 28 September 2008 (EDT)

No, it's illegal for you to be reading it! Anyway, we're not discussing it "around you", we're discussing it "where you can find it if you look". I blame your parents. ħuman 00:55, 28 September 2008 (EDT)

I can't shave again until I install my new water heater... spent the day ripping out the old boiler... don't have heat until I install the new used one I got in another location (meaning about 100 feet of copper piping to move around and reinstall). Wish me luck! ħuman 22:22, 27 September 2008 (EDT)

I am proud to announce to anyone who gives a shit that I just took a nice hot bath in water heated by a tankless propane water heater I installed over the last couple of days. No water leaks, no gas leaks, no electrocity leaks. I'm so proud ;) of my energy efficiency. Payback time on investment = approx 15 years :( ħuman 01:05, 30 September 2008 (EDT)

Sysops

We now have 99 sysops. I saw Matt on the recent changes log and based on his contributions and length of time spent here would normally demoted him, but seeing as this is such a milestone do you want the honours? $\approx$$\pi$ _Mowse 07:54, 28 September 2008 (EDT)

Congratulations

For your neverending and tireless support of RationalWiki (and keeping the rodent well fed) you are hereby promoted past the class of Penguin and given the official title of:

PENGUIN KNIGHT Congratulations, Sir ::Salutes::

Thanks! I always thought wiki's were kind of like giant MMORPG but I never seemed to level up, till now! tmtoulouse 17:53, 30 September 2008 (EDT)

bot 'quest

Can you whip up a bot that will replace "==References and notes==" (and "== References and notes ==") with "== Footnotes ==" site-wide? ħuman 18:52, 30 September 2008 (EDT)

Yes I can....tmtoulouse 18:55, 30 September 2008 (EDT)

Well, that's a start. Next question: Will you please whip up a bot that will replace "==References and notes==" (and "== References and notes ==") with "== Footnotes ==" site-wide? ħuman 21:27, 30 September 2008 (EDT)

If I am adequately convinced it is a good idea. Which, for the record, I am undecided on at the moment. tmtoulouse 21:31, 30 September 2008 (EDT)

Feel free to join the discussion on the issue at my talk page. It was mostly me vs. RA, with no one else (really) caring, and I conceded the validity of his case once I forced him to make it clearly. But, still, that's only the two of us talking. PS, Footnotes is a bit easier to type. If only the references tag had an easier-to-type name :( ħuman 23:47, 30 September 2008 (EDT)

Meh, there is a debate about it? I don't care enough, can the pro argument me summarized for me? If we are going to do this shouldn't we be consistent and change all /==(References).*?==/ to footnotes? tmtoulouse 17:11, 1 October 2008 (EDT)

No debate, really. RA's idea, I concurred after brief discussion, AKj agrees... and no one else seems to care. It's easier to type and makes more sense. What that section always is, is "footnotes" - there aren't always references, and there aren't always notes. By the way, since == References == can then be used for standalone links, books, etc. that were used to compile an article, leave that particular header alone. ħuman 17:19, 1 October 2008 (EDT)

So "references" is too long to type? Why not create a {{ref}} template that inserts the heading and the references tag? Генгис^{You have the right to be offended; and I have the right to offend you.} 17:16, 1 October 2008 (EDT)

That's not the only reason - anyway, feel free to chime in at my talk page so the other people who care can read your comments all in one place? ħuman 17:19, 1 October 2008 (EDT)

Except that is not how we have used References to date, every occurence of it should be changed and future uses can differentiate. tmtoulouse 17:23, 1 October 2008 (EDT)

Sure, either way is fine with me. We have on rare occasions used references that way, but it's usually someone like Proxy, who picked it up on other wikis. ħuman 19:34, 1 October 2008 (EDT)

Maybe I will pull ACDBOT out of retirement, he did something similar to this. tmtoulouse 20:11, 1 October 2008 (EDT)

Okay, ACDbot is back at it. tmtoulouse 14:53, 2 October 2008 (EDT)

I'm sure this is a stupid question, but wouldn't somewhere like community standards be a better place for such discussions than somebody's talk page? Not everybody reads all talk pages. (Or was there something on the intercom that I missed?)--Bob^{bing up} 16:20, 2 October 2008 (EDT)

Good point, Bob... sorry about that. It seemed like RA and I were the only people OCD enough to worry about what header name we should use. ħuman 19:10, 2 October 2008 (EDT)

I disagree, Bob. "Community standards" is the closest thing to a real bureaucracy we have—it's where proposals go to die painful deaths. Talk pages limit the conversation to the people who actually care, whereas submitting it to a public arena such as Community Standards attracts apathetic nitpickers, whose behavior works to destroy the progression of ideas. Radioactive afikomen ^{Please ignore all my awful pre-2014 comments.} 23:09, 2 October 2008 (EDT)

Actually, RA, you are wrong, and we did it the wrong way - you and I agreed, and I talked to some guy with root access on the phone. At no point was the mob consulted. Your opinion of the mob's input is insulting, at best. ħuman 23:37, 2 October 2008 (EDT)

If the community wants to be insulted by what I have witnessed, it can. Radioactive afikomen ^{Please ignore all my awful pre-2014 comments.} 23:07, 3 October 2008 (EDT)

Some good things come out of community standards. Bob also suggested using the intercom, which would also have been thoughtful and appropriate. ħuman 00:59, 4 October 2008 (EDT)

If democracy via "community standards" wouldn't have worked, then democracy via the intercom to at least tell people the debate existed might have been a good idea - though my only contribution would have been, "I don't mind". (I only became aware of it when I saw all the edits RA made as he tried to up his edit count by making some of the changes before the bot did it automatically.) Which leads me to wonder if everybody does know that this change has been made? I see no charge in the instructions: Help:New_Article and Help:Refs and no site-wide announcement via the intercom. ^{— Unsigned, by: Bob M / talk / contribs} --Bob^{bing up} 13:11, 4 October 2008 (EDT)

Ah, sorry. We should have made an announcement of some sort. I'll do just that. Radioactive afikomen ^{Please ignore all my awful pre-2014 comments.} 13:06, 4 October 2008 (EDT)

Intercom 2

Could you look at the formatting of the intercom box as a line-break often occurs after the first parenthesis which encapsulates the category and poster. Генгис^{You have the right to be offended; and I have the right to offend you.} 06:39, 4 October 2008 (EDT)

Diff image grabber

It might be worth one's while to run the image grabber across the diffs in Andrew_Schlafly_(no_jokes).   ^Contribs_Talk 10:29, 4 October 2008 (EDT)

Also - CP:timeline, and some others?... Yikes. ħuman 01:27, 9 October 2008 (EDT)

Intercom

It might be a good idea to send out s site-wide message encouraging people to contribute to Debate:The mobocracy. Logically people should see it on recent changes, but a message encouraging general participation could be a good idea as it has the potential to affect the whole site.--Bob^{bing up} 15:02, 6 October 2008 (EDT)

Why don't you just do it, Bob - I'm surprised Trent even had time to comment on the debate's talk page. ħuman 15:23, 6 October 2008 (EDT)

I thought it needed to be on "site wide" which I tried to do and for which I do not have authority. From your comment I guess it would work on "General site news" as well. Sorry for the confusion.--Bob^{bing up} 15:32, 6 October 2008 (EDT)

Ah. I already sent a message (in "general") about that, just a second ago. Sorry to pre-empt you :S Pink_(Link) 15:35, 6 October 2008 (EDT)

No, that's cool. Thanks for doing it.--Bob^{bing up} 15:39, 6 October 2008 (EDT)

HALP!!!!

I have a small problem. Actually, not a small one, a rather major one. Whenever I try to log into RW, the website doesn't work for me, I get "Internet Explorer cannot display this webpage". This has been going on for three days now. For some reason, the wiki only works for me when I am a buncha numbers. Can you help me find some way to log in? ĴάΛäšςǍ₰ No comment

Okay, try it now and let me know. tmtoulouse 19:45, 8 October 2008 (EDT)

Phew. It worked. Thank you very much =). ĴάΛäšςǍ₰ No comment

I have an uncomfortable itch. Can you make it better? ħuman 01:30, 9 October 2008 (EDT)

War over the brain

Hi Trent. I know you're busy, but I just came across this this New Scientist article on Non Materialist Neuroscience and its links to the ID movement and the Discovery Institute and I thought it was right up your alley. Probably teaching my grandmother to suck eggs though.--Bob^{bing up} 05:01, 2 November 2008 (EST)

I still have no idea what that phrase means... Radioactive afikomen ^{Please ignore all my awful pre-2014 comments.} 05:02, 2 November 2008 (EST)

Thanks Bob, will be interesting to see how this plays out in the future. The one thing that makes this different from the evolution/creationism debate is that there is nothing really being taught in public highschools that intersects with this debate. That means they are stuck arguing it in post-highschool level institutions which is a far less fertile and far less friendly grounds. And RA, it just means that there is something working in consciousness and the mind that can not be derived from the matter of the brain itself, meaning there has to be something non-physical the "mind" to explain thoughts and behaviour. tmtoulouse 13:36, 2 November 2008 (EST)

:D Eheh, I was referring to the phrase "Never teach your grandmother to suck eggs". But thanks for trying to educate me anyways. Radioactive afikomen ^{Please ignore all my awful pre-2014 comments.} 16:07, 2 November 2008 (EST)

Best I can do RA.--Bob^{bing up} 16:32, 2 November 2008 (EST)

Thanks, Bob. It's even weirder than I thought it was. Radioactive afikomen ^{Please ignore all my awful pre-2014 comments.} 16:55, 2 November 2008 (EST)

Bots

TMT, I've noticed a few bots here and was wondering how they worked. Do you do them in perl or something? Because I have AutoWikiBrowser on WP and can use it to make mass repetitive changes there. For CP it loads pages but then skips any replacements while it can't even load a Rationalwiki page. I just wondered if there was something special about RW that prevents it working.  Lily ^{Ta, wack!} 05:15, 2 November 2008 (EST)

I write most my wiki bots in perl because of its superior string processing abilities (which is what most bots worry about). But they can be written in anything. Basically there is an automated program interface (API) with in the mediawiki software that allows you to do functions such as log in, edit, move, delete, get pages, whatever by just passing information through the URL of the API. I have not looked at the AuotWikiBrowser, but there are several things that could be effecting it such as the differences in the API between RW, CP and Wikipedia likely do to the different version numbers of the software and also internal settings and options that can effect behavior. For example our script path is different than wikipedia's I can take a look at it and see if I can tell where the problem lies. tmtoulouse 13:41, 2 November 2008 (EST)

Okay, I am using the AutoWikiBrowser now to edit this page, I haven't really explored the software so not sure what errors you normally recive, but so far so good for me. What kind of errors do you get? tmtoulouse 16:02, 2 November 2008 (EST)

President

I've edited the Main Page to show the result. You can do a better job. Proxima Centauri 00:07, 5 November 2008 (EST)

No offense, I hope, but I undid it. I think people know who won, unless they live in caves and have no radio. I do, however, appreciate your sentiment - we are all very, very, very happy in a teary-eyed way tonight. Only good can come of this. Happy times and good thoughts to you, PC. ħuman 03:00, 5 November 2008 (EST)

I went over to a friends place,

one who had a TV and watched Obama and Maggie, your cuz, kick ass. She put on a good show for us and won her election easily. At least it looked easy from where I was. Give her regards from Dixon when you congratulate her. Life is good. Einar aka Carptrash 11:06, 5 November 2008 (EST)

Yea, her opposition in the primaries was more intense than the general election, and the incumbent clerk always has the advantage of all election material sporting their name :). I will let her know she was appreciated state wide. tmtoulouse 14:52, 6 November 2008 (EST)

New editors and IPs

We seem to be getting a number of new editors and IP's - any reason?--Bob^{bing up} 16:24, 5 November 2008 (EST)

I had been reading Conservapedia for a while, just for shits and giggles (Come on, most of their articles are worth their bytes in Gold as far as comedic value goes), and I recently discovered RationalWiki while googling Poe's Law, and decided to help out. Dunno 'bout the others, though. InaVegt 16:39, 5 November 2008 (EST)

• IT MUST MUST BE THE VANDALS QUICK LOCK EVERYTHING BLOCK EVERYONE SENDING YOU A VERY IMPORTANT - uh, what? --מְתֻרְגְּמָן וִיקִי ^{שְׁלֹום!}

We are approaching a point where enough of Web 2.0 knows that we exist that we are getting spontaneous back links from popular hang outs. Reddit, Something Awful, Digg, Technorati, Stumbleupon, and a range of random blogs and other forums are all linking back to us on a few of our articles. By far the most common back link is Poe's Law, followed by various conservapedia links, Gish gallop is also popular and some of our articles on evolution/creationism are getting links as well. We are not far from the 100,000 visitors a month club, and if our growth keeps trending upwards I think we can expect more of these "drive by" type editing. tmtoulouse 14:51, 6 November 2008 (EST)

Conservapedia Assistance

Being the filthy liberal that I am, this past weekend I have enjoyed deceiving and irritating the honourable, righteous, god-fearing and truth-loving right wing. However, not ten minutes after I began my spree of 'liberal vandalism' on the poor, defenceless Finland page, Andy himself struck me with his mighty banhammer, and I find that my next 5 years of being a liberal vandal will be very boring indeed. I was wondering if you knew of a way to enable me to relive my ten-minute glory? Thanks :D

Our block message

I just discovered ;) that CP's block massage does what I wish ours did - say who did the block, and when it expires:

"Your user name or IP address has been blocked.

The block was made by Aschlafly. The reason given is Inappropriate edit to Obama entry.

• Start of block: 00:31, 10 November 2008
• Expiry of block: 00:31, 11 November 2008
• Intended blockee: Human "

With a link on Aschlafly (as if that helps...). Anyway you can improov our block message to do that? Even though ours is funnier, I don't like theirs being better!

PS, that block reason is one of the "canned" ones over there, isn't it? ħuman 16:40, 10 November 2008 (EST)

Speaking of block messages, there were better reasons than the one I gave to block Fall Down, namely a nasty piece of misogyny we're stuck with because of our commitment to freedom of speech. I figured a few days off might cool him down and send him somewhere he'd be more appreciated. Wazza (Not Wazzock, Wazza)^{Approach the Presence} 23:43, 22 November 2008 (EST)

He is not really editing at a brisk pace or anything, and the less we bend our rules around a troll the less successful they are. tmtoulouse 23:54, 22 November 2008 (EST)

How come you didn't answer my queastion, beotch? ħuman 00:52, 23 November 2008 (EST)

Cause it involved thinking. tmtoulouse 00:53, 23 November 2008 (EST)

Oh, ok, that makes everything perfectly clear ;) ħuman 01:04, 23 November 2008 (EST)

Sorry.

About the block. Now why is the blog running like shit? PFoster 16:41, 23 November 2008 (EST)

Working on it. tmtoulouse 16:42, 23 November 2008 (EST)

Thanks--really. Seems better already. PFoster 16:45, 23 November 2008 (EST)

Editing

It depends on the length and the topic, if you're serious about it. If it's relatively short and in layman's terms (or at least something I could understand), I'd be willing to take a look. Goat knows I don't already have enough excuses to procrastinate on doing my own work. Thunderkatz^Ho! 21:51, 24 November 2008 (EST)

Doh, why didn't you just call? Send it me and I'll take a look. (Word doc, with "mark changes" turned on?) ħuman 23:45, 24 November 2008 (EST)

It is at User:Tmtoulouse/abstract, I just got back from the lab, I think Thunderkatz put some suggestions on the talk page, anyone can feel free to edit it directly as well if that is easier. I gotta get some sleep but will check back tomorrow thanks for everyones help. tmtoulouse 00:20, 25 November 2008 (EST)

Sorry to see your block log at Conservapedia. Have you thought of getting a dynamic IP? Perhaps you already have. Proxima Centauri 14:53, 30 November 2008 (EST)

unencumbered removing malware information

rub off downloader program killr worm rub off windows antispyware removing malware malware liquidate Clym Yeobright 14:29, 3 December 2008 (EST)

An important email

I have sent you one. PFoster 11:06, 11 December 2008 (EST)

A quick thanks

I had a look at your message you just wrote. Thanks for all the work you have done with this whole server upgrade stuff, you are the best benign dictator a wiki could hope for. - User $\scriptstyle h/2\hbar$ 20:53, 11 December 2008 (EST)

Barnstar

		Barnstar
		For your tireless contributions to RationalWiki, I award you this barnstar.

"Problem"

Well if we knew what the problem was then we might have an idea whether we have the skills to help or not. Is it possible to pmail every registered user ornt? Генгис^{You have the right to be offended; and I have the right to offend you.} 21:10, 12 December 2008 (EST)

I am pretty decent with advertising.... I was always in charge of promotional work in high school... Shoot me an Email and I'll see if I can help. SirChuckB^{A product of Affirmative Action} 22:18, 12 December 2008 (EST)

Discrepancy

(N.B. This is copied and pasted from Proxima Centauri's talk page; I was told to take it up with you.)
There seems to be a discrepancy in Rose Pedals' logs - the user creation log states that RP was created at 18:08, 10/12/08, yet Rationalwiki:Vandal states that they were moved to vandal at 13:29:02, 10/12/08. Why? (and before you ask, the other Rose Pedals was created at 19:26, 10/12/08) Educated word Hoover!

Because the vandal extension uses the server time directly, and the mediawiki software bases itself off of UST. I haven't ever bothered to set the vandal clock timestamp to UST. tmtoulouse 13:22, 13 December 2008 (EST)

Thanks. BTW, does the "Town crier" user right entitle you to send to the "sitewide" group through the intercom? Educated word Hoover!

Marketing/Advertising help sought

TMT, I'm your man. What's the question? DogP 10:05, 13 December 2008 (EST)

Taxoboxes!!

TMT, how do you create a new template? I'm trying to create one similar to wikipedia's taxoboxes, but I can't manage. Please leave a reply on my talk page.--"ConservapediaUndergroundResistor^cat! 11:12, 15 December 2008 (EST)

Navigation problem (maybe)

Hi Trent. I know there are changes going on with the site, & I'm having a minor problem with navigating in Internet Explorer, which I'm wondering if you could shed any light on. When I click on the Back button, it doesn't do anything, just goes to the page it's already on. If I click it two or three times, it will take me back to the previous page, but then I lose the Forward button. If I click on the drop down menu, it lists the last two previous pages as "http://googleads.g.doubleclick.net/page", preceded by the last actual page I was on. (There might be more to this address, but that is as much as the menu shows).

I only get this problem in Internet Explorer, not in Firefox, & it's only been happening since I got back from holiday this weekend, after being away for a week. In fact, it's only today that I've noticed it. I initially thought it might be a virus or some irritating Windows update, but it's only happening on RW, not on any other sites.

Let me know if find what's causing this, or if you don't get what I'm talking about or need a screenshot. Cheers. weaseLOId~ 16:22, 15 December 2008 (EST)

Ban the ill-tempered little mustard seed(Weaseloid)

Please block User:Weaseloid. This rudeness, threats, and rude humor is not appriciated. Already he is making this site gain a reputation as worse than Conservapedia. Thank You --"ConservapediaUndergroundResistor^cat! 16:24, 16 December 2008 (EST)

Hee. ... Hee! .... Ha! ... Ho! Tee... Hee Toast 16:31, 16 December 2008 (EST)

Interesting. I don't recall making any threats today. I made a suggestion to merge felids into cat if that's what you're referring to. That was not a threat - it was proposing a compromise for the problem that the content doesn't fit into mission, which others than me have pointed to as well, without having to delete it altogether as others suggested. It wasn't at all an ill-tempered suggestion. As for rude humour, if you're referring to the time-honoured Ceiling Cat, it's hardly particularly offensive. It might not be appreciated by you, but please don't assume that you speak on behalf of everyone here. Lastly, if you have a problem with me, why not discuss it with me directly, rather than go behind my back with requests to have me banned. Thank you. weaseLOId~ 16:36, 16 December 2008 (EST)

Hehe, haha, ho ho, hahahahahah "Please block User:Weaseloid. This ... is not appriciated. Already ... this site gain a reputation as worse than Conservapedia." Wow. Luser. ħuman 22:55, 16 December 2008 (EST)

I went ahead and took care of that for ya.... I gave him some breaks because of his lengthy contributions. That'll teach the brigand. SirChuckB^{A product of Affirmative Action} 22:38, 17 December 2008 (EST)

If rude humour was grounds for bannination, we wouldn't have a wiki. --Kels 22:42, 17 December 2008 (EST)

Er....yea, bitching at me is a sure fire way to make sure nothing happens! I make Schlafly look pro-active. tmtoulouse 22:47, 17 December 2008 (EST)

Hi Trent, you missed most of it. I missed half of most of it due to weather. Yah, you make Schalfly look like a lawyer... good for you. ħuman 02:17, 18 December 2008 (EST)

Dealing with it like a Schlafly would involve blanking this section with no comment at all. & How did I become a mustard seed? weaseLOId~ 07:39, 18 December 2008 (EST)

You were originally a mustelid, which means a member of the weasel family. Don't know what happened after that. --"ConservapediaUndergroundResistor^cat! 18:23, 24 December 2008 (EST)

Intercom time limit

Approx 16 hours ago I put a 12 hour time limit on the message which I can still see above - it seems that the time thing worketh not. Toast 21:09, 23 December 2008 (EST)

Yea, the script that is suppose to do that was doing some really weird things so it is not running till I figure out how to fix it. tmtoulouse 01:29, 24 December 2008 (EST)

Wha, that works on a cron job or summit? Why isn't this just a SELECT? SELECT FROM intercom WHERE not expired? --JeevesMkII 13:46, 1 January 2009 (EST)

Cause each individual user has a different set of intercom messages, depending on what they "subscribe" to or delete or don't delete. So it is a little more complicated than just a select query. Each user is "tagged" in the user list database with the messages that should display. The plan was to remove tags for messages that "expired" but the tag removal was not working the way I wanted so I disabled it. tmtoulouse 14:51, 1 January 2009 (EST)

It shouldn't be. If you do it by exclusion, rather than inclusion it becomes a lot simpler and doesn't hit the same sort of penalties you're going to get if the system ever needs to service a large number of users. What I mean is, instead of having table of messages currently to be displayed, instead have a table of messages that have been deleted. That way, figuring out what messages to display is a single SQL statement along the lines of SELECT * FROM intercom_messages WHERE expiry > NOW() && NOT EXISTS (SELECT * FROM users_deleted WHERE users_deleted.iid = intercom_messages.iid && users_deleted.uid = [user's UID]); or something to that effect. I guess technically there's another where clause to include only the categories of messages the user is subscribed to, but you get the idea. You can also run a maintenance DELETE over the database every month or so to stop the deleted table from growing infinitely large. --JeevesMkII 22:19, 1 January 2009 (EST)

Allowing JavaScript on a wiki is a really bad idea

I would really like it if you disabled that feature. We already have been hit with this and next I imagine we will be getting redirect scripts to goatse. -- Icewedge // talk 01:47, 6 November 2008 (EST)

We've been hit again, although I imagine they just copied and pasted from this earlier attempt. Phantom Hoover 10:44, 1 January 2009 (EST)

They are vandal easter egg's. tmtoulouse 12:13, 1 January 2009 (EST)

Why was JavaScript enabled in the first place? It's not as if it has any use. Phantom Hoover 12:35, 1 January 2009 (EST)

It is not a matter of enabling or disabling it is a matter of how the input in the tags is treated, the "blink" extension was thrown up randomly one day for no particular reason, and I didn't take the time to make sure the input was "stripped" and "parsed" before outputting it. As far as usefulness, javascript is very useful, but shouldn't be accessible to everyone. tmtoulouse 12:38, 1 January 2009 (EST)

Yuh huh. Redirects to goatse are the least of your worries if any tom, dick and harry can stuff javascript in to pages. It's bad enough that sysops can do it, if IP addresses can do it we're all screwed. --JeevesMkII 13:42, 1 January 2009 (EST)

Bah! You people have no respect for the easter egg! tmtoulouse 14:46, 1 January 2009 (EST)

I like to think of them as vernal equinox eggs. Генгис^{You have the right to be offended; and I have the right to offend you.} 15:08, 1 January 2009 (EST)

Upgrade

I seem to remember a while ago that you were thinking about upgrading the wiki software. Our of curiosity, did you ever come to a decision on that, and what version were you thinking of upgrading to?--Bob^{bing up} 16:57, 2 January 2009 (EST)

At this point just getting the site moved and operating on the new server will be taxing enough on my schedule. I will probably set up a local mirror of the site on the new server and play with it. tmtoulouse 18:47, 2 January 2009 (EST)

Thread archiving

WP have bots that (apparently) archive individual threads within talk pages if they haven't been edited within the last n days. Any chance? I wouldn't have a clue but I thought you wikisavvy folks might. Toast 18:36, 2 January 2009 (EST)

Hey that is a good idea. Here is something I found in a Google search. - User $\scriptstyle h/2\hbar$ 18:43, 2 January 2009 (EST)

Yea, something similar to that is on my potential future to-do list. Likely not to see any new bots out of me for a while yet. The server move is going to be taking what time I have for a while. tmtoulouse 18:45, 2 January 2009 (EST)

Oh well I'll see if I can rewrite it to archive user talk page. - User $\scriptstyle h/2\hbar$ 18:50, 2 January 2009 (EST)

Move

Hi Trent. I know you can set the default level of move as a standard feature of wikis. Could you prevent people in the vandal group from moving pages? - User $\scriptstyle h/2\hbar$ 23:30, 2 January 2009 (EST)

Tis all ready set. tmtoulouse 23:31, 2 January 2009 (EST)

Really? When I went to vandal bin him he was already in. Okay seems you are more far-sighted than I. - User $\scriptstyle h/2\hbar$ 23:32, 2 January 2009 (EST)

Cause I had moved him into the vandal bin probably about 30 seconds before ya! tmtoulouse 23:33, 2 January 2009 (EST)

Family article

On CP? Frohlich 20:42, 5 January 2009 (EST)

Help meh!

Trent, I am trying to create a website for my school newspaper, but I have no idea what the hell I'm doing. I have a domain name and server space, but I have no idea how to upload MediaWiki to it, much less make it work. Could you email me and see if you can help me out? Thanks, --Hoji^{ni hao} 00:13, 6 January 2009 (EST)

Math & Gif

Has this been mentioned? Math aint working! neither is Gif rendering (there's also error notices on the gif pages & in place of the maths. Frohlich 05:54, 7 January 2009 (EST)

It's not actually gif rendering that's the problem it is recent files. Older gifs are fine but all recent images (gifs & jpgs) are not showing up. Генгис^{You have the right to be offended; and I have the right to offend you.} 06:21, 7 January 2009 (EST)

Actually it seems to be the thumbing that's not working (inter alia) fröhlich ^{"gay" or "happy"} 07:08, 7 January 2009 (EST)