From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This user has made many edits on an dynamic IP address before this account was created, and may not remember to log in when making edits. Do not perceive this account as inexperienced just because of a lack of edits. Currently 135.0.167.2 ( talk)


See also: Special:Contributions/DontClickMeName


Interesting Information

  • The Holocaust is the 653th most viewed article, while the Attack on Pearl Harbor is the 83rd most viewed. Mainstream media sure has nice priorities.( [1])
  • Wikipedia views on Julian Assange increased from a few thousand a day to a few hundred thousand a day in January, 2011 ( [2]). Looks like everyone stopped trying to silence his existence.
  • Bomis.com, a website similar to 4chan, was the predecessor of Nupedia and later Wikipedia. Bomis collapsed as Wikipedia's increasing maintenance costs left little left for it.
  • The list of books banned by governments contains many books against censorship.

How 2 respond nicely when in disagreement

These are reminders (for myself) of how to avoid being a victim of the process that makes rude wording suddenly spill out of my mouth


  • 1. Never use offensive words.
  • 2. As hard as it is to do this, you must say "please" and "thank you" to the people you're arguing with.
  • 3. Do not say "[I think this] because Wikipedia is [adjective]", instead say "Well you know how Wikipedia should be [adjective]. Well that should mean [I should think this]".
  • 4. Before providing reason, say "I still think [this opinion] even though I am [disagreed with], the reasoning's hard to explain because my reasons are [twisty/fuzzy], (ie. even I would have [disagreed] if some1 else [thought this way], but because I already had the [twisty] but true rationale in mind, I had chosen to [have this opinion]. If someone else [had this opinion] and I [disagreed], it would be challenging for him/her to explain it to me too)".
  • 5 Do not say "Doesn't that mean", "Shouldn't that mean", "Can't you see", because it appears to accuse others that they disagree with the premise, and they will accuse you of ignoring some other part of the argument. ?marks can sometimes be omitted even if it's improper grammar.
  • 6. Use "can" instead of "should", "do/does" instead of "obviously" (when possible), "at least" instead of "to say the least" (when possible), "so I think that should mean" instead of "therefore". The same message gets across less aggressively.
  • 7. If you have to stop someone from doing something rather bad, do not say "you should not [do this]", but instead say "...by the way, I just want to make sure you're not going to [do this], because none of us wants to go in that direction, but I'm not wrongfully accusing you of doing so, I'm just reminding"
  • 8. If you disagreed with arguments, similar to what you're saying, in the past, do not hide the fact. In fact, if who you disagree with, hears you say "In the past, I used to disagree with arguments that look like this too, but now [why I think this]", he/she will be assured you are not attacking his/her rationality, and become less oppositional.
  • 9. Do not say "Hey, you did [what you say I did] too! Such as when you made this edit edit1". Instead say "I don't think everyone is against [what you say I did]. For example, I've seen an experienced, knowledgeable editor do [what you say I did] too edit1". When the person who clicks the link realizes the edit is made by him/herself, the same message gets across, without making people feel that you're using a push-spotlight-away tactic.
  • 10. Don't say "you just think [what you think] because you didn't consider [something to consider]", but instead say "perhaps the reason it feels so correct and obvious to see [what you think] is because none of us were examining [something to consider]"
  • 11. Don't use ALL UPPERCASE. Using this to emphasize makes you sound like you're trying to teach an idiot, and although you would like to think of the debate that way, it'll just doom the discussion. Using one uppercase letter may be poor grammar, but that's worth saving you from a heated argument. Alternatively, a subtle way to get someone to think of a word is to enclose it with (parenthesis), as readers inherently wonder why any parenthesis are used, but this is usually confusing for anything other than emphasizing adjectives.
  • 12. It could always be a good idea to squeeze in this quote some here: "I'm sorry if I sound like I'm accusing you of many things, but the stupid English language doesn't have a method to talk about how bad it'd be if something was true without implying that the possibility is abnormally high at the time. (Maybe too many people think there are no other reasons to mention a possibility, but valid alternative reasons include "only remembering the possibility now," "the possibility would be more harmful if true now" "the opportunity to talk about it only starts now")"
  • 13. For each reason you give, make examples of such a type of reason being valid. (e.g. "My friend cried, therefore he/she is probably upset. Crying can be used as an indicator or how upset someone is (when the president of __ cried, everyone decided that he was upset because he was crying).") Also, try saying "Here are my reasons. You don't have agree with them, and I can tolerate it if you see everything I believe in as absurd. But you will think rationally about these reasons, and even if it actually turns out that some are flawed, the ones that are not should be accepted as reasons, so that you won't fall into a loop of keeping the same view regardless of any new considerations. The only way to prove that you won't raise your criteria for changing your mind after reading each reason is to try setting a criteria before hand. Setting such an abstract criteria won't be easy, and perfection is beyond impossible, but a little is still a lot. Make sure you don't convince yourself that all reasons must be either wrong or insignificant because you disagree with most of them".
  • 14. Number 14 is under construction.
  • x. None of these are backed scientifically, and I made all of them up from the top of my mind.

-

Wikipedians, think of this. If you were a well trained, highly professional communist spy (a few of these do exist on Earth), and all you need to do for your whole lengthy life is to try becoming a high ranking crat or checkuser on Wikipedia, a title that's available to any long time apparently loyal Wikipedian, you would have quite a tiny chance of failing. Especially considering how Wikipedia allows you to see people's user contributions, so you can simply copy the exact actions of preexisting crats/checkusers before they were promoted.

So what's wrong with believing that quite a few high ranking Wikipedia workers really are communist spies?

All I need to do in order to find out is to see if they ban me for saying this.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This user has made many edits on an dynamic IP address before this account was created, and may not remember to log in when making edits. Do not perceive this account as inexperienced just because of a lack of edits. Currently 135.0.167.2 ( talk)


See also: Special:Contributions/DontClickMeName


Interesting Information

  • The Holocaust is the 653th most viewed article, while the Attack on Pearl Harbor is the 83rd most viewed. Mainstream media sure has nice priorities.( [1])
  • Wikipedia views on Julian Assange increased from a few thousand a day to a few hundred thousand a day in January, 2011 ( [2]). Looks like everyone stopped trying to silence his existence.
  • Bomis.com, a website similar to 4chan, was the predecessor of Nupedia and later Wikipedia. Bomis collapsed as Wikipedia's increasing maintenance costs left little left for it.
  • The list of books banned by governments contains many books against censorship.

How 2 respond nicely when in disagreement

These are reminders (for myself) of how to avoid being a victim of the process that makes rude wording suddenly spill out of my mouth


  • 1. Never use offensive words.
  • 2. As hard as it is to do this, you must say "please" and "thank you" to the people you're arguing with.
  • 3. Do not say "[I think this] because Wikipedia is [adjective]", instead say "Well you know how Wikipedia should be [adjective]. Well that should mean [I should think this]".
  • 4. Before providing reason, say "I still think [this opinion] even though I am [disagreed with], the reasoning's hard to explain because my reasons are [twisty/fuzzy], (ie. even I would have [disagreed] if some1 else [thought this way], but because I already had the [twisty] but true rationale in mind, I had chosen to [have this opinion]. If someone else [had this opinion] and I [disagreed], it would be challenging for him/her to explain it to me too)".
  • 5 Do not say "Doesn't that mean", "Shouldn't that mean", "Can't you see", because it appears to accuse others that they disagree with the premise, and they will accuse you of ignoring some other part of the argument. ?marks can sometimes be omitted even if it's improper grammar.
  • 6. Use "can" instead of "should", "do/does" instead of "obviously" (when possible), "at least" instead of "to say the least" (when possible), "so I think that should mean" instead of "therefore". The same message gets across less aggressively.
  • 7. If you have to stop someone from doing something rather bad, do not say "you should not [do this]", but instead say "...by the way, I just want to make sure you're not going to [do this], because none of us wants to go in that direction, but I'm not wrongfully accusing you of doing so, I'm just reminding"
  • 8. If you disagreed with arguments, similar to what you're saying, in the past, do not hide the fact. In fact, if who you disagree with, hears you say "In the past, I used to disagree with arguments that look like this too, but now [why I think this]", he/she will be assured you are not attacking his/her rationality, and become less oppositional.
  • 9. Do not say "Hey, you did [what you say I did] too! Such as when you made this edit edit1". Instead say "I don't think everyone is against [what you say I did]. For example, I've seen an experienced, knowledgeable editor do [what you say I did] too edit1". When the person who clicks the link realizes the edit is made by him/herself, the same message gets across, without making people feel that you're using a push-spotlight-away tactic.
  • 10. Don't say "you just think [what you think] because you didn't consider [something to consider]", but instead say "perhaps the reason it feels so correct and obvious to see [what you think] is because none of us were examining [something to consider]"
  • 11. Don't use ALL UPPERCASE. Using this to emphasize makes you sound like you're trying to teach an idiot, and although you would like to think of the debate that way, it'll just doom the discussion. Using one uppercase letter may be poor grammar, but that's worth saving you from a heated argument. Alternatively, a subtle way to get someone to think of a word is to enclose it with (parenthesis), as readers inherently wonder why any parenthesis are used, but this is usually confusing for anything other than emphasizing adjectives.
  • 12. It could always be a good idea to squeeze in this quote some here: "I'm sorry if I sound like I'm accusing you of many things, but the stupid English language doesn't have a method to talk about how bad it'd be if something was true without implying that the possibility is abnormally high at the time. (Maybe too many people think there are no other reasons to mention a possibility, but valid alternative reasons include "only remembering the possibility now," "the possibility would be more harmful if true now" "the opportunity to talk about it only starts now")"
  • 13. For each reason you give, make examples of such a type of reason being valid. (e.g. "My friend cried, therefore he/she is probably upset. Crying can be used as an indicator or how upset someone is (when the president of __ cried, everyone decided that he was upset because he was crying).") Also, try saying "Here are my reasons. You don't have agree with them, and I can tolerate it if you see everything I believe in as absurd. But you will think rationally about these reasons, and even if it actually turns out that some are flawed, the ones that are not should be accepted as reasons, so that you won't fall into a loop of keeping the same view regardless of any new considerations. The only way to prove that you won't raise your criteria for changing your mind after reading each reason is to try setting a criteria before hand. Setting such an abstract criteria won't be easy, and perfection is beyond impossible, but a little is still a lot. Make sure you don't convince yourself that all reasons must be either wrong or insignificant because you disagree with most of them".
  • 14. Number 14 is under construction.
  • x. None of these are backed scientifically, and I made all of them up from the top of my mind.

-

Wikipedians, think of this. If you were a well trained, highly professional communist spy (a few of these do exist on Earth), and all you need to do for your whole lengthy life is to try becoming a high ranking crat or checkuser on Wikipedia, a title that's available to any long time apparently loyal Wikipedian, you would have quite a tiny chance of failing. Especially considering how Wikipedia allows you to see people's user contributions, so you can simply copy the exact actions of preexisting crats/checkusers before they were promoted.

So what's wrong with believing that quite a few high ranking Wikipedia workers really are communist spies?

All I need to do in order to find out is to see if they ban me for saying this.


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