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Moral compass test

Here
Before I had ever heard of the widely known political Compass test at politicalcompass.org, I found a different one, which I have always preferred. The test is based off the excellent book Moral Politics: What Conservatives Know That Liberals Don't by Prof. George Lakoff. It's designed to probe the moral reasoning behind your stances on the issues, rather than just asking what your positions are. The book, and hence the test, was written to explain America's peculiar brand of politics, so it may not be as applicable to other countries. Well, anyone up for taking it? -- Radioactive afikomen ^{Please ignore all my awful pre-2014 comments.} 18:23, 10 January 2008 (EST)

Note: When taking the test, make sure to always check "Show Hints". The wording of most of their choices is iffy, but the Hints explain the rationale behind each possible answer. If you don't verify the implications of picking an answer using the Hints, you will get a wrong score. -- Radioactive afikomen ^{Please ignore all my awful pre-2014 comments.} 18:30, 10 January 2008 (EST)

"Your scored -4.5 on Moral Order and 6.0 on Moral Rules." Who's Dennis Kucinich? Susan^{Prunes and custard} 18:52, 10 January 2008 (EST)

Kucinich is the only real liberal running for a major party nomination in the 2008 primaries. human 20:15, 10 January 2008 (EST)

Mm ... I googled him. How do you pronounce him? Kuchinighh? (ch as in Scottish 'loch') or Kukinich? (ch as in charger) or some other way? Susan^{Prunes and custard} 20:32, 10 January 2008 (EST)

It's "Koo sin itch", emphasis on second syllable. human 20:33, 10 January 2008 (EST)

Liberals always have an accent on sin. --206.248.174.192 20:58, 10 January 2008 (EST)

To say nothing of an itch to koo... human 00:48, 11 January 2008 (EST)

"Your scored -3 on Moral Order and 3.5 on Moral Rules." Awesome...? GrandSoviet

-5/3 without hints, -3/1.5 with. So maybe somewhere in between. Weird DogP 19:32, 10 January 2008 (EST)

-5/3.5 CЯacke®

Interesting symmetry. I got -3.5/3.5. Jimmy Carter? --Kels 19:50, 10 January 2008 (EST)

-4.5/3.5, and the usual gang of rogues... Carter, Cobb (green party 2004), Kucinich. party: none, system: socialism. But I knew all that already. Schlafly hates me! Someone take it for teh assfly? human 20:22, 10 January 2008 (EST)

Any of you read the explanation behind the grid, or did you just wing it? -- Radioactive afikomen ^{Please ignore all my awful pre-2014 comments.} 21:07, 10 January 2008 (EST)
I'm sorry if any of you feel I wasted your time. I just find stuff like this endlessly fascinating. -- Radioactive afikomen ^{Please ignore all my awful pre-2014 comments.} 23:44, 10 January 2008 (EST)

I'm mildly socialist, and 0% are more authoritarian than me. Hurrah, I'm Joseph Stalin. Forgive me if I don't believe this test captures the essence of people's views very well. --Jeεv☭s^{Your signature gave me epilepsy...} 04:28, 11 January 2008 (EST)

I think the comparison feature of their calculator is broken. It said 0% of people were more liberal than Andrew Schlafly. Do you mind sharing the actual numbers you got? That would make things clear. -- Radioactive afikomen ^{Please ignore all my awful pre-2014 comments.} 05:41, 11 January 2008 (EST)

I thought that, too, but on this chart "liberal" is not the thing that andy hates - it's "classic liberal". What he hates are us socialists. If you look at his "dot", there is no way to be lower on the y-axis. But I might be wrong and it should have said 100% - since there is no way to be to the left of him on the x axis.

That said, this is a confusing "compass", because it is a bit different than the others - it only measures a particular two of the many possible spectra available (remember, the usual PCs add a vertical axis to the one dimensional left/right one). And the axes are "moral" in nature, so I think the labelling of the quadrants in political terms is a bit unclear. human 04:10, 14 January 2008 (EST)

Explanation & Results

"Moral Order" (horizontal axis) represents the structure of your moral hierarchy. Towards the right, you believe that morality requires many "levels" of moral authority, and that we must respect these many levels, and defer to those higher up than us. For example, one moral hierarchy of this nature could have God at the very top, then religious leaders, then other people, then children, then criminals, then animals, etc. Towards the left, you believe in a greater degree of equality, with fewer levels of moral authority. On the most extreme end, you may even believe in only one level, that all beings are morally equal.

"Moral Rules" (vertical axis) represents what behaviors you believe would best benefit society. Towards the bottom, you believe that people benefit the most by prioritizing the actions of individuals. Towards the top, you believe that people benefit the most by prioritizing collective initiatives.

The scale is -8 to 8 for both axis.

• Radioactive afikomen— Moral Order: -4.5, Moral Rules: 5.0
• SusanG— MO: -4.5, MR: 6
• GrandSoviet— MO: -3, MR: -3.5
• Doggedpersistence— MO: -5, MR: 3 (w/o hints)
  • MO: -3, MR: 1.5 (w/ hints)
• Cracker— MO: -5, MR: 3.5
• Kels— MO: -3.5, MR: 3.5
• Human— MO: -4.5, MR: 3.5
• Uchiha— MO: -5, MR: 1
• Andy (projected)— MO: 7.5, MR: -8
• BillOhannity— MO: -4.5, MR: 3
• Pinto's5150 ^Talk— MO: -3, MR: -3
• Bayes— MO: -1, MR: -2
• User:Bob M— MO: -5, MR: 4
• Ed @^{but not the Poor one!}— MO: -4, MR: 6
• Genghis— MO: -2, MR: -1
• User:Silver Sloth— MO -6, MR 1.5 (Godless commie and proud of it)
• Edgerunner76— MO: -3.5, MR: 4 (looks like my closest match here is Kels)
• User:Gulik— MO: -6.00, MR: -4.41. About the same as Nelson Mandela--I can live with that.
• Lurker MO: 1.5, MR -6.0. I love that I'm a bit of an outlier, but I think I found a flaw in the test, because this doesn't accuratly describe my political position.
• Spica MO: -4.5, MR: 6.
• Researcher MO: -4.5, MR: 1 -- I actually disagree with its idea of socialism, but what do I know?
• AKjeldsen MO: -3, MR 2 (Social Democrat) -- I'd probably rather label myself a Social Liberal, but whatever.
• TK MO: -1.5 MR: 1 Something is amiss, because I don't really view myself as a socialist. --TK_/MyTalk^{Lowly editor} 04:02, 14 January 2008 (EST)
• ajkgordon MO: -4, MR: 2.5. I imagine it's designed for septics because some of the questions for me were simply WTF? No relevance. Interesting nonetheless but probably irrelevant to us Yuropeans. Ajkgordon 05:13, 14 January 2008 (EST)
• NightFlare MO: -3, MR: 1.5. Did I pass?
• BeastmasterGeneral MO:-5, MR:4.5 (3 tildas for name only).
• Master Bra'tac^Kree!MO: -1.5; MR: 0.5.

Bring out the color swatches!

I'm a lazy ass. So you get to pick the color of your own dot on the grid. I already have Human's and my own. There's a page on Wikipedia with a list of computer-compatable colors if you want to look. By the way, if you say something like "green", I'll go with whatever number-letter code Wikipedia gives for it. -- Radioactive afikomen ^{Please ignore all my awful pre-2014 comments.} 07:05, 11 January 2008 (EST)

I think it's pretty much time to port this to its own article, eh? human 07:09, 11 January 2008 (EST)

Well, darn it, I guess so. Can we leave a very prominent link to it here? RationalWiki:Moral Matrix perhaps? -- Radioactive afikomen ^{Please ignore all my awful pre-2014 comments.} 07:12, 11 January 2008 (EST)

Yes, definitely leave a link behind. The hard part (probably) will be deciding what to put in talk and what goes in the article. Also, if we make it catted as "best of fun" (or is that amusement?), it will end up on the featured content randomly, too. Not sure if we should do that though. human 23:37, 11 January 2008 (EST)

Shit Damn

I knew that the test at politicalcompass.org misscored me. On that test, I only managed to get economic left -8.88, social libertarian -1.74. Not quite liberal authoritarian. Well, now we all know where I really stand. -- Radioactive afikomen ^{Please ignore all my awful pre-2014 comments.} 21:33, 10 January 2008 (EST)

I tried to briefly channel Ashclafly and got (7,-5). In the process I had a weird urge to vaccinate a dinosaur.--Bayes^update 23:59, 10 January 2008 (EST)

I tried and hit 8, -7.5 (woo!). However, I think I may have been being overly honest about some things Andy wouldn't admit his real thoughts on (ex. differences between men and women...). Uchiha^KATON! 00:05, 11 January 2008 (EST)

Yeah, that's the real challenge...do you answer for what you think he stands for, or what you think he would say he stands for?--Bayes^update 00:43, 11 January 2008 (EST)

Remember to answer question 9 (About business) with "We should reward businesses that put social responsibility ahead of profitability." Why? Because in Andyland, businesses that discriminate against "social undesirables" (i.e. anyone he or his mother doesn't like) and censor everything objectionable would be considered "socially responsible", and be rewarded for it. -- Radioactive afikomen ^{Please ignore all my awful pre-2014 comments.} 00:40, 11 January 2008 (EST)

WTF!! I get this analysis: 5% are close to you. (OK) 75% are more conservative.( Maybe in the US.) 7% are more liberal. (Again maybe in the US.) 3% are more socialist. (again ...) 6% are more authoritarian. But what the hell is this? Only 6% more authoritarian than me!? I don't believe it! There should be a law against tests like this !! --Bob^{bing up} 05:17, 11 January 2008 (EST)

I thought I were fairly conservative myself, but I must be wrong. What does (-4; +6) mean anyway? Ed @^{but not the Poor one!} 05:24, 11 January 2008 (EST)

Yes, some numbers on the matrix might be nice. As far as I can tell the first negative puts you on the socialist side and the subsequent plus puts you up towards the authoritarian bit. --Bob^{bing up} 05:57, 11 January 2008 (EST)

Thanks. That's strange - freedom is the value I deem most important of all. I guess my idea(l) of a Welfare State where people are cared for gave me the plus six. At least, I'm in good company (You won't mind Susan, will you?). Ed @^{but not the Poor one!} 14:47, 11 January 2008 (EST)

Half-done graph of our results

Please make my "dot" purple pink the same color as my name!!! human 01:11, 11 January 2008 (EST)

Since we can only guess at Andrew Schlafly's true morals, I just defined a zone where he was likely to be. -- Radioactive afikomen ^{Please ignore all my awful pre-2014 comments.} 07:28, 11 January 2008 (EST)

We're all a bunch of Socialists, apparently. -- Radioactive afikomen ^{Please ignore all my awful pre-2014 comments.} 07:29, 11 January 2008 (EST)

Can't we get TK and Bohdan to take the test, just for some variety among the dots? -- Radioactive afikomen ^{Please ignore all my awful pre-2014 comments.} 07:30, 11 January 2008 (EST)

Nice job on that graph! Looks like we're going to have to stop ironically accusing ourselves of liberal deceit and instead opt for the more accurate socialist deceit. GrandSoviet 12:04, 11 January 2008 (EST)

Now updated! -- Radioactive afikomen ^{Please ignore all my awful pre-2014 comments.} 19:21, 15 January 2008 (EST)

Overall combined results of all respondents to the test

These results represent over 406,600 respondents' answers.

The following was taken from Moral Politics, owner and originator of the Moral Politics test.

TEST DISTRIBUTION
Of the 406,619 respondents:

1. 29.17% liked Socialism.

2. 6.56% liked Authoritarianism.

3. 19.74% liked Conservatism.

4. 23.72% liked Liberalism.

5. 20.81% straddled systems.

AVERAGE Average score (red marker):

1. Moral Order: -0.12

2. Moral Rules: -0.07

ANALYSIS
The most popular answer[s] and the average score are centered. This suggests that the test may not [be] biased in any direction. Respondents seem distributed along a diagonal Socialism[-]Conservativism line.

I'm not sure about this. I suspect that the the test is set up to put the average American Joe in the center. As I am told that the average American Joe is a long way to the right of the rest of the world that distorts the rest of the world's answers.--Bob^{bing up} 05:21, 11 January 2008 (EST)

*Ahem* Read the Explanation section. And they do break down the responses and display them by country (although that part of the site is down; when I was last at the site it was working). I will break down the number of respondents from each country for you though, Mr. Doubting Thomas:

United States: 241,097; United Kingdom: 23,934; Canada: 23,571; Poland: 15,891; unknown: 15,337; Portugal: 11,898; Sweden: 10,561; Australia: 8,143; European Union: 5,617; Germany: 5,534; Netherlands: 5,193; Denmark: 4,561; Finland: 3,589; France: 2,957; Spain: 2,698; Brazil: 2,347; Norway: 1,677; New Zealand: 1,604; Belgium: 1,392; Italy: 1,232; Ireland: 1,088; Romania: 1,001; Hungary: 969; Slovenia: 656; Israel: 636; Switzerland: 632; Japan: 616; Austria: 609; Greece: 567; Czech Republic: 544; Argentina: 540; Slovakia/Slovak Republic: 501.

This isn't all of them, if you want the full list go here. -- Radioactive afikomen ^{Please ignore all my awful pre-2014 comments.} 06:08, 11 January 2008 (EST)

I call shenanigans!!! First, over half of respondents are USians. Second, they "claim" to be neutral 'cause the average is close to 0,0. But it's not. It's a full point to the "north". By the way, their graph suck because it lacks coordinates. Also, remember that their whole "perspective" came from some right wing US guy's book. Where were the questionms about school prayer, eh?. I prefer the zillion question PC site, myself. The axes on this one are just weird. But it was still all good fun. Like taking "internet tests" - deeply meaningful. human 06:38, 11 January 2008 (EST)

Actually, George Lakoff himself is solidly left-wing. The people who wrote the test are all right-wing, but they liked the ideas in his book enough to make the test. -- Radioactive afikomen ^{Please ignore all my awful pre-2014 comments.} 06:49, 11 January 2008 (EST)

Oh, and just for that comment I'm going to make your dot ugly :) -- Radioactive afikomen ^{Please ignore all my awful pre-2014 comments.} 06:51, 11 January 2008 (EST)

Someone else (not me) should take all this stuff and move it to an article called, oh, how about "Moral Matrix"?

I disagree with the above, Human. We should leave this here until everyone who's going to do it has done it. If moved to its own article, it'll be harder to find and not as many people will do it. -- Radioactive afikomen ^{Please ignore all my awful pre-2014 comments.} 23:53, 10 January 2008 (EST)

Well, I didn't say "move it now", did I, spud peeler? Anyway, when it does finally, eventually get moved, there can be a link here to it for teh little stragglers, eh? human 00:01, 11 January 2008 (EST)

"Spud peeler"? -- Radioactive afikomen ^{Please ignore all my awful pre-2014 comments.} 00:46, 11 January 2008 (EST)

Yeah! Come on, mash some taters up and hike on over to Hoji's talk page for the party! human 01:05, 11 January 2008 (EST)

People who simulated teh assflinator put his "scores" in this section so they don't infect ours with his conservative advantages

TEH ASSFLY'S SCORE

Your [sic] scored 7 on Moral Order and -8 on Moral Rules.

The following categories best match your score (multiple responses are possible):

1. System: Conservatism
2. Ideology: Ultra Capitalism
3. Party: Constitution Party
4. Presidents: George W. Bush
5. 04' Election: Michael Peroutka
6. 08' Election: Fred Thompson

Of the 406,604 respondents (913 on Facebook):

1. 1% are close to you.
2. 0% are more conservative.
3. 0% are more liberal. [sic, I think we broke it with him]
4. 97% are more socialist.
5. 1% are more authoritarian.

Comment: running endless assfly bots will slightly alter the "overall" outcome data. Oh well... human 00:06, 11 January 2008 (EST)

Fictional characters

I tried to get into the mind of Emperor Palpatine. I got - MO: 5, MR: -4.5 --PROMHQEUS ^{- FORETHOUGHT} 12:23, 11 January 2008 (EST)

Flaw

First of all, while I like the idea of having my point be the only one to the right of center, I don't think the test accurately reflects my political views so much as my moral views. The idea of the test is to see how your moral views translate into political views, but this only works for people who want to enforce their moral views politically. A very rough guess would be that my point should actually be the mirror image (across the y-axis) from what it is. I might be slightly further negative on the y-axis, but not by much. Lurker 18:01, 11 January 2008 (EST)

A "situational" political test?

If you look at the graph of overall results for the test above, you'll see that very few people end up firmly in the cold, unfeeling authoritarian dog-eat-dog column. Yet despite this, lots and lots of governments actually turn out that way.

I reckon this is because it's easy to answer questions of morality in isolation, without reference to consequences. In many ways the questions asked of serving governments are "loaded" in that not choosing a particular answer, even though you think it's probably a bad thing, ends up with you out of office and, in some extreme cases, stone dead.

Do you think it might be possible to devise a sort of situational political test that more realistically models how the beliefs of the test taker would actually play out in a real governmental situation? Would there be any point to it even if you could? --Jeεv☭s^{Your signature gave me epilepsy...} 04:40, 11 January 2008 (EST)

Whatever happened to taking political quantification tests for the fun of it? -- Radioactive afikomen ^{Please ignore all my awful pre-2014 comments.} 05:47, 11 January 2008 (EST)

http://www.philosophersnet.com/games/morality_play.htm

Your Moral Parsimony Score is 92%

Geographical distance: 83%

Family relatedness: 100%

Acts and omissions: 83%

Scale: 100% GrandSoviet 12:01, 11 January 2008 (EST)

Hmm, interesting:

Your Moral Parsimony Score is 84%

Geographical distance: 100%

Family relatedness: 100%

Acts and omissions: 35% (!)

Scale: 100%

Amusing. The E & O one I had to footnote in my mind due to missing information - basically these were the workplace machinery questions, and I kept asking things like "is every worker expected to inspect the machine before use" and "are other people supposed to examine this equipment or is that my job". In other words, I felt like the situations were not described in enough detail in order for me to judge them clearly. That's my excuse, and I'm sticking to it. human 23:04, 11 January 2008 (EST)

Grils v Byos

Hey! Anyone notice how there's a female increase going on? Kels, me, CP ref, Eira & now apparently Uchiha's a lady real estate salesperson (!). (of course, for all I know, You could 'all be grils but somehow I doubt it) Susan^{Prunes and custard} 15:15, 11 January 2008 (EST)

Quickly! We must put up more pictures of cars, women, and guns to back up our side! --מְתֻרְגְּמָן ^{שְׁלֹום}

Ha! -nix the guns & I'm wit you! Susan^{Prunes and custard}

I, for one, welcome our new overlordsladies. --Shagie 16:12, 11 January 2008 (EST)

I, as a male, ask for special privileges, in the name of affirmative action. Ed @^{but not the Poor one!} 16:15, 11 January 2008 (EST)

(I should like to apologize in advance for the following comment which is possibly sexist and not worthy of me.) Perhaps we should put some pink hearts and flowers on the mainpage?--Bob^{bing up} 16:28, 11 January 2008 (EST)

NOT pink (hearts well roasted please - with tatties & peas, please) Susan^{Prunes and custard} 16:38, 11 January 2008 (EST)

The pink ones are medium-rare. --Kels 18:10, 11 January 2008 (EST)

I have an explanation. Clearly this correlates with the rise of the Long-eared jerboa which has feminine Ti, and the decline of the goat which is infused with masculine Ti. --Jeεv☭s^{Your signature gave me epilepsy...} 16:34, 11 January 2008 (EST)

Could be, but Eira is with the LLama.--Bob^{bing up} 16:38, 11 January 2008 (EST)

Oh. Wow. Um. Er. Haha. Yeah. Um. This... is insanely awkward.

...that was my mom I was spamvertising for. Uchiha^KATON! 11:22, 12 January 2008 (EST)

Mmm. Nice mom! Susan^{Prunes and custard} 11:45, 12 January 2008 (EST)

To clarify: I am a boy. Uchiha^KATON! 22:25, 12 January 2008 (EST)

Financial Solvency

Hey all, as I pointed out over on RationalWiki talk:Site support, I am currently under a some what significant financial crunch and will be till the end of February. I really need RW to "pay for itself" for Dec/Jan and hopefully Feb. At the moment we are $70 in the whole and need another $50 for February. Current donations total about $20 a month so need to come up with about $100 by the end of the month. If no one can really help we may have to wind up putting google ads or something up to offset things as much as possible. Come March things should settle down again and it won't matter much. So....yea........RationalWiki:Site support has the info, you can either do a "pi pledge" which is a monthly thing or there is the "make a donation" button that allows for a one time gift. Even $1 helps! tmtoulouse ^frustrate 16:43, 11 January 2008 (EST)

Can I offer to host it instead of giving you money? I can't imagine it uses any significant amount of bandwidth (where I class significant as something approaching saturating a T1) --Jeεv☭s^{Your signature gave me epilepsy...} 16:52, 11 January 2008 (EST)

Bandwidth is not the problem, we take up a LOT of CPU cycles and memory so need dedicated hosting. Plus our "database" is starting to be not so insignificant as far as disk space. tmtoulouse ^frustrate 16:54, 11 January 2008 (EST)

Disk space is no problem:

Filesystem            Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/discs/disc0/part6
                      113G  2.4G  104G   3% /
/dev/discs/disc0/part7
                       74G  1.7G   69G   3% /home

As for CPU time, got load averages? --Jeεv☭s^{Your signature gave me epilepsy...} 17:01, 11 January 2008 (EST)

We are currently hosted on 3ghz and avg 20-30 percent with bursts above 80. tmtoulouse ^frustrate 17:19, 11 January 2008 (EST)

That seems rather excessive considering the number of hits, lousy software. Still, sounds manageable anyway. Worst comes to worst, I have to take a trip down to the isle of dogs and put a new motherboard in the box. --Jeεv☭s^{Your signature gave me epilepsy...} 17:25, 11 January 2008 (EST)

How do you donate to RationalWiki? 'Cause I'll have about $25 left over after all my expenses for the month are paid, and I'd be happy to donate it to RationalWiki. -- Radioactive afikomen ^{Please ignore all my awful pre-2014 comments.} 17:45, 11 January 2008 (EST)

On the left hand side is a big button that says Pi Pledge. You can give multiples of $3.14 a month to support this site or make a single donation. Genghis ^Marauding 18:50, 11 January 2008 (EST)

How do you just give one lump sum? I can't find the option for it. -- Radioactive afikomen ^{Please ignore all my awful pre-2014 comments.} 21:13, 11 January 2008 (EST)

Go to Site support - the link right above the pledge button - there's a paypal link there, the button that says "make a donation". And thanks! human 22:30, 11 January 2008 (EST)

Done. $π*10^1 for you. ^{— Unsigned, by: Kels / talk / contribs}

That's $31.40, right? -- Radioactive afikomen ^{Please ignore all my awful pre-2014 comments.} 23:06, 11 January 2008 (EST)

Yup. But it looks better when I say it. =p --Kels 23:48, 11 January 2008 (EST)

Well, congrats, you are now $40 closer to solvency. -- Radioactive afikomen ^{Please ignore all my awful pre-2014 comments.} 23:10, 11 January 2008 (EST)

Banlist purge time

Is it time to unblock of the people who have been blocked over a week or longer ago? Robert Stark 19:17, 11 January 2008 (EST)

Err ... You have an interest? Susan^{Prunes and custard} 19:23, 11 January 2008 (EST)

Not much besides the entire population of New Gwenson on that list, along with a few nazis and people proud of their passwords. Did you have a friend you wanted to get paroled? human 23:39, 11 January 2008 (EST)

Some of those users have been blocked wqay too long, even indefinitely. I though RW didn't believe in indefblocks. Besides, you used to purge the banlist every few days. Robert Stark 11:15, 12 January 2008 (EST)

Specifically? Susan^{Prunes and custard} 11:50, 12 January 2008 (EST)

What coup?

In August, there was rampant speculation that there would be some sort of showdown between Schlafly and TK. More importantly, that Schlafly would lose the battle. Yet, TK was banned, and like Bohdan, came here. So, what the hell happened? I'm afraid I wasn't paying much attention, I just came here one day and TK was here. So what the hell happened!? And what about all those predictions that Schlafly would lose? Would someone kindly explain what, if any, showdown occurred, and why all the predictions were wrong? -- Radioactive afikomen ^{Please ignore all my awful pre-2014 comments.} 17:17, 12 January 2008 (EST)

Wow - that must be the first time ever that gossip was proven wrong!--Danielfolsom 17:22, 12 January 2008 (EST)

Nobody ever wins an argument against a editor in his own magazine, and nobody wins a blog debate with the guy who owns the server. --Gulik 03:04, 13 January 2008 (EST)

Image pimp

I just made a crapload of new images! I made them all for of you, driven by the deepest, most bored loving part of my heart. Enjoy!

Image:RW at work.gif

Image:Intelligent thought required.gif

Image:Flammable material.gif

Image:Abstinence only.gif

Image:Too many syllables

Use them everywhere to further our cause(s)! -- Radioactive afikomen ^{Please ignore all my awful pre-2014 comments.} 03:29, 13 January 2008 (EST)

Wow, bored much? But, er, thanks! human 04:25, 13 January 2008 (EST)

Wow, that's fantastic, RA! Thanks for your valuable contributions! Godspeed! --AKjeldsen^Godspeed! 07:40, 13 January 2008 (EST)

Hey, I used one at some abstinence-only sexy article thing, at least. And yes, RA, you are safely within the bounds of our 99/1 rule! We all await your next constructive contributions! Goatspeed! human 08:16, 13 January 2008 (EST)

Is it just me, or are you sarcastically suggesting that I talk less and make more articles? -- Radioactive afikomen ^{Please ignore all my awful pre-2014 comments.} 15:21, 13 January 2008 (EST)

Quite the opposite I believe. Pinto's5150 ^Talk 22:26, 13 January 2008 (EST)

MLK

Since this holy daze is coming up I ask of you, the RW community, to take a quick look at the proposed "headline" especially since it will run the maximum number of days possible (tues - mon) this year. I just don't want to diminish his legacy and heroism with a lolcateze thing unless we all think that's uberkewl and Dr. King would not mind. PS, of course it links to the famous "I can haz dream" speech text. human 10:25, 13 January 2008 (EST)

No great fan of the lolcateze. Paraphrasing Bill Hicks:

We kill the good guys and let the demons run amok.

--Robledo 12:30, 13 January 2008 (EST)

How about a simple, "Martin, we hardly knew ye" (with speech link, of course)? human 06:48, 14 January 2008 (EST)

Hey, here's a freakin' idea - let's write an article on him over the next week! Put the speech in a subpage of it (it's snarky at MP/, but sort of an ugly link to use to honor the man). And the banner could just read "Honor Martin Luther King Week" & link to the burgeoning article. human 09:23, 14 January 2008 (EST)

protection

I can understand why you wouldn't want to protect your main page, but as for not protect it from moves and anonymous editors, that just smells of you trying to make a statement of the likes of "look how liberal we are out main page is completely unprotected"? Ajuk 15:32, 13 January 2008 (EST)

This statement smells of you trying trying statement of the likes of "Look how petty I am complaining about the main page being unprotected." -- Radioactive afikomen ^{Please ignore all my awful pre-2014 comments.} 17:23, 13 January 2008 (EST)

You don't even make sense Radioactive afikomen. --75.89.115.231 22:18, 13 January 2008 (EST)

General reply:

The point is that it's pointless. There is very little to gain from protecting a single page. Sure, whoop-de-doo, it's protected... and? It's Security Theater. It doesn't stop wandals from moving or editing everything else, and one of us is usually around to revert such things, anyway.

This is sorta how CP started off

• They got hit by regular wandals... and locked various pages (at high times, a single wandal edit could lead to months of full protection). Note how they did not actually solve the problem.
• They got hit by "on Wheels" wandals... and reacted by taking away move rights.
• They got hit by wandals who uploaded pr0n images... and reacted by taking away upload rights.
• They got hit by wandals who waited for phases of inactivity (Fun fact: There were more inactive phases after they banned tons of people who fought wandals at such times)... and reacted by taking away "night-time" edit rights.

Do you see a pattern? Somebody who is determined to wandalize will wandalize. Take away one target, and they find new ones. Take away a method, and they come up with new ones.

The initial point had some merit, of course. But the thing is that it wouldn't make much of a difference. Both because of the fact that it doesn't actually do anything to prevent wandalism, and because the damage is minimal. Over the last 30 or so days, the Main Page was moved three times. Each time, the move was undone within two minutes.

I hope this helps a bit when it comes to explaining our reasoning when it comes to these things. :) --Sid 22:49, 13 January 2008 (EST)

You made a very good argument, Sid. -- Radioactive afikomen ^{Please ignore all my awful pre-2014 comments.} 23:12, 13 January 2008 (EST)

OK But why not protect it from moves, no one should have a need to move it. Ajuk 08:31, 14 January 2008 (EST)

But we have protected it, four times. And why are you so concerned? And, as an editor here, who are you calling "you"? We're an us! human 08:42, 14 January 2008 (EST)

Except for, you know... T-H-E-M. --AKjeldsen^Godspeed! 08:50, 14 January 2008 (EST)

huh

why does it say i have new messages 85.195.123.25

That usually means someone's edited your talk page. --SockOfGulik 17:24, 15 January 2008 (EST)

hi

http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:%24wgBlockAllowsUTEdit thought u might want to look at that 62.112.158.213

What about it? tmtoulouse ^frustrate 22:34, 13 January 2008 (EST)

It allows blocked users to edit there user talk page, like to request unblocking. I like that idea.Also, they have it at wikipedia. --62.112.158.213

It also allows people to continue the spamming or taunting they got blocked for. Keywords: Metapedia, New Gwenson, etc. I believe we see the blocks (which are usually just in the range of minutes to hours, except for more severe cases and repeat offenders, which get days and so on) as a time-out option.

And most of us got their mail enabled, plus there is the forum. I believe Wikipedia needs the system it has because there are tons more cases, so it's impossible to check whether all blocks are justified or not. We on the other hand move slowly enough to notice blocks in the Recent Changes, and sysops have often questioned or overturned the decisions of others without the blocked user having to file an appeal. --Sid 08:59, 14 January 2008 (EST)

What's with all the state and province articles?

So don't answer my last statement with "We are here to PARTY!", however tempting it may be.

There is a glut of articles here covering many/most of the member states of the US and the provinces of Canada. The issue is, what the hell do any of these articles have to do with the purpose of RationalWiki? As stated on the Main Page:

Our purpose here at RationalWiki includes the following:

1. Analyzing and refuting the anti-science movement, ideas and people.
2. Analyzing and refuting the full range of crank ideas.
3. Explorations of authoritarianism and fundamentalism.

We are not "GeographyWiki" or "State-Province-and-NationWiki". We are not a wannabe Wikipedia. We are RationalWiki. It is to that purpose that I hereby propose a set of requirements for any article with a city, state, province, or nation as its primary subject:

1. The article itself must directly contribute to the understanding of one of the issues named on the Main Page.
2. In order to do so, the article must primarily deal with the sociopolitical environment of the city/state/province/nation, for the implicit purpose of furthering the readers' understanding of the outcome or origins of a science, religion, or crank-related event or issue.

Any province/nation-related articles not falling under these qualifications are arguably irrelevant, and serious thought should be put into their deletion or relocation into the Funspace.

It concerns me that we waste our efforts into having articles for all fifty US states and all ten Canadian provinces, when we should be putting more effort into dealing with pseudoscience, a much more important and dire issue. Even worse, most of the state and province articles amount to joke articles, making them deadweight to the cause.

It is time we reasserted what we are here for. -- Radioactive afikomen ^{Please ignore all my awful pre-2014 comments.} 04:13, 15 January 2008 (EST)

You are right. But whatever the official purpose of RW, the main reason most are here is the Lulz. Usually it is aimed at CP (rightfully), at times it wanders elsewhere (see Alcohol). To be honest, I wouldn't take RW's purpose too seriously (did I warrant myself a block with this?). Ed @^{but not the Poor one!} 04:18, 15 January 2008 (EST)

Miao, Miau, Meow, whatever, sorry cat, didn't know you were felix seriosus. Ed @^{but not the Poor one!} 04:28, 15 January 2008 (EST)

I must admit that I've had some doubts about the state and province stuff myself. My purpose here is most certainly not lutz at the expense of CP. I almost never go there. If lutz is involved it should be at the expense of any and all all pseudoscience.--Bob^{bing up} 04:44, 15 January 2008 (EST)

As the principal instaigator of the 50 US State articles, my rationsls were these: One, they are likely to get linked frequently, so having them makes life easier. Two, there is a loose consistency to them (I decorated them all with their state quarter picture, for instance), and three, they can be "on mission" to varying degrees - stories of racism and the anti-science and authoritarian/anti-authoritarian issues in the US often devolve to the state level, with individual states often being famous for various stupidities. To an extent this would apply to any country that is federal in nature - ie, where the subdivisions have a lot of autonomy. So Canada fits that fairly well, but, for instance, the British counties less so.

Also, to an extent, it's not wasted effort - a person adding to one of these articles may not have any PS related things on their mind at that moment, but they want to contribute.

That's just my opinion, of course. human 07:50, 15 January 2008 (EST)

Isn't that exactly what I proposed, that they deal with the sociopolitical environment of the location in question, to further one's understanding of an issue? And really, why are we linking to the state articles? Where in this wiki is it actually relevant to link to the state? Can't we just link to Wikipedia and save ourselves the trouble? Because, like I said, most of them are not particularly informative. Unless you got big plans for them I'm unaware of. -- Radioactive afikomen ^{Please ignore all my awful pre-2014 comments.} 13:01, 15 January 2008 (EST)

No, it's not what you proposed, exactly. Some are stubby, but all of them give information missing from the hopelessly fact and NPOV biased wikipedia. And most contain some of the RW POV, and will likely accumulate more of it over time. human 14:28, 15 January 2008 (EST)

Fine, fine, I'll stop with my intellectual purity jihad. But at the very least, can we move them to the Funspace? I don't see what the big stigma is with putting articles there. Is the Funspace just where articles go to die then? -- Radioactive afikomen ^{Please ignore all my awful pre-2014 comments.} 15:44, 15 January 2008 (EST)

Kind of, yes. They will rarely get linked to, etc. You know how many links would have to be fixed if we moved those 60 or so articles to fun? Anyway, many of them are growing fast! human 15:48, 15 January 2008 (EST)

Well, why? Why don't we link to the funspace more? I mean, the essays and debates get their own namespaces, but they don't serve as article graveyards. Scratch that, I guess they do. In order to boost the other namespaces, how about in every article, in the See Also section, there's a link to either an essay, a debate, or a funspace article? -- Radioactive afikomen ^{Please ignore all my awful pre-2014 comments.} 18:35, 15 January 2008 (EST)

<-Here's why. Let's say, someone is writing an article, oh, on say the Waco conflagration. When they type "Texas", maybe they thing they should link it, since Texas is a place... a place where strange... a place where strange things happen (Sorry, channeling David Byrne briefly). Are they going to type (inside the brackets) "fun:Texas|Texas", or simply "Texas"? Pleaz I can haz mai Statz articlz? Wai do Yu hait me? human 21:09, 15 January 2008 (EST)

Huckabee is fucking insane

American theocracy. Talk amongst yourselves. I'd like to add that I don't think Huckabee is an American. I'm sorry, but calling for a theocracy is so flagrantly against everything this country stands for, that it's practically like calling for a dictatorship.-αmεσ (spy) 15:49, 15 January 2008 (EST)

God hates Huckabee. 209.17.190.78 16:04, 15 January 2008 (EST)

If he wins, I leave.Pinto's5150 ^Talk 16:35, 15 January 2008 (EST)

I'm with C.S. Lewis on this one--a Theocracy is WORSE than a dictatorship. The scary thing is that this will almost certainly play well with the Fundamentalist crowd who are his biggest supporters. I just hope it scares the Plutocratic wing of the GOP enough to cut Huck off at the knees. --SockOfGulik 18:27, 15 January 2008 (EST)

Finished Graph

There! It's done! -- Radioactive afikomen ^{Please ignore all my awful pre-2014 comments.} 04:22, 16 January 2008 (EST)

I just randomly chose the colors for the dots, except for Human, who requested the same color his signature uses. My apologies to whoever ended up with the same color as TK. :) -- Radioactive afikomen ^{Please ignore all my awful pre-2014 comments.} 04:22, 16 January 2008 (EST)

I hate to be ants at a picnic, but somebody misrecorded my score way up there. I actually posted that I got a "-3 on Moral Order and 3.5 on Moral Rules," not a -3.5 on MR. Oops! GrandSoviet 14:53, 16 January 2008 (EST)

Now worries. It'll be simple to correct that. And assuming GodlessLiberal ever wakes up from his coma for longer than five minutes, I'll have to change it anyways. -- Radioactive afikomen ^{Please ignore all my awful pre-2014 comments.} 14:59, 16 January 2008 (EST)

Nice work! Do you want some help moving all this to its own article & talk page later? human 15:39, 16 January 2008 (EST)

Can I add myself? How do I do it?-αmεσ (spy) 15:40, 16 January 2008 (EST)

Tell RA your numbers and he'll re-edit the image. One twerk, by the way - "judgmental" is missspelled. human 15:41, 16 January 2008 (EST)