Talk:Richard Nixon

I was reading up on the 1973 oil shock, and the rationale for OAPEC to reduce oil production, which essentially was a political motivation to exact revenge on countries that supported Israel. In light of this motivation, it made perfect sense for Nixon to mitigate excess profits of the oil producing countries by instituting price controls, even if this was done at the expense of American economic interests. TheRationalOne 13:17, 26 March 2008 (EDT)

One point: there is a difference with something making sense and agreeing with that type of action. TheRationalOne 13:23, 26 March 2008 (EDT)

WT flying F

This article is several months old, and has had 12 edits. So far, nobody's bothered to mention a certain part of the Nixon era: WATERGATE, anyone? ^{— Unsigned, by: Totnesmartin / talk / contribs}

Sure it's in there - "resigning for breakin' laws". Anyway, I see it got linked up now. ħuman 21:20, 12 September 2008 (EDT)

The Flying Fickle Finger of Fate (oh, wait...it's my cursor) didn't have anything to click! --Kels 21:23, 12 September 2008 (EDT)

Perhaps when I wrote some of an earlier draft of this I was being too subtle, in only mentioning watergate twice, but not by name? ħuman 21:48, 12 September 2008 (EDT)

Category

Perhaps we could discuss the appropriate categories for this article?--Bob^{bing up} 03:00, 6 October 2008 (EDT)

Oh, let them have their battle. They'll only tire themselves out. Pink_(Hopefully) 03:01, 6 October 2008 (EDT)

You'd never expect RA to actually discuss in a clear location his ideas of how he thinks his site should be arranged, do you? Or, even less, respect the opinions of others (since they are just "the mob", the "nitpickers" who turn up when a question is asked...)? ħuman 03:03, 6 October 2008 (EDT)

I see you as equally complicit in the current "not discussing anything" state, actually. What's the problem with this "people" category? Pink_{(Talc page)} 03:05, 6 October 2008 (EDT)

It's just that recent changes is filling up. I know that doing it this way helps RA's edit count and all, but some sort of debate might be a nice idea.--Bob^{bing up} 03:07, 6 October 2008 (EDT)

It was being discussed ages ago, RA just thinks it doesn't matter what other people think. Here's the deal - there are dozens, scores, of categories that are "people" - and they are all in the people cat. No need to directly cat all "people" as "people". RA thinks otherwise. I disagree, apparently so does GK. Bob would apparently like to see it discussed rather than edit-warred. Do you have a pink opinion? ħuman 03:09, 6 October 2008 (EDT)

I'd like to hear RA's justification for the cat change, really. Presently, I would lean towards your version of the "cat tree". However, reverting dozens of edits without giving any hint of an explanation is extravagantly counterproductive. Pink_{(Pink link)} 03:15, 6 October 2008 (EDT)

Actually, I think it was only four edits. OK, four edits, three times = twelve, that's a dozen. I would like to hear RA's opinion, and I'd like to hear the mob's perspective on the issue, because that matters more than his or my individual opinions. ħuman 03:19, 6 October 2008 (EDT)

Alright, not dozens. I just assumed you were reverting all of the additions of the people cat that RA made earlier, which did (unless my memory has fallen apart completely) number in the dozens. And yes, let's get the mob in. Intercom? New thread on talk:Main? Or should we wait until RA wakes up? Pink_{(I'd wait, really)} 03:23, 6 October 2008 (EDT)

break 1

This has nothing to do with raising my edit count, Bob. This is part of a sincere and long-running effort at improving the categorization of our articles. Radioactive afikomen ^{Please ignore all my awful pre-2014 comments.} 03:35, 6 October 2008 (EDT)

I believe that one should be able to click on at the bottom of an article and see exactly how many articles on "people" we have. We need some way of keeping track of and coordinating all of them, and shunting each article into several disparate categories (with no category in common) makes it rather difficult. Think of it as an endeavor comparable to Wikipedia's Category:Living people. Radioactive afikomen ^{Please ignore all my awful pre-2014 comments.} 03:35, 6 October 2008 (EDT)

It's time I stated my feelings on a certain subject: the Mob is not God. They are not a higher power, an Arbitrator of All That Is Right and Proper. They are not our Arbitration Committee, our Special Discussion Group, or our Student Panel. So why do you defer to it as if it was? Radioactive afikomen ^{Please ignore all my awful pre-2014 comments.} 03:35, 6 October 2008 (EDT)

I certainly agree that the link to category:People should appear at the bottom of the page, but is there a way of doing that without having to add the cat manually to every page in question? Pink_{(You're awake. Why are you awake?)} 03:40, 6 October 2008 (EDT)

Nope. There's no bot that can be made to differentiate between articles about people and articles about everything else. I would be more than willing to split the job with other people. Say, one or two of us assigned to each alpha range in Special:Allpages. Radioactive afikomen ^{Please ignore all my awful pre-2014 comments.} 03:44, 6 October 2008 (EDT)

No, I mean it should appear when the subcat "people" is implied by a higher cat, like "politicians". Pink_{(Sponge cake)} 03:48, 6 October 2008 (EDT)

You got your subcats and higher cats switched, methinks, but I think there is a way to do that; I'm not sure. Radioactive afikomen ^{Please ignore all my awful pre-2014 comments.} 03:51, 6 October 2008 (EDT)

I think that's the right way round, as far as I can see. We concentrate on the "smaller" ones, like Politicians/Greengrocers/Socks of TK, and the subcat People gets added to all of them, which is much more efficient, right? Isn't that how Wikipedia does most things? Pink_{(Pink link)} 03:56, 6 October 2008 (EDT)

I disagree with lumping everything in one big category. That's the way of CP madness. People is a top level category and should only be used when someone cannot be assigned to a sub-category (which is pretty unlikely). So someone like Al Gore could go into Politicians, Authors and Filmstars but he doesn't need to explicitly be put into People as the first three are all sub-cats of it. Proper use of categories is important to site organisation. On CP they had the homeskollars compiling tables such as "Medieval History Terms - A" when adding a category would sort them alphabetically anyway, a complete waste of effort. Генгис^{Gum disease} 04:57, 6 October 2008 (EDT)

"It's time I stated my feelings on a certain subject: the Mob is not God" Well, RA, you need to understand how this site works. You may think that you are god, or that anyone who edits enough is, but this is a genuine "mobocracy", and the mob needs to be asked their opinion on site-wide issues such as this. You may disagree - but you are wrong, in this case. Sorry. ħuman 03:57, 6 October 2008 (EDT)

Human is correct on this. Point one of our RationalWiki:Community Standards says so.--Bob^{bing up} 04:08, 6 October 2008 (EDT)

Bob, might I ask when exactly the policy of being a "mobocracy" was founded? Pink_{(I am quite serious)} 04:12, 6 October 2008 (EDT)

Approx. May 20, 2007. When the "rules" were changed to "guidelines". Please see the history of the site. ħuman 04:16, 6 October 2008 (EDT)

Gimme a proper link, would you? I can't just delve into the past and dredge up stuff like that.

Besides, I've never seen a reason given for that policy on RW. Not in any timeline article. Since you two were actually there, could you outline it? Pink_(Thinklink) 04:20, 6 October 2008 (EDT)

If the Mob is our "government", why do you try to involve it in every goddamned conflict? "Is there an editing conflict? Put it before the Mob! That'll *magically* resolve any problems. Why should two editors ever be left to resolve things between themselves?" Radioactive afikomen ^{Please ignore all my awful pre-2014 comments.} 04:27, 6 October 2008 (EDT)

We need some sort of standard determining what does and does not require the input from the mob. But we don't; your first reaction to any editing conflict is "Put it before the mob!" Does it ever occur to you that dragging a bunch bystanders into someone else's fights can create resentment, and exacerbate the conflict? Radioactive afikomen ^{Please ignore all my awful pre-2014 comments.} 04:32, 6 October 2008 (EDT)

break 2

I have never thought of myself as the Lord of the Site, Human. And I might add that you are, by sheer weight of edits, about eight times as bad as I am. Radioactive afikomen ^{Please ignore all my awful pre-2014 comments.} 04:23, 6 October 2008 (EDT)

You probably don't realize it, but most of your objections come off as someone who has dominated the site for so long that they consider themselves the "norm" and thus automatically exempt from the "first propose on the talk page" rule. The current status quo for articles is largely a product of you own hands, and you assume that makes it right. Which is, I think what Pink meant above when she called you equally complicit in things. Radioactive afikomen ^{Please ignore all my awful pre-2014 comments.} 04:23, 6 October 2008 (EDT)

I guess you ignored all the times when I deferred to other editors, like on the "References and notes" versus "Footnotes" thing, for a recent example. Dumbass. ħuman 04:27, 6 October 2008 (EDT)

The "footnotes" thing was my idea, and it was a change from the status quo which was set by (guess who!) you, and you objected to my change. Putting something up to the mob only counts when you seek to change things from the way they are, not defend the status quo. Radioactive afikomen ^{Please ignore all my awful pre-2014 comments.} 04:40, 6 October 2008 (EDT)

It's hard, since some of it happened in the transition from RW1 to RW2. But this: [1] makes it pretty clear, don't you think? Also, to quote the current version of CS, "1. This is a mobocracy". Could it be any clearer? ħuman 04:25, 6 October 2008 (EDT)

I'm not querying the fact that we currently use that system, I'm just gearing up to saying it's a stupid way of running things. It's inadequate; it gives those in authority no idea of their duties or limitations, and it breeds squabbles when the ideas of how people expect things to work somehow conflict with each other. Pink_{(Future schismatic)} 04:31, 6 October 2008 (EDT)

Radioactive afikomen, is Pinkie your Sockie? Proxima Centauri 04:33, 6 October 2008 (EDT)

No. We have completely different IPs, for Christ's sake, and different styles of talking (something I could never learn to fake). Radioactive afikomen ^{Please ignore all my awful pre-2014 comments.} 04:36, 6 October 2008 (EDT)

Without a formal system behind it, a mob is just a mob. It can only ever be a product of the problem, not the solution. Radioactive afikomen ^{Please ignore all my awful pre-2014 comments.} 04:32, 6 October 2008 (EDT)

Listen to you people moan. It brings feces to my eyes and tears to my anus. Ace McWicked^{The Liquid Room} 04:37, 6 October 2008 (EDT)

Turdblossom
This is one of many discussions that has descended into petty snipping and trolling idiocy on RationalWiki.
Here are the others, in case you are curious, bored, or enjoy pain:
- Community Standards/Revamp, January 2009 -- Community Standards/Revamp draft -- Requests for comment/HeartOfGold -- Community Standards/disruption -- HeartOfGold Sysop vote -- Site politics -- User:Copyvio's campaign to stop copyvio -- Serious Business -- Epic debate -- Cat fight -- Constitutional Convention, April 2008 -- Barroom brawls -- Voting Procedure -- Inactivity -- Property rights in WIGOs -- Nuclear Option -- Privacy clusterfuck -- The Rationalwiki Reform Society -- Community Standards/TK -- Drama dump -- The case of MarcusCicero -- Voting standards -- User rights and moderation revisited -- Make TK a sysop? -- Analysis of the relative income streams of the National Football League and international rugby union -- The mobocracy -- Statement candidacy for the RationalWiki Foundation Board of Trustees -- Is RationalWiki under the control of Feminist activists? -- Chicken coop/Archive37 -- Chicken coop -

So, hypothetically speaking, if this is a mobocracy, what is to stop a given user (say, me) to develop a dozen different user accounts to act as my own little mob? I guess I could rule this wiki in about three months. --AKjeldsen^{Cum dissensie} 04:53, 6 October 2008 (EDT)

Nothing. With enough socks (or even meatpuppets), one could swing site politics in whatever direction they wanted. Radioactive afikomen ^{Please ignore all my awful pre-2014 comments.} 04:55, 6 October 2008 (EDT)

(EC) I knew it was bad when I saw the evil laughter. ^_^

But anyway, you haven't counted on our official, 100% accurate sockspotter spotting your socks! Pink_{(I know you are Kira, but how to prove it?)} 04:57, 6 October 2008 (EDT)