User:Stabby the Misanthrope

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    my anti-drug

About me Talk to me Proper goddamn use of punctuation Stuff by me Handy stuff

Random things about me This user is . This user used to edit RationalWikiWiki under the name of "Hans Johnson." This user's Moral Politics results are -5.5,4.5. This user believes that Bill Clinton was the best Republican president we ever had.

Hi there! I'm a sysop and bureaucrat here—if you want to be demoted, go ahead and ask!

I'm a veteran user here; I joined in August 2007 (though my "real" contributions didn't start until mid-December of the same year). While I suppose I am one of the heavyweights in the community, I often wind up opposing much of the Old Guard and their supporters. So if you need anyone to play devil's advocate for your side, I'll be more than happy to pop in and support you!

A general warning: When I get an idea, I tend to run with it, and often callously handle other people with an interest in the outcome while doing so. That does not excuse my behaviour, but it does give you an idea of why I just ran over you. Let's just say I've left a broken but nonetheless impressive trail of miffed feelings behind me.

I am also a sourpuss.

Agenda

Handy links Math wikicode List of colors in wikicode How to change text & background color in wikicode How to fuss with text in wikicode How to force tables to display at a specific width Best. Conversation. Ever. Second-best conversation ever

Wondering what my Secret Jewish Agenda here is? Well, wonder no more.

• The Vandal Bin was created specifically to allow vandals the opportunity to redeem themselves—therefore blocking them for any length of time is in violation of that spirit. Accordingly, I will undo any block of a vandal, if necessary adding them to the vandal bin.
• Because the creation of the vandal bin renders it unnecessary, I stand opposed to the continued existence of the ability to block, ever. To compensate, I do believe the vandal usergroup should have its edit rate reduced to once per day.

This is serious business

Some people have expressed that I take this site waaaaaay to seriously.

But you know what? This site is serious business. The site owner recently asked us to pony up nine-hundred fucking dollars to pay for the server. Why? Did the tag line say, "Help us continue having fun!"? No, it said "Help send a message to the authoritarians, fundamentalists, science-haters, and general cranks that we are here to stay." Sure sounds like serious business to me.

Let me be clear: there is a time and a place for humor. That time and place is often and (almost) anywhere. But sometimes, some things are worth taking seriously. RationalWiki itself is an expression that some things—the promotion of science, the fight against fundamentalism and extremism, the debunking of certain misconceptions—are worth fighting for. And things that are worth fighting for necessitate things that are worth fighting over—such as how best to facilitate and accomplish our goals of the promotion of science, the fight against fundamentalism and extremism, etc.

Sorry, fun mavens, but there is no such thing as being "serious business-free". Even Uncyclopedia, whose explicit purpose is to have fun and be funny, takes running their own goddamned site seriously. You have to. Because there is a place nobody wants to be like, a place where no one believes in treating things as "serious business", and it's called Encyclopedia Dramatica. For those of you who are unaware, it sucks ass. It is populated by a phenomenal plethora of trolls, /b/tards, and asshats, and it is filled with irredeemably crappy articles. I suppose we could always be like them, if you want—that is, the internet's shithole.

So chill the fuck out when it comes to telling people to chill the fuck out.

But, hey, what do I know? Maybe the fun mavens are right, and this site exists purely for entertainment purposes. Maybe the site itself is a cosmic joke, to be revealed to us only after Trent gives us the finger and says "THANKS FOR THE PLANE FARE TO HAWAII YOU FUCKERS!".

Or maybe, just maybe, this site is worth taking seriously.

Accomplishments

The final results of RationalWikians' Moral Matrix results, which I introduced the site to many many moons ago. Oh, sweet nostalgia...

These are the things I have accomplished here that I am most proud of. Or at least proud enough of to ugly up my userpage by listing them.

• Every person I have ever welcomed or "demoted".
• The random-text templates.
• Introduced the Moral Matrix to RationalWiki.
• Initiating the Constitutional Convention (which failed).
• Starting the Active users project.
• The short-lived but glorious project to redirect as many pages as possible to Andrew Schafly.
• Essay:Gender and Sysops, which got the ball rolling on mass demoting people, culminating in our official policy of sysoping anyone who isn't a vandal or troll.
• Started the practice of welcoming every other IP that made even one edit, encouraging them to sign up. Though that seems to have fallen out of practice since I've left.
• Starting the fight over categories, which eventually yielded a (finally!) definite, if unofficial, policy regarding categories.
• Rewrite of Abraham Lincoln.
• Initiating the successful effort to update and revamp the community standards. Proper credit for the final version goes to Armondikov, Human, Pi, and Weaseloid, but I am immensely proud of at least getting things rolling, and of how many ideas from the original draft made it through to the final version.
• That for all the drama I've been involved in, I have never thrown a tantrum and blanked my pages, deleted a bunch of pages, and stormed off the wiki, never to return for up to a few days. I am very proud of that.

Disaccomplishments

This section is incomplete. Please add to it. (Keep it legitimate, no random whinging please.)

Remember my "broken but nonetheless impressive trail of miffed feelings"? Well, this is an (incomplete) atlas of that trail.

• Inspired by reading this essay on group dynamics on the internet, I drew up the memorably thoughtless and hurtful "List of Core Users". I think the draft version of the list is still somewhere in my userspace...
• My long, drawn out fight with Human over his misuse of power.