StarDestroyer.Net BBS

The few of you who I've communicated with via PM will already know about this. I'm making this thread so everyone else can see and mock the kind of idiocy that is going on right now. For months, there have been a pair of idiots (MikeWazowski and TheRealFennShysa) holding the Wiki article entitled "Star Wars canon" in a stranglehold of idiocy:

+http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Wars_canon

Back in the summer, a link to Darkstar's site was included in the "External Links" section at the bottom of the article. Most of the article was decently-written and included the standard "EU is canon" quotes, but I found it unacceptable that Scooter's brain-damaged propaganda would be listed as a source.

I fought to have it removed, citing the numerous clear statements from LFL employees that the EU is canon. Only the above-mentioned retards had no interest in logically debating this. Instead, they're Rules and Golden Mean whores, who promote a twisted perversion of "neutrality" that is all too common at Wikipedia. Instead of treating this as a matter of fact (determined exactly by what LFL decides to be its own company's fucking policy), these idiots treat the dispute as a matter of personal opinion. You see, it doesn't matter if George Lucas, Leland Chee, Steve Sansweet, and any number of insiders have been quoted supporting the canonicity of the EU. Different people (and by this they're really talking about the small minority of pathetic Trektard fanboys who stupidly and/or arrogantly dispute what LFL tells them) have their opinions on SW canon, and I just have to accept and respect that.

Using Wikipedia's own guidelines stating that External Links have to be factually correct, I challenged them to provide evidence supporting Scooter's claims. Not surprisingly, they were completely evasive, refusing to provide evidence because they supposedly already had, and I was just ignoring it. They continued with this even after I wrote up a summary of all the posts one of them had made (complete with specific dates) showing that he had done no such thing. The way these guys have acted is downright embarrassing. They have carried on with this behavior for months now, and the discussion page is ridiculously repetitive because of that (read it at the risk of losing brain cells).

Along with their WoI/evasions, these two idiots are in love with the ad hominem, and appeals to some retarded, supposed rules and customs at Wikipedia. You see, they're "experienced editors" who have spent a lot of time making edits to a bunch of other articles completely irrelevant to the debate. Most of my edits at Wikipedia have been on this one article, so I'm a n00b who focuses on only one issue, because I might have an axe to grind against poor ol' Scooter. As someone with few edits, I should work with the "community" rather than against it, and respect the "consensus" arrived at by experienced editors like them. While some other people have made a few posts on both sides of the debate, the last few months have basically been just me vs. the two of them. I didn't know two guys qualified as a "community" or "consensus."

I pointed out that although I had made relatively few edits at the main Wikipedia, I had made numerous edits on a wide variety of subjects at SW Wiki (Wookieepedia) under the same name. I've repeated this several times to them, and they KNOW this. But as recently as today, TheRealFennShysa brought up the lack of diversity in my edits. Because you know, SW Wiki is a completely different thing than regular Wiki. Even when the article in question is about SW.

In addition to this "experienced editor" bullshit, they try to shift the focus of the discussion from the facts and evidence, to how rude I am. Many times, they've tossed one of Wiki's pre-made warnings and ban threats at me, hoping to intimidate me into backing off.

Finally, after much bullshitting, they finally gave up on trying to defend the link's factual accuracy, and allowed the link to be removed. But, as is typical for losers across Wikipedia, they quickly added a "Controversy" section. In this section, they put BACK the link to Darkstar's site, and said that there were both people for and against the EU's inclusion in canon, with both sides claiming to be right. To cap it all off, they took a part of Steve Sansweet's "foggy windows" quote (the line where he quotes Obi-Wan about different POVs), and put it in that controversy section to make it look like Sansweet was saying that canon policy was open for interpretation. What Sansweet was actually referring to was the different artistic interpretations or practical changes that had to be made when translating SW to different mediums (such as game mechanics or the way a certain artist draws things), but these guys are taking it completely out of context. Completely dishonest bullshit.

TheRealFennShysa is a 39-year-old fanboy who's part of the staff at TFN (something he told me himself, it wasn't like I searched the internet for info about him). While his being part of the staff isn't surprising (TFN tends to attract idiots, as you're all aware of), I'm surprised that he supports the movie purists. It would be amusing, though pathetic, if McEwok were to hear about this and get involved, pitting his Wall of Ignorance against TheRealFennShysa's. This guy is a middle-aged man almost two fucking decades older than me, but my little sister can argue a point more effectively than he has.

As a side-rant, Wikipedia is absolutely pathetic. Since these guys are such sticklers for the "rules," I've been searching for a Wikipedia rule requiring evidence and reasoning to support any claims you post. Nothing so far. It's disgraceful that a purported "encyclopedia" has an environment where evasive, dishonest shitheads like these guys can thrive virtually unchecked, while I can be "warned" if I call them on their dishonesty without being meek and polite about it. Today, I posted in the Community Portal asking for information about evidence requirements at Wiki. I got this response:

Howdy. I followed from the argument/note at Wikipedia talk:Community Portal. I don't have any comments on the issue itself, I just wanted to quickly point out that ALL-CAPS and bold text are considered shouting within online forums (never a good idea, as shouting indicates that one has lost their calm). If I might, I recommend that instead you use italic type to emphasize your keywords. Thanks

Just for the record, I had a grand total of three words typed in caps. This guy seemed nice enough, and he didn't get involved in the debate and say something stupid. But JESUS CHRIST is this a pussy-ass site.

For the past few months, I haven't bothered posting about this idiocy in a thread here at SD.net, figuring that these guys were such basic, low-level morons that it wouldn't interest anybody else. I also took a break from posting at Wiki or SW Wiki for the last month and a half because of real-life obligations, as well as to cut down from the stress (it's amazing how much better your day is when you can spend a couple hours relaxing or playing a computer game instead of dealing with these retards). But recently, when I had nothing better to do, I decided to lurk at another cesspool, GameFaqs, for the first time in a few months. If you're a masochist and enjoy pulling out your own hair, you might want to read the current Borg vs. Empire thread at GameFaqs's Star Trek board. I wouldn't reccommend wasting your time with the debate though.

SD.net was mentioned there but immediately dismissed as "biased" by Trektards who didn't even bother explaining how it was wrong. But the very same Wikipedia article I've been talking about was quoted and accepted as a source. The blithering retards there came to the conclusion that the EU wasn't canon because of it. Not that this was even related to the whole mess I'm talking about, they were typical reading-challenged Trektards who took the first line of Sansweet's quote about the movies being the only absolute canon, completely ignoring the parts where he said all the books were windows into the real SW universe and had nuggets of truth in them (they were such retards that they couldn't even come to the wrong conclusion in the "right way"). But getting back on topic, this shows the undeserved importance of Wikipedia. If you're a stupid teenager (or even a pathetic 39-year-old fanwhore), Wikipedia IS a valid source, and a good place to get information. This sad fact, along with the current existence of threads about other Trektard debates here in this forum, was what finally convinced me to post about this here.

Sorry if this is long, or in the wrong forum (move to Pure SW, or the HOS if that's where rants about these utter dumbasses belong). But if you have a Wiki account, please joint in and help on this article by making regular edits. With the "3 revert rule," I can only make so many changes per day. Since it's 2 against 1, and the current version is their's, these idiots always get the last word. It's not even just about the article itself, these dishonest assholes need to be called on their behavior.

And people wonder why I automatically dismiss anything I hear that's based on Wikipedia. Hell, even Stephen Colbert made a point of lampooning the credibility of Wikipedia on air. It's a joke, and their brain-damaged policies only confirm that. They have no interest in normal academic methods of arriving at the most likely or accurate conclusion about a subject of discussion; they want only what is "neutral".

Just putting into PSW since it's more relation there, and has tangential to SW vs ST(mostly Scooty), but then again this is Wiki. I understand what you want to do, but there are times that PA comic struck far too close to the truth with me, especially fictional universes.

Heh... you want to see some bold faced lies based on nothing, look for Gundam in wikipedia, worse than anything I've seen on Wookiepedia.

Has anyone tried to start an article on wikipedia itself? That would be hilarious, pointing out how factually incorrect it is...inside wikipedia!

I just can't get into many Wikipedia debates. It's very tedious. But really, that article isn't that bad. The "Controversy" section is annoying, yes, but the actual factual policy is clearly laid out in the article. I don't see the point in getting into a revert war over such a trivial paragraph. Let them have the "controversy", IMO.

The part I don't like is the linking to scooters website, I've heard too many times on this board of people who say that had they gone to his website first (Instead of SDN), they'd probably be one of his ignorant toadies.

Thanas wrote:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia

I think the most interesting item in that article is Britannica's rebuttal to the "Nature" article allege simlair levels of inaccuracy between the two resources. Without having the Nature article present obviously one only gets the rebuttal but simply the point that the standard used for "similair levels of inaccuracy" was for Wiki to be 33% more innacurate than Britannica is telling enough.

Vympel wrote:I just can't get into many Wikipedia debates. It's very tedious. But really, that article isn't that bad. The "Controversy" section is annoying, yes, but the actual factual policy is clearly laid out in the article. I don't see the point in getting into a revert war over such a trivial paragraph. Let them have the "controversy", IMO.

I'll jump on this bandwagon. You can't win 'em all, so why bother fighting one that is clearly doomed to fail? Let them have the controversy and the audience can decide. If they've got two brain cells to rub together they'll come to the right conclusion.

You guys are right. It's a complete fucking waste of time dealing with these idiots. I really do have better things to do in real life, and it would be smart to just let these middle-aged babies have their little controversy section. If anybody else wants to take up this messy fight, go ahead. I think a better use of your time would be to just warn people against using Wikipedia for anything, in general.

Been there, done that, on both the "Zilla" and "Heavy Metal" pages. There's no use. That Jimbo Wales has the gall to couch his anti-intellectualism in the term "anti-credentialism" just goes to show what kind of a site Wikipopulism is.

Really, the controversy over Star Wars canon is like the controversy over evolution. It is sustained only by idiots, and among people who actually know what's going on there is no controversy at all, but good luck trying to get people to not call it a controversy.

Get enough of those people together, however, and they can cause a lot of damage when Wikipedia puts a sufficiently polemic topic up for a fucking vote. I guess they haven't yet implemented the WikiIChing to take care of unsightly discussion pages just yet.

See, this is why I don't contribute to too much there. I was all about it for a while maybe two, three years ago, but then it got too tedious.

I'm not taking either side here, which Raynor seems to continually misunderstand, along with his continual misunderstanding about how "factually inaccurate" applies to one of the links in question - the difference being that that link's conclusions *might* be in error, but that is a matter of "opinion", not fact.

Comedy gold. If the link's conclusions are in error, then they are factually inaccurate, regardless of opinion. Wazowski's a fucking retard (yes, I'm talking about you, moron. If you don't like it, come over here and debate me, and if I'm wrong, I'll change my opinion).

This guy is a Golden Mean/neutrality/opinion whore, but I have my suspicions about his intentions. If all he wants is an unopinionated article that just mentions both sides of the debate without giving any undeserved credit to either side, then why is taking Sansweet's quote completely out of context? Real "neutral" there, right?

Like I said in my last post, I'm taking everyone's advice and not wasting my time trying to debate and change this article anymore. I might defend myself against accusations posted on the discussion pages, or go back every now and then to point something out to these guys (disrupting their blissful idiocy), but from now on I'm not going to actively revert this article anymore. It's much less stressful to just lay out his idiocy for everyone to mock. If you find any more hilarious quotes from this guy, post them so we can all have a laugh.

This blows. I try to come in and support you but they immediately block me for "sockpuppetry to get around 3RR". You know a place is filled with idiots when they can't even tell who's who, even with their IP address. You guys are right. Their pages are filled with lies and their rules are filled with hypocrisy and double-standards. Shows you not to get all your info from one place.

ansen2 wrote:This blows. I try to come in and support you but they immediately block me for "sockpuppetry to get around 3RR". You know a place is filled with idiots when they can't even tell who's who, even with their IP address. You guys are right. Their pages are filled with lies and their rules are filled with hypocrisy and double-standards. Shows you not to get all your info from one place.

You can tell someone's a complete asshole when he assumes that if A agrees with B, then A must be B's sock puppet with no other supporting evidence. And then proceeds to mete out punishment on the basis of that assumption.

Darth Wong wrote:

ansen2 wrote:This blows. I try to come in and support you but they immediately block me for "sockpuppetry to get around 3RR". You know a place is filled with idiots when they can't even tell who's who, even with their IP address. You guys are right. Their pages are filled with lies and their rules are filled with hypocrisy and double-standards. Shows you not to get all your info from one place.

You can tell someone's a complete asshole when he assumes that if A agrees with B, then A must be B's sock puppet with no other supporting evidence. And then proceeds to mete out punishment on the basis of that assumption.

Heh, I've been having that happen to me 4 times recently with a troll [Accused of sockpuppeting every time someone agrees with me].

I have to say, this disturbs my "Faith" in wikipedia, I've always regarded it as reliable for Fictional information (N&P is another matter), shit on this level is disturbing.

Perhaps it might be possible to find a less irritating site (That still disagrees with the official canon) and replace Darkstar's with it then start arguing? It would cut down on new trolls or delusions emanating from there temporarily until a solution can be found, or at worst it would reduce "Damages".

(Hell I found Darkstar's site first then later searched, found & read Mr.Wong's Wong's much, much later and I came out fine, but I'm hardly the average person)

Darth Wong wrote:You can tell someone's a complete asshole when he assumes that if A agrees with B, then A must be B's sock puppet with no other supporting evidence. And then proceeds to mete out punishment on the basis of that assumption.

Maybe people should just run around creating disposable accounts and agreeing with others, leading to mass bannings.

I have to say, this disturbs my "Faith" in wikipedia, I've always regarded it as reliable for Fictional information (N&P is another matter), shit on this level is disturbing.

Wikipedia is a double-edged sword when it comes to fictional trivia. On one hand, articles about fictional universes are usually handled by geeks and dedicated fans. They know a lot more about the show than most people, and the Wiki article will usually have a depth of information greater than what you would find at an official site or online episode guide. For example, I had seen the anime series Evangelion mentioned a lot on scifi forums, and heard that it was an extremely weird mindfuck with an ending that made no sense to most people. I was intrigued, and Wikipedia was an easy place to get straightforward information about the show, and what people thought about it.

On the other hand, any fan with a differing opinion or gripe about the show can post what they think. This often manifests in retarded "Controversy" sections like the one I was talking about in the OP, although you can find this in any part of an article. You should beware of any statement along the lines of "Fans believe that...", because often, these "fans" are a handful of bitchy or deluded people. There's also a lot of pure speculation that goes on. Since evaluating the truth of this information requires knowledge about the fictional universe beyond what the casual viewer has, many people will not be able to tell that it's BS.

Wikipedia likes to pretend that it's one big community, where everyone helps each other out on articles about everything. It's NOT one big community. The guy who spends all his time editing articles about politics may not give a shit about the articles on heavy metal music. In turn, the heavy metal fan might not know anything about Star Wars canon, and the SW fan probably couldn't care less about the latest gossip on Paris Hilton's social life. Even within a certain subject of interest, there's no guarantee that the current Wiki members are honest or actually know what they're talking about.

Despite this, Wikipedia discourages members from bringing new people into debates, who already have a certain point of view. I can understand that they don't want people bringing in their little brother or recruiting a legion of trolls to back themselves up in a debate. But policies like this also discourage members from bringing in knowledgable people and experts to talk about their own areas of expertise. You see, what articles really need is familiarity with Wikipedia's rules:

Wikipedia wrote:The arrival of multiple newcomers, with limited Wikipedia background and predetermined viewpoints arriving in order to present those viewpoints, rarely helps achieve neutrality and most times actively damages it, no matter what one might think. Wikipedia is not a place for mixing fact and opinion, personal advocacy, or argument from emotion. Controversial articles often need more familiarity with policy to be well edited, not less.

I love how they talk about a "background" in Wikipedia as if it's some kind of meaningful qualification. This is how Wikipedia suggests you handle disputes:

Wikipedia wrote:If you feel that a debate is ignoring your voice, then the appropriate action is not to solicit others outside Wikipedia. Instead, avoid personal attacks, seek comments and involvement from other Wikipedians, or pursue dispute resolution. These are quite well tested processes, and are designed to avoid the problem of exchanging bias in one direction for bias in another.

Their "well tested" process is basically putting out a call for current Wikipedians to give their input on the subject. Even if, as I explained above, they may not know anything about the subject.

Also, there does seem to be a basis for MikeWazowski and TheRealFennShysa's "experienced editor" bullshit:

Wikipedia wrote:It is best not to game the system, and instead respect Wikipedia's principle of consensus-building allowing the process to reflect the opinions of editors who were already actively involved in the matter at hand.

So, what have we learned from Wikipedia's policies?

1. The opinions of Joe Wikipedian, and people already involved in an article, are good.
2. Trying to infuse Wikipedia with new members who are actually knowledgable about the subject is bad.

Going along with these rules, the best you can hope for is that there's somebody who has already been registered at Wikipedia for a while (and isn't a dumbass), who shares your interest in the subject and just hasn't been made aware of your Wiki debate yet.

It's funny. Wikipedia tries to be the encyclopedia for everybody, but it has policies in place that slow down the addition of knowledge. In real life, issues are advertised to the people, and there are programs that try to reach out to people and get them to vote. But in the Wiki world, they try to limit the "votes" (input on a disputed article) to members of the "community."

Take Wikipedia with a massive pile of salt, even when reading trivial articles about fictional subjects.

The problem with Wikipedia can be described logically. It seeks to use a Darwinian model where the truth is derived through a selection process rather than a formal academic method, which is what you would find at something like Brittanica.

However, the problem is that the selection process is designed to favour consensus above all else. Therefore, the Wikipedia system is designed not to seek the truth, but to seek consensus. Its central conceit is that the truth and consensus are the same thing. They are most assuredly not, especially when the consensus occurs among people whose only qualifications are heavy participation in the consensus process itself.

Jim Raynor wrote: Going along with these rules, the best you can hope for is that there's somebody who has already been registered at Wikipedia for a while (and isn't a dumbass), who shares your interest in the subject and just hasn't been made aware of your Wiki debate yet.

I've been using Wikipedia since early '05 but you saw what happened when I tried to support you. They also implied that the people who agree with you on the talk page are your "sock puppets". There's just no way to win when you're dealing with idiots like these.

ansen2 wrote:

Jim Raynor wrote: Going along with these rules, the best you can hope for is that there's somebody who has already been registered at Wikipedia for a while (and isn't a dumbass), who shares your interest in the subject and just hasn't been made aware of your Wiki debate yet.

I've been using Wikipedia since early '05 but you saw what happened when I tried to support you. They also implied that the people who agree with you on the talk page are your "sock puppets". There's just no way to win when you're dealing with idiots like these.

Pretty much, (I was banned from a board yesterday on such baseless accusations).

Isn't it relatively easily to check whether someone is a sockpuppet/originates from the same IP via a WHOIS search? (
I know that something similiar's been used here to find returning trolls)

DEATH wrote:Isn't it relatively easily to check whether someone is a sockpuppet/originates from the same IP via a WHOIS search? (I know that something similiar's been used here to find returning trolls)

Quite, but Wikipedians and Emily-Post boards are extremely loath to engage in such forensics lest the evidence it produces contradicts their preconcieved notions!