Wikipedia:Sandbox

CRITICISM

Nicol, Christopher, 'Anne Donovan's Buddha Da' Scotnote No 27 (Glasgow: ASLS Publications, 2010) I hate you son off a

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Answerbag is an “answer site” where people ask and answer questions. Wikipedia has what seems to be a mostly out-dated and irrelevant article on them here. Answerbag can be compared to both the Wikipedia Reference Desk and RationalWiki Saloon Bar save there are far more (informed) respondents in WP’s RD, and since December 2009, similar can likely be said of RW’s SB—more (humourous) respondents in RW’s SB.

parallels—kinda

There is an interesting parallel in reaction sites. First we have Wikipedia. Then Conservapedia is created in reaction to the supposed liberal bias of Wikipedia. Then Conservapedia inspires a reaction in the form of RationalWiki (as well as a Storehouse of Knowledge and New Conservapedia). Then we have RationalWikiWiki).

foggy mist of the past

First there was Answerbag and Yahoo Answers.

version 2.0, maybe

Yahoo Answers, likely because it’s a service of Yahoo, enjoyed more prominence than Answerbag. Also keep in mind that Google was still not as through out-doing Yahoo as they have now. YA’s rules, if they were tight to begin with, got tighter. People complained about the restrictions, and questions and answers getting reported, which essentially meant automatic removal of such Q’s and A’s. Many people got fed up with YA, and went to the smaller but cooler site: Answerbag.

AB had only a fraction of YA traffic, maybe not even a tenth; however AB made up for it in format and features. Not only did it have several things that YA lack, these things made it perhaps the best answer site.

The rules weren’t as restrictive as YA’s, or many other answer sites. Words weren’t censored and one could attempt humour. The questions were always open, unlike YA where they were open for only a week. One could comment on answers. One could embed videos. One could use html in answers. Links provided would create their own windows. One could also put a lot of stuff in one’s profile page, including html. In YA, one could only use 1000 or so characters and no HTML, save links.

Also, other AB’ers seemed a lot cooler.

It wasn’t perfect. Unlike YA, one couldn’t ad details to one’s question, and while one could answer one’s own question for such, the procedure seemed lamer; but that was about it for bad comparisons with YA (that and traffic).

While at least one notable member didn’t like “DR’s” (down rating—removing points—so that a Q or A could go into the negatives), another found it a good way to deal with bad posts without actually reporting them. Also questions had “permalinks,” where one could either link to the question, or link to the question with a particular answer (usually the link creator’s own answer) just under the question.

After December 2010

Then the changes came.

Since then, the rules are more restrictive. They are almost as bad as Yahoo’s[1][2]. The comment format worsened. It’s not just that there are no more tiny avatars before each comment, but also that the comments are hidden, and there are no more linking to other pages from them. There are fewer links that create their own windows. The avatars are smaller. The spaces in members’ profile pages are smaller. Before the changes, the history of questions asked, and answers and comments given, were nice and neat: now the latter don’t seem to exist and the former two are stacked haphazardly.

Then there are the glitches. They existed before the changes, but they’ve gotten worse, and most likely remain bad to this day.

In the old days, you’d answer a question, and it’d show up seconds on the main page. After the changed, it would be days before it showed up in the sub-categories. You also have to be careful about how you answer a question, or it will show that you posted on a question twice.

Even the new logo is worse. It looks a bit like a coat-hanger. The colours suggest that it’s trying to look a bit like Facebook.

People complained to the staff, but they got the run around.

One user, here’s her inactive profile (she had a name other than “anonymous” and a pic for an avatar), sent a strongly worded email to the AB staff, and copies to many others. AB didn’t seem to respond, save to remove her forum post or thread. She got a lot of others to join another site called “Fluther.” Indeed, many people there—“flutherites” as they call themselves felt swamped by all the AB defectors as evident in questions such as this, this, and this. Indeed, one of the flutherites joined AB to give her(/his?) views on the site. Unfortunately, the lady who started the defection to Fluther eventually left that site too, as is evident here (try clicking to her profile page).

Almost a year later, it doesn’t seem that AB is going to change. There was a fair degree of testiness among users in Dec ’09 and Feb-Mar ’10—it may still be going on. Some hated AB, others considered the detractors to be a bunch of whiners, with lots of “the-past-is-the-past-get-use-to-it,” “they-can-do-what-they-want-they’re-a-business,” “why-are-you-complaining-most-people-here-like-the-changes,” and “cut-us-some-slack-we’re-still-improving,” The activity in the site might have been a bit higher just after the changes, but now the number of (active) AB members seem to be a fraction of what it was this time last year (Oct ’10 vis-à-vis Oct ’09). Consider the AB forums for example. Before, people would post on threads at least on an hourly basis. Now it seems days would pass between posts.

Again, even with it’s faults, there is still of a lot of good left in AB, format-wise; but the ill-will, rancor, and sullenness have likely greatly diminished the site; and more than hurts whatever edge it still has on YA or Fluther , is more than hurt whatever edge that good is left. In YA, one had many allies. On AB, one often has few. Connections to Facebook and Twitter doesn’t seem to be helping AB much either.

RatonalWiki might have the Vandal bin. AB had, and still has the Penalty Box, where people can be “PB’ed” for abusing the site.

Some notable “good guys” still on the site are “BigDaddyBS,” a bit of an apologist for the site. There is also “Aristid COAT of Romani Awareness,” “COAT” being a title on AB-of-sorts, sort of like “sysop” is for here and a few other wikis. Also there is “—” who has a way cool avatar (is it a reclining lady? Is it a cat? Is it a few cacti?).

See Also

Yahoo Answers.

with unusual instruments for genre

with accordian with animal sounds with autohard with banjo or corel with bottles tapping with car crashes with car horn with cassette tape intro with chainsaws with clapping with clocks with comb and paper with duck whistle with foot or boot stomping with gunshots with harmonicas with humming with jaws harp with jingle bells with kalimba with motorcycle with piano plucking with river sounds with screams with sea sounds with smashing glass with sound of needle scratching record with sounds of crowd or audience with sounds of ice cubes in tumbler with sounds of sex with sounds of street with sounds of tap water dripping or flowing with sounds of toilet with sounds of vinyl snap, crackle, pop, hiss, wow, flutter, and warp with spoons with straw or feather with stuttering with timpani with triangle with tubular bells with typewriter with whistling with xylephone with yelling with yodelling

with amphibians with invertibrates with whale soungs with aquarium sound

with harp with tin flutes with rcorders with tubas with cowbel with blocks

Rock songs that make use of accordions, bagpipes, banjos, kazoos, Rock songs that make use of other unusual songs Non electric

songs with accoustic guitars and synthesizers

category:list of grunge, heavy metal, hip hop, industrial, punk, or similar genre songs featuring unusual instruments category:list of jazz songs featuring unusual instruments

bagpipes cellos glockenspeil harpsichords

Country songs with synthesizers Country songs in songs other than English American Country songs in songs other than English

Chinese blues songs Irish Heavy Maetal songs

Country and Regea mixes Blues and Indian mixes Native American chants in English

EOS New Conservative Monarchist

New Conservative is a newly created wiki that’s a parody of Conservapedia. (It’s probably something a number of RW’ians have thought up, but have yet to put up the effort and time.) For more information, here’s some chat in the RW Saloon Bar.

Canadian Monarchist is a possible Canadian, and maybe Commonwealth, version of Conservapedia. It’s bilingual and articles seem to be on how well the subjects of such articles serve Her Majesty. The rabble that the Yanks refer to as “American English,” is likely as well tolerated as Andrew Schlaffly has for ---

Encyclopedia of Stupid, is another wiki parody, possibly closest to Encyclopedia Dramatica, though with more liberal copyrights and far more sarcasm. They have an article on Conservapedia and RationalWiki, but not Phyliss Schlaffly, Andrew Schlaffly, et al.

Smert could also mean a playful compliment to an intelligent person by one pretending to be dumb (and thus make the subject look even more intelligent).

Smert, pronounced more like “Smeart” or “Smirt” (imagine some one in the Maritimes saying “smart farm”), could also mean a playful compliment to an intelligent person by one playfully pretending to be dumb (and thus make the subject look even more intelligent).

“Trent, you’re smeeeert. You’ve been edumacated.”

One comedian might have joked that he thought that it meant “lots of love” and used it after sending condolences in an email to a bereaved person. LOL

Lol is also being increasingly used, likely by appeasers, to end all posts, even paragraphs. LOL

God Bless You 1. Expression used by theists to people they like, love, or feel they have been commanded to love. 2. Expression by highly ideological, often conservative, theists as a substitute for “Go fuck yourself.” eg. Yahoo! Answers member <mopar mike’s question could be. “Why do liberal atheists enjoy murdering babies?” “Liberals enjoy promoting abortion. Abortion is murder. So why do liberals enjoy it. God bless you.” 9/13/2010 4:22:11 PM 3. Expression used by atheists as: (a) as a reflex from their earlier years as theists (perhaps if Christopher Hitchins got really drunk, he might say it); (b) a response to the statement said to them and they don’t want to appear too shrill; (c) friendly sarcasm to fellow atheists or liberal theists; (b) sarcasm to unfriendly theists, perhaps followed by another word, such as “and God Bless You too, asshole!!”

Oh Vienna. Song Midge Ur inadvertently sung at a Live Aid concert in 1985.

RationalWiki

Fluther go to Answerbag go to

Answerbag and RationalWiki

Yahoo! Answers Yahoo Answers

“Why do liberals enjoy killing babies?”

“Why does Obama hate America?”

“Am I pretty?”

“After God created the world, did he crack a cold one?”

Yahoo! Answers is an “answer site” where people ask and answer questions. Wikipedia has a pretty good article on them here.

You start with 100 points. Asking a question cost you 5 points. Answering a question gives you 2. If the asker designates your answer to be the best, you get at least 10 more points. Questions are open for only a week. If your question is reported by some other anonymous member, it’s likely removed and you lose 20 points. Enough removals or lose all your points, and your account is suspended. According to CG (Community Guidelines) and TOS (Terms of Service), you are barred from creating new accounts, but many still do.

While there are a lot of trolls and right-wing-teabagging hacks there, there are also some good folk there. Among them are “justgoodfolk,” who proves that one can be a rule-abiding Trotskeyite and still flourish there; “Blessed cleesemaker (cancelled),” a former evangelical Christian who asks lots of loaded questions based on lesser known Biblical passages; and “Morteza,” a cool Iranian (ex-pat?) who has his own forum that includes a section for YA. Even Barack Obama had an account in YA; and it looks like there’s an account called “TK”. Whether it’s really him or not would require lots of stalking investigating. Wikinfo’s Fred Balder also has a YA account and often answers questions in the Wikipedia category.

Perhaps Rational Wikians might want to join YA to raid the site for members help out YA question posters while citing their membership to RW, or plaster questions with links to RA articles give answers with occasional links to fine sources. Indeed, links to Conservapedia articles might be used to encourage YA neo-con freaks and oddballs to flood the site making it even more a laughing stock present articles with a POV somewhat different from Wikipedia’s.

RationalWikians might even designate a page here to plot and co-ordinate raids chat a little about their experiences on Yahoo Answers.

other external links

Yahoo Answers commercial on Youtube

See also Answerbag and Fluther.

Fluther

Fluther is an “answer site” where people ask and answer questions. A Wikipedian has a pretty good draft article on the site here. Fluther can be compared to the Wikipedia Reference Desk. Like WP’s RD they have to be serious questions: unlike Answerbag officially and Yahoo Answers in large part. WP’s RD gets far more (informed) respondents and you can ask as many questions as you want; but the questions are open for only a week. In Fluther, one can give chatty answers as well as serious ones, and the questions are open indefinitely; but the respondents are generally less productive (such as here).

Links to sites like Wikipedia seemed to be hampered by the “Textile” script. For example here, one can refer to Piper at the Gates of Dawn, or the Pink Floyd album of the same name—Piper at the Dates of Dawn (album). In Fluther, if the link’s URL has parenthesis, as the one to the Wikipedia article on the Pink Floyd album does, the link will lead not to the article, but the to the DAB page.

Unlike Answerbag and Yahoo! Answers, the moderators tend to be helpful. If a question is removed, they tell you why and give you a chance to re-submit. The moderators seem cooler than the other sites.

RW has “lutz,” Fluther has “lurve” as in “lurve points.”

Members of Fluther call themselves “flutherites.” While one can generally use any avatar, many prefer to use jellyfish, which leads to members to also sometimes calling themselves “jellies.”

See also Answerbag and Yahoo Answers.

Answerbag

Answerbag is an “answer site” where people ask and answer questions. Wikipedia has what seems to be a mostly out-dated and irrelevant article on them here. Answerbag can be compared to both the Wikipedia Reference Desk and RationalWiki Saloon Bar save there are far more (informed) respondents in WP’s RD, and since December 2009, similar can likely be said of RW’s SB—more (humourous) respondents in RW’s SB.

parallels—kinda

There is an interesting parallel in reaction sites. First we have Wikipedia. Then Conservapedia is created in reaction to the supposed liberal bias of Wikipedia. Then Conservapedia inspires a reaction in the form of RationalWiki (as well as a Storehouse of Knowledge and New Conservapedia). Then we have RationalWikiWiki).

foggy mist of the past

First there was Answerbag and Yahoo Answers.

version 2.0, maybe

Yahoo Answers, likely because it’s a service of Yahoo, enjoyed more prominence than Answerbag. Also keep in mind that Google was still not as through out-doing Yahoo as they have now. YA’s rules, if they were tight to begin with, got tighter. People complained about the restrictions, and questions and answers getting reported, which essentially meant automatic removal of such Q’s and A’s. Many people got fed up with YA, and went to the smaller but cooler site: Answerbag.

AB had only a fraction of YA traffic, maybe not even a tenth; however AB made up for it in format and features. Not only did it have several things that YA lack, these things made it perhaps the best answer site.

The rules weren’t as restrictive as YA’s, or many other answer sites. Words weren’t censored and one could attempt humour. The questions were always open, unlike YA where they were open for only a week. One could comment on answers. One could embed videos. One could use html in answers. Links provided would create their own windows. One could also put a lot of stuff in one’s profile page, including html. In YA, one could only use 1000 or so characters and no HTML, save links.

Also, other AB’ers seemed a lot cooler.

It wasn’t perfect. Unlike YA, one couldn’t ad details to one’s question, and while one could answer one’s own question for such, the procedure seemed lamer; but that was about it for bad comparisons with YA (that and traffic).

While at least one notable member didn’t like “DR’s” (down rating—removing points—so that a Q or A could go into the negatives), another found it a good way to deal with bad posts without actually reporting them. Also questions had “permalinks,” where one could either link to the question, or link to the question with a particular answer (usually the link creator’s own answer) just under the question.

After December 2010

Then the changes came.

Since then, the rules are more restrictive. They are almost as bad as Yahoo’s[1][2]. The comment format worsened. It’s not just that there are no more tiny avatars before each comment, but also that the comments are hidden, and there are no more linking to other pages from them. There are fewer links that create their own windows. The avatars are smaller. The spaces in members’ profile pages are smaller. Before the changes, the history of questions asked, and answers and comments given, were nice and neat: now the latter don’t seem to exist and the former two are stacked haphazardly.

Then there are the glitches. They existed before the changes, but they’ve gotten worse, and most likely remain bad to this day.

In the old days, you’d answer a question, and it’d show up seconds on the main page. After the changed, it would be days before it showed up in the sub-categories. You also have to be careful about how you answer a question, or it will show that you posted on a question twice.

Even the new logo is worse. It looks a bit like a coat-hanger. The colours suggest that it’s trying to look a bit like Facebook.

People complained to the staff, but they got the run around.

One user, here’s her inactive profile (she had a name other than “anonymous” and a pic for an avatar), sent a strongly worded email to the AB staff, and copies to many others. AB didn’t seem to respond, save to remove her forum post or thread. She got a lot of others to join another site called “Fluther.” Indeed, many people there—“flutherites” as they call themselves felt swamped by all the AB defectors as evident in questions such as this, this, and this. Indeed, one of the flutherites joined AB to give her(/his?) views on the site. Unfortunately, the lady who started the defection to Fluther eventually left that site too, as is evident here (try clicking to her profile page).

Almost a year later, it doesn’t seem that AB is going to change. There was a fair degree of testiness among users in Dec ’09 and Feb-Mar ’10—it may still be going on. Some hated AB, others considered the detractors to be a bunch of whiners, with lots of “the-past-is-the-past-get-use-to-it,” “they-can-do-what-they-want-they’re-a-business,” “why-are-you-complaining-most-people-here-like-the-changes,” and “cut-us-some-slack-we’re-still-improving,” The activity in the site might have been a bit higher just after the changes, but now the number of (active) AB members seem to be a fraction of what it was this time last year (Oct ’10 vis-à-vis Oct ’09). Consider the AB forums for example. Before, people would post on threads at least on an hourly basis. Now it seems days would pass between posts.

Again, even with it’s faults, there is still of a lot of good left in AB, format-wise; but the ill-will, rancor, and sullenness have likely greatly diminished the site; and more than hurts whatever edge it still has on YA or Fluther , is more than hurt whatever edge that good is left. In YA, one had many allies. On AB, one often has few. Connections to Facebook and Twitter doesn’t seem to be helping AB much either.

RatonalWiki might have the Vandal bin. AB had, and still has the Penalty Box, where people can be “PB’ed” for abusing the site.

Some notable “good guys” still on the site are “BigDaddyBS,” a bit of an apologist for the site. There is also “Aristid COAT of Romani Awareness,” “COAT” being a title on AB-of-sorts, sort of like “sysop” is for here and a few other wikis. Also there is “—” who has a way cool avatar (is it a reclining lady? Is it a cat? Is it a few cacti?).

See also Fluther and Yahoo Answers.

Dizzay Dizzay is an “answer site”—kinda—where people ask and answer questions. Unlike Answerbag, Fluther, and Yahoo Answers, you have to be 18 to join and their TOS has lots of rules about not posting anything obscene or pornographic; which is perhaps why there are a lot of avatars featuring bare breasts and “49” positions.

Mahalo Mahaolo is an “answer site” where you can pay people to answer your question, or get paid for such. Like “Wikipedia,” the name is based on a Hawaiian word, in their case, it’s “Thank You.” Also like Wikipedia, the site is not located in Hawaii.

Fake Anarchists Help Desk RD humanities, computers, and mischellanius

Low Rider

Adults who had sex with minors Muhammad Charles II Bill Wyman Joey Buutafucco Roman Polanski Woody Allen

the elect feet washing a cappela singing John Leland 1st Corinthians John 3:16 Surah 48:13 User:Jakobos

Fake Anarchists Help Desk RD humanities, computers, and mischellanius

Low Rider

User:Jackaboo?

User:Lunenos User:NX User:LArron User:DickTurpus User:MDB User:Radioactive afikomen User:Totnesmartin User:Lunenos

Chtithulu

RationalWiki:Active Users do they add up ask how do i figure the Wikipedia equivalent

WikiNode