Saturday, September 27, 2014

Laughing into my hands at Fast Eddie's incompetence

This thread from TV Tropes is proof positive no one there has a clue what the hell they are talking about concerning their own site software.

Apparently, they really need a script to migrate pages from one namespace to another, which basically means moving a bunch of pages from corner of the wiki to another, and according to Fighteer (who supposedly knows computer programming), this cannot be done at this point, and some other certified idiot says batch scripts can crap out the server.

As for Fighteer, thanks for proving you are incompetent I took you for, as Brent Laabs wrote a Perl script to do the dump of TV Tropes you had the gall to call a DDoS attack, and has written several more (in conjunction with the MediaWiki::Bot Perl script) to do things like namespace migration, and was doing most of this by hand even before he found that MediaWiki::Bot script for All The Tropes, so WOW, thanks for proving you know nothing about coding despite your supposed job.

Also, PmWiki is written in PHP, and you can write all sorts of scripts in PmWiki, including batch scripts with server limits to avoid timeouts or server crashes, so as for the other idiot in that thread, please stop, you're embarassing yourself with your coding fail. Yes, a fool can write a badly done or limitless script, but a halfway competent programmer can insert failsafes against that.

MediaWiki already has lots of scripts for similar purposes, and writing one in PHP for PmWiki should be trivial for Fast Eddie, or I would think, given what he has coded up to this point.

I'll be the first to admit I'm not a very good coder myself and would need a crib sheet to write my own code, but I do know the basics of how to write good code, so the sheer ignorance in the above link had me laughing uncontrollably, which I suppose is one possibly entertaining thing I've derived from TV Tropes of late.

Sunday, September 14, 2014

It's been around a year, ATT is still here, and I want to thank all who made it possible

Around a year ago, All The Tropes opened for business with the bold and daring plan to create an alternative troping site for the disenchanted ex-TV Tropers to trope on and for those who didn't want to get anywhere near Fast Eddie or his minions because they didn't want to edit on a wiki where you can get banned for the dumbest reasons and where perversion and some of the more sad aspects of fandom pollute the internet with messed up drivel.

Our goals were lofty, but we decided that to stay open for more than a little while, we had to radically alter our approach if we wanted to avoid the perversion and fail that has rightly made TV Tropes a laughingstock in the eyes of many, and this post is a massive thank you to various parties I credit with our success:

The Drunkard's Walk forums: In many ways, they were the birthplace of ATT, and where we came up with many of our founding goals and principles. It was there we hammered out most of our basic policies, established our site culture would be more academic yet laid back, and where we decided that our site, were it to have forums, they would be for site related matters only. These decisions helped us avoid the cesspit that the TV Tropes forums have become and in many ways still are, and so far, I have yet to hear any complaints that the staff of ATT are dictators. (Please call me out if I'm wrong on that score)

Bob Schroeck and his forumites (many of whom are members of ATT) have my eternal thanks for being our support, and I look forward to our continued partnership in building a better troping wiki.

The Project AFTER forums: I stumbled across this place when I was looking up what people thought about TV Tropes, and I decided to enter the discussion about the site, frankly admitting my intentions for our troping site and offering to ask questions and soliciting any advice they might have for avoiding TV Tropes's fail.

To be honest, they were brutally frank, and I'll admit it did take me aback somewhat how critical and somewhat cynical they were about our goals and intentions, but given the precedent set by TV Tropes, I considered that understandable and decided to accept any criticism and attempt to improve ATT based on it.

It was from them they have highlighted the festering turds we inherited from TV Tropes like some of the more retarded aspects of the Just for Fun/Darth/Sugar Wiki, the massive amounts of pointless auto-fellatio in adulation of TV Tropes, and worst of all, the Unpublished Works, the rotting brain drivel of things that will never be published we agreed was utterly pointless and needed to die. They also expressed horror and disgust at the Fetish Fuel/Troper Tales pages, and while we were going to toss them out anyway,  it was the PA community who have eliminated any doubt they deserved to be thrown in a shallow grave and clubbed with a rusty shovel until they quit twitching.

To this day, they still point out retardation from TV Tropes we can avoid, and while I may not agree with everything they have to say (though to be honest, I've disagreed with very little they've said to this point), they have in many ways served as our conscience regarding content we might wish throw overboard or alter in the name of good taste, and I hope they and I can continue to work together to make at least one corner of the internet a lot less scummy than is (sadly) the norm for the greater troping community.

The Fuck No TV Tropes Tumblr: This tumblr has rightly mocked some of the more appalling social aspects of the troping community, especially some of the more noisome and insensitive BS spewed by tropers in ignorance and bigotry, and while I and ATT do not agree 100% with all the opinions expressed there, neither do we shy away from at least hearing our critics out, and I'd like to thank them for being a reminder that a wiki is a community that is part of the greater internet as a whole, and as such, we need to be mindful not to become a hive of arrogant jackasses, and they have pointed out many cultural and societal flaws in articles and attitudes in the troping community, and I have taken many of their points under advisement in attempts to avoid having us tarred by the same brush of douchebaggery that has soiled TV Tropes.

It's my hope that Mark (the one who runs the blog) continues to do the excellent job he has done in exposing the fail and suck of the troping community, and I'd like to personally wish him my best in his other endeavors as well.

The Something Awful Forums - SA and TV Tropes have had a long and contentious history, dating all the back to when a goon named AnneBeeche and Fast Eddie butted heads, he called the site a "vile pit of hate", and ever since then, they have been engaged in eternal war with one another, with Fast Eddie banning "SA traitors" and goons mocking the crap out of TV Tropes, calling them a hive of pedophiles and perverts, despite the fact that they had a pedophile as a mod for five years straight and some of the SA community have been revealed to have some truly depraved fetishes, so their accusations are a sad case of the pot calling the kettle black.

However, despite the contempt they showed in their own TVT mock thread concerning this blog, I have taken notes from some of their more salient criticism and have taken it into consideration, and I still have one anonymous yet still brave goon to thank for showing the moral courage to accept my offer to discuss our views on the troping community, and not only do they still have my thanks, I will never forget how they pointed out the festering hive of perversion that was the Fansadox articles and assisted us in pruning the perversion and leaving one page that was stripped of obvious masturbatory comments, as the original version we imported was written by a pervert of the highest order, and I personally torched that obscenity off and left what is hopefully a less abhorrent yet honest article (and a rather blunt review of the work itself), and I will continue to make sure nothing that perverse is allowed to fester on our site again.

Finally, despite what appears to be an incredibly childish fear of "touching the poop", I still extend an olive branch to any goon who wishes to contact me discreetly via email, and I will be happy to address any questions and concerns you wish to share with me concerning All The Tropes.

Orain - I and Brent Laabs chose this wiki farm as opposed to ShoutWiki or Wikia for our main branch of All The Tropes because they offered far more freedom, no ads, and no censorship (aside from not posting pornographic imagery, which we considered eminently reasonable), and despite some early trouble in the first few months (technical issues related), Orain has become of the best decisions we ever made, and frankly, I consider their staff (of which I serve in a minor capacity) to be competent, a pleasure to work with, and some of our IRC sessions have made my sides split from some of the quirky humor we've shared.

Seriously, some of those IRC chat logs are comedy gold, but I digress.

In all seriousness, Orain has a mission of bringing a wiki farm with a ton of freedom and a minimum of screwing over it's users, which aligned perfectly with our own mission of providing a troping wiki that had similar intentions, and to this day, I'm still proud of the hard work they have put into helping us and the other members of the Orain community.

Wikia - Originally, I got my foot in the door managing the 'Tropes Mirror Wiki" on Wikia, which was originally founded by a guy named Jack Butler after a retarded falling out on TV Tropes between him and Fast Eddie, and frankly, his wiki was an unfun Serious Business vortex of fail, according to what I could tell from older revisions. It was later taken over by a libertarian from Romania named Anime Addict, who was better, but he had a frighteningly large amount of contempt for copyright law and a foolish insistence on some bizarre and frankly useless indexing schemas. I took over after he left the place for a few months, did my best to import non infringing content to replace the copyright violation minefield he ran, and Fast Eddie saw fit to cry about how I was a thief (despite using legal content and promising to remove anything that was infringing) and told me GTFO his website and never return.

Around that time, I got together with Brent Laabs, and ATT Orain was born.

However, Wikia had been incredibly nice to me, and it seemed like a horribly dick move to leave them with a flawed, partial import of content while the Orain branch had a better version, so Wikia staff helped me import a May 2014 version of ATT Orain's content (text, not images due to size reasons) so both could be on somewhat more equal footing content wise. This also resulted in the content of the Tropes Mirror Wiki being replaced entirely by All The Tropes (Wikia) [done partially because the old content still had some legally questionable material I had no interest in retaining].

I want to add that despite Wikia having ads, they have never been an impediment to our content, and have censored us about as little as Orain, so no complaints there either.

Their staff are all friendly, helpful, and extremely competent, and I consider an honor to work with them, and Wikia has my gratitude for allowing ATT to have a Wikia branch for those on Wikia who don't wish to trope on Orain.


In closing, all of these parties have been incredibly important in our success, and I just hope we'll have another year just as wonderful. :)

Saturday, September 6, 2014

Some advice on how to deal with arguments and disagreements effectively

Being autistic, I was very reluctant to surrender or admit defeat if I ever lost an argument and I usually had to turn disagreements into massive wars as a child. I'm older and wiser now, yet still have autism.

However, the argument that autistics can't learn is nonsense, and while it took a fair amount of pride swallowing, here's some tips (especially for fellow autistics) on how to conclude arguments and disagreements effectively.

1. Just be happy knowing you're right - You can't win every argument, even when all the facts are on your side, because some people cannot be reasoned with. Trust me, I've tried, doesn't work out 100% because humans are irrational sometimes and not always given to being reasonable, so expecting reason to triumph all the time is a pipe dream, but even if the other party isn't amenable to reason, just be content knowing you aren't the irrational jackass.

2. Be willing to admit you are wrong, or at least the possibility you might be - Even if you aren't, or your ego won't allow you to believe it, at least admit the other side might possibly have a point if you aren't willing to fall on your sword completely. Even if you don't believe it, conceding the other side might have a point has two advantages:

a. If you are wrong, you admitted the possibility up front and don't look like an idiot asshole later by doubling down on your own errors.

b If you are right, you can at least say you allowed the possibility you were wrong, so you don't look like a smug asshole when your side of the story is vindicated.

3. Know when to leave the argument - This is not the same as surrendering an argument. If you are willing to leave before getting yourself boxed into a corner, you can, if you do so at the right time, come back to the argument later when you have a stronger case to argue and possibly prevail later. Getting your ass metaphorically kicked (or if you piss off the other party too much, literally) by arguing when you aren't prepared only makes you look like a jackass and will make you suffer at the same time, either in terms of ego or your physical well being, depending on the rationality of the party you are arguing with.

4. If the other side is being unreasonable, YOU MUST REMAIN REASONABLE - If the party you are arguing decides to be irrational and hurls insults when they start losing the argument, remain reasonable and ignore their attempt to anger and bait you. By doing so, you do not give them any ground to gain a moral victory even if they can't get an intellectual one, not to mention anyone else witnessing the argument will think better of you for not sinking to the level of the unreasonable party.

5. Always show civility, even if the other party never does - The first side to be a douchebag loses in some way, even if only in the moral sense, and even if you are dead wrong, the fact you can argue while not being a prick about it means that you might be able to reargue your case with the same party at a later date, and even if you can't, others party to the argument will be more inclined to either side with you or not help out your opponent if you are the one consistently showing grace and humanity.

Monday, September 1, 2014

I have apparently been banned from the Social Justice Wiki

I signed up to the Social Justice wiki mostly out of curiousity, as despite my admitted disdain for "social justice warriors", I was willing to admit I might be wrong and I figured I'd stick around and help where need be.

My intentions for doing were entirely pure. I was transparent about my biases and willingness to change my views, I also admitted I noticed ED was planning to troll them and offered some technical advice how to prevent that, and since I like handing out MediaWiki tips because I'm just that kind of guy I am, I even offered advice on some extensions they might wish to use to further their site mission.

Again, the above was my intentions the whole time, and I in no way ever intended to cause them any grief.

However, I go to visit one fine morning, and I can't login. I tried sending myself a password reset email, checked my spam folder, nothing happened, and since I've seen a ton of bannings for being "cispicious" (I was even on a list of people like that for a brief time there, to my amusement), I can only assume I was purged for wrongthink.

To be honest, I don't really consider been banned from there a loss, and to be honest, I really do not buy into or subscribe to their rhetoric, and while I tried to be respectful, I will say here what I've said elsewhere on this blog: I reject the core tenets of SJW-ism because of their extreme nature and incompatibility with the real world, and I do not apologize for that.

Also, it wasn't really a community. In the wiki sense, a community is reasonably open to editing and allows a free exchange of information so as to develop a better wiki, but the SJWiki, terrified of trolls and anti-SJW partisans, decided to close off mass sections of the site (even Recent Changes) so they could only allow those deemed right thinkers into their safe space.

Basically, they wanted a closed garden, not a public park.

I'm cool with that. If they no longer wanted me there, so be it, I have no intention of going back or causing them any grief, but honesty compels me to levy this criticism:

If they are so concerned about raising awareness of social ills needing justice, they need to be more open to the public and be willing to endure the slings and arrows of their detractors, for many ideas worth fighting for were often won only with blood, metaphorically or literally, not by cowering away in a shielded bunker spewing propaganda without actually getting near the front lines of the battle they ostensibly want to fight.

Gamergate 2 is on, and I want no part of it

 This will not be a long post, but I just want to make clear, as someone who was involved in the first go-round of Gamergate, I want no part...