moubliezpas

I don't think the men on this thread realise the impact this world have on their lives via the women in their lives.

Idk how much is geographic, but in Europe pretty much every girl has, by the age of 15, had to use some ingenuity or running skills to get away from a random stranger who wouldn't stop hassling them for their number / just to talk! / a photo.

I don't mean like, he didn't get the hint and she had to be quite rude. I mean she had to approach a shopkeeper or stranger for help, or spin a story about their husband, or make up a number and ring their own phone at the exact right time, whatever.

I had a guy follow me home from school, then looked up my land line from my address, and he had the nerve to call and ask for me by description. I'm not stunningly attracting, but there are a lot of fucking twats out there and 1 twat can harass, what, 300 women in a year without even booking up his weekends.

And in my case, this was back in the 20th century. People have got A LOT less polite since then.

When this is not possible, because any guy can look at you and get your details, girls will absolutely stop going out on their own, and older women will make an effort to look as gross, or as masculine, as possible.

Again, statistically, they will not have much choice. Rape can destroy a life. So can threats. So can staking, or putting people in fear for their life. And it can take a perpetrator an hour, which means he's free to really, really skew the odds of being sexually traumatised in that town. If you think I'm exaggerating the risk, ask your sister / partner/ friend / coworker when they last felt intimidated by a man in public. Ask when they first had to actively shake off a random guy. You'll be shocked.

Guys, you want to live in that world? Do you look at the Taliban and think it sounds kinda fun? Well neither did most of the residents of Iran, but thats what they got.

There are some deeply, deeper deeply tragic bastards in the world who can't attract any women except their mother, and well therefore want to live in a world of where they don't have to see women in the street or the workplace, and have to feel bad.

They want a world where women are afraid to leave the house. And like most dystopias, it's a very short few steps away. It starts with giving tech bros the ability to get a woman's details, workplace, relationship status and address (and, presumably, to generate whatever AI nightmare live) just by looking at her.

If you don't want to live in that weird, testosterone sweaty world created by losers who couldn't hack reality, then do not even joke about using this crap for bloody recipes or games. There are already technologies that can do that without ushering in a new dark age.

To be fair he does have a lot of experience in the toxicity of social media. He's an expert in the field.

It's like if e-coli had some serious concerns about your choice of antibacterial spray. Worth noting the objection, possibly with a little smile, and buying a few more bottles.

I hope people in general don't take anything Benjamin Netanyahu takes seriously, whether it's to immediately believe him or to immediately disbelieve him.

The man is a prick, every word he says is the kind of politically sensitive thing that's literally always reported with some bias, and more importantly, politicians don't make statements because they are committed to keeping random citizens half way around the world informed of the entire truth.

That's not their job. Even your own politicians are not newsreaders or your personal oracles, they speak to the public in order to fulfil their duties moving the country in a particular direction.

So yes, obviously, if a politician says 'yo this thing is now illegal so don't do it', probably take it seriously. Don't fall into the trap of thinking cynicism is any wiser than credulousness, it isn't.

But also don't seriously assume you've uncovered state secrets because Benjamin Bloody Netanyahu made a pubic statement that you, personally, have seen the truth behind. That's flat out deranged.

With the disclaimer - yeah no, I also did the whole 'weirdly specific denials are rarely as reassuring as one might think' because let's be honest, the world is a shit show and politics is a burning circus and it's nice to laugh at a foreign weirdo leader now and again as a nice little break from weeping at my own.

I totally agree that each query/ picture isn't literally burning huge amounts of energy - I wonder if we're kind of making the same argument but I misread your first comment - but it's also true that each cigarette doesn't actually do that much damage to your lungs and buying a single puppy from a puppy mill isn't funding the entire industry, just like buying a tiny ivory figurine isn't killing any animals and buying a single share in EvilCorp isn't funding the CEO's baby-killing missions.

But, in a way, it kind of is. If you need that cigarette, I won't stop you. If the ivory is antique or really special to you or whatever, we've all got vices, maybe also donate to an animal charity. If you really think EvilCorp isn't that bad and the CEO only killed a few babies that one time, or if you don't really mix your ethics with your finances or whatever, cool, everyone makes their own moral boundaries.

(I can't think of a decent reason to buy from puppy mills, but I'm sure they exist).

But I think we all have a responsibility to make these ethical decisions. If you are adding to the AI user base, feeding it your data and training it and pumping its figures, there are a variety of legit reasons to do so, from curiosity to convenience to FOMO. And if you don't care about the environment or wider impact of your actions, alright, rock on. We can't all care about everything all the time.

But in my (unsolicited) opinion, when you use it with no decent reason or benefit, you are prioritising your fleeting whims over the deadliest threat to the world. It's like owning an oversized gas guzzling car (personal choice) and leaving it to idle for hours at a time because it saves 15 seconds in the morning. Weird example, but to my mind it's the same.

I'm not going to shit on people's hobbies, but I used to throw my cigarette ends down drains because I thought it was tidier, until I found out that nope, really not good for the drains or water system. So I bought a little portable ashtray. I have no particular passion for drains and don't smoke that much when I'm not near a bin or ashtray, but it wasn't a huge sacrifice to buy an ashtray. The cumulative damage to the ecosystem seemed to outweigh the personal convenience of dropping my cigarette end there, so I couldn't really justify contributing to a bad thing that wouldn't affect me if I didn't need to.

But - I still see lots of cigarette ends on the floor. Maybe they haven't heard about the damage it causes, maybe they have different moral priorities, maybe they were in a real hurry; everybody makes their own decision. I just wish more people would make that decision, rather than using it because it's there and everyone else is.

Even worse. A lot of it just seems to be done by trolls.

Every now and again they have a big push to get more editors from more sections of society and normal humans, because a majority of the edits are done by a small amount of people, and these people spend so much time doing that that they don't have much time for things like jobs, hobbies, socialisation, etc.

They are doing a great service, and most of them are great editors, but they are very very online and aren't always interested in Wikipedia being a collaboration of people from all walks of life.

So they manage to get more random people to make an account and make their own first little edits, and then half those random people get yelled at for not following some hidden rules or for disagreeing with Big Mike who doesn't like to be corrected or whatever and, surprise surprise, most people whose first experience editing Wikipedia never try again. The ones who stay are the dogged, determined ones, or the ones who don't really care about criticism, and thus the cycle continues.

Seriously though, small time editors are absolutely essential to keep Wikipedia (reasonably) honest and unbiased. Literally anyone can contribute to the world's biggest shared knowledge hub, and if you're not a troll, a dick, a shill or an extremist then your contribution is really, really valuable.

If you see any page that has incorrect info, or anything that's missing information that you know, or even some clunky grammar or out of date references, please do consider making an edit. There are a bunch of best practice guidelines on editing (that aren't always very accessible) but the main ethos is to do what you can in good faith and don't sweat the red tape. Someone else can come along afterwards and tidy formatting up or send you a message saying 'hey, I've reverted your edit because you need a source / this type of source / you accidentally replaced the entire page on astrophysics with an emoji', and they'll link to the guidelines you need to follow if so.

I'd love to say it'll be fun and chill and once you've realised how easy it is you'll be evangelical about it. If you edit a totally innocuous page, it probably will be.

But it's the internet, so there are all sorts of people including the knobs, so I'll just say - by widening the pool of editors you will be benefitting Wikipedia whatever your actual edit is, and by ignoring any argumentative bastards you'll be adding to the majority of Wikipedia editors who are normal human beings and not, well, argumentative bastards.

(Obviously if you are actually an argumentative bastard troll, no offence meant, I hope you have a great life but the applications to be a Wikipedia editor are sadly closed and honestly it's not worth it 😀)

Yeah, that generally sounds good. In this case though, it had been up for 6 months and a lot of people had edited the page since, so I wasn't sure how that would work.

And, to be honest, cowardice 🤣 I don't know if it's just the sort of pages I've edited, but I've found the number 1 indicator for when a reversion will get pushback is when it was put there by someone with an unholy amount of edits that have a troll / far right / aggressive theme. Some people only seem to edit controversial topics, and some push really weird theories and will argue every bizarre claim as nauseum, some are very free with personal insults, and most are totally normal people.

But the ones who've made a slightly odd, vaguely political edit to a reasonably banal page, and when you leave a polite discussion on the talk page and carefully edit it to remove the most inflammatory bits they just revert your edit within a couple of minutes - I've had a terrible time with them.

Always, they revert your edit and then either make another minor edit right afterwards, or some other account / anonymous comes in and makes a minor edit, within 2 minutes of theirs. And when you check their history and see a vast majority of their edits are on X rated pages, in my experience that means you're never going to win. Every edit you make will be reverted within minutes. If they put anything on the talk page it will be exactly as personally offensive as you can get without being outright ban-able. And their shadow account will be along right after every comment or action to agree.

It's exhausting, and it totally made me lose faith in Wikipedia. I know there are channels to report that, but I've found that they take months and the discussion is like 'yeah that was out of line but they've made so many non offensive edits, maybe they were having a bad day?' with the odd essay-length barrage of insults from new accounts that are always deleted, but just remind me that it's so easy to just create a new account for bad faith purposes that what's the point wading through all this aggro just to make sure one user gets a stern talking to on one of his many accounts, for the sake of a line or two on a page about a topic you're not that interested in.

Sorry for the tragic novella lol, it just really annoys me. Wikipedia could have been so great, but for the fact that trolls and bad actors don't worry about following the rules, certainly don't mind conflict, and can write 50 pages worth of bullshit in the time it takes an honest person to fact check the first paragraph, let alone the time and effort it takes to edit stuff by the correct channels.

And when you argue with them, that's what they enjoy. They can wear people down just by being odious, and even if enough people wade in to help you out and waste their time arguing with someone who's being deliberately inflammatory, and everyone agrees that yes the page on trees shouldn't be mostly about lynching black people or whatever - that page is going to be edited again by a new account within days. All the decent people stand to win is a temporary, hard fought knowledge that a tiny piece of the internet isn't quite as toxic as it was before, and will be again, and they lose so much energy and good will if they don't like arguing. And for the dickheads, the entire thing is win-win.

I don't know how to prevent that, other than a much stricter attitude to anonymous/ new account edits and offensive arguments, and detecting patterns like 'this account always makes innocuous edits within minutes of this other person making controversial ones', but that's a bit more tightly controlled than Wikipedia could / should be.

(I mean the other solution is some sort of mandatory therapy and socialising courses for people who actively enjoy trolling / shit stirring / making people angry, but that would be a little beyond my or Wikipedia's remit, so)

I agree with the principle (and the general vibe) but I think an awful lot of awful people are already looking for an excuse to claim that trans people are just regular people who spontaneously claim to be trans to make a political point. I don't think it would help to have concrete evidence of Bob MacMan, who looks and dresses like a man and has been living exclusively as a man and showed clear desire to use men's facilities and men's prisons when arrested, has claimed to be a trans woman, or vice versa.

For it to not be counter productive, you would have to commit to proving that trans people are very much not just 'one gender pretending to be the other', and that would be difficult.

What might be more effective (and honestly, kinda fun) would be like, 8 people all insisting on being arrested at once, or an entire class, or the whole household including 'granddad' Dorothy. With everyone committed to doing the conically low/ high voices and playing up the silliest exaggerated charecature (I thought autocorrect was gonna have my back with that word but hey ho) of the opposite gender. You'd get to have some fun, a much lower risk of being placed alone into an opposite gender space, and could really demonstrate the 'no, this is what it looks like when people just pretend to be the opposite gender' difference between claiming trans as an act of political defiance - proving their point- and just happening to be a trans person trying to get on with their lives.

Disclaimer - I am not the Joke Police and do not speak for trans people, so pinch of salt required. Also I haven't seen Spartacus, but I've seen the Life of Brain 'Im the Messiah and so is my wife' scene, so I feel like I've pretty much watched the important bits of Spartacus

Man, I really disagree with your stance but you're arguing in an annoyingly reasonable, balanced manner and doing legwork to produce evidence for your claim that invites people to re-evaluate their long held stance.

It's annoying because I like my long held stances. They're comfortable.

I'm a big fan of dark humour (as long as it isn't punching down and is kept in pretty well defined areas where it's unlikely to upset reasonable people who happen to be on the wrong side) and have read all your posts thinking 'sorry but if people can't joke, or express their frustration and fear by pretending they aren't powerless, that sounds like a recipe for frustration and repression', which is reasonable because all the examples are on my socio-political side.

And you've made it kinda obvious, without being aggressive, that if I only think it's ok because I happen to agree with them... It's maybe time to re-evaluate my threshold for when joking and letting off steam online crosses the threshold that I don't want to be part of that community any more.

So, full marks on 'how to convince people to change beliefs that they have an emotional connection to', because I've seen the argument a few times and it's never been remotely effective.

And I guess, the world needs less violent jokes and personal vendettas in general, even though it's clearly one side causing the actual problems. I can't keep criticising them without being critical of the people in my own spaces doing the same.

(Really sorry, just a few marks deducted because I do not feel overjoyed or enlightened. I'm mildly annoyed that I've been in the wrong and have to change, for no personal gain, and it'll take the fun out of a lot of the internet. I suspect at some point I'll realise I'm much happier without reading violent stuff etc, and be much more grateful. But for now it feels a little like finding out that one of my new hobbies is problematic)

I can bring villainy and snacks, maybe some sandwiches or something?

Literally everybody can see exactly what was written, when, and from which IP address. Not only is that history maintained indefinitely on Wikipedia, it's also downloaded by thousands of people around the world.

Everybody who has ever added a missing punctuation mark to a page is recorded in history, the specific date and time and page and action, accessible even if the world wide web goes down and Wikipedia ceases to exist.

I'm not sure if your 'anonymous graffiti' analogy is quite right, though I'm also struggling to imagine many places in my country where someone could graffiti on a wall and not be tracked down very quickly if necessary.

Oh god, I didn't even look to see what changes they'd made to other articles.

Actually that should make things easier, there are processes for reporting repeated vandalism, and they're much more efficient than 'this person wrote one article badly'. I'll have a look.

I get your point, but the 'real crux of the matter ' is very much - what is the fediverse. That's what an encyclopedia is for. It defines things.

Wikipedia is not the place to highlight or discuss the moral or legal standards that every entity must meet. That would be ridiculous.

Chicken soup is subject to at least 10,000 individual regulatory restrictions (no poisons, name must reflect content, pay this tax to enter this country, staff must be paid and free and blah blah, no more than x foreign substances, must not go rancid within this time frame, can't be packaged in a paper envelope). Some, like the workers' rights and fair pricing and amount of weird chemicals, are actually pretty important human rights issues that have very real, immediate effects of the health and wellbeing of various population groups.

Should they all be on the Wikipedia article for chicken soup? All of them? If so, I have news about the laws, restrictions, relations, challenges, emerging research, etc, into vegetable soup. And also tomato soup. And, in fact, every processed food. And if that looks a bit ridiculous, consider the ethical considerations of the tea industry. It's horrific (source: I'm English). It's been horrific for hundreds of years now and has literally ended nations, killed millions of people, and doesn't look like it's in the final stretch of being solved.

It is, therefore, probably too much to include on a page about a new cruelty-free brand of iced tea that's just taking off. People would go to that page to read about that brand of iced tea, not tea in general, and certainly not the troubled history and socio-political scandals of the tea trade in general, unless they had a beef with the iced tea brand.

Which, I suspect, is what happened on the fediverse page. And I didn't put the flags on the page, or remove the content, but I'm glad someone did.