TGD Screws Up Again

In a series of 11 edits, Rpeh tested his new big idea for the NPC Summary template... then made a load of other templates that it would use (including one that must have taxed him to the limit). This went on for some time... until he undoes it all in one edit, presumably in a fit of pique.

This is probably related to the long-standing task on rpeh's user page that says "Time to separate out the game-specific stuff into sub-templates that get used by one central one." Since when, though, does one game-specific template become three?

No wonder he reverted it.

What does Rawtwat smoke?

This post from Rawtwat the Vicious is yet another attempt to steal the moniker "Thick" from Elliot the Thick. Can anyone understand his point about prostitutes? Anyone? It's supposed to be some kind of crude comparison with ^CEshe^V and The Great Deceiver dating for a while. So is he calling ^CEshe^V a prostitute? Is he accusing TGD of paying for her?? WTF???

This is all part of the latest fight about what users should be allowed to post on the site. More here.

UPDATE: Rpeh gives Ratwar a good spanking. Ratwar realises that it's true he does nothing useful on the site any more so puts in a HUGE amount of effort by... deleting one page marked for speedy deletion... and fixing two spelling mistakes. Wow. Time to take another few months off in case you get RSI, Rawtwat.

UPDATE 2: The only person to support Rawtwat so far is... Elliot the Thick! Not a good sign for Rawtwat.

Anarchasshole Has No Soul

Just when you thought he had realised UESP was better off without him, back comes Anarchasshole with a typically stupid edit.

During the day, The Great Deceiver and Case Number 01 (HMS Victory / Itachi) had made a couple of undos to stop the Oblivion:Soul Gem page being overwhelmed with useless crap that only applies to one person's game. It finished when TGD made one big undo that also nixed AA's last edit to the page.

TGD's edit summary was "Undo several edits - pointless to list particular merchants as all magic stores stock gems and most of them are random rather than fixed". AA's undo was summarised with "Not only is the difference in price between filled player gems & filled merchant gems shown neither in the article nor on the talk page, but Timmen specifically recommended a merchant list, see Talk". So let's see if either of our combatants has a point.

First, we need to look at Asshole's claim that Timenn Made An Order on the talk page. Well... not quite. There was a question back in September 2009 that asked "Should I put something in on this page about soul gems restocking, since right now it looks like the only place to find this is on the Soul Trap page ?" Timenn's reply was (partially) "Good idea, the article could benefit from a ''Acquiring Soul Gems'' sections. It would be best to give general tips on the acquisition of the gems (especially the higher qualities) instead of a long list of locations." So Timenn explicitly didn't want a long list of locations. Okay, Anarchasshole is wrong on one count. Next?

Second, is the difference between different types of soul gems explained? Asshole's version was "Soul gems found empty, whether as loot or bought from merchants, have a coin value which depends on the grade of soul gem, which does not change if the player later fills them with a soul. Merchant gems sold or found filled with a soul have a coin value which depends on the level of the soul within, regardless of the grade of gem. The coin values below are for soul gems sold and found filled; all gems filled by the player will sell for the 'Empty' value."

He obviously didn't scroll down the page to find this: "Note: These IDs and values are set at the time you acquire a soul gem, and do not get changed when you fill the soul gem with a soul. In other words, if you pick up an empty grand soul gem, its value will be 200 gold. That value does not change when you fill it. Therefore, you can end up with grand soul gems containing grand souls with two different values, both 200 gold and 500 gold."

In other words, Anarchasshole made two points and they're both wrong. Next?

What Rawtwat is Not

Whatever else you can say about Rawtwat the Vicious, at least he's consistently obnoxious. And a bit thick.

For today's example we have to go back to the 21st when Timenn posted his UESP version of Wikipedia's "What WP Is Not" page. He and The Great Deceiver then engage in a little mutual masturbation over the new page and all seems good.

Spin forward to the 23rd and in a slightly confused post, Rawtwat employs his usual subtlety by saying "I hate the whole thing." He then goes on to say that although he's "not saying the ideas behind the policy aren't good", "the points... are either common sense or, in my opinion, bad."

The first thing to ask here is: Is Rawtwat against common sense? He certainly seems to be.

The second thing is that you have to wonder if Rawtwat ever bothers to read UESP at all. "How many authors have tried to write personal Walkthroughs outside of userspace?", he asks. Dozens, you dozy moron. At this very moment, a page called Oblivion:Helpful Armor is proposed for deletion. It contains the wonderful phrase "For now,we can stop there.Im constantly updating as I get more and more info.Keep checkin in,folks!" There's also Oblivion:Killing Umbra that says "Then kill her, i would advise you to block alot a take more than one sword because she can break your sword."

Rawtwat's main problem seems to be the bit about UESP not being a social network. The debate has been rumbling on elsewhere but Rawtwat seems determined to turn UESP into a cheap copy of Facebook.

The truth is that what Rawtwat is not is a decent administrator. He spends what little time he expends on the site insulting other users, something that has now expanded to include other administrators.

It's time he was removed from the post.

Where are the Idiots?

People who can do advanced maths like counting (you can stop reading now, Anarchasshole) may be wondering why this blog has slowed down so much. The answer is simple. The hypocrisy that had become standard on UESP seems to have disappeared.

I know that correlation doesn't imply causation but you can't escape the fact that since Rawtwat the Vicious, ^CEshe^V and Elliot the Thick stopped posting, things have been much quieter. Sure we now have Anarchasshole, but he's so obviously an idiot and has no power that there's no sustained amusement to be had.

If the situation continues, maybe I'll have to give up the blog? I know some of you will claim this a good thing, but I'm afraid the thousands (no exaggeration) of weekly viewers would be disappointed.

Elliot! Since I know you're reading, how about making what you consider a sensible post somewhere on the site? Given previous form, it's bound to be so idiotic that you'll give me another day's posts.

Daedryon, Get Lost

This edit, from an IP address that resolves to a location in Montreal, is from professional idiot Daedryon.

As I have said before, I don't edit UESP. There's (usually) enough stupidity without people deliberately creating more.

Flashback - classic ^CEshe^V

This is coming up to 2 years old, but it's still worth a giggle.

Evidently Nephele would agree with Eshe's nickname!

A New Idiot

Okay, technically Anarchangel isn't new, having made his first post back in July 2008, but it's in the last couple of weeks that he has become more active and shown just what a pain in the ass he is.

The first good example was this post on Timenn's talk page in response to an edit summary LGA made here. In classic idiot style, Anarchasshole's post is wrong, as rpeh points out. This causes a lovely little debate, with Anarchasshole desperately trying to prove his point and TGD pointing out how wrong he is. I'm not going to go through the whole series of posts, but this piece of assholery from AA gets an excellent put-down from TGD. Eventually, AA gets bored and slinks away.

Anarchasshole pops up on several talk pages but there's another good example on the Marksman Training page. First, he attacks GK for daring to revert his post, then when TGD (again) jumps in to tell him he's wrong, he goes off on a tangent and rpeh has to smack him again, including telling him to fuck off to a different site. AA accepts one point then moans and moans about the whole issue.

He even takes time out to call other users trolls. In this case, it's SerCenKing, one of the best editors on the site at the moment.

He's also too stupid to spot the difference between an article and a talk page.

There seems to be a simple test for people like this: if anybody includes patronising links to Wikipedia (like Shaggy Dog Tale, Other Stuff Exists, Straw Man, etc) they are an asshole.

Categorising the Users

It's often the smallest things that cause the biggest storms. The latest is a debate on the categories that UESP's peanut gallery have decided to create in their valiant effort to clog the site up with useless crap.

Timenn pointed out that categories such as Right-Handed Users don't add much value to the wiki, and after a bit of umming and ahhing, rpeh agrees, as does Wolok gro-Barok.

What seems to be a reasonably polite debate gets ruined yet again by Elliot the Thick. He steams into the debate, making accusations, throwing insults and generally acting like the little shit we know and despise.

The best quote in response comes from Timenn: "You seem to rush in with an attitude like the reasoning of everyone involved is completely wrong. You have yet been barely involved in the discussion and already you claim this discussion is a waste of time." The trouble is that Elliot always behaves like this. He's a one-man anti-wiki force.

Personally, I don't see why LGA and TGD are pressing for these categories to be deleted. The categories are a total waste of time, but they exist now so what's the problem? That seems to be the response of the other users that have commented - that they don't care if they exist but don't understand the need for them to go.

As for Elliot the Thick, it's time somebody gave him the warning he so richly deserves as the first step towards blocking him off the site. The boy is a disgrace.

He is Thick! Hear his ROAR!

That's better. I had been wondering whether or not there would ever be anything worth posting about again since the site had been reasonably sane over the past few days. At last, good old Elliot the Thick saves my blog with a typical display of idiocy.

We need to go back a few days to an edit by Nx on the perennially-unfinished page about The Infernal City. It combines the book image with the infobox table and actually looks pretty good as we now have all the meta-information over to the side.

Spin forward a few days and GuildKnight likes the idea so much she does the same on all the game front pages. A few hours later, Joram takes the sensible step of making a template to make sure things stay the same on all the pages and that they can be easily changed if necessary. He then goes through and adds the template to the game pages.

Now it could be argued that this was all done without consensus. There was certainly no discussion about Nx's or GuildKnight's changes. On the other hand, the fact that Nx's change was around for two days with nobody complaining and that both GuildKnight and Joram obviously liked it enough to adapt the solution, there's pretty clearly some strong support for the new layout. Hypothetically, what would you do if you didn't like the new design? Perhaps start a discussion on the Community Portal? Ask GuildKnight on her talk page? Well not if you're Elliot the Thick.

In a remarkable series of posts, EtT first undoes all Joram's template changes, then goes through again and changes all the pages back to their pre-GuildKnight style. Evidently his little break left him with an itchy undo finger and he was too stupid to realise that the first undo made little difference. He then proposes Joram's template for deletion. Ratwar undoes it, although his edit reason doesn't make much sense; EtT reverts Ratwar; Rpeh reverts EtT; EtT reverts Rpeh, and finally GuildKnight reverts EtT. Incidentally, GuildKnight shows herself to be an expert at edit summary put downs. EtT's edit summary when reverting Rpeh was "it is not being used, it has no reason to remain", to which GuildKnight replied "it is only unused because you removed all uses of it".

I can only imagine what was happening elsewhere. I guess, for instance, that IRC was melting under the flames. Whatever happened, EtT marked himself as an inactive patroller and resigned as a mentor. He also added a quote to his user page: "All the mistakes I make arise from forsaking my own station and trying to see the object from another person's point of view." The fact that he takes that attitude should prove exactly how unsuitable he is for life on a wiki. He was still checking the site 5 hours later though, when he reverted somebody else who preferred the new layout.

Is this the end of Elliot the Thick? He obviously can't stop edit warring, except this time he did it with two admins. His pig-headed stupidity and obstinacy have been exposed yet again and he still refuses to play nicely with other people.

There should be an onsite debate about Elliot the Thick and his status as patroller. It is time that this idiot had his ability to damage the site removed.

Who is That Masked Man?

It seems that the same high-quality comments that get made here by anonymous posters are now being made on UESP. The Great Deceiver's talk page got this today, pretty obviously from the same guy who trolled the same page a month ago. Being an expert on sock-puppetry, TGD quickly spotted the subtle ploy, which provoked a response even more obviously false than TGD pretending he's not Calliope.

In fairly short order, the anon got a warning from SerCenKing, which provoked a shocked response. The LGA stepped in with a "final warning", which led to a terse reply. Then serial depressive HMS Victory Itachi stepped in with a typically helpful comment and the anon came back with a series of replies that I can't be bothered to link because they're utterly tedious - except for this classic bit of self-justification from TGD. Eventually, LGA gets fed up and gives the inevitable block.

There are two questions: just who is this anon (and no, it's not me - I can spell for a start)? He claims to be a patroller but that's pretty obvious rubbish. The IP resolves to BT - an ISP that serves about half of the UK so there's not much help there. Question two: this is obviously not over yet since the anon will get a new IP before long. Will there be an episode three?

S'drassa for Patroller?

So far, GK's nomination of S'drassa (static link 'cos it'll be archived soon) looks like going through but not without three "no" votes. Let's take a look in, because I feel like it, reverse order.

ModderElGrande stated that S'drassa doesn't have the experience, but that's not the reason. MEG tried to post his own mod on the site, with no discussion and in totally the wrong way. When he started whining about this, it was S'drassa that stepped up and slapped him for it. This led to MEG posting this on S'drassa's talk page and then the official oppose. This oppose, in other words, is motivated by personal dislike.

Next, we see serial annoyance Michaeldsuarez step up. MDS is obviously dedicated to detail. So much that he can't even be bothered to look at S'drassa's user page and so calls him "she or he". MDS is a serial troll, both on UESP and elsewhere, largely caused by his previous rejection from UESP. Another oppose motivated by personal reasons.

Lastly, we have Elliot the Thick. EtT's post is a classic from that user. First, he acknowledges that the rules that let him (EtT) become a patroller are ridiculous, then he says that because of this, S'drassa should be prevented from joining the gang. EtT's entire justification seems to be that because EtT turned out shit with so little experience, everybody else will too.

Well there we have the current state of play. Currently, S'drassa is sailing towards Patrollership with only those three "Oppose" votes. UESPwatch's own opinion is that any user that can even get TGD and RtV on the same side has got to be pretty good.

Happy New Year!

Well I've had a nice break, thank you all, and it looks like the site has had a similar break. Nothing really interesting has taken place during the few days I've been away. Let's see what I can remember...

Elliot the Thick seems to have realised he's not wanted and has disappeared (just ten posts in over two weeks), except for one or two things. First, he did an Elliot Special and got a good kicking from GuildKnight for doing so. Next, and this is an EtT classic, he votes to oppose S'drassa's nomination for patroller largely on the grounds that even EtT realises he got the role too quickly. So, in Elliot the Thick's mind, just because he turned out to be garbage as a patroller, everybody else is garbage at that stage too. And that's about it for EtT. With any luck he's gone to annoy another group of people now.

The Great Deceiver has been impressing us all with his ability to try something in many different ways until it works mastery of templates. To be fair, it does look like UESP can now deal without all the subpages that they previously used to artificially increase their number of pages (cf this from Rawtwat the Vicious).

Another new return is HMSVictory Itachi. So far so good, but I imagine we'll have to watch and wait to see what happens with this user who previously appeared less stable than a malfunctioning gyroscope.

One quicky from today was ^CEshe^V reminding us all just why she got her name.

I'm sure there was more than that. If you think I've missed out anything, please post a comment.