Nickname for Timenn

Okay, I alphabetised the list of nicknames mentioned in the previous post, but this serves to highlight one omission: I don't have a name for Timenn.

I'm going to give him the name Mary Jane (He's from the Netherlands - see the items section on this page and work it out) for now. Please comment or email uespwatch@gmail.com with better suggestions.

Storm in a Teacup

I had intended to skip this topic, but the way in which the argument keeps going makes it unmissable.

Things started with this edit, which deleted a section of a page on a largely irrelevant mod called FCOM. If you look over the history of that page, you will notice that for the last year, nothing much except deletions and reversions has taken place on it, so how did such a controversy erupt?

The answer is this edit from The Great Deceiver in which he fully blanked the page and redirected it to the FCOM site because he didn't believe the page was being maintained. A day later, a user named Haama restored the page and then exploded on the CP.

What follows is a fascinating back-and-forth debate where Haama, and another user called DragoonWraith acting like the world was about to end, and TGD defending his actions.

So what do I think about it? Well TGD's actions seems a little extreme, but the overreaction by the other editors has been incredibly funny to watch.

Ah. I see Timenn is trying to stop things going any further. Good luck on that score!

It's... oh... so quiet! Shh! Shh!

Now let me be honest and say that the Recent Changes page looks like a bomb exploded. Recently, when this has happened it has been because of a huge fight between The Great Deceiver and Elliot the Banned, Obnoxious and Thick but not today.

The activity today has been mostly from Arny, Mikeyboy52, GUM!!! and Scorpio... four newish users who excel at irritating other users by plastering the site with edits on talk pages.

Things began with Mikeyboy asking Elliot's Bitch about image linking that turned into a discussion about images in signatures. When TGD came in with what's becoming a standard tactic from him - a link to Wikipedia - you might be forgiven for thinking the discussion was over. No. Mikeyboy moved it on to TGD's talk page instead.

Meanwhile, Scorpio made this edit, which added a list of "Notable People" to the Leyawiin page. Now this idea has some good points and some bad points, but what everybody would agree is that it didn't need a load of new users talking about it. We then get at least 100 edits from the group named above and it all ends with Scorpio blanking stuff because he was feeling picked-upon. He also gave Arny a rather wet slap. Eventually, the Queen of Trolls warns him for slapping but he doesn't listen and goes on and on, evidently with a broken CAPS LOCK KEY. Herschel, then TGD ask him to calm down but to no avail. After some more vandalism, for which QOT blocked him, he leaves a nice message for her, before Timenn extends the block to a month. For no good reason.

Two lessons have been learned today. 1) 12 year olds should NOT be given Internet access without supervision. 2) God! Isn't it dull without EtBOT!

At last!

Tonight, I bask in the rays of joy and happiness that flow from my monitor, for Elliot the Obnoxiously Thick has been blocked at long last.

The day started with relatively new user Arny saying that he supported a block on EtOT, because he believed EtOT was more responsible than The Great Deceiver for all the arguments we have seen lately. You will never guess what happened next... EtOT got upset! In a post with an edit summary of "Arny, your suggestion is ridiculous", EtOT tells Arny that he "should keep out of such debates".

Arny replies, and points out that EtOT should already have received a block for his persistent violations of policy. EtOT obviously thought about this carefully, considered his behaviour and replied in a calm, thoughtful manner that.... oh who the hell am I trying to fool? He vomits a mass of diffs over the page, accusing Arny of playing the ''ignoratio elenchi'' game (irrelevant thesis - and BTW, EtOT, I thought one of your arguments was that only TGD and I use Latin?) then adds Arny's name to his insulting list.

At this point, the Powers step in. Timenn had warned EtOT before about dismissing the views of other users so gives EtOT an official warning for doing it. EtOT reacts with his usual politeness. Timenn replies and EtOT whines some more.

Meanwhile, Michaeldsuarez pops up on the Administrator Noticeboard talking about EtOT's record on Wikipedia. EtOT feels he has to respond ("How does my WP behavior have any bearing on this matter?" Answer: because you were a dick there and you're a dick on UESP too), and MDS replies.

MDS then makes a very good point that EtOT is acting like Dr. Jones, who once had an insulting list of his own. EtOT misses the point, and MDS points out that Dr. Jones was blocked, largely because of the list. EtOT tells him to "GTFO" before moving the debate to MDS' own talk page and telling him to "stay out of it".

Then, we have the golden moment. Nephele blocks EtOT for a week for "Repeated harassment of other users despite being warned just hours ago to stop". She then goes on a cleaning spree, removing all the nonsense EtOT has added during the day.

So there we have it. The whole process has taken far too long and it should have been done some time ago, but he has finally had his block. Something tells me we haven't seen the end of Elliot the Obnoxiously Thick, but at least we don't have to put up with him for a week.

One Last Piece of Idiocy?

I'm away for a few weeks and there's a piece of stupidity from Elliot the Obnoxiously Thick! Who could possibly have predicted such a thing?

The trigger seems to have been some incident in IRC between EtOT and rpeh. At first, EtOT reports it as an "Abuse of power", but after a couple of replies from The Great Deceiver, he decides it was worth an indefinite block.

Now normally, I'd say that TGD's reply is unhelpful, but since it's EtOT we're talking about here, there isn't really any better response. EtOT could just as easily stand for Elliot the Obnoxious Troll, but I would rather emphasise his stupidity.

Unfortunately, TGD didn't follow his own advice. After EtOT changes the title, TGD "reverts trolling", which EtOT undoes while accusing TGD of almost violating 3RR (the Wikipedia rule that says you can't make more than 3 reverts to a page within 24 hours). TGD points out that EtOT is talking out of his arse and EtOT admits the mistake, but doesn't apologise of course.

At this point, Southern Belle steps in. She politely tells EtOT to stop being a trolling bastard and wags a finger at TGD, presumably because she had to find some way of balancing her reply. More whining ensues from EtOT before SB tells him straight: he was trolling in IRC. EtOT then reminds us all why he gets the "Obnoxious" part of his name.

We then get Herschel's first major contribution as an admin. He agrees with SB and also tells EtOT that he's a troll. EtOT bids the site goodbye again before Lucius Tarquinius Superbus adds a typically magnificent reply. NOTE: current number of edits made by EtOT after leaving: 7.

Timenn (and I need a new name - he has not been around enough lately to justify the LGA tag) wraps the discussion up by giving EtOT what must surely be his last unofficial warning.

Hopefully this goodbye will be more permanent than his previous dozen or so. It is now clear that everyone is sick and tired of Elliot. The scariest thing about him is that he shows exactly the same behaviour on UESP and WP and still doesn't understand it when people tell him off. You have to wonder if he is like this in Real Life.

It's About Time

Finally, the patience of other users has been exhausted by Elliot the Obnoxiously Thick's behaviour.

It began with Lucius Tarquinius Superbus who in a brief (sarcasm) post outlined most of the case against him. Southern Belle follows up and suggests allowing EtOT to resign first (what's the point? Resign or be demoted anyway isn't much of a choice). Serial annoyance MEG pops up again with a confused series of posts and agrees, then Elliot's Bitch The Editor With an Out of Date Name demonstrates that he needs a new nickname.

So far, EtOT is only facing calls for his patroller rights to be stripped. Nobody has yet responded to Timenn's call for comments on the mutual block-fest from Saturday. Nothing yet from The Great Deceiver either. Presumably his response is going to be several megabytes long and will crash the server when he posts it. I can't believe he's going to remain silent on this one.

Elliot and Drama. Is Anybody Shocked?

Well my request for excitement on UESP has been answered. Once again it all gets fun because Elliot the Obnoxiously Thick is back on the site.

It started with a suggestion from The Great Deceiver that the gold and mercantile be removed from the place summary. That makes sense, I suppose. It's not the building that sells you your potions, after all. Joram RobinHood70 agrees, so all looks good. The Great Deceiver adds a little more information to "reinforce" his opinion... but also adds a little comment as an HTML comment that doesn't show up: "given that I've now discovered who added it in the first place...". Since it turns out that the person who originally added the parameters was Elliot the Thick... it's not too long before Elliot the Obnoxiously Thick is involved.

EtOT ignores most of TGD's comment so TGD tells him so.... and then we're off to the races!

EtOT posts an insulting comment in reply and then an anon reverts it, calling Elliot a Troll in the process. Corvette789 gets involved and reinstates it; revert by anon; revert by Corvette789; revert by anon; revert by EtOT; revert by Timenn; then EtOT removes TGD's comment into the bargain.

Meanwhile, the anon warns EtOT for his personal attack, which gets reverted, reverted, reverted etc (can't be bothered with links).

Also meanwhile, EtOT warns the anon, followed by revert, revert etc, and eventually EtOT uses section protection to make the warning permanent. He obviously doesn't know that you're not supposed to use protection to further your own arguments.

Timenn has tried to clear things up, but as it stands, EtOT is doing what he always does: being a total fucking asshole.

I've said it before and I'm sure I'll say it again: Elliot should never have become a patroller. He is an obnoxious troll and never does anything useful. Block him now.

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.

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.

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?

Rawtart Makes Sense! And then fails again

It's a well-known fact that even a broken clock is right twice a day, but when Rawtwat the Vicious makes a sensible point... well I don't know, since it's never happened before.

There's been a little spat between Elliot the Thick and DStebbins, an irritating little person who sprays his personal opinions over UESP like a farmer spreading cowshit on a field. DStebbins made the point that zero-weight items give an infinite "value ratio", which is what UESP calls value divided by weight. EtT removes the comment with the edit summary "you can divide by zero, so this make no sense", staking a further claim to his "Thick" label, but at least he followed up with "dummy edit; I meant can't divide by zero". There was also a whole discussion on EtT's talk page, where even the LGA missed the point.

Elliot (and Timenn), of course you can divide by zero. Wikipedia has a whole article on the topic, and maybe you should both read it.

It's left to Rawtwat to reinstate the point and explain why. Unfortunately, and remember that this is an admin, he doesn't know how to link to categories. No, not like this... or like this... and it takes new editor Nx to show the way. So close, Rawtar, and yet so far.

Thanks to the person who emailed me pointing this one out even though it dragged me out of my holiday. Yes - at least one person has worked out who I am.

Ratwar and Timenn?

It seems that, not content with attacking the lowly peons that make up most of UESP, Rawtwat the Vicious finds it necessary to attack his fellow admins. First target? LGA! According to Timenn, Rawtwat bitched in IRC about a preference Timenn expressed for new images uploaded by Elliot the Thick.

The question is, exactly what did Rawtwat say? The other question is that since he hasn't edited on the wiki in three days, why does he find it necessary to criticise other users in IRC? Oh, that's right. He's a vicious thug.

It's Rawtwat's Big Chance

I'm not going to link every diff, but this debate would seem to be Rawtwat the Vicious's last chance before he loses all credibility.

Rawtwat is demanding the right to insult, block and generally smear anybody he wants. Everybody else that has commented so far is trying to find polite ways to tell him he's being an idiot. He has even gone so far that ^CEshe^V, Elliot and Elliot's Bitch have told him he's being too vicious.

The Last Good Admin has had some reasonable things to say, things that RtV called "discouraging" although that should be expected given what a vicious idiot Rawtwat has become lately. Nothing yet from GK the Silent or Nephele the Pious, but that's par for the course.

It looks like this will be a case where a blocked user takes on an administrator... and wins. Rawtwat has lost a huge amount of his remaining credibility and The Great Deceiver must be feeling slightly smug given the number of people that have supported him (even Elliot's Bitch has had nice things to say for once, although his new user idea was the single most st00p1d thing suggested in UESP's history).

The Curse of UESPWatch?

Oh dear. I praise Eshe and then she fucks up almost immediately. Then I praise Timenn... and guess what happens?

A few days ago, new user Kalrot did some good research and added Riekling names (from Tribunal), names from Shadowkey and Morrowind plug-ins, and names from Redguard to the Lore:Names page. Today, Timenn deleted the Redguard names with the odd reason "Not common (single occurences)".

Kalrot has added a very reasonable comment to the talk page that says "WTF?" in particularly polite fashion. Most of the names on that page are one-offs. The few that aren't (Morrowind and Oblivion versions of Volanaro, for instance) get brought up time and time against as people try to invent relationships between the two.

Is the Last Good Admin about to lose his title, leaving UESP without anybody possessing two brain cells? Talking of which, professional idiot Elliot the Thick has reared his thick head again in the last few days, both on UESP and on WP. Fuck off, EtT. Both sites were much better without your semi-literate bullshit.

TFFT

Thank F*** For Timenn.

Nephele is on an epic wiki-break. Rpeh has left. Wrye has left (did anybody notice?). Rawtwat is doing nothing except being vicious. Eshe.... welcomes people, warns people... but that's about it. Even GuildKnight seems to have vanished. Just as well the Last Good Admin is around.

Seriously, it's him and a couple of n00b patrollers right now. Since Elliot the Thick has vanished lately, why not get Rpeh back? He was a PITA but at least he made sure the content was accurate... often to the point of OCD and beyond.

The Sound of Silence

Come on people! Why so quiet?

Three whole days and nobody's done anything. Sure there was a stupid section-protection from Elliot the Thick who evidently can't understand the concept of dynamic IP addresses and we've had the usual Welcome Spam from ^CEshe^V but beyond that, almost nothing.

Timenn, the Last Good Administrator, chipped in earlier with a slew of good edits (although WTF was this one about? The edit summary of "Why do you disagree?" doesn't seem to make sense) but otherwise it's been too quiet. Come on people! Surely it's time for EtT to fuck up another template?

That's two more nicknames decided: LGA for Timenn and ^CEshe^V for Eshe (since 95% of her edits involve copy/paste or existing templates). My lucky off-the-cuff name for Rpeh - The Great Deceiver - strikes me as pure brilliance so I'm sticking with that. For Nephele I'm going for The Pious, since she always had a More Wiki Than Thou attitude that couldn't have been more annoying if she stood next to you and sang off-key Bee Gees songs into your ear while you read her self-absorbed, overlong posts. She's been quiet recently though. Since she's so obviously after a place on the MediaWiki development team, there may be scope for a more appropriate name there.

That leaves just G(?:uild)?K(?:night)? in the admins (Wrye, if he deserves a mention at all, will get "Monkey Man"). I'm not sure what do with GK so suggestions are welcome. Nothing too insulting because if it wasn't for Timenn, she'd probably get the LGA nick.

After that there are the quartet of new(ish) patrollers: Krusty, SerCenKing, WGB and Dlarsh. All four seem pretty decent so far, although you have to worry about Krusty's OCD. Suggestions welcome there too.