patrick.net

Patrick says

Please help prevent the patrick.net wikipedia page from being deleted

Now the page says

Delete and salt per ThePlatypusofDoom's comment. Salt it because, as the forum page said, it was deleted and then someone almost immediately recreated it. I have a feeling someone will likely do it again. -- Gestrid (talk) 23:51, 29 August 2016 (UTC)

Pussy-ass Wikipedia editor wankers. Why does anyone have any respect for this piece of shit website? It's trivially easy to make a wiki and every single wiki out there is better than Wikipedia. All Wikipedia does is copy-n-paste the top Google search results or plant propaganda and misinformation. You're far better off just using Google and skipping over Wikipedia references.

Well, I'm very encouraged. There is a wonderful admin on there... Something with a B. He/she is super helpful. I think we can do this. The stuff is there. We just have to get it communicated the way they want it. They have to make sure that the Wiki site isn't littered with garbage. Okay, so they are going to make us work for it. PatNet has done a lot. It deserves to be there. Making sure that you actively look at the proposed suggestions and contributing thoughts of your own would be a step in the right direction.

Dan8267 says

Pussy-ass Wikipedia editor wankers. Why does anyone have any respect for this piece of shit website? It's trivially easy to make a wiki and every single wiki out there is better than Wikipedia. All Wikipedia does is copy-n-paste the top Google search results or plant propaganda and misinformation. You're far better off just using Google and skipping over Wikipedia references.

You mad bro? You sound like you're mad.

Suck our DICKS!, wikipedia!

Do you know who Patrick.net is?

www.youtube.com/embed/wKcHMJlE7OM

I oppose all deception, especially deception masquerading as democracy. I file Wikipedia in the same category as junk science. It gives the illusion of proper methodology while activating opposing such methodology. And just like junk science, Wikipedia does great harm by convincing people of false and misleading things. Furthermore, it promotes intellectual laziness and faith, much like religion, and does not tolerate challenges to its bullshit. That makes Wikipedia dangerous.

Barek says

The article originally had only three references, two of which weren't very good and the third being insufficient by itself. Once I saw the additional references had been added, I made the second comment. The article is already improved over its initial version. Sources that provide additional good coverage (not just trivial mentions in passing) and which are published by third party reliable sources (ideally news sites, professional journals, established non-profit organizations, etc) can only strengthen the argument to keep the article.

@Barek The difficulty I have with this argument, however, is the fact that without Patrick.net, Patrick Killelea would be unknown. It is this site that attracted NPR and ABC News. This site is why they interviewed him. I'm a total genius, just ask anyone (don't ask them, really). No one's interviewing me, however. Why? I've done nothing notable enough to trigger interest in interviewing me. The site drove that interest, hence the reason Patrick.net is mentioned in those particular cited articles. If the Wiki article were about Patrick K, himself, then it could be argued that it's "inherited notability," according to my reading of the Wiki notability page.

You have a programmer who became a recognized housing bust expert through the creation of this site. He created the site in 2004... The 3rd party articles start in 2006. How else does a programmer, a person who would otherwise NOT be considered a housing bubble expert, get considered as such if not for the very content of this site? It's the site that got their attention... Not some unknown programmer from Menlo Park.

Furthermore, I would like to be clear to any Wiki contributors who might be poking around the site to gather information... and happen to stumble upon this thread. This email is asking for meaningful contributions by members interested in helping to further the project.

Some members have been members for a very long time. We know this site and its history, well. This thread is in NO WAY "canvassing" for votes. It was a request for some collaboration, either on this thread... Or for those members who are comfortable with Wiki, to contribute directly to the article or its comments sections as a way to improve the submission. Not all that different than what Wiki does through its Talk pages. This isn't about votes... It's about addressing the issues brought up by the Wiki contributors and resolving those concerns.

Please note, other than ONE flagged vote, your articles for deletion section has NOT been flooded by "keep" votes from newly minted Wiki registrants from this site, in violation of your terms. As a free speech forum, opinions of all kinds are welcome. However offensive and counterproductive to the goal of getting a Wiki page some of this thread's comments might be, that's what free speech is all about.

And, should we suck you in as regular patnet members... Note the "ignore" link at the top of each post. Ignore is your friend.

Those failed losers at wiki don't want nothing to do with the interwebs last bastian of free speech!

Lay down and lick your lips, wikipedia; Turkey ain't nothing but a bird!

As Barek alluded to, articles are never truly deleted. They are simply hidden from the public's view. Admins can still see them, and they can restore them, provided certain conditions are met. If someone (anyone, really) comes along and asks that they be able to make the article into a draft, the request will likely be granted if the article isn't copyright infringement, which it doesn't appear to be.

Also, canvassing, by Wikipedia's definition, is letting people know something is going on, and you know they'll likely side with you. For example, if I were to post to someone's talk page on Wikipedia, "Hey, I may be about to get blocked!" or something like that, if I knew they'd specifically try to stop me from getting blocked, that's canvassing.

Also, thank you for not just randomly going into that discussion without thinking things through and examining the policies we've laid out there. And thank you for asking questions when you don't understand the policies instead of just saying, "Well, **** you and your policies!!!". That honestly is refreshing. You have no idea how many Wikipedia editors can sometimes be like that. (That's not a warning, that's a genuine thank you.)

Gestrid says

As Barek alluded to, articles are never truly deleted. They are simply hidden from the public's view

In an open and transparent system, articles would never be hidden from the public's view.

I tried to find a way to comment on the "Please comment on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Patrick.net"
But I could not find a way to do so. Please help. I have been a member of Patrick.net for 10 years. It is a good and notable website.

altos says

I tried to find a way to comment on the "Please comment on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Patrick.net"

But I could not find a way to do so. Please help. I have been a member of Patrick.net for 10 years. It is a good and notable website.

You click "Edit source" anywhere on the page and then comment under the last comment, making sure to include your reason to keep or delete the page. Be sure to type ~~~~ after your post to make your signature appear. You don't have to login, but your IP address will be visible if you don't.

Dan8267 says

In an open and transparent system, articles would never be hidden from the public's view.

In a perfect world, we wouldn't have to.

Georgies closed.
That did it...

dreebotheyung says

Dan8267 says

Pussy-ass Wikipedia editor wankers. Why does anyone have any respect for this piece of shit website? It's trivially easy to make a wiki and every single wiki out there is better than Wikipedia. All Wikipedia does is copy-n-paste the top Google search results or plant propaganda and misinformation. You're far better off just using Google and skipping over Wikipedia references.

You mad bro? You sound like you're mad.

Gestrid says

In a perfect world, we wouldn't have to.

"In a perfect world" is the weakest cop-out ever said. It presents a false dichotomy to justify doing the wrong thing. For example, in a perfect world we'd find and prosecute every rapist, but it's not a perfect world so we shouldn't even try; might as well let them all go if we can't catch ever one. False dichotomies are lame.

Every action or inaction is a choice. Even in this imperfect world, you don't have to hide articles from the public. That is your choice.

Oh, and don't even bother with the red herring of copyright or criminal posts. We're not talking about deleting illegal content, but rather legal content you don't like.

The fact remains that the Wikipedia experiment is a dismal failure. The site contains gross propaganda, misinformation, and deliberate deception and rewriting of history, and cherry picking data to support one position over another. And it's not a single group or individual doing this harm. It's a multitude of governments, corporations, SJWs, and bigots of all political persuasions. Wikipedia is the junk science equivalent of an encyclopedia.

Any truthful and historically significant information that makes a company, government, agency, war, or individual look bad is removed as non-NPOV, a sad excuse for omitting important historical facts. If Wikipedia was around in the 1930s, any reference to the Nazis killing Jews would be removed as not a "neutral point of view". Well, reality isn't always neutral. There is not way to report about the Holocaust without making Nazis look bad. Some facts by their very nature makes a party look bad. That doesn't mean they aren't facts or aren't important. Wikipedia does a great disservice to humanity by presenting propaganda as objective, accurate historical accounting. And quite frankly, there are few crimes greater than denying future generations an honest and accurate historical record. Doing so condemns those generations to repeat our mistakes.

Oh Dan, calm down. If you hate it so much, no one has a gun to your head forcing you to visit Wikipedia. You're a programmer, right? A talented, if not mischievous one (CIC incident). Why don't you create a competing on-line encyclopedia and then you set the rules up any way you see fit? No doubt, you'll find a way to make it work without any review process or standards for submission, whatsoever. I can't see any potential problems with that kind of policy, at all. So, prove it can be done and show the Wiki Establishment a thing or two.

SO what have we learned today kids?

"Never let free speech advocates defend you the court of opinion. "

Dan8267 says

Furthermore, it promotes intellectual laziness and faith, much like religion, and does not tolerate challenges to its bullshit. That makes Wikipedia dangerous.

What are you talking about? They've addressed every challenge put out there in a professional manner. What I'm sure they don't like are helpful suggestions like, "Fuck off you Nazi bastard, this is notable and you're just oppressing my right to free speech." That's not particularly constructive. However, when you have a substantive challenge to a comment, they seem more than willing to consider what you are saying. A couple have revised their first reactions to the submission. Just because they aren't rolling over and playing dead, doesn't mean that they are intolerant to challenges. As for laziness and faith... The fact that they are taking the time to come out here and look at Patrick.net for themselves would seem to indicate an inclination to "find out for themselves" rather than follow this supposed "blind faith" that nothing could be different from what they first thought.

We get that you don't like the product. Fine. Point taken. What's your goal here? Do you just need a soapbox or are you trying to change Patrick's mind about submitting to Wikipedia, altogether?

Dan8267

Furthermore, it promotes intellectual laziness and faith, much like religion, and does not tolerate challenges to its bullshit. That makes Wikipedia dangerous

I expect Stalin and Mao would have agreed whole heartedly.

turtledove says

Oh Dan, calm down.

I am calm. Just because I strongly oppose something and take a firm stand does not mean I'm being hysterical. My arguments against Wikipedia are quite rational and objective.

turtledove says

If you hate it so much, no one has a gun to your head forcing you to visit Wikipedia.

True, and no one is forcing anyone to vote for Trump or Hillary, but we are all effected by which one is elected.

I don't object to Wikipedia on the basis that its propaganda and misinformation fools me. I object to Wikipedia on the basis that its propaganda and misinformation fools many other people and then those other people have a great negative effect on our society. That's the same exact objection I have against both religion and junk science in the courtroom. Surely you would not take the stance that using junk science in criminal trials is tolerable? People have been executed for crimes they did not commit in our country because of junk science. It's not hysteria to take a firm stance against such wrongs.

turtledove says

A talented, if not mischievous one (CIC incident).

All talented programmers are mischievous. I suspect the same holds for other fields as well.

turtledove says

Why don't you create a competing on-line encyclopedia and then you set the rules up any way you see fit?

I have a day job and what free time I have is wasted on PatNet.

There is no need for a single online encyclopedia as Google has solved the problem of indexing the web. Having a single site actually does nothing to address any problems with having multiple and untrustworthy sources of information. Gathering these multiple sources and untrustworthy into a single domain name or web page design does not mitigate any problems with the sources being untrustworthy.

But even if one wanted to create an alternative to Wikipedia, the mere existence of Wikipedia makes such attempts futile. One of the properties of the Internet is that niches that are filled, rightfully or wrongfully, are persistent against competition for the exact same reason that the Internet is so damn useful in the first place. The value of a network is proportional to the square of the number of connected users of the system.

Let's take an even simpler example. Why not replace Skype? It's trivially easy to create a video chat program. The video part is already done for you and there are controls you can drag-n-drop into your UI builder to use. Yet, it's impossible to replace Skype with an alternative. Why? Well, everyone uses Skype, so there is great motivation for people to use Skype and no motivation for people to use your system since few if any people are already on it. But because there is no motivation for people to switch to your app or network, no one does, and thus there will never be any motivation for people to do so. Skype is popular because it was able to get a user base before the niche was filled.

For the same reason, it's basically impossible to replace Facebook, Adobe Photoshop, or Wikipedia even if you create an obviously superior product or service and everyone agrees it's obviously superior. You could build a social network that everyone says is far better than Facebook and offers far more and is far easier to use, and no one would use it because everyone is on Facebook and not on your network.

However, none of these facts excuse the harm Wikipedia is doing to the world by letting propagandists rewrite history and spread misinformation about countries, wars, government policies, corporate products, etc. The world would be better off if Wikipedia didn't even exist. The information that is on Wikipedia would simply be spread across many sites, and more importantly, the mechanisms that propagandists use to spread misinformation and to silence the correction of this misinformation would not exist and thus propaganda would be less effective and much harder to get away with.

turtledove says

No doubt, you'll find a way to make it work without any review process or standards for submission, whatsoever. I can't see any potential problems with that kind of policy, at all. So, prove it can be done and show the Wiki Establishment a thing or two.

That's not my solution. My solution is the one that's tried and true, the one that already works, the one that is working today right now. The solution is peer reviews. This is what the scientific community does and it is extremely effective at preventing junk science and detecting and correcting misinformation. The scientific method is a self-correcting methodology and the greatest invention of mankind. It just works.

Wikipedia gives the illusion of peer review while producing deceptions that would never pass a peer review in any scientific community. I'd rather see well respected institutions in various fields (science, finance, history, etc.) cooperating in the open using peer reviews and articles who authors are identified with real-world names. When I read a scientific paper, or any academic paper for that matter, I know that the author is putting his or her reputation on the line with every keystroke. I also know the paper has been thoroughly vetted by experts and not by unknown sources with alternative agendas.

And if an organization does engage in any kind of shenanigans, the reputation of the organization suffers. Scientific and academic organizations value their reputation greatly and so they don't engage in bullshit. When was the last time the American Institute of Physics or the European Federation of Geologists put out some bullshit? Never. The risk would be too great. In contrast Wikipedia is effectively a single source rather than dozens of organizations around the world with separate reputations. Thus you have to either accept or reject Wikipedia as a whole. A chain is only as strong as its weakest link, and the reputability of an organization is only as good as the worst scoundrel in it. And there are plenty of scoundrels in Wikipedia. They are the most active users because only people with a fiscal or political power motive would spend the time and resources -- or pay a multitude of others to do so -- necessary to control the information on the most recent version of a Wikipedia article. It is precisely the worst people who have the greatest motivation to dominate Wikipedia.

turtledove says

They've addressed every challenge put out there in a professional manner.

There is nothing the Wikipedia high ranking users can say that will fix a fundamentally flawed system. No words can cause problems to suddenly cease to exist.

The very approach Wikipedia uses is wrong. The peer review process is the correct approach. If Wikipedia adopted the peer review process, it would not be Wikipedia in any form regardless of whether or not it kept the name. In any case, there is no way they would do it as it would destroy the unfortunate appeal of the site.

turtledove says

Fuck off you Nazi bastard, this is notable and you're just oppressing my right to free speech.

Actually I don't think that PatNet is notable. Sorry Patrick. But my objections to Wikipedia have nothing to do with whether or not PatNet is included. That's just utterly insignificant.

I do however object to the incredible amount of deliberate misinformation and censorship that appears on Wikipedia and has since its beginnings.

I was one of the people strongly rooting for Wikipedia when it first came out. I also made many contributions in science, math, and computer science articles. Since no one gives a rat's ass about esoteric math and technology problems, these articles were good. They were written and edited only by nerds with the best intentions and the love of sharing knowledge.

However, add a financial or political motive and the entire system fails quickly and completely. When money and power is on the line, which it ultimately is with any article that remotely touches human experiences like wars, elections, products, companies, laws, treaties, history, historical figures, and just about everything else than articles that appeal to only nerds and academics, then suddenly there are powerful perverse incentives for people and organizations to control the information on Wikipedia. It becomes a propaganda network.

And having a history of the pages does nothing to mitigate this problem because 99.9% of the users are only going to look on the most recent version of the page. And having citations does nothing to mitigate this problem because the citations allowed are also controlled by the propagandists.

When I finally ventured into articles about history or current events I was appalled at how much power organizations with vested interests and malevolent intentions have over what information is allowed in articles. It was the exact opposite of democracy. Now science is not a democracy, but Wikipedia was suppose to be. Instead it had none of the benefits of peer review while also having none of the benefits of democracy. In fact, it was the worst possible set of attributes. The authors with the most power were anonymous and organized.

The best way to describe Wikipedia is as Citizens United for Encyclopedias. Organizations with sizable financial resources can easily have entire teams of employees that use sets of users to perform various badge-earning activities including cleaning up graffiti and writing legitimate articles on sports or other venues they don't care about. And then these user accounts with great reputations can be used by other employees to control information on articles that are of interest to the organization. And since the user accounts had many badges, their say is far greater than anyone else's even though the individual persons behind the accounts aren't necessarily the ones earning the badges.

Furthermore, it is trivially easy for an organization to have many highly ranked accounts that the other Wikipedia users and even the administrators of the site cannot, even in principle, know are really in cahoots. And don't think IP logging is going to make a difference. Sure the occasional amateur at a well-known company might get caught doing this crap, but any serious effort by a major corporation, or worse yet, a determine agency within a government sure as hell isn't going to get caught and has more than enough resources to use fake IP addresses or to cycle IP addresses registered with false information.

The very basis of trust that Wikipedia inherently relies upon is faulty to the core.

turtledove says

We get that you don't like the product. Fine. Point taken. What's your goal here? Do you just need a soapbox or are you trying to change Patrick's mind about submitting to Wikipedia, altogether?

My goal is to inform others about the nefarious evils of Wikipedia so that
1. They won't be fooled by it.
2. They won't act on the misinformation.
3. They won't contribute to the cult of Wikipedia thus further enabling its negative impact on the world.
4. They will inform others of these problems to further erode Wikipedia's ability to be use as a weapon by governments and corporations.

These are pretty good objectives.

As for PatNet getting a Wikipedia page? Who cares. It's not significant.

What is significant is that the next time we go to war based on misinformation, Wikipedia doesn't help bad actors in our government spread that misinformation. Lives are literally at stake.

Dan8267 says

The solution is peer reviews.

I would like to point out that that was tried and failed. Search for Nupedia.

Gestrid says

I would like to point out that that was tried and failed. Search for Nupedia.

Interesting. Seems like they could have put out more articles than they did. How does the New England Journal of Medicine do it? They, too, are pretty big into peer review. It's almost like Nupedia got so caught up in the peer review process that they could never actually finish the job.

We do a lot of publishing at our practice (we're approaching 150 articles in peer-reviewed journals). It's a frustrating process, sometimes. And it's not the influence free process you'd like to believe, either. For example, we do a lot of work regarding hysterectomy-free Essure removals (gyns almost exclusively remove via hysterectomy; there are a handful of laparoscopists in the country who figured out how to do it without removing all the organs). Essure is a contraceptive coil that's causing all kinds of problems, but got pre-market approval from the FDA so they are immune to litigation. It's a long story that will doubtless end in massive litigation at some point.... But we submitted an Essure related article for a journal that got rejected. We looked up the reviewers and one of them was a paid consultant for Bayer, the manufacturer of Essure. We were assigned new reviewers and received an "accepted with changes," but peer review doesn't always mean "pure."

Dan8267 says

You could build a social network that everyone says is far better than Facebook and offers far more and is far easier to use, and no one would use it because everyone is on Facebook and not on your network.

I remember people making this exact argument about Friendster.

Also Myspace.

Gestrid says

Dan8267 says

The solution is peer reviews.

I would like to point out that that was tried and failed. Search for Nupedia.

The peer review process succeeds thousands of times every day and has for the past 150 years. I'll give more weight to the billions of success cases than to the single failure case that doesn't even represent a failure of the peer review process but rather a failed attempt of a nobody trying to form a community when so many other rich ones exist.

SomeGuy says

Dan8267 says

You could build a social network that everyone says is far better than Facebook and offers far more and is far easier to use, and no one would use it because everyone is on Facebook and not on your network.

I remember people making this exact argument about Friendster.

Also Myspace.

The social network niche was not fully occupied then. It is now. A better example would be the failure of Google circles. If Google with all it's power and money cannot replace Facebook, then you can't either.

Examples of success in one environment don't demonstrate plausibility in greatly different environments.

The extent of the occupation of niches most certainly matters in both economic and ecological systems. To ignore this fact is to court bankruptcy or extinction.

A very nontechnical person said a very nontechnical thing the other day, but after thinking about it more, it does sound brilliant.

He asked me, why don't they have consumer boxes,they put web servers and services in a router connected box like the way Ruku and AppleTV boxes work?
I said what do you mean? He said you know if you want a website, you publish to the web server on your router. It could have a Social Networking apps built in, that doesn't have a central hub in the cloud.
But instead your content stays on your router. There is no calling Facebook or Google to take stuff off. You just delete what you don't want from your server services running on your connected services server box.

But the more I thought about it, the more this made just as much sense as having three different streaming boxes connected to your TV does.
You could make it a demilitarized zone on your network and even have a proxy running on the box, all of the internet communication you do locally goes through the box. More than a firewall from you and the internet.

Never any centralized content for hackers to steal millions of users info in one whack. The goal would be this device alone would be tougher to hack than the DNC, VISA or the IRS.
And more secure than Hillary's email server.

With this type of box you would publish your own Wiki page and a new DNS protocol would aggregate all of the boxes links to one cohesive network directory to like articles on your box to other boxes.
You'll never have a site admin telling you what you can and can't say.And it would stop the assault on free speech in its tracks.

Dan8267 says

The peer review process succeeds thousands of times every day

Yes and no. I encounter shocking cases of failure regularly. Both ways - good works which get rejected with subjective arguments, even personal attacks, by the anonymous referees, as well garbage that gets accepted (based on the principle I scratch your back you scratch mine). Such things happen with all journals, especially the very to ones.

You'll be surprised how long a wrong result can continue being cited, even after it is proven to be wrong - by the authors, their friends, clueless scientists , and scientists-turned-managers.

And don't get me started on the system of funding research.

FP says

You'll be surprised how long a wrong result can continue being cited, even after it is proven to be wrong - by the authors, their friends, clueless scientists , and scientists-turned-managers.

As CIC just demonstrated, idiots will always say stupid things and repeat debunked lies. However, the peer review method is not only the best, but the only known way to expose these idiots, lies, and mistakes and to make progress against ignorance. The scientific method is a self-correcting one and the proof is in the pudding. It got us to the moon. It gave us flight. It opened the microscopic world. It doubled the human lifespan.

Can you think of a better system then peer-review? Certainly Wikipedia is not better. It is a mockery of knowledge, transparency, and trustworthiness.

Tenpoundbass says

why don't they have consumer boxes,they put web servers and services in a router connected box like the way Ruku and AppleTV boxes work?

I've thought about this idea before, and it could definitely work, but most people have incoming requests blocked at their home router, so they'd have to change that. And then secondly, most people have far lower upload speeds than download speeds, so these things would not be fast.

But it is basically a good idea. You could even make your phone be your server, but bandwidth would be even lower, and battery life would be a problem because the radio would wake up all the time to service requests.

Dan thinks that even the sources used by Wikipedia are controlled by "propagandists", but his peer review process will apparently be completely immune to outside influence. How so, I wonder.

salazzo says

Dan thinks that even the sources used by Wikipedia are controlled by "propagandists", but his peer review process will apparently be completely immune to outside influence. How so, I wonder.

In peer review systems, cherry picked data is easily exposed and the authors who engage in it have their reputations ruined. Publishing bullshit is the fastest way for a scientist or academic to destroy his career. This does not apply to Wikipedia account holders. Do you really not understand this difference?

Even worse than Wikipedia itself is the Wikipedia reader. The Wikipedia reader is brainwashed into a cult-like allegiance to this dismal site taking any criticism of the site as a personal attack against himself. This is a phenomenon well illustrated in this thread.

Well, it was deleted:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrick.net

This definitely lowers Wikipedia's credibility.

I bet they are run by the Zampolit and the content of the site was unacceptable.

https://patrick.net/?p=1295419&c=1321815#comment-1321815

The pages are never really deleted. Gestrid posted a comment on how to change it to draft status. There's a tag that needs to be added the page. If you cannot access the page, you may need to go through an administrator, assuming you're still interested, but the page should still be recoverable. Once it's in draft status, you will have time to continue working on it or submit through Articles of Creation, which will remove the bias they claim is a major issue.

turtledove says

The best way to describe Wikipedia is as Citizens United for Encyclopedias. Organizations with sizable financial resources can easily have entire teams of employees that use sets of users to perform various badge-earning activities including cleaning up graffiti and writing legitimate articles on sports or other venues they don't care about. And then these user accounts with great reputations can be used by other employees to control information on articles that are of interest to the organization. And since the user accounts had many badges, their say is far greater than anyone else's even though the individual persons behind the accounts aren't necessarily the ones earning the badges.

I've actually seen this in action. Somebody edits a lot of articles about marshmellows and polo and green tree frogs, but they are a fanatic about a political issue and all the work they did on non-political things somehow gives them weight on tendentious editing of political pages.

rando says

I bet they are...

human, and reacting to "The Original Bankster" and Fortwhine. Patrick, please don't let anger or disappointment cloud your judgment and mislead you into blaming the wrong villain. Your rebrand as a "free speech" zone, "no matter how offensive," doesn't really fit with your site's earlier notability as an "excellent real estate site." It's as if you decided to bury that site under a pile of manure in hope of seeing what grows: maybe something will, but the manure itself isn't necessarily a notable achievement. "The Original Bankster" wants you dead, and your wife and kids, and most of your readers, and he is a Nazi, and he vandalized your Wikipedia page, yet you give him a platform for his Nazi ideology and stupid pranks. That's poignant, but not necessarily notable. Likewise Fortwhine, the racist and anti-gay "church militant" closet case. Nazis and racists and homophobes who vandalize Wikipedia, and have never given any of their time to building it, don't have much credibility there. Turtledove tried to rescue you, but nobody could patch the hole blown beneath PatNet's waterline by TOB and Fortwhine. I wish Wikipedia had kept the page, because there was a lot of notable history related to real estate, but you seal your fate with the choices you make. If I may suggest, instead of "free speech, no matter how offensive" you might want to consider a better option: critical thinking, no matter how contrarian or unpopular. You do have some very smart people here, of many different opinions, and some seem to revel in criticizing each other, and occasionally they get around to criticizing each other's thinking. We live in an era of too much data and not enough analysis, and I think you might do better if you present the site along those lines, and probably if you ban TOB at the very least.

The problem with Nazi ideology (or church militancy, for that matter) is not so much that it's "offensive", but rather it's a stupid waste of time. History disproved Nazi ideology, as the best and brightest had to flee Germany or die, resulting in Germany's loss. Nazi ideology pretends to strength but is actually weak. Similarly, "church militant" means only vanity, because no omnipotent god can ever need your help; it is equally stupid whether Catholic or Muslim, though it tends recently to be more violent among the Muslims. A platform for stupid, disproved, and fundamentally illogical (but possibly offensive) speech isn't necessarily notable, and it is certainly less useful than a site exposing the deceptions in real estate, politics, etc.

rando says

Well, it was deleted:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrick.net

This definitely lowers Wikipedia's credibility.

Well, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrick.net-2 is still available. How long until we run out of integers?

Well, it does say that Patrick himself is notable. Perhaps the solution is to switch gears, submit a page on Patrick himself, and mention the web site as the reason for his notability. All of the admins seemed to agree that Patrick is notable.

curious2 says

Your rebrand as a "free speech" zone, "no matter how offensive," doesn't really fit with your site's earlier notability as an "excellent real estate site." It's as if you decided to bury that site under a pile of manure in hope of seeing what grows: maybe something will, but the manure itself isn't necessarily a notable achievement.

Thanks @curious2 I do appreciate the helpful comment. But it feels like you're asking me to abandon a principle (speech free of nearly all constraints, even free of politeness) in order to get traffic. Maybe I should do that, and maybe there really is no value in letting people simply insult each other online.

Other opinions, anyone? Is it possible to grow a forum where people are completely uncensored?

rando says

Other opinions, anyone?

Well, what about a system where a person can get "abuse" votes by other members? When that person reaches ten in so many hours, or whatever number, he or she is no longer able to post for a day. The only problem I see here would be CIC and Dan rage voting each other off the system using multiple aliases. Why can't you prevent aliases, BTW? It seems silly that one person would have multiple login names. Doesn't seem to serve much useful purpose. Couldn't it be limited to one per IP and email address, at least? And it wouldn't have to be that the person cannot create a new ID, but the old one would have to be deactivated before a new ID can be created.