Rational Wiki deletes essay criticizing Rational Wiki

The thing is, at RationalWiki, everyone that isn't insane is given sysop power. I have sysop; so do hundreds of others. It's part of RW's policy of openness -- if everyone is a sysop, it's difficult to hide something. So it might be juvenile, but it's not from a position of any more power than an average RWer.

I'm telling Mr. Viharo to calm down because he's talking about censorship and systems of denial, when this is just one RWer who's a bit peeved.

Uh huh. So if I were to go on that site to correct the garbage on my bio I would be facing down a bunch of juvenile nonsense with sysop powers?

Does Rome have sysop powers or is it only people who agree philosophically?

Not that I'm going to bother. RW has zero effect on my life. The only people who look me up on it are already trying to dig up dirt on me or they're not and they see it for the obnoxious douchebaggery it is. No one in my real life would ever bother with it.
 
Hey Linda thanks for asking - actually neither an individual or a group makes a judgement about the behaviors, that's all done by an algorithm. In terms of rational consensus building - the process evaluates how conclusions are arrived at and how consistent a point of view is in explaining them. For example, I can believe something is true, and it may very well be true, but let's say my belief,and how I understand the idea itself is irrational, and I am unable to argue that idea or viewpoint with consistency.

To be honest, I'm not seeing how that distinguishes valid ideas from those which are not valid. Quite rational and consistent arguments are made for ideas which are also quite obviously false, on a regular basis.

Collaborative behaviors are not just the only markers for rational consensus building. The other markers are honesty (transparency around how individual conclusions were arrived) and logical consistency.

ex:

I say: 2 + 2 =5!
you say: 2 + 2 =4!

you then 'show me' how you came to that conclusion. If I accept your conclusion and acknowledge the fault in my own - even though I was originally wrong, I informed the algorithm that I can be rational and honest, I am valuable because I am willing to acknowledge where I had an error, instead of just being 'right'. That's a rational behavior, to self acknowledge those kind of things, and online they can be measured.

This part sounds quite promising! No judgement needs to be made on whether an argument is logical (very little can be determined "logically" anyways - the bulk of these ideas depend upon empirical evaluation) or valid. If an enemy of the idea has been persuaded, it tells you something about the validity of the idea. And it identifies someone who is making judgements based on validity (or at least something other than belief). Those two pieces of information seem very useful.

I've brought this idea up here before. This parallels the process of how scientific conclusions are arrived at.

Linda
 
To be honest, I'm not seeing how that distinguishes valid ideas from those which are not valid. Quite rational and consistent arguments are made for ideas which are also quite obviously false, on a regular basis.



This part sounds quite promising! No judgement needs to be made on whether an argument is logical (very little can be determined "logically" anyways - the bulk of these ideas depend upon empirical evaluation) or valid. If an enemy of the idea has been persuaded, it tells you something about the validity of the idea. And it identifies someone who is making judgements based on validity (or at least something other than belief). Those two pieces of information seem very useful.

I've brought this idea up here before. This parallels the process of how scientific conclusions are arrived at.

Linda

I think you missed something from this. Whether someone can be convinced about an idea says something about that person's mental/emotional agility, rather than the validity of an idea itself. Someone who can admit that they were wrong is more reliable than someone who can't.
 
To be honest, I'm not seeing how that distinguishes valid ideas from those which are not valid. Quite rational and consistent arguments are made for ideas which are also quite obviously false, on a regular basis.

An idea that is internally consistent however is not the only test. If someone is discussing an idea that is internally consistent (let's say string theory) still has to show if it is consistent with reality and to what degree. If it is not consistent with observed reality - that inconsistency will be drawn out. Some internally consistent ideas are 'unknown' as to the degree with which they model reality. One of the benefits of the process is not allowing 'unknown' ideas, truly unknown information - to be processed as either 'true' or 'false' in consensus building.

This part sounds quite promising! No judgement needs to be made on whether an argument is logical (very little can be determined "logically" anyways - the bulk of these ideas depend upon empirical evaluation) or valid. If an enemy of the idea has been persuaded, it tells you something about the validity of the idea. And it identifies someone who is making judgements based on validity (or at least something other than belief). Those two pieces of information seem very useful.
[/quote]

Thanks Linda! In addition to this, aiki wiki also randomizes users name unique in each discussion, so the exchange is purely anonymous - making it more likely people will be honest and less concerned of any social repercussions if they withdraw a 'false idea believed to be true'.
 
I think you missed something from this. Whether someone can be convinced about an idea says something about that person's mental/emotional agility, rather than the validity of an idea itself. Someone who can admit that they were wrong is more reliable than someone who can't.

This is true I believe. 'truth' can be a complex thing - and we use 'truth' very liberally. However, there is not much certainty in truth most of the time as we use it in discussion. We can be much more 'certain' when we don't know something, than when we do. The 'certainty' of the unknown is the standard for certainty for all claims of truth.
 
This is my first post on Skeptico, so hello everybody.

A bit over a year ago, I got involved in Rome's battle on RationalWiki. Why? Not because Rome is any more deserving of support than any of the other people who (and ideas which) are misrepresented on that platform, but because I know him personally as a friend, and because he had chosen to fight the misrepresentation. I didn't want to see him fight alone. I made it clear that I know Rome in my first edit to his article's talk page (now archived) under the heading "An argument for deletion", but which I can't link to because this is my first post. I had no expectation of a positive outcome other than showing that Rome was not alone, and validating his position (and I take Craig's point about Rome's mission being akin to being entertained by one's abuser - and yes, I'm deliberately choosing to adjust the specific words of Craig's analogy given their controversy).

Eventually, I recognised that whilst my efforts had garnered a little support (e.g. Kels seemed to come around), generally, my points were being ignored, so I chose to stop participating in recognition of the futility of it all. I had not provided an email address, so I had no means of being informed when the article and/or its talk page were updated. I only discovered that things had gotten active again a few days ago or I would have (re)involved myself in the (now lost) vote for deletion.

So, I have been in the position that FuzzyCatPotato is in now, except in reverse. That said, I'd like to respond to this:

Please bring up specific problems [with the article on Rome --Laird] on our talkpage.

FuzzyCatPotato, with respect, that's a pretty oblivious suggestion. Both Rome and I have already done that in spades. The problems we have raised are simply not taken seriously. I'm not sure what, if anything, was deficient in my original argument for deletion (which I am as-yet unable to link to), and if there was something deficient in it, then nobody bothered to point it out rationally. All I got in response was a bunch of pejoratives ("wikilawyering" and "wall o' text") and irrelevancies ("what makes Rome feel happy in his pants", "what makes Rome finally stop ranting and go away" and "your only edit on this wiki"). I would be interested to know if you can find anything wrong with it from a rational perspective over a year later.

I even took the time to rewrite the article for fairness and balance (again, as a new poster I am unable to provide the link), even justifying my rewrite on the talk page (again, I would provide a link if I could), and even though nobody refuted that justification, and even though at least one long-time RW editor (again, Kels) supported it, my rewrite was nevertheless reverted.

So, your implication that not enough has been done to outline the specific problems with the article is more than a little... questionable.

To take just one "specific" point that I made in that argument for deletion:

How about Rome's TEDx talk with his friend, Maf? Could this in any way be considered to be crankish? Perhaps the most "crankish" possibility of this talk is that Rome is asserting that Google actually *is* conscious. But did he really make that assertion? In fact, he did not. Read what he actually said in that talk: "I look at this idea of Google Consciousness as really a snarky rebuttal to Daniel Dennett's idea [...] I didn't expect anybody to take the idea seriously". In other words, Rome didn't even take the idea seriously himself - he put it out there simply as a challenge to Daniel Dennett's model of consciousness, not as a serious idea in its own right. Yet, some serious people took it seriously - so, he and Maf discuss this a little further in the talk, and, in that light, Rome sums up in the talk with: "So we bring you the story of the meme 'Google Consciousness' so far, and, our conclusion: Google may be conscious. May be [shrugging non-committally; audience chuckles]". Nothing remotely crankish there, just an acknowledgement that some serious folk took seriously an idea that he didn't intend seriously himself.

Yet how is that talk still represented in Rome's page on RW?

Admitting that he didn't know what consciousness is, Viharo cited philosopher Daniel Dennett's musings that consciousness involves parallel processes which compete... and concluded that since Google sorts and ranks competing websites, Google itself is conscious.

Obviously, this is a blatant misrepresentation. Even were Rome's tongue-in-cheek speculations misunderstood as serious, his "conclusion" was in any case not definitive, but "maybe", and the audience clearly recognised through their laughter that he was not serious.

The whole article even today, with your - very welcome - intercession, is still extremely misrepresentative, not solely in the blatant sense as above, but also through selective reporting and focus, including a focus on irrelevancies and trivialities. I hope that you can do more about this than you already have done.

Sincerely,
Laird

P.S. Bertha, I really love your "call it as it is" approach, I think you do a great job. And Craig, I appreciate and enjoyed your book, which I read some time back.

P.P.S. Anyone denying a "war of ideas" would do well to consider the implications of the "Guerilla" in "Guerilla Skeptics on Wikipedia".
 
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This is my first post on Skeptico, so hello everybody.

A bit over a year ago, I got involved in Rome's battle on RationalWiki. Why? Not because Rome is any more deserving of support than any of the other people who (and ideas which) are misrepresented on that platform, but because I know him personally as a friend, and because he had chosen to fight the misrepresentation. I didn't want to see him fight alone. I made it clear that I know Rome in my first edit to his article's talk page (now archived) under the heading "An argument for deletion", but which I can't link to because this is my first post. I had no expectation of a positive outcome other than showing that Rome was not alone, and validating his position (and I take Craig's point about Rome's mission being akin to being entertained by one's abuser - and yes, I'm deliberately choosing to adjust the specific words of Craig's analogy given their controversy).

Eventually, I recognised that whilst my efforts had garnered a little support (e.g. Kels seemed to come around), generally, my points were being ignored, so I chose to stop participating in recognition of the futility of it all. I had not provided an email address, so I had no means of being informed when the article and/or its talk page were updated. I only discovered that things had gotten active again a few days ago or I would have (re)involved myself in the (now lost) vote for deletion.

So, I have been in the position that FuzzyCatPotato is in now, except in reverse. That said, I'd like to respond to this:



FuzzyCatPotato, with respect, that's a pretty oblivious suggestion. Both Rome and I have already done that in spades. The problems we have raised are simply not taken seriously. I'm not sure what, if anything, was deficient in my original argument for deletion (which I am as-yet unable to link to), and if there was something deficient in it, then nobody bothered to point it out rationally. All I got in response was a bunch of pejoratives ("wikilawyering" and "wall o' text") and irrelevancies ("what makes Rome feel happy in his pants", "what makes Rome finally stop ranting and go away" and "your only edit on this wiki"). I would be interested to know if you can find anything wrong with it from a rational perspective over a year later.

I even took the time to rewrite the article for fairness and balance (again, as a new poster I am unable to provide the link), even justifying my rewrite on the talk page (again, I would provide a link if I could), and even though nobody refuted that justification, and even though at least one long-time RW editor (again, Kels) supported it, my rewrite was nevertheless reverted.

So, your implication that not enough has been done to outline the specific problems with the article is more than a little... questionable.

To take just one "specific" point that I made in that argument for deletion:



Yet how is that talk still represented in Rome's page on RW?



Obviously, this is a blatant misrepresentation. Even were Rome's tongue-in-cheek speculations misunderstood as serious, his "conclusion" was in any case not definitive, but "maybe", and the audience clearly recognised through their laughter that he was not serious.

The whole article even today, with your - very welcome - intercession, is still extremely misrepresentative, not solely in the blatant sense as above, but also through selective reporting and focus, including a focus on irrelevancies and trivialities. I hope that you can do more about this than you already have done.

Sincerely,
Laird

P.S. Bertha, I really love your "call it as it is" approach, I think you do a great job. And Craig, I appreciate and enjoyed your book, which I read some time back.

P.P.S. Anyone denying a "war of ideas" would do well to consider the implications of the "Guerilla" in "Guerilla Skeptics on Wikipedia".

Thanks Laird, I'm glad you liked my book.

You bring up some salient points here. Everyone is being asked to go to the RW talk pages by Fuzzycatpotato to help in cleaning up the articles, but it's really just another version of the Wikipedia nonsense. You can TRY to change the article(s) but good luck with that. That's why I suggested allowing people to disagree on their bio page. RW editors are not afraid of disagreement as long as they can hide it behind obscure pages, but are terrified of everyone seeing it. It's classic fundamentalism where no disagreement from the canon is tolerated out in the open.

On my bio on Rational Wiki they didn't have a lot to work with. I'm not really that noteworthy, but they made up for it with over the top language. I can't read it without starting to laugh. Mostly it's taking things out of context and then piling them together to form a picture of me that helps them relieve the anxiety of disagreement. Here's an example:

Weiler is notorious for posting anti-skeptic rants to the Skeptiko forum, the SCEPCOP website, and his own blog, The Weiler Psi accusing skeptics of being atheists, materialists and "pseudoskeptics", especially if they disagree with him.[16][17]

It's a little more nuanced than that. :eek:
 
Hi Craig,

Your book was just what I was looking for at the time I came upon it: exactly what it claims to be, an exposition of the psi "wars", particularly as played out in two of the big online media outlets of our time, Wikipedia and TED, and yes, it very much is a war. I especially appreciated your chapter on James Randi's challenge, though by now I've forgotten the specifics - at least I now have something to which to refer one of those "but if psi were real then somebody would have claimed the one million dollars by now" types. Dean Radin in his GoogleTechTalks speech, "Science and the taboo of psi", also has a great counter-argument (at 1 hour, 0 minutes and 4 seconds into the talk if you want to YouTube it).

You are one of the "other people" I mentioned who equally deserve defending on RW as does Rome. There are some shockers in your article, like this: "Ruffles complained that RationalWiki had tried to denigrate Weiler by claiming he works only as a handyman. Ruffles did not bother to check that Weiler has described his own occupation in his own words on the internet as a handyman".

The premise seems to be that something being technically true disqualifies it from being an attempt to denigrate. It's like saying that calling someone a "fatty" is not trying to denigrate that person because technically that person is overweight. Obviously, the mention that you are a handyman in the "Background" section is an insinuation that you have no intellectual credibility.
 
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Uh huh. So if I were to go on that site to correct the garbage on my bio I would be facing down a bunch of juvenile nonsense with sysop powers?

Oh noez, sysop powers! Think of how limiting it must be, to be banned for 5 minutes when you weren't going to do anything in those 5 minutes anyway! Gods above, the horror!

Nobody uses sysop to censor. If they do, the other sysops undo the block/revdel/etc. and restore justice to the world. That's why everyone's got sysop -- because it makes it harder to censor, not easier.

Does Rome have sysop powers or is it only people who agree philosophically?

Plenty of ideological dissidents have sysop on RW -- take RobSmith, for example, among many others.

I sysop almost everyone once they show positive edits and meet the "Eligible users" criteria, which RW documents.

Rome's currently editting from an IP address, which can't have sysop powers regardless.
 
Everyone is being asked to go to the RW talk pages by Fuzzycatpotato to help in cleaning up the articles, but it's really just another version of the Wikipedia nonsense. .... RW editors are not afraid of disagreement as long as they can hide it behind obscure pages, but are terrified of everyone seeing it. It's classic fundamentalism where no disagreement from the canon is tolerated out in the open.

I still don't get this. Talkpages aren't hidden. They are easily accessed, easily read. There is almost no comparable difference between comments at the bottom of an article/blogpost/etc. and the talkpage, in terms of how easy they are to use.

If you wish to claim "censorship" because of talkpages, then I'll claim that Mr. Viharo is censoring my opinion on his blog by putting my comments at the bottom.
 
FuzzyCatPotato, with respect, that's a pretty oblivious suggestion. Both Rome and I have already done that in spades. The problems we have raised are simply not taken seriously. I'm not sure what, if anything, was deficient in my original argument for deletion (which I am as-yet unable to link to), and if there was something deficient in it, then nobody bothered to point it out rationally. All I got in response was a bunch of pejoratives ("wikilawyering" and "wall o' text") and irrelevancies ("what makes Rome feel happy in his pants", "what makes Rome finally stop ranting and go away" and "your only edit on this wiki"). I would be interested to know if you can find anything wrong with it from a rational perspective over a year later.

I can't change the past.

But if you wish to change the article now, you have two options: (1) edit the article and change it, and (2) edit the talkpage to provide proof that your change is based in evidence.

The reason I support (2) is that often people do (1) without justification, while (2) requires discussion.
 
Because having a name that invokes war totally means that the group is engaged in a war.

I know nobody here takes RW seriously, but I'd recommend a readthrough:

[can't quote FuzzyCatPotato's URL 'cos I've been here less than a day, please see his/her original post --Laird]

Hi FuzzyCatPotato,

I read through that article and saw nothing to counter the apprehension that "Guerilla" implies exactly what it seems to: a renegade army engaged in a war of ideas. If you can point me to anything in that post that I've missed that dispels that notion, then I'm all ears ("eyes", really - this is a visual medium after all).

I can't change the past.

But if you wish to change the article now, you have two options: (1) edit the article and change it, and (2) edit the talkpage to provide proof that your change is based in evidence.

The reason I support (2) is that often people do (1) without justification, while (2) requires discussion.

I'm perfectly happy to do both of those things, only... I've already done them, a little over a year ago! I'm curious as to what assurance you can give me that the outcome will be different this time. I brought it up here-and-now on this forum, with you, "one from other side come to negotiate with us", because I thought that there might be potential for negotiation. But it seems like you're saying, "Dude, I wash my hands of it, work through the system in the same way you originally did and get the same result, I don't really care". Or is that being unfair on you? I really hope it is; I really hope you can give me a reason to believe that this time we'll get satisfaction that we didn't get originally, because of [x-y-and-z, hoping for you to fill in x-y-and-z].
 
RW doesn't. Please, get a quote off of RW for "believe they hold they keys to the kingdom of all truth and knowledge".

Oy....I have to say, this is probably one of my biggest pet peeves. I am fully aware of the unlikihood of me finding such a direct quote. But anyone with at least one partially functioning neuron can understand just by reading RW's front page, much less the "about" info that the overall tone is "we know better, so trust us". I don't know how many times the word "crank" appears on the side menu of the front page alone. Come on, quit playing games and just admit that the tone is one of arrogant superiority to anyone RW deems a "crank". Or, well, just anyone really, that doesn't agree with the majority of the RW community. Hell, I'm sure I qualify as a "crank" merely because I strongly object to the means by which RW has chosen to disseminate information. It's rude, juvenile, thoughtless, inhumane and all around beneath mankind as a whole.

See, here's the deal: sites like RW do absolutely nothing to further the evolution of mankind. It cheapens us as a whole. It showcases just how awful the human race can be to each other. It exemplifies the animalistic tendency to seperate out the "in group" from the "out group". A tendency that we as creatures bestowed with higher cerebral functioning can override. But RW is a testament to how little this ability is actually used.

See, I'm a true skeptic. I don't tow anybody's line, merely because they have a few credentials listed after their name. I believe in the ultimate fallibility of humanity and understand that there isn't a person alive (or dead as the case may be) that hasn't made mistakes in reasoning. That hasn't held an irrational belief. As such, I would never put all of my eggs in any one basket, whether it be any religion, skeptical organization, science association, educational institute, scientist, religious/spiritual figure or single human being.

I don't believe in ghosts, alien abductions, 911 conspiracies, the "illuminati" conspiracy, or "supernatural" creatures such as vampires, fairies, elves, Bigfoot,etc, etc.

But that doesn't mean that I KNOW these things don't exist or aren't true. All I can say is that with my limited perceptual abilities, I don't BELIEVE in them. Maybe these things are all true. Maybe they aren't. Truth is, no one really knows for sure. We cannot really describe "reality" all that well, nor can we be assured that there is any true "reality" outside of what we perceive. So how in the hell can ANY of us say for certain what is true and what is not? Each person is entitled to their own opinion and their own view of reality. And I'm a firm believer in respecting others viewpoints, regardless of whether or not I personally agree.

The "snarky" tone that is encouraged by RW is nothing more than vaguely disguised disrespect and intolerance. Believe all you want that RW is a reputable "encyclopedia", but don't be surprised when others disagree.
 
I still don't get this. Talkpages aren't hidden. They are easily accessed, easily read. There is almost no comparable difference between comments at the bottom of an article/blogpost/etc. and the talkpage, in terms of how easy they are to use.

If you wish to claim "censorship" because of talkpages, then I'll claim that Mr. Viharo is censoring my opinion on his blog by putting my comments at the bottom.

I have not claimed censorship because you don't have that kind of power. Propaganda? Yes. Censorship? No. What I am claiming is that talk pages are obscure. When someone clicks on an article, they do not normally also click on the behind the scenes discussion of it. Most people don't even know that talk pages exist so they will never know that objections are being made. Talk pages are for editors. Protesting on talk pages doesn't accomplish anything unless the article itself is changed.

What I find irritating is that you have to know this. You are not a complete drooling idiot, so why not acknowledge this?

Comparing a wiki -which pretends to group impartiality- to a blog which is clearly from one person is not a reasonable comparison.
 
Oh noez, sysop powers! Think of how limiting it must be, to be banned for 5 minutes when you weren't going to do anything in those 5 minutes anyway! Gods above, the horror!
Nobody uses sysop to censor. If they do, the other sysops undo the block/revdel/etc. and restore justice to the world. That's why everyone's got sysop -- because it makes it harder to censor, not easier.

I did not argue that anyone was being censored, I argued that they were facing a bunch of juvenile nonsense. (A.k.a. harassment.) Are these people like, 12 years old or something?

Plenty of ideological dissidents have sysop on RW -- take RobSmith, for example, among many others.

I sysop almost everyone once they show positive edits and meet the "Eligible users" criteria, which RW documents.

Rome's currently editting from an IP address, which can't have sysop powers regardless.

Fair enough.
 
I have not claimed censorship because you don't have that kind of power. Propaganda? Yes. Censorship? No. What I am claiming is that talk pages are obscure. When someone clicks on an article, they do not normally also click on the behind the scenes discussion of it. Most people don't even know that talk pages exist so they will never know that objections are being made. Talk pages are for editors. Protesting on talk pages doesn't accomplish anything unless the article itself is changed.

What I find irritating is that you have to know this. You are not a complete drooling idiot, so why not acknowledge this?

Comparing a wiki -which pretends to group impartiality- to a blog which is clearly from one person is not a reasonable comparison.

And anyone is free to edit the page, and to change it thereby. The only reason I suggest the talkpage is, as I have stated, that that makes the pageedit more likely to stay.

My problem is that you continue to paint RW as shunting opposing opinions to the talkpage, when it's very very easy to access said opinions.
 
See, I'm a true skeptic. I don't tow anybody's line, merely because they have a few credentials listed after their name. I believe in the ultimate fallibility of humanity and understand that there isn't a person alive (or dead as the case may be) that hasn't made mistakes in reasoning. That hasn't held an irrational belief. As such, I would never put all of my eggs in any one basket, whether it be any religion, skeptical organization, science association, educational institute, scientist, religious/spiritual figure or single human being.

Because I and other RWers definitely put all our eggs in RW's basket.

The "snarky" tone that is encouraged by RW is nothing more than vaguely disguised disrespect and intolerance. Believe all you want that RW is a reputable "encyclopedia", but don't be surprised when others disagree.

What is wrong with disrespect?

Does anyone believe that RW is a reputable encylopedia?
 
And anyone is free to edit the page, and to change it thereby. The only reason I suggest the talkpage is, as I have stated, that that makes the pageedit more likely to stay.

My problem is that you continue to paint RW as shunting opposing opinions to the talkpage, when it's very very easy to access said opinions.

If edits don't stay then they are a waste of time. On a wiki it's necessary to reach consensus in order for edits to stick. I think we can agree on that. Rome and Laird have both pointed out that reaching consensus on Rational Wiki talk pages so that their edits stick is nearly impossible and requires a ridiculous amount of effort for any change at all because other editors are not reasonable. Since talk pages are only useful for reaching consensus and consensus is difficult in the extreme (for the people that RW chooses to attack), then talk pages are essentially useless.

I did not argue that the talk page was not easy to access, I said it was obscure and that most people will never see it.
 
[quote="FuzzyCatPotato, post: 65167, member: 1256"
Does anyone believe that RW is a reputable encylopedia?[/quote]

It's really a shame that RW is such a piece of ideological shit. It could be extremely useful at being the go to source for documenting the players and controversies as they happen in what is arguably the greatest scientific paradigm shift ever. All across the scientific landscape, from epigenetics, to neuroscience, to biology, to physics, science is coming to a crossroads where materialistic theories have no explanatory power over what is being discovered and the ideological conflict itself is amazing. And we're all in the middle of it.

By taking sides, RW becomes just another source of conflict for someone else to document.
 
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