Inside the Apple ][+
Editor Log: October, 2002
Ahh. I see there has been a bit of a ruckus regarding the use of editor logs. A disagreement, of sorts, over how much information to offer, to avoid the seeming public exposure of 'failed nodes' - and thus, by implication, noders.
thwpppbbbbbbbbbbt.
I will be censoring any kill messages that are rancorous, smackdown, or otherwise ungentle. However, in the interests of disclosure, those kills which I feel should be listed simply for reference (as well as links, edcools, miscellaneous twiddlin' and the like) will be placed here.
Firmlinked:
As I am no longer a Content Editor, I may (and in fact already have been) forced to perform several acts of editing for reasons other than my own personal idea of what the content of this site should be. Since (as far as I can tell) the prime purpose of my editor logs has been to explicate (through example) what I feel hasn't made the grade, or needed help, or in fact anything that was straying from the path to database nirvana, then to log such acts as I have been called upon to do in time of need would distort said example.
Since I do not intend to shirk my responsibilities, especially now, I therefore should stop logging. Don't think this means the Node .45 lies quietly in a case somewhere; be wary indeed, for this merciless tool of kinetic doom may this very instant be itching to speak.
Years ago, long before I encountered the E2 universe, I created a character. It was so long ago that I barely remember the roots of the story. Because I am a self-confessed "method writer" I have a tendency to "become" my characters. I know them so well, down to every detail of their lives and personalities. I can plug myself into them all too completely. A long time ago I created a character that grew into a monster. This character started in chat rooms in the mid-1990s and branched into letter writing and absolutely absurd sales pitches. He was, as someone later told me, my very own Laszlo Toth (oddly enough, his name is also a perversion of an historical character). This character was a man nearly impossible to hate as he blindly stumbled through life. His ideas on love and dating were the opposite of "cool." His political views were like an acid trip through the newspaper. He felt strongly about strange things and worried that he was out of touch with the world. He would assume someone was his friend just because they responded to his request for information at their website. If you told him to leave you alone he would flip out, interchangably throwing religion and abusive language at you in alternating e-mails. He is the essence of something we all have inside of us, the frail person within left without social convention.
In many ways I believe in the existence of such a character within us all. Remove your natural tendency not to "say the wrong thing" in front of other people. Shake yourself down to the Id within and say the first thing that comes to mind. Think at full speed without any quality control and write down your train of thought as it happens. Don't go back and don't edit. And then, well, please don't post the results here. You will find yourself somewhat surprised with what comes out. There are thoughts in there you never realized you were thinking.
Berhardt Goates is an absolute terror. He rambles, makes assumptions and becomes obsessed with everyone he talks to. He'll e-mail you daily, wondering why you haven't responded to his last e-mail, cursing you and calling you names, because he cares so much. He just cannot accept that the world isn't fair and doesn't run by his rules. Of course, he isn't real. I am Berhardt Goates. I am civilwaractionfigure. He's become a weird alternate personality I have fun with, and in the early days when I first found E2 I opened an account with his name to run the tables. You see, Behr isn't a troll. As he might say in his infamous run-on sentence nightmare of punctuation: "I want to do very good in that it is important to do well in life and please people and make certain that what you do is remembered for being good and not for being bad." There you have the Berhardt Goates philosophy of life. So, you may ask, why the hell is this an Editor Log?
Free your mindAnd the rest will followBe colorblindDon't be so shallow(Before you can read me you gotta learn how to see me)
The return of Behr to E2 was a carefully considered experiment. Taking all the data I have accumulated in my mind about this place, I wanted to see if I could indeed think like a newbie. What better way than through Behr, a character I knew everything about and could play very convincingly. He fit the parameters for my experiment. He was the kind of person who tried real hard and wanted to learn, grow and get better. He also fit the parameter of not being all that skilled in writing, grammar or spelling. What would happen if Behr fell into the heart of the E2 universe?
Well, a year and a half ago, Behr first came to E2 and he was run off quickly. He was greeted with very cold, rude messages about how his offerings weren't up to par and his account would be in danger if he did not read and understand the rules of this place. He was confused and ran off, which prompted me to come here as myself and give E2 my full attention as a real person.
There were several things I wanted to see from the viewpoint of a relative newbie who wasn't a skilled writer or researcher who wanted to do well.
Look at the questions I pose above and then check out the factuals and daylogs of civilwaractionfigure. Check out the fact that at the time he retired from E2 on September 24, 2002, every single one of his factuals had at least 7 upvotes and no downvotes. That is the strangest result of the experiment and it tends to tell me that a lot of downvotes are personal. The quality of Behr's writeups are not high enough to merit zero downvotes based on the general examination of voting and degree of difficulty I ran last month. Nine very loosely written and strange factual writeups with no downvotes. Strange. (For the record, I withheld votes on any of Behr's nodes and no one who voted knew he was me - unless someone outsmarted my dumbass).
Whereas a year and a half ago, Behr was insulted and told his writing was substandard and did not belong here, a different song was sung this time. You see, an important part of the experiment was to determine if E2 has changed. The editors here have worked diligently since I joined the ranks to become kinder, gentler and more helpful to new users. This was a problem in the past I am told and I experienced hostility here myself when I first signed on for an account (as myself, as well as Behr).
Behr is the kind of noder I usually reach out to and try to help. Under the circumstances this was not possible. The fact that he is not truly a newbie and due to his account having been opened over a year ago he doesn't have the newbie brand on him (we know when you've been here less than a month). This may have something to do with the fact that only one member of the editing staff spoke to him. Mad props go to dannye for his work in trying to help Behr. Curse the man all you want for his lack of tolerance for bullshit, but the reason I cut the Behr project short was that dannye was investing too much time in helping him out (as well as drownzsurf and others). The others that tried helping were not Content Editors or gods. They were "ordinary" noders who had solid suggestions and helpful ideas. You can be very proud of your efforts. A new noder will find many helpful people here to light the way. Behr was not an ordinary noder, being a middle-aged man of Middle Eastern descent who grew up in post-war Germany and now resides in Baltimore. That is hardly the standard noder background story here. His run-on sentences cried for attention and every one of his writeups contained a minor factual error at the time of submission. Five of nine were caught by other users and the other four I corrected myself later. Only one of the factual errors was caught by an editor, that being dannye. The others weren't that difficult to spot but the four I corrected would have slipped through the cracks if Behr had been a real person.
Damn straight, and after the Behr experiment if you tell me any differently I'll laugh at you. Yes, if you are hostile you will not find anyone changing your bandages for you. Yes, if you submit a whole lot of crap and scream censorship you will be laughed at. You are violating the standards of the website as well as the community. You are insulting the people who labor over their writeups for hours and days until they get them right. Is this your idea of a writeup: "I like to hit squirrels with sneakers. This is called sneakering squirrels." Damn right we'll give you the smack down.
If Behr had been real in the greater sense he speaks of in his final daylog, there might have been no limits to how he could have fit into the community. The Behr character has always been lonely and emotionally unstable. He may have attended noder meets in hopes of finding new friends to ease his loneliness and social awkwardness. Of course, that might not have gone so well. Behr's personality is evolutionary from the moment he meets you. He starts out serious and businesslike. Then he decides you are his friend. Then he depends on daily communication and love from you. If he doesn't get what he expects he flips out. Therefore, Behr could not have stayed any longer than he did without changing into a different kind of person. I'm not so sure that wouldn't have happened if Behr had been a real person. And he could have very well have been a real person.
Those of you who reached out to Behr know who you are and I've gained an new respect for you. Those who spoke to Behr were mostly people I personally have never had any conversation or dealings with. That warms me. Someday there will be a real Behr that comes to E2 and I feel pretty good about the fact that he will be received warmly here.
I apologize for the deception and if I offended anyone in anyway. Many thanks to you for what you showed me. There is a heart here at E2. There are people who care. Anyone can find a home here if they are willing to play by the rules and give something worthwhile back to the community. Those who think E2 is prejudiced in favor of flowery writing and long, academic factuals have it all wrong. Behr's Node-Fu and Merit is rather impressive for a level one noder who doesn't know how to properly punctuate a sentence.
Yeah, I stole the lyrics from En VogueFree Your Mind is a fucking kick ass songIn 1993 I saw a hardcore band perform it.They had a black lead singer and the band was white.There happened to be a lot of skinheads in the crowd and they were throwing shit.So for the band's last song they did a twenty minute version of Free Your Mind.That's the shit.
Picture of Behrhardt Goates on my homenode for a limited time. This is the one he sends when he signs up for internet dating services.
As mentioned in my previous editor log, I've decided to stop posting links to nuked writeups and their authors because it amounts to negative nodevertising, which is lame. So, feeling ambitious, I started out this month's editing by going back and removing links in all of my old editor logs. Suffice it to say I'm glad this fancy took me after only seven months on the job.... but going back to all those old logs has taught me a few things about my editing style, which I'm going to inflict on all y'all now, if only just to show myself that I'm learning from my mistakes and suchforth:
That said, back to business, more or less as usual:
I'm trying to keep better track of my noder interaction in my editorial capacity, and in particular to increase it. Discovering that I only communicated with writeups' authors for about half of my deletions has me feeling kind of self-conscious.
Frankie messaged me about this log, questioning in particular the necessity to record every deleted E2 Nuke Request. I agree that the latter borders on overkill, but I feel it's important to hold myself publically accountable to the E2 community, and that's what Editor Logs are for. Yay for getting feedback!
Corrected spellings in DMan's rickshaw writeup: the title vehicle was spelled "richshaw" twice in links that went nowhere, so I changed them.
Talked jasonm out of a monster nuke request.
Asked mauler about Love and Freindship's title, which was sending the anal-retentive English teacher who lives in my forebrain into fits. The writeup in question now contains a note explaining the deliberate misspelling. Hurray!
Couldn't read cabin_fever's writeup in why feminist ethics is not relativism; turns out there was a missing /small tag somewhere in there. it's fixed now and I got to point out a bunch of typos, too
Had a long conversation with pylon regarding the excellent Brigadier General writeup and whether a firmlink should lead users there from BG, one of its abbreviations. My best solution (note how I'm not saying this is satisfactory) was to put another one-liner at BG (it's kind of full of them already, and firmlinking them would be an ugly, ugly mess). The everyone account was bandied about as a possible venue for said one-liner, but since as an editor I can't reparent things and we seemed to be stalemated, I passed the buck to my esteemed god-colleague Roninspoon, who said "softlink softlink softlink!"
Fixed a typo and HTML formatting in sensei's White and Wild Rice with Adzuki Beans, Daikon and Kombu Soup, Greens with Mushrooms and Pine Nuts, which sounds delicious.
Added a note to jyoulie's writeup in spring, nitpicking a bit of physics (and you thought my forehead English teacher was bad!)
all day every day motherfucker BANG BANG (who stole my -5 XP Staff of Zot, dammit?)
In my previous logs, I have discussed topics such as:
The debate about detail levels in editor logs continues among the admins (and shows no sign of concluding in the near future). As per my personal style, I will continue to offer a fairly high level of detail. I do this for a number of reasons:
I am currently considering adding a new listing - of writeups which have been the subject of a warning issued to the user (because they're too short, too uninformative, unintegrated, rude, etc.). This would fall under the "for future reference" reason, mentioned above. Periodically, I'd go back over old warnings, and check up on them. If they still failed to meet the standards set, they'd be nuked.
I'll be happy to hear from anyone who has an opinion on this matter.
Nose to the grindstone:
"Also, when having sex, avoid losing an erection during intercourse, because the excess length of the barbell on the flaccid penis can cause discomfort for the female genitalia on removal."
Since I've become an editor, I've mainly been your friendly neighborhood typo fairy, tidying up misspellings as I've run across them. I've also talked with a few newbies and have hopefully left warm, fuzzy edification in my wake.
But occasionally, I turn large and green and go on a hunt for cut and paste writeups, because I take plagiarism seriously. So far, the vast majority of my nukes have been C&Ps that I've discovered.
Cut-and-paste writeups -- writeups that are mainly composed of text the poster has copied verbatim from a book or website, with or without the addition of hardlinks and formatting -- really make me and other editors see red and lunge for the "nuke" button. Why?
Some schools of thought here say that anything you post should be your own work and your own words, and they feel that anything else deserves a downvote.
My own personal philosophy as an editor is that if you properly cite your source, have copyright permission, (see below), and properly format the writeup, any piece of writing that provides quality entertainment or valid information is a worthwhile addition to the database.
Note that I said valid information. Just because you find something on a website that sounds cool doesn't mean it's accurate. What are their sources? If they don't cite any, be wary. Of the C&P writeups I've seen, solidly half of them have been parroting advertising copy from dodgy commercial sites. Don't seek to reprint a piece just because you think it'll take too long to do your own work -- make sure the piece truly is better than what you could do before you bring it here. Respect the database. Don't propagate misinformation.
If you post someone else's article under your own username without proper attribution, you're trying to pass that work off as your own. That's insulting to both the voters here at E2 and to the person whose words you've stolen, and once you've been caught doing this, your reputation here is close to ruined. Just don't do it.
Even if you cite your source, if you don't have explicit permission to repost the piece you're using, it's still plagiarism. Permission is everything here. It's like the difference between knocking on a stranger's door and asking to use their phone, and just jimmying the lock and going on in to use it when you find they're not at home. At best using other people's writing without permission is rude; at worst it's a crime that could potentially get E2 sued.
Now, having said all that, there are three instances in which you are allowed to post other people's writing here at E2 without it being considered outright plagiarism, provided you properly cite your sources.
Unclassified documents published by the U.S. federal government are not copyrighted; anyone can republish them for nonprofit purposes as long as the source is cited. Other sites (state governments, non-profit orgs) may allow the free copying of their materials with citation. However, don't ever assume that just because you don't see a copyright notice on a site, it isn't copyrighted. Always assume you need permission unless you see something stating otherwise.
In general, materials written by authors who died at least 70 years ago have fallen into the public domain and can be freely copied by anyone. People often look at the date the work was published, assuming anything written before 1923 is public domain, but this isn't always the case. Make sure nobody's updated the copyright before you repost it; if you're working with a book, check the copyright page for notices. The author's death date is a better guide than the publication date.
In this modern age of email, most authors are contactable. Read something cool? Don't just post it -- ask the author first. If the article's been reprinted elsewhere on the web, and you send the author a polite message, chances are good they'll give you permission to use their work. Make sure you emphasize that E2 is a noncommercial site -- nobody's trying to make a buck off their labors.
But if they turn you down, don't get upset. And if they don't reply, don't just post the piece anyway, assuming they'll never know the difference.
Permissions should always be sought, but they do get difficult if the author's no longer there to communicate with you. And more fundamentally, there's no longer a creator's livelihood at stake, though the estate might certainly growl and make lawsuit noises at infringements.
Once you're sure it really is
