Difference between revisions of "User:Westing1992/openletters"

Latest revision as of 18:08, September 4, 2011

Dear Lastimero,

Thanks for the kind words! Unfortunately, as I said on my user page, I don't have all that much knowledge about the technical aspects of YTMND. I've also had a number of problems with getting various things with YTMND to work, as User:Westing1992/Problems shows.

I'm not sure what you mean by being unable to modify it yourself. Are you unable to sign up? Are you having trouble with the templates? Like you to me, don't hesitate to ask.

--Westing1992

P.S. Sorry for taking so long in replying. I simply didn't notice it until now.

P.S. I hope you see this letter. Once again, the reason I didn't send you a private message is related at the above link.

Dear Westing1992,

I'm assuming that this an appropriate place for a response.

When I said that I didn't know anything about modifying the wiki, I meant that I've never really worked with one before and didn't quite know how to do it. I didn't even know that I could "sign up" until I read your note.

I don't have any specific questions for you right now, but I'm sure some will come up as I go along. If I do have questions, where should I ask them? (hey, that's a question right there!)

Thanks for the reply.

--Lastimero

Just wanted to say I'm glad there is someone actually moderating / working on this site actively. The trolling I get at YTMND started to follow me here and I hated to see that. Keep up the good work.

---Umfuld

The new wiki account Nothingman which was used to edit your article on DeNiro is a troll. The Nothingman account on YTMND is mine but that's not me using the name here. Since they used a YTMND user name of mine and deleted an article about a fad my site started they are clearly just here to troll me. If there's somewhere else you'd rather I report stuff like this or if it's something no one cares about please let me know.

--- Umfuld

There was a couple spam sites that popped up. I don't have page deletion permissions so I just deleted all the content. Just some fags looking for free links. I don't know if is is the best place to contact you so let me know. The offending pages are http://wiki.ytmnd.com/Cash_Money_Jewelry, http://wiki.ytmnd.com/Loan_Money_Against_Escrow_Deposit . Thanks, Shizz

To Nothingman, Tile, Umfuld, Anig, Lacrossestar83, et al.

Over the past few months there has been a war taking place in the YTMND wiki. There have been two factions; the first creates pages on trolls and claims that they're notable and the other faction is vandalizing them, while the second claims that these articles are simply self-promotion and that the users who create and edit them are one person.

As a moderator, I try to be fair. I do not wish to ban people without ample proof of wrongdoing, and have been willing to forgive when I have banned.

Both sides have harassed the other. Both have used the wiki improperly. Both have called my moderating abilities into question. Both have accused me of giving the other side preferential treatment.

The truth is, I don't really like either faction.

I'd like this wiki to be a civil place, one that helps fans of YTMND by being a directory of good, worth-while sites. But it appears that, as the situation currently stands, this cannot be. Until this is settled, the recent changes page will be nothing but a history of a large edit war between the same five users, with maybe a few legitimate contributions.

And so I'm taking action. No more Mr. Nice Guy. I shall be heavily monitoring the pages in question, and the users in question, until the dust settles. Drastic action must be taken; users will be banned.

Read the rules. Be prepared.

-Westing1992

Don't really care what you think of me but I did indeed question your lack of action against the YTMND user known as johnnylurg over the past several months. If you see in rules you ask us to read it says the YTMND TOS apply and there it says: "You must not abuse, harass, threaten, impersonate or intimidate other YTMND users." Lurg made accounts here with the names Nothingman, Tile, and UmfuId (capital i in place of lower case l) to impersonate me. I posted on this page about this and asked if this was the right place to report it or not. You did not answer me and did nothing to stop the person impersonating me. So he went on to make other such accounts and has been doing whatever he pleases here since then.

That's fine if you don't know YTMND that well that you didn't understand who you were dealing with in johnnylurg but that doesn't explain why you ignored me when I tried to report his behavior - all of which broke the wiki rules you keep linking.

You talk about edit wars when if you look closer you'll see that it was the one user (vinnieweapons, nothingman, tile, etc.) making stupid changes and EVERYONE ELSE undoing his trolling while you ignored our complaints. The one exception being Anystrom, who was not lurg but was clearly just being a "dick" as the rules say and I was very grateful for your action there. But that just made it more puzzling why you were letting johnnylurg make edits here. He's been IP banned more than once from YTMND. And if you'd listen to us, the 4 or 5 of us who come here, and start a dialog with us when needed instead of ignoring us we could have explained what was going on.

Lurg's articles like the Alt Accounts one, while that may have some merit he made it just to try to troll people and many of his entries are jokes. It's not true much of the stuff there. He's listed Johnnylurg and Superdreamkilla as Prairiedogeric10 alts. This is not true. That's intentionally wrong information posted on the wiki you're moderating by someone who has been banned from YTMND and yet if I fix it I'm taking part in an edit war and need a warning?

Likewise the recent Joke article. Perhaps has some merit as an article but Legolewdite doesn't make these type of troll sites and Lurg was just trolling the wiki by listing him. I guess your main thing is people don't use the delete template and just blank the page. Well I don't know if I actually blanked any pages but if so I apologize for not being a wiki-fag and knowing much about stuff like that. But much like the lack of moderation at YTMND itself, half a year goes by and there's nothing done about vandalism like Lurg was allowed to get away with and maybe people had very little faith any such deletion of his troll pages would ever take place. I think people would rather not have flames about them written by the banned idiot Johnnylurg hosted on this wiki. So maybe you can try and cut the people who blanked some troll pages some slack there chief.

Again I did question why this went on for so many months but if you're finally ready to stop it, great. I think you'll find that despite our differences on YTMND itself most of us who come here will put that aside and help you when it comes to understanding who is full of crap and who really would like this to be a useful wiki. Or that's how I felt last week anyway. Good that you undid it but the other day when you banned me here and left Lurg's imitation account (UmfuId with an i) unbanned I pretty much lost all interest in anything that goes on here whether you finally want to start actually moderating it or not. I couldn't have been friendlier or more welcoming to you or more ready to help. I just don't care now and it's because I don't respect anything you've done while you've been mod here and your attitude regarding the people who were trying to make up for your failures is unfortunate to say the least.

- Umfuld

Dear Umfuld,

I apologize for accidentally banning you. I received you PM and, although you were quite rude, it made me unban you and permaban your impersonator.

I admit I've probably made some mistakes in handling this situation; this could be considered a learning process. I guess part of the problem was that I didn't really care about the articles in question. I care more about worth-while content than trolling drama; however, there seemed to be nothing inherently wrong with those pages, and if some people find them useful, who am I to judge? All I had to go on to judge them was the factions' words; I couldn't even be sure that Tile and Nothingman were the same person, as I am unaware of any way to see the IPs of whoever edits the wiki.

It certainly helped that Johnnylurg/whoever appears to be smarter and craftier than the average troll, using these multiple accounts to appear more legitimate, reverting what seems to be more obvious trolling (such as those by NEDMInspectors, though that might possibly have been him again) and taking an active interest in maintaining the wiki, even if for his own nefarious uses. It also helped that the other faction did things like blank pages, a more obvious wiki no-no than creating pages about things that could actually be of some use.

I kind of miss those days when my moderating duties were mainly to delete spam. Those were done by programs, but I'm dealing with real people now. As I said, I try to be forgiving...although, maybe I've been a little too forgiving.

But now I'm taking action. I have permanently banned Nothingman for passive-aggressively retaliating against Lacrossestar83. I have banned Lacrossestar83 for a week for blanking a page. I have unprotected the list of trolls to lay a trap. VinnieWeapons fell into that trap, and I have banned him for a year.

I have been too charitable, and it has made me blind. I'll try to be better in the future. I ask for your help: if you suspect an account of being an alt, present evidence, and not simply accuse. After all, simply accusing is what Johnnylurg did in the alt abuse article.

Oh, and by the way, LegoLewdite has, in fact, made a joke site.

-Westing1992

Thank you for taking the time to explain your actions Westing1992. I'd like to add that you can tell users apart when you ban them. The bans here are IP bans, so if one account is banned, all other accounts connected to the banned account will be banned as well. I think it's a little too hasty to say at this point that all the trolls were the same person. Like Umfuld always says, YTMND is nothing but trolls now. And the word on the street is that Lacrossestar83 really is "UmfuldTrollAccount". So maybe Nothingman deserves an apology. And a wonderful day to everyone! LegoLewedite 19:08, September 4, 2011 (CDT)