Forum:Now that I have some of your attention let us get down to business

Forums: Index > Village Dump > Now that I have some of your attention let us get down to business

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First up, my good bye rant: it was late, and practically nothing I said by the end was aimed at GlobalTourniquet. In fact I was in the state of tl;dr. Then:

What do you make of this?

Here is an article that certainly needs your attention. It has no against votes, true, and no abstains either - but it only has 8 for-votes (had when I started to write this). It is easily among the funniest literary parodies I have ever read, and one of the best comedic texts I have read about anything. It should be included in the Faber book of parodies at the very least. Yet it seems to fail even Uncyclopedia front page. Why the hell is this? I will list a few possible reasons for commentless abstains:

1. tl;dr. Half acceptable.
2. I haven't read the original. Come on. The text is funny enough without your knowing the original. Vote For and quit staring at this. You can also read the original first. It is not all that long. Or read a synopsis on the net.
3. I have no sense of humour. What are you doing here then?
4. It was not all that funny. Well, it's possible I have a faulty sense of humour and fail to see why it is not funny.
5. Oh, I know Sycamore is a good writer and all that - but do we really need more literary parodies on the front page? Massive fail.
6. I don't like to go near VFH because it's often full of veiled and unveiled dickery, ignorance, and competing cliques.

The last reason is the only one I see as all valid. Let me guess: there are at least twenty to fifty users who choose to do what I did for months: I avoided VFH, because I didn't want to see good articles voted down and/or ignored because someone knew better, was friends or enemies with someone, or did not care. People - if you want to help the site produce great articles, you will need to understand this thing:

1. you help nobody and nothing by voting against because you didn't laugh. I said this before, and will say it again until my keyboard breaks: your sense of humour has practically nothing to do with that of others around you - regardless of intelligence or any other factor.
2. you help nothing and nobody by voting against on the grounds that you don't think featuring the article is good for the site. Related to the above. Real suckiness, something that can actually be clearly proven one way or another, has nothing to do with this point.
3. this has nothing to do with front page itself but only with the impression you give others around you. Do you want to be abrasive? OK, go ahead. Let's have a dickery contest here. Don't bring it on VFH since you just fail when you do, and make everyone else fail too. What you give other writers is what you will get from them. I think this is obvious.
4. one featured article you absolutely hate for obviously personal reasons does nothing to harm the site. Continued nitpicking, veiled insults, not trying to see the point of others - those do in the long run. They already have.
5. I don't know how much people vote against for malice or any other negative reason - but don't, for fuck's sake, even try to convince me it doesn't happen - veiled or unveiled. Competing writers voting against each others' articles? Nobody is being a dick, of course not.
6. I still hold on to this, despite anything anybody might say: if you see people voting for an article and you are not quite sure of what to do, ask yourself this:

• is it about my sense of humour?
• am I in need of some attention?
• am I dead drunk, hung over, or having other problems that might mar my judgement?
• do I hate the people who vote for?
• am I friends with those who vote against?
• do either of those seem to know anything I might not know, and does any of that actually matter if the article is good?
• why are my friends - the against-voters - voting against?
• is the article outright sucky?
• if I think the article really could be improved, not counting the sense-of-humour -bit, am I prepared to improve it myself? If I am, why don't I ask the author what he thinks of my ideas before blatantly voting against?
• is it about something really minor, like "the text didn't flow like I want text to flow"? Do I know it is not part of the joke, and anyway, does it matter much?
• do I want to control everything?

I hope I made myself clear and didn't insult anyone this time. I hope you will read and understand all of the above before replying anything. If you choose to reply, try to keep it to something I haven't thought of. I already know many of you disagree, and most of your reasons too. Snide comments will get only "no u" or something similar for response.

If you want to bring it down to what I am and how I react to things: reply on my talk page. I will keep it civil if you keep it civil. This thread is not about me - other than that everything in the world is about me, of course.

And then

If you really do think you still have a case voting against: there's nothing I can do to prevent you from doing it. There's also nothing I can do to prevent you from disagreeing wih me. I only hope you will think again, and see your own reasons. I decided, long ago, not to be abrasive whenever I can hold myself back, and I hope at least a couple of you see the sense in that.

One more comment on The Stranger: quit sitting on both of your hands. Go vote For.

Does this mean I can make unreasonably intelligent discussion above the header? Because frankly I find the Krebs Cycle to be the most fascinating stage of aerobic cellular respiration. As much of an ATP synthase fan I am, I can never get enough of watching all that pyruvic acid go from citric acid to all those other compounds and back again. My personal favorite enzyme used in the Krebs cycle is phosphofructokinase. What's yours? - T.L.B. WotM, UotM, FPrize, AotM, ANotM, PLS, UN:HS, GUN 20:49, Dec 24

I have no strong feelings about aerobic cellular respiration. I'd rather talk about Iran's right to have nuclear weapons if we have provided the neighbouring nations of Israel, Pakistan, and India with nukes. Plus, our possession of nukes makes us seem like hypocrites. MegaPleb • Dexter111344 • Complain here 21:20, December 24, 2009 (UTC)

I have no strong feelings about nuclear weapons. I'd rather talk about that one thing that one admin did that one time. I dot like him and niobody does because he is gay and stupid and ugly and retarted and fat. i wish he will gats de-opped and permabanned and goes to the moon or a gay retared place. he is GAY GAY GAY GAY!!!!! HE IS THE WORST PERSON EVER. HE IS SO BAD. I HOPE HE GET SOME SICK. --Mn-z 21:31, December 24, 2009 (UTC)

Reasonably intelligent discussion below this header

Keep it short and to the point, please. -- Style  Guide 08:03, December 23, 2009 (UTC)

As one of those who read + voted for the article in question here , it is a shame it hasn't attracted enough votes to make it a Featured Article. However , I do think a lively discussion on all articles is a good idea and can encourage fresh thinking about a piece. It would be easy for a group of writers to vote for each other articles on the simple basis 'he/she is my mate' and then we would end up looking like Encyclopedia Pathetica . I read awhile ago how the writers of Monty Python worked and that you had to present your piece to the group. If they all liked it , the sketch would go in. However you had to still argue your case for inclusion and there was no point it going all precious on a piece. This is how I see Unencyclopedia. It is essentially a collaborative effort but that internal disagreements/arguments have to take place to keep everyone involved. I noticed earlier that Funnybony had a similar proposal about people not being allowed to vote for something if they didn't understand it . However it would have meant that his last article about niggers could well have been featured on the front page if no votes had not been allowed. If this had happened , then many writers here would have stopped bothering with this place , ashamed to be associated with this site. So even if I as a writer cannot see it deleted , at least that particular article hasn't been featured and that is important to me. So the sum of my argument is that I think the voting system works well and that it is a sign that this is a lively site. Also the quality of the arguments for and against show that people here do care about what is going on here. --RomArtus*Imperator ® (Orate) 08:41, December 23, 2009 (UTC)

Did I argue against the voting system? Did you read the above, carefully, or did you just quickly rush in to justify your own voting method? Did I not mention "obvious suckiness" in what I wrote earlier? In other words: did you keep this short and to the point? -- Style  Guide 08:50, December 23, 2009 (UTC)

Since your opening is pretty substantial , it seems unfair to then expect others to keep their submissions short. I wasn't justifying my voting either but about what I see as the system here which I stated a preference in favour. --RomArtus*Imperator ® (Orate) 09:09, December 23, 2009 (UTC)

Anyway, that's why I use {{Weak Abstain}}☃>> it's christmas! 09:33 December 23

Romartus - if you insist on arguing beside the point of what I took as a subject of discussion, you won't be leaving much room for that header there. -- Style  Guide 09:37, December 23, 2009 (UTC)

The point of your discussion here is that all contributors should question their motives before casting their ballot. I cannot answer for anyone else , so I can only outline my own guidelines. I haven’t always stuck to these in the past but I trust I am doing this now with greater consistency.

I don’t think I have ever voted against an article because I knew who the author (s) is/are In fact, I very often don’t check the author(s) responsible before voting , trying to make an opinion without that in mind. I know the type of articles that appeal to my own sense of humour and that does mean I tend to be positive about works like that. If I don’t understand something but can see it is well written , then I will check up on the original source if possible and then consider my vote.

Regarding whether an article sucks can also depend on what I think it is has any possible comedic qualities. Sometimes the structure/writing of a piece may be poor/not so good BUT the overall ideas expressed look promising and need work. If I think an article can be improved , then I will say so and if a writer asks me to help , then I am willing to do that and have done so for other work on this site. I don’t mind contributing just a word/idea if it I think it improves an article.

On the point as regards what you may think are minor quibbles like ‘ the text didn’t flow well..etc’ , you say that isn’t important as that isn’t part of the joke. I would say , yes may be in the overall scheme of things , it isn’t but I think some extra work would have benefited the piece and I am stating my opinion. But of course an author can ignore that or respond that I am missing the joke. If they want me to say why etc etc I didn’t like it , then I would engage in a discussion without rancour . I have found that with a few exceptions , that is possible here .

To let others in …I won’t add anything extra unless directly addressed. --RomArtus*Imperator ® (Orate) 10:51, December 23, 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, now that was to the point. Sorry I picked your against-line for argument but it was the only one I remembered at the time and was too lazy to look around for other samples. -- Style  Guide 11:14, December 23, 2009 (UTC)

My Response

If everyone votes "for" on every good article, then wouldn't all the articles get the same number of votes? Then, how would the admins decide what to feature? Or, in other words, the articles are not competing against the electorate of VFH voters, but rather against other articles. VFH's purpose is designed to show off our best articles on the main page, not as a stamp of quality.

Also, in response to other things you said, the vfh voters don't have time to offer much constructive criticism or suggest improvements on every article on VFH. Hence the statement, "VFH is not a discussion page. If you'd like constructive criticism for your article, please submit it to Uncyclopedia:Pee Review." When vfh tries to act like a community pee review, it normally does more harm than good.

Ideally, we should have a "vote for good" system which would act like a stamp of quality on not-quite-feature-quality articles, but we really don't have the voter manpower to maintain that up along with VFH and Pee Review; we are sometimes struggling to keep with those two. --Mn-z 14:44, December 23, 2009 (UTC)

Well Mn-z - I'm glad you reply in a positive way. What you miss once again is what I actually wrote. I did not say everyone should vote for on every good article. I merely tried to get people to understand that an against (when etc. etc., it's all up there) is not designed to improve anyone's spirit, or the quality of the articles. I see that some good writers don't care of any outcomes - but then they don't go near VFH at all, which is not cool since their response would be valuable to others. And so forth. It is all up there somewhere. Once again, I'm not against voting against. It's just that everyone really should double-check their reasons before doing it. And let's not bring total suckiness into this. I trust Uncyclopedia voters to immediately spot that without any further safeguards. -- Style  Guide 18:44, December 23, 2009 (UTC)

The important thing to remember is that "for" and "against" votes are relative. If we say Good Article A shouldn't get an against vote for reason X, then someone else is going to complain that Decent Article B got an against vote for reason Y. Then if we decide that Decent Article B shouldn't have gotten an Against vote for reason Y, then someone is going that Weak Article C got an against vote for reason Z. Et cetera. Being hesitant to vote "against" isn't going to change the problem of authors being annoyed at "against" votes or lack of "for" votes or whatever electoral mechanism keeps good-but-not-feature-quality articles from being featured.

To ask you a question, how "weak" does an article need to be in order to get

1. an against vote, or
2. a silent abstain? --Mn-z 06:19, December 24, 2009 (UTC)

I abstain my vote

Much like the IWETHEY article that is up for VFD if the readers don't know the history of the subject, they won't get the humor. You said if the reader hasn't read the book they will get the humor anyway, but all it did was make my head hurt after the first few paragraphs. I had to quit reading before I got a serious headache that makes my eyes bleed and forces me to go into the hospital for treatment as my schizoaffective disorder would then act up and I start getting suicidal thoughts again. I am medically unable to read the rest of it without getting sick in some way. Sorry but I just won't vote on it and abstain my vote to be fair to you. --Lt. Sir Orion Blastar (talk) 20:26, December 23, 2009 (UTC)

Abstain is fair enough in that case. But if you find a way of being sick in some nice way - like having a huge erection - you could then read it. -- Style  Guide 21:16, December 23, 2009 (UTC)

Unfortunately my schizoaffective disorder causes a lack of interest in sex and the reverse reaction of what you just said most of the time. Good thing my wife likes me for my smarts and personality. Some people with mental illnesses have the sex drive thrown into overdrive and have that problem of being sick in a nice way like a huge erection etc and usually go on to become famous porn stars or something. Reading that story is the best possible way to kill a boner though, I must admit. So if I find myself with an erection I don't want, I'll try reading it again. --Lt. Sir Orion Blastar (talk) 22:09, December 23, 2009 (UTC)

Back in MY Day

We whored for all we were worth and had decent features a-plenty, sir. Good times.... -- Sir Mhaille  (talk to me)

Back in my day it was all punchcards. Damn, we had some funny punchcards. Then some noob tipped over the stack, inventing randomness. Sir Modusoperandi ^Boinc! 22:33, December 23, 2009 (UTC)

Back in my day it was all about hardwiring because punchcards hadn't been invented yet. Damn, we had some funny games using hardwiring like "kill the bit" in which you had to insert the right wire into the right hole at the right time when the vacuum tube lit up or else the entire UNIVAC system crashed on you and then you had to rewrire everything to reboot it, as the reset switch hadn't been invented yet. --Lt. Sir Orion Blastar (talk) 00:46, December 24, 2009 (UTC)

Well back in my day if you didn't hunt the Mastodon during the xcnbhj season everyone would starve.  ~ Avast Matey!!! Happytimes are here!*  (talk) (stalk) Π   ~  ~  06:17, December 24, 2009 (UTC)

Time for a moment of frivolity

Just thought I'd whore share this piece that Multi's thread inspired me to write. I don't actually have pictures, though. And, obligatory disclaimer: the characters mentioned are compounds of multiple people, with some made-up characteristics, and do not reference any one particular user. ~ 06:45, Dec 24, 2009

Um, how about:

The Abstainer

The Rancid Reviewer

The Burninator

Burninator vs. the Abstainer

 ~ Avast Matey!!! Happytimes are here!*  (talk) (stalk) Π   ~  ~  07:44, December 24, 2009 (UTC)

Illogicopedia

Unless I am mistaken, Multiliteralist has decamped over to Illogicopedia. See here: http://illogicopedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Multiliteralist. --RomArtus*Imperator ® (Orate) 12:43, December 24, 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, I'm there, with all those humourless trolls. What's it to you? -- Style  Guide 09:38, December 27, 2009 (UTC)

I'm glad you managed to finally spell their name right, seeing as you hate those "humour-free trolls" so much —talk 17:08, December 24, 2009 (UTC)

Hey, you guys should checkout this awesome article on ?pedia. MegaPleb • Dexter111344 • Complain here 18:21, December 24, 2009 (UTC)

DramaDramaDrama, I might as well contribute. The mouth is Romartus.

8=D~ O:

Of course, he can also be a dick. So it's Romartus in the act of autofellatio. The Ugandan Government Should Cease Existence. Yoweri Museveni can go die, too. Fuck Uganda. 22:05, December 27, 2009 (UTC)

Why??? Vote

I suppose people here won't completely not care about why I vote much less than why anyone else votes, so here's my bit.

When I see an article on VFH, I do the following in order:

1) Read the article. I try as much as possible to do this without knowing who wrote it, but of course that's sometimes unavoidable. I read every article on VFH unless it's either featured or fails in less than three or four days, in which case I might not have gotten a chance to read it before the decision's made.

2) Decide whether I'm going to vote for, against, or neither. While I decide based on several factors, I primarily decide based on how well written I think it is, and how funny I personally find it. If I believe it's well written and I find it funny, I vote for. If I don't find either one, I vote against. I don't vote based on imagining how it might be funny to someone else as it's my vote, not theirs. If I think it's well written but not particularly funny to me, I will usually abstain, sometimes with a comment, sometimes without (for the record, this is what happened with UnBooks:The Stranger--I found it well written, but neither smiled nor laughed once while reading it.) If I like it but think it needs some proofreading, I'll usually do that before I vote for. (There are some exceptions to the above; for example, if I think an article is funny but also think that only a handful of insiders will get the jokes, I may vote against).

3) I read the votes and comments. If I had a comment I was going to make and someone else made it, I'll agree. If three people said the same thing I was going to say, I'll usually say something about a different aspect of the article.

4) I often check to see who wrote it. I should probably always do this, but I admit sometimes I forget this step because I'm off to another article or something else.

And by the way, I was once the only against vote on a very popular article written by one of my favorite people here--and that time I knew before hand who wrote it. King of the Internet Alden Loveshade??? (royal court)  02:59, December 28, 2009 (UTC)

Well there's your problem right there. You read the articles. Stuff like that'll mess you up. Mess you up real bad. As my pappy used to tell me, "Tad..." (he always called me that, for some reason) "...what you gotta do to get by is not read them articles." Sir Modusoperandi ^Boinc! 03:20, December 28, 2009 (UTC)

You know, I had the same problem at school. I'd tell my teacher, "I read what we were supposed to read so now I know what you're talking about and I disagree with you Teacher." Got me in trouble several times. Too bad I didn't get that advice from you years ago. I could have grown up happily ignorant. King of the Internet Alden Loveshade??? (royal court)  03:24, December 28, 2009 (UTC)

Instead of just ignorant? Sir Modusoperandi ^Boinc! 03:27, December 28, 2009 (UTC)

That's, "ignant."  ~ Avast Matey!!! Happytimes are here!*  (talk) (stalk) Π   ~  ~  ~ 09:01 on Dec 29, 2009 (UTC)

Modus, yes, exactly. King of the Internet Alden Loveshade??? (royal court)  20:41, December 29, 2009 (UTC)

Note:

This Forum Topic is part of a slightly? excessive sexy Threesome.