Forum:We're a cyber-bullying menace

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And also, apparently, a "teen site."

The School Trustees Association has flagged the websites, uncyclopedia and bebo, as the latest form of :"large-scale harassment", but surprisingly many schools have heard nothing about them.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=1&ObjectID=10383882

Roy Kelly, principal of King's College, said the uncyclopedia website was "nasty", putting it on a par :with text bullying and playground violence.

I'm somewhat concerned, actually, now that I read the article. I think we should put an end to all vanity pages. The school pages do nothing to contribute creatively to the site. All they do is attract immature people to edit with unfunny crap that can result in this:

She was surprised and scared that her name and cellphone number had been posted - along with a torrent :of abuse - on uncyclopedia, but said it was common for students to add full names, pictures and phone :numbers to their personal pages.

I vote to end the creation of any and all vanity pages, and delete any existing ones because the people we lose because of a new policy don't contribute anything worthwhile anyway. -- » Sir Savethemooses Grand Commanding Officer ... holla atcha boy» 23:36, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

I try to delete most vanity pages as they arrive, but there's just so many to keep a track of. If people are using Uncyclopedia to abuse individuals (non-notable ones anyway) then I think it would be better to just nuke the vanity articles utilised. -- Sir Mhaille  (talk to me)

I don't think we should let a bunch of bureaucratic "do-gooders" bully us around by making misleading statements about us. That said, it might be quite a bit easier to enforce a no-school-vanity-pages policy than to police the pages to keep them from going over the line. That's something to think about as we grow. But ultimately I think Chron has been very active in defining our vanity policy so I think this really should be his call. ---Rev. Isra (talk) 23:52, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, mostly what I'm worried about is letting shitty articles that contribute no comedic value whatsoever take up space and give us a bad rep. We don't want a perception of being anywhere near ED. -- » Sir Savethemooses Grand Commanding Officer ... holla atcha boy» 23:56, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

Still, I think a letter to the editor of that paper may be a good idea. Our goal is not to be a place for cyber bulling and that article leaves the impression that's what we're about. User:Jsonitsac/sig00:00, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Savethemooses. Vanity pages, especially school ones are made and edited vastly by pubescent children (boys, mainly) which almost by definition means they will be devoid of humour and inclusive of unthinking spite and abuse. What's the point to them for the rest of us? We get a bad rep for unfunny/nasty shite, and are inviting a load of kids to trawl the site for somewhere else to insert their latest 'hilarious' joke. Pack them off somewhere where vanity is tolerated, and we can continue building the site to a decent level. FreeMorpheme 00:24, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

All right, reading that back, I didn't mean that every 15 year old guy is a spiteful idiot. There are tons of teenagers writing decent stuff on the site - and if you are one of them, you won't need to look far around your classroom to know who the morons are I'm talking about. FreeMorpheme 00:27, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Our vanity policy explicitly states that no one is to be identified except by first name (and MAYBE, last initial); that includes listing e-mail, phone numbers or addresses. The problem we have currently, is that we don't have nearly enough experiences admins to monitor the progress of these pages. I've monitored no fewer than 3 and found all of them to consistently show egregious violations of our vanity policy, and as such have been removed. If you intend to write letters, please cite our our vanity policy, and explain that it expressly forbids the posting of any identifying information except for first name. The problemn is not the policy, but that we do not have the resources to monitor all the vanity pages adequately. As such, I agree with STM in deleting vanity; if we cannot enforce our own rules as a consequence of the size of the problem, we should eliminate the roots of the problem instead.--Sir Flammable KUN (Na Naaaaa...) 02:30, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

I say we vote on putting a ban on the posting of personal info on Uncyclopedia. Like no phone numbers, real names, personal abuse towards others, and no cyber-bullying at all. Are these offenses mostly from user pages, or are the boneheaded teens posting them in articles? We should write to the editor that Uncyclopedia is not writing abusive things, but it is a humor website. That the abuses came from teenagers from their school, who were abusing Uncyclopedia's policy of no vanity pages and no vandalism. That Uncyclopedia can be edited by anyone, as it is a Wiki (explain to them what a Wiki is) and was designed that way. Still maybe it is better if school districts blocks access to Uncyclopedia so we can keep these boneheads away from making moronic changes to the articles here. --2nd_Lt Orion Blastar (talk) 00:34, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Those things are forbidden already, I believe. For legal reasons it would be very unwise to allow them. For comedic reasons it would be even more unwise. ---Rev. Isra (talk) 00:45, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

I say anyone who uses the term "cyber-bullying" ought to be banned/castrated/shot/killed/etc. Some people take everything too seriously. And whatever happened to 'flaming'? --User:Nintendorulez 00:38, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

I would agree with you if the vanity pages had any kind of humour value, or any value at all to anyone else. None of us ever go to the vanity pages, so we don't read what they're getting up to. But we're being compared to bebo.com, which is a MySpace knockoff, of all things. Why bother going to the hassle of defending vanity space on Uncyc, when most of us don't want it here anyway? FreeMorpheme 00:47, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Oh, I agree that all vanity needs to go. I'm just saying that those who use the term 'cyber-bullying' ought to be shot. --User:Nintendorulez 00:58, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

I've thought the school articles were unfunny crap from the start, but seeing as there was a policy (not easy to enforce, obviously) I let it go. I think removing these categorically is in line with our sitewide efforts to increase quality and general appeal. Kill 'em all. ~ T. (talk) 01:10, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Nothing against deleting vanity-attack, in much the same way that the same messages as handwritten graffiti would meet the scrub-brush to remove them from the wall in the "real world".

Nonetheless, perhaps it's time to demand that the schoolmasters take responsibility for what their students are doing, instead of passing blame to "the Internet" or whatever other convenient scapegoat be at hand? I grew up as a victim of schoolyard bullies (largely due to "four eyes", "zits" and a co-ordination problem) and remember all too well the schoolmasters trying to ignore the issue. "L'il Bully just wants attention", they'd claim. "Just ignore him and hope the problem goes away". Guess what... it doesn't go away. Why would it? But heaven help anyone who actually stands up to the bully - that would mean forcing the grown-ups to admit that there is a problem (yes, physical assault is a crime) and we can't have that now, can we?

The only things that have changed now are that the problems are harder to hide in the wake of some high-profile incidents such as the one at the Columbine school, and harder still to hide if the kids are free to post to the outside Internet where all can see that there is a problem. Blaming the Internet, the Uncyclopedia or whatever other media for the failure of parents and teachers to deal with the problems the kids are creating is disingenious. Perhaps it should be made clear to the schoolmaster that with in loco parentis authority comes a certain amount of responsibility. It's not the computer's fault if your kids are bullies; it's just a machine operating on the same "garbage in, garbage out" principle that has always applied. The buck has to stop somewhere, and it needs to stop with those in authority, parents and teachers. Hiding the problem by demanding that all mention of it be removed from the Web is not the same as solving it. --Carlb 01:12, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

I have written a letter to the editor of the New Zealand Herald on Sunday. I would encourage you to do the same and to include these thoughts. ---Rev. Isra (talk) 01:24, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

I have too. A letter to the New Zealand School Trustee's Association may also help, as they're the ones who flagged us as being "large scale harassment" in the first place. • Spang • ☃ • talk • 01:38, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

I for one, have never read or seen a vanity page in here, and I was directed on this webpage for the sole reputation of being hilarious, if I had read that article before I visited uncyclopedia, I would have never went here, to conserve the ever shrinking free time I have before college, and it also works the same backwards, idiots reading that article, would have come here immediately to post shit and whatnot... so, maybe we can expect a jump of nz noob articles now, because of that news...

--Crowley098 01:15, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

I'll agree with anything that involves those school vanity pages being deleted. They serve no use, aren't funny, and like the article says, they're just used to write shite about other people from their school they don't like. The vanity policy would be fine if anyone could be bothered to police these articles, but they're too full of crap to be bothered checking what's a good edit and what is a bad one.

I agree that while problems like "cyber-bullying" (ugh) have to be dealt with by teachers and parents, we also have a responsibility to make sure stuff like that isn't posted here, and seeing as the vanity policy doesn't seem to be doing the trick, a complete delete and ban of such pages is the only way to be sure. I've also written to the writer/editor of the piece to explain the situation and that the article completely misrepresents uncyclopedia. Others should too. Can we put this to a vote somewhere? • Spang • ☃ • talk • 01:38, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

IT'S CALLED VFD. If it's not funny, VFD it. WTF is with all this complaining and EMO crap? If it's that bad, QVFD it, tell the cabal or just let me know. I delete shit all the time. If it's not funny, we have the technology to make it gone. Hell, we even have, experts on deleting shit. If it's not funny, point it out, and it will be gone. Sir Famine, Gun ♣ Petition » 01:54, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

But nobody ever looks at the vanity pages to see if they are funny or not. That's why we should huff them all straight away, and be done with it. FreeMorpheme 02:09, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I think the question is whether they should be allowed at all, funny or not. • Spang • ☃ • talk • 02:12, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

And if they aren't alowed, but still added, what do we do? We still VFD them. Even if nobody else votes, I'll still see the pages listed, my vote will be 1-0 for deletion, and they will be huffed. Sir Famine, Gun ♣ Petition » 02:16, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

I'm guessing they'd become more delete-on-sight then something-like-CVP'd if recreated, irrespective of size or content, or however many of the people from that school that want it kept? VFDs could easily be hijacked by... vanity... ers. Vanitians? From those schools. • Spang • ☃ • talk • 02:57, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

If you're such a big fan of the vanity pages, feel free to make it your personal mission to read and sort through 'em all, Famine. But deleting them all would be a quick way to increase the crap/noncrap ratio on the site and free up people to focus on other tasks. What I find telling is that of the comments I've read so far on this page, most people favor deleting the vanity pages, and some people are against changing things, but nobody has yet put forward a reasonable argument why this stuff should exist at all. Which I think says a lot.--InfiniteMonkey 18:49, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

This contributes nothing to the discussion, but I, too, hate vanity. To quote a great man, "Kill 'em all" - anonymous internet administrator.--<<>> 03:19, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

To misquote myself: "All pages about New Zealand should be marked as vanity." In the original it was Australia, but that's the same thing as New Zealand, right? ---Rev. Isra (talk) 03:34, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

This is an interesting turn of events, and i'll put in my two cents. Firstly, I think that vanity pages are definitely giving us some chaff. However, at the same time, I don't think it's wise to do a unilateral restriction further than is already present, yet, I think we may have to. I propose in the vanity policy that we completely remove any option of personal information. As is, you can do firstname and initial, but I think it would be best to remove that option as well. Cycling back to zero personal information seems like a wise decision. What I think is perhaps we should make a 'harassment' policy a bit easier to access. Perhaps a "report harassment / copyright" violation button on the navigation thing, and a temporary frontpage warning? --Chronarion 02:51, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

The problem with that is still one of enforcement. We'd constantly have to check every anonymous edit to a schoolcruft page and judge if it was adding personal information or harrassment about somebody else (rather than stuff written about a person by that person, or written vague enough not to be a personal attack). Another problem is, the people being harrassed most likely are not there to defend themselves until the problem gets way out of hand (as above). --Splaka 03:17, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

It seems that most everyone agrees that it would be good to get rid of this stuff completely, but that it would be hard to do. But lets think about this, why should we allow vanity at all? Lets say I wrote some article on a person I knew, that was in good humor. They even liked that I wrote about them. I made fun of a speech they gave to a class. We both got a huge kick out of it. But guess what, its an inside joke, others will not get it or find it funny. Noone would know anything about this person, so the context isnt there. This is the best case scenario for vanity. Another step down is that its still about someone none of us know, but isnt even funny. And perhaps the last rung of vanity is that its about someone we dont know, isnt funny, but is not done in good taste.

So obviously it doesnt make sense for us to allow it at all, simply on the fact that it would be violating other rules (being an inside joke, or not funny). The fact that we cant always know when something is vanity or not shouldnt weigh as a factor. Would a change in policy banning all vanity end all vanity necessarilly? No, but we are covering ourselves from something like this. The site will never be clean of all unfunny things, however the fact that we attempt to combat it rather then just give up on it shows to me, and Im sure to others, that this is a good site. Likewise, we will never be clean from vanity, but if we had a policy specifically and totally against it, it would surely show to people that this is a good site. Its like the government not going after criminals because there always will be more. Their going after all criminals shows they are the good guys, rather than complacent people resigned to let them go their own course.

The fact that this newspaper was harsh on us is to be expected, everyone is very suspicious of the Internet, and fear stalkers, predators, other things like that. For the moment we cant combat this mindset, but can instead take it into consideration and make it clear that we arent "one of those sites" like myspace meant for personal information. ~Sir Rangeley GUN WotM UotM EGA +S (talk) 03:55, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

I'm too lazy to read anything past STM's origanal post, but I agree with a no-vanity at all solution. --ZB 04:29, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Agreed If it isn't funny to anyone other than the original author, it's a waste of 1's and 0's on the server... and not one of the vanity pages created to date has been funny. An article about an individual grammar school in New Zealand would be boring enough, but one about an individual (non-notable) student there? *yawn* zzzzzzzzzzzzzz... --Carlb 06:37, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

I agree also. I was generally tolerant of vanity crap, I just ignored it, never read it and let it go. But I didn't know this was the sort of impression we were creating. Who is to say that other organisations don't view Uncyc in this way too? So, in the light of this information, I say there should be a tighter policy on vanity: it is way too hard to police, so perhaps we should say to them "go and create your own wiki for your infantile in-jokes." Uncyclopedia should not, and never be a MySpace substitute. --Hindleyite | PL | CUN | Converse 10:03, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

For The Great Vanity Purge of 2006. These pages highlight what to me is a growing concern over our content, something I call "the rise of the teenager". Now, I'm aware that many of you are teenagers, and I'm not denigrating your contributions in the slightest; indeed, one of the great things about this site is that it attracts a lot of intelligent and articulate young people who create great articles. However, with our rise in popularity and notability, word of our existence has spread to the "whack-a-mole" contingent, who are.. how shall I put it... somewhat less articulate than their contemporaries, and whose thought processes I percieve as something like this: "WOWWWW! A site that I can write anything I like on! This is better than graffiti! Right, I'm gonna tell the world what a prick Mr Smith is for giving me detention last week, and include his name and phone number lololololol"(for some reason, 12 year olds think that if you post a telephone number on the internet, other people will be inclined to call it). This is easy enough to spot when they create Mr. Smith iz teh wankerr!!!11, but in the middle of an already long and deadly dull vanity page it stands little chance of being noticed until the person in question is told by a colleague that they're being libelled online - and you have the above situation. Nah, not worth the bother, or the hosting of such tedious crap on our servers, IMO. -- Sir Codeine K·H·P·B·M·N·C·U·Bu. · (Harangue) 11:27, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Oh, and here's a handy search link for all articles with "school" or "college" in the title. I'm going to have a trawl through for vanity violations, any assistance would be appreciated. Cheers. -- Sir Codeine K·H·P·B·M·N·C·U·Bu. · (Harangue) 11:50, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

It wouldn't be so bad that the kids think someone else is actually going to call the number, but the media thinks so too, and they'll probably convince others. I appreciate your efforts.--<<>> 14:02, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Instead of having a vote on whether we should delete all vanity and other cruft, we should leave a page up for a day or so for anyone to put in a vote against deleting it all. Then we inspect the empty page, and break out the Huff-O-Matic for a satisfying purge. Normally I would be against a knee-jerk reaction to negative press, but in the case of vanity, as I said already, it's all so shocking that the decision is an easy one. FreeMorpheme 11:59, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Fnord. BURN ALL VANITY! ~ Ghelæ ^talk_contribs 12:02, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Kill all vanity. --User:Nintendorulez 14:32, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

I hate vanity but I also hate false accusations. My letter to the New Zealand Herald:

I recently read your article on online teen bullying on sites such as Uncyclopedia. As a 17 year old administrator of Uncyclopedia (who has been a member since age 15) and a victim of bullying in middle school, I was offended by the article's implications that Uncyclopedia promotes "cyber-bullying." I think I first ought to define what Uncyclopedia is. Uncyclopedia was created as a humorous parody of Wikipedia (the open content Encyclopedia). On Uncyclopedia, users can create satirical articles and edit other people's articles. The main goal of Uncyclopedia is to give people a chance to be funny. What we administrators like to call "slandanity" (slander/vanity) is not funny, and is generally promptly removed. Face it, no one really cares if two kids on Uncyclopedia are having a little insult war and if an admin (like me) finds a page where the only content is "So-and-so is gay lol!!" we're going to delete it because its not funny, and it abuses Uncyclopedia's very lenient measures on who can create a page (these measures being anyone can unless they are banned). While Uncyclopedia no doubt attracts many teenagers, we are definitely not a so-called "teen site." The fact that a lot of students from the schools listed visit our site is a non-issue; we are a large site and the same students certainly visit a lot of other large sites en masse. We most definitely do not support personal information being posted on our site, nor do we support bullying. Uncyclopedia is not a bathroom wall, and by condemning us, you are condemning a good diner who is too busy cooking great food to make the bathrooms as clean as they could be. We would love to get rid of all the pages where there is no humor, instead only stupid, childish drivel. But we should not be (and are not) held responsible for user created content (particularly content we attempt to remove). Chris Haines' quote is disturbingly inaccurate. I am not sure if he meant Uncyclopedia and Bebo were linked internationally (that's what it sounded like he said but he didn’t phrase it very well if he didn't mean that). Uncyclopedia is most definitely NOT linked to Bebo in any way. Uncyclopedia is hosted by Wikia, a site that hosts wikis for free. If by his "linked internationally" quote he meant that people throughout the world can access these sites, then he needs to catch up to the times. It's called the "World Wide Web" for a reason and unless you live in a country that represses its citizens and blocks websites through its ISPs, then of course you can access any website internationally. Another anti-point Mr. Haines' succeeded in making was that Uncyclopedia encourages "young people" to enroll under the name of their school. No where does Uncyclopedia ask for any information about your school or location. To register on Uncyclopedia, we require you to create a username and password. OPTIONALLY you may include your email address and real name. I'm going to be frank; I think most Uncyclopedians could care less where someone goes to school. I also have issue to take with Roy Kelly's quotes. He called Uncyclopedia "nasty" and compared it to playground violence. As previously stated, Uncyclopedia does NOT encourage slandanity or harassment (mainly because it isn't funny or relevant, and to be crass, it should stay on the playground where Mr. Kelly can deal with it). Maybe it's the children whose parents have successfully failed at raising them who are "nasty” and not some website that they all frequent in an unwanted fashion. "What is put on the website is beyond our control," (another one of Mr. Kelly's quotes) is redundant and obvious. What is put on any website is beyond Mr. Kelly's control unless of course he is the administrator of the site. I don't quite understand what he's getting at. (It should be noted however that if he chose to participate in out community he would be able to help administrators out by linking to the offending articles on our “Vote for Deletion” page or our “Quick Vote for Deletion” page.) Finally, on a more personal note, I did not appreciate the comment: "Cyber-savvy students are abusing fellow pupils on teen websites..." In the 21st century, accessing a webpage hardly makes one "cyber-savvy" and to someone who likes to consider themselves "cyber-savvy" I find it insulting that the same kids who do nothing but bully other kids are being made out to be smarter then they are. My user page on Uncyclopedia: http://uncyclopedia.org/wiki/User:Insertwackynamehere -Samuel "Insertwackynamehere" Horwitz

--Maj Sir Insertwackynamehere CUN VFH VFP Bur. CMInsertwackynamehere | Talk | Rate 15:29, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Good job, Sam. -- » Sir Savethemooses Grand Commanding Officer ... holla atcha boy» 20:22, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

That seems a little... aggressive. Lines like "Face it, no one really cares if two kids on Uncyclopedia are having a little insult war..." "he didn’t phrase it very well if he didn't mean that," "...he needs to catch up to the times. It's called the "World Wide Web" for a reason..." "Another anti-point Mr. Haines' succeeded in making..." et al insult the reader's intelligence, and hardly seem likely to bring him/her around to your point of view. Smowton 09:19, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

OPkay, I know I'm coming in kind of latehere... and maybe this has already been mentioned... I really don't want to have to go through and read everything... Anyway, I say that if a vanity contains any slander, threats, or personal information, it should be deleted on the site and CVP'd... well, maybe not CVP but something of the sort so it could not be created again. If there aren't any objections... I'm gonna go around looking for some right now.   t o m p k i n s  blah. ﺞوﻦ וףה ՃՄ ண்ஸ ފއހ วอฏม +տ trade websites 17:43, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Objections? *silence* No. Continue. ~ Ghelæ ^talk_contribs 17:50, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

I say we destroy all the vanity pages in one fell swoop. Nobody ever liked em in the first place, and now finally I have a reason to delete the whole lot --18:49, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

A Bonfire of the Vanities? Let the Kristallnacht begin..... -- Sir Mhaille  (talk to me)

I have to disagree with the two of you. Vanity is what this place was founded on. Vanity is what makes this place run. Vanity pays the bills. Uncyclopedia would fall apart without vanity. And deleting articles is never a good way to make Uncyclopedia better. We must always seek to build, and never to destroy. So fix up those vanities - make them shine. And let not the darkness of deletion sink into your heart, for if we delete the vanities, all will fall into disrepair. Sir Famine, Gun ♣ Petition » 20:04, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

A real shiver of fear runs down my back reading those words. FreeMorpheme 20:12, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Verily, today will go down in Uncyclopedia history as the day the vanity died. Good riddance. We await the inevitable(?) schoolcruft backlash.--Hindleyite | PL | CUN | Converse 20:02, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Personally, I've never understood why we have vanity policies. Stuff like that just encourages the creation of vanity pages, and eventually, they are going to turn into something like this. What we need to do is to just make it perfectly clear that vanity pages are NOT ALLOWED. Like that. Make all vanity pages QVFD material. A lot of them already are anyways. -- Kaizer the Bjorn takkun (nya nya) (1961 model!) Check out T61! 22:26, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

I suggest we create a "Slandanity Auschwitz", so to speak, that concentrates entirely on slandanity pages. The basic concept would be that if a user finds a slander/vanity page, they will put a link to it in the Slandanity Deletion page, and the admins will come around regularly to delete all the pages that have been linked. And for you hecklers that are going to sarcastically point out that we already have a little something called "QVFD", I'm saying that the Slandanity Auschwitz would be soley for slander/vanity pages, so we don't have to waste time with voting, and reasons and whatnot. --Sir Tripod2282 cun vfp talk Active ~16:49, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

I have to say, I must object in the strongest possible terms to your use of the phrases 'Kristallnacht' and 'Auschwitz' in your posts. As a concerned citizen, this kind of obvious cyber-hatred contributes in no small way to the tone of misery and fear that we in the outside world shudder under during the jackbooted reign of uncyclopedia over the entire internet. Don't you realise that the ENTIRE web is linked to these pages? This kind of large-scale harrassment is making God and his angels cry. FreeMorpheme 17:40, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

For. BURN ALL VANITY!!! ~ Ghelæ ^talk_contribs 16:51, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

Please, please say the words. Say the words that I long to hear. Say that we can post vanity pages on QVFD -- Kaizer the Bjorn takkun (nya nya) (1961 model!) Check out T61! 18:51, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

Nipping it In the Bud

I mentioned this on IRC today and I think I should restate it here, we probably should contact the New Zealand School Trustees Association since they are the ones who leveled the accusations against us. I'm sure that if we just talk to them, we can come to a reasonable conclusion about this, maybe even get an apology. Here is a link to contact information. User:Jsonitsac/sig21:05, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

We should make it clear that we are explicitly against vanity and cyber bullying as described, and to label us a "cyber bullying menace" because bullying exists here is as fair a statement as calling the New Zealand School Trustees Association a bullying menace because bullying could take place in the schools it oversees. ~Sir Rangeley GUN WotM UotM EGA +S (talk) 02:07, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, I clicked the link to email the writer of the article, and wrote a long, thought-out explanation of how the big scary internet and outside world works. And I put a link to this full discussion. --User:Nintendorulez 11:43, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

Response from Journalist

This afternoon I received the following e-mail from the writer of the piece. I have responded to it. ---Rev. Isra (talk) 21:56, 29 May 2006 (UTC):

Hi,

Thanks for your feedback on Sunday's article.

I've heard from a lot of uncyclopedia fans this morning (interestingly, no-one from bebo as yet) but I've also received emails from students - and teachers - who have been bullied on the site. One teacher who contacted me yesterday had been accused of sexually abusing his son, and the student who posted that has been suspended from school. The teacher was clearly very upset and thanked us for the article.

The reason we featured uncyclopedia as well as bebo was that the two were flagged, by name, by the New Zealand School Trustees Association as being the next form of 'large scale harrassment'. Those were the STA president's words, not ours.

We realise that uncyclopedia does not condone bullying - and you're right, most of the site is bloody funny - but it is happening regardless. We found the phone numbers and accusations of sexual abuse in the 'history' files of King's College and Auckland Grammar - yes, the information had been `edited' but it was still freely available.

Obviously, there is no point criticising the newspaper for quotes attributed to principals or any other source. Whatever they choose to say is their opinion, and their right.

Again, thanks for the feedback. Please keep us posted if you do choose to ban 'vanity' posts, and good luck keeping track of all those idiot teenagers and their lols.

Sincerely,

Catherine Woulfe

Reporter

Herald on Sunday

Does lol mean something else I'm not familiar with, or is it a fine case of nouning? Anyway, I think that should settle it. Hark, I think I hear the bombs exploding... FreeMorpheme 22:59, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

I think it was in response to the comments in my letter (above) heh :) --Maj Sir Insertwackynamehere CUN VFH VFP Bur. CMInsertwackynamehere | Talk | Rate 02:18, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Two things. ONE. I don´t know about the journalistic standars of objectivity and balance in New Zeland. In many other western countries is widely accepted that journalists must seek for the response of the accused side, even if the attack is from a third part and not from the newspaper/tv-station/etc itself. They have to publish the response together with the accusation, whenever it's possible. This isn't enough to ensure objetivity or balnce of course (those things are unachievable anyway) but it helps, and it is at the core of journalistic ethics. In short, the kiwi paper should also publish our side, if you are writing more letters, remind them of that too.

TWO. On the other hand, she has a strong point, the salandanity is still freely available through the edit history. Of course, it wont be once this pages are deleted, dumpted where only the admins can get them. So, another good reason to kill them all!!!!--Rataube 12:35, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

Individual versions of pages can be removed but it's a pain (delete the page and manually choose which revisions to restore). Just thought I'd point that out. Also, if we're not going to allow vanity we need to decide exactly what vanity is. Are high school pages that don't mention any names or have any pictures of teachers or students allowed? What about pages for internet forums or other community sites? Utar's WJU empire? Personally I would vote to kill nearly everything that currently has the vanity tag, but if we're serious about cracking down on this stuff we need to decide exactly what we're cracking down on.

Personally I think our policy should be something like this:

1. Colleges allowed without names or pictures of non-notable people. No-brainer, really.
2. High schools not allowed except for notable ones (Columbine, for example), with no names or pictures of non-notable people.
3. Community sites/forums taken on a case-by-case basis. Perhaps disallow any personal information whatsoever (including usernames, etc.) - this would also essentially deny most of the appeal for such articles, cutting down on the problem without completely banning these pages. The only problem, of course, would be enforcement. —rc (t) 18:30, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

If anyone can write a page on a specific high school or whatever, that's funny to someone that's never heard of it, then it deserves to stay. But I bet it can't be done. FreeMorpheme 18:34, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

Open letter to NZSTA

I've been thinking, and I believe a proper letter to the NZSTA is in order. I've drafted one, here--Sir Flammable KUN (Na Naaaaa...) 02:37, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

Excellent idea. I look forward to the day when we can get this nasty business behind us and we again sit in the glorious sunlit uplands of class and decency.--<<>> 03:00, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

I have a shorter and slightly more formal letter as well. It can be found here. ---Rev. Isra (talk) 04:50, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

Dear Isra, it is clear that you have plagiariazed much of the "letter material" from my longer and more unsightly draft. Therefore, I will have to pursue legal action in order to prevent your letter, which is more concise and better written, from taking precedent over mine. (Good job, btw. It's a shame I dont have time to revise before tomorrow.) Sincerely, Sir Flammable KUN (Na Naaaaa...) 05:30, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

Plagiarize is such an ugly word. I prefer "utilizing license opportunities." ---Rev. Isra (talk) 06:43, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

Isra, I made some minor changes to your letter, the biggest making the letter cover all of uncyc's users and the second being a minor change in the tone of the 4th paragraph. I hope you approve, if not, go a head and huff them.User:Jsonitsac/sig22:43, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

I say we also link them to this entire discussion right here, so they can see everyone's thoughts on them. --User:Nintendorulez 18:45, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

The universe

As I understand it, all the best humor is universal. Vanity pages, by definition, are not. Their very point is to be funny to only a small group of people. They need not be funny to the rest of us. That is their nature. And of course, they usually end up being not funny at all.

This means, also, that it is impossible to fix up or improve a vanity page without making it a non-vanity page (i.e. by adding universally funny stuff) - unless you are one of the clique that wrote it in the first place. So, for the vast majority on the site, vanity pages are unfixable.

Given this, can anyone please tell me exactly what the huge benefit to the site of having vanity pages is, given the clear risks of getting a seriously bad reputation, not to mention potential legal problems?

If anyone can give me a good answer to that, I'll go for keeping and/or improving vanity pages. Otherwise I would say please get rid of them and do it quickly. --Sir Hardwick Fundlebuggy (Bleat) 13:40, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

There is no benefit for much of the vanity. Some of it is actually very satirical and funny (which makes them dangerous by schools and such), while most of it is down right moronic. Ive always been against letting schoolcruft live even for a second in the databases of Uncyclopedia. But now we have no excuse not to remove it, and the Burnination has already begun. --Nytrospawn 14:58, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

I hereby declare that Uncyclopedia is Not MySpace.com™. I will continue my large-scale deletions to make sure that people can tell the difference. Sir Famine, Gun ♣ Petition » 20:22, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

Haha. This gives me an idea. On the day this new "no vanity whatsoever" policy is initiated, we reskin the main page as Not Myspace.com. --User:Nintendorulez 18:48, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Heh... I like it! You suggested it, now get to work!--<<>> 00:18, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Actually

You can hide revisions. --KATIE!! 21:48, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

If "You" are on the current revision of mediawiki, and "You" happen to have oversight. What good is that to "Us" right now? --Splaka 22:23, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

Deleting the article, then undeleting whichever revisions you wanted to keep, would do the job... but I can't for the life of me think of even one revision of one of these schoolvanity pages worth keeping. Oh well. --Carlb 22:50, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

Yah Carl, thats what wikipedia did for that article (recently in the news) where some guy was falsly acused of killing Kennedy. --ZB 22:52, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

Even though we know he did. THE TRUTH WILL NOT BE SILENCED..... -- Sir Mhaille  (talk to me)

When an article has a few thousand revisions, that can't be done anymore, apparently. Also: With a few hundred, it is quite a chore to select all those little boxes of the revisions you do want to restore (although what you can do is: delete the page, restore just the bad revision, move it to somewhere like Uncyclopedia:Null, delete it and the redirect, and restore all the good revisions, or so the manual says, I've never tried it). Also of significant difference: Admins can't restore revisions removed with brion's new feature. --Splaka 23:17, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

Crap. What about that early revision of Romania that questioned the geneology of Chronarion? Does that cyber-bullying stay, and thus ruin the whole?--<<>> 00:51, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Wasn't it just a few months ago?

When I went on a crusade to get rid of vanity scholl cruft and it was shot down? Is the political landscape finally ready for the final solution? Don't keep Hitlerbear and the Nazis waiting, lest the chocolate hitler melt before genocide is completed. 08:09, 31 May 2006 (UTC) (P.S. I still support the deletion of school vanity cruft.)