Mod Conspiracy/Archive

11th March, 2007

Vandals, Drama, and Misconduct, oh my!

Gage wrestling with one of the countless masked Gold Blades. The "S" of "Sysop" is clearly seen on his shirt.

A news story so complicated, it must be a conspiracy

Apparently there have been some dastardly deeds daringly performed recently, and the wiki community as a whole should know about this.

First, to set up the scene: A longtime wiki user by the name of Sirens returned from...somewhere to hang out on the wiki and innocently add a suggestion.

Then, without warning, another longtime wiki user showed up despite being banned and started trashing the place. Within moments, he had been banned by two syops at the same time.

He then returned wearing a mask, and was promptly banned again.

Now we get to the complicated part: Sirens wanted to reform this twisted individual by talking to him. However, Gage struck down this innocent attempt at communication by quickly, even desperately, deleting the banned individual's talk page. Obviously, Sirens reported Gage to misconduct. To make things even more confusing, Gage called Sirens a man. To add to his arrogance, he also threatened little Sirens with a 24 hour ban if she recreated the talk page again.

Which brings us to tonight's question: How do you talk with someone on the wiki who has been banned...twice?

Update: And to wrap up all this madness, Gage proceeded to ban himself for three days. Um...There must be some benefit to the syops from this that is not immediately visible.

14th Feb, 2007

News Flash On Gage's Evil Sysop Ways

...And have a Happy Valentine's Day!

In the misconduct case of the year, Gage got off scot-free, boxy fixed Gage's power-tripping edits (changing psyops to administrators?! How dare Gage?!), and Matthew Fahrenheit was left to meditate on the back-slapping, good ole boy ways of the administrators (Dammit Gage, leave it alone!) sysops of this wiki.

Perhaps we should all spend a moment thinking of the noble sacrifices made by Matthew to protect us from power-hungry administrators. He is a martyr to the cause of wiki-freedom, despite still being alive, and all responsible wiki members wait with baited breath for him to catch another sysop in the act of being an administrator.

13th Feb, 2007

Gage puts shocking things on his page

A shocked UDwiki reader comes across Gage's page

...the wiki doesn't notice, Gage gets away with murder.

Recently, the mod -er- sysop once known as the "Supreme Ruler of the Wiki", on an apparent whim, added an image (made of symbols, no less) of a naked woman to his user page. He then found her near perfect form flawed and shaved her naughty bits.

Besides offending those who wish their bodies looked that good as that girl, this 'art' [scoff, scoff] says a lot to new people. What kind of wiki are we running when the role models of our community put smut on their pages? What will zombie players think when they see that sysops all long for living women? Wouldn't that lead to a decrease in zombie numbers? Could it be that Gage single-handily made UD less fun by driving away new zombie players with his uncontrollable lust?

More importantly, what is he saying about society in general? Is he implying that women must be clean shaven in order to be attractive? Isn't he just widening the gender gap by enforcing this symbol based role model for beauty on the wiki? For example, a young girl could glance at Gage's page and see this thin and near-impossibly perfect woman. As Gage is a respected member of this community, this girl would assume that upstanding and esteemed men prefer thin woman. This could then lead to anorexia, terrorism, and socialism. The sociological and psychological implications for young people are numerous, and shouldn't be taken lightly.

In other news, nobody noticed this obvious breach of propriety. Instead, Gage is now accused of misconduct for something completely different: He apparently changed some official policies, adding in his own provisions, ideas, and images of naked women. We'll have more on this as the drama case continues.

1st Feb 2007

Caiger's special place

... in all our hearts.

:-D Caiger Mall

In an inter-mod dispute over the special status of Caiger, Xoid (along with minions Gage and Cyberbob240) decided to take on Hagnat over his singling out of Caiger for her own smilie faced logo in the Mall Information Center. Much edit conflicting ensued, with Caiger alternating between under seige and Caiger Mall's extra special safe designation, until finally Xoid rocked up on the scene and demanded a show down in arbitration.

After a frenzy of activity, and back and forth volleys, and even a sideline dust up, in the form of an aborted miscontribulation case, an arbiter finally, reluctantly, volunteered... and the all of a sudden a tumbleweed rolled out of no-where, across the dusty street... and a lone wolf howled somewhere in the distance.

A week has passed, and as this goes to print, Hagnat is still AWOL, leaving both Xoid and arbiter Thari to twiddle their thumbs, while :-D CAIGER MALL remains (although unused), which surprisingly enough, is exactly what Hagnat predicted would happen... go figure!

All New, Sharing, Caring Mods

... oops sorry, I mean psyops.

Under pressure from parts of the community the psyops, of late, have been much more restrained in their behavior on the wiki, perhaps trying to show that there really isn't much of an out of control, power hungry mod problem, even the insanely dictatorial Gage has been helping out the newbies (at least when they're voting on his controversial suggestions anywho). All this touchy feely stuff has perhaps been encouraged by the push to bring another level of beurocracy to the wiki, in the form of actual Moderators (as opposed to what we have, which everyone now knows, are psyops).

The People Shredder

... still working overtime.

Still the Crit 12, speedydeletion is putting up heaps of old groups for entry into the psyops secret people shredding machine... most of which are hardly missed, but all to often a much cherished group page is nominated, and if no-one is watching, lost.

Are you watching, friend?

21st Jan 2007

Dupe is New Spam

... in Death of Democracy Exposé

Each suburb in Malton is gearing up for the election of a new mayor (after the survivors' proposed plans for a new City Hall to be built amongst the rubble of Mockridge Heights) by creating polling booths in local schools, libaries and churches. However, local political wings of the armed survivor militias can't agree on a common voting structure.

In New Arkham, the proposal is for the standard For/Against/Abstain system, but neighbouring Old Arkham, after months of blood-letting, prefers a Keep/Kill option - with any losing candidates to be gloriously sacrificed to Sweet Zombie Jesus on the Black Sabbath. Border skirmishes have broken out over the disagreement, and with twenty-three mayorial candidates already dead, the future of the election is far from certain.

Meanwhile, the Merry Pranksters of Precinct 13 in Gatcombeton have pushed forward their proposal for the novel Keep/Kill/Spam/Dupe solution (one that has proved popular in voting for new suburb entertainment policies). For those of you unfamiliar with that voting scheme, this reporter has compiled a short summary:

• Keep: used as a Vouch/For/Aye vote. You'd like this candidate as mayor and you support his manifesto - but you must provide cogent reasoning.
• Kill: used as an Against/Nay vote. You don't want this candidate for mayor and have key concerns over his manifesto - but you must provide cogent reasoning, as above.
• Spam: used as a Strong Against / Uber-Nay vote. You think this candidate, and his manifesto, are stupid, pathetic, asinine and moronic. You do not have to provide any cogent reasoning. If, after 6 hours of vote counting, there are 7 of these votes, and they amount to two thirds of the overall vote, this candidate may be removed, with the proviso that they may re-write their manifesto within 24 hours or stand for election again with a completely new manifesto on any subsequent day. Any one of the local militia commanders may remove the candidate from the vote if there are only 3 of these votes (as long as they outnumber Keep votes).
• Dupe: used as a "We've Heard It All Before" (or duplicate) vote against. You think this candidate has used the exact same manifesto as before, or something similar at least. You do not have to provide any cogent reasoning, bar a copy of the manifesto you think is similar. If 3 of these votes are cast, with no minimum time limit, this candidate may be removed, and their manifesto and all other votes destroyed.

Since the recent implemenation of the 6 hour minimum time limit on spaminating a candidate and their manifesto, the levels of spamination have dropped sharply from an average of 1/day to 0.4/day.

Given this state of affairs, complaints have been made that the duplicate vote is being abused, and is now clearly a misnomer: it should be the similar or Sim vote, as key differences between manifestos are being ignored and, despite strong support for a candidate, a small cohort of dupers can have them removed from the (supposedly) democratic process. It should be unsurprising, for regular viewers, to find militia commanders such as Cardinal Grimace and Commissar Gage, at the heart of the most recent controversy, in which a manifesto with a (standard Aye/Nay) majority of 73% can be removed by a mere 21% of the total voters involved.

Democracy or dysentery? You decide.

15th Jan 2007

Fluffy Banhammers

This wiki isn't a playground for the faint-hearted, or those of a tremulous disposition. Moderators wander the darkened recesses of the wiki, slavering with hunger, hefting their mighty banhammers as they glower menacingly at trembling newcomers.

Innocent Newcomer: C-c-can I make a suggestion, please, sir?

Typical Moderator: You clearly haven't read 20 pages of the dos and donts, have you, scumwad? Begone, or suffer the wrath of Spam!

But all is not lost! One brave wikian, sickened by the constant screams of teenage angst, has stepped forward into the Great Hall of Policy to declare that a new law should be passed - a law that will force the members of the Great Moderator Conspiracy to be ... nicer.

The policy proposal is full of legal jargon, so this reporter has compiled a short summary to save you the trouble of reading it:

• All banhammers to be given a pink, fluffy cover.
• All moderators to have a Nice Assistant to convey their rulings.
  • This will act as a sort of outgoing babelfish. For example, if a mod were to say to their Nice Assistant: "Tell him he's an asinine fucktard and to stop trolling me and that I wish he'd never been born", the Nice Assistant would translate that to the innocent newcomer as: "We appreciate your concerns and will act in direct accordance with your wishes."

Not surprisingly, the ruling elite of the Great Moderator Conspiracy immediately stepped in, attempting to snuff out the debate by spreading propoganda about the supposed existance of an unruly underclass of wikizen that doesn't treat them with respect.

The raging debate continues unabated...

12th Jan 2007

Suggestia Discordia

Self-proclaimed Benevolent Ruler of the Wiki, the Stalinist Gage, along with the real power behind the throne, Seneschal Xoid have sent their Head of Secret Police, Anime Sucks, on a suicide mission to usurp the months-long Greyman infiltration of the Suggestions System.

Rule 13 clearly states that humour is to be banished from the Suggestions page at all costs, and sent to the infernal depths of the Humorous Suggestions page - renowned as the unfunniest level of UDwiki-hell.

With Anime's Chain Gun SH Mock 1-Infin suggestion clearly causing mirth in what is ruled (under pain of vandal banning) a non-mirth zone, and fully endorsed by Seneschal Xoid's Keep vote, drooling Greymen everywhere dreamt of a case of beurocratic discombobulation the likes of which have never been combobulated.

But, the portents are with the dissenters. As we all know, Robert Anton Wilson died yesterday. Today is the 1st day after his death, and also the 12th. If you add 1 to both digits of 12 you get the number 23, sacred to adherent Popes of the Principia Discordia. Whilst many may accuse this reporter of being a conspiracy theorist, relying on mere coincidence over fact, stay your cynicism a moment: this is a Friday, honoured amongst discordians as the holy day on which to eat a hot dog (in remembrance of Eris, and the original snub), which serves as the key explanation for Gage voting Spam in the Keep section.

Truly, this has been a fnordsday to remember.

9th Jan 2007

Mod sigs

In a suspected attempt to draw attention away from the more serious of moderator plots here on the wiki, A Bothan Spy and The General, yesterday decided to get into a duel, to see who can create the most annoying, and page defacing signature to attach to their posts on the wiki (or perhaps they're just looking to get the attention of Wiki (Monitors)^infinity).

When Gage stumbled upon The General's signature this morning, while The General was toning down some of the excesses in it (he doesn't want to get himself an official warning now does he?), Gage decided to put The General up on vandal banning for a bad faith edit... guess who then comes along and rules on it? Yep, look at the picture, it's the only mod with a sig even more annoying... a sig longer than 90% of his actual posts to the wiki... yes it's A Bothan Spy himself. Ah, ya gotta laugh!

You'll have to imagine the highlighted sections blinking each and every second.

Will the more authoritarian mods seize the opportunity to get some hard and fast rules in place to stop the escalation of ugliness? Or will the wiki come to look like one of those trenchcoater forums, where everyone's signatures contains large images, making the sig 4 or 5 times the size of the actual message they leave? (which are usually along the lines of "OMG, WTF, dood! That's so not cool, bro.") Only time will tell.

And what about Gage's final reaction to this day of drama? I think anticlimactic is the word.

Quote of the Week

"I agree. There should be a standard measure of 'asshatery.'"
Wikidead, in the moderation policy
area where, coincidentally, they're
discussing just how annoying
you've got to be to be deemed an
asshat, and given the boot...

8th Jan 2007

Wiki Monitors

Another idealistic person, Matthew farenheit (approximately 90 degrees), has begun recording the wikis moderators actions. However already a counter group has formed in order to keep the Wiki Monitors in line, they are known as the Wiki Monitors Monitors. It's been speculated that the moderators are behind this in order to crush the Wiki Monitors. People are now starting to belive that another group is in order to monitor the Wiki Monitors Monitors so they don't become corrupt.

It is evident that this is another moderator conspiracy to baffle the standard user in order to make them submit easier. However we are here to make it perfectly clear on what happens. The Wiki Monitors will monitor the moderators and report when they make bad faith edits and judgements, from here the Wiki Monitors Monitors will monitor the Wiki Monitors reports in order to make sure that they are correct. If they find that they are not correct the Wiki Monitors will be informed and asked to change their records. At this point, if the Wiki Monitors Monitors Monitors group is formed, the Wiki Monitors Monitors Monitors will check that the Wiki Monitors Monitors information is correct by checking if the Wiki Monitors have recorded the wikis moderators actions appropriately and if not they will check if the Wiki Monitors Monitors have taken the correct course of action and if not then inform them so and request that they comply. By this point it should be absolutly clear on what happens.

It has been further discussed that another group may have to be formed in order to keep the Wiki Monitors Monitors Monitors in line, however everyone has taken it as random garbage as it is impossible for the Wiki Monitors Monitors Monitors group to become corrupt due to the amount of information that they would have to deal with to do anything constructive.

5th Jan 2007

Writing History

After the battles have been fought, and won or lost, then comes the battle to keep your place in the Urban Dead history books. As they say, "history is written by the victors"... and so we come to the battle of the Battle of Blackmore, in the deep dark recesses of the Historical Groups Category talk page where still the zombie vs. survivor fight continues.

The controversy begins when Grim s, although having voted himself at #12, decides late in the day (after 63 votes), when it looks like the group will indeed obtain historical status, that it no longer qualifies because enough stragglers/hangers on still have it listed as their group for it to show up in the game stats page.

And it's hard to argue with the fact either, they do indeed show up on the stats page, but the leadership have all gone their separate ways, back to their old groups, the Blackmore Building is back in the hands of the RRF. The BBB achieved their goals, dying a martyrs death in the very heart of Candyland, and disbanded. It is fairly obvious that the BBB was a meta-grouping of other human groups and "feral" survivors, brought together by the enigmatic leadership, and self-serving publicity machine that is C4NT, for a single heroic battle (there were horses, men on fire, and many trident related deaths, or so I'm told). The battle ended, the publicity that brought the groups together stopped, there is no longer any goals to achieve, the major players say it's dead...

You'd think this would be enough for Grim s, and it surely was with his Zombie allies, Shacknews' bid for historical status. You see, they were being voted on at the very same time, and just like the BBB, Shacknews too had many ex-members still showing up on the stats page, as a matter of fact, now, days after this all blew up, and over 2 weeks after they began nomination for historical status, they are still showing 14 members on game stats page. But the word of their leadership is good enough, they say they're finished, Grim s believes them.

So, after 2 full weeks of voting, our Mod decides that Shacknews becomes historical, despite still showing up on game stats page, but that the BBB, after 12 days of voting, should be summarily removed from the page, and have to start all over again later, all because they show up on the stats page. It looked for a long time like they wouldn't be successful, but as the hammer fell, they count was 43 of 63 voting yes. It's hard enough for a survivor group to get through historical status voting without having them thrown out just as they look to be squeaking in.

29th Dec 2006

Counter Revolutionary Plot

In an obvious counter insurgency ploy, Xoid, followed closely by henchman Gage, earlier today attempted to infiltrate the rebel media outlet of Mod Conspiracy. In an effort to sanitise any dissent from within, Mod conspirators made a bold move to insert themselves into key positions with the paper's hierarchy while it is still in the process of forming. If successful, it is sure to pay long term dividends in the fight to maintain their stranglehold on power.

What, if anything, the rebel leadership will do about this worrying development for freedom of the press is yet to surface. Does the rebel media leadership have the cojones to have them up on vandal banning charges, in their own courts, for editing an opposition group page? Will they be taken to arbitration as a whole, or individually.

Time alone will tell if this softly, softly approach from the current regime will be successful in snuffing dissent, or if rebel counter measures make harsher methods, possibly requiring martial law to be declared, necessary.

28th Dec 2006

General News

The grand opening of this group has begun and recruitment will begin soon.

Arbitration

There are two arbitration cases currently up involving moderators. The first is Matthew Fahrenheit vrs Cyberbob240. The outlook is bleek for Matthew due to the fact that Gage is ruling. In a secret meeting by Cyberbob and Gage a deal of random bannings for various outcomes in arbitration cases was struck. This left Poopman9 banned for one month for something seemingly worthless.

The second arbitation case is The General vrs Terminator 484. This case seems to be going nowhere because Terminator has refused to reply or edit the wiki until this case has disappeared. It may also be due to the fact that someone has banned him without it going onto the records. This is supported by the fact that his edits suddenly stopped on the 14th of December.

Misconduct

No one has been able to have the guts to bring a misconduct case up against a moderator recently. On the 19th Grim s brought up a case against The General. As usual this lead to the ruling of not misconduct, however there is obvious friction between the moderators. It seems that The General is being outed by Grim s and Cyberbob. This could be due to various reasons such as accidently dropping the soap a few too many times, or alternatively not dropping it enough.

Policy Discussion

It appears that the mods are making worse and worse policies. With more and more ludicrous policies being conceived each and every day it is obvious that the moderators in this conspiracy are trying to control everyone on the wiki. A simple solution to stop this is to provide everyone with a peice of pie a day, after all could you see Hitler trying to take over the world if he was eating some pie? Of course not, the same is true with the mods.

Policy exposed

Recently a new policy was passed. It sounds simple enough, it was just rehasing the guidelines, and although it was good for the most part there was a little surprise in there that most people probably wouldn't have noticed. The bannings had been changed, namely that someone can commit as much vandalism as they want and never get banned. So you are probably asking yourself how it works? Well what happens is that you can vandalise twice (get two warnings) then two months and 500 edits later you are able to get those two warnings struck out. Thus you are able to repeat the process. However that process isn't very efficent and you wouldn't make any friends that way.