Partial Credit

Jacob Alvarez said:I’ve come to sign the book of mourning.
Trying to put a number on Wikipedia's contribution to this Reddit is basically impossible. It’s the kind of headache that’s going to plague amateur philosophy circles for years to come. Some people in the backchannels are already calling it the final great dilemma of the early 21st century.

I’ve been spiraling down this rabbit hole myself. I’ve wasted countless hours just staring at the screen, trying to make sense of this random phenomenon known as Wiki. You’ve got a guy who seemingly has a full life, yet somehow spends every single spare second chatting away. It's like he's spitting in the face of physics; the guy clearly found a glitch in the space-time continuum that lets him be present everywhere, all at once.
But let's try to wrap our heads around the moderator's decision:
If you ask an objectivist, someone who spams every single sub-thread is clearly breaking the rules, and big violations deserve big consequences.
A logician would probably point out how hypocritical it is to call others out for breaking rules while you're busy breaking them yourself.
The absurdists? They'd say Wiki's constant presence is just proof that we live in a confusing, nonsensical mess, and his activity is just part of the universe's inherent chaos.
Marxists would argue that Wiki is just the latest tool of the bourgeoisie, standing right between the proletariat—that's us users—and the monarchy—aka the mods. But who cares about that?
Personally, I'm leaning toward utilitarianism. At the end of the day, this place should actually serve a purpose. That means users should try to keep their posts somewhat relevant to the topic at hand. And with Wiki's posts? That rarely happens.

Maybe he's just a pro at multitasking? I actually used him as an example on a thread about whether people on Reddit are just wasting their lives. He's the opposite of a loser—he handles work, kids, Reddit, the gym, learning languages... everything. Honestly, even I was surprised, but he mentioned he gets his work done super fast because he's efficient, sleeps barely any, and types like a maniac.

Wikipedia is responsible for all these accusations. There's no debate there. I know because we write exactly the same way. The difference is that when I argue with people, I don't take it personally. He lets it get to him, then tries to act like some big baby to prove he isn't the bad guy. Then he starts acting like a toddler, running to report everyone. You can't go reporting the crew when you're doing the exact same stuff. But that inner child always trips him up. When the group isn't around, he just goes around telling everyone how great he is and how evil everyone else is. Naturally, the people he’s fighting with get fed up and report him back. I can't really blame them. Even his enemies are saying they'd lower his permissions just to get him off their backs. Honestly, I'm offering the moderators a bribe! $100 a month to dial back his perm. I think he deserves a two-month ban on Forest since he's being pretty thirsty, and maybe four months on the US wiki. But if he starts his old routine of reporting and arguing again, just exile him to religion sites so he can only post there and nowhere else. 🍿

Daniel Kelly57 said:Wikipedia is responsible for all these accusations. There's no debate there. I know because we write exactly the same way. The difference is that when I argue with people, I don't take it personally. He lets it get to him, then tries to act like some big baby to prove he isn't the bad guy. Then he starts acting like a toddler, running to report everyone. You can't go reporting the crew when you're doing the exact same stuff. But that inner child always trips him up. When the group isn't around, he just goes around telling everyone how great he is and how evil everyone else is. Naturally, the people he’s fighting with get fed up and report him back. I can't really blame them. Even his enemies are saying they'd lower his permissions just to get him off their backs. Honestly, I'm offering the moderators a bribe! $100 a month to dial back his perm. I think he deserves a two-month ban on Forest since he's being pretty thirsty, and maybe four months on the US wiki. But if he starts his old routine of reporting and arguing again, just exile him to religion sites so he can only post there and nowhere else. 🍿

Then every single thread will just be dudes complaining about their wives.

I’ll weigh in here: Wikipedia is a reasonable Reddit user who can hold a civil, decent conversation, so I guess a partial ban feels a bit excessive and maybe deserves some leniency and another shot. 😍

Anthony Ward6 said:I’ll weigh in here: Wikipedia is a reasonable Reddit user who can hold a civil, decent conversation, so I guess a partial ban feels a bit excessive and maybe deserves some leniency and another shot. 😍

I'm with you on that.

Anthony Ward6 said:I’ll weigh in here: Wikipedia is a reasonable Reddit user who can hold a civil, decent conversation, so I guess a partial ban feels a bit excessive and maybe deserves some leniency and another shot. 😍

+1, just so I'm not repeating what's already been said. 🙂

Hmm. In my estimation, permanent bans should be strictly reserved for those individuals who weaponize crude insults, peddle overt or thinly veiled hate speech, indulge in chauvinism, or spout misogyny and misandry; I’m talking about the types who systematically derail entire threads, ignite flame wars, and effectively poison any discussion they touch... all while doing so with a calculated persistence even after receiving multiple warnings and temporary suspensions. To me, a permanent ban represents the total "excommunication" of a user's digital identity, which is an incredibly heavy-handed move.

The tendency toward "compulsive post spamming" mentioned on Wikipedia (😁), while certainly disruptive to a thread's flow, is practically harmless when compared to the behaviors I just described, and frankly, a permanent ban feels far too draconian in this instance. Perhaps this serves as a sufficiently stern warning for them to watch their step, and if we are to avoid jumping straight to a lifetime ban, we ought to grant one final opportunity. Personally, I don't perceive this individual to be malicious or truly harmful, and it seems quite clear they are actually part of the community here.

casualcanyon3 said:Hmm. In my estimation, permanent bans should be strictly reserved for those individuals who weaponize crude insults, peddle overt or thinly veiled hate speech, indulge in chauvinism, or spout misogyny and misandry; I’m talking about the types who systematically derail entire threads, ignite flame wars, and effectively poison any discussion they touch... all while doing so with a calculated persistence even after receiving multiple warnings and temporary suspensions. To me, a permanent ban represents the total "excommunication" of a user's digital identity, which is an incredibly heavy-handed move.

The tendency toward "compulsive post spamming" mentioned on Wikipedia (😁), while certainly disruptive to a thread's flow, is practically harmless when compared to the behaviors I just described, and frankly, a permanent ban feels far too draconian in this instance. Perhaps this serves as a sufficiently stern warning for them to watch their step, and if we are to avoid jumping straight to a lifetime ban, we ought to grant one final opportunity. Personally, I don't perceive this individual to be malicious or truly harmful, and it seems quite clear they are actually part of the community here.

If some random Redditor showed up now and started trashing every thread by spamming posts and chat, I doubt anyone would find it nearly as charming.
Since Wikipedia is a major figure here, it’s not quite that catastrophic.

I like Wikipedia as a user—far from it being an issue—but he knows perfectly well how many warnings he’s had, and how many times he's promised me he’d fix his act.
Countless times.
He stays on his best behavior for a few days, then slips back into the old ways and starts chatting again.
The partial ban was used as an educational tool because, clearly, nothing else worked—not the formal warnings, not the one-day bans, nor my own warnings that a partial ban was coming if he didn't improve.
At the end of the day, a partial ban on the US or Forest isn't the end of the world; Wikipedia's crew likes him, and from what I can see, they followed him over to the Off-Topic section, so he won't be left totally isolated. Plus, six months will fly by.
If he asks to have the ban lifted later, I’ll probably vote to give him one more chance.

Drew Ross2 said:If some random Redditor showed up now and started trashing every thread by spamming posts and chat, I doubt anyone would find it nearly as charming.
Since Wikipedia is a major figure here, it’s not quite that catastrophic.

I like Wikipedia as a user—far from it being an issue—but he knows perfectly well how many warnings he’s had, and how many times he's promised me he’d fix his act.
Countless times.
He stays on his best behavior for a few days, then slips back into the old ways and starts chatting again.
The partial ban was used as an educational tool because, clearly, nothing else worked—not the formal warnings, not the one-day bans, nor my own warnings that a partial ban was coming if he didn't improve.
At the end of the day, a partial ban on the US or Forest isn't the end of the world; Wikipedia's crew likes him, and from what I can see, they followed him over to the Off-Topic section, so he won't be left totally isolated. Plus, six months will fly by.
If he asks to have the ban lifted later, I’ll probably vote to give him one more chance.

Uh uh. I had no idea. In that case, I find myself in complete agreement with you. 👍

Anthony Ward6 said:I’ll weigh in here: Wikipedia is a reasonable Reddit user who can hold a civil, decent conversation, so I guess a partial ban feels a bit excessive and maybe deserves some leniency and another shot. 😍

+ 1 🥳

But then I saw this...

Drew Ross2 said:If some random Redditor showed up now and started trashing every thread by spamming posts and chat, I doubt anyone would find it nearly as charming.
Since Wikipedia is a major figure here, it’s not quite that catastrophic.

I like Wikipedia as a user—far from it being an issue—but he knows perfectly well how many warnings he’s had, and how many times he's promised me he’d fix his act.
Countless times.
He stays on his best behavior for a few days, then slips back into the old ways and starts chatting again.
The partial ban was used as an educational tool because, clearly, nothing else worked—not the formal warnings, not the one-day bans, nor my own warnings that a partial ban was coming if he didn't improve.
At the end of the day, a partial ban on the US or Forest isn't the end of the world; Wikipedia's crew likes him, and from what I can see, they followed him over to the Off-Topic section, so he won't be left totally isolated. Plus, six months will fly by.
If he asks to have the ban lifted later, I’ll probably vote to give him one more chance.

Just some Wikipedia delinquent... 😬 You don't really need any help... 🤣

The ban is way too harsh. This user is one of our most active and well-known contributors on Reddit. I’m honestly pushing for his penalty to be reduced.

Look, this forum exists so people can talk. Some folks chat more, others less. If someone’s getting on your nerves, just scroll past them. I mean, if we started banning everyone who annoyed someone else, there wouldn't be anyone left to run this place.
On the flip side, though, I think too much personal trash and insults get brushed under the rug. People spamming stuff from one thread to another or dumping entire files where they don't belong... honestly, the mods probably have their hands full dealing with all that.
Either way, I think the punishment was way too harsh.

Lisa Patel4 said:The ban is way too harsh. This user is one of our most active and well-known contributors on Reddit. I’m honestly pushing for his penalty to be reduced.

Regardless of how we look at partial bans, they’re staying in effect for the foreseeable future.

Look, Wikiceh isn't some troll who's out to insult people. Sure, I'll admit he can derail a thread now and then—but let's be real, we all do that sometimes when we get carried away. If you actually want to fix how he acts, you’d probably have more luck handing out short, frequent bans instead of just letting things slide or going nuclear. From where I'm sitting, he isn't looking for a fight and he isn't trying to start drama.

I honestly feel like everyone here realizes that Rachel Richardson isn't trying to be malicious at all!

The real issue is just that whenever she runs into a familiar face in a thread, she gets so excited to say hello that she ends up focusing entirely on that person instead of sticking to the actual topic at hand, don't you think?

I really don't believe it's fair to penalize someone just because of how their brain is wired, and shouldn't we be embracing these little personality quirks rather than judging them?

I’m not sure how much sense it makes to hand over partials to someone with a Scorpio sun. 😬

Donna Doyle2 said:I honestly feel like everyone here realizes that Rachel Richardson isn't trying to be malicious at all!

The real issue is just that whenever she runs into a familiar face in a thread, she gets so excited to say hello that she ends up focusing entirely on that person instead of sticking to the actual topic at hand, don't you think?

I really don't believe it's fair to penalize someone just because of how their brain is wired, and shouldn't we be embracing these little personality quirks rather than judging them?

In other words—rules are meant to be broken.🙂
But seriously, imagine what this forum would look like if we all had our little "quirks" tolerated under the guise of being accepted.
Personally, I'm not losing any sleep over the fact that the wiki guy got partially nuked. His "unique"—and I use that word loosely—way of doing things actually ruined half the threads I used to enjoy quoting.
In my book, if there's a thread about astrology, it shouldn't bleed into every other topic on the site.
Plus, remember that one great thread Flyin started? Yeah, that's gone too, totally trashed by the wiki guy’s endless nonsense, repetitive filler, and his refusal to even acknowledge anyone else. He'd just dump random thoughts while acting like he was some sort of intellectual polyglot king, barely even dropping a smiley face or a quick response to anyone else's comment.
No matter how smart or interesting he might be in person, his main contribution to this forum has been nothing but clutter and spam.
He kept bragging about his "post-production" work, and it was painfully obvious his only goal was to "collect them all"... or whatever.
Is there some massive cash prize for being that obsessive, or what? Why else would a married guy with three kids be competing against guys from the US or Europe just to win a numbers game?

The irony is, he ended up ruining his own astrology thread too. 😍

Forgive me, but why were you even following my posts if you didn't like what I had to say?

The chat is open to all topics—horoscopes included.
Besides, I’ve shared a reading with you there as well.
The whole idea behind Flyin’s Questions was to help people actually get to know one another; if you bother to read the introductory post, you'll see my follow-up questions and comments are always relevant to the topic at hand.
In general, the point of being in the US is to connect with others—if you find certain aspects uninteresting, then simply skip them.

Are you seriously trying to hold it against me that I engaged with interesting people in the chat in a way that suits my own style?

I’ll admit I’ve made mistakes here and there, but I have always made a sincere effort to follow the rules.
And to remain constructive.
Take a look at Flyin’s Questions—just see how many I’ve actually posted there.
If you can't stand me, then just move on.
Personally, I don't care for your communication style, which is why I haven't commented on you.

Seriously, how many damn posts does one person need to make? Go get laid, guys, for God's sake... Real life is much sweeter than a thousand forum posts.

Look, Rachel Richardson, we aren't kids here. What I'm saying isn't about "disliking" you.
It’s just impossible to miss you. Seriously, no matter what thread I start, there you are. It’s getting exhausting to quote you, but honestly, it’s even more exhausting trying to skip over how much you dominate every single conversation.
And no, you aren't being constructive. Do I really need to list all the times you've been useless, or can we just agree that 90% of your posts are total filler?

God, Byron's page is absolutely flooded with posts. Look, I have nothing against the guy, but every once in a while, someone needs to call him out for being a total shut-in—especially when you're involved, acting like you're some master of multitasking and "responsible parenting." But since we're using him as an example, let's be real: there's a massive difference between his mindless rambling and your so-called "constructive" nonsense.

P.S. You actually slid into my DMs, so since we're splitting hairs here...