Comments welcome.

January 2, 2001

January 4, 2001 Jnuary 5, 2001 January 6, 2001
  • Killed See Also by jkfghldagv: See also: jessica pierce". (I actaully was just going to msg him but then I noticed that he was gone forever because us editors are cruelly killing his writeups. :-)
  • Killed pi by wh00t: "119,000? Flex your pi fu muscle: 200,000 digits!" followed by 200,000 digits of pi. The writeup immediately above his already lists the first 119,000 of them. (Which I don't feel is a good thing either.) (This kill may have been a mistake.)
January 12, 2001 January 14, 2001 January 15, 2001

Notice how I do it by month. This makes it easier to find why your writeup was killed if you don't know the exact date, and it only gets me one writeup per month. No NFN for me!

December - [1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7 - 8 - 9 - 10 - 11 - 12 - 13 - 14 - 15 - 16 - 17 - 18 - 19 - 20 - 21 - 22 - 24 - 25 - 26 - 27 - 28 - 29 - 30 - 31] - February

I'll be adding to this throughout the month, so please check back from time to time. If the write-ups appear to still be there, the chances are that they're on Node Row awaiting execution.

Killed: Jan 4

Killed: Jan 6

Killed: Jan 9

Killed: Jan 12

  • cumguzzling by nailer. Sitting at - 5. /msg'd newbie user to suggest s/he file a nuke request to let it die without penalty. No response.

Killed: Jan 16

Killed: Jan 17

Killed: Jan 18

Killed: Jan 19

Killed: Jan 20

Killed: Jan 21

  • Poem for the Young White Man.... by SlackMeister. Follow up wu to a poem by Lorna Dee Cervantes, noded by Evil Catullus. Text: Yes, and David Duke believes black men like to rape white women for fun, and Jerry Falwell believes the teletubbies are teaching babies to be gay. Your point??? Linkless, pointless. User messaged with explanation as it was his/her first wu.
  • PureDoxyk's write-up in sensitivity and fat people. It was a bigoted, mean-spirited and trollish wu, sitting at -38. The other wus in the node are responses to this unpleasantness, and are generally angry and hurt in tone. They could probably do with disposal, but don't deserve to be penalised, so I have filed a nuke request. (note: I killed my own wu in this node, with penalty, some time ago, and have been coming back and forth to it ever since. as PureDoxyk is again active on E2, now seemed as good a time as any to kill it.)
  • Why are you reading this node by s_alanet. Text The meaning of this node is obvious if you read the title. See: incredibly dull reading, stop reading this and go do something constructive, and if you are still reading this, you will probably never experience reality. Answer to the title "So I can kill it"

Killed: Jan 23

Killed: Jan 28

  • Earring Magic Ken by ohe. Text: I wonder if he was into genital piercings?
  • american bitchface by judibooty. No links, no formatting, inappropriately titled.
  • All three write-ups by user 403, these being 403, pimpwar .exe game and ww.variousthings.co.uk. The user has only logged on to E2 once, when he shared these three write-ups with us. One was a personal profile, the other two advertisements for his website and a game he'd written. All three were hideously misspelled, and a grammatical nightmare. Goodbyeeee.

Killed: Jan 29

Killed: Jan 31


And as usual, a whole bunch of short E1 carryovers


Cooled this month


Questions/comments always welcome.

/msg'd samvak, warning him that his cut-and-paste writeups, which were obviously plopped down from somewhere else, would be kilt unless he made with the links.

Kilt crush by enterfornone, who defined it as "what happens to your balls in a vice." Dumb. Misspelled. Dead.

Moving a couple of old " ____ (the band)" nodes, part of an offer made to bones in the previous millennium (sp?). Today's changes will be located in Traffic and Asia, a few minutes after I post this.

Of course, if I could figure out how(e) to move other people's writeups, this whole thing would have been done by now :)

Actually I've nuked (my node) Traffic (the band), because several people have done nice writeups in the intervening years, in the aforementioned Traffic. Ironically, my node was originally the first writeup there, in E1 days, IIRC -- I'd moved it to "Traffic (the band)" because I felt I was taking up valuable space (there was only room for two writeups in a node back then). Makes ya feel old :)

Lately there have been a lot of Getting to Know You nodes that have been removed. Before you go running to Node Heaven to recreate them, please understand why they're being removed.
  • Poor way to organize data: GTKYs tend to group together information that could otherwise be filed elsewhere in the database. This is a throwback to picking your titles well; if you have a list of your favorite quotations from The Simpsons rolling about your head, don't node them under "The Simpsons Quotation Metanode," node them under "The Simpsons." Many more people are likely to find your post under The Simpsons than they would be to find it under "Bob's Favorite Lines from The Simpsons." If your favorite bumper sticker is "Elevator Repairmen Do It Up and Down," node it under "Elevator Repairmen Do It Up and Down," don't node it under "My Favorite Bumper Stickers." And remember, just because you're noding it under its title doesn't mean you can get away with "my favorite sticker" as the whole writeup. Put the story behind it, give it purpose.


  • Size: GTKYs inevitably grow to astronomical sizes. No one wants to load a page that's 45 writeups long, and no one's going to read writeup numbers 5-44. They waste space, they waste bandwidth, and chances are in a GTKY, we've heard it before. Remember folks, node for the ages, don't submit "My favorite graffiti is 'moJoe wuz here'" and expect it to fly. A good rule of thumb: if your writeup can't stand on its own outside the GTKY node, it probably shouldn't stand in the GTKY node.


  • The titles: GTKY nodes usually, with some deviation, have very poorly worded titles. "Bob's Favorite Lines from The Simpsons" is an example I gave above. A real world example is "node some bumper stickers you've seen that have had an impact on you." These are less likely to be found than their smaller counterparts, as noted above.


  • In addition to this, GTKY nodes have titles that beg people to add to them. "Where were you when the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded?" and "The Single Sickest Joke Ever" come to mind. "When's Your Birthday?" ended up being one of the largest nodes on E2 and was summarily executed, "What's Your Favorite Color?" met a similar fate. Their titles encourage more posts, and the typical poster at one is a new noder. This is not the way to begin a life at E2, because it adds little to no redeemable content and encourages the same.

  • NFN: In addition to encouraging new people to post in GTKYs, it encourages noding for numbers. "Geez!" says the initiate, "I only need six more posts to level two! Wait, what's this? Jimbo's Favorite Public Toilet Scribblings, When's Your Birthday? and What's your cat's name? I'm halfway there!" Again, a cycle is created.


  • Annoying: These are just plain annoying. As a venerable unknown godusergroup member put it at The Single Sickest Joke Ever:

    If you honestly feel you've a fresh, new, creative story about killing and raping babies, having sex with corpses or re-inventing the holocaust as a "funny little story" please find a fresh, new, creative way of adding them to the database. This node's sheer size alone should tell you to just read 'em and let it be...

    NO MORE JOKES HERE

If you do feel, for some reason, that your writeup on why you named your cat Fluffy makes you a veritable Chaucer and feel that it should make its way back into the database, ask the god that removed the node first. There's a pretty good reason it's been removed and immediately resubmitting it under the same name and encouraging others to rebuild it is likely to cause you more grief than that for which you bargained. If you don't know who removed the node, ask around. Rare is the time there isn't a single editor or god online, and rarer is the time that a /msg sent to one will go unanswered, even if they aren't around.

If you absolutely must repost something regardless, do it well. Put effort into your work. Don't say "my cats name is flufy shes reel prity," tell us why your cat's name is Fluffy, tell us about Fluffy. Not sure what I mean? Go read How to Listen to the Stories that Cats tell us. That's how you write about your cat.

That being said, just try to node for the ages. Hope for the best, node at your best, and use common sense.


NO MORE GTKYs HERE

January 16, 2001

My first day on the job.

Killed:

January 17, 2001

Killed:

  • nastosis (idea) by kyobu "Nasty par excellence. If it's even more narsty than nastosis, it's nastosis alacamosis."
  • The two related to the above were nuked by others.
  • all I wanted was a Pepsi (idea) by kamamer. "But she wouldn't give it to me."
  • cool (idea) by ThtDmnKd "Every single one of you is a worhtless fool, barely desrving of the decadent lifetstyle you live. Growup Godammit! You're not fucking children!" Sigh, that damn kid...

January 18, 2001

Killed:

January 19, 2001

Killed:

January 20, 2001

Killed:

January 22, 2001

Killed:

January 23, 2001

Killed:

January 24, 2001

Killed:

January 26, 2001

Killed:

January 29, 2001

Killed:

January 30-31, 2001

Killed:

January 17

After discussion with ifeeldizzy, I removed the three component nodes of the copyrighted work of fiction (and Hugo Award and Nebula Award winner) Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes. ifeeldizzy is attempting to secure permission to node the work, and will renode it if able to do so. Note that ifeeldizzy has been extremely cooperative, and as far as I know there are no hard feelings on either side.

Normally this sort of discussion takes place between myself and the noder. I chose to disclose this particular editorial action of mine for two reasons.

  1. This was started by another noder's complaint to me about the noding of a copyrighted work. Some of the fallout from this discussion can be seen in Editor Log: January 13, 2001. Having noders "tattle" on each other is a matter of significant contention, both within the "gods" group and beyond it.
  2. ifeeldizzy asked about my writeup in the node Dead Sea Scrolls. It's not good work on my part. As I recall I had wanted to link to Dead Sea Scrolls from another writeup, but it did not exist. I really knew little about them. Normally in such cases I'll research the topic from a few sources, synthesize, and add a node. In this case I was in a hurry. I clearly took the text from a single website, rewrote it rather thinly, and posted it. Bad Lord Brawl.

    ifeeldizzy suggests that, in the same spirit as my removal of the subsections of Flowers for Algernon, that this writeup should be killed as well. In the spirit of full disclosure, I'm currently inclined not to remove it. I feel that there are a couple of key differences:
    1. The source was not a copyright work of fiction, but a web page from which I extracted a portion. (credit is given in the node. Note that I added my credit recently, and had failed to do so originally.)
    2. I had attempted to rewrite the text. In this case, I did a poor job.
    It had been dem bones' contention at one point that information was not copyright, only the expression of same. When I node what I don't know I act as I described above. I feel that this is valid, and I normally try for three sources. I may or may not credit them, depending on how much I extract. (Again, in this case I slipped up by failing to credit the source.)

Perhaps I have erred by removing the subsections of Flowers for Algernon. Certainly dem bones feels that we need remove copyright information if, and only if, the author complains. Myself, I feel that full works of fiction should not appear without the author's permission. I'd be interested in the views of the E2 community.

Certainly I erred with a sloppy treatment of Dead Sea Scrolls. It is likely that in my writeups (over 1000) there may be similar failures. I invite feedback on this issue as well ... am I being unfair in favouring my own clearly-unoriginal writeup while removing ifeeldizzy's?

Update 2002: Killed mine with penalty. Once we 'raised the bar' the ambiguity vanished. It's unacceptable.

heyoka commented that our "don't ask, don't tell" was worrying for several reasons:

  1. "It's a flagrant abuse of international law." (As dem bones has commented, E2's non-profit status blurs the line somewhat.)
  2. "People here are also writing original work. How can there be any trust in the ownership and protection of their rights, when e2 as an org is happy to take material from other protected sources?"
  3. "I think it confuses noders (many of who have a very thin understanding of copyright law in the first place)."


January 25

I discovered a number of older nodes which were verbatim copies of the wonderful column "Amateur Scientist" from Scientific American. While it's wonderful writing and great information, it's also not the noder's work -- unless the noder is Shawn Carlson of SA - which I strongly doubt.

Somewhat regretfully I am tracking these down and killing them.

Before I kill such a writeup, I inject the following text:

The information in this writeup is taken entirely verbatim from the Scientific American article "xxxx" in the MMMM YYYY issue. See http://www.sciam.com/.....html
This writeup was removed by Lord Brawl as a copy/paste violation, Jan 26, 2001.

the back forty | up the road apiece
January 23, 2001

Just 'cause you can't see me doesn't mean i'm not here. My very bones can become translucent as i glide through, blending with the surroundings, absorbing more and more of the gel through my permeable skin. Sometimes i feel as if i'm in a warm pond, the water comfortable and amniotic. Sometimes i am at battle, invincible, with the heads of my enemies on a garland about my neck, a club in one hand, a mace in another, an axe in another, a sword, a conch to sound the cry - whirling, placing exacting blows. It's all so smooth.

I couldn't begin to recount all of the killings i've performed since i last wrote. The nodesouls that i've released to try again, hoping they're reborn as royalty or better, instead of swine or vermin. And equally, a retelling of all the gentle nudges, encouragements, cheers, and blessings would tire both you and me. I will leave it be.

Still , i'll tell you of today. Today, i blessed taschenrechner for sharing with us some of his work in linguistics. Yes, it's true, i like linguistics and, yes, i'm prejudiced toward smart people. I had been concerned about taschenrechner because of the credits at the bottom of so many of his informative writeups: but a quick check with him reveals that they are not direct copy and paste jobs, but paraphrased information from works, many of which are public domain. Cheers to taschenrechner. May he gain whatever reward he likes best.

I also deleted - only! - two writeups, those of Azound and mcc under XY. It appears Azound (in writeup numero uno) had written a humor/opinion piece on the topic to which mcc took exception. The original offending writeup text was removed by Azound with a lengthy explanation, making mcc's response a bit.. obsolete. The thing is, other than the history of the writeup, there weren't any relevant facts in Azound's writeup - while Cow of Doom handily gave us the lowdown in a concise third writeup. For the love of gods, please avoid conversational/response writeups. Imagine when you write that yours will be the only one seen. Make it complete and self-sufficient, relevant to the title, and factual (if applicable!) I think i'll go bless our good Cow now.

And another endorsement - when i feel poisoned by the way people treat each other badly here, in the chatterbox, in flames, without trying to understand, i go read something by bongy, the anti-venom. Then i climb the mountain, blow the conch, and swarm down onto the plains with my great forces of destruction and growth. The nodegel opens to receive me, and again i submerge.

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