Legend | Sci-Fi
Recently, I have noticed many a poor nodeshell rescue attempt, which often ends up in a kill by one of the editors.
Nodeshell rescue is a wonderful idea. If done right, it enriches E2. Here are some ideas I'd like to offer to the rescuers.
Two types of nodeshells
Quite simply a nodeshell is either good or bad.
Good nodeshells These are the shells created by someone who meant to fill them up with a write-up and never got to it, or by someone who was hoping someone else would eventually rescue it.
Bad nodeshells These are the nasty ones, often created annonymously by noders who want to "make a statement" they know they would lose XP for. Instead, they create the nodeshells and use them to produce soft links to hurt without being hurt themselves.
Clearly, different action is appropriate for the two kinds of nodeshells.
Suggested action
If you run into a bad nodeshell, the right action is either to ignore it or to post an E2 Nuke Request.
The wrong action is to rescue it or to link it here to the editor log. Why? For one thing, only the gods can delete nodeshells. Bugging the editors about something they can't fix is counterproductive.
Besides, we come here to log our activities, we write here. Most of us will probably never even notice the soft link.
It also confuses noders who come to the nodeshell, find the link to the log, click on it in the hope of finding some information related to the nodeshell, but do not find it.
When you run into a good nodeshell, the right action is either to ignore it or rescue it. What should you do?
If, and only if, you have something pertinent to say, by all means rescue it.
Otherwise, ignore it. Don't think, "Well, at least I rescued a nodeshell." No, you did not. In such a case one of the editors is most likely to rescue the node from the rescuer. It will be an empty nodeshell again, and you will lose XP.
Please, don't take this the wrong way: I am not trying to discourage the nodeshell rescue team effort. Au contraire! I think it's a good idea. I'm just suggesting that simply filling an empty shell with words is not exactly a rescue. Filling it with a quality write-up is.
Pulled the drama off The Tragic Shakespeare Site, by bs. The noder blames his lack of money on his E2 addiction. Addiction? Hehehe, hahaha. We can't admit to that publicly, can we now! (More seriously, it had the rep of -6.
Disconnected 10BaseT and 100BaseT by the never-logged-in cpwright, legacy write-ups obsoleted by Rancid_Pickle (nice job, thank you). Then I placed both on Page of Cool.
Found an error in circadian by jschaap: "dia is latin for day." Ye gods, that should be dies, not dia. Alas, jschaap has never logged in, so /msging would not have fixed it. I solved the problem by removing the legacy write-up and creating a new, somewhat more detailed, one.