Thread for your miscellaneous posts and discussions

[confocaloid]

[...]
I would like to point out that enthusiasm for CA (and by proxy, capacity to contribute); and maturity, politeness, and good judgement are two independent spectra.
[...]

Right. However, it's still hard to understand several things, in particular why someone who is apparently genuinely enthusiastic about CA and is capable to contribute suddenly apparently decided to do some unreasonable things.

[...] What on earth is your understanding of rule 1? As far as I can tell, you seem to be suggesting that accusing people of doing wrong is inherently breaking rule 1, even if these accusations are true or nearly certain to be true. To accuse people of wrongdoing when you know they have done wrong hardly violates a maxim to assume the best of others.

There's a difference between not being nice and being unwilling to say it when someone does wrong.

I think the part "very deliberately" in your post is a violation of rule 1 (along with several other parts).

I don't see (and I shouldn't see -- that should go to a moderator, not me) any hard evidence of bad intent. And I have lived just long enough to not be surprised in either case.

[KittyTac]

The "why" is that he is a fundamentalist Christian.

Also, I agree with Moosey that you have such a weird definition of rule 1.

I called Cole out because he made a statement that he knew better, when confronted by a forum moderator. Moose brought up evidence that he violated his own promise. And I provided examples of his past untrustworthy behavior.

If you don't consider blatant bigotry to be bad behavior I don't know what to say.

[confocaloid]

Whether or not something is good/bad behaviour doesn't answer whether or not it's done in good/bad faith.

I guess I'll let some conwaylife.com forums moderator comment regarding the meaning of forum rule 1, should they choose to do so.

[hotdogPi]

Unfortunately, I'm not seeing enough evidence here — Discord and the forum are not the same place. And it's not even the ConwayLife Lounge — it's one user's private server, both in the previous incident and this one. [Edit: I forgot that one thing, namely outing a trans person about a month before she went public, actually was in the Lounge, since a moderator deleted it within seconds and I wasn't watching that channel at the time.] Someone who's not on Discord, like confocaloid, would not understand what's going on. Even I don't quite understand everything, since I'm in the server for CGOL but not any of the private servers.

The most damning evidence against him is probably the rant Cole himself made on this forum, not anything that happened in the last day or two, but even then, why would we ban someone on the forum for something that happened two websites away?

By the way, I'm of the opinion that speaking badly about someone is allowed if it's true. This matches the way libel laws work.

[Moosey]

Right. However, it's still hard to understand several things, in particular why someone who is apparently genuinely enthusiastic about CA and is capable to contribute suddenly apparently decided to do some unreasonable things.

It doesn't matter WHY cole is trying to run a harassment campaign against me. It should not be permissible behavior regardless of the motivation.

I think the part "very deliberately" in your post is a violation of rule 1 (along with several other parts).

This strikes me as a pretty strange argument to make. Undertaking a harassment campaign is not something you might do by accident.

I don't see (and I shouldn't see -- that should go to a moderator, not me) any hard evidence of bad intent. And I have lived just long enough to not be surprised in either case.

I am weary of, and a little bit personally insulted by, your response that my assertion that someone who outed me as trans and is running a harassment campaign against me, a story which I gave some evidence for and which has been verified by others, is not sufficiently justified.

For all your accusations of violations of rule 1 on the parts of the people saying that Cole violated the rules, I think you're not assuming the best of KT or I, either.

I'm also a little curious as to your motivations about why you have been liberally accusing KT and me of violating rule 1, but despite being present for cole's original message in this conversation, turned a blind eye to his own failure to assume good faith on the part of many members of the conwaylife discord.

Whether or not something is good/bad behaviour doesn't answer whether or not it's done in good/bad faith.

This is technically true, but I think interpreting the rules this strictly by the letter of the law is probably not the best way to follow the rules. Believing that you're not doing wrong doesn't excuse bad actions.

Unfortunately, I'm not seeing enough evidence here — Discord and the forum are not the same place. And it's not even the ConwayLife Lounge — it's one user's private server, both in the previous incident and this one.

It's true that many of the most damning things Cole has done have been done in less publicly visible discord servers, including his own private server, which I think may have been deleted and even if not I cannot procure evidence from because I have of course been banned from it as retaliation for my own involvement in Cole's ban from the conway discord. And most of the rest is in the private #jail channel of the conway lounge, visible to server moderators and muted members.

If the moderators require more evidence of me, I could privately send them plenty of evidence or better yet give them access to as many relevant spaces as possible so they could see for themselves.

The most damning evidence against him is probably the rant Cole himself made on this forum, not anything that happened in the last day or two, but even then, why would we ban someone on the forum for something that happened two websites away?

Well, first, I would like to point out that Cole did quite bring the discussion to the forums himself. Second, what DID happen here is that he told the mods he has moved on, which he has not, given his completely unprompted undertaking of a harassment campaign against me. Third, a good way to discourage the sort of stuff Cole has been doing is to show that these actions have and will continue to have consequences. Fourth, not taking action against this sort of behavior would create a dangerous precedent that people known to act out in bigotry or, hell, harass other forumites offsite are welcome here, just as long as their behavior on the forums themselves is not too objectionable.

[confocaloid]

Right. However, it's still hard to understand several things, in particular why someone who is apparently genuinely enthusiastic about CA and is capable to contribute suddenly apparently decided to do some unreasonable things.

It doesn't matter WHY cole is trying to run a harassment campaign against me. It should not be permissible behavior regardless of the motivation.

If you intend to discuss someone's visible behaviour, then do not accuse them or anyone else of acting in bad faith.

The first sentence in your reply contains a claim (quoted above, and repeated several times) that is an accusation of someone acting in bad faith, and is a violation of forum rule 1.

I would like to point out that enthusiasm for CA (and by proxy, capacity to contribute); and maturity, politeness, and good judgement are two independent spectra.

I'm not going to respond to every point you are making.

However, regardless of whether or not someone is acting in good faith or in bad faith, any actions that can possibly be interpreted as a "retaliation campaign" go against forum rule 1, do not solve any actual or perceived problems, and become a problem in themselves.

One can't convince people that it's bad to break rules by getting oneself involved in a rule-breaking activity.

I'm not on discord and I can't see the whole situation.
What I can see is that several members (who have posted here so far) themselves fail to be good examples of "maturity, politeness, and good judgement" which was mentioned earlier in the discussion.

[Heav]

If you intend to discuss someone's visible behaviour, then do not accuse them or anyone else of acting in bad faith.

confocaloid, what in the world?

you didn't seem to have this whole tirade when cole complained about how calling out transphobia is toxic and how nonbinary people aren't real. and yet, when someone is the target of harassment from that same person, you basically tell them to shut up about it?

i'm finding it very hard to take *your* posts in good faith. could you at least have the decency to not repeatedly accuse the actual victim of this situation of breaking the rules?

[confocaloid]

@Heav
From what was already posted here so far, I believe you are misrepresenting/misinterpreting statements from at least two members here.

In particular, I'm definitely not telling anyone

[...] to shut up about it [...]

However, I believe that any further discussion of people's intents is likely to contain further violations of forum rules, without solving any actual or perceived problems.

One can't convince people that it's bad to break rules by getting oneself involved in a rule-breaking activity.

[apg]

[lengthy rant]

I have been busy lately and unfortunately did not see this. I hate to bring this topic back up, but I want it to be absolutely clear:

Any sort of discrimination based on gender or gender identity is a violation of rule 1 and will result in a ban. This includes intentionally referring to a person by pronouns that they have asked you not to use.

Do not test the boundaries on this. Do not discuss gender issues if you are not completely sure that you will not violate this rule.

Fully agreed.

...to artificially change their genders. If we can use this innovative power to do that, why don’t we use this power for something more productive, like going to Mars and setting up a colony there? If you Gen Zed folks are not ruining this Earth, changing your own gender and using linguistically and biologically wrong pronouns, then you humans would be setting up space habitats by now.

@H. H. P. M. P. Cole, this excerpt in particular is quite offensive as well as being false-dichotomous: for example, the transgender engineer Lynn Conway made revolutionary improvements to the semiconductor industry which enabled the creation of much more powerful computers than what would have otherwise been possible, and also engaged in work to protect the rights of transgender people. Clearly there is no incompatibility between contributing to technological progress and transgender activism:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynn_Conway

cole, confocaloid, and anyone who disagrees with musi from now on immediately lose permission to request scourge searches connected to the charity engine & OSG backend when it comes out in ~1 month

This is rather harsh on confocaloid: I haven't seen any wrongdoing from confocaloid; any controversial behaviour has generally been of the form "interpreting the forum rules overly literally and concomitantly overusing the report button". The way that this should be resolved is to edit the forum rules to be less susceptible to misinterpretation, rather than to retaliate at confocaloid.

@confocaloid, on that note please could you in future limit your use of the report button to only the most egregious violations (offensive content and traditional spam, as opposed to posts that would be better if they were in a different forum thread)? Also, in light of Moosey's most recent post, could you also please ensure that you apply this consistently and impartially and not, for example, only reporting posts on one side of an argument if there are equally flagrant violations from the other side?

Look, I'm terribly sorry. I promise this will not happen again. If I have offended any of the folks here, I am sorry if I unintentionally did.

I have learned from my mistake and have moved on.

Thank you; I appreciate and accept the apology. Please do note that, if you subsequently break this promise, this will be invalidated and a sanction levied.

Unfortunately, I'm not seeing enough evidence here — Discord and the forum are not the same place. And it's not even the ConwayLife Lounge — it's one user's private server, both in the previous incident and this one. [...] The most damning evidence against him is probably the rant Cole himself made on this forum, not anything that happened in the last day or two, but even then, why would we ban someone on the forum for something that happened two websites away?

Yes... given this combined with Cole's recent apology I see no reason to issue a ban at this stage. If, on the other hand, I see continued harassment or disrespectful/offensive remarks then action will be taken.

[...] I have proof for each of these, can provide if needed.

This kind of thing certainly shouldn't be posted here. If you believe it is relevant, send it to a moderator.

Posting it here will not explain anything, will not help to solve any actual or perceived problem, and will likely create more problems.

I agree with this: it's much better to resolve these issues internally than on a public forum, to the extent that this is possible.

It doesn't matter WHY cole is trying to run a harassment campaign against me. It should not be permissible behavior regardless of the motivation.

Agreed.

If the moderators require more evidence of me, I could privately send them plenty of evidence or better yet give them access to as many relevant spaces as possible so they could see for themselves.

@Moosey if you (or anyone else involved) continue to receive any harassment from Cole timestamped after this post of mine then please do forward it to me (along with any relevant historical context that helps to illustrate the pattern) and I'll take action.

[Moosey]

Unfortunately, I'm not seeing enough evidence here — Discord and the forum are not the same place. And it's not even the ConwayLife Lounge — it's one user's private server, both in the previous incident and this one. [...] The most damning evidence against him is probably the rant Cole himself made on this forum, not anything that happened in the last day or two, but even then, why would we ban someone on the forum for something that happened two websites away?

Yes... given this combined with Cole's recent apology I see no reason to issue a ban at this stage. If, on the other hand, I see continued harassment or disrespectful/offensive remarks then action will be taken.
[...]
it's much better to resolve these issues internally than on a public forum, to the extent that this is possible.
[...]
@Moosey if you (or anyone else involved) continue to receive any harassment from Cole timestamped after this post of mine then please do forward it to me (along with any relevant historical context that helps to illustrate the pattern) and I'll take action.

I think this is a reasonable verdict. I would agree that this probably does not yet justify a ban, as much as a firm warning or at least statement from a moderator like the one you have given here.

Thank you for the offer at the end of the post; I will let you know if/when this occurs.

My apologies for posting about this visibly; I do realize that that was probably a rash decision.

[confocaloid]

[...]

cole, confocaloid, and anyone who disagrees with musi from now on immediately lose permission to request scourge searches connected to the charity engine & OSG backend when it comes out in ~1 month

This is rather harsh on confocaloid: I haven't seen any wrongdoing from confocaloid; any controversial behaviour has generally been of the form "interpreting the forum rules overly literally and concomitantly overusing the report button". The way that this should be resolved is to edit the forum rules to be less susceptible to misinterpretation, rather than to retaliate at confocaloid.

@confocaloid, on that note please could you in future limit your use of the report button to only the most egregious violations (offensive content and traditional spam, as opposed to posts that would be better if they were in a different forum thread)? Also, in light of Moosey's most recent post, could you also please ensure that you apply this consistently and impartially and not, for example, only reporting posts on one side of an argument if there are equally flagrant violations from the other side?
[...]

In several cases including this discussion, the only reason why I didn't report some forum post was because someone else already did report the post, for a reason unknown to me. When trying to report a post that is already reported, the forum software says "This post has already been reported."

In cases when I'm reporting some forum post, my reasons have to do with the post itself (rather than with the author of the post).

I'm aware that I do not see the whole picture.

[Citation needed]

What Neography Wiki? I can't seem to find such a website, at least not one that includes the articles you're posting here. And why are you posting these articles on the forums of a completely unrelated website? Most wikis have a way to download their contents. Why not just download the whole wiki and keep a local copy?

We are very sorry to tell you that Neography Wiki on Miraheze lost a lawsuit and went bankrupt. We are now putting the entire documentation of each alphabet/cipher here however possible. (September 2024)

The latest dump has been uploaded.

[H. H. P. M. P. Cole]

These posts seem to be SPAM and I think we should look out for more of these SPAMbots.

Thanks for explaining this rule!

Thank you for compiling them!

[confocaloid]

These posts seem to be SPAM [...]

Thanks for explaining this rule!

Thank you for compiling them!

Yes, both quoted posts are SPAM.

Without any obvious immediate benefit to whoever did this;
probably useless, because it happened in the Sandbox out of all places;
for all we know, maybe this is just some misguided attempt to artificially drum up some more activity to "make this forum a bit more active" or whatever, without really understanding what is the central topic of these forums;

but it's still SPAM.

In particular, both quoted posts fail to refer to something that was previously posted in the same thread.
("explaining this rule" -- which rule was explained in that thread?
"compiling them" -- compiling what, two forks?)

[confocaloid]

Just because someone didn't reply to a post / a message, doesn't mean they didn't notice it.
Maybe they are currently busy with other things. Maybe they don't currently have much to contribute. Maybe something else.

[Citation needed]

Would you expand ColorfulGalaxy's "Numbers" page?

[hotdogPi]

Would you expand ColorfulGalaxy's "Numbers" page?

I can. Discoveries have slowed down a bit since the Oscillator Revolution, but I can still probably do some.

[Citation needed]

Would you expand ColorfulGalaxy's "Numbers" page?

I can. Discoveries have slowed down a bit since the Oscillator Revolution, but I can still probably do some.

Thank you very much. I added some entries on particular names like "trans-house-tie". I hope you find it interesting.

[confocaloid]

Several entries in the page are problematic w.r.t. the forum rules. Not listing all examples (it should be easy to spot them), but for example the "Golly gibberish" reference entry should be removed (forum rule 1a), and many references to someone's usernames/post count/forum activity are questionable too.

Further, several entries refer to arbitrary encodings or implementation details of some software (one example is a mention of Catagolue "megasized" bins). Or such entries refer to any other "real-world" details that are essentially arbitrary (because any such detail could change in an "alternate universe", even though the mathematics would remain the same).
It's not hard to imagine an alternate world where discoveries were made in different times and in different order, using different software tools, and named in a different way.
It's easy to imagine an alternate world where "97 is the number of cells between rows in census.rle." is true. That's neither an interesting property of CGoL, nor an interesting property of the number system.

Some entries are arbitrary, in that many similar examples of the same type could be generated for many other numbers.
For example, "312 is the period of 60P312" is arbitrary. (Indeed, the character string "60P312" is a Pentadecathlon ID descriptor that means "a p312 oscillator with minimum population 60"; it's not coincidental, there is no "unexpectedness" here. It's not about the number 312. One could pick any other oscillator with a different period, and write down a similar entry using its period and Pentadecathlon ID descriptor.)

I guess my "complaint" about that page is that, despite the name "Encyclopedia of numbers", it fails to be about numbers.

[Citation needed]

The thread called "Absolutely useless patterns not worthy of patterns thread" contains a few posts without patterns. As the thread is designed so that every post should contain patterns, please either move these posts or add patterns to them. The thread is not for discussing patterns without posting new ones (they're "absolutely useless" and literally need no discussion). Thank you.

[Citation needed]

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ti ... 1242076053

[...] may be trying to invite more people to the forum or LifeWiki by revealing the answer to the CAPTCHA question.

Can you send a screenshot of the page so that ColorfulGalaxy can see it?

[Citation needed]

Is there a rule named "Petrel"? A friend of ColorfulGalaxy's commented that the name "CGoL" didn't sound good, as it was a homophone of "seagull".

He also noted that "GPSE" was a homophone of "gypsy".

[WhiteHawk]

Guess this is a change of topic from the previous discussion, but kind of a silly question which I have been brewing over: which Outer-totalistic/Isotropic non-totalistic rule is the most similar to life (In terms of the commonness of patterns, spaceships, evolutions of common sequences, etc.)? I have a suspicion that it's Conway++, but won't discount Pedestrian Life or some other variant.

Edit: Also, what would it take to take advantage of Pedestrian Life's numerous infinite growth patterns to construct some sort of alien universal constructor - or at least make universal constructor(s) in other rules?

[b-engine]

Edit: Also, what would it take to take advantage of Pedestrian Life's numerous infinite growth patterns to construct some sort of alien universal constructor - or at least make universal constructor(s) in other rules?

Universal constructors exist in OCA, but you'll need more components to make one:

• Reflectors.

• Common spaceship reactions (to actually construct things).

• Recipe (of spaceship reactions).

Or optionally (for universal computer):

• Logic gates.

• Diagram (of the computer).

[Citation needed]

Why did Sokwe not only delete all posts made by these two users, but also delete all posts that quote one of these users?

Code: Select all

x = 15, y = 5, rule = B3/S23
2b2o2b2obo3bo$2o2b2o2bob5o$3o2bo2b2obob2o$b2obobob3o3bo$ob2ob3obob3o!

Code: Select all

x = 11, y = 5, rule = B3/S23
obobo2bo2bo$4obob4o$b2obo2b3o$2ob2obo2b2o$obob5obo!

I just came back and realized that my posts are being deleted.
You have probably mistyped one of the patterns.