P-Foster

From RationalWikiWiki

Stalk this user! (It's a joke)
Joined:	17 July 2007[1]
Real name:	Paul ______[2]
Age range:
Gender:	Male
Locale:	Midwestern USA [3]
Stance:	Communist[4], Antitheist[5]
Archetype:
Articles created:	40
Misc.:	Historian. Married. Really hates the Beatles.
user page -- user talk -- contributions

“	You sir, are fucking awesome. That is all.	”
—AD

While P-Foster (formerly TheoryOfPractice and then formerly PFoster) is a major editor of WIGO, articles and debates at RationalWiki, he is neither a Key Player nor a Significant RationalWikian. This disdain with which he is viewed by his fellow RatWikians is most probably due to the fact that he is often outspoken in discussions, maybe a little too serious, and sometimes short-tempered. He has a tendency to act unilaterally, ignoring the consensus and doing what he is convinced is "right." It also seems that his irony meter may be a little faulty at times as he has a tendency to take at face value issues which others might dismiss as playful nonsense.

He was sysoped by Human on December 12, 2007^[6] and bureaucratized, also by Human, on January 3, 2009. 15 days after that, TheoryOfPractice promoted himself to editor, but was demoted again within 24 hours.^[7] He repeated the promotion exercise on April 25, 2009, three minutes after announcing his retirement from the Wiki.^[8] This was apparently due to events in real life,^[9] which he confirmed when he made his return on July 5, 2009, citing health issues for the absence.^[10]

His no-nonsense treatment of vandals and trolls has tended to make him a target of their activities in retaliation, especially in the case of Fall down, whose essays PFoster was among the most adamant in opposing. In December 2008, apparently driven to distraction by their antics, he lost it and began issuing year-long blocks against socks and IP addresses who rode in on Tor. This was (and is) in conflict with RW's block policy and was presumably inspired by the immense "success" of long blocks on RationalWiki's sister site Conservapedia. In any event, many of the long blocks were wiped out by the start of 2009, though not without some controversy.

He has been known to ignore the rule against removing edits from talk-pages,^[11][12][13] though he has also been known to enforce it.^[14]

He has also come into (less serious) conflict with other editors (primary Human and Kels) over his unalloyed hatred of the Beatles,^[15] whilst working on DickTurpis's undoubtedly silly project to list the "Greatest achievements of human history".

On 28 December 2008, PFoster was renamed to TheoryOfPractice, at his own request.^[16] At first, he was still signing talk page comments as PFoster, but corrected it after a few days.

On January 14, 2009, somebody posted personal information to the WIGO:CP talk-page in violation of site rules. TheoryOfPractice, reacting in his customary dramatic style, vaporized the entire page, which, since its history included over 37,000 edits, locked up the database.^[17][18] Tmtoulouse had to take down the database for an hour to fix the site, after which he issued a fiat decree about site policy.^[19] This technical glitch is similar in some ways to what happened when Ed Poor deleted the "VfD" file at Wikipedia.^[20]

The database event was one of several factors that prompted TheoryOfPractice to renounce his bureaucrat and sysop powers four days later, over Human's and π's objections.^[21]

He is the only person to receive both the defender of faith and the burn in hell award.

Contents 1 TOP and the TOR vandals part two 2 TOP and unilateralism 3 RaoulDuke 4 Yet another name change; what is it with this guy? 5 Moderator 6 Awards 7 Notes and references

[edit] TOP and the TOR vandals part two

In his continuing unrelenting fight against the hordes of vandals occasional vandal who violates the wiki, and in his desire to close both the doors and the windows against them, TOP was the prime mover in what ultimately became The Great Tor Debate. Yet again the objective was to keep these vile creatures from sullying the wiki's pretty pages, and yet again the wimps at RW failed TOP when he instructed π to repel them with extreme prejudice.

[edit] TOP and unilateralism

He unilaterally blocked RobS for five years ^[22].

Of course, since RobS is also a sysop, he unblocked himself upon facing the first silly "oh noes you have been bloxored" window. Human, panicking over the unilateralism, chased down the logs, and breathed a sigh of relief when he realized RobS knew how to play the game.^[23]

[edit] RaoulDuke

On 24 September 2009 he created a sock account named RaoulDuke,^[24] and switched to that account completely.^[25] up until 5th November 2009.

[edit] Yet another name change; what is it with this guy?

On 19 March 2010, ToP renamed himself to a variation of his original name. ^[26]Seriously dude, pick something and run with it, okay?

[edit] Moderator

P-Foster was one of RationalWiki's first batch of moderators. He resigned and LANCB after receiving "creepy, foul, and threatening emails" ^[27] He officially returned in December of that year.

[edit] Awards

[edit] Notes and references

1. ↑ User creation log for TheoryOfPractice.
2. ↑ This post.
3. ↑ formerly Ann Arbor, Michigan
4. ↑ Userbox on a previous version of his user page, now deleted.
5. ↑ http://rationalwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=User_talk:TheoryOfPractice&diff=325222&oldid=325216
6. ↑ http://rationalwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Special%3ALog&type=rights&user=&page=User%3APFoster
7. ↑ http://rationalwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Special%3ALog&type=rights&user=&page=User%3ATheoryOfPractice
8. ↑ http://rationalwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=User:TheoryOfPractice&oldid=360239
9. ↑ Human's comment
10. ↑ http://rationalwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=User_talk:Ace_McWicked&diff=398719&oldid=398015
11. ↑ http://rationalwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=User_talk%3ATheoryOfPractice&diff=288078&oldid=288058
12. ↑ http://rationalwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=User_talk%3ATheoryOfPractice&diff=290816&oldid=290814
13. ↑ http://rationalwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=User_talk%3ATheoryOfPractice&diff=291021&oldid=291017
14. ↑ http://rationalwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=User_talk:Jammy&diff=prev&oldid=291655
15. ↑ Discussion on the essay's talk page. Outraged muttering by Kels and Human continues on Human's talk page.
16. ↑ Rename log. Human's comment.
17. ↑ http://rationalwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Conservapedia_Talk:What_is_going_on_at_CP%3F&oldid=294031#Deleted_and_re-created....
18. ↑ http://rationalwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=RationalWiki:Saloon_bar&oldid=293129#Look.2C_I_am_sorry
19. ↑ http://rationalwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=RationalWiki:Saloon_bar&oldid=293129#Oversight
20. ↑ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2005-08-08/Deletion_deletion
21. ↑ http://rationalwiki.com/wiki/User_talk:TheoryOfPractice/Archive_5#Rights_change
22. ↑ http://rationalwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Special%3ALog&type=block&user=TheoryOfPractice&page=User%3ARobS&year=&month=-1
23. ↑ Actual dinner conversation.
24. ↑ User creation log for RaoulDuke.
25. ↑ User rights log for RaoulDuke.
26. ↑ http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/index.php?title=Special%3ALog&type=renameuser&user=P-Foster&page=User%3ATheoryOfPractice++&year=&month=-1
27. ↑ [1]