Blue

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Stalk this user! (It's a joke)
A sketch of Blue
Joined:	25 March 2008[1]
Real name:	Miranda[2] van Etten
Gender:	female
Locale:	New York[2]
Stance:	atheist[3], feminist, socialist
Archetype:	The Radical
Misc:	Plays the bassoon [4], likes Dr.Who and Sherlock Holmes!
user page -- user talk -- contributions

If you were looking for BIue with a capital I, see here.

Blue (originally Lyra Belaqua, then Lyra Silvertongue, then Blue, then MordantMaenad, then Blue3, and finally back to Blue)^[5] is a sysop on RationalWiki. She was sysopped by Human May 23, 2008^[6], during the Great Demoting Binge, in recognition of her contributions to RationalWiki, and bureaucratized first by Human,^[7] and finally by Weaseloid in November 2010.^[8] Human removed her crateship during a wheel war over Sterile's user rights, to which she responded by taking him to the Chicken Coop for the Trial of Human; her rights were subsequently returned by ListenerX. She removed her user rights on 17 May 2011. Ty returned them on 22 May 2011.^[9]

Contents 1 Renamings 2 Liberapedia 3 Early days 4 Fake Retirement 5 Bureaucratship 6 Leaving and never coming back 7 Activities 8 Moderator 9 Social Scene 9.1 Ambition 9.2 Poking it with a stick 10 Known sockpuppets 11 Footnotes

[edit] Renamings

Blue later requested that her name be changed to "Lyra Silvertongue", explaining that her name was a misspelling of her intentioned moniker, "Lyra Belacqua". Pinto's5150 accordingly renamed her June 3, 2008.^[5] All was well until 30 August 2010, when she requested yet another name change and Human duly obliged and renamed her "Blue." ^[10] On 22 May 2011, she renamed herself MordantMaenad.

Blue is the "head" of a project to translate RW articles to Spanish.

[edit] Liberapedia

Blue joined Liberapedia on than March 4, 2008, under the name "Lyrelle" a few weeks before joining RationalWiki. She apparently viewed Liberapedia as being a higher priority than RationalWiki for some time. She was present for the dark days of Liberapedia, when the acting bureaucrat was gone, while Elassint had been the de facto leader of LP since the beginning of the year.

Blue, as a theist, attempted to moderate the overtly atheist nature of Liberapedia articles, resulting in a falling out between her and Elassint, after which she left the wiki to come to RW. The moribund meta-site Liberapediapedia briefly branded Blue a TRAITOR for this. Whether anybody in RationalWiki ever cared about Liberapediapedia's opinion is open to question.

[edit] Early days

Lyra often talked to Jellyfish, Bohdan, and AKjeldsen. She disappeared sometime in 2008 and returned in May 2009^[11] She was involved in the MarcusCicero Wars.

[edit] Fake Retirement

In late September 2010, Blue blocked herself for 5 months^[12] and deleted her user page.^[13] The impetus for this was unclear, as she did not provide a retirement message besides a cryptic "Time to go." She returned about a week later, as most RW "retirees" tend to.

[edit] Bureaucratship

In October 2010, Blue was given bureaucrat status by Human so she could turn herself into a bot and back.^[14][15]

She only used her powers on two other people^[16][17] before decratting herself, claiming that she did not earn her powers "legitimately."^[18] However, shortly thereafter, Weaseloid returned her 'crat powers with the message, "legitimate shmegitimate."^[19]

[edit] Leaving and never coming back

Following disgruntlement with RationalWiki for, among other things, seeming to ignore her good contributions in exchange for silliness, Blue left a Parthian shot^[20] and then the wiki afterwards. This and other, related drama caused an HCM to break out on Nx's talkpage. Naturally, Blue returned after a number of days.

Blue vanished mysteriously during the evening of April 1st 2011. She reappeared using her sock, briefly ^[21] to make a comment about jazz and redirect the sock's user page to the fun article on France. She returned to the wiki to debate policy on April 13th.

Blue left again on May 17th, during the fallout over The Saloon Bar Putsch.^[22] She returned 5 days later.

[edit] Activities

Blue was one of RationalWiki's most active editors from late 2010 to early 2012, and holds the second highest ever non-Human edit count in a single month. In April 2011, she slacked off, but was back in full force for early May. Circa March 2012, she is barely active at all, save for the occasional wigo and markup. Blue started the Great Stub Categorization project, and has created her own custom extension "hotstubcat"^[23]. She has a bot named Blue2 which she has used to block all crates before^[24]. She was also one of the first users of LiquidThreads, and created a mark as patrolled extension^[25]. She is a staunch believer in reforming the wiki's rules structure.^[26] Blue latest project appears to be the pushing of a "reference" namespace.^[27]

[edit] Moderator

MM lost becoming a moderator by .2 votes. After P-Foster's resignation, she replaced him. ^[28] She then resigned a while later due to legitimacy issues. ^[29] She was reelected not long afterward. ^[30]

[edit] Social Scene

Blue is usually quite charming and personable. In her early days she seemed to mostly talk to Pink as they were both adrift in a sea of atheists (Blue later lost her religion)^[31]. She has, however, been known to blow her top occasionally^[32]. She got along well with pretty much everyone, except Human and possibly Nutty Roux^[33]. She is a WikiPlatypus, but begain getting in touch with her "inner otter".

[edit] Ambition

Blue describes herself as "power hungry" and mentioned once that she would like to run for congress^[34]. She also once nominated a nonentity for cratship with the scratched out comment "will toe the party line" ^[35]

[edit] Poking it with a stick

On 27 November, 2011, Blue borrowed a page from HeidelbergKid and used the Essay space as a means by which to revive old grudges and call attention to herself. ^[36] After the January 2012 Mod election, Blue sent several emails to human containing personal information and requesting he resign. Human posted these on his talk page,^[37] redacting her identity. Blue promptly flipped out.^[38] The discussion went to the coop,^[39] where eventually it was decided that everyone should forget it and move on.

[edit] Known sockpuppets

• AltezaAzul
• Robespierre

[edit] Footnotes