Wiki
From RationalWiki
A wiki is (or at least is supposed to be) a publicly editable database of Web pages, and is generally considered the realization of Tim Berners-Lee's original peer-to-peer vision for the World Wide Web. Because of its collaborative nature, "wiki" is often made into a "back-ronym" for "What I Know Is;" however, the term was originally derived from the Hawaiian word for "fast."
While we should certainly mention the amusing results that occur when someone tries to run a wiki as their own personal ego project, truth be told we don't have a whole lot of need to discuss the nature of wikis here, so we'll just kick you over to the 800 kg gorilla of wikis and let them explain.
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[edit] Notable wikis
[edit] Wikipedia
Wikipedia is, as mentioned above, the 800 kg Gorrila of all wiki's, consisting of over three million aritcles. It is specifically an encyclopedia dedicated to amassing all the knowledge of the world in one place. It's goals are not only to get this information together, but also to make it freely available. As a result, it makes extensive use of creative commons to allow its content to be distributed. It is often serious and quite dry in tone, but it's at least mostly accurate.
[edit] Citizendium
Citizendium was the original challenger to the crown of Wikipedia. It's primary difference was that its editing policy was less open, allowing only "experts" to approve articles. While a decent enough idea, this did have the side effect that many of the articles were essentially "hi-jacked", resulting in pseudoscience topics being covered in a less than critical light. Despite projections that it would grow to rival Wikipedia's size, it has so far remained quite small.
[edit] Metapedia
Metapedia describes itself as "an electronic encyclopedia about culture, art, science, philosophy and politics". As an apparent offshoot of Stormfront, it covers those somewhat "controversial" subjects, such as the mental illness origins of homosexuality, how race is certainly a real thing and science proves people with dark skin are dirty animals and how awesome Hitler was.
[edit] Conservapedia
Conservapedia, a very small project aiming to emulate Wikipedia from a socially conservative, American, and fundamentalist Christian point of view, involves several editors and administrators who had previously faced opposition in inserting their heavily biased point of view into Wikipedia articles.[1][2] Some appear under aliases, apparently in order to distance themselves from their prior involvement with Wikipedia[3] or possibly to fit in more with a common Conservapedia username scheme.[4] As a whole, the site appears to have an unhealthy fascination with Wikipedia and its supposed faults.[5][6] It is significant to note that many of what Conservapedia administrators consider faults in Wikipedia are often repeated, to a greater degree, on their own site.
While being frustrated in their attempts to insert a respect for real world scientific facts at Conservapedia, the founders and most of the original editors here at RationalWiki "met" each other.
[edit] A Storehouse of Knowledge
Just as Conservapedia was a cheap knock-off of Wikipedia, A Storehouse of Knowledge was set up as a cheap knock off of Conservapedia. Set up by (now-ex) Conservapedia user Philip J. Rayment in March '09. It's like everyone wants their own pet wiki project, when will it end!?!?
[edit] RationalWiki
RationalWiki, a large and well respected very small project that was originally established to demolish the likes of Conservapedia from a rationalist point of view. It was founded by several editors (and administrators, even, although briefly) who had previously faced opposition in inserting their heavily biased scientific point of view into Conservapedia articles.[7] Some appear under aliases, apparently in order to distance themselves from their prior involvement with Conservapedia, although most use the same user name they had there. Some have added more goat, in order to fit in with a common RationalWiki obsession. As a whole, the site appears to have an unhealthy fascination with Conservapedia and its supposed obvious faults. It is significant to note that many of what RationalWiki administrators consider faults in Conservapedia are often repeated, to a greater degree, on their own site.[8]
While being frustrated in their attempts to insert a respect for real world logic and sense at RationalWiki, a small cabal of vandals and skeptics "met" here at RationalWiki and someday will destroy it from within from their sekrit namespace.[9]
[edit] See also
- Wikinode - Our list of relevant wikis.
- WikiIndex.org - A larger list or irrelevant wikis.
[edit] Footnotes
- ↑ Roger Schlafly
- ↑ Ed Poor
- ↑ Conservative/kdbuffalo
- ↑ RobS/Nobs/Nobs01
- ↑ Examples of Bias in Wikipedia
- ↑ How Conservapedia Differs from Wikipedia
- ↑ See the Night of the Blunt Knives
- ↑ According to disgruntled Conservapedia sysops who joined RationalWiki
- ↑ See, RationalWikiWiki and RationalWikiWikiWiki and maybe even RationalWikiWikiWikisWiki...
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