Conservapedia

Trus me Conservapedia

Introduction

Newcomer's Guide What is going on?

Commentary

Best of Conservapedia Blatant plagiarism Differences with Wikipedia Hijacked articles "SDG" "TZB" "Fab Five" Sysops Timeline CP in the media

In-depth analysis

Active users Illustrated guide

Fun

Article Matrix Greatest Insights Parthian Shots v - t - e

I'm so awfully glad I'm not a liberal.

~ Conservapedia Motto of the Day

Sentences should not be facts.

~ Conservapedia (true quote!)

[Senator Carl Levin] voted no on a mandatory patently notification for miners who wish to get a out of state abortion.

~ - Conservapedia (True Quote!)

Conservapedia is the latest public manifestation of how the American fundamentalist Christian right "thinks". It is a wiki-based attempt to build a heavily biased and factually incorrect encyclopedia. Due to its bias, it ends up portraying liberals, atheists, and homosexuals (along with whoever the "bête noire du jour" is, like Muslims) as being evil and anti-American. Their attacks on these groups are fueled by traditionalism and jingoistic pro-Americanism. It has been called "The Watchtower of the Internet."

The site was founded by Andrew Schlafly, son of professional anti-feminist Phyllis Schlafly, in an attempt to offset what he perceived as an excessive liberal bias at Wikipedia. Conservapedia's goal is to try to create a version of Wikipedia that has a conservative bias, especially when it comes to issues where politics and fundamentalist Christianity overlap, such as creationism, evolution, sexuality and morality.

Management

Andrew Schlafly at the helm.

Currently, Conservapedia ("CP" for short) is managed by Aschlafly and a group of homeschooled teenagers known as "The Panel", who seem to have given up on Conservapedia because not a single panel request has been considered yet. While there is a list of Conservapedia Commandments, they seem to be mostly honored in the breach, and their basic policy seems to be banning people for ideological differences, attempts at humor, or backtalking to them. The latest expansion on this is the "Scorched Earth Editing Policy", in which after banning someone, they undo all of that person's recent edits, just to make certain the filthy heretic doesn't feel like trying to get back on to vandalize the site further by posting more facts the sysops don't agree with. Users there have been warned not to delete content on threat of banning.

Liberal revulsion for Conservapedia is mollified by the knowledge that a Wikipedia-like site can only thrive with a relatively free exchange of ideas and some tolerance for vandals, hoaxers, and crackpots, and the gang of beady-eyed zealots running CP are going to stifle it to death while thinking they're 'protecting' it. (For an example, look at all the pages that various editors have locked so that nobody can 'deface' them, thus preventing anyone from improving them as well.)

Lately, Conservapedia has taken the extreme step of preventing any user from registering a new account or making any edits at certain times of the day unless granted special rights.

The management at Conservapedia also struggles with the wiki software; Some sysops do not know how to unblock users.

Philosophical stance

Conservapedia (The Trusworthy [sic] Encyclopedia) is an (abnormal) encyclopedia with an American Conservative Christian point of view. But what exactly do these terms mean? Some of Conservapedia's main tenets include:

File:Anticreation familyguy.jpg

Licensed medical professionals, on the dangers of Conservapedia.

• Biblical literalism, often putting Old Testament writings ahead of the actual teachings of Jesus.‎
  • A young-earth creationist viewpoint
  • Anti-homosexual
  • Anti-abortion
  • Anti-sex-education in schools
  • Pro-capital punishment
• Global warming denialism
  • Anti-environmental controls
• Anti-Islam
  • Pro-Israel
• Anti-"liberal" (a pejorative term for any viewpoint that contradicts CP's views)
  • Anti-government
  • Anti-public school
  • Anti-intellectual
  • Anti-public health system
  • Anti-gun control
  • Anti-Medicare
  • Anti-vaccination
  • Pro-baby shaking
  • Anti-minimum wage
  • Anti-left wing economics in general, and anything that will help the working classes dig themselves out of poverty
  • Pro-neoliberalism and laissez faire
  • Pro-homeschooling (religious)
• Anti-United Nations
  • Anti-European
  • Anti-Canadian
• Anti-Democratic Party
  • Anti-Independent Party
  • Anti-Green Party
  • Anti-Socialist Party
• Anti-relativity - both in the moral sense and in terms of physics
• (Basically anti-everyone but them.)

See also: Conservapedia:Delusions

Public restroom stance

W  I  D  E  

Usefulness of Conservapedia

Conservapedia is actually useful when arguing with various strains of religious fundamentalist, in ascertaining just what on earth they claim to think themselves.

(Wikipedia is also surprisingly detailed in delineating the various strains of creationist thought, should you wish to survey the rabbit hole before diving in head first.)

Accuracy of Conservapedia

Parody or conservapedian wisdom? You decide.

Conservapedia, like any encyclopedia (especially those of a wiki format), is prone to errors. There is reason to believe that Conservapedia is actually far inferior to Wikipedia and that its articles are not to be trusted. Conservapedia's math and history articles have been criticized for a plethora of errors, while a numerical comparison of Conservapedia articles with articles in Wikipedia have shown Conservapedia's articles to be lagging in quality.

Interesting gaps in Conservapedia

Like the press of the now-defunct USSR, what Conservapedia doesn't say can be just as enlightening as what it does say. For example, various human bodily parts have been permanently banned from having entries on CP, leading to CP having thousands of words about why a woman shouldn't have an abortion, and not one word on the organs involved in getting her pregnant in the first place. This would seem to be related to the fact that their primary audience is home-schooled children, who they feel should be shielded from such knowledge.

Furthermore, they do not mention the liberal views held by many conservative politicians on certain issues. For example, Conservapedia's entry on Barry Goldwater, one of the most prominent champions of American Conservatism, does not mention that the long-time U.S. Senator was firmly pro-choice, nor that he was against the exclusion of gays from the military. Their article furthermore neither mentions that the Republican was good friends with Democratic U.S. Senator, and later President, John F. Kennedy, nor that at the end of his life, Barry Goldwater was becoming increasingly worried about the influence the Religious Right was gaining in the Republican Party. Although one might argue that these omissions might be because Conservapedia is pro-life, anti-gays in the military (and anti-gay in general), intent on defaming Kennedy (and any other "liberal"), and does not wish to be reminded of that one of their most beloved statesmen was in fierce disagreement with them on these issues, this explanation seems to go against their claimed goal of being unbiased, and even "trustworthy".

Conservapedia and fear of the unknown

As is common with very conservative groups throughout history, much of their fear stems from unfamiliarity with diverse, nuanced situations and a tendency to believe others are conspiring against them. The former creates fear in the ultra-conservative mind that their position in society is not secure; the latter defines their obsession with security issues.

In the case of Conservapedia, these fears are realized in deletion of user pages and the site as a whole spending an inordinate amount of time tracking down vandalism and protecting pages.

Though certainly not all will agree, this “fear of the unknown” is often used to explain so-called “blind faith.”

Conservapedia v. Wikipedia: A self-proclaimed jihad!

Conservapedia claims 16 differences with Wikipedia that they assert make it far superior to what is often considered the best general resource on the web. The differences range from:

• Proveably false: Conservapedia claims Wikipedia is commercial because it is creating a for-profit search engine; it is not.

• Unfounded: Conservapedia claims that Wikipedia allows gossip; this is hard to prove or disprove.

• Frivolous: Conservapedia claims that they keep the number of templates in their articles down.

Teaching value

Conservapedia continually claims that Wikipedia is noneducational.

“” The real test of an "encyclopedia" is how clearly and concisely it explains something to an inquiring student or adult. Any objective evaluation of Wikipedia entries in terms of their ability to teach has to give Wikipedia an "F". — Aschlafly

While Wikipedia may not be the most authoritative reference site on the web it certainly does not deserve an "F". Studies have shown that Wikipedia is comparable or nearly as good as Encyclopædia Britannica which is universally accepted as a good educational resource. Additionally, Andy's very premise is flawed. The real test of an encyclopedia is not "how clearly and concisely it explains something to an inquiring student or adult." Rather it is how broad, accurate, and complete its coverage is. "Concise" is one of Andy's favorite words, by which he means "brief". By that measurement, CP is an excellent site. Unless you're explaining the evils of homosexuality, evolution, or atheism, the general rule on CP seems to be that a few sentences will do. They hold to that pretty well. Britannica, for example, is far from concise, and often not particularly clear. Andy, one must suppose, would assert that CP is a superior encyclopedia, a laughable assertion on anyone's terms. In terms of coverage that is broad, accurate, or complete, CP gets at best a D-. Whatever one chooses to give Wikipedia, it's certainly much better than that.

Pornography

Another common claim at Conservapedia is that Wikipedia is trafficking pornography to minors.

“”Wikipedia is feeding pornography to children. — Aschlafly

Although Wikipedia does have many articles on sexuality, and even child sexuality, calling those articles pornography is specious. What is considered pornographic imagery is a subjective judgement, and Conservapedia itself is not free from nude pictures.

Justice in Conservapedia

The rule of law at Conservapedia is enforced by the sysops. There is a code of rules known as the Conservapedia Commandments but they are seldom followed. The sysops block arbitrarily, passing out bans upon any and all who disagree with them. The only function for the rules is that they are occasionally used to justify disciplinary action.

One of the most commonly abused rules is an unofficial one not actually on the rule book called the 90/10 rule which states that editors must have 90% of their edits in the main space and only 10% in talk spaces. If they were to follow this rule they would have to ban roughly 80% of their regular editors. In fact not one of the major Sysops (Aschlafly, TK, Conservative, Karajou) at Conservapedia is in compliance with the rule. Instead when ever they come across an editor who brings up a point they disagree with (No matter how well sourced or logical) they will ban them and use the 90:10 as justification.

Commandment 1 says to not copy "from Wikipedia or elsewhere", but most users and many of the more active sysops copy and paste regularly , but when an editor copies and pastes an article that they disagree with, they will delete it for plagiarism. The Conservapedia article Arguments for the existence of God was copied and pasted and the user who created it admitted it in the edit summary saying "(copied from theopedia.com / public domain)". When an article was copied off RationalWiki (Which is under the same licensing as Theopedia) they deleted it because "copied from RationalWiki".

Censorship in Conservapedia

Conservapedia promotes Free Speech!

Also deleted was a page called "Examples of Bias in Conservapedia." Although "Examples of Bias on Wikipedia" is alive and kicking, apparently THERE IS NO BIAS. Interestingly, one of the "Examples of Bias in Wikipedia is that virtually the exact same action was performed on Wikipedia.

Conservapedia is often guilty of one of their most common claims against Wikipedia, censorship. Conservapedia, for example, deleted a section of an article on persecution of Christians that pointed out Christians sometimes persecuted other religious sects, and in the article on the Intifada deleted an addition pointing out mildly that innocent Palestinians have also been killed.

Conservapedia has frequently been criticized for its long list of protected pages. Several controversial pages (Homosexuality, Theory of evolution, George W Bush, Goat, etc..) are listed as protected and locked (supposedly to prevent vandalism) When a page is protected, it can only be edited by certain Sysops, who are always promoted based on their staunch conservative viewpoint. Additionally, individual users can request unprotection to make a specific edit. However, many editors have complained that Sysops are quick to delete or change any comments they don't agree with and once the page is relocked, the original editor can no longer revert.

Another frequent complaint is that Conservapedia Sysops simply ban any members they don't agree with, frequently with no chance of recreation, leading many to claim that they censor in a roundabout way, by removing any opposing viewpoints.

Recently Conservapedia seems to have locked all pages to prevent editing. This seems to have ended, but many pages are locked on a more or less permanent basis, at the behest of various Sysops.

Banning users

Conservapedia's sysops generally seem to be inclined to ban (meaning an infinite block from editing) editors as quickly as possible, for even the most frivolous of reasons. Until recently, we thought that this was simply due to their massive tendencies towards paranoia and authoritarian abuse of power, but we now realize this serves a practical purpose as well. To maintain ideological purity and keep out their many imagined enemies, CP's sysops have to vet every individual edit. The more users they have, the less possible this becomes--it's possible they're near the limit now.

It is also possible that the threat of a capricious infinite ban which permanently hangs over all normal users combined with the rule which states that users must spend 90% of time editing and 10% on talk pages has the effect of silencing any real debate and opposition to the the ideology of the site. However, as of the beginning of June 25, 2008, Schlafly himself has a total of 18823 edits to non-talk pages and 3893 edits to talk pages, which puts him at about 82.86%/17.14%, in violation of his own "90/10 rule". In fact, if you only include his 500 most recent edits as of June 25, 2008, his edit ratio drops down to 57%/43%.

You might note that, even now, those who remained fairly faithful to CP are being lumped in with those they consider "parodists" for the most trivial reasons, and banning or blocking seem to be a typical modus operandi. The effect being, they have become the very thing that they claim to hate so much over at WP.

Banning Christian users

For fundamentalist Christians who really believe in the site, being blocked may be quite traumatic. Christians are often indoctrinated with a strong sense of guilt, and ordinary human weaknesses are treated as massive sins. They are also taught to accept what Christians in positions of authority say without question. While Conservapedia blocks are frequently arbitrary, these unfortunate Christians will believe whatever reason is given for a block. It might hurt them deeply to be cut off from a community that matters to them, and to make matters worse, they will be inclined to blame themselves.

Speculation and theories

One theory which has emerged is that Conservapedia is not run by the Religious Right at all; that instead is an extreme parody of fringe loonbags, such as the Westboro Baptist Church, since it is hard to imagine such a large group of people being so loopdy loopder. Either way, though, it is undoubtedly true that if Conservapedia is written without irony, we should pity its authors rather than be angered by them.

It has also been speculated that Andy Schlafly is actually a closet liberal, but uses Conservapedia to hide this fact (primarily from his mother).

Site statistics

The effect of RationalWiki's boycott... or maybe it was the Olympics.

Alexa.com, a website traffic ranking site, tracks visits by users of its Alexa Toolbar software, and offers one way to monitor the popularity of Conservapedia. In September 2007, the site received barely 5% the number of visits it received in March of 2007, when the blog frenzy brought it into the public eye. As of early September 2008, Alexa currently estimates it being visited by only 0.00213% of the global Alexa userbase over a three month average - this is down 12% since the last period. Ranked as the 50,890th most visited site on the internet over a three month average, this figure is 5,553 places lower than its position three months ago. Page views too are down greatly, with visitors now viewing 3.97 pages on the site on average - this is down 22%, or people are looking at one less page each, as of three months ago.

There has been quite a lot of movement over the last three months ending mid-August, as can be seen to the right. By and large Conservapedia's traffic ranking has on average been down. However, in late June 2008, around the 22nd, it spiked. The reason for this is simple: this is when the Lenski affair went critical, with Lenski's second reply owning Andy. People have been flocking to Conservapedia - to laugh at him. Andy has since backed this up with a letter to the editor of the Proceedings of the National Academy Sciences claiming a list of flaws he found in Lenski's paper which he drafted, online for all to edit, at Conservapedia - trolls and vandals had a field day. Without these events it is not hard to imagine that its ranking would have slipped even further, without the sudden and non-lasting influxes of viewers.

Over 56% of their total traffic is estimated to come from the United States. For some reason second is Finland, where the site is just outside the top 2,000. A possible explanation is that Finland contains no people and is entirely populated by ducks.

Andrew Schlafly routinely states that Conservapedia gets lots of page views, and thus believes that people are using it as the encyclopedia it pretends to be. Quantcast gives us some insight into who, in the US at least, is reading Conservapedia. As of early-September it estimates that 67,480 US citizens visit Conservapedia monthly. It gives this description of its "average" visitor,

“”The site attracts a educated, youthful, slightly more male than female group. The typical visitor reads thinkprogress.com, subscribes to National Geographic, and attends Berkley

Interestingly enough it rates 83% of Conservapedia's audience as "passers-by", but only 54% of its visitors are; so Conservapedia seems to be failing to capture the market it should instead its traffic is generated by the same people.

To give you an idea of what these people are thinking, googling Conservapedia yields more than half a million hits, though many are quite dubious. Ignoring the first two hits (which are for the site itself) nearly all the top results on google criticize or mock Conservapedia, with the exception, ironically, on listing #3, Wikipedia, which gives it about as fair an entry as one could hope for.

Now that's a call for epic Lulz!

What others have said about Conservapedia

• "It is a detriment to conservative thought and movement." - TK, Conservapedia sysop (one can only assume that the type of movement being refered to is a bowel movement)

• "I've had bigger chunks'a corn in me crap." - Fat Bastard

• I was banned and the reason given was, "I had some problems getting the page to load." - user "GoogleRonPaul"

• "You'll have more a accurate history of the world in the pages of MAD Magazine, and twice as truthful too" - Scatterbrain66

See also

• Andrew Schlafly
• Chewbacca Defense
• Conservapedia:Best of Conservapedia
• Conservapedia:Conservapedia in 2012
• Conservatipedia
• CreationWiki
• Idiocracy
• Liberapedia--Another wiki made in response to Conservapedia
• Reading Comprehension
• Rosenblum's First Law of Chocolate
• Conservapedia:Conservative Principles
• Kinder, Küche, Kirche

External links

• Conservapedia itself!
• A blog about life near Conservapedia

Historic blog posts about Conservapedia

• Jon Swift: Conservapedia
• Michael Calore, Wired: What Would Jesus Wiki?
• Mark Frauenfelder, boingboing: Top ten most viewed pages on Wikipedia and Conservapedia
• Lester Haines, The Register: Need hard facts? Try Conservapedia

References and notes

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