illogicopedia.org/wiki/IllogiNews:Conservapedia_becomes_the_sum_of_all_human_knowledge

• illogicopedia.org/wiki/Jeremy_Clarkson


conservapedia.com/U.S._Supreme_Court "DANGER"

(Begin rant )
Every time I read anything from Conservapedia, my faith in humanity sinks to new lows. I honestly cannot fathom the mindset of entrenched fundamentalist U.S. conservatives and the fact that they are so powerful in U.S. politics and society. It saddens me that so many of my fellow Southerners adhere to the crap Andy Schlafly and the Fox News weirdos spout off with their pseudo-history about the U.S. and that the U.S. Constitution only applies to evangelical Christians, among other things. I sometimes feel so alone surrounded by such people that I just want to scream.
(End rant )

Illogicopedia looks like a spin-off of Uncyclopedia. I still prefer the pre-Wikia Uncyclopedia pages. I once forgot I was reading Uncyclopedia and thought I was reading a Wikipedia article on Hilary Clinton. It took me a few paragraphs to realize it was an Uncyclopedia page, not a Wikipedia page. Take from that what you will!

Whenever I hear the name "Schlafly" I go

Unfortunately I don't have any hair left to tear out....
So I try not to think about them....

It looks like a spin-off because it is a spin-off. Illogicopedia was created by Uncyclopedia users to house the sort of nonsense Uncyclopedia wouldn't host. Illogicopedia used to be hosted on Wikia, but Illogicopedia and Wikia had a falling out due to Wikia's large ads and new skin.

I am going to call it Erisopedia

I shall be bald with you shortly, Eric!

http://conservapedia.com/index.php?title=M...ev&oldid=953187

I find it ironic that Conservapedia quotes Barry Goldwater, who was certainly not a "conservative" by Conservapedia/Andy Schlafly standards. He was for separation of church and state, as well as allowing women to have abortions. Barry Goldwater and Andy Schlafly would not get along on most things except maybe nuking communists.

http://conservapedia.com/The_South

Sweet Dr. Frankenstein of Rogers and Hammerstein! Since when has Oklahoma ever been part of The South!?!

Edit:

http://conservapedia.com/John_Maynard_Keynes



And it goes on. What a load of...

Quick someone! Move this thread to the Whine Cellar! We must have Ottava's views immediately!

Is Ottava blocked on Conservapedia?

Fixed that for ya.

http://conservapedia.com/Special:Contributions/Ottava

http://conservapedia.com/index.php?title=S...e=User%3AOttava

No.

Oh of course he will not be blocked there. He is giving them invaluable content.

http://conservapedia.com/Kubla_Khan

Imagine if Conservapedia was all that existed and there was no way of getting a Liberapedia or "neutral" encyclopedia or what have you. I can imagine thousands of crypto-liberal editors working on articles with as little to do with the interests of American Conservatives as is possible, sorta like how people in the Eastern Bloc who weren't communists tended to study and publish on subjects with little ideological oversight. I'd imagine an article in, say, a 1950's-80's Polish encyclopedia on the geographic distribution of bears in Poland would be a lot less ideologically regulated than, say, an article on the establishment of people's democracy in Poland.

There are many articles on Conservapedia already that have no obvious ideology bias. For example there are articles on mathematics. While as the Nazis proved you could slant even those (they stopped people studying the work of "degenerate" mathematicians) I see no evidence of such there.

http://conservapedia.com/Template:Liberalism



And why is the "Liberal Characteristics and Traits" placed with the "Nazi Party" article?



Oh, Abe Lincoln! Dwight Eisenhower! Colin Powell! Barry Goldwater! Look what these weirdoes have done to your party and our country!

At least if I ever have low blood pressure issues, I'll know where to go for a cure.

The correct answer is "I'm a fan of fantasy and fiction, so both sites, and Wikipedia as well, are alright". (adapted from Brandon Harris's answer at Reddit)

Check the history. That article was actually half way decent before that Conservative fellar got hold of it. I remember looking up an article on Conservapedia related to Race and Intelligent once an finding that it had less racist crap in it than the corresponding Wikipedia article (I don't remember the details). Same for immigration. Who knows what happened to these in the mean time. I dunno, what is the active editor population of that site?

What name do you edit under there?

O RLY?

Pull up Template:conservatism and view side by side.

over 9.000!

Thank goodness Conservapedia is buried in Google searches or I would have a conniption. The history major in me cries every time I see the Founding Fathers being dragged through the mud.

At least their article on Jimbo Wales is decent!

http://conservapedia.com/Jimmy_Wales

Some articles they have are laughably short and good examples of what Wikipedia calls "coatrack" articles.

No date of birth, no date of death, no biographical information outside of "he led Albania and was a 'Stalinist' atheist" and apparently the Chicago Area Friends of Albania is relevant to Hoxha's life and work, rather than being a small mid-80's organization that a certain left-wing individual (and one-time Wikipedian) participated in for a while. Their article on Albania itself is mostly copied from elsewhere.

I think the main problem is that Conservapedia is much like Wikipedia in that you'll get someone who actually knows a lot about a subject (only in Conservapedia's case it tends to come from banned Wikipedians continuing their work on Conservapedia in protest) who decide to edit articles so that they are actually pretty good and not hatchet jobs, but then the mass of fundamentalist Christians who want everything to be as skewed towards one single point of view as is possible emerge, so instead of (using a hypothetical example) "Andy Dick is a comedian" you'd get "Andy Dick is a depraved bisexual atheistic pedophile and liberal whose comedy routine is terrible. Dick is, according to World Net Daily, a profoundly anti-American person who, like all atheists, liberals, and everyone not heterosexual, has had run-ins with depression and the law." Said decent editors then either retire from the project or engage in arduous work to make the article not-insane, which tends to result in them being banned for "liberal bias."

Replace "fundamentalist Christians" with "an unending stream of people who don't know enough about a subject to significantly contribute to an article but do anyway" and you have Wikipedia.

Here's an example of an article that's obviously intended to be dead on arrival in-re not being a hatchet job: http://conservapedia.com/Atheism_and_obesity

196 citations. The Wikipedia article on Joseph Stalin has 311. An article basically saying "ATHEISTS ARE FAT LOL!!!" has 63% of the amount of citations of the Stalin article. The Stalin article on Conservapedia itself has 10 citations, so an article equating obesity and atheism has 1960% more citations.

thanks for this, Selina. Conservapedia is actually funnier than Encyclopedia Dramatical or illogicopedia, because it's not intended to be.

Here's our very own Michaeldsuarez furiously pumping away.

you just cant make this shit up.
http://www.conservapedia.com/Religious_Upb...f_Homosexuality

Ed_Poor is an administrator, checkuser and oversighter.

They're not very welcoming.

Do you think my eyes are green?


The link is to Counterexamples_to_Relativity. I could be pedantic and argue that such is physics and not mathematics. However, there is a better argument. That article links to

http://conservapedia.com/Essay:Rebuttal_to...s_to_Relativity

How many one-sided POV articles on Wikipedia have links to rebuttal articles?

I could say that you're making a nitpicking distinction out of a pressing need to have your statement that mathematics isn't being attacked by Conservapedia be confirmed. However, there is a better argument.



The issue is not one of comparing the two websites to each other. The issue is of your own framing: ideology really does seep into all areas of Conservapedia's coverage including technical articles which are completely unrelated to politics.

The "rebuttal essay" is a laughable ploy that is only allowed to exist because it was Roger Schlafly who took his brother to task and apparently Andy doesn't seem to possess the cojones de latón to eject his own brother from the playground. If you really think having point-counterpoint reference articles/essays is a favorable attribute, maybe you could show us an example of this technique's effective employ in a respectable encyclopedia? An encyclopedia is not supposed to be a debate showcase, last I checked.

I was talking about mathematics, not physics. If you know no difference, it may be unwise to make solemn pronouncements thereon.

This is just trolling, no? My point is that there is less bias on Conservapedia, even on your chosen illustration of bias there, than on WP, because both sides have the opportunity to put their case. Where, anywhere on WP, does that happen? Would not HK rejoice to have a free hand to write "Defence of LaRouche"? Of course that is not a way to write a proper encyclopedia, bu tnobody said that Conservapedia was such any more than WP is.

I won't go here into the errors on WP about Relativity.

Please do. I await your masterful critique.

But you would not understand it. Have you studied much tensor calculus?

Any article on Conservapedia that winds up looking better than its WP counterpart is in such a state because the resident fundies don't care (at least for the time-being) to degrade it with pseudoscience or what have you. Conservapedia, like Wikipedia, gives you the power to write the greatest article on the Theory of Evolution that ever existed, only unlike Wikipedia fundies won't even pretend to look objective or respect mainstream scientific consensus, whereas the worst that could happen to such an article on Wikipedia is that it'd gradually decline in quality until it's back to mediocrity or worse.

Better to have an article that is unintelligible (worst thing that could happen to Wikipedia's article) than an article which starts off with something like "Evolution is a theory that was created by the atheist Charles Darwin in the 19th century to 'explain' why black people are dumber than white people. Darwin hated God. Lenin, Hitler and Mao liked Darwin."

Also it is possible to have bias when both sides are presenting their case. In fact that's kinda built into the whole concept because such articles are by their very nature meant to respond to attacks by other articles. Unless it's "here's an article that tries to look like an encyclopedic counterpart and here's one that doesn't," then you're just going to get opinion pieces.

The anonymity of the internet cuts both ways, my darling. What an interesting thing that you assume to know what I do or do not know on the basis of your complete lack of knowledge of who I am or what I have "studied".

Put up or shut up.

Don't worry about what I do or do not know, and I won't worry about what you do or do not know. If it's over my head, then it will be obvious soon enough. Thumbing your nose just makes you look like a clown.

A stopped clock is right twice a day.

The Conservapedia articles on Relativity are truly embarrassing, I'm sure, for scientists who happen to be politically conservative....

And lots of the rest is just plain embarrassing. Ed Poor, eh? As a result of this mention, and seeing what Ed Poor had written about himself on his Conservapedia user page, I looked him up on Wikipedia. Interesting. Gad, ArbComm, in the decision that desysopped him, sounded worse than the later crap. Juvenile. Of course, I didn't read the evidence, just the case page, which started with A=B and somehow got from there to X=Y. The findings of fact weren't fact, they were moral judgments, generalizations. It looks like Ed's worst offense was being frank and open.

But perhaps that's a shallow conclusion from a shallow investigation....

http://conservapedia.com/index.php?title=S...AMichaeldsuarez

http://conservapedia.com/index.php?title=S...AMichaeldsuarez

I went from being a blocked user to being an user entrusted with skipcaptcha and rollback rights.

Come off it. Even Mr Horse doesn't call people "my darling".

OK. Start with this book, which is a classic introduction to the subject

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Gravitation-Physic...r/dp/0716703440

and compare it with the WP article.

I don't see any problems. Care to point one out?

So you are out of your depth already?

http://www.conservapedia.com/Set
"Another striking example is the how traditional marriage provides a greater set than otherwise: the union of A = \{a, b, c, d\}\, and B = \{a, b, c, e\}\, is merely \{a, b, c, d, e\}\,, while the union of a man, M = \{a, b, c, d\}\, and a woman W = \{e, f, g, h\}\,, is \{a, b, c, d, e, f, g, h\}\,, which is a broader and more diverse set.

Define "A" as the set of all false assertions, and "B" as the set of all the Bible passages. Since there are no Counterexamples to the Bible, the intersection between set A and set B is the empty set. "

*Ahem*. You are the one claiming that there is something in Wikipedia's coverage of relativity that is at variance with Misner, Thorne, and Wheeler, not I. Go ahead and write down explicitly what it is.

O.M.G. I'd have thought that this stuff was inserted by trolls mocking Conservapedia, but ... see this self-reverted change.. Ashafly appears to be God on Conservapedia. Then Aschafly added the section about traditional marriage. The passage that the editor thought to remove, then realized his Grievous Error, was
These are really funny.

Remember, this is a math article. Apparently anything will serve as a coatrack for Schafly.

My condolences to my conservative friends. Here's a nice example of Schafly's work. I see that PhilipN added citation needed tags. Schafly reverted. This is being discussed on the attached Talk page. Fascinating. If those are mostly conservatives, then there are some sane ones. Or maybe they are trolls, just pretending, or they will soon be only found in history there. Or not even there, Schafly is also an oversighter. Scary.

This is not an allegation of abuse. Haven't seen any yet, just silly stupidity. I saw some indications that Schafly permits criticism, and has protected critics, there are probably users here with much more understanding of the history there.

And in the other direction, the Conservapedia article on Wicca seemed decent, if a bit informal. The Conservapedia article explains what a "fluffy bunny" is, something entirely missing from the Wikipedia article. WP does have an article, Fluffy bunny but it seems somehow more hostile, dark, whereas the Conservapedia article simply presents "fluffy bunnies" as enthusiastic newcomers. Perhaps we should start calling naive Wikipedians "fluffy bunnies." Cute little things, eh?

On the contrary. You are the one who claims that Wikipedia is reliable. Now please stop trolling.



This is not biased mathematics. It is the insertion of theology into a mathematics article. The mathematics is correct.

Now, now, I certainly did not contend that Wikipedia is "reliable" as a general rule, but I did take issue with your implied contention that there was something wrong with Wikipedia's coverage of relativity. When I asked what it was, you told me that it would be obvious to those who read Misner, Thorne, and Wheeler. When I asked for a specific example, you came up empty. If you ever want to demonstrate that you actually have evidence, feel free to provide it.

Wrong. What I actually said was

It always helps to read an examination question before you answer it. Still, maybe I should give you something a little shorter to read:

http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0507619

Math is not just the formulas, it includes the application of formulas to specific problems. If men and women were reducible to those sets, yes, I think, the math is correct. But they are not so reducible, and in particular, in this case, because men and women are far more simliar than the sets imply.

The genetic diversity between the set of genes of a man and those of a woman can be less than the genetic diversity between the set of genes for two women, for example. It depends on how closely related the men and women are.

Complex issue, actually. Men could be considered genetically deficient, in a way, having only one copy of certain genes and therefore being susceptible to certain genetic diseases that much more rarely affect women, if they affect women at all. Or you could consider met to have greater potential because they have genes that women don't have at all. Or we could note that men and women are far more alike each other than they are different; that's why we are the same species, most of the genes are interchangeable.

One point I don't think they'd like to see: sexual preference *must* be determined, at least in part, by genetics, or else heterosexuality would not be "natural." If one preference is determined genetically, as least as to disposition, then genetic variation would surely provide alternatives, that's how genetic variation works, it tests the environment constantly.

It seems that some conservatives want this both ways: they want to assert that homosexuality is "unnatural," but then to deny that there is any genetic disposition, so that they can make it a moral issue, a matter of mere choice, culpable and blameworthy.

I'm not pushing either view, by the way, and probably the real situation is some of this and some of that. There is natural disposition (genetic), learned behavior (social or environmental or "cultural"), and some level of choice.

Now we're getting somewhere. At least I know what kind of stick-in-the-mud you are. Note that the authors you cite have been unable to get their work published in a reputable astrophysics journal, and are subject to some rather damning critiques by a bunch of people.

If you're really complaining that Wikipedia isn't promoting the views of some dark matter disbelievers who can't seem to get their work published, I'm wholly unsympathetic to that sort of critique.

You seem to refuse to read my posts. At least, your answers bear little relationship to what I have written. It is therefore impossible to have a dialogue. Incidentally, Cooperstock was a pupil of Nathan Rosen; have you heard of him? Rosen would have endorsed that paper. But of course we cannot appeal to authority on Wikipedia!

Mods, please close.

What happened was that you claimed there was an imbalance in Wikipedia's coverage of relativity. After a ridiculous amount of back-and-forth, you finally hinted at why you believed this with a unpublished pre-print. I showed you half-a-dozen take-downs of the work. Now, on your say-so, I'm supposed to be impressed with the claim that Rosen would have endorsed this idea and therefore what? Win for Fusion?

Yeah, we're done.

From this, the rest of this crazy discussion could be predicted. Fusion is claiming, essentially, to be an expert, but he wants the rest of us to accept that without any evidence at all. After all, unless he's purely trolling, he "knows" he's an expert compared to us, and if we would merely AGF, why, we'd ... what? Agree with him? But that would be agreeing without knowledge, since he refuses to show anything specific.

Totally useless. Fusion, Put Up or Shut Up.

It should not be necessary to know tensor calculus to recognize errors in Wikipedia coverage, because Wikipedia, in theory, is based on coverage in reliable secondary sources. Now, sometimes when our understanding is deficient, we misinterpret those sources, and our paraphrasing or restatement is defective. But a helpful expert can point this out, with specifics. What Fusion is doing is basically telling us to abandon the article to him or someone like him. He'd fix it. Apparently, he'd fix it in the direction of a fringe theory.

Remember my point about experts and fringe science? Fringe theorists are typically experts, that is, they know far more about their Favorite Topic than even relatively well-informed non-specialists. Essentially, Fusion, I'd guess, has a critique based on fringe interpretations of physics, and to understand his critique you'd need to know tensor calculus, perhaps. That discussion, though, doesn't belong on Wikipedia. It might be fine on Wikiversity, and I'd suggest to Fusion that he (?) develop resources on Relativity there. There are one or two abusive administrators on Wikiversity, but they will probably leave him alone.

This may be reliable secondary source, showing notability for the theory Fusion seems to favor. Also this.

And this. This might be RS.

There is a basis in these sources for coverage of the theory, as fringe. So there may indeed be some imbalance, notable fringe theories -- the sources show notability -- should be covered, neutrally.

That's the basis for coverage, what is in reliable sources, not demanding that editors read a general work on relativity, and slog through tensor calculus.

Cooperstock has some Wikipedia coverage, rather shaky, in Cooperstock's energy-localization hypothesis. I see that Galaxy rotation curve could possibly use addition to coverage of non-dark-matter theories, it was suggested on Talk. Suggestions like that, with no actual edits suggested, often go nowhere.

Remember, I think that experts should treat themselves, and be treated as, COI editors, see WP:COI. That would mean that an expert would not make an edit expected to be controversial, except as a suggestion, and I've suggested, and have used, self-reversion, to good effect. You make the edit, self-revert for discussion, and start the discussion on Talk, stating intention to, after a decent time with no objection, revert the edit back on. That gets the ball rolling. If, later, someone reverts your edit, you have at least shown discussion. As an expert, you would not contentiously revert, you would discuss, and you could do various things to see that neutral editors look at the discussion.

Experts often write too much. So restraint is in order.

Galaxy rotation curve#Alternatives to dark matter doesn't count?

I sense the impending doom of this thread, so I think it is appropriate to note Uncyclopedia's views of Conservapedia.



http://uncyclopedia.wikia.com/wiki/Conservapedia

Abd is clearly standing on his head. Obviously he knows nothing about me, nor has he read the thread. Where do I claim to be an expert? It is iii who claiming to know more than I do.


Where did I say that?

Where do I say that?

Basically, we have here a perfect example of the sort of twisting of words, ignoring the facts and general abuse of discussion that happens all the time on Wikipedia. I am repeatedly being portrayed as saying that anyone can see I did not say. If I had wanted to demonstrate the dangers of letting al and sundry argue things out I could not have done so well as this!