fact checkers out there in the factosphere
February 23, 2007 5:17 PM   Subscribe

"Tired of the LIBERAL BIAS every time you search on Google and a Wikipedia page appears?" At Conservapedia, a "conservative encyclopedia you can trust," you can learn that "faith" is a concept "exclusive to Christianity," and about how Wikipedia is biased in matters such as its description of the Bell Trade Act of 1946, its gossipy treatment of the private life of NPR reporter Nina Totenberg, and its seeming acceptance of evolution. The Wikipedia bias entry also complains of a "rant" against the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, a group for which Conservapedia founder (and son of conservative gadfly Phyllis Schafly) Andrew Schlafly has worked. Signups are here; its take on evolution is criticized here.
posted by ibmcginty (151 comments total) 5 users marked this as a favorite
 
Yes, but did its founder formerly operate a porn site?
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 5:19 PM on February 23, 2007


I wonder what color the sky is in their world. I'm thinking red.
posted by dw at 5:21 PM on February 23, 2007


mmm... wikiality, sweet wikiality
posted by keswick at 5:23 PM on February 23, 2007 [2 favorites]


He who controls the wiki controls the future, and he who controls the present controls the wiki.
posted by interrobang at 5:23 PM on February 23, 2007


Haha, I was just about to post this myself :P
posted by delmoi at 5:27 PM on February 23, 2007


Also, these people are obsessed with the BC/AD vs BCE/CE dating. They mention it several times. Bizzare.
posted by delmoi at 5:28 PM on February 23, 2007


What happened to 'everybody is entitled to have an own opinion, but not have own facts' ?
posted by elpapacito at 5:30 PM on February 23, 2007


hm, check out the entry for atheism. Not nearly as bad as I thought it'd be. Besides the "strong" and "weak" atheist crap.
posted by bob sarabia at 5:31 PM on February 23, 2007


Christianity receives no credit for the great advances and discoveries it inspired, such as those of the Renaissance.

*falls off chair laughing*
posted by pyramid termite at 5:32 PM on February 23, 2007




I think people are already messing with this. Here is the entry on religion in its entirety:

Types of Religion

There is only one type of religion, Christianity. The others are frauds.

Sources of Religion

Christians used to look to the Bible for God's word, but now they have the Blog of the Gods, which relays His word directly in modern language people can understand. It is also less silly than the Bible.

posted by justkevin at 5:36 PM on February 23, 2007 [3 favorites]


From the entry on Regan:

Considered by many to be the funniest American President, Ronald Reagan's greatest accomplishments include leading America peacefully through the Cold War[1], killing[2] midgets[3], black people[4] and homosexuals[5], lowering taxes, promoting a free economy, and staunchly opposing socialism and communism, and ending the Cold War in victory for the United States.


I think they're going to need a tighter reign on their editors in order to remain conservative. Still, LOL.
posted by Durhey at 5:38 PM on February 23, 2007


ha ha. search "devil"
Bill Clinton
From Conservapedia

William J. ("Bill") Clinton served as president of the United States from 1993-2001. Clinton never won a majority of the popular vote.

Bill ClintonClinton won in 1992 with 43% of the popular vote, capitalizing on public discontent with a weak economy. In his first two years in office, 1993 through 1994, Clinton failed at his massive attempt to "reform" health-care in the United States by some sort of government-backed universal health-care insurance, which would result in effective government control of the health care system. His approach consisted of appointing a planning committee with secret members to reshape this important sector of the economy. The Association of American Physicians and Surgeons successfully sued to force disclosure of the committee members and ultimately to defeat the program.

Clinton also signed into law the Violence Against Women Act, which opened the federal courts to claims of domestic disputes between men and women, which had always been handled under state rather than federal law. A key provision of this law was later ruled unconstitutional in United States v. Morrison.[1]

In 1994, voters expressed their high disapproval of Clinton by giving a landslide victory to Republicans in Congress, where Republicans won 49.9% of the popular vote (compared to the Democrat's 44%). This event was tagged the "Republican Revolution," in which Republicans promised America reforms including term limits, persidential line-item veto, and a balanced budget. That ended much of Clinton's power. He was reelected with 49.2% of the popular vote against a weak Republican candidate in 1996 ( Bob Dole) and a weaker "populist" candidate, H. Ross Perot. The re-election of Clinton despite the demonstrated preference of the electorate in 1994 for Republican candidates may well be due to the electorate's preference for a divided government, in which the executive branch and the congress are representative of different parties. Clinton spent the remainder of his presidency combatting scandals. A special prosicutor was named to investigate Clinton for allegations of impropriety in the Whitewater real-estate scandal, an investment of Clintons in a failed real estate venture. Although nothing came out of this investigation, and it turned out that Clinton actually lost money on his investment, one of the results of the investigation was that the special prosecutor turned to investigating other Clinton activities, one of which (the Monica Lewinsky scandal) resulted in an impeachment trial. Bill Clinton managed to serve two terms without botching the prosecution of two wars, manipulating intelligence, engaging in a systematic program of torture, or mishandling the federal response to flooding of a major American city. Obviously, he is the devil incarnate. Clinton also attempted to use the American military to kill Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaeda, an action which was properly seen as a mere attempt to distract the nation from the Monica Lewisnky scandal.

Bill Clinton's wife, Hillary Clinton, has long sought to become president herself. She used her position of influence to obtain the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate without opposition in 2000, and was elected in this safely Democratic state. Reelected in 2006, she is now running for president in 2008.

posted by etaoin at 5:38 PM on February 23, 2007


"Look up "Most Favored Nation" on Wikipedia and it automatically converts the spelling to the British spelling "Most Favoured Nation", even there there are far more American than British users."

We created the language, damnit. And I take issue with any nation that starts saying 'and then I wow', 'it made me wow'. And I guess proofreading is British-English too?

A minor gripe compared to their anti-evolution stance, which simply boggles the mind.
posted by opsin at 5:38 PM on February 23, 2007


Here is the entirety of their current entry on Russia:
Russia is the Largest country in the world and has the sixth largest population in the world. It is known for its cold winters, and harsh weather. It has only been conquered once in the winter, by the famous Ghangas- Kan. Hitler, Napoleon and many other famous military geniouses have tried to conquer it during the winter but all failed.
Now, that's conservatism at its finest!
posted by languagehat at 5:39 PM on February 23, 2007


Also, these people are obsessed with the BC/AD vs BCE/CE dating. They mention it several times. Bizzare.

The former way is the correct one.
posted by oaf at 5:41 PM on February 23, 2007


justkevin-- yeah, people are messing with it. The Reagan and Clinton bios are laden with sarcasm. (On preview, others have noticed this too). In the FPP, I only quoted stuff that it appeared to me from the "edits" tab had been posted by Andrew Schlafly.

delmoi-- in your face!

Actually, all I did was free you to post about something smarter.

The redeeming social value of this post, by the way, is in the Phyllis Schlafly article in the New Yorker. A brief but engaging profile of a key figure in US political conservatism in the past fifty years.
posted by ibmcginty at 5:41 PM on February 23, 2007


Why didn't they just call it "The 1/2 Hour Wikipedia Hour"?
posted by sharksandwich at 5:43 PM on February 23, 2007 [3 favorites]


We created the language, damnit.

So you will correct your spelling from the absurd "tyre" to "tire," then?
posted by oaf at 5:44 PM on February 23, 2007


Wikipedia often uses foreign spelling of words, even though most English speaking users are American.

and then they tell lies to cover it up
posted by pyramid termite at 5:44 PM on February 23, 2007 [2 favorites]


.
posted by Jimbob at 5:45 PM on February 23, 2007 [2 favorites]


There are more native speakers who spell it "color" than "colour." Deal with it. (And also, note that the original spelling of "honor," even in Britain, has no U.)
posted by oaf at 5:46 PM on February 23, 2007


Challenge nothing, hold fast that which you already believe.
posted by malocchio at 5:48 PM on February 23, 2007


Divided government:

In American politics a Divided government is one in which the presidency and the Congress are controlled by different parties. For example, in the second half of the Clinton administration, 1995-2000, the presidency was controlled by the Democrats, while the Congress was Republican controlled. Many commentators suggest that a divided government may be the best state for the United States, since each party then serves as a watchdog on the other. Statistics show that the economy grows at a higher rate during divided government than with either party in control of both branches of government. This is sometimes attributed to the gridlock effect, in which each party blocks the other party's spending. In the Clinton administration, for example, the years of undivided Democrat control resulted in budget deficits, while the years of divided government resulted in a budget surplus, the first significant surplus in the post-World-War-II era.

Wow. Just....wow.
posted by brain cloud at 5:49 PM on February 23, 2007


And unlike the inferior commie Wikipedia, it bursts through the Great Firewall into Red China, a testament to The Power of Truth!
or the security of obscurity
posted by Abiezer at 5:49 PM on February 23, 2007


Quite apart from "We created the language, damnit" arguments, which I suspect will not go down immensely well on Wikipedia or Metafilter, there's a perfectly good reason why the WP article "Most Favoured Nation" uses the British spelling — that's how it's spelt when used in context (in this case WTO agreements).
posted by matthewr at 5:53 PM on February 23, 2007 [4 favorites]


oh, more!

Liberal:

(goes on to give the American Heritage Dictionary full definition of the term)...

"5. Tending to give freely; generous: a liberal benefactor.
6. Generous in amount; ample: a liberal serving of potatoes.
7. Archaic Permissible or appropriate for a person of free birth; befitting a lady or gentleman.
8. Obsolete political system; Morally unrestrained; licentious.


Definition #8 is the most relevant in modern times."
posted by brain cloud at 5:53 PM on February 23, 2007 [1 favorite]


Let's start a wiki revert war.

Start an article for "Last words of Jesus". Say that they were "It is finished."

Then someone else can come along and say they were "Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit."

Then the first guy "reverts vandalism". Then the second guy does the same. And back and forth, and back and forth.

Then someone else throws in that they were "My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me?". This then starts off a three-way revert vandalism war.

Everybody should refuse to take any of the other answers, and start calling each other heathens.
posted by Flunkie at 5:53 PM on February 23, 2007 [7 favorites]


Jon Swift on it--...Conservapedia was founded by its most prolific writer Andrew Schlafly, the non-gay son of Phyllis Schlafly, who just happens to be the legal counsel for the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons. Schlafly is an outspoken critic of vaccines (which as someone who hates needles I fully support), has warned that abortion causes breast cancer, filed briefs on behalf of Terry Schiavo and revealed that junk science claiming a link between asbestos and cancer is what led to the World Trade Center's collapse. ...
posted by amberglow at 5:54 PM on February 23, 2007


Ah, that military 'genious' Hitler. I'll be sure and tell the kids that this is the only online resource allowed for researching school papers.
posted by 2sheets at 5:56 PM on February 23, 2007


Conservatives are creationists? Another reason to never take them seriously.

And BCE/CE is the preferred terminology, at least if you plan to get anything published by accredited academic journals. Probably not so much of a concern for these guys.
posted by bardic at 5:58 PM on February 23, 2007 [1 favorite]


Fox News:

Fox News was started in 1996 in response to the other cable news channels which all had obvious liberal biases. Because of this, Rupert Murdoch decided to start a real new channel which would tell the truth. The success of Fox news over every other news channel is because it is fair and balanced. It has many people on it who work to spread truth such as Sean Hannity who is a great American. Fox News is best because instead of just telling you what to think, they only report the news unbiased and then allow the viewer to decide.

In 2005 the White House selected Tony Snow from Fox News to be the new White House press secretary which was a great honor for Fox because it showed how well it was presenting the real truth instead of the fake liberal version.


I swear, it says that.
posted by brain cloud at 5:58 PM on February 23, 2007 [2 favorites]


Is account creation suspended, or am I too liberal to figure it out?
posted by Flunkie at 6:01 PM on February 23, 2007 [1 favorite]


hell.. I say just cut and paste from Wikipedia into this place.. that or the idea of subtly changing things is appealing as well, add and remove words like "not" and "is", decapitalize "God"...

eg.
The bible is [NOT] the word of god
posted by edgeways at 6:05 PM on February 23, 2007


Is account creation suspended, or am I too liberal to figure it out?

if referrer=metafilter, then "fuck, no"
posted by pyramid termite at 6:07 PM on February 23, 2007


It would be a lot more fun if it weren't so fucking slow. And if I could figure out how to make an account.
posted by interrobang at 6:08 PM on February 23, 2007


seriously, i think they've disabled it
posted by pyramid termite at 6:12 PM on February 23, 2007


I think it's telling that the standard response of (poor, marginalized, abused, victimized) conservatives to their perception of bias is not to call for objectivity, but to boldly and shamelessly demand bias in the other direction. Such a response really doesn't help my general perception that most people who self-identify as conservatives are either idiots or rank hypocrites.
posted by mr_roboto at 6:12 PM on February 23, 2007 [1 favorite]


And BCE/CE is the preferred terminology, at least if you plan to get anything published by accredited academic journals. Probably not so much of a concern for these guys.

If that's true, it's about the only place in academia (after elementary school) where linguistic prescriptivism is deemed proper rather than laughably wrong.
posted by oaf at 6:14 PM on February 23, 2007


Welcome to Conservapedia.
A conservative encyclopedia you can trust.


Welcome to nutso land. What the fuck is wrong with people that they can only take their facts with a heaping helping of spin? If the natural world is so aligned against your beliefs, maybe it's your beliefs that are wrong. I am really, really getting sick of people who can only accept shit if they can shoehorn it into their preconceived notions. It would be OK if they would go set up their own "Stupid Camp" somewhere, but they won't be happy until they are running the country, and my kids and your kids are as stupid as they are.

On the other hand, if knowledge is dangerous, we will never have to be afraid of these boneheads.
posted by Benny Andajetz at 6:17 PM on February 23, 2007 [1 favorite]


Re: the British vs. US spelling, it's common knowledge that "conserve" is a Britishism. In deference to the greater population/influence of the New World [Order], shouldn't the site be called "Jellypedia"?
posted by rob511 at 6:17 PM on February 23, 2007


Thanks for the post. It was fun to look up "liberal" and "Stephen Colbert" and "John McCain."

From the entry marked "conservative":

Many conservatives are frankly appalled by the co-opting of the term "conservative" by religious and right-wing extremists who would prefer to see the government enlarged to massive proportions, at the expense of the public debt, to enforce rigid laws of morality which the government has no business interfering in.

From the entry marked "Patriot Act":

Long ago patriots said things like "Give me liberty, or give me death", but today we say "take away my liberties, that's ok, patriotism means security not liberty."

Hey, maybe I'm a conservative after all!
posted by zennie at 6:18 PM on February 23, 2007 [1 favorite]


Robert Oppenheimer (1904-1967) was an American theoretical physicist who was a manager in the Manhattan Project in Los Alamos, New Mexico. He was a bright student and popular teacher, but never made significant contributions to the field of physics and was repeatedly passed over in the awarding of Nobel Prizes. The media generally liked Oppenheimer's politics and gave him credit as "the man who built the Atomic Bomb," when in fact Oppenheimer was merely a high-level manager and did little of the theoretically or actual experimental work behind it.

... the commie fraud.
posted by Armitage Shanks at 6:18 PM on February 23, 2007


oaf writes "If that's true, it's about the only place in academia (after elementary school) where linguistic prescriptivism is deemed proper rather than laughably wrong."

What do you mean by this? Every journal I've ever submitted to has a set of usage guidelines and copy editors who will make sure that articles stay within these guidelines. Check out Nature, for instance, and notice that even the American authors are using British spellings. That's not a coincidence.
posted by mr_roboto at 6:18 PM on February 23, 2007


BCE/CE is the only instance in academia where effective language is correct?

Is that what you are saying oaf?
posted by edgeways at 6:21 PM on February 23, 2007


because it sure scans oddly
posted by edgeways at 6:22 PM on February 23, 2007


I immediately went to see what the "gossip" about Nina Totenberg was, but the wikipedia entry seems to be sadly gossip free. You can see what they objected to in their bias in wikipedia entry:
She married H. David Reines, a trauma physician, in 2000. On their honeymoon, he treated her for severe injuries after she was hit by a boat propeller while swimming.
That's not very good gossip.
posted by epugachev at 6:26 PM on February 23, 2007


I feel blessed: I clicked the 1st link, Conservapedia, to the Main_Page; then, under Navigation on the left, I clicked the Random page link; and, I got St. Augustine --
(354-430 A.D.) Great father of the Christian church, wrote autobiographical "Confessions" Augustine was born at Tagaste in North Africa in 354.His father was a pagan who wanted his son to be a man of learning,and cared little about his character.
posted by taosbat at 6:43 PM on February 23, 2007 [1 favorite]


Global warming "..scientists are mostly liberal athiests, untroubled by the hubris that man can destroy the Earth which God gave him... Liberals would like to see the economy of America destroyed by forcing us to drive solar cars to work, and use geothermal energy to heat our homes. Global warming is merely a thinly-veiled liberal attempt to destroy capitalism."
posted by stbalbach at 7:18 PM on February 23, 2007


Now, here's an internet wiki encyclopedia I won't feel bad about vandalizing.
posted by quarter waters and a bag of chips at 7:18 PM on February 23, 2007


Karl Marx:

Communism prohibits a full right of private property and in its place attempts to force people to be equal in wealth.

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH
posted by blucevalo at 7:18 PM on February 23, 2007


ibmcginty, can we get some tags here?
posted by BeerFilter at 7:20 PM on February 23, 2007


BCE/CE is the only instance in academia where effective language is correct?

No, I'm just saying that prescriptivism is entirely improper when you're describing language (which it is).
posted by oaf at 7:23 PM on February 23, 2007


beerfilter-- some tags are now up, thanks for the prod.

epugachev-- true, it's not good gossip at all. I was trying to keep that sentence reasonably brief, but that meant that I got coy with the Totenberg "gossip." Never again!
posted by ibmcginty at 7:29 PM on February 23, 2007


It's a shame that mediawiki is prone to various sorts of trickery with edits and such. It's entirely trivial to craft a perl script to read from some source and import (by automated submission) those articles into the wiki.

If you were particularly clever, you could use the existing list of all articles in conservowiki as the source for a markov chain generator, and feed random text back into the article base, creating new articles and gibberishing up old ones. I doubt they would notice.
posted by boo_radley at 7:29 PM on February 23, 2007


Also, their preferred logo looks weirdly like a euro symbol.
posted by boo_radley at 7:30 PM on February 23, 2007


The page on "Examples of Bias in Wikipedia" is sure puzzling. The majority of the examples cited for the supposedly anti-Christian and anti-American bias are really no more than criticisms that many Wikipedia articles contain irrelevant information or lack relevant information (with many comparisons to the National Enquirer). This begs the question: if the Wikipedia articles cited indeed contain such omissions and irrelevancies, why not just edit the articles to improve them. After all, isn't that the point of Wikipedia? I feel as though these Conservapedia folks don't understand this basic concept, but instead view Wikipedia as some sort of top-down entity with centralized editing decisions.

Also, while Conservapedia has its "Commandments", it does not appear to offer any enforcement mechanisms differing from substantially from Wikipedia. In other words, if Wikipedia is flawed because of gossip, hype, self-promotion, poor research, and poor citation (despite rules which discourage all of that), how does Conservapedia expect its own experiment to avoid these very problems?
posted by mahamandarava at 7:36 PM on February 23, 2007


how does Conservapedia expect its own experiment to avoid these very problems?

By appealing to an audience that doesn't care about them?
posted by Jimbob at 7:44 PM on February 23, 2007


From the examples of bias list: "Gossip is pervasive on Wikipedia. Many entries read like the National Enquirer." Hah! Wikipedia wishes it was as accurate as The National Enquirer.
posted by Kattullus at 7:51 PM on February 23, 2007


that website is like, conservative, man.
posted by obeygiant at 7:52 PM on February 23, 2007


What happened to 'everybody is entitled to have an own opinion, but not have own facts' ?

See: Bush v. Gore.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 7:58 PM on February 23, 2007


Now that they have their own Daily Show, and their own Wikipedia, can we perhaps get them to all move to their own country?
posted by fungible at 7:59 PM on February 23, 2007 [2 favorites]


#17 from examples of bias makes for a great internet insult template. Here's the sentence as it stands: "The Wikipedia entry for the Piltdown Man omits many key facts, such as how it was taught in schools for an entire generation and how the dating methodology used by evolutionists is fraudulent."

Here's a couple of example insults, using this template:

Kattullus, your comment about the accuracy of The National Enquirer omits many key facts, such as how many of the article amount merely to people's opinions and how your mother has a penis the size of a telephone pole.

Andrew Schlafly, your Conservapedia omits many key facts, such as the unscientificness of creationism and how you are the mongrel son produced from the union of a dillydallying wastrel and a half-eaten cheese custard.
posted by Kattullus at 8:07 PM on February 23, 2007 [3 favorites]


From the discussion page of the Wiki page of Conservapedia:

Is Wikipedia a liberal internet gulag...

Is there a (derogatory) term for invoking Stalin to win an argument? A Stalin Godwin?

And just for kicks.... Metafilter: a liberal internet gulag.
posted by flibbertigibbet at 8:07 PM on February 23, 2007


Is there a (derogatory) term for invoking Stalin to win an argument? A Stalin Godwin?

How 'bout a "Malta"?
posted by joseph_elmhurst at 8:17 PM on February 23, 2007


Christ, I meant Yalta. Shoot me now.
posted by joseph_elmhurst at 8:20 PM on February 23, 2007


Katullus, your insult template omits many key facts, such as how to disprove evolution using semi-colons and how abortion caused drug use in Russia during winter.
posted by storybored at 8:21 PM on February 23, 2007 [1 favorite]


The truth has a decidedly liberal bias.
posted by psmealey at 8:22 PM on February 23, 2007 [3 favorites]


Some fun things I learned about my home state:

Massachusetts Liberal. A Liberal from Massachusetts. Generally, they want to throw out all rules of God, and live like animals. Often they are also evolutionists.

In the 1920s, Massachusetts residents joined the cult of Cthulhu - a fact exposed by famed reporter Howard P. Lovecraft.

The Treaty of Portsmouth (which ended the Russo-Japanese War) was signed in Portsmouth, Mass.
posted by adamg at 8:29 PM on February 23, 2007 [1 favorite]


"Look up "Most Favored Nation" on Wikipedia and it automatically converts the spelling to the British spelling "Most Favoured Nation", even there there are far more American than British users."

Heh, turns out that's because it's spelled that way in the treaties that define it. Guess our hero didn't read the discussion page. Oh well.
posted by delmoi at 8:44 PM on February 23, 2007


Now that they have their own Daily Show, and their own Wikipedia, can we perhaps get them to all move to their own country?

If they could go and get their own internet too, that would be good. They're starting to screw up this one.
posted by brain cloud at 8:58 PM on February 23, 2007


when... will... this... FUCKING... END?

God DAMN IT THESE PEOPLE ARE MAD! Unbalanced! Unhinged! Crazy. Loony. Insane. Just downright nuts.

The level of paranoia about the world being out to get their precious xtianity and eat all the capitalists in a communist chop suey... it's just astounding.

It's a culture of crazy people pretending to be sane.
posted by smallerdemon at 9:06 PM on February 23, 2007


Besides the "strong" and "weak" atheist crap.

Crap? They got it dead-on. Or if you're referring to the division of atheism like that as crap, it's been fairly uncontroversial in philosophy for 30-odd years.
posted by solid-one-love at 9:13 PM on February 23, 2007


Lots of exclamation points....yeah.

I'm gonna have to go a little Forrest Gump here:
I was walking across a bridge one day, and I saw a man standing on the edge, about to jump off. So I ran over and said 'Stop! don't do it!' 'Why shouldn't I?' he said. I said, 'Well, there's so much to live for!' He said, 'Like what?' I said, 'Well... are you religious or atheist?' He said, 'Religious.' I said, 'Me too! Are you Christian or Buddhist?' He said, 'Christian.' I said, 'Me too! Are you Catholic or Protestant?' He said, 'Protestant.' I said, 'Me too! Are you Episcopalian or Baptist?' He said, 'Baptist!' I said, 'Wow! Me too! Are you Baptist church of god or Baptist church of the lord?' He said, 'Baptist church of god!' I said, 'Me too! Are you original Baptist church of god, or are you reformed Baptist church of god?' He said, 'Reformed Baptist church of god!' I said, 'Me too! Are you reformed Baptist church of god, reformation of 1879, or reformed Baptist church of god, reformation of 1915?' He said, 'Reformed Baptist church of god, reformation of 1915!' I said, 'Die, heretic scum,' and pushed him off.

...and that's all I have to say about that.
(from the Emo Philips)
posted by Smedleyman at 9:17 PM on February 23, 2007 [4 favorites]


Very conservative site design. And they have "comandments", for crying out loud.

Strange that a conservative encyclopedia would have no entry on Leo Strauss.
posted by KokuRyu at 9:29 PM on February 23, 2007


I was going make it say that all liberals hate America...but it already says that. Seriously.
posted by T.D. Strange at 9:34 PM on February 23, 2007


when... will... this... FUCKING... END?

When the last halfwit, yellow ribbon magnet on his SUV "moran" is strangled with the intestines of the last conservative news pundit.
posted by psmealey at 10:06 PM on February 23, 2007 [2 favorites]


As of this writing, there is no entry for "Conservatism" and only scrap under "Conservative."

You'd think that after you'd decided to use a vague and contentious term in the name of your Wiki, you'd take the trouble to use that Wiki to nail down that term down pretty well.
posted by Western Infidels at 10:27 PM on February 23, 2007


Okay. I was going to stop reading articles off that crackhead site, because it is bogus beyond all reasonable comprehension and it is making me have extreme contempt for strangers who apparently are incurious about anything that doesn't involve bible study in some way, or who get all their current events information from Fox News and Rush Limbaugh, or, most likely, both. But I couldn't stop reading, because almost without fail any entry longer than one sentence made my jaw drop lower and lower. I thought to myself, "Self? Let's pick a neutral, non-controversial topic and see what they have to say about it."

Which is how I found Moon. And there I will have to stop, because I see now that the rabbit hole has no bottom.

It is a sad fucking day when basic physics can't be acknowledged for fear of tarnishing one's conservative ideology. If willful ignorance is the last, best card that the far right wing has to play then good - let them play it, and they lose the game once and for all. It will make it all the more easy to separate the smart ones from the stupid ones later on.
posted by brain cloud at 10:30 PM on February 23, 2007


We've been laughing at ths for hours. The article on the French Revolution is absolutely classic. It begins:

The French Revolution is the most famous revolution in all of history. It started out with hope and promise, but ended with nearly everyone being executed by the Guillotine..........
posted by fshgrl at 10:37 PM on February 23, 2007


Strange that a conservative encyclopedia would have no entry on Leo Strauss.

It's in there. You just have to be one of the elite few that can read deep enough into the text to understand its true meaning.
posted by Falconetti at 10:46 PM on February 23, 2007 [1 favorite]


From the "moon" entry:

5. Our solar system is one of the few that has only one sun. Only one sun and only one moon: this uniqueness may reflect the existence of only one God.

Yikes.
posted by bardic at 10:46 PM on February 23, 2007


Which is how I found Moon. And there I will have to stop, because I see now that the rabbit hole has no bottom.

brain cloud -- I followed the link to the "moon" on their wiki as you did.

If, indeed, the entry there is sincere and not "fake," my jaw drops lower than yours ... and will likely require mandibular surgery.
"The Moon orbits the Earth. Unlike most planets, Earth has only one moon and it has several striking characteristics that only be described as artistic in design....The Moon presents the same side to Earth at all times, even though the Moon revolves around the Earth. That requires the rotation of the Moon to be timed precisely to offset the separate effects of the revolution around Earth. This has an awesome artistic or design effect without any plausible physical reason....Our solar system is one of the few that has only one sun. Only one sun and only one moon: this uniqueness may reflect the existence of only one God."
posted by ericb at 10:47 PM on February 23, 2007


some tags are now up, thanks for the prod.

ibmcginty: You missed one.
posted by A dead Quaker at 10:57 PM on February 23, 2007


Now that they have their own Daily Show, and their own Wikipedia, can we perhaps get them to all move to their own country?

No, because then they would declare war on us, invade us, suffer through a few years of guerrilla warfare, leave, and it'd take us another 30 years or so to dig out.
posted by A dead Quaker at 11:07 PM on February 23, 2007 [2 favorites]


ericb, I'd love to believe it's fake. I fear that it is not.

My faith in humanity has been dropping steadily for the last 7 or 8 years. Tonight, after reading what some hope will ultimately be the collected wisdom of the crazy-ass half of our society, I can say it plummeted noticeably.
posted by brain cloud at 11:12 PM on February 23, 2007 [2 favorites]


The first and greatest proof of humanity's irrationality is our belief that we are rational creatures.
posted by tkolar at 11:36 PM on February 23, 2007


Search results
From Conservapedia

You searched for reality
Jump to: navigation, search

There is no page titled "reality". You can create this page.
posted by Durhey at 11:48 PM on February 23, 2007 [3 favorites]


Rush Limbaugh doesn't have a page.

Has he been banished for his Viagra-laced boy-sex vacations, his drug abuse, or because he doesn't like to "carry the bucket" for the current administration?

There is also no page for Mark Foley, who I assume is not welcome because he also liked boy-sex.

So I go on to look up another paragon of conservatism, Dennis Hastert. Yet no page for him either...because he supported Foley's liove of boy-sex? Or because he lives with other men, some of whom are thought to love boy-sex?

...

Ah well. At least Divided Government is somewhat moderate, although it talked about the benefits of that during the Clinton years, but neglects the economic horrors of full Republican control under Bush II.
posted by Kickstart70 at 11:50 PM on February 23, 2007


There is also no page for Mark Foley

Ted Haggard doesn't get a look in either. I wanted to read about how he's been cured of his love for meth and men's asses, but no such luck.
posted by PeterMcDermott at 1:30 AM on February 24, 2007


Finally an encyclopaedia for the rest of us.
posted by oxford blue at 1:38 AM on February 24, 2007


In a regular old MediaWiki one would create an account somewhere like here, but apparently this one requires one to log in before one creates an account.

On an unrelated note, the more I look at this the more I suspect it's some kind of rtmark-esque sub rosa parody.
posted by whir at 2:16 AM on February 24, 2007


I swear, this reads like satire.
posted by lekvar at 2:40 AM on February 24, 2007


I at first thought that this has got to be an elaborate parody... but:
(Asked whois.wildwestdomains.com:43 about conservapedia.com)
 Registrant: 
    Andrew Schlafly 
    521 Fifth Ave. - 17th Floor 
    New York  New York 10175 
    United States 
Google for his name brings up:

Stupidopaedia:
Ed Brayton reports on Conservapedia, set up by Creationist Andrew Schlafly because he didn't like the "anti-Christian" bias of Wikipedia. Andrew Schlafly is the son of Phyllis Schlafly and legal counsel for the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, which publishes bad science promoting a thimerosal autism link, as well as Rachel Carson was worse than Hitler stuff.
(shakes head... and returns to... well, whatever the liberal equivalent to a conservative's well armed underground bunker is... Probably something with bean bags...)
posted by nielm at 3:50 AM on February 24, 2007


brain cloud -- I followed the link to the "moon" on their wiki as you did.

6. Throughout the course of the month, the moon goes through phases; from fully visible, to a "new" moon that is not visible at all. This is because it is actually a cookie that the North Wind eats monthly and the South Wind bakes again, after the North Wind is done eating it. Rumors of there being a "Dark Side of the Moon" are false, being planted by fans of the acid rock group, Pink Floyd, in an effort to spread their hedonistic drug taking philosophy further.

7. In 1969, Neil Armstrong and other astronauts walked on the moon and planted an American flag on it, reporting that the surface resembled Velveeta more than Swiss Cheese.
posted by pyramid termite at 4:31 AM on February 24, 2007 [2 favorites]


Unicorns
posted by unSane at 5:57 AM on February 24, 2007


Finally an encyclopaedia for the rest of us.

Say, buddy, that "ae" looks mighty suspicious to me. Where you from.... France?
posted by languagehat at 6:05 AM on February 24, 2007 [1 favorite]


Islam and Paganism
Although most Muslims profess belief in a single, almighty God, a substantial minority of accredited Western scholars believe that the Muslim belief system can be traced back to distinctly polytheistic antecedents. Some, for example, have attempted to to link Allah to a moon deity. [1] Others have pointed to the pagan roots of various Muslim prohibitions, such as the ban on pork originating in the 3rd-century AD Damascene cult of the pig-god Jamal. [2] There is some evidence that traditional Muslim scholars have been suppressing this information as well as various recently-recovered scrolls that hint at early Muslim human sacrifice (e.g., at Uhud). [3]
posted by textilephile at 7:06 AM on February 24, 2007


The Wikipedia page lists the Eagle Forum as opposed to patent reform? Though following the link to the official site makes no mention of this.

Is patent reform some pressing issue in the conservative community I've never heard about? Or is it a pressing liberal issue? I was under the impression that noone but software geeks and RMS gave a damn about patents.
posted by kableh at 7:15 AM on February 24, 2007


To create an account follow these steps:

1. Click on the Log in / Create Account button on the bottom-left of the screen.


Hmmmm the Log in/Create Account button appears on the Upper Right of the screen. This is a test, isn't it. And I have already failed.
posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 7:55 AM on February 24, 2007


Well, Secret Life of Gravy, you have to be willing to say that left is right if the Party says that left is right.

unSane, I am 80% sure that your unicorns link is not a spoof.
posted by ibmcginty at 9:16 AM on February 24, 2007


This page has been deleted, and protected to prevent re-creation.

Except now it's (correctly) redirected to Eagle Forum.

For more entertainment, the Conservapedia deletion debate.
posted by dhartung at 10:07 AM on February 24, 2007


That's an interesting page, dhartung. Quite an exchange between an irate user charging censorship named andysch and a Wikipedia veteran named Hu.

# Comment: the demands to censor this entry illustrates how Wikipedia has changed from its original purpose. This entry is factual, useful and obviously noteworthy, as demonstrated by the many comments here. Yet some don't like this entry for political reasons, and demand it be removed. If it is removed, the only question will be this: how many other sites have similarly been removed or censored on Wikipedia for political reasons??? Alternative sites may be the only way to combat this type of censorship. Andysch 15:28, 17 December 2006 (UTC)andysch

* The article, as you and your allies wrote it, was full of promotional adjectives and at least one factual error. I spent a little time editing it down to a more factual presentation. I also took time to advise you on some policy pages to read, but you have given no indication that you have digested or absorbed them, or even read them. The article is not being censored. You are new users here, and you don't understand yet as well as the other conservatives who are more experienced on Wikipedia, that Neutral Point of View is the controlling philosophy here and it works. Wikipedia policies and processes like this AfD have been hammered out over years and with thousands of discussions and participants. They are robust and effective and neutral. You need to get up to the level of understanding of the other conservatives here because your claims of censorship and political bias don't hold water. It used to be that conservatives would see a "red under every bed" (communist). Now they sometimes see a censor behind every web page. Both views are nonsensical. Wikipedia has articles on conservative sites Little Green Footballs and Free Republic. The Conservapedia article does technically fail the notability requirements, but I have argued on your behalf that it deserves a relaxed interpretation of the rules. I suggest that you try to adopt christian humility and Wikipedia's Assume Good Faith policy (which is christian and conservative, when you think about it, though not limited to those orientations) and have the good grace to not question people's motives here. Hu 16:10, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
posted by ibmcginty at 10:17 AM on February 24, 2007


Having read some more, I say again, this reads like satire. Worese, it reads like bad satire, the kind a bunch of stoned highschoolers sitting around in a basement.

"Hehehe, dude, we could, like, write up an article on Cthulhu, heheh."
"Yeah, and we could say that Lovecraft was a reporter!"
"Hahaha! Oh, and we could have an article on unicorns!"
"Dude, that's just stupid."
posted by lekvar at 10:39 AM on February 24, 2007


Hmmm.... no Ted Haggart entry....
posted by Navelgazer at 10:50 AM on February 24, 2007


The truly frightening part is that if you accept FoxNews as a valid news source (which many people do), this is a valid Wiki.
posted by psmealey at 11:07 AM on February 24, 2007


Andrew Schlafly, the non-gay son of Phyllis Schlafly

Exactly. Her eldest son, John, is gay.
posted by ericb at 11:18 AM on February 24, 2007


No Mary Cheney either.
posted by bardic at 11:56 AM on February 24, 2007


The Moon's surface lacks the abundant iron that permeates the Earth, thereby proving that the Moon did not come from the Earth. This deficiency of iron on the Moon disproved the primary theory that the Moon must have originated by breaking off from the Earth. There is no plausible non-creation theory of origin for the Moon at this time.

Holy hell. Where was that liberal bunker with the bean bag chairs again? (There's good coffee and lots of reading material, right? I need to know what to bring.)
posted by jokeefe at 11:59 AM on February 24, 2007


You will much prefer using Conservapedia compared to Wikipedia if you want concise answers free of "political correctness".

*falls over in hysterical laughter*
posted by jokeefe at 12:02 PM on February 24, 2007


The entry for Canada, in its entirety:

Canada is the second largest country in the world for it's considerable amount of land. It was named Canada because when an explorer came to a Canadian Indian village he asked what this place was called, and they told him "Kanada", which means village in their Indian language. It borders the United States, and most of it's population is in The more southern provinces of Canada.
posted by jokeefe at 12:04 PM on February 24, 2007


Having read some more, I say again, this reads like satire. Worese, it reads like bad satire
I think it clearly contains both sincere wingnuttery and puerile vandalism. Mostly the sincere stuff is more interesting to read— I wish people wouldn't edit in the lame moon-cookie type stuff, because it's far more horrifyingly fascinating to see what these people come up with on their own. (Like the argument that Mercury's 3:2 resonance disproves the whole notion of tide-locking, which means that the Moon's 1:1 resonance is too improbable to occur naturally, which means God must have done it.)

Besides, it's not nice to pick on people whose minds are weaker than yours.
posted by hattifattener at 12:12 PM on February 24, 2007 [1 favorite]


Global Warming:

Some people claim that Liberals would like to see the economy of America destroyed by forcing us to drive solar cars to work, and use geothermal energy to heat our homes. Global warming is merely a thinly-veiled liberal attempt to destroy capitalism, they claim. Others, on the other hand, rather than claim it's about destroying capitalism claim that it's actually a money making scam on the part of investors who stand to reap significant profits if the economy switches to alternative energy sources. Such is the passion and paranoia surrounding this topic.
posted by meech at 12:13 PM on February 24, 2007


I can't seem to create an account. How now will I reveal the looming threats to our Christian nation posed by secular humanist giraffes?
posted by ladd at 12:27 PM on February 24, 2007


I think they should just mirror Wikiality, because, naturally, you just can't improve on that for their purposes.
posted by Emperor SnooKloze at 12:55 PM on February 24, 2007


"You are encouraged to log in. It is not mandatory, however."
posted by nevercalm at 12:58 PM on February 24, 2007


Algebra.

Was it invented by Islamic scholars?


We'll never know, I guess.
posted by Avenger at 1:46 PM on February 24, 2007


People will always be complicit in their own brainwashing. It's so much easier to propagandize when your people do it to themselves.

From a great article by Ariel Heryanto, "Where Communism Never Dies," about Anti-Communist Propaganda in Indonesia:

"In an interview with an Indonesian journalist, Sutopo Yuwono, former head of Indonesia's State Intelligence Coordinating Body, reflected back on the work of the intelligence service under the New Order:

'The funny thing about the world of intelligence is the technique of psywar (psychological warfare). As intelligence officers, we make up issues, and we disseminate them in the press, radio, or television. We treat them as if they are real. When they are already widespread, usually people will talk about them and they tend to add to and exaggerate the issues. Finally the issues will come back to [to the intelligence bodies] in reports. What is so funny is that these reports incline us to believe that these issues are real, hahaha. In fact, we get terrified and begin to think, 'what if these issues are real?' Hahaha.'"
posted by a bad enough dude at 1:51 PM on February 24, 2007


Attention Atheists: Charles Darwin was born in England to a Christian family. Nevar forget that!
posted by Avenger at 1:52 PM on February 24, 2007


I wish people wouldn't edit in the lame moon-cookie type stuff

actually, that was just my parody of their style and isn't really on their website ... if i was able to log in, i would go for much, much more subtle errors than that
posted by pyramid termite at 2:01 PM on February 24, 2007


You will much prefer using Conservapedia compared to Wikipedia if you want concise answers free of "political correctness".

Political correctness? Hah. What about actual correctness???
posted by psmealey at 2:08 PM on February 24, 2007 [3 favorites]


I saw this linked to yesterday with the Colbert-ism 'reality has a well-known liberal bias', so I assumed this was another Colbert publicity stunt. I... wow. I'm stunned that it is apparently real.
posted by louie at 2:18 PM on February 24, 2007


My response to the above and similar comments is here.
posted by LonewackoDotCom at 2:25 PM on February 24, 2007


The laws commandments of Conservapedia.

1. Everything you post must be true and verifiable.
2. Always cite and give credit to your sources, even if in the public domain.
3. Edits/new pages must be family-friendly, clean, concise, and without gossip or foul language.
4. When referencing dates based on the approximate birth of Jesus, give appropriate credit for the basis of the date (B.C. or A.D.). "BCE" and "CE" are unacceptable substitutes because they deny the historical basis. See CE.
5. As much as is possible, American spelling of words must be used.[1]
6. Do not post personal opinion on an encyclopedia entry. Opinions can be posted on Talk:pages or on debate or discussion pages.


There really should be a law of nature that stipulates when you contradict yourself so badly it is no longer funny large weasels magically appear and run up you pants.
posted by edgeways at 2:28 PM on February 24, 2007


My response to the above and similar comments is here.

because you won't put it *here*, as people might debate it ... nor will you sign up with wikipedia and debate/attempt to correct their biases *there*, because, once again, you'd have to debate it

this is why you, and many like you are marginalized ... because you don't have the guts to debate things with your opponents

you're not going to change anything with that kind of moral cowardice
posted by pyramid termite at 2:59 PM on February 24, 2007


posted by LonewackoDotCom

Agree with him or not, at least he knows what he is.
posted by Tommy Gnosis at 3:20 PM on February 24, 2007


How are B.C. and A.D. the historical basis? Do they have Jesus' birth certificate? (And do they account for him being born four years "before Christ"?)
posted by kirkaracha at 3:34 PM on February 24, 2007


regarding the "obsolete political system" definition of 'liberal' they cite: here is what the actual entry in american heritage dictionary is:

"b. Obsolete Morally unrestrained; licentious."
posted by p3on at 3:35 PM on February 24, 2007


next up, Richard Mellon Scaife will found the republinet, an internet without all that liberal bias and "packets" will be called "bullets". unsurprisingly, it will also be full of pornography, but of an unusually deviant and involved nature.
posted by paul_smatatoes at 5:42 PM on February 24, 2007


The entry for "Baraminology" goes beyond ridiculous into the realm of unconscionably obscene. The basic premise is that “Baramins” are groups that contain all the descendants of the “kinds” that God created and Adam named in the Garden of Eden. Now, this is all just run-of-the-mill winguttery, until we get to the section titled “Holobaramin”
A Holobaramin is a grouping that contains all organisms related by descent, not excluding any. For example, Humans are a holobaramin, but a group containing only Caucasians and Negroes is not a holobaramin since it excludes Mongoloids and other races. Another example would be Dogs, which is a holobaramin since wolves, coyotes, domesticated dogs and other canids are all descended from two individuals taken aboard the Ark, and there are no other creatures that are genetically continuous with them. This term is synonymous with the use of "baramin" above and is the primary term in baraminology.

lolxtians?
posted by [expletive deleted] at 6:42 PM on February 24, 2007


Seriously, if this is the Right's way of trying to prove how smart they are, I think we might be able to wipe them all out in a single stroke. Say, by removing the warning labels from all products sold at Wal-Mart.
posted by tehloki at 6:53 PM on February 24, 2007 [1 favorite]


The entry for "Baraminology" goes beyond ridiculous

i thought that someone had been screwing around ... but this is for real

bat.shit.insane
posted by pyramid termite at 8:09 PM on February 24, 2007


My response to the above and similar comments is here.

I thought cutting and running was a bad thing.
posted by dw at 8:24 PM on February 24, 2007


My response to the above and similar comments is here.

My response to your response is here.
posted by brain cloud at 8:49 PM on February 24, 2007


A couple years ago I would have said this was most likely a satire site or a site taken over by satirists, but that's before I met Carol. Carol was a mother of three who took on a job at the suburban electronic company I temporarily worked in.

For whatever this disclaimer is worth, I've gone mostly to private religious schools and come from a semi-religious family. I had no idea the fox news/bible study/uber-catholic stereotype was real until Carol more or less spewed every fox news talking point and preached anti-abortionism often at lunch to the chinese engineers. It was a shock to see this kind of person up close and in real life. Honestly, it was. I wrote her off as a nutter and assumed she was the kind of mother her kids hated, until I met her college age daughter. Her daughter, the name escapes me now, was your typical college student. She worked for us for a while during break. One time at lunch we were talking about China and I mentioned Nixon. The girl literally said "Yeah Nixon!" At first I thought this was a joke but her face didn't change into a smile. She was literally just cheering on the mention of Richard Nixon. After interacting with her a little more i realized she was very much mother's daughter.

My job also involved some radio work and around this time I scanned the dial and found about 6 purely religious stations out there. Carol and her daughter didnt seem like the nutter exceptions I assumed they were. For all I know the suburbs are full of these people, which is a though which kinda scares me in that real life way of 'wow, this is unnerving and theres nothing i can do about it.'

Now I'm not surprised to see this kind of thing get so many articles. The writers do seem like theyve had some kind of heavily biased education. I wouldnt be surprised if we later found out that most of these articles were written by rural/conservative college students with a bone to pick with the so called 'liberal media.' I assume their numbers are more vast than we assume. As much fun it is to laugh at these people because this particular example of their echo chamber is of poor quality, the fact that theyre out there and have this little set of informal right-wing versions of everything in their collective minds makes me feel very concerned.

I hope the mockery works, but I have a feeling its just more polarizing responses that wont even affect people like carol or her daughter and just makes us look somewhat petty. What the appropriate response is, is beyond me, but this all seems a bit sily. Of course this may be a problem without a real solution. Hopefully, there's some way to reach these people with some message. How can we teach them skepticism of their sources? Or how to determine the motives and biases of their sources? FWIW, I wasnt able to change Carols mind about anything.
posted by damn dirty ape at 9:00 PM on February 24, 2007 [1 favorite]


Do they have a post claiming that gravity does not exist because Jesus walked on water?

We are entering the new dark ages. A dark ages with high technology.
posted by bad grammar at 10:09 PM on February 24, 2007


From the Copernicus entry:

To this day, most Protestant countries reject the Copernican theory.

This sounds... um.... very wrong to me. Can anybody back this up with anything?

Even if Lonewackodotcom's response hadn't proven it on it's own:

Of course, those of us with a greater mental age might wonder, "if unthinking 'liberals' say Wikipedia isn't biased, isn't that prima facie evidence that it is indeed biased?"


...then the very nature of his response managed it anyway - your facts don't fit our agenda, therefor your facts must be the basis of your spin, therefor we must create our own facts and exit the debate to where we can bask in our own facts and base our opinions on them, where we can't be refuted.

A few questions.

1. Wikipedia is user-edited. That's its entire purpose and structure and business model. Sometimes it gets stuff wrong, but that's usually quickly amended. If "edited by anyone who cares with access to a computer and an internet connection" equals "liberal bias," then maybe you never learned the correct definition of bias. It doesn't simply mean, "fails to subscribe to the same delusions that I do." Why can't you just use neutral tone to bring up your issues there?

2. If your belief system is so central to your life that you can't bear to read anything which might even tangentially differ from it, then why are you so frightened by that which does so? Shouldn't your beliefs be able to handle, I dunno, a reference to BCE/CE without crumbling?

3. If you're going to go so literalist as to dispute Copernican theory, let alone be able to handle evolution, shouldn't you take it all the way? After all, Jesus said, "You will betray me three times before the cock crows." Doesn't the definite article prove that there was, in fact, only one rooster alive in 29 A.D.?

4. If you're going to run with intelligent design, then you're throwing all "how" questions out the window for burden of proof. Doesn't it only make sense then that your question should be "why"? E.g., "God made the moon so that it only shows one side to us. We will ignore all science and current research to claim that no answer can be known as to how this came to be, as it was obviously God's will, so now our only question is why the fuck would God go to the trouble to only show us one side of the moon?"

5. If all written articles that do not acknowledge Christ and conform to biblical teachings are anti-Christian, no matter what the subject matter, why are you, in turn, anti-semitic, anti-Muslim, anti-Hindu, anti-Jainist, anti-Ba'hai, anti-Buddhist, and, most strangely, anti-Catholic?

6. Why do Christian fundamentalists scare me so, so much more than Muslim fundamentalists?

More questions to follow, but I'm hoping that maybe lonewackodotcom will answer these first. Maybe, if I'm lucky, he'll do so in his blog.
posted by Navelgazer at 11:45 PM on February 24, 2007 [2 favorites]


damn dirty ape wrote...
[thoughtful comment on the sheer numbers of right-wing conservatives]


This is an interesting stage in the development of the internet.

Liberals are by their very nature early adopters of new and different ways to socialize, and so the birth and early growth of the internet has been largely attended by young and liberal people.

As the web has become more mainstream, many more conservatives have come on-line. Conservative sites -- which heretofore have been largely entertaining gadflies -- are becoming less about pissing off the liberals and more about building a full on-line conservative eco-(or is that "echo-"?)system.

Conservapedia is a clumsy (and perhaps farcical) step in that direction, but I really hope it suceeds. Frankly, it would be a wonderful thing to see a consensus reality from American conservatives. I strongly distrust what I'm hearing from their self-appointed representatives (O'Reilly, Coulter, Limbaugh, etc.), and reading the blogs and books I do all I ever see is caricatures and often contradictory statements.

A true wiki created by and for Conservatives would cut through a lot of that, and let me understand these people as they view themselves. That would mean a great deal to me as it would let me know if people like Carol are the exception or the rule: who knows? Perhaps the everyday folks on the right are as mortified by her behavior as I am by the fundamentalist Atheist crowd.

In any case, while Conservapedia is pretty much a joke in its current form, it would be very interesting to see what it would become if adults got hold of it.
posted by tkolar at 12:03 AM on February 25, 2007


With liberal bias:
This equation [E=mc^2] was used in the development of the atomic bomb. By measuring the mass of different atomic nuclei and subtracting from that number the total mass of the protons and neutrons as they would weigh separately, one could obtain an estimate of the binding energy available within an atomic nucleus. This could be (and was) used in estimating the energy released in the nuclear reaction, by comparing the binding energy of the nuclei that enter and exit the reaction.

Freed of liberal bias:
The famous equation attributed to Einstein, E=mc^2, describes relativistic energy but had nothing to do with the development of the atom bomb, which does not involve anything close to the speed of light.

The only thing I don't get is why liberals continue to spew this filth about the atomic bomb.
posted by dw at 12:51 AM on February 25, 2007 [1 favorite]


I laughed, thanks for the post
posted by matteo at 2:23 AM on February 25, 2007


I always thought that the main reason for the introduction of the Common Era notation was that scholars got sick of writing "Recent studies have suggested that Jesus was born no later that 4 years before the birth of Christ" and similar sentences.
posted by AndrewStephens at 2:37 AM on February 25, 2007


There was no entry for Barry Goldwater last night and I was invited to begin one. Thinking I might register and start one, maybe a line or two to get the ball rolling, and then set back and watch my baby grow. Maybe.
posted by wrapper at 10:26 AM on February 25, 2007


Are we sure this isn't a parody?

...what does it say that I have a hard time distinguishing between real conservatism and parodies of it?
posted by Target Practice at 10:45 AM on February 25, 2007


damn dirty ape writes "The girl literally said 'Yeah Nixon!' At first I thought this was a joke but her face didn't change into a smile. She was literally just cheering on the mention of Richard Nixon. "

You know, I'm becoming a real Nixon fan myself. For a hard core conservative, that guy really had some progressive policies. Opening a relationship with China, in retrospect, seems like the most forward-thinking, effective act of American foreign policy in the last half-century. Maybe in the history of the country, we'll see. His "war on cancer" basically ushered in the modern NIH, revolutionized the funding of academic research, and played a huge role in facilitation the molecular biology revolution. He established the EPA and signed the Endangered Species Act and an extension of the Clean Air Act into law. Has there been a more environmentally progressive president since T. Roosevelt?

Seriously, the guy might have been a paranoid, reactionary piece of shit, but he was a damn effective president.
posted by mr_roboto at 11:24 AM on February 25, 2007




Thanks, brain cloud. I should mention that, while I'm 99% liberal, a lot of my favorite, most personally respected people are the engaged, intelligent conservatives who aren't afraid of the debate, and who know that active discussion not only helps them to broaden their knowledge, but also to refine what they believe.

Seems like a dying breed these days, but those conservatives are to be commended.
posted by Navelgazer at 10:28 PM on February 25, 2007


The sheer level of contradiction is overwhelming. Take, for example, the Copernicus article's statement that "contrary to popular belief, Galileo was not persecuted for supporting the Copernican theory, but because he was disrespectful to the Pope." Meanwhile, the Galileo entry itself says "Italian astronomer who perfected the telescope and was persecuted for adhering to the theory of Copernicus."

I don't know what statement this makes about bias, but it sure does reinforce their stated goal of being an encyclopedia that I can trust.
posted by feloniousmonk at 12:08 AM on February 26, 2007


Navelgazer-- where are those conservatives? I used to read the Corner on NRO to keep myself honest, but honesty isn't a good reason to go there.
posted by ibmcginty at 8:26 AM on February 26, 2007


ibmcginty, I'm not saying there are a lot of them, but some can be found in the debates here.
posted by Navelgazer at 10:13 PM on March 1, 2007


Navelgazer-- where are those conservatives?

and where foreign policy is concerned, there's antiwar.com
posted by pyramid termite at 5:57 AM on March 2, 2007


And then there's this example of bias in wikipedia:

Wikipedia has many entries on mathematical concepts, but lacked any entry on the basic concept of an elementary proof until this omission was pointed out here. Elementary proofs require a rigor lacking in many mathematical claims promoted on Wikipedia.

Wow, I didn't know that wikipedia has also been promoting unchristian liberal mathematics. Quite an eye-opener...
posted by klausness at 5:49 AM on March 3, 2007


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