RationalWiki (en)

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RationalWiki is an open wiki taking a critical look at the pseudoscience movement and extremist politics, through the use of side-by-side examinations and humour.

Stated goals are:

• Analyzing and refuting the anti-science movement, ideas and people.
• Analyzing and refuting the full range of crank ideas.
• Explorations of authoritarianism and fundamentalism.

RationalWiki has about 3,234 registered accounts, of which 370 (or 11.44%) have Sysops rights, which are awarded very liberally by the bureaucrats.

RationalWiki runs a large collection of specially customized extensions allowing a wide range of features such as; up-down voting, slider voting, a site wide intercom system, and easy bible quotations.

RationalWiki also has a namespace dedicated to Conservapedia.

Wiki size:	3,558 article pages see stats
wikiFactor:	17 info / verify

History

RationalWiki started in May 2007 after a group of editors at Conservapedia were banned over ideological differences with the authorities there. Their edits had consisted mostly of debating on talk pages, attempting to counteract what they perceived to be overwhelming anti-scientific and far-right political bias. Although the site was called RationalWiki to highlight the pro-scientific worldview of the founders, the content was largely weighted to the perceived lunacy of events at Conservapedia.

RationalWiki today

While Conservapedia continues to be a major source of traffic to RationalWiki (Mainly, RationalWiki: What is going on at Conservapedia?), they have branched out into many areas of skepticism. Many articles focus on unfounded medical claims, pseudoscience, and Biblical literalism. Despite a seemingly anti-religious stance, some editors are practicing Christians, Jews, Muslims, or Odinists (among others) tending towards the more liberal aspects of their religion rather than fundamentalism.

The site works to refute a range of faith-based ideas and superstitions. They have critical material on Scientology, Creationism, Astrology, "New Age" philosophy, and many others. It also comments critically on other Christian creationist wikis notably A Storehouse of Knowledge, see RationalWiki: A Storehouse of Knowledge.

The website has a rather idiosyncratic sense of humour, which includes widespread intentional misspellings and other peculiar phrases. There are many "inside jokes", particularly in the material relating to Conservapedia, and the writing often has the tone of a close-knit social group.

Example of RationalWiki’s perspective:-

As a site we have a point of view, and that point of view is that the scientific method and the information gained from its application is better than almost anything else humanity has come up with. We believe that the support of, profiting from and creation of pseudosciences is dangerous and wrong. RationalWiki:What is a RationalWiki article

Criticism

Ex Conservapedia sysop, Philip J. Rayment once said that RationalWiki was, "[A] place of filthy and blasphemous language, replete with name-calling, smearing, innuendo, hypocrisy, and other undesirable attributes".[1].

One random wikiindex user has made the unsubstantiated claim that by editing Wikipedia instead of RationalWiki, one is probably more likely to persuade someone away from pseudoscience. This is due to Wikipedia's larger and more diverse audience, and its requirement of evidence in the form of reliable sources. (link to debate)

Other editors have pointed out that the policy for what constitutes a reliable source on Wikipedia's as well as its policy of a neutral point of view means that many pseudoscience claims are cited authoritatively and science and reality are often relegated to asides under "criticism" sections and constantly diluted with "he said she said" style writing. (link to debate)

See also

• RationalWikiWiki meta site for RationalWiki.
• Liberapedia started as a parody of Conservapedia. It is a less formal wiki that is inclusive of both humor and serious content.

Similar wikis

• Category:Atheism
• Category:Pseudoscience
• Category:Creationism
• Category:Criticism
• Debatepedia wiki also discusses controversial topics -- but puts both viewpoints side-by-side on the same page - RationalWiki also has side-by-side articles.