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== Description ==
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{{Size
'''Conservapedia''' is a right-wing {{tag|encyclopedia}} written with a {{tag|conservative}} viewpoint. More specifically, Conservapedia's articles are politically conservative, friendly to young Earth creationism and conservative {{tag|Christianity}}, and {{tag|United States of America|USA}}-centric. Conservapedia is in general {{tag|Wikis with a strong viewpoint|hostile}} to liberals, homosexuals, and people who support or teach the theory of evolution or special or general relativity. Conservapedia also removes ideologically neutral content that provides information that could be used in ways deemed contrary to Christian ethics.[http://conservapedia.com/index.php?title=Special%3ALog&page=Suicide+methods]
| wiki_statistics_URL = http://www.conservapedia.com/Special:Statistics?action=raw
| wiki_pages = 24985
}}
 
An encyclopedia with a politically conservative viewpoint, friendly to creationism and Christianity, and massively hostile to Liberals, homosexuals, and people who believe in the theory of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Introduction_to_evolution evolution]. The site was started in November 2006 by Andrew Schlafly and a group of homeschooled children to provide an alternative to the perceived anti-Christian, anti-American and anti-conservative bias of Wikipedia. The main purpose of the site is to provide a family-friendly resource for homeschooled children from fundamentalist Christian homes. However, some more adult topics such as homosexuality are also treated in depth, to explain all the myriad ways in which they are considered abhorrent.
 
As of 31 July 2008, Conservapedia has 22,091 registered users, of which 30 (or 0.14%) have Administrators rights. Of these registered users 11,086 were blocked (8691 for an infinite period).  Roughly half the users are currently blocked and over a third are permanently blocked.  It is unclear what proportion of unblocked registered users regularly use the site.
 
==Criticisms==
 
*The sysops and admins arbitarily deciding whether or not to enforce the [http://www.conservapedia.com/Conservapedia:Commandments Conservapedia Commandments] (see [http://www.conservapedia.com/index.php?title=His_Dark_Materials_(novel)&curid=51358&diff=493793&oldid=493777 this] and Commandment number 5, together with the fact 'Learn Together' is a sysop for one example). 
*Removing cited facts and calling it 'liberal bias' simply because these facts do not conform to the preconceived notions of the leaders of the site.[http://www.conservapedia.com/index.php?title=Abstinence&diff=next&oldid=207273].
*The management driving away experts from the site by, for example, demanding that they email a sysop proof of their qualifications before they continue to post on the site, after that sysop reverted edits on mathematics because they didn't understand them.[http://www.conservapedia.com/index.php?title=User_talk:Mathoreilly&diff=485894&oldid=485890]
*The selective enforcement of Conservapedia's "[http://www.conservapedia.com/90/10 90/10 Rule]", which, despite being "a guideline", is a popular way for the sysops to squelch debate on talk pages via blocking and threats of same.  Users are not always warned in advance that 90% of their edits must be in articles.  Users who did not know that they were breaking any rule can be arbitrarily blocked.
*Some pages, such as "[http://www.conservapedia.com/index.php?title=Theory_of_evolution&action=history Theory of Evolution]" and "[http://www.conservapedia.com/index.php?title=Homosexuality&action=history Homosexuality]" being permanently locked and monopolized by one obsessed sysop.
*Amusingly, despite the fact that many Conservapedia sysops read it regularly, and even refer to it obliquely on talk pages and in comments, mentioning [[RationalWiki]] by name is taboo on Conservapedia.  Doing so directly gets mere mortal posters banned.
*Near-total lack of oversight or any sort of appeals process for users who think a sysop is abusing their authority.  Many sysops don't even have email enabled, making it impossible for someone they ban to even find out why.
*Extremely poor scholarship.  Many 'articles' are [http://www.conservapedia.com/Coral_snake one or two short paragraphs ]at most, except those relating to how awful [http://www.conservapedia.com/Liberal liberals], [http://www.conservapedia.com/Homosexuality homosexuals], [http://www.conservapedia.com/Atheism atheists],  or [http://www.conservapedia.com/Evolution evolutionists] are, which can run for many hundreds of lines.
*Some confusion between "Encyclopedia" and "Blog", as the sysops make many long, hilariously opinionated articles on various Conservative talking-points, such as [http://www.conservapedia.com/Liberal_friendship how Liberals are incapable of real friendship].
 
==The RationalWiki / Conservapedia War==
 
There is an enormous project at [[RationalWiki]] to discredit, mock, and ridicule Conservapedia.  They gleefully point out, on the [http://rationalwiki.com/wiki/Conservapedia:What_is_going_on_at_CP%3F "WIGO"] page, instances of foolish behavior such as outlined above.  This ridicule is perhaps the most popular part of RationalWiki.
 
Conservapedia forbids any mention anywhere of the phrase "RationalWiki", and has a so-called "spam filter" that automatically blocks any attempt to enter the phrase in that form.  People who evade that by entering things like "<nowiki>Rational<!-- -->Wiki</nowiki>" are immediately blocked.  In recent months (2008) the sysops have allowed oblique references to "that other place" or "RW", but all such references must be vitriolic.  Any expression of sympathy with, or tolerance of, "that other place" leads to an immediate ban.


RationalWiki appears to have been started by disaffected refugees from Conservapedia, and explicit vandalism of Conservapedia by RationalWiki people was probably a common activity at that timeConservapedia accuses RationalWiki of being responsible for most of their vandalism, though the heavy ongoing influx of new users suggests that that is not the case. In any case, the anonymity of the internet makes it impossible to tell.
The site was started in November {{tag|Founded in 2006|2006}} by [[wp:Andrew Schlafly|Andrew Schlafly]] (presently the site's only active [[bureaucrat]]) and a group of home-schooled people to provide an alternative to the perceived anti-Christian, pro-Evolution, anti-American and anti-conservative bias of [[English Wikipedia|Wikipedia]]The stated purpose of the site is to provide a family-friendly resource for home-schooled children from fundamentalist Christian homes. However, a few more {{tag|Adult content|adult topics}} such as [[cp:Homosexuality|homosexuality]] are also treated in depth from their viewpoint.


Conservapedia usually bans anyone known to have an account at RationalWiki, though there seem to be occasional exceptions for long-standing Conservapedia editors. One user, Ames Grauert, was permitted to come back after a long ban, and took Andrew Schlafly up on the latter's challenge to have a debate with any liberal.  However, the planning discussion did not go well ([http://www.conservapedia.com/index.php?title=User_talk:Aschlafly&oldid=496823#Debate.3F],
==Technical shortcomings==
[http://www.conservapedia.com/index.php?title=User_talk:Aschlafly&oldid=496823#More_on_Debates],
Conservapedia cannot be edited during certain hours of the night, U.S. time, except by users with special "night editing" rights, to prevent [[vandal]]s from striking when most if not all of the [[Sysop|administrators]] are asleep. This is rather inconvenient since an editor may begin editing an article but not be able to save his edit if the deadline passes while he is working on his revision. He cannot even store it on-wiki for saving later, since Conservapedia doesn't have [[mw:Extension:Checkpoint]] installed; the only option is to hit the browser's Back button and copy and paste the the revision text into some other pastebin, for saving to Conservapedia later. The site does not even state why the edit is disallowed or when or if the restriction will end, but merely says "The action you have requested is limited to users in one of the groups: Administrators, edit", leaving the user to possibly think that his editing rights have been revoked or that editing Conservapedia is [[:Category:ByInvitation|by invitation only]].
[http://www.conservapedia.com/index.php?title=User_talk:Aschlafly&oldid=496823#Debates.2C_Round_3])
as the sysops repeatedly [http://www.conservapedia.com/index.php?title=Special:Log&type=block&page=User:DParker blocked] Ames during discussions.  As of August 2008, the debate does not appear destined to occur.


A few Conservapedia sysops have accounts at RationalWiki, where they are treated with great hostility but not blocked.
Conservapedia also has no email notification user preferences options available; this significantly limits potential for maintaining user engagement.[https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=45022] It is no wonder, then, that the site has fewer than 200 users (fewer than 80 of whom have the coveted "edit" right)[http://conservapedia.com/index.php?title=Special:ListUsers&limit=80&group=edit] who have edited the site in the last 91 days.


==Difficulties==
Conservapedia is frequently offline (sometimes for days at a time) and favors a very liberal deletion policy. At the start of November 2010, account creation was turned off and prospective users must now email the site owner to have an account created. This followed several months during which account creation was disabled most of the time and most new users were being blocked on sight. Account creation is still occasionally enabled, although most accounts created in this manner are immediately blocked.


Because of its extreme views on evolution, politics, society, history, education, religion, sexuality, and science in general, and its very narrow orthodoxy on these subjects, Conservapedia is the subject of massive ridicule throughout the internet. This, coupled with its open wiki organization, creates serious difficulties for their administrators.  There is an enormous traffic in editors arguing with sysops and changing articles to be less extreme.  This leads to massive censorship, reversion (even comments on talk pages are often censored and reverted) and account blocking.
In December 2010, Conservapedia started to block certain ranges of [[IP editors|IP addresses]] from even viewing the site. Many IP ranges in the [[:Category:United Kingdom|UK]], [[:Category:France|France]], [[:Category:Germany|Germany]] and other [[:Category:Europe|European]] countries now receive a 403 error when trying to load any page.


New accounts are created as frequently as they are permanently blocked.  One can't know for sure, but it is plausible to assume that many new account creations are simply responses to blocking.  Such an account is generally considered a "sockpuppet", and is a minor irritation on sites such as Wikipedia.  On Conservapedia they are a major problem for the administrators.  They are strictly forbidden, of course, but, because of the wide availability of internet proxies, they can't be stopped.  The Conservapedia administrators frequently block IP addresses, sometimes in huge (> 100,000) blocks, in a futile attempt to stop edits that are hostile to their philosophy.
[[New Conservapedia]] has been set up to parody Conservapedia.


Another aspect of this difficulty that editing permission, except for "trusted" users, is turned off at night, so that it is only allowed when the site is being continuously monitored by an administrator ready to take immediate action.
==Statistics==


Conservapedia also has a very high traffic in arguments and conflict on talk pages, relative to edits to article pages.  A typical listing of 500 "recent changes", taken at 18:31 EDT, 16 July 2008, and covering about two days, shows the following:
As of 26 July 2013, Conservapedia had 55,000 registered user accounts, most of which are blocked, with 31 administrators. 348 users had made an edit in the preceding 91 days.


*Nontrivial article/essay edits: 140 (28%)
==Suggested guidelines for prospective editors==
*Trivial article/essay edits: 120 (24%)
Some WikiIndex editors have had negative experiences with this wiki and offer the following precautions in order to prevent having your account blocked:
::(<= 20 characters, or fussing with templates, redirects, wikilinks, "terms" items, protection changes)
*As it says on Conservapedia's user creation page, "User names based on your real name or initials are preferred" but are not required. While some users with names like [http://conservapedia.com/index.php?title=Special:Log&type=block&page=User:Lainy74 Lainy74] are blocked and told to create a new name, other users with names like [[cp:User:TK|"TK"]] and [[cp:User:Foxtrot|"Foxtrot"]], (both users who later gained blocking rights) were not.
*Edit warring (reversion) on article/essay pages: 22 (4%)
*Conservapedia's [[cp:Conservapedia:90/10 rule|"90/10 rule"]] states that "unproductive activity, such as 90% talk page edits and only 10% quality edits to Conservapedia articles, may result in blocking of the account". New users are often surprised to find out that these numbers are not strictly followed, and can sometimes be blocked before making 10 total edits, especially if their edits are argumentative or questioning of the wiki. It is best to first establish yourself by making constructive edits to articles before trying to delve into the more controversial subjects.
*Edits to essay/article talk pages: 59 (12%)
*Be wary of disagreeing with a [[sysop]]. They may block you for disagreeing, though this may be unlikely if you are following all the other rules (including 90/10). Reverting any edits by a sysop will likely result in a ban.
*Edits to user pages: 15 (3%)
*Be wary of an abundant use of <nowiki>{{fact}}</nowiki> tags on articles, especially if you could add the citations yourself. This practice is often viewed as "ideologically-motivated tagging", and is frowned upon on Conservapedia.
*Edits to user talk pages: 84 (17%)
*Conservapedia is a conservative, creationist encyclopedia. As such, it is best not to post anything that might be construed as "liberally biased" or "pro-evolution".  Even if you feel the Conservapedia arguments against evolution are flawed saying so can lead to a block. The drop menu for those with blocking power includes, "Liberal vandalism, Liberal name calling, Liberal parodist" [http://conservapedia.com/index.php?title=MediaWiki:Ipbreason-dropdown&direction=next&oldid=616544]
*User creation events: 34 (7%)
*Do not write rude or offensive material about another user, especially don't disparage a sysop. Do not imitate users in high standing who [http://conservapedia.com/index.php?title=User_talk:Aschlafly&curid=78585&diff=592439&oldid=592419 can be very critical]. Ordinary users do not have the same freedom.
*User blocks, less than 5 years: 2 (0%)
*If you get blocked for any of these reasons and you think the block was unfair, '''do not''' create a new account. Instead, email the administrator or user who blocked you and appeal for a second chance. Most users are granted leniency and are allowed to edit again. This applies especially to those who did not know they did anything wrong since many get blocked without realizing they did anything wrong.
*User blocks, 5 years or more: 24 (5%)
**If the sysop who blocked you does not have email enabled, you can appeal to another sysop.  This is against their [[cp:Conservapedia:Desk/Abuse#TK|new policy]], but try it anyway.
*Avoid posting using the same user name as you use on any site critical of Conservapedia, '''especially''' [[RationalWiki]]. That can be [http://conservapedia.com/index.php?title=User_talk:StevenB&action=history a banning offense], [http://conservapedia.com/index.php?title=Special:Log&type=block&page=User:HelpJazz HelpJazz] was blocked for this though Conservapedia claims [[cp:Conservapedia:How Conservapedia Differs from Wikipedia|not to do that (#15)]].
*If Aschafly accuses you of being a Liberal, don't bother denying it, as that's just [[cp:Liberal denial|Liberal Denial]], [[cp:Liberal deceit|Liberal Deceit]], a [[cp:Essay: Liberal Falsehoods|Liberal Falsehood]], [[cp:Liberal hypocrisy|Liberal Hypocrisy]], and [[cp:Liberal obfuscation|Liberal Obfuscation]].  All you can do at that point is apologize, and Andy may condescend to allow you to stay, as long as you never post anything else he disagrees with.


==Evaluation==
==See also==
The great strength of the Wiki format is allowing anyone to edit.  This causes major problems for the management of Conservapedia, who are forced to spend much of their time scrutinizing every edit for deviation from their ideology. The site is sometimes characterized as "Andy's blog" because of his pervasive control over its content. A major consequence of making it a wiki instead of the usual (closed) blog is that it has the problems noted above.
*[[A Storehouse of Knowledge]] was set up by former Conservapedia editors who were dissatisfied with Conservapedia.
*[[RationalWiki]], an '''entire wiki''' originally founded to criticize and make fun of Conservapedia, now criticizes pseudo-science in general.
*[[Liberapedia]], a parody wiki of Conservapedia that has a liberal bias
*[[New Conservapedia]] another parody that claims Conservapedia has a liberal bias
*[[Metapedia]], a fascist encyclopedia
*[[Ameriwiki]], a conservative encyclopedia


[[Category:Political]]
[[Category:Politics]]
[[Category:Christianity]]
[[Category:Christianity]]
[[Category:FoundedIn2006]]
[[Category:Wikis with a strong viewpoint]]<!--this wiki is not about internet censorship and therefor technically does not belong in the category-->
[[Category:Pseudoscience]]

Latest revision as of 16:20, 4 December 2022

http://conservapedia.com/skins/common/images/conservlogo.png Conservapedia
Recent changes
WikiNode
About
[No Mobile URL]
Founded by:
Status: Active
Language: English
Edit mode: LoginToEdit
Wiki engine: MediaWiki
Wiki license: No license
Main topic: Encyclopedia
Wiki size: 46,300 article pages see stats
wikiFactor: 154 info / verify

(As of: 20 September 2018)

Conservapedia is a right-wing encyclopedia written with a conservative viewpoint. More specifically, Conservapedia's articles are politically conservative, friendly to young Earth creationism and conservative Christianity, and USA-centric. Conservapedia is in general hostile to liberals, homosexuals, and people who support or teach the theory of evolution or special or general relativity. Conservapedia also removes ideologically neutral content that provides information that could be used in ways deemed contrary to Christian ethics.[1]

The site was started in November 2006 by Andrew Schlafly (presently the site's only active bureaucrat) and a group of home-schooled people to provide an alternative to the perceived anti-Christian, pro-Evolution, anti-American and anti-conservative bias of Wikipedia. The stated purpose of the site is to provide a family-friendly resource for home-schooled children from fundamentalist Christian homes. However, a few more adult topics such as homosexuality are also treated in depth from their viewpoint.

Technical shortcomings[edit]

Conservapedia cannot be edited during certain hours of the night, U.S. time, except by users with special "night editing" rights, to prevent vandals from striking when most if not all of the administrators are asleep. This is rather inconvenient since an editor may begin editing an article but not be able to save his edit if the deadline passes while he is working on his revision. He cannot even store it on-wiki for saving later, since Conservapedia doesn't have mw:Extension:Checkpoint installed; the only option is to hit the browser's Back button and copy and paste the the revision text into some other pastebin, for saving to Conservapedia later. The site does not even state why the edit is disallowed or when or if the restriction will end, but merely says "The action you have requested is limited to users in one of the groups: Administrators, edit", leaving the user to possibly think that his editing rights have been revoked or that editing Conservapedia is by invitation only.

Conservapedia also has no email notification user preferences options available; this significantly limits potential for maintaining user engagement.[2] It is no wonder, then, that the site has fewer than 200 users (fewer than 80 of whom have the coveted "edit" right)[3] who have edited the site in the last 91 days.

Conservapedia is frequently offline (sometimes for days at a time) and favors a very liberal deletion policy. At the start of November 2010, account creation was turned off and prospective users must now email the site owner to have an account created. This followed several months during which account creation was disabled most of the time and most new users were being blocked on sight. Account creation is still occasionally enabled, although most accounts created in this manner are immediately blocked.

In December 2010, Conservapedia started to block certain ranges of IP addresses from even viewing the site. Many IP ranges in the UK, France, Germany and other European countries now receive a 403 error when trying to load any page.

New Conservapedia has been set up to parody Conservapedia.

Statistics[edit]

As of 26 July 2013, Conservapedia had 55,000 registered user accounts, most of which are blocked, with 31 administrators. 348 users had made an edit in the preceding 91 days.

Suggested guidelines for prospective editors[edit]

Some WikiIndex editors have had negative experiences with this wiki and offer the following precautions in order to prevent having your account blocked:

  • As it says on Conservapedia's user creation page, "User names based on your real name or initials are preferred" but are not required. While some users with names like Lainy74 are blocked and told to create a new name, other users with names like "TK" and "Foxtrot", (both users who later gained blocking rights) were not.
  • Conservapedia's "90/10 rule" states that "unproductive activity, such as 90% talk page edits and only 10% quality edits to Conservapedia articles, may result in blocking of the account". New users are often surprised to find out that these numbers are not strictly followed, and can sometimes be blocked before making 10 total edits, especially if their edits are argumentative or questioning of the wiki. It is best to first establish yourself by making constructive edits to articles before trying to delve into the more controversial subjects.
  • Be wary of disagreeing with a sysop. They may block you for disagreeing, though this may be unlikely if you are following all the other rules (including 90/10). Reverting any edits by a sysop will likely result in a ban.
  • Be wary of an abundant use of {{fact}} tags on articles, especially if you could add the citations yourself. This practice is often viewed as "ideologically-motivated tagging", and is frowned upon on Conservapedia.
  • Conservapedia is a conservative, creationist encyclopedia. As such, it is best not to post anything that might be construed as "liberally biased" or "pro-evolution". Even if you feel the Conservapedia arguments against evolution are flawed saying so can lead to a block. The drop menu for those with blocking power includes, "Liberal vandalism, Liberal name calling, Liberal parodist" [4]
  • Do not write rude or offensive material about another user, especially don't disparage a sysop. Do not imitate users in high standing who can be very critical. Ordinary users do not have the same freedom.
  • If you get blocked for any of these reasons and you think the block was unfair, do not create a new account. Instead, email the administrator or user who blocked you and appeal for a second chance. Most users are granted leniency and are allowed to edit again. This applies especially to those who did not know they did anything wrong since many get blocked without realizing they did anything wrong.
    • If the sysop who blocked you does not have email enabled, you can appeal to another sysop. This is against their new policy, but try it anyway.
  • Avoid posting using the same user name as you use on any site critical of Conservapedia, especially RationalWiki. That can be a banning offense, HelpJazz was blocked for this though Conservapedia claims not to do that (#15).
  • If Aschafly accuses you of being a Liberal, don't bother denying it, as that's just Liberal Denial, Liberal Deceit, a Liberal Falsehood, Liberal Hypocrisy, and Liberal Obfuscation. All you can do at that point is apologize, and Andy may condescend to allow you to stay, as long as you never post anything else he disagrees with.

See also[edit]

  • A Storehouse of Knowledge was set up by former Conservapedia editors who were dissatisfied with Conservapedia.
  • RationalWiki, an entire wiki originally founded to criticize and make fun of Conservapedia, now criticizes pseudo-science in general.
  • Liberapedia, a parody wiki of Conservapedia that has a liberal bias
  • New Conservapedia another parody that claims Conservapedia has a liberal bias
  • Metapedia, a fascist encyclopedia
  • Ameriwiki, a conservative encyclopedia