RationalWiki (en)

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Description

Wiki size:	3,534 article pages see stats
wikiFactor:	16 info / verify

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.

Their 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 3,197 registered users, of which 359 (or 11.23%) 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.

Loss of service

On Aug 19th, RationalWiki (and related sites such as RationalWikiWiki and the RationalWiki forums) became inaccessible.[1] The most likely date when RationalWiki will return is 6th September.[2] The stated reason for the problem is that RationalWiki hosts their own server at Tmtoulouse's domicile, and he is on a trip out of town. The server crashed, and cannot be reached remotely. Although RationalWiki has nightly backups stored on a separate server, it is hoped they will not be needed.

During the "crisis", RationalWikians have found a temporary home to discuss their drinking habits and love of the goat at Teflpedia (roughly 30-40 RationalWikians have signed up and are enduring the inaccessibility of their home wiki at the teflonpedia). A more complete list of places to find RationalWikians can be found here.

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 focus of RationalWiki, 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 or Jews, 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 on A Storehouse of Knowledge.

Despite this branching into other areas, most of their traffic is to the page What is going on at Conservapedia?.

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. [3]

Criticism

Although it claims to welcome contributors of all religions, many of its users are hostile towards religion. It has also been accused of containing "...filthy and blasphemous language, replete with name-calling, smearing, innuendo, hypocrisy, and other undesirable attributes" [4]

Certain administrator are quite sensitive and controlling when it comes to censoring criticism. For example, watch what happens if you try to suggest that perhaps Wikipedia achieves the stated goals of RationalWiki (without these being the stated goals of Wikipedia) better than RationalWiki does.

See also

• RationalWikiWiki meta site for RationalWiki.
• Debatepedia wiki also discusses controversial topics -- but puts both viewpoints side-by-side on the same page.
• FreeThoughtPedia
• Iron Chariots
• Liberapedia, a parody of Conservapedia, with some serious articles on religious fundamentalism.
• Atheism Wiki

External links

• RationalWiki's most popular article RationalWiki's take on events at Conservapedia
• Conservapedia, RationalWiki’s Main article about Conservapedia
• The Conservapedia RationalWiki War, the RationalWiki interpretation of the "war" between Conservapedia and RationalWiki
• Category of articles RationalWiki’s large collection of articles about Conservapedia.

further tags:

• creationism