RationalWiki (en)
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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. Most articles focus on unfounded medical claims, pseudoscience and Biblical literalism. Despite a seemingly anti-religious stance, many 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 material on Scientology, Creationism, Astrology, "New Age" philosophy, and many others.
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.
Despite this branching into other areas, most of their traffic is to the page What is going on at Conservapedia?. The situation is perhaps best described as on ongoing war between the two sites, discussed in more detail here.
The website has a rather unusual 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. [1]
Criticism
Some members have admitted to vandalising Conservapedia in the past. Criticism of Conservapedia on RationalWiki and elsewhere is extreme. Due to the authoritarian and incompetent management on Conservapedia, even people who generally edit wikis responsibly may be tempted to vandalize Conservapedia. The fact that on Conservapedia, 'vandalism' seems to include 'adding verified, cited facts that disagree with Fundamentalist dogma' makes 'vandalism' much easier than it should be. Many novice editors 'vandalize' the site without even realizing it, until they're blocked for it.
I was blocked for a month at Uncyclopedia for writing true information about Phyllis Schlafly. See my user page there and my talk page there. I know Mordillo who blocked me now. I don’t believe he would have censored true material critical of the Schlafly family if he had known it was true or known that the Schlafly family are prominent. I suspect that people connected the Schlafly family were monitoring Uncyclopedia’s article on Conservapedia. When I wrote true information I suspect Mordillo was told and nobody bothered to mention that I was writing the truth. Certainly the block happened so fast I had no time to add verifiable links. It would have been a remarkable coincidence if any Uncyclopedia administrator just happened to be monitoring the article at that time. Censoring material including true information that fundamentalist Christians or the Schlafly family don’t like is very much Consevapedia’s style. The censor it on their own website by blocking users. Administrators on other wikis may need to take care that people connected with Conservapedia don’t manipulate them into blocking users for reasons that suit Conservapedia. Barbara Shack
As most of the founding members of RationalWiki were blocked from Conservapedia for trying to moderate anti-scientific content and include more liberal points of view, they have continued to undermine Conservapedia's lunacy in the following manners:
- Arguing (such as in the case of arguing that the Professor of the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford University, Richard Dawkins, was, in fact, a professor)
- Adding content that portrays Liberals as something other than Evil Incarnate
- Openly mocking the site owner and administrators of Conservapedia
- Trying to add scientific content to pages espousing only a young-Earth creationist POV
- Showing outright contempt for the site, fundamentalist Christianity, homophobia, misogyny and extreme conservatism in general
- Trying to moderate or refute lies against liberal politicians
- Adding facts about conservatives which illustrates the hypocrisy of the site
- Possibly manipulating page-view counts to highlight intolerant and unscientific content
- Lying about who they are, in order not to be banned instantly
- Adding parody and false information in run-of-the-mill articles
- Fooling Conservapedia administrators through misdirection on Rationalwiki
- Utilising Poe's Law to undermine the credibility of Conservapedia
- Getting blamed for every prankster, troll or vandal who harasses Conservapedia.
On RationalWiki
- Some of the users hold Fundamentalist Religion in contempt, they often criticize Christianity, conservativism, the removal of a woman's right to have an abortion, etc.
- Some of the admins and users openly espouse atheism on their user pages, and criticize what they see as various religious irrationalities.
- Allegations of cyber-terrorism, posting of pornography and use of foul language have also been made by Andy's Acolytes, but no proof has been offered which links any of this specifically to senior editors at RationalWiki. The FBI has no comment.
See also
- Atheism Wiki
- FreeThoughtPedia
- Iron Chariots
- RationalWikiWiki meta site for RationalWiki.
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