Conservapedia: Difference between revisions

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'''Conservapedia''' is a right-wing encyclopedia written with a {{tag|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.

The site was started in November 2006 by Andrew Schlafly and a group of homeschooled 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 homeschooled children from fundamentalist Christian homes. However, a few more adult topics such as [http://www.conservapedia.com/Homosexuality homosexuality] are also treated in depth from their viewpoint.

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.

*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://www.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 [http://www.conservapedia.com/User:TK "TK"] and [http://www.conservapedia.com/User:Foxtrot "Foxtrot"], (both users who later gained blocking rights) were not.

*Conservapedia's [http://www.conservapedia.com/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.

*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.

*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 [http://www.conservapedia.com/Conservapedia:Desk/Abuse#TK new policy], but try it anyway.

*If Aschafly accuses you of being a Liberal, don't bother denying it, as that's just [http://www.conservapedia.com/Liberal_denial Liberal Denial], [http://www.conservapedia.com/Liberal_deceit Liberal Deceit], a [http://www.conservapedia.com/Essay:_Liberal_Falsehoods Liberal Falsehood], [http://www.conservapedia.com/Liberal_hypocrisy Liberal Hypocrisy], and [http://www.conservapedia.com/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.