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. Conservapedia also removes ideologically neutral content that provides information that could be used in ways deemed contrary to Christian ethics.[http://www.conservapedia.com/index.php?title=Special%3ALog&page=Suicide+methods]

The site was started in November 2006 by Andrew Schlafly (presently the site's only active [[bureaucrat]]) 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.

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to users in one of the groups: Administrators, edit", leaving the user to possibly think that his editing rights have been revoked or that editing Conservapedia is [[:Category:ByInvitation|by invitation only]].

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://www.conservapedia.com/index.php?title=Special:ListUsers&limit=80&group=edit] who have edited the site in the last 91 days.

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.

| pages = 40000 <!--type the plain number of pages - NO thousands separators-->

| statistics_URL = http://www.conservapedia.com/Special:Statistics?action=raw <!--page count source (often a 'Statistics' page); if unknown type 'No'-->

| wikiFactor = 118 <!--preferred; if unknown leave void; see: Category:wikiFactor for help-->

| wikiFactor URL = http://www.conservapedia.com/index.php?title=Special:PopularPages&limit=250&offset=0 <!--wF source (often 'PopularPages', 'Mostvisitedpages' or 'PageHits'); if unknown leave void-->

}}(As of: 30 August 2013)<!--manually add/amend date when stats are verified and/or updated-->

*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 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.

*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://www.conservapedia.com/index.php?title=MediaWiki:Ipbreason-dropdown&direction=next&oldid=616544]

*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://www.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.

**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.

*Avoid posting using the same user name as you use on any site critical of Conservapedia, '''especially''' [[RationalWiki]]. That can be [http://www.conservapedia.com/index.php?title=User_talk:StevenB&action=history a banning offense], [http://www.conservapedia.com/index.php?title=Special:Log&type=block&page=User:HelpJazz HelpJazz] was blocked for this though Conservapedia claims [http://www.conservapedia.com/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 [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.