CreationWiki

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CreationWiki may accurately claim to be more culturally invested in mainstream America than Conservapedia.  An interesting observation is that the site's logo is a "Stargate" - an emblem from the eponymous movie, and the later SciFi Channel television series ''Stargate: SG-1''<ref>Three seasons on Showtime (god-awful), seven on SciFi (good).  Concluded after ten seasons in spring 2007.  Straight-to-DVD movies forthcoming.</ref> and ''Stargate Atlantis''<ref>Season 4 began fall 2007.</ref>.  The television shows and movies are definitively "anti-creationist," to use the website's own rhetoric, in the sense that they often refer to a "history" ranging back millions of years (rather than thousands), never discuss [[Jesus Christ]], and make an open farce and anti-democratic enemy out of the fundamentalist, literalist, and mind-numbing evil of the "Ori," villains in the last seasons of ''Stargate: SG-1''.  This is to say, they are anti-creation in the same sense that ''[[Fun:Harry Potter|Harry Potter]]'' is anti-creation.  However, CreationWiki is able to embrace the series as "fun" nonetheless.<ref>See a discussion started by a RationalWiki administrator, [http://www.creationwiki.org/index.php?title=Talk:Main_Page&oldid=113562#The_logo here].</ref>
 
CreationWiki may accurately claim to be more culturally invested in mainstream America than Conservapedia.  An interesting observation is that the site's logo is a "Stargate" - an emblem from the eponymous movie, and the later SciFi Channel television series ''Stargate: SG-1''<ref>Three seasons on Showtime (god-awful), seven on SciFi (good).  Concluded after ten seasons in spring 2007.  Straight-to-DVD movies forthcoming.</ref> and ''Stargate Atlantis''<ref>Season 4 began fall 2007.</ref>.  The television shows and movies are definitively "anti-creationist," to use the website's own rhetoric, in the sense that they often refer to a "history" ranging back millions of years (rather than thousands), never discuss [[Jesus Christ]], and make an open farce and anti-democratic enemy out of the fundamentalist, literalist, and mind-numbing evil of the "Ori," villains in the last seasons of ''Stargate: SG-1''.  This is to say, they are anti-creation in the same sense that ''[[Fun:Harry Potter|Harry Potter]]'' is anti-creation.  However, CreationWiki is able to embrace the series as "fun" nonetheless.<ref>See a discussion started by a RationalWiki administrator, [http://www.creationwiki.org/index.php?title=Talk:Main_Page&oldid=113562#The_logo here].</ref>
  
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==Footnotes==
 
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Revision as of 19:18, 2 October 2008

Note: CreationWiki actively discourages non-creationist rational minds from entering their site, by requiring account approval. However, account approval is an easy process, generally completed in under a day, and not apparently compassing any broad restriction. At least three RationalWiki editors have, by November 2007, signed up for the site successfully...but the administration there grows less tolerant.

Contents

General Information

Although it is not immediately apparent, CreationWiki differs from its sister site Conservapedia in that it is not meant to be read as a parody. Although it contains the same mixture of half truths, outright lies and deliberate distortions, its authors, sadly, hope it will be taken seriously.

Only article pages are viewable to non-users: this is, apparently, an unintentional restriction that is being rectified.[1] Compounding this secrecy is the difficulty involved in account creation. New accounts must be "requested" of the site's administrators, who may decline to create a new account for the requesting party. While the implied suggestion is that non-creationist requests will be denied, several non-creationists have been approved and contribute to the site.

Since CreationWiki's secrecy measures make its management and operation somewhat opaque, this article seeks to "pierce the veil," and explain CreationWiki to the curious masses.

Statistics, of which 95% are true

As of 20 October 2007, the site's main page had been accessed 310,525 times, and 3,198 articles had been created.[2]

CreationWiki sees itself as a serious site dedicated to furthering the peer reviewed body of creationist knowledge. Insofar as this goal is an inherent contradiction, it is fated to fail, but taken seriously, nonetheless. The site's contributors may number large, but the number of contributors who are "seriously active" are comparatively small, potentially limited to the founder, and one or two additional users.[3]

Some frequent contributors are, in a comparison with Conservapedia, young students who are either homeschooled or part of young-earth Christian creationist-oriented private schools.[4]

Relationship with RationalWiki, Conservapedia, and other WikiProjects

It has a medium-sized article on Conservapedia [5] but no article on RationalWiki, although there is a link from the article: Anticreationist debate tactic under the section Examples of more anticreationist hate [6]. Unfortunately the link to RationalWiki doesn't work. Despite this (inactive) link, administrators have stated that linking to RationalWiki is illegal, although the word "RationalWiki" may be mentioned, and so is not subject to the same damnatio memoriae as "RationalWiki" faces on Conservapedia. [7]

CreationWiki also has an article on (or more properly a side-by-side "refutation" of an article from) EvoWiki [8] along with a link to the site.

Many Conservapedia administrators contribute to CreationWiki.

Treatment of Non-Creationists

Non-creationists are not allowed to edit content on CreationWiki.[9] Apparently, the same editors are subject to being grouped in to a secret classification, known as "limited."[10] The class cannot be discussed, and the user with "limited" rights may not inquire as to what the status actually is.[11] Strictly speaking, someone without rights cannot inquire as to what rights he lacks.

Also, non-creationists are discouraged from editing "user_talk" pages, and debate from them is similarly out of vogue. In a private e-mail with CreationWiki creator Chris Ashcraft, he explained,

Debate is only appropriate from those holding to a Creation POV.... Limit all posts to article talk pages. (Article talk pages only).... You may engage in peer review of articles, but do not use the UserTalk pages.[12]

Goal of "Peer Review"

One of CreationWiki's goals is to facilitate "peer review" of creation science, but it is unclear what "peer review" means in the context of CreationWiki. While the site disparages traditional peer review[13] - since it, of course, always finds creationist viewpoints wanting - it has its own method of peer review for CreationWiki articles, to which (apparently) no articles have yet been subjected.[14] One must wonder of what use peer review is, where only creationists may participate in the process fully and freely.

The misunderstanding of the goal of peer review runs deep: the site's founder states that the goal of peer review is to "uphold the majority consensus," and that atheists and creationists are not "peers" for the purpose of peer review. Presumably, the conclusion is that this is the only reason that creationist claims fail scientific peer review.[15]

Cultural Issues on CreationWiki

CreationWiki may accurately claim to be more culturally invested in mainstream America than Conservapedia. An interesting observation is that the site's logo is a "Stargate" - an emblem from the eponymous movie, and the later SciFi Channel television series Stargate: SG-1[16] and Stargate Atlantis[17]. The television shows and movies are definitively "anti-creationist," to use the website's own rhetoric, in the sense that they often refer to a "history" ranging back millions of years (rather than thousands), never discuss Jesus Christ, and make an open farce and anti-democratic enemy out of the fundamentalist, literalist, and mind-numbing evil of the "Ori," villains in the last seasons of Stargate: SG-1. This is to say, they are anti-creation in the same sense that Harry Potter is anti-creation. However, CreationWiki is able to embrace the series as "fun" nonetheless.[18]

Footnotes

  1. Private e-mail with Chris Ashcraft.
  2. Main Page.
  3. As of 20 October 2007, "Ashcraft," "Tmajor," and "Temlakos" dominated any "Recent changes" list. As of the same date, two weeks of prior inference and analysis suggests that, at any time, fifty changes in ten hours is the average for CreationWiki.
  4. North Sound Christian Schools, for example.
  5. http://creationwiki.org/Conservapedia
  6. http://creationwiki.org/Anticreationist_debate_tactics
  7. See the userpage of one RationalWiki admin on CreationWiki, here.
  8. http://creationwiki.org/Creation_%28EvoWiki%29
  9. CreationWiki administrator "Ashcraft" says as much, here.
  10. RationalWiki editors are almost immediately grouped into this section. AmesG, Wikinterpreter, and Alien have all suffered the same fate.
  11. CreationWiki administrator Tmajor blanks a discussion of the status,[citation needed], over the objections of another administrator.
  12. Private e-mail exchange with Chris Ashcraft.
  13. See CreationWiki's article on the subject
  14. CreationWiki's internal peer review site is currently blank, as of 20 October 2007.
  15. Private e-mail with Chris Ashcraft, "That is the goal of peer reviews in general - to uphold the consensus position. Peer reviews are just what the phrase describes - reviews by peers. Atheists and creationists are not peers regarding theories formed from these worldviews. Only creationists can provide peer reviews of creationist views."
  16. Three seasons on Showtime (god-awful), seven on SciFi (good). Concluded after ten seasons in spring 2007. Straight-to-DVD movies forthcoming.
  17. Season 4 began fall 2007.
  18. See a discussion started by a RationalWiki administrator, here.

See also

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