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=== Conservapedia ===
 
=== Conservapedia ===
[[Conservapedia]], a very small project aiming to emulate Wikipedia from a socially [[conservative]], [[American]], and [[fundamentalist]] [[Christian]] point of view, involves several editors and administrators who had previously faced opposition to inserting their heavily biased point of view into Wikipedia articles.<ref>[http://www.conservapedia.com/User:RSchlafly Roger Schlafly]</ref><ref>[http://www.conservapedia.com/User:Ed_Poor Ed Poor]</ref>  Some appear under aliases, apparently in order to distance themselves from their prior involvement with Wikipedia<ref>[http://www.conservapedia.com/User:Conservative Conservative/kdbuffalo]</ref> or possibly to fit in more with a common Conservapedia username scheme.<ref>[http://www.conservapedia.com/User:RobS RobS/Nobs/Nobs01]</ref>  As a whole, the site appears to have an unhealthy fascination with Wikipedia and its supposed faults.<ref>[http://www.conservapedia.com/Examples_of_Bias_in_Wikipedia Examples of Bias in Wikipedia]</ref><ref>[http://www.conservapedia.com/Conservapedia:Differences_with_Wikipedia How Conservapedia Differs from Wikipedia]</ref>  It is significant to note that many of what [[Conservapedia]] administrators consider faults in [[Wikipedia]] are often repeated, to a greater degree, on their own site.
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[[Conservapedia]], a very small project aiming to emulate Wikipedia from a socially [[conservative]], [[American]], and [[fundamentalist]] [[Christian]] point of view, involves several editors and administrators who had previously faced opposition to inserting their heavily biased point of view into Wikipedia articles.<ref>[http://www.conservapedia.com/User:RSchlafly Roger Schlafly]</ref><ref>[http://www.conservapedia.com/User:Ed_Poor Ed Poor]</ref>  Some appear under aliases, apparently in order to distance themselves from their prior involvement with Wikipedia<ref>[http://www.conservapedia.com/User:Conservative Conservative/kdbuffalo]</ref> or possibly to fit in more with a common Conservapedia username scheme.<ref>[http://www.conservapedia.com/User:RobS RobS/Nobs/Nobs01]</ref>  As a whole, the site appears to have an unhealthy fascination with Wikipedia and its supposed faults.<ref>[http://www.conservapedia.com/Examples_of_Bias_in_Wikipedia Examples of Bias in Wikipedia]</ref><ref>[http://www.conservapedia.com/Conservapedia:Differences_with_Wikipedia How Conservapedia Differs from Wikipedia]</ref>  It is significant to note that many of what [[Conservapedia]] administrators consider faults in [[Wikipedia]] are often repeated, to a greater degree, on their own site. Just like Encyclopædia Dramatica, many of the editors are trolls. Unlike the trolls in ED, they are unwelcome, but it's hard to tell them apart from the real editors.
  
 
While being frustrated in their attempts to insert a respect for real world scientific facts at Conservapedia, the founders and most of the original editors of RationalWiki "met" each other.
 
While being frustrated in their attempts to insert a respect for real world scientific facts at Conservapedia, the founders and most of the original editors of RationalWiki "met" each other.

Revision as of 10:29, 8 August 2010

Someone is wrong on

The Internet

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A wiki is, in theory, a publicly editable database of Web pages, and is generally considered the realization of Tim Berners-Lee's original peer-to-peer vision for the World Wide Web. Because of its collaborative nature, "wiki" is often made into a "back-ronym" for "What I Know Is;" however, the term was originally derived from the Hawaiian word for "fast."

While we should certainly mention the amusing results that occur when someone tries to run a wiki as their own personal ego project, truth be told we don't have a whole lot of need to discuss the nature of wikis here, so we'll just kick you over to the 800 kg gorilla of wikis and let them explain.

Contents

Notable wikis

There are thousands of wikis in existence, varying hugely in quality and scale. These are a few of the most well-known examples.

Wikipedia

Wikipedia is, as mentioned above, the 800 kg gorilla of wikis, consisting of over three million articles (in the English version, 12 million in other language versions[1]). It is specifically an encyclopedia dedicated to amassing all the knowledge of the human race in one place. Its goals are not only to get this information together, but also to make it freely available. As a result, it makes extensive use of Creative Commons licensing to allow its content to be distributed. It is often serious and quite dry in tone, but at least it's mostly accurate.

Citizendium

Citizendium was the original challenger to the crown of Wikipedia. Its primary difference was that its editing policy was less open, allowing only "experts" to approve articles. While a decent enough idea, this did have the side effect that many of the articles were essentially hijacked, resulting in pseudoscience topics being covered in a less than critical light. Despite considerable mainstream publicity and claims that it would grow to rival Wikipedia's size, it has so far remained quite small, having shrunk to somewhat less participation than RationalWiki.

WikiLeaks

WikiLeaks is the wiki that leaks things - like embarrassing or incriminating documents and correspondence which governments or corporations do not wish to be published. Although it uses MediaWiki as its content management system and so looks a bit like Wikipedia, WikiLeaks is not publicly editable. All content is compiled by professional jounalists, though anybody can submit evidence they want leaked.

Uncyclopedia

Uncyclopedia, "the content-free encyclopedia", is a parody of Wikipedia. Inevitably, for a collaborative work of comedy, the quality and humour varies markedly, from some patches of excellent satire to lame nonsense propped up with tired internet memes.

Encyclopædia Dramatica

Encyclopædia Dramatica is a "lulz"-related wiki, populated largely by teenage trolls. Article subjects include internet memes, users of various sites and forums, and their online dramas. In other respects, it's like a more obnoxious version of Uncyclopedia, complete with racist language and shock images. NSFW!

TV Tropes

TV Tropes catalogues and celebrates the many memes and clichés used in television, film and fiction. Entries for each "trope" link to many other, and come with an almost unlimited list of examples, since there is no notability barrier. It is almost impossible to visit the website for less than three hours.[2]

Crank wikis

These obscure and dubious sites are further off the public radar, although they are well-known among RationalWiki-editors, in relation to our site missions.

Conservapedia

Conservapedia, a very small project aiming to emulate Wikipedia from a socially conservative, American, and fundamentalist Christian point of view, involves several editors and administrators who had previously faced opposition to inserting their heavily biased point of view into Wikipedia articles.[3][4] Some appear under aliases, apparently in order to distance themselves from their prior involvement with Wikipedia[5] or possibly to fit in more with a common Conservapedia username scheme.[6] As a whole, the site appears to have an unhealthy fascination with Wikipedia and its supposed faults.[7][8] It is significant to note that many of what Conservapedia administrators consider faults in Wikipedia are often repeated, to a greater degree, on their own site. Just like Encyclopædia Dramatica, many of the editors are trolls. Unlike the trolls in ED, they are unwelcome, but it's hard to tell them apart from the real editors.

While being frustrated in their attempts to insert a respect for real world scientific facts at Conservapedia, the founders and most of the original editors of RationalWiki "met" each other.

A Storehouse of Knowledge

Just as Citizendium was a personal competitor to Wikipedia, A Storehouse of Knowledge was set up as a personal competitor to Conservapedia, promoting a "biblical worldview". Founded by (now ex-) Conservapedia user Philip J. Rayment in March 2009. It's like everyone wants their own pet wiki project. When will it end!?!?

CreationWiki

CreationWiki is, as the name would seem to suggest, a creationist wiki. Editing is by approved members only, and non-creationists, if they permitted access at all, are barred from contributing to articles. The number of active editors is very small.

Metapedia

Metapedia describes itself as "an electronic encyclopedia about culture, art, science, philosophy and politics", but could be more accurately described as a ranting space for neo-Nazis. It covers somewhat controversial subjects, such as why homosexuality is a mental illness, how race is certainly a real thing, and science proves people with dark skin are dirty animals, and how awesome Hitler was. It also seems to be all but dead. How sad.

RationalWiki

RationalWiki is a large and well respected very small project that was originally established to demolish the likes of Conservapedia from a rationalist point of view. It was founded by several editors (and administrators even, although briefly) who had previously faced opposition in inserting their heavily biased scientific point of view into Conservapedia articles.[9] Some appear under aliases, apparently in order to distance themselves from their prior involvement with Conservapedia,[citation needed] although most use the same user name they had there. Some have added more goat, in order to fit in with a common RationalWiki obsession.

While being frustrated in their attempts to insert a respect for real world logic and sense at RationalWiki, a small cabal of vandals and skeptics "met" here at RationalWiki and someday will destroy it from within from their secret namespace.[10]

See also

Wiki software

There's lots of wiki engines out there, but most public wikis of any note use MediaWiki. (The only one listed above that doesn't is TV Tropes.) This is why every wiki you can see looks like Wikipedia.

Footnotes

  1. http://stats.wikimedia.org/EN/TablesArticlesTotal.htm
  2. Munroe, R. "Tab explosion." XKCD 609.
  3. Roger Schlafly
  4. Ed Poor
  5. Conservative/kdbuffalo
  6. RobS/Nobs/Nobs01
  7. Examples of Bias in Wikipedia
  8. How Conservapedia Differs from Wikipedia
  9. See the Night of the Blunt Knives
  10. See, RationalWikiWiki and RationalWikiWikiWiki and maybe even RationalWikiWikiWikisWiki...


Welcome to the Wikisphere. Please proceed with caution:
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