Essay talk:Dalek on RationalWiki

Agreed. Recently, my CP visits have mostly been to see what crank they've been touting recently for ideas on RW articles. Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 23:09, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

I haven't cared in months and have been throwing stuff into CP space for a while now. Тy^Talk. 23:10, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

Good post. We should focus less on CP and more on deleting articles from RW _{Kidding, Ty. Kidding.} P-Foster (talk) 23:13, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

:) Тy^Talk. 23:14, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

I am a user who was drawn to RW by way of the Lenski Affair on CP as it was unfolding. However, it is true that CP seems to be waning (there were 18 edits from midnight (EST) to approx 1:30 PM today) and I feel it is time to move our focus. We still have WIGO:CP, which I enjoy thoroughly, so I won't be losing that. It just won't be as prominent, and that is fine. I can't wait to see the leaked CP mail declaring victory over us though. Aboriginal Noise ^{What the hell is that thing?} 23:26, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

I have had almost zero interest in CP quite some time and I would prefer it to have a much lower profile on the site. But that doesn't mean that everybody shares that view. People who are interested in Cp will continue to be interested in CP, and for them their main interest in RW is its connection with CP, and I don't imagine that that is going to change. In that sense the site is not an individual who can make a decision to ignore CP. "Our" interest in CP will only reduce when the majority of users lose interest in the topic.

In the end the site is a reflection of the interests and concerns of the members and as long as a large proportion of the membership is interested and concerned about CP then I'm afraid that it's not going to go away.--Bob^{Spring is sprung!} 07:56, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

I don't see how this "give it less prominence" suggestion is supposed to work out. As you admit yourself, there are still lots of members who have an interest in CP, and it's showing. TWIGO:CP features prominently in recent changes, which I suppose people view much more often than the main page, so I don't think removing the MP links will change anything. Next, I know some people are very annoyed with covering CP, and I agree with them that CP references should be kept out of mainspace and such. But I honestly don't see how it's holding the site back in any way. Saying that interest in CP keeps it from evolving is basically saying that members with an interest in CP are holding it back, and I completely disagree with that. Have a look at RationalWiki:How I found RationalWiki and see how many editors arrived here via CP - many of them started out at WIGOCP, but went on to editing the main space and improving the "serious" parts of the site as well. Even those who never move on beyond CP do not harm it, except for annoying the post-CP crowd, but you can't please everybody. Finally, I agree that the recent 403 business is signalling that CP is pretty much done and will possibly go out of business soon. If - or when - that happens, the problem you're seeing will sort itself out in a natural way, so there's no need to artificially speed things up by downplaying CP-related content. The site is doing fine with CP, it has established substantial content beyond it, and it's going to be alright when Andy's blog is done for. There's no need for a special policy beyond the content separation that's already in place. Röstigraben (talk) 09:36, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

As Rostigraben said, CP has provided the majority of our editors, and it'd be silly to cut that off. I came here from CP (took me a google search) and while WIGO:CP certainly makes up most of my edits, I feel that I've contributed positively to various parts of the site in different ways. Without a doubt CP is losing prominence, and we'll never go back to the glory days of '08; IMO the only thing really left to be done is dissect the corpse by releasing the remaining discussions and opening the cabal. But CP's still a big part of RW, and I think we need to leave it on the MP. Maybe reduce its prominence a bit. EddyP ^{Great King! Disaster!} 12:05, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

"Nothing Andy Schlafly could say or Ken could write could shock anymore"

I think that this quote from your essay is the most telling about the gap between longtime CP watchers and the random internet browser who can theoretically anytime still stumble onto Conservapedia for the first time (we'll see if the 403 situation changes that for good). That's how most of us found Rational Wiki in the first place, by reading something utterly outrageous on CP (for me it was the "Sudden Jihad Syndrome" page), and Googling to see if anyone was talking about how wacky they are over there. But of course we wouldn't have stayed if that's what it was all about. We came for the WIGOCP, and stayed for the other good stuff: the community, the humor, the anti-pseudoscience articles.

Even though the CP schtick wears thin for anyone who pay daily attention, anytime Andy gets a little national publicity there's the chance for more people to find this place as well. If we started to de-emphasize the focus on Conservapedia, this occasionally valuable source of readership would be no more. I personally can't imagine other pathways to finding about RationalWiki other than through its status as an anti-CP site. If anything, I'd like to see a self-conscious admission on the main page: "come for the CP lulz, stay for the better half!" Kind of like what evangelical churches do with homeless soup kitchens... Junggai (talk) 10:30, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

Jack Hughes (talk) 11:47, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

The question is, what with the 403 blocks can CP get national publicity anymore? EddyP ^{Great King! Disaster!} 12:08, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

Like I said, it remains to be seen how this will play out. I do have a feeling that even such a shining example of epistemic closure as Andy Schlafly could eventually get uncomfortable about such a huge percentage of the internet being blocked from even reading them. He is a very minor national figure to be sure, but he seems to enjoy the publicity and attention when it comes. By the way, we're not even sure at the moment if the recent spike in 403 blocks is purely intentional, or if what we've seen is their example of HCM and no one knows what the hell is going on. Junggai (talk) 12:14, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

I think that is very much the case. I'm sure that Andy has imposed the blocks as a temporary measure; ultimately both he and Ken need to be seen and screens will come down. If Ken feels that his Google rankings are being hurt then he will bleat about it to Andy.  Lily ^{Inspirate me.} 12:24, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

On the Popularity of CP at RW

I've said it before and I imagine I'll say it again at some point, but when CP dies, RW's decline won't be too far behind. You only have to look at this RWW list to see that a lot of the most active RWians put most of their effort into CP pages, with comparatively few into Mainspace: Kels, Ace, Genghis, Sid, Psygremlin, Nutty, LArron, DickTurpis, DeltaStar, Yossarian, Theemperor, MDB, Cracker, SirChuckB, Jeeves and Tetronian for a start. Then there are others, such as myself, DogP, P-Foster, who make lots of CP contribs but also large contributions elsewhere.

Now I'm not saying that all these editors will disappear once CP goes away, but it seems likely that their participation will drop. Certainly the only reason I've made so many MainSpace edits is out of a sense of "While I'm here anyway...". There aren't many editors with substantially more mainspace edits than CP edits, and hardly any with > 50% mainspace edits.

My suggestion some time ago was to turn RW into a kind of portal, or hub for rationality - linking to sites like CreationWiki and CP for the idiot POV and to actual scientific sites and papers for the facts, with helpful (and sarcastic) commentary where required. Instead, the opposite seems to have happened. The links to the irational side have been largely scrubbed, and a lot of the articles have been expanded with one-sided views: the Nuclear stuff is almost beyond saving. The Nuclear Power pages highlight the biggest problem: with such a small community it's easy for one person with an agenda to come in and introduce whatever they like. The talk pages for those articles were full of people saying they thought things were going too far, but there was never enough energy to stop Tweenk steamrollering everything.

As others have said elsewhere, the CP coverage on RW will die its own death eventually without anybody having to help it along. There's no need to hasten that moment, and hasten RW's own demise along with it. –SuspectedReplicant retire me 11:52, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

SR's hit it on the head. A lot of users come here to check WIGOCP and then go on to the rest of the wiki from there. EddyP ^{Great King! Disaster!} 12:10, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

I agree with SR as well - though on the nuclear issue I am on the other side - this place becomes active, and interesting, when there is a direct counterpart, especially if there is a laugh to be had. Whether it is Conservapedia, or Citizendium, or even Astorehouseofknowledge, it's in the respective Talk, WIGO and WigoTalk pages that Rationalwiki is alive. There are plenty of wikis out there and I have my doubts Rationalwiki will ever be a reference wiki of any kind. Every time there is a somewhat more serious issue, it turns into that HCM and not much rationality is to be seen (see nuclear). Editor at CP^{mały książe} 12:30, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

(EC)I'm generally optimistic about the site's post-CP potential, at least as far as survival is concerned. But it's true that RW's small userbase will make it pretty much impossible to become a genuine "Skeptic's Encyclopedia" (and there already is an excellent site for that, btw). Take Essay:Gravitation_demystified, for example - we don't have a single physicist who could tell whether this stuff is genuine science or bullshit. We'd need a lot of additional expertise in numerous fields to attain that status, and we'd most likely also have to sacrifice the non-encyclopedic stylistic elements like SPOV that make the site unique and interesting, but will invariably keep it small. As it stands, it's more about community than content, and I'd be very cautious about attempts to upgrade the latter at the expense of the former. If we had some new policy about purging or hiding CP-related content, I don't see how it would take the site to a new level of quality regarding content, but it might very well piss off enough editors to undermine the community as a result. I can understand those who are more ambitious about the site's development, it's just that it's important to stay realistic about the actual chances of that happening and the potential of our current userbase. Röstigraben (talk) 12:31, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

I suppose we have to wonder what we want RW to become? I'm withRosti in preferring community over content. Concernedresident ^{omg!!! ponies!!!} 12:47, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

Does anyone know if the 403 issue has had a knock on effect on us. I haven't been able to connect to CP for quite a while now but I'm still here for the other WIGOs and the sense of community in the Saloon Bar. I'm probably as productive as ever even without CP. Now, when EL left, that knocked my productivity for six! Jack Hughes (talk) 13:36, 5 April 2011 (UTC)