| There is no RationalWiki without you. We are a small non-profit with no staff – we are hundreds of volunteers who document pseudoscience and crankery around the world every day. We will never allow ads because we must remain independent. We cannot rely on big donors with corresponding big agendas. We are not the largest website around, but we believe we play an important role in defending truth and objectivity. If everyone who saw this today donated $5, we would meet our goal for 2019. |
Fighting pseudoscience isn't free. We are 100% user-supported! Help and donate $5, $20 or whatever you can today with |
Pics of the day - Feb 14, 2011: Nightmode at Conservapedia
| In 2008, RationalWiki had a little tool to spot whether general editing at Conservapedia was allowed - or not (night-mode). The data provided let to this - rather uneventful - diagram: night-mode was switched on roundabout midnight and off early in the morning. A sysop who editing during the night could turn it off, as he stood guard against the vandals. | |
| The same update of the mediawiki software which killed Conservapedia:Guard Dog sadly disabled the RationalWiki's nightmode surveillance tool. So, since June 2010 I looked up the toggling of the night-mode myself, alas quite irregularly. At this time, the night-mode became more and more erratic. But as it only prevents the peons from editing, and doesn't affect Conservapedia's elite, the sysops never bothered about the detrimental effects. | |
| Then I started to watch the times during which account creation was allowed. | |
| This came handy, as Andy Schlafly developed a bizarre strategy: | |
The vandal is getting nervous as he is baited with the following strategy of sequencing access through these combinations:
etc., but never registration and editing both on at the same time. The vandal never set a sleeper account for himself, so when registration is off and editing is on, he can't vandalize, and when registration is on but editing is off, the most he can do is set up sleeper accounts. But he's getting nervous about doing that because he senses he's being watched. He merely set up one sleeper account earlier this evening ... from Uruguay with an obviously fictitious name! I blocked it. He's worried that his IP will be discovered. NEVER HAVE BOTH REGISTRATION AND EDITING ON AT THE SAME TIME for a while. There is no reason to. Andy /CP/211-240/0592d85440f3a0ec.htm baiting, watching the vandal | |
| But in the following account creation was generally turned off. | |
| Conservapedia chose to put up quite a number of loops to jump through for someone who wants just to make his first few edits. This is indeed something distinguishing it from wikipedia... | |
| Conservapedia tried to control vandals by limiting their ability to create an account. At the same time, Conservapedia was able to lift the night-editing restrictions, as no one but the trusted few could edit anyhow. | |
| Back to (a)normal: You have to be lucky to create an account, but at least you will be able to edit after registration, and don't have to wait.... |