Conservapedia talk:Commandments

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Contents 1 Archives 2 Please expand on the meaning of "verifiable" 3 Two questions 4 Celebrating the Death of Inevitability! 5 Suggestion

Archives

• Archive 1
• Archive 2
• Archive 3

Andy Schlafly approved the uncited template being mentioned in the conservapedia commandments in a personal email to me.

Here is what I added:

In addition, Conservapedia's Manual of Style shows new Conservapedia wiki users how to flag an article or section of an article which is uncited.

Conservative 19:36, 29 July 2007 (EDT)

Please expand on the meaning of "verifiable"

I've encountered many editors who permit references to the bible. While faith is fine, a lot of the bible is unverified. For example, Jesus may have existed however it cannot be verified that he was the son of god.

Furthermore, the article on god claims "God exercises eternal and righteous judgment of the wicked in hell, because of an inherent problem in the human heart, namely Sin." After asking the editor for verifiable evidence of this he claimed the bible was a reliable source.

If verifiable is defined to include biblical references, so be it. If this is the case a commandment should be made specifying which texts are deemed to be truth and not, as this will resolve much debate.

Otherwise commandment #1 should be greatly expanded because observations made from the bible are quite simply not verifiable and many editors seem to believe they are. I should point out this is not an anti-christian statement, this is just not-pro-christian and nothing in the commandments claim this is a christian encyclopedia.Qc 22:20, 17 March 2008 (EDT)

Whilst not a direct answer to your question, you might find that my Essay: Accuracy vs. neutrality on Conservapedia goes a fair way towards answering that.

There's no point in trying to list all reliable sources, and not much point in just listing a handful. So there's no need for a commandment on this.

This is not an official response; just my opinion. Others might see things differently.

Philip J. Rayment 04:38, 18 March 2008 (EDT)

"It is therefore unreasonable to say that God's existence cannot be proved. God's existence indeed can be proved, depending on what evidence it takes to convince one. "

This quote from your article illustrates my point exactly. Conservapedia needs to set a standard for what constitutes valid "convincing" because every user is going to have their own personal threshold for accepting evidence. Saying evidence must be "verifiable" isn't enough because most editors don't even have an agreed upon definition of this term. Qc 14:05, 18 March 2008 (EDT)

Two questions

I have two questions that I've been wondering about lately. First: what are our (and should we have) guidelines on notability? It seems like we have no real way to judge what should be in the encyclopedia. (For instance, somewhere around here, and I wish I could remember the name now, there's an article about a high school band.) I know we don't like many rules, but guidelines would be very helpful. Suggestions?

Next: do we (and should we) have rules on conflict of interest? I think largely you know best about yourself, so it would be wrong to completely ban conflict of interest cases. But how do we know when something has gone too far, or when someone is censoring information about themselves?

I don't know if these will or should go on the commandments, but this is probably as good a place as any to discuss. HelpJazz 23:16, 17 March 2008 (EDT)

Notability is a very difficult one, in my opinion. I saw some of the debates on that on Wikipedia a couple of years ago. There was something there about not doing an article on every school, just "notable" ones. But then another of their guidelines on notability had to do with whether or not a book had been published on the topic. It wouldn't surprise me to find that many schools have had books published about them (certainly my primary school has, and probably my high school also, and the primary school in particular was only significant in a local sense).

Railway stations were another area of contention; probably not too many railway stations have had a book published specifically about them, but there's certainly plenty of books that give individual histories of each railway station. In a sense, you could define "notable" as anything that more than x number of people would be interested in looking up to find out more about it. But then there's not too much that would be off limits. And with an electronic encyclopedia where space is not that much of an issue, why not?

But I can also appreciate an opposing view that we don't want to much trivia and articles on insignificant topics. It's very hard to know where to draw the line.

We've said before that the best people to write articles are those that know most about them, and I don't see a problem with people writing about things close to themselves. However, what I would suggest is that if we are writing about something that we have a financial interest in, or about a person we are related to, etc. (again, it's hard to know where to draw the line), then we should declare our connection, i.e. make it known what our relationship to the topic (person, etc.) is. This will allow others, who of course can also edit the same articles, to judge whether or not we are being less than objective in our edits. That's a reason for using our real names too, of course!

Philip J. Rayment 05:47, 18 March 2008 (EDT)

I hadn't thought about that with notability. Seems like there probably isn't a good way to have specific guidelines, they must be kept general.

That's a very good idea on COI as well. Perhaps someone could create a template (along the same vein as {{copied from}}) to warn others of a potential conflict. It would obviously have to be on an honor system.

Hey, Help Jazz is my real name! My parents were famous jazz musicians and they named me when they were worried about the death of jazz as a genre... or something like that ;-) HelpJazz 16:14, 18 March 2008 (EDT)

Celebrating the Death of Inevitability!

When Richard Nixon boarded a United States Helicopter on the lawn on the White House on August 9, 1974, America celebrated the end of one of the most difficult periods in U.S. history.

Nixon's successor, Gerald Ford, summed up the situation nicely when he said, ""Our long national nightmare is over."

And so it was.

Now, nearly thirty-four years later, America again has cause to celebrate the end of a political career that would have spelled doom for the nation had that career been allowed to continue.

Hillary Clinton, self-proclaimed queen of "inevitability," was shoved back into her box this week, putting an end to her dream of being the first woman, aside from Monica Lewinsky, to have her way in the Oval Office.

Not since the days of Richard Nixon has there been an American political figure so utterly despised by so many Americans. It is worth noting that Richard Nixon had to become president in order to attain notoriety as Public Enemy # 1; Hillary Clinton achieved the same distinction by just running.

Which is quite understandable, given the fact that seventeen months of campaigning by a feminist socialist like HRC is more disagreeable than five years of abuse from the Nixon administration.

All in all, America has much to celebrate, as our "least favorite daughter" no longer poses a threat to the sanity and purity of the White House.

One might even say that, with the death of Hillary's fairy tale about inevitability, "Our long national nightmare is over."

Long live the death of inevitability!

Now, what to do about Barack Obama?

Suggestion

That blasphemy be explicitly forbidden in the CC rather than implicitly. Bugler 13:20, 14 June 2008 (EDT)

Why? Its already covered in commandment 3. HenryS 13:23, 14 June 2008 (EDT)

I would have said so too, but a banned user is querying its being forbidden, and a sysop has complained - quite extraordinarily, in my view - that a 3 day ban was 'excessive'. Bugler 13:28, 14 June 2008 (EDT)

Where are these conversations? Philip J. Rayment 09:57, 15 June 2008 (EDT)

Both on emails to me, which I shall copy to this page if you wish. Bugler 16:10, 15 June 2008 (EDT)

While we are at it, I think that 'disruptive behaviour' should also be added, whether it is in breach of 90/10 or not. Bugler

Thanks for the interesting suggestion. I wonder if it can be defined, however. Godspeed.--Aschlafly 16:15, 15 June 2008 (EDT)

The following reply to my question above was moved from my talk page to here to keep the conversation in one place

This is the email sent to me by a sysop protesting my ban of 3 days on a blasphemous user:

I think your block of user:DannyRedful was excessive. You should have just warned him, or else went with a shorter block length. probably no more than one day.

That is why blasphemy needs to be explicitly forbidden in the CC. Bugler 16:55, 15 June 2008 (EDT)

Did the sysop know that the offence was in an e-mail? I certainly had no idea until this message. I don't want you copying blasphemy to this page, so I'll take your word for now that it was bad enough to warrant a short block. But this raises the question of how much a private conversation should be used to justify a block. I know I wouldn't do so, but then I'm somewhat more forgiving than some. Philip J. Rayment 18:59, 15 June 2008 (EDT)

The offending phrase was not used in an email but on an article talk page - it was the sysop response that was in an email. Bugler 07:14, 16 June 2008 (EDT)

I asked where the conversations were, and you said that they were "both on emails" to you (my emphasis). If that's not the case, then my original question, about where the conversation was, stands. Philip J. Rayment 10:06, 16 June 2008 (EDT)

1. Dannyredful blasphemes on a CP page. 2. I block him. 3. I get an email from DannyRedful moaning about this. 4. I get an email from a sysop complaining that DannyRedful should not have been blocked for blasphemy. OK? Bugler 14:24, 16 June 2008 (EDT)

That still doesn't tell me where this happened. However, from other clues here, I'm gathering that it was here. Correct? And if so, why couldn't you have said so when I first asked? Nevertheless, I see your point, and would not object to a small change to the commandments; although neither am I convinced that it's really necessary. Philip J. Rayment 02:48, 17 June 2008 (EDT)

DannyRedful was a sock of two other users anyway. DanH 14:27, 16 June 2008 (EDT)

JecklynH was the name of one of his socks, suggesting a "two-faced" approach. I looked at his edits, and apart from the blasphemy there was some mild foul language attached to it, like Conservapedia is relegated to street level. He can come back with an apology first, I would think. Karajou 14:30, 16 June 2008 (EDT)