Essay:Why Conservapedia Should Stay the Way it Is
From Conservapedia
This essay is an original work by Hojimachong. Please comment only on the talk page.
I first joined Conservapedia on March 7, 2007. My first edit, besides to my userpage, was to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad [1]. I was soon made a Systems Administrator by Andy. I outrank RobS, Tsumetai, Niandra, TK, Ed, and Richard. I was excited about the idea of Conservapedia; what could be better than an unbiased encyclopedia, a "fresh start" from Wikipedia?
I soon became an editor in good standing, as far as liberals go. That means I didn't have a secret blog outlining my evil plans, or a program which embedded obscene text into the CP logo. I didn't share the ideology of most of the other sysops and users, though being the honest and upstanding person I am, I decided to contribute. I knew that some people actually believed what was said here, and if they were going to accept these articles without question, I should at least make sure that they are based on truth, and factual.
It was no secret that I was a liberal. Some people didn't like me for it, and the evidence for that is a "Things I've Been Accused of Being" list on my user page. Interestingly, none of them are true, except for the last four. I quickly began to loose faith in the mission of Conservapedia; the activity I was observing was far from "Fair and Balanced", but rather full of censorship. Supreme Court rulings, articles in peer-edited journals, examples of investigative journalism, etc. were all dismissed as "liberal opinion", and therefore unfit for inclusion in the "encyclopedia". However, whenever an obscure creationist who claimed to be a biologist said something on the record to AiG, it was quickly inserted as undeniable, sourced, indisputable fact. Many good editors were blocked for inserting "liberal opinion as fact", an almost laughable offense.
After much debating (read:"arguing"), I eventually settled on counting a "win" as the article being locked and protected, and the locking sysop running away from conversation. This happened quite often, as seen on Evolution, Dinosaur, and Charles Darwin. The bias of CP was apparent as well; after a particularly nasty edit war, I was warned against edit warring by CPWebmaster. Though I pointed out to him that the other editor involved (Conservative) was equally guilty, and guilty of the offense of refusing to engage in any kind of conversation, CPWebmaster still refused to warn Conservative about edit warring. I was also accused of being part of a cabal, though this was later rescinded; I soon found out that there was an active cabal involving the uber-neocons of Conservapedia.
I finally settled on this; most people won't change their ideology the way somebody intends, and often has the opposite effect. Some people choose to believe in a single unproven book, despite the tens of thousands of scientifically supported books, journal articles, and experiments which completely discredit it. Some people also choose do hate people for who they are destined to love, based on this book, and disregarding the much more prevalent message of tolerance and love. The mission of Conservapedia is obviously to make more people socially conservative; However, I have become even more liberal since the beginning of my time using Conservapedia.
The stated goal of Conservapedia is to be "neutral to facts", with the final goal of being an "educational resource". However, any article here which even mentions a topic vaguely relating to science will be drenched with irrelevant creationist views. Take, for example, the Neanderthal page. Setting aside biases, I gain the impression from this page that brain size influences intelligence (a basic factual error), and that Neanderthals are scientifically classified as Homo sapiens neanderthalensis, another basic factual error.
Since people will stick to their ideologies, why not please both groups of people? The vast majority of people will come to Conservapedia to laugh over ridiculous content housed here. A small group will register and edit, actually believing what is said. As long as the content is kept censored and biased in an unbelievably ridiculous fashion, both groups will be happy.
--Hojimachongtalk 00:36, 15 May 2007 (EDT)
