Changes

According to an article published in the ''Los Angeles Times'' in 2007, RationalWiki members "by their own admission" vandalize Conservapedia. So early on, RationalWiki had a branding problem.<ref>[Simon, Stephanie (June 19, 2007). "[https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2007-jun-19-na-schlafly19-story.html A conservative's answer to Wikipedia]". Los Angeles Times. Archived from the original on May 5, 2019. Retrieved June 13, 2019.]</ref>  

According to an article published in the ''Los Angeles Times'' in 2007, RationalWiki members "by their own admission" vandalize Conservapedia. So early on, RationalWiki had a branding problem.<ref>[Simon, Stephanie (June 19, 2007). "[https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2007-jun-19-na-schlafly19-story.html A conservative's answer to Wikipedia]". Los Angeles Times. Archived from the original on May 5, 2019. Retrieved June 13, 2019.]</ref>  

=== Google data indicating that RationalWiki has a branding problem and RationalWikian commentary on this issue ===

== Google data indicating that RationalWiki has a branding problem and RationalWikian commentary on this issue ==

[[File:RationalWiki Google trends data 8-14-2022.jpg|thumbnail|right|800px|Google trends data for the keyword "RationalWiki" for the United States. The country that has the biggest amount of traffic to RationalWiki is the United States according to SimilarWeb (Please see the additional analysis below)]]

[[File:Google trends RationalWiki keyword worldwide 8-14-2022.jpg|right|800px|thumbnail|Google Trends worldwide data for the keyword "RationalWiki".]]

 

Seer Interactive is a big data digital marketing firm [https://www.seerinteractive.com/about/clients/ with many Fortune 500 clients].  

Seer Interactive is a big data digital marketing firm [https://www.seerinteractive.com/about/clients/ with many Fortune 500 clients].  

Snark is mocking in a sarcastic way. There is a logical fallacy called the [[Appeal to ridicule|appeal to ridicule logical fallacy]]. From a branding perspective, RationalWiki readers may have the perception that there is an incongruence between the name RationalWiki and a website that is overreliant on mocking. And because RationalWiki covers a lot of medical science topics, readers may feel uncomfortable with snark because it involves humor and the public doesn't usually associate science with sarcastic humor.  

Snark is mocking in a sarcastic way. There is a logical fallacy called the [[Appeal to ridicule|appeal to ridicule logical fallacy]]. From a branding perspective, RationalWiki readers may have the perception that there is an incongruence between the name RationalWiki and a website that is overreliant on mocking. And because RationalWiki covers a lot of medical science topics, readers may feel uncomfortable with snark because it involves humor and the public doesn't usually associate science with sarcastic humor.  

The RationalWiki Moderator Bongolian wrote at RationalWiki: "Over time, RW has clearly become less snarky over time, particularly in 2017 when the Scientific Point of View became favored over the Snarky Point of View when there was any issue over SPOV."<ref>[https://rationalwiki.org/w/index.php?title=RationalWiki:Saloon_bar&diff=2477600&oldid=2477597 Revision as of 06:33, 14 August 2022 (edit) (undo) Bongolian (talk | contribs) (→‎Rationalwiki should tone down on the snark.)]</ref> Historically speaking, atheists have a reputation for having an overreliance on mockery in terms of their rhetoric (see: [[Atheism and mockery]]).  

The RationalWiki Moderator Bongolian wrote at RationalWiki: "Over time, RW has clearly become less snarky over time, particularly in 2017 when the Scientific Point of View became favored over the Snarky Point of View when there was any issue over SPOV." <ref>[https://rationalwiki.org/w/index.php?title=RationalWiki:Saloon_bar&diff=2477600&oldid=2477597 Revision as of 06:33, 14 August 2022 (edit) (undo) Bongolian (talk | contribs) (→‎Rationalwiki should tone down on the snark.)]</ref> Historically speaking, atheists have a reputation for having an overreliance on mockery in terms of their rhetoric (see: [[Atheism and mockery]]).  

   

   

RationalWiki tripled its organic traffic from 2017 to late 2019 in a big way and then something happened to cause a massive decrease in organic traffic in November 2019 (See: [[RationalWiki and Google referral traffic]]). [https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&q=RationalWiki Google trends for RationalWiki] from 2017 to November 2020 indicates that worldwide Google searches for the keyword RationalWiki bounced between the range of 50-75 on the Google trends relative scale (not the number of actual searches) which presumably was due to websites with large amounts of web traffic mentioning RationalWiki periodically during that time. Starting in May of 2021, Google searches for RationalWiki have bounced between the range of 25 to 50 searches a month on the Google trends relative scale.  

RationalWiki tripled its organic traffic from 2017 to late 2019 in a big way and then something happened to cause a massive decrease in organic traffic in November 2019 (See: [[RationalWiki and Google referral traffic]]). [https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=US&q=RationalWiki Google trends for RationalWiki] from 2017 to November 2020 indicates that Google searches for the keyword "RationalWiki" bounced between a fairly narrow range between July 2014 to June 2020 (not the number of actual searches) which presumably was due to websites with large amounts of web traffic mentioning RationalWiki periodically during that time (see graph to the upper right in this section). Starting in June 2020, worldwide Google searches for the keyword "RationalWiki" saw a significant decline.  

The data does not support the notion that a change from a less Snarky point of view to a more Scientific Point of View made a big improvement in RationalWiki's brand awareness. RationalWiki's brand awareness stayed about the same from 2017 to November 2020 even though its organic traffic tripled during some of this time period. And then something happened around May 2021 or so that caused RationalWiki's brand awareness to go down.

The data does not support the notion that a change from a less Snarky point of view to a more Scientific Point of View made a big improvement in RationalWiki's brand awareness. RationalWiki's brand awareness stayed about the same from July 2014 to June 2020 even though its organic traffic tripled during some of this time period. And then, as noted above, something happened around June 2020 that caused RationalWiki's brand awareness to go down.

=== Additional analysis: Google data indicating that RationalWiki has a branding problem and RationalWikian commentary on this issue (with additional SimilarWeb data) ===

=== Additional analysis: Google data indicating that RationalWiki has a branding problem and RationalWikian commentary on this issue (with additional SimilarWeb data) ===