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Conservapedia:Community Portal (view source)
Revision as of 21:02, August 11, 2011
, 21:02, August 11, 2011→Discussion on reversion (from User talk:Jcw)
::::::::::::and [[Conservapedia:Administrator%27s_Guide#Civility|Conservapedia:Administrator's Guide#Civility]] states,
::::::::::::and [[Conservapedia:Administrator%27s_Guide#Civility|Conservapedia:Administrator's Guide#Civility]] states,
:::::::::::*''Conservapedia Administrators are expected to afford registered users the same standard of editing etiquette, decorum, and interaction you yourself, and the Conservapedia project as a whole, require and appreciate from others. You must be civil. No bullying.'' [[User:RobSmith|Rob Smith]] 16:06, 11 August 2011 (EDT)
:::::::::::*''Conservapedia Administrators are expected to afford registered users the same standard of editing etiquette, decorum, and interaction you yourself, and the Conservapedia project as a whole, require and appreciate from others. You must be civil. No bullying.'' [[User:RobSmith|Rob Smith]] 16:06, 11 August 2011 (EDT)
===a perspective from a pianist===
MaxFletcher and RobSmith both bring up some excellent points, which certain sysops would do well to listen to rather than dismiss out of hand. In my own experience, I've also had my integrity, goodwill, and even faith belligerently questioned numerous times on this site for daring to disagree on the smallest matters of detail in relatively benign articles -- I never even touched the more ideological corners of the site. The first few times this happened, I fought back; the personal nature of the attacks which some sysops past and present have engaged in and continuously engage in as ''modus operandi'' is hard to take lightly. Naturally, in the power dynamics of this wiki a sysop is allowed to personally attack a lowly editor with impunity, but any talkback from the attacked editor is worthy of a stiff block; my own logs reflect this fact. After this cycle had happened several times, I learned to be more, well, Christian about the whole matter, and to repay brutish speculation with an attitude of somewhat bemused grace.
But the bottom line is, I originally came here to help build an educational resource. My contributions, beginning in early 2009, are the best evidence of that. Now, it's hard to see the point. Conservapedia has simply not progressed as an educational resource in the last two years. The only "original" content consists either of high-profile projects so extreme as to be rejected by the mainsream conservative community, or nonsensical "parody" pages which form their own small feedback loop (since for whatever reason their author does not welcome suggestion or comment). The core elements of any encyclopedia are still sorely lacking, since this site has a way of driving off people who actually know what they're writing about. It has been reduced to a collection of fiefdoms essentially owned by the small pool of sysops left. The sysop "community," if you can even call it that, has been fighting amongst itself in the ugliest pettiest possible way. Obvious abuses are going on as a result of this fight between Conservative, RobSmith, and Karajou, with several innocent users being blocked for no reason other than as some sort of bizarre collateral damage. Most disappointing has been the absence of leadership in this from Andy, as he's the only one who could have defused this conflict.
My whole time here, I've heard it argued, "well, we're a 'conservative' project, and anyone editing here has to accept our zero-tolerance policy towards liberalism." In that case, I do not see why this project remains run as a wiki, when the editorial wishes of its administrators would be better served by the much simpler blog software. After all, on a blog you can moderate, delete, or even disallow reader comments, you can fix all of your errors without leaving a trace, and you don't have to put up with anyone changing or haggling over what you write. The wiki software was designed with goals diametrically opposed to this, namely to encourage transparency and collaboration, what Andy would call "the best of the public," and this guiding philosophy behind the wiki idea can only be subverted by clumsy abuse of some of its tools. Unfortunately, this is exactly what happens at Conservapedia with alarming frequency. You can object, revert, and engage in silly block wars with RobSmith all you want, but you ignore his attempts to instill sysop accountability at your own peril.
My two cents, for what it's worth. [[User:JDWpianist|JDWpianist]] 17:02, 11 August 2011 (EDT)