Debate:Where do you personally look for facts and information on topics "When did Brahms live" or "Why did Monet paint grainstacks?"

Does anyone here seriously look to Conservapedia as a source of factual information? Are there any specialized topic areas in which an outside commentator might say "Conservapedia's articles on X are better than Encarta's?"

My own answer is: if I'm interested in something, I try to formulate a good Google query that's likely to turn up something I'm interested in. (Sometimes that requires lateral thinking). I then use Google and examine the first twenty or so results. If Wikipedia is among them, yes, I tend to read Wikipedia first as a good overview and orientation. Anything important to me I cross-check. Often I find the Wikipedia article unsatisfying and find that one of the other Google hits is better.

So far, I haven't found any reason actually to use Conservapedia. If, for some reason, I needed to find out about a topic in one of Conservapedia's pet areas... like vaccination, or baraminology, I might use it as an entry point into information about minority views on controversial points... mostly because working on Conservapedia has brought these topics to my attention. But that hasn't happened yet.

Conservapedia may be able to survive as a sort of group blog, but I don't think it will become an encyclopedia—even a specialized encyclopedia—until people start saying "Go to Conservapedia for information about X." Even in the case of creationism, CreationWiki appears to be a much better source than Conservapedia; my impression is that creationists are trying to use Conservapedia to publicize creationism, but not to produce an "encyclopedia of creationism" (that role being better filled by CreationWiki). Dpbsmith 09:12, 8 April 2007 (EDT)

P. S. Johanne Brahms (no Conservapedia entry), Birth: May 7, 1833 in Hamburg, Germany Death: April 3, 1897 Encyclopedia of World Biography, 2nd ed. 17 Vols. Gale Research, 1998. Obtained online courtesy of my public library.