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1,021 bytes added ,  06:39, December 9, 2009
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It's probably worth noting that Colbert's "full of himself" act is an intentional parody of various right-wing political commentators (particularly Bill O'Reilly). I did find it funny when Andy discussed the number of viewers that this site receives. I'm sure that there are lots of people who prefer Conservapedia because it reinforces their worldview (woe to the poor youth that are brought up to think of it as unbiased alternative to Wikipedia), but I think that Andy seriously underestimates (or chooses to ignore) the large number of people who visit this site for personal amusement. Conservapedia was personally recommended to me as a "hilarious way to waste time" between meetings, and that is how all of my colleagues view it. Some of it's assertions are so extreme and hypocritical that many people believe it to be a satire in itself, comparable to Stephen's Colbert's act. Overall, the interview began relatively uninteresting, but improved when Stephen brought up the fact that a select few individuals get to decide on the "truth" of this website. Those who disagree get banned. What Andy described (i.e., individuals monitoring each other to ensure authenticity) does exist; it's called Wikipedia. It's true that Wikipedia is vulnerable to vandalism, but that is the price of having access to a wide breadth of knowledge with the benefit of self-monitoring. You can't have it both ways. [[User:Insufficient|Insufficient]] 01:33, 9 December 2009 (EST)
 
It's probably worth noting that Colbert's "full of himself" act is an intentional parody of various right-wing political commentators (particularly Bill O'Reilly). I did find it funny when Andy discussed the number of viewers that this site receives. I'm sure that there are lots of people who prefer Conservapedia because it reinforces their worldview (woe to the poor youth that are brought up to think of it as unbiased alternative to Wikipedia), but I think that Andy seriously underestimates (or chooses to ignore) the large number of people who visit this site for personal amusement. Conservapedia was personally recommended to me as a "hilarious way to waste time" between meetings, and that is how all of my colleagues view it. Some of it's assertions are so extreme and hypocritical that many people believe it to be a satire in itself, comparable to Stephen's Colbert's act. Overall, the interview began relatively uninteresting, but improved when Stephen brought up the fact that a select few individuals get to decide on the "truth" of this website. Those who disagree get banned. What Andy described (i.e., individuals monitoring each other to ensure authenticity) does exist; it's called Wikipedia. It's true that Wikipedia is vulnerable to vandalism, but that is the price of having access to a wide breadth of knowledge with the benefit of self-monitoring. You can't have it both ways. [[User:Insufficient|Insufficient]] 01:33, 9 December 2009 (EST)
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:Insufficient, it's true that we block a lot more often than Wikipedia, and we don't give vandals 3 or 4 chances as Wikipedia does.  However, for every vandal Wikipedia receives, there are a dozen legitimate users just waiting to undo the vandalism.  Here, we have comparitively few editors trying to hold back a tide of vandalism, many of it quite shocking and disgusting, on this site, which is designed to be family-friendly.  We ban users for vandalism, and we get a lot of it.  But we do not ban because somebody disagrees with us, and I can prove it. 
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:A user, BMcP, has done tremendous work contributing to our astronomy articles, but repeatedly put old-Earth viewpoints in.  He wasn't banned, though!  Instead, he and I reached an amicable agreement where we would treat old-Earth and young-Earth views in seperate sections, and that is how it is done now.  Conservapedia is full of examples of conflict resolution and fair treatment of users just like that. [[User:JacobB|JacobB]] 01:39, 9 December 2009 (EST)
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