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See also : How Conservapedia Differs from Wikipedia

Why is registration necessary?

Conservapedia discourages anonymous contribution, preferring to lend accountability to our articles by requiring users contribute with an account, based on their real name (first name, last initial).

Does Conservapedia have a conservative bias?

Conservapedia is up front about our beliefs and our politics - obviously. Despite this, some might say we have a bias towards the truth. To those who have gone to public schools and been inundated with mainstream media their whole life, this may seem like a strong conservative bias.

Why does Conservapedia have articles on non-political topics?

Obviously, liberal bias can creep into Wikipedia's articles on subjects in religion, politics, philosophy, history, culture, and law. It can also appear in articles in science (evolution, for example), or medicine (the effects of abortion).

But there are additional problems with Wikipedia which Conservapedia addresses. For example, many articles on Wikipedia are excessively long, providing extraneous detail that can muddle a subject. Conservapedia offers concise, informative articles. Readers who wish to explore a subject more in-depth are free to enroll in Conservapedias courses for home schooled students, but we do not have a whole courseworth of material on every subject.

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Wikipedia is helpful

Aschlafly said: Instead, I know of no evidence that Wikipedia has helped a single student in any meaningful way.

If you google calciumcarbonat, what's the first article to appear? Of course, wikipedia's. Therefore, countless of students looking for certain chemical compounds got instant information by wikipedia - most of the articles are as helpful as the one on CaCO₃.

In fact, nowadays it's hard to imagine any student of chemistry who didn't use the help provided by wikipedia....

ComedyFan 18:12, 11 December 2009 (EST)

Also, if you want specifics about math, Vitali Set. Hessian Matrix. Tridiagonal Matrix. Homogeneous coordinates. Hilbert Space. Fermat's factorization method. Error function. Need I go on? These are just a few of the many topics that I learned about from Wikipedia. I have found these articles to be clear and explanatory to me. What part did you have trouble understanding? Where are the Conservapedia versions?EdmundG 18:53, 11 December 2009 (EST)

Yup, many students from numerous countries use Wikipedia every day to learn about different topics. I've used it for everything from solving minor curiosities to learning about statistical concepts. However, Andy has made it clear that Wiki articles are above his head (too many words), and as a result NONE of us are allowed to learn anything from it. A solid argument, indeed. Insufficient 22:18, 11 December 2009 (EST)

Congratulations on crossing the line into personal insults. JacobB 22:20, 11 December 2009 (EST)

Well he did say that they were not "concise and clear" enough for him.EdmundG 23:25, 11 December 2009 (EST)

Not sure whom you're quoting, but I said Wikipedia is not concise and clear enough to help students in a meaningful way. And I've personally taught nearly 200 students and helped them get into good colleges and win scholarships. "Insufficient" insults me and talks big, but gives no specifics. I wonder how many students he's helped, and to what extent. Maybe he'll tell us.

The unfortunate reality is that many Wikipedia editors are more interested in concealing information from viewers, such as the harm caused by abortion or the flaws in evolution, than actually helping anyone.--Andy Schlafly 23:35, 11 December 2009 (EST)

A case in point is Wikipedia's article on CSS, i.e., cascading style sheets. When I tried to put in three simple examples, the information was removed on the grounds that I was providing "how to" information which should only be in Wikibooks. Apparently the article on CSS should be on every aspect of it other than facts such as bold formatting is obtained by entering font-weight: bold; into a style tag. --Ed Poor ^Talk 12:43, 12 December 2009 (EST)

I find Wikipedia very clear and concise and it helped me study for my exams and has since helped me in my work. From speaking to colleagues and students at the University I work at I believe it is of great benefit to those who use it as an educational tool. I believe that your disagreement with some of its articles has biased you towards disregarding the entire website.--Nick 23:15, 11 December 2009 (MST)

But Wikipedia is not just politically related articles (although Conservapedia seems to be). Sure there are articles on abortion and evolution, but there are also hundreds of articles on mathematics. Just because you disagree with the views represented in some of the articles doesn't mean that the entire site is worthless.EdmundG 23:58, 11 December 2009 (EST)

You're right that there may be some articles free from liberal bias, simply because it would be difficult to insert, but you'd be surprised how pervasive it can be. Obviously, all history, religion, philosophy, and politics articles are susceptible to bias, but so are science articles (evolution being a prime example), personal biographies, etc. For example, it might be hard to imagine how an article on Isaac Newton could be liberally biased, but that's because we've been so inundated with liberal bias we don't even realize it! I didn't know that Newton was a devout Christian, or that his insights came from the Bible, until I came here. I didn't know that the triangular trade never even existed until I came here. And I didn't go to public school - I have sixteen years of Catholic schools under my belt.

The point it, liberal bias can creep into almost any subject. JacobB 00:03, 12 December 2009 (EST)

The reason you didn't know triangular trade didn't exist until you came here is because it did exist. I've never heard of anyone except Mr. Schlafly deny this, and I'm curious as to why he thinks it didn't. DanielA 07:53, 12 December 2009 (EST)

Also, Wikiepdia states quite clearly that "In the 1690s, Newton wrote a number of religious tracts dealing with the literal interpretation of the Bible." I don't see any whitewash there. DanielA 07:55, 12 December 2009 (EST)

Another science example you might have mentioned-- Relativity. If you only read Wikipedia, you're not getting a complete or accurate picture at all. I had never heard about the flaws in Relativity before I came here. DanielPulido 00:09, 12 December 2009 (EST)

And as for your example, on math articles, even if there is no liberal bias in the wikipedia article, Conservapedia is the better reference. For example, the average student looking up the fundamental theorem of calculus, something every student should know by the time they finish high school, doesn't benefit from being told that it is a weaker form of the generalized stokes theorem, something students couldn't understand until the final year of a math bachelors. We keep our articles concise and informative, not bloated with confusing and unnecessary information. JacobB 00:06, 12 December 2009 (EST)

Well put, Jacob. The math articles on Wikipedia are not good educational resources. They don't earnestly teach. In their best light, they merely try to show off.

And thanks for Daniel's observation. As George Orwell said, "all issues are political issues." Liberal bias does creep even into math, as illustrated by the Wikipedian resistance to recognizing the concept of elementary proof, and how the Axiom of Choice has traditionally been disfavored.--Andy Schlafly 00:12, 12 December 2009 (EST)

Is there something particularly Conservative about an elementary proof? Also, correct me if I'm wrong but didn't George Orwell also say, "Political language - and with variations this is true of all political parties, from Conservatives to Anarchists - is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind." Captain2obvious 00:47, 12 December 2009 (EST)

Orwell's quote criticizes the conservative party. I also criticize the British Conservative Party! As to elementary proofs, there is "something" liberal about denying its significance. Liberals like to try to use math and science in deceptive ways to pull people away from the Bible. The concept of the elementary proof rains on their parade.--Andy Schlafly 20:21, 12 December 2009 (EST)

I went to a super liberal community college in Mass and they didn't allow us to use Wiki as a siting source because it's open source. We used databases with professors. Sorry Conservapedia, you lose on that count too. Now, if it's original source you want, you can find that on Wiki. It's a good place to start your research. I imagine that in some instances that's true for this site as well.

Dear Aschlafly, you made the claim that - to your knowledge - not a single student was helped in a meaningful way by wikipedia. To change your perception of wikipedia, one counterexample should be sufficient, and a couple of students have given such examples in this thread. Of course, each example is an anecdote - that's the very nature of counterexamples :-)

FrankC aka ComedyFan 09:57, 12 December 2009 (EST)

Which anecdote did you find credible? I'm seen some claims but found them lacking in specifics, and thus I did not find them to be credible.--Andy Schlafly 20:21, 12 December 2009 (EST)

I guess our differences come down to whether having more information is a good thing. Personally, I find the math articles on Conservapedia to generally be incredibly lacking. If all you want is a definition of a term then sure, a one sentence article is acceptable, but if you actually want to learn, it is near worthless. Imagine if the article on George Washington only said "George Washington was the first president of the United States. He was in office from 1789-1797". Sure it tells you who he was, but it doesn't tell you why he was significant. It doesn't show you how he fits in with history as a whole. The problem is that many of your articles define the term, but the fail to provide any elaboration. If you never make connections between topics, then you're no better then a dictionary.

The student may not understand everything in the article but that's not the point. I certianly don't understand all of the math articles on Wikipedia. I am not everyone. Encyclopedias are written for a broad audience. Some people will understnad only the basics, while other people will easily understand everything. Why deny information to the people who could use it? For that matter, there are many articles I understand and benefit from which I never would have understood a couple years ago. Should we really censor the articles just for the sake of my middle school self?

Looking at your example of Fundamental theorem of calculus, Your article contains the defintion of the thoerem, but that's it. It's suitable for a first year calculus student cramming for a test, but it doesn't help them learn. It doesn't tell them the intuitive basis behind the thoerem. It doesn't tell them the applications of the formula. It doesn't even try to generalize or connect it to other topics.

Seeing as you apparently think this is a good thing, I guess there's no real way for us to ever be on the same page. Good luck on Conservkitionary. EdmundG 22:43, 12 December 2009 (EST)

Edmund, proper grammar is "no better THAN a dictionary," not "no better then a dictionary." But we're obviously teaching and learning and not trying to be a dictionary, so your point remains unclear.--Andy Schlafly 09:15, 13 December 2009 (EST)

Edmund. As a general rule, we try to be concise. But I don't think anybody is trying to say that none of our articles need expansion. We welcome any substantive addition that you may have up your sleeve. --Ben _Talk 09:24, 13 December 2009 (EST)

Aschlafly, what's your criterion for being helpful? You wrote earlier ComedyFan, I've personally taught nearly 200 teenagers, and 10 or 100 times as many have benefited from our materials here. Take a look at the page views on my lectures. They are in the many thousands for each lecture. Being top in the google ranks indicates that wikipedias's page on - for instance - calciumcarbonat was visited many times. So many people benefited from this material, ergo wikipedia is helpful.

Of course, you can always change your definition to: being helpful means leading your readers to reading the Bible, but then I'd accuse you of moving the goalposts.

And for your statement How many lectures does Wikipedia have? Zero. How many model answers? Zero. In fact at this moment the right answer is 11,716 : While there are no lectures and models answers on en.wikipedia.org, the wikimedia foundation (which includes wikipedia) has a whole project just to set learning free - en.wikiversity.org

FrankC aka ComedyFan 08:58, 13 December 2009 (EST)

Frank, I haven't seen a substantive edit by you here yet. I had to revert your only non-talk edit (to Kurt Godel) because, as often seen in edits by Wikipedians, your edit added verbosity in a way that obscured the concise point. Wikipedians seem to insist on making professors look better than they are or were. Your style may fit well in the Wikipedia culture. But as I said, I'm not aware of anyone helped by it.--Andy Schlafly 09:12, 13 December 2009 (EST)

So, your definition of helpful is: something is helpful if I'm aware of it being so. Then open your mind, google "thank you wikipedia", and find people reporting how wikipedia helped them. Afterward you may still chose to ignore this information... FrankC aka ComedyFan 09:24, 13 December 2009 (EST)

I googled "thank you Budweiser" and received nearly 40,000 hits. Do you think that proves that beer is helping people? Certainly not. If you think Wikipedia is helping so many people, then why can't you provide merely one clear, specific, and unequivocal example?--Andy Schlafly 09:32, 13 December 2009 (EST)

Wikipedia has helped me many times learn many new things. It's also helped me with collaboration skills. I'm sure the same can be said for many others. Would it have hundreds of thousands of contributors and millions of readers, as well as millions of dollars in donations, if no one found it useful? The invisible hand indicates it is quote educational. DaveC 09:46, 13 December 2009 (EST)

(EC) Funny, I googled "thank you Conservapedia" and received less than 900 hits. It's not about numbers, you have to read the entries. But for a clear, specific, and unequivocal example  FrankC aka ComedyFan 09:48, 13 December 2009 (EST)

(EC) Beer companies have even greater revenues, but that doesn't mean they are helpful. Your lack of specifics fail to persuade, Dave. Facebook is perhaps the best analogy: it is more popular and has far higher revenues than Wikipedia, yet at least one study shows it is correlated with lower grades by users.--Andy Schlafly 09:50, 13 December 2009 (EST)

I'm not sure comparing an encyclopedia to a beer company or a social networking site is terribly practical, but no matter. I have my personal anecdotes about Wikipedia, you have your personal anecdotes about Conservapedia, neither, I guess, is a reliable source. Now, would you say Encyclopedia Brittanica is also useless because I can't prove it helped anyone get into college, nor does it have lectures or model answers? Now I'm curious. If how many students something has helped get into college is the sole criterion, then the public school system is the big winner there. Are you endorsing that now? DaveC 09:56, 13 December 2009 (EST)

Obviously any benefit would be offset by the harm. Public schools have produced over 30 million illiterates and wastes many billions of dollars a year, so you're barking up the wrong tree there.

Wikipedia is comparable to Facebook, and it's shown to hurt grades rather than help them. The only specific anecdote provided here for Wikipedia (after several requests) is from a 2007 claim by a European that Wikipedia somehow helped him pass some basic exams. Meanwhile, there are compelling, undeniable examples of harm caused by Wikipedia. In addition, just check out how Wikipedia-supporters like you and ComedyFan contribute here: as far as I can tell, nothing of substantive value. Hopefully that will change, but it's a familiar pattern by Wikipedia types.--Andy Schlafly 12:48, 13 December 2009 (EST)

Reading this, it seems to be apt to quote Stephen Colbert who said to you during the interview I want to create my own reality the way you are. There, Colbert will fail, I'm afraid. FrankC aka ComedyFan 13:08, 13 December 2009 (EST)

Frank, the more you talk, talk, talk in a silly way, the more you illustrate my point about your Wikipedia being a waste of time.--Andy Schlafly 13:29, 13 December 2009 (EST)

Just a note to anyone still following: I got blocked for a couple of days for my dissent in this board. The reason given was "liberal name calling," though I have yet to determine what name I called and where I did so. It seems that the majority on this website have no problem ridiculing those who differ in opinion (see evolution syndrome), but they certainly can't take it when it's returned in kind. I had really hoped to contribute to the discussion on Orwell, but couldn't because of my removal...I really hope the irony of that isn't lost on anyone. Either way, I'd rather be blocked for dissent than embraced for compliance. But thank you Jacob, you are always so helpful at proving the points I am trying to make. Insufficient 15:35, 13 December 2009 (EST)

Oh, and way back (at the beginning of my block), Andy accused me of "talking big." I would just like to point out that HE is the one claiming to represent all Wikipedia users, saying that nobody has benefited from it in a meaningful way. I am merely trying to represent my own voice. And yet I am the one accused of talking big? Ridiculous. Also, I have nothing to personally gain from the defense of Wikipedia (I have invested no time or money into its creation), whereas Andy has a vested interest in slandering the competition, making his opinion biased from the beginning, and thus meaningless in this discussion. Andy keeps demanding "specifics, specifics!" But you know what? I don't need to prove myself to you. If the "liberal" statistics were good enough for my professor, then I couldn't really care less if you disagree. Insufficient 15:43, 13 December 2009 (EST)

If the "liberal" statistics were good enough for my professor, then I couldn't really care less if you disagree. See our page on professor values. JacobB 17:08, 13 December 2009 (EST)

I like how most of your arguments revolve around distrust in experts. You can think whatever you want of my professor's values, but he, like myself, has no vested interest in Wikipedia. Administrators on this site on the other hand, have a strongly vested interest in discrediting it (it is, after all, the competition). Therefore, your opinions are far more biased than my professor's. Insufficient 17:26, 13 December 2009 (EST)

This is absolutely ridiculous. You repeatedly insist that noone has ever been helped by Wikipedia, despite the fact that people have testified on this very page multiple times on how Wikipedia has helped them. What do you think? That we're some sort of conspiracy to promote Wikipedia? Are you really so committed to your belief that Wikipedia is useless that you also believe that anyone who says otherwise must automatically have an ulterior motive? Debate is so easy when you simply dismiss everything that anyone else says. It's funny how you seem to know whether I have learned something or not better then I do myself. Generally, a theory of mind is developed by the age of three.

I also like how you responded to my arguments by pointing out a typo. I suppose that means that you don't actually disagree with my characterization of the dispute. The problem is that what you call "concise", I call "lacking in information".EdmundG 18:07, 13 December 2009 (EST)

"Generally, a theory of mind is developed by the age of three." Best quote of the whole discussion, Edmund. I find it ridiculous that Andy thinks he knows us better than we know ourselves, and yet he has the audacity to accuse me of "talking big." I can't remember if you were around for the evolution debate, but they played by the same tactics there as well. They had a ton of questions that they believed could not be answered, and then dismissed the answers that I gave without reason. Also, I am confused by the seemingly contradictory arguments that I am getting from this group. On the one hand, Andy is trying to use the number of students that he has helped to give himself some sort of authority (though I have yet to determine its relevance in this discussion). On the other hand, Jacob is saying that professor values are not reliable. This seems to take the wind out of Andy's sails, because the "help" he gives students is also dependent on "professor values." Insufficient 19:46, 13 December 2009 (EST)