Talk:Wikipedia

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The Wikipedia article was unprotected on 15:34, 25 March 2007 by Ed Poor (talk)

Sources

If you follow the link to Cecil DeMille's wikipedia entry you'll notice that the trivia section is gone ... you should be careful to use references that are constantly being updated as they might not always prove your point. Another case of being careful what you quote: here's an article saying 51% believe god created humans, 30% say humans evolved w/ God's help and 15% say we evolved w/o God. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/10/22/opinion/polls/main965223.shtml Polls aren't generally scientific and as shown by the edits to this entry you can find all sorts of different percentages for who believes what. Jrssr5 14:04, 11 March 2007 (EDT)

"The wikipedia entry accuses Conservapedia of having its own bias..." How ridiculous. How would a place called "Conservapedia" POSSIBLY have any sort of "bias"? (What's the wiki tag for 'sarcasm'?) --Sandbagger 16:22, 11 March 2007 (EDT)

The poll cited for belief by the US public in evolution needs to be updated. It's almost a decade old. Harris has one from 2005. [1] --Dave3172 18:46, 11 March 2007 (EDT)

Is there a more credible source for that 9% poll link?--Elamdri 01:57, 12 March 2007 (EDT)

The last two bracketed sentences in the first section should be removed as they are not consistent with a formal encyclopaedia entry. If there is not a consensus on this point, at the very least the spelling should be corrected. Also, it seems that as of 12 March 2007, Wikipedia has an article on Conservapedia which makes the second part of this article obsolete. User:treeman 12:22, 11 March 2007

"Controversy"

This page was unlocked to add facts, not alleged bias. There is an entire article about the alleged bias, it doesn't go in here. The "controversy" section is about bias. Additionally, parts of it apply only to the English Wikipedia, NOTHING is sourced, and the source I consulted right now suggests that the whole "Americans are majority" bit is wrong. Unless there is something incredibly important I'm missing here (say so!), I'll delete the section in a few minutes. --Sid 3050 16:09, 12 March 2007 (EDT)

I'm for deleteing it right now. Anything that can be written here can also be written on the bias article that already exists.MatteeNeutra 16:12, 12 March 2007 (EDT)
To appease those who insist wikipedia is biased, maybe we should include a link to Examples of Bias in Wikipedia in a "see also" section. Otherwise content like this will just keep reapearing and being deleted. MikeA 16:14, 12 March 2007 (EDT)
Done, and the link had already been added by the time I got there. --Sid 3050 16:22, 12 March 2007 (EDT)
There does not seem to be an article on wikiality.com, as a big proponent of truthiness, and gut thinking, I would consider adding this to the UNBIASED conservapedia.

"A large percentage" of homosexuals

C'mon. How many? Out of how many?

Wikipedia has 3,834,720 registered user accounts, of which 1,147 (or 0.03%) have administrative privileges, by the way.

And what does it mean to be a "supporter of homosexuality?" Is a company that says it does not discriminate against gays "supporting" homosexuality, for example? Dpbsmith 13:28, 14 March 2007 (EDT)

" and given by example are Sodom and Gommorah, who having gone after strange flesh, suffered the vengence of eternal fire. RightWolf2 13:29, 14 March 2007 (EDT)
Please, please do not use the story of Sodom and Gommorah as anti-homosexual support, since the story had nothing to do with that. --Dave3172 13:32, 14 March 2007 (EDT)
Touch not mine annointed, and do my prophets no harm. RightWolf2 13:29, 14 March 2007 (EDT)
Have you ever read the story, Dave? The story does in fact have to do with homosexuality. --<<-David R->> 13:33, 14 March 2007 (EDT)
I have, extensively. The story is not about homosexuality, but about hospitality. When the mob is described in the KJV, they are "both old and young, all the people from every quarter." The original Hebrew is anshei ha'ir, anshei S'dom, or the people of the city, the people of Sodom. Which means women and children were present, not a homosexual mob.
Further, remember that Lot offered the mob his daughters in exchange. If the men of Sodom were homosexuals, he would have known this and not offered up his daughters to them. He'd have offered up his son-in-law's, which he had the right to do under the customs of the time.
But most tellingly are the words of Ezekiel - (Ezek. 16:49-50) "Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy. They were haughty and did detestable things before me. Therefore I did away with them as you have seen." Nowhere does it mention homosexuality.--Dave3172 13:46, 14 March 2007 (EDT)
How about this: Genesis 19:5 - They called to Lot, "Where are the men who came to stay with you tonight? Bring them out to us so that we can have sex with them." If you look at any Bible version, it's pretty much the same thing. [2]
So, does that mean that a company that says it does not discriminate against gays "supports" homosexuality? Dpbsmith 13:37, 14 March 2007 (EDT)
Homosexuality scares me, are any of you guys homosexuals? --Leningrad Eight Past One, 11 April 2007CE (GMT)
Yeah, we don't want any of those guys on Conservapedia. On Wikipedia they even have a category full of gay users: [3] --USAisDoubleplusgood 21:43, 18 April 2007 (EDT)

What's wrong with using actual numbers?

I said that

Of approximately 3 million Wikipedia editors, about 250 of them [4] have posted on their user pages statements that they identify themselves as "gay."

RightWolf2, I've given the basis for both of these numbers. If you have better sources for the actual numbers, please cite and use them. If not, don't fall back on weasel words like "some" or "a large percentage." Dpbsmith 13:41, 14 March 2007 (EDT)

Bias against homosexuality

This article seems to have a very strong bias against homosexuality. The section about "Wikipedia and Homosexuality" is longer than the rest of the article. Furthermore, can anybody tell me why the homosexuality of "Essjay" it is of relevance to this article? --QuestionMark 13:44, 14 March 2007 (EDT)

It isn't. Dpbsmith 13:58, 14 March 2007 (EDT)
I assume it's the attempt to make Wikipedia look as bad as possible without repeating things from the Bias list. It should also be noted that most of these things most likely only refer to en.wikipedia, but that's not exactly new (see Bias article again) --Sid 3050 13:50, 14 March 2007 (EDT)
Check the history and the edit comments. It appears that I am a "liberal gay rights activist" because I wanted a source citation for what critics, specifically, talk about Wikipedia as having a "gay cabal," and because I prefer to say "250 Wikipedia editors" rather than "some" or "a large percentage" identify themselves as gay on their user pages. (Incidentally, just for the record... when I checked I counted 226, which I rounded up, and 3,834,720, which I rounded down.) Dpbsmith 13:58, 14 March 2007 (EDT)

Please don't revert multiple times

This is directed at user RightWolf2 Would you please discuss such enormous changes before simply reverting to your pov? Menkatron 14:00, 14 March 2007 (EDT)
I like your changes. Too many plants here from Wikipedia. RightWolf2 14:02, 14 March 2007 (EDT)

"Like conservipedia"

"Like Conservapedia, it is a wiki that is written and edited by its users."

Since Conservipedia is pretty much a rip of Wikipedia, is it in any way honest to use wording that would lead one to believe that conservipedia is a more established wiki than wikipedia? Opcn 14:54, 14 March 2007 (EDT)

RightWolf2, please back up your statements

Being Conservapedia doesn't mean that any opinion can be stated just because it's conservative.

With regard to:

Conservative critics of Wikipedia have commented the site appears to be dominated and misused by the homosexual movement as a propaganda vehicle for promoting homosexuality.

well, fine, but please cite a source so that any reader can judge for themselves what they think about these "critics," and see whether you've summarized their views fairly.

With regard to:

The Mediation Committee, Arbitration Committee, and number of site adminitrators contain a disproportionate number of homosexual members in comparison to demographic percentages within the Wikipedia Community

I personally have no idea how one would even begin to go about finding such a thing. Please give a basis for this statement. Dpbsmith 16:20, 14 March 2007 (EDT)

I'd leave him be, this article is hilarious! JamesK 16:27, 14 March 2007 (EDT)

RightWolf2, you gave http://www.wikipedia-watch.org/ as a citation to back up the statement that "The Mediation Committee, Arbitration Committee, and number of site adminitrators contain a disproportionate number of homosexual members in comparison to demographic percentages within the Wikipedia Community." However, that link goes to a page that contains neither the word "homosexual" nor the word "gay." Please provide a specific link to the page supporting the statement. Dpbsmith 16:36, 14 March 2007 (EDT)
This may be the cite he was refering to. http://www.wikipedia-watch.org/hivemind.html RobS 17:12, 14 March 2007 (EDT)

OK, it is pretty funny

RightWolf2, your latest edit gives the impression that you are counting "Heterosexual Wikipedians," "Male Wikipedians" and "Female Wikipedians" as homosexuals. (The cited source is [5]). Dpbsmith 16:47, 14 March 2007 (EDT) its not funny

Secret Revelations

I am a top-level administrator on one of the several non-English versions of Wikipedia. I can confirm that your concerns on severe liberal bias are indeed correct, as they have dogged Wikipedia from the very beginning of the project.
As a conservative, it felt that it was tougher in getting an admin position. As such, I have dedicated over 80 000 edits in removing all forms of bias against Western and Eastern civilization. Also, I made it easier for people to get to know christianity.
Several left-wing associations seem to influence on the organization of Wikipedia. Groups of freeware developers, members of the rationalist zetetique, libertarians in general, European socialists and American democrats, even anarchists, communists and freemasons seem to have a greater hold than the average conservative editor.
To deliver us from the utter control of sects, I am very pleased that you have begun the Conservapedia project. My prayer goes out to your very best success. Knight

Dpbsmith

This page is very interesting.

Wikipedia Page for this user

RightWolf2 17:01, 14 March 2007 (EDT)

This editors comments in this article are also interesting. Conservapedia RightWolf2 17:03, 14 March 2007 (EDT)


In response to the change from editor to user, I support using the term "editor." If I look up something on wikipedia, I use it. If I edit something on wikipedia, while I am using, more specifically, I'm editing it. But that's just my two cents. ColinR 18:23, 14 March 2007 (EDT)
Well, I decided the most accurate language is "people who have registered Wikipedia user accounts." I just changed it to "Of the people who have registered Wikipedia user accounts, 226 (as of 14th March 2007) users have chosen to place a marker on their user page identifying them as homosexual." Before anyone jumps on top of me, notice that I removed the percentage calculation, which I think is silly, and put the total number of such accounts into the footnote. Here's the diff in case anybody gets confused about who changed what. Dpbsmith 18:48, 14 March 2007 (EDT)
How about, "226 have outed themselves". RobS 18:57, 14 March 2007 (EDT)
Instead of "have chosen to place a marker on their user page identifying them as homosexual?" Sounds like an improvement to me. Dpbsmith 19:23, 14 March 2007 (EDT)
Meanwhile... with regard to the statement that
"The Mediation Committee, Arbitration Committee, and number of site adminitrators contain a disproportionate number of homosexual members in comparison to demographic percentages within the Wikipedia Community based upon materials posted to Wikipedia Watch,"
I still would like to know where this material is posted, since the linked page does not contain it. Or should the statement read something like this:
"The Mediation Committee, Arbitration Committee, and number of site adminitrators contain a disproportionate number of homosexual members in comparison to demographic percentages within the Wikipedia Community, according to comments made in IRC chat groups on the Wikipedia Watch website"
Dpbsmith 18:37, 14 March 2007 (EDT)
Nice, I like the change in language. ColinR 18:55, 14 March 2007 (EDT)

Mandatory Banning of Homosexual Wikipedia Editors

I would propose a mandatory ban of any Wikipedia editors who edit this site and have placed themselves in the homosexual category as these editors are inconsistent with Conservapedia's goals. Allowing them to edit here will bring this project under God's righteous wrath and doom it to failure. I will start a page on suspected homosexual editors infiltrating this site from Wikipedia. They should be banned on sight.

They should be identified and purged, along with all of their edits.

put away the unrighteous from among thee, for neither liars, nor murderers not fornicators, nor adulterers, nor sodomites shall inherit the kingdom of God, for without are dogs (homosexuals).

-- from the bible

RightWolf2 19:20, 14 March 2007 (EDT)

Is this one of those liberal parodies that is occasionally pointed to? --Mtur 19:22, 14 March 2007 (EDT)


Maybe we can put pink triangles on their user page while we're at it...God forbid someone out of the mainstream have a POV...--Dave3172 19:24, 14 March 2007 (EDT)

I think these are good ideas. It is nice ot have a place on the web not beng infiltrated by the homos**ual agenda.--Raytrotter 19:25, 14 March 2007 (EDT)

Ugh...please try to recognize sarcasm...--Dave3172 19:27, 14 March 2007 (EDT)
If I recall correctly, there have been serious requests to forbid non-conservative editors from editing article content. It gets kinda hard to distinguish parody and serious cases after a while. --Sid 3050 19:53, 14 March 2007 (EDT)
This is either a good work of sarcasm, or a bad idea. This is Conservapedia. Not anti-gayapedia. While mainstream conservative ideology condemns homosexuality, there are conservative homosexuals. If their edits fit in the commandments and are good edits, why should their sexuality matter? Censorship based on sexuality will just lead to other censorship. ColinR 20:02, 14 March 2007 (EDT)

And several homosexuals I know consider themselves Christian Conservatives. The basis for editing is following The Conservapedia Commandments. I would hate to see the point of a Wiki abolished just to exclude a certain group of people. --Hojimachongtalk 20:05, 14 March 2007 (EDT)


I have edited the page, sorry if I have overstepped the mark on my first hour on sysopts, but this comment on Homosexuals in Wikipedia is propganda if nothing else. B Republican

No worries. I can certainly understand not wanting to offend anyone at Wikipedia, particularly the homosexuals too much. I certainly hope not all of this sites articles are given the same treatment. RightWolf2 03:03, 19 March 2007 (EDT)

Ooops! Hatered against minorities is comming up? .... Paiting triangles to the talk page of people who are different? .... Hmmm... that reminds me to somewhat? Whom was it again who got a star sticked to the chest about 70 year ago? And who were this men doing that? Where they good or evil? Oh, now I remember: It was the Jews. The nazis were putting the Jew-Stars on their Chests. Is Conservapedia going to be a Nazipedia? If so, please tell so. Because then I will have to fullfill my duty as a good son of good and have the website reported to the national authorities. --Itsjustme 08:55, 20 March 2007 (EDT)

Encyclopedic Content & Gossip

I'm struggling with Aschlafly's definition of these terms when he insists on keeping this text in the article. --JamesK 10:02, 25 March 2007 (EDT)

Fully agreed. I tried to at least lessen the unencyclopedic gossip in the next edit, but in my eyes, the part I left in is not really needed. The cited article doesn't say who said those things or how many people argued against it. It could've been some random troll or vandal who made those statements. --Sid 3050 10:33, 25 March 2007 (EDT)
Another protection used to prevent actual debate.-AmesG 11:43, 25 March 2007 (EDT)
Yes, I begin to feel a slight resignation. --Sid 3050 11:52, 25 March 2007 (EDT)

Oh, JOY. I got the article locked. Good God, this is so incredibly stupid. But fine, whatever. *cough*

Andy, I promise not to touch the Wikipedia article anymore. AT ALL. I would like to apologize for removing the unencyclopedic, wrongly cited, and misrepresented gossip you call "factual material".

There. You won. Could you now unlock this thing so people can add more gossip factual information? --Sid 3050 11:52, 25 March 2007 (EDT)

Done. But remember to follow site policy when editing it.
The various official Conservapedia pages say:
  • We do not allow opinions of journalists to be repeated here as though they are facts.
  • Gossip is pervasive on Wikipedia. Many entries read like the National Enquirer.
  • We do not allow gossip, just as a real encyclopedia avoids it.
  • Edits/new pages must be family-friendly, clean, concise, and without gossip or foul language.
  • Everything you post must be true and verifiable.
Now... keeping that in mind, I ask you to consider a few things:
  1. "Were Wikipedia editors apologetic? No, Wikipedia editors savaged Seigenthaler afterwards on a Wikipedia talk page for publicly criticizing the falsehoods about him"
    • Show me how this is not gossip or the style of the National Enquirer.
    • Name a few encyclopedias that follow the "Did they do that? Noooo, they didn't!" form.
  2. "The Siegenthaler scandal was originally billed as a 'hoax', then 'controversy' and finally downgraded in its stable version to 'incident'."
    • Quick, point to the source.
  3. "Despite the damage to an innocent person and embarassment to Wikipedia's credibilty as a viable source"
    • Same as (1): Show me an encyclopedia that would write in that style.
  4. "the Siegenthaler scandal is considered by many internal Administrators as 'the best thing that ever happened to Wikipedia'"
    • Check the source. How many people consider this "the best thing that ever happened to Wikipedia"? How many of those are admins? Note how the guy who started that talk section (and thus coined the phrase) does NOT appear to be an admin.
    • When you have the number of admins that say this statement (or at least agree with the general motion), compare it to the total number of admins. Would you call the resulting ratio "many admins"?
  5. "catapulting the slander factory"
    • Check the source. Tell me where it says "slander factory". I was unable to find the term in the cited source AND the article the source discusses.
    • Assuming that the term is Andy's own brainchild, explain to me how it's encyclopedic and not gossip.
  6. "from the top 50 to the top 10 most visited websites"
    • Quick, point to the source.
  7. [quoted news article snippet]
    • The newspaper article apparently quotes TWO editors. Which ones? Were they admins? Well-established editors? Random trolls? What was the reaction to those statements?
    • The "typical comment" bit is the opinion of the journalist and is not proven or sourced in the quote or the article here. Slight clash with the opinion/fact rule and the first point I quoted in the box above, isn't it?
This is why I removed the two last paragraphs in my first try. In my second try, I left in the news quote and rephrased the intro sentence for it so it doesn't sound like the National Enquirer. I ask you now who stuck to the site rules and who did not.
But like I said: I won't touch the article anymore. And assuming that you actually took a few minutes to look into the points I mentioned, you would understand why I'm extremely bitter right now. Your "remember the rules" bit is only adding insult to injury.
But thanks for the unlock. :) --Sid 3050 17:14, 25 March 2007 (EDT)

Larry Sanger

It's embarassing to note that Wikipedia co-founder Larry Sanger is called Larry Sangers right in the first sentence -- can someone please correct this? It seriously damanges the credibility of the entry. Boethius 11:46, 25 March 2007 (EDT)

No it doesn't. --JamesK 11:50, 25 March 2007 (EDT)
I don't know about you, but when I see factual errors and typos in the very first line of an encyclopedia entry, I am skeptical of what follows -- how much care has been taken, I wonder to myself .... Boethius 11:52, 25 March 2007 (EDT)
I think what James is saying is that the entry has little credibility any way. At least, that's how I interpreted it. Myk 11:55, 25 March 2007 (EDT)
Ah -- well, if that's the case, then I agree Boethius 11:56, 25 March 2007 (EDT)
Thank you, yes, I'm always concise :) Sorry if it was rather terse. --JamesK 11:59, 25 March 2007 (EDT)

Er, he's not exactly a co-founder. There's a bit of controversy about that. And I'm a big fan of his. Better to say that Larry Sanger has been called a "co-founder" but that Jimbo says Sanger was not one. --Ed Poor 15:32, 25 March 2007 (EDT)

Actually, it's a nice, clear polar disagreement. Sanger, or rather Citizendium's FAQ page, calls him "Wikipedia co-founder Larry Sanger." Dpbsmith 16:55, 25 March 2007 (EDT)
Unprotected. Fixed Sanger's last name.
Not sure if I was correct to move 'pornographic' to a note. It's a borderline thing. I wouldn't let a 12-year-old boy see his portal, so I'm inclined to call it port - but then again, I'm of the "if it makes you sin pluck it out" school of thought. ;-) --Ed Poor 15:41, 25 March 2007 (EDT)

If Sanger and Jimbo disagree, then we should say that they do. Is Sanger still making an issue of it? --Ed Poor 17:02, 25 March 2007 (EDT)

Here's the chat logs when Wales first brought it up. [6][7] RobS 15:12, 26 March 2007 (EDT)

article

Wasn't this article re-created to put information about wikipedia, not have it be a list of "problems". And wouldn't some of this be considered gossip under the Conservapedia Commandments? Jrssr5 16:10, 26 March 2007 (EDT)

Yeah. So? *shrugs helplessly* --Sid 3050 16:42, 26 March 2007 (EDT)
It's probably okay to begin by listing problems. After all, Conservapedia is a conservative wiki-response to Wikipedi's liberal bias and all around chaotic nature.
But, yes, this a chance for us all to write an objective article on Wikipedia. We needn't apply NPOV here, I assume. And since I'm user #188 at Wikipedia, I have a treasure trove of memories working with it for 5 1/2 years.
I climbed up from the bottom, to Developer, Admin, and "first elected bureaucrat" - then slipped down the same ladder to "on probation for tendentious edits". I co-sponsored the first ever North American meeting of Wikipedians with Jimbo in Boston, used to run the mailing list, etc. *yawn* Been there, done that, got the tee-shirt.
But what is the world's 30th most popular website doing for us all now? --Ed Poor 17:03, 26 March 2007 (EDT)
We get that you're bitter (or that you simply like to brag), but Andy stated that we don't need two articles about Wikipedia's shortcomings and errors. That's why the first instance of this article was vaped and got redirected to Examples of Bias in Wikipedia. This was once supposed to be a factual article about Wikipedia, not what Theory of evolution is to the actual theory of evolution - a piece that exists only to point out that it's BAD BAD BAD. --Sid 3050 17:34, 26 March 2007 (EDT)
This article is not unlike History of Wikipedia [8] though perhaps we could cover the blocking of the Third grade class incident, which they don't. It's all part of the sum of human knowledge. RobS 18:05, 26 March 2007 (EDT)
If this is part of the sum of human knowledge, I think the equation needs a "re-right". Jrssr5 19:16, 26 March 2007 (EDT)

Wikipedia breaks GFDL?

Could somebody with more experience shed some light here? Right now, this sounds quite unlikely to me, especially when you keep in mind the fact that articles are not completely removed (undelete feature, anybody). Also, what happened to the rule about not citing wikis?

Oh, and by the way, the entire section right now was copy-pasted from the Wikitruth article. Just pointing out that Conservapedia apparently breaks the GFDL in a section about Wikipedia breaking the GFDL. --Sid 3050 20:45, 31 March 2007 (EDT)

Whining?

Conservapedia was created by conservatives whining about Wikipedia's 'liberal bias' (in about .002 percent of Wikipedia's articles). And about 99 percent of this article is gossip, which Conservapedia is supposed to avoid, and 1 percent unbiased factual information (the first sentence and last sentence of the first paragraph). I mean, you could at least have a 'History of Wikipedia' section to make it look like a real article. NickJ10 22:03, 31 March 2007 (EDT)

"The dispute is notable as an attack on the Wikipedia policy of editorial oversight as being too lax and unmonitored. Bozell points to Conservapedia as a resource that documents Wikipedia's faults in this regard, presumably holding it as a more authoritative reference less vulnerable to vandalism." <---- I don't read whining in that tone. Myk 22:24, 31 March 2007 (EDT)
What was wrong with this edit? It cited sources, identified when potentially rapid-changing pages were accessed so that page history could be checked to see what they said at the time, and they can be rechecked in a few months time, and included the full text of a quote which could otherwise be taken out of context. I may not be around for a few days to see the answer to this. --Scott 11:24, 1 April 2007 (EDT)
Andy's response is copied from user talk:Aschlafly/Archive12#Wikipedia_article. --Scott 09:27, 3 April 2007 (EDT)
Scott, I apologize for not responding sooner. I was in a car for over ten hours yesterday, and the limited time I had on the computer was spent updated the Main Page, adding some entries, and responding on this page and the Bias in Wikipedia talk page. I did not see your comments on the Wikipedia talk page, and I apologize.
I also regret that the rollback feature on Wiki does not allow comment to explain why. So let me elaborate here and now.
One of your changes seemed to be incorrect. You changed the name of the company from "Bomis" to "Bomis.com", which I think is wrong. Other changes were unsupported and opinionated, such as saying that "The 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica contained 40,000 articles many of which were used to kickstart the project in English, which now has over 1.7 million articles on a much wider range of subjects." That lacked support. Moreover, is copying OK to "kickstart" a project? No, of course not, especially when attribution is not prominently given for such wholesale copying.
You also added superfluous detail unsuitable for a concise entry. Note that being concise is one of our main goals. Then you praised Wikipedia for making an article about an obscure rock band "much longer." Why would anyone want a longer article about something that is inappropriate in short version? That change was contrary to the point being made, and contrary to one of our goals here.
I welcome your contributions here. We all do. But please conform to our rules. Also, while we are all very patient, was it really necessary to launch into an attack on Conservapedia on my personal talk page? Note that on Conservapedia, we respect users' talk pages more than Wikipedia does. Please see How Conservapedia Differs from Wikipedia.
I apologize for my 24-hour delay in responding to your comments on another talk page, and hope you can reconsider your view towards Conservapedia.--Aschlafly 10:55, 2 April 2007 (EDT)
I accept your apology. If you wish to revert and leave an edit comment, you can edit the older version. Thankyou for now explaining your reasoning, and I wish to defend my edit.
On further investigation, it appears that the company in question is Bomis, Inc. Sorry - I took the name I changed it to from their logo. However the rollback button is heavyhanded for an edit of that size with one small mistake in it.
OK, fine, but please realize that you erroneously changed something that was correct. That is a red flag and can be a valid reason for reverting all the changes if one is in a hurry, as I was.
Conservapedia strives to be accurate about these details. We want high quality here, and let's not be casual about factual errors.--Aschlafly 10:23, 3 April 2007 (EDT)
The 1.7 million articles was cited. I did in fact find a reference for the 40,000 articles in the 1911 Britannica, but appear to have forgotten to cite it. Try 1911 Encyclopedia accessed 3 April 2007 (Access dates are important for all web sites, as the content can change, but there are internet archives that contain some older content).
I don't fully understand your response here. You claimed that wholesale copyin of the Encyclopedia Britannic was to "kickstart" the Wikipedia project. That claim needs a citation, and needs to be said in a way that does not justify it.--Aschlafly 10:23, 3 April 2007 (EDT)
If I may chime in here, I was there, and it was not a kickstart. The project had thousands of articles before agreement was reached to supplement the article base with EB 1911. It was not a decision reached lightly, because (1) it was hard to find a copy of it that wasn't copyrighted, (2) the copy that was found had NPOV problems, (3) much information was ninety years out of date.
If it's germane to the discussion, I can dig into this and find out exactly when (and how many of) these articles were added to Wikipedia. --Ed Poor 10:30, 3 April 2007 (EDT)


I did not "praise" Wikipedia for making the article longer. I corrected the statement that the short form is a Wikipedia article. It was a Wikipedia article for a period of about 2 months, ending 4 months ago. I made no judgement on whether the article had any more value now than it had then. If the point is that the coverage of Wikipedia is wider (or simply different) than the coverage of Conservapedia, then the content of the older form of the article should not have been included either, it should simply have been referred to as an example of Wikipedia content unsuitable for Conservapedia. The fact that the scope of coverage of Wikipedia is different than that of Conservapedia should not be a criticism of either.
I don't think my version ever said that short form was the entire entry.--Aschlafly 10:23, 3 April 2007 (EDT)
Rhetorical questions, even in footnotes, such as "Did you know that...?" do not appear to be appropriate for Conservapedia, so I modified the language so that the "question" was answered instead.
OK, good point.--Aschlafly 10:23, 3 April 2007 (EDT)
Copying public domain sources is perfectly legal, and in fact Wikipedia does acknowledge the origin of those articles, many of which have changed since they were copied in.
Are you referencing the Encyclopedia Britannica here? Where is Wikipedia candid about so much wholesale copying? I've only seen tiny references at the bottom of individual articles, and I'm not confident that acknowledgment is always there.--Aschlafly 10:23, 3 April 2007 (EDT)
I apologise if my comments on your talk page went too far. However, I think you will find that I am not alone in many of those thoughts. The idea of an encyclopaedia written with a conservative viewpoint is interesting enough I decided to try to help rather than laugh or vandalise. However I intend to also continue as a Wikipedia editor, and have enjoyed being able to write in both with different points of view. I've also looked at Citizendium and decided not to attempt to contribute there, even though I contribute to both Wikipedia and Conservapedia under variants of my real name. --Scott 09:27, 3 April 2007 (EDT)
I certainly welcome you. Of course Conservapedia has many critics. Anything worthwhile in life is going to spark criticism. But please realize that our rules and style is different, and we think more advantageous, than at Wikipedia. Please contribute as much as you like here, but please keep in mind that this is not Wikipedia. We are concise and factual here, and do not have a liberal bias. Thank you.--Aschlafly 10:23, 3 April 2007 (EDT)

Quote mining from the TOP

Wow, even The Boss gets into it! This edit shows a mined quote that weeds out the chaff from the "truth":

Truth

Instead of apologizing to Brent Bozell, Wikipedia instead whines about how "Bozell points to Conservapedia as a ... more authoritative reference" than Wikipedia.

Distortion

Bozell points to Conservapedia as a resource that documents Wikipedia's faults in this regard, presumably holding it as a more authoritative reference less vulnerable to vandalism.

Crackertalk 11:33, 1 April 2007 (EDT)
The end quote is more "truthy" I guess. Ridiculous. This is why creationists don't get into good scientific journals - they can't be trusted.-AmesGyo! 11:42, 1 April 2007 (EDT)
Ye God. Also, why does an encyclopedic article use phrases like "Instead of apologizing to Brent Bozell,Wikipedia instead whines about..."? This is the same sort of thing that is still in the Seigenthaler section (thanks to the Boss, too [9][10]): "Despite the damage to an innocent person and embarrassment to Wikipedia's credibility as a viable source, the Siegenthaler scandal is considered by many internal Administrators as 'the best thing that ever happened to Wikipedia'". --Sid 3050 12:12, 1 April 2007 (EDT)

Ad hominem attacks

This irrelevant fact is mentioned in the Wikipedia page:

Initially, Wikipedia was hosted on servers operated by Bomis, Inc., a company that also sold pornographic pictures.

Am I mistaken, or is that an ad hominem attack, which is a well-known logical fallacy? And why did Andrew Schlafly delete my comment when I pointed it out?

No, I don't think that's an ad hominem attack. Wikipedia itself features pornographic images now and this history reflects its ideology. No individual is smeared by this historical description. It is informative to show where Wikipedia is coming from. I doubt Wikipedia's own people would consider that to be an ad hominem attack.--Aschlafly 10:25, 3 April 2007 (EDT)
It's not an ad hominem attack, because it relates to the policy decision to allow porn. Jimbo could easily have said: no porn. He could have made it stick, at the cost of alienating a significant fraction of his volunteer base. I was heavily involved in these policy discussions from around 2001-2003.
Cries of "censorship" dominated these discussions, although in one significant episode Jimbo blocked a user for added a gay porn image to an article. He was showing Wikipedia to a businessman (or other VIP) when lurid and "embarassing" (Jimbo's words) images came on the screen.
Wikipedia's articles about sex are not 'family-friendly', in that (1) they show more than parent would like, i.e., are too graphic/explicit; (2) they are anti-religious in that they imply that it doesn't matter whether your 'sex partner' and you are married.
Moreover, the entire series on homosexuality carries the implicit (verging on the explicit) message that "it is okay to be homosexual" and "homosexual acts are morally neutral".
This is not the same as applying the NPOV policy to morality, and saying that 'these religions say this' and 'other people say that'. The articles give a strong impression that "these conditions, attitudes and acts are not wrong". That's a big difference between saying that "various groups of people differ on these points but Wikipedia takes no position". They do take a position, and this (A) violates their stated policy and (B) offends religious people such as myself. --Ed Poor 10:43, 3 April 2007 (EDT)
Ed's right. Let me emphasize that we do not, and will not, smear any individuals. But factual statements about Wikipedia's ideology are informative and appropriate. If Wikipedia does not consider something about its ideology to be an ad hominem attack, why should we?--Aschlafly 12:53, 3 April 2007 (EDT)

OK, so why does everybody who mentions the fact that Andrew Schlafly's brother John is gay get immediately and permanently banned from Conservapedia? (In fact, when my buddy Rotifer got banned, everybody who uses computers in our rec room here got banned too!)

You might say it's reasonable to erase all mention of the fact that John Schlafly is gay, because it's an ad hominem attack on Andrew Schlafly, or on Conservapedia. But I don't think so. I think when the mainstream press published information about the fact that John Schlafly had been 'outed', they did it because they thought it was informative to show where the Schlafly family and the Eagle Forum organization are coming from. The idea that a gay man (and his family) could continue to advocate anti-gay political causes strikes many people as hypocritical. It's not an ad hominem attack. It's important perspective that some people might not know about the founders of Conservapedia and the Eagle Forum.

I assume this will be my last post. You are welcome to prove me wrong by (1) not removing this comment, which is based entirely on facts and is intended to provide information about the Schlafly family's point of view, NOT to smear them, and (2) not banning me from Conservapedia. --Madonna 06:16, 4 April 2007 (EDT)


This article is a travesty

From top to bottom:

Honk If You Love Fred Durst is the name of a single not a phrases used by obscure rock bands. Henry Liddell's grandfather being youngest son of the 8th Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne is perhaps of interest to those interested in genealogy. The fact that his daughter was the child Alice in Wonderland was written for is not arcane it is very interesting - a great piece of English literature was originally written for one particular little girl and not general release.

Cumbersome - what is cumbersome about GNU? Is that opinion or fact?

This kind of repeats itself :

Many entries were copied from the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica, a public domain resource. The 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica contained 40,000 articles[4] many of which were copied into the English Wikipedia early in the project, which now has over 1.7 million articles.[5]

Ref. 4. links to an online version of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica and ref. 5 links to wikipedia apparently for the number of articles in Wikipedia. None of the references clarify what the many may actually mean in this context.

Wikipedia was hosted on servers operated by Bomis, Inc., a company that also sold pornographic pictures ref. 6 is likely this [11] which has:

"Wikipedia (wiki wiki means "quick" in Hawaiian) was founded in January 2001 as a sideline to the Numedia encyclopedia being written by experts for an American company, Bomis. Under its chief executive, Jimmy Wales, Bomis ran a search engine that included links to pornographic sites and also for a time sold erotic photographs of women."

hosting isn't mentioned.

The fact that articles is Wikipedia may be false or erronous is no great surprise. Anyone can edit! As the Independent[12] writes And now Wikipedia, the web's "open-source encyclopaedia", is in the firing line due to a number of misleading amendments to pages by mischevious contributors. A question mark has arisen over whether visitors to the site can really believe what they read. That is equally applicable here.

This article is a travesty. The kettle calling the pot black. Get real people. Do you want to be taken seriously? WhatIsG0ing0n 10:44, 3 April 2007 (EDT)

This is an open-edit encyclopedia. Isn't that clear? If you think a reference is not adequate, as you imply above, then you're welcome to add a better one. If you think "many" could be improved with a more precise term, then please do so. But please don't inject liberal bias into the entry. Thank you.--Aschlafly 10:54, 3 April 2007 (EDT)
The problem isn't that references are not adequate but simply plain wrong or useless. In order to avoid injecting liberal bias into the entry I would need to know what liberal bias is. The article liberal bias is of no help what-so-ever. May I safely assume that avoiding liberal bias would be the same as NPOV[13]?
WhatIsG0ing0n 11:07, 3 April 2007 (EDT)

"40k are copies"

"Up to 40,000 of its entries are copies of the public-domain 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica." - I think that's a very strong claim, and backing it up with sources should be extremely tough. The problem is that you changed it from "many of the 40k were copied" to "up to 40k are copies". Even ignoring how you twisted the mushy quantifying words (which I'm not a big fan of in the first place) around in your favor, I ask for a precise number of articles that still are copies of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica. --Sid 3050 15:06, 3 April 2007 (EDT)

Also, it's not supported by the reference, which is just to a site about the 1911 encyclopedia, and neither makes nor proves any allegations of copying.-AmesGyo! 15:09, 3 April 2007 (EDT)
I think it was mentioned above that there might be a source of the pre-Andy version - that "many" (How many?) of the 40k were copied into it (with no statement about the current state of those articles), but the post-Andy version is most likely impossible to prove (because it is most likely wrong by now). Thanks for removing it for the moment. --Sid 3050 15:14, 3 April 2007 (EDT)
Thousands of pages use Wikipedia's {{1911}}, which indicates the article uses content from the 1911 Britannica. A list of such articles (at 5,000 articles listed per page) can be seen here. Liberty 12:35, 9 April 2007 (EDT)
Thanks for the link! Looks like a bit less than 13,000 to me, unless I counted wrong (plus x articles that were potentially untagged, but I somehow doubt that that number is in the dimensions of "27,000"). That's certainly a bunch, but less than the upper border we had so far. --Sid 3050 12:58, 9 April 2007 (EDT)

Article length

Wikipedia's entries are far more verbose and long-winded than traditionally concise encyclopedias.

I doubt this.

What "traditionally concise encyclopedias" would those be? The 1911 Britannica, (which is the very model of a modern encyclopedia/With information densier and heavier and read-ier) has one article, "Bible," that runs from page 849 to 894, and those are big pages of small type, too. I estimated that article to weigh in at just about one megabyte of text, all by itself. If you displayed it in Conservapedia format onscreen, it would run to about 12,500 lines = a scroll of text about 100 feet long, requiring about 200 "page down" presses to read it all.

And that's not even including "Bible, English," which is a separate article running from page 894 to 905.

In the modern Britannica, the Macropædia, which comprises about 2/3 of the current Britannica, consists entirely of long articles.

Yes, the better Wikipedia articles tend to run longer than those of a single-volume desk encyclopedia like the Columbia Encyclopedia, or a high-school-oriented encyclopedia like World Book. Dpbsmith 20:25, 6 April 2007 (EDT)

Censorship in Wikipedia

I just spent a couple of hours trying to place information about Japanese pornography, prostitution and rape in Wikipedia articles. Two articles were immediately censored.

Please see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Recentchangeslinked/User:Ed_Poor/Japan

This is not an isolated incident, and I didn't do it to make a point. I was just editing as usual and came across one of Wikipedia's typical omissions. Someone was trying to obscure the fact that hentai means Japanese porn, and since I know a little about Japanese culture and language, I began to correct this. --Ed Poor 12:39, 7 April 2007 (EDT)


Hentai does not mean "Japanese porn" - that is it's usage as a loanword. --Cgday 12:54, 7 April 2007 (EDT)

I'm talking about the English word hentai, not the Japanese word. I took Japanese for two semesters at Harvard, and I know what a loanword is. --Ed Poor 13:26, 7 April 2007 (EDT)
There's a long bilingual discussion of this here, but this is all beside the point.
What I say was censored was not my additions to hentai but my additions to Geisha and Mizuage. Although a quick peek at related changes there's indicates it may be even worse than I said. --Ed Poor 13:33, 7 April 2007 (EDT)
Who do you consider has censored you at Geisha and Mizuage? "Wikipedia" in general, or User:John Smith's in particular? There appears to be relevant dialog on both talk pages which doesn't really fit with the charge of "censorship". I'm also a little uncertain how that shows a liberal bias - I expect you'd get reverted or worse for posting information about rape, prostitutes and pornography on Conservapedia, too (all blue links to pages saying "this has been deleted and protected"). --Scott 10:53, 8 April 2007 (EDT)

GFDL

Look, on Wikipedia, and other MediaWiki sites, "deletion" of articles merely hides them from the public. There is no violation of the GFDL here, this needs to be removed, for the sake of Conservapedia preserving what little credibility it has. --Hacker(Write some codeSupport my RfA) 21:46, 24 April 2007 (EDT)

no, special sysops can permanently delete articles. This ability was added in order to prevent Wikimedia from being sued for copyright infringement if such infringement are not permanently deleted from the server. Jaques 15:02, 3 May 2007 (EDT)
You mean oversight? Even that doesn't delete stuff, it just hides it. --Liπus the Turbohacker(contact me) 22:34, 6 May 2007 (EDT)
no, oversight is the new ability to selectively delete an article's history.Jaques 00:16, 23 May 2007 (EDT)

Error in article

The article currently says, "Anyone can delete or alter anyone else's entries on Wikipedia." This isn't exactly true. Only sysops (admins) can delete. For some reason (maybe because I'm new here) it won't let me edit the article. Someone should fix that. Nakedtruth 22:44, 15 May 2007 (EDT)

You're right. It should say "edits", not "entries". I'll fix now. Thanks.--Aschlafly 23:00, 15 May 2007 (EDT)

Founder of Wikipedia

I remember a scandal a little while back that the founder of wikipedia edited out parts of his past from his own article. He used his own login and got caught. I'm surprised that's not mentioned anywhere. If it is, then please forgive me for not catching it. Learn together 02:17, 16 May 2007 (EDT)

Neutrality

Is there actually one article written from a neutral point of view on this website? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Nyrias (talk)

I'm sure there are plenty. What do you think, for example, of permian? Philip J. Rayment 19:27, 2 June 2007 (EDT)
Try faith also.--Aschlafly 20:03, 2 June 2007 (EDT)

Re: WELCOME AGAIN TO WIKIPEDIA: THE LIBERAL SMEAR MACHINE on today's (June 6, 2007)main page- It looks like Conservapedia is starting to get hysterical about Wikipedia.````