Conservapedia

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Conservapedia
The Trustworthy Encyclopedia
(German: "The trustworthy encyclopedia")
languages English
operator Andrew Schlafly
On-line November 2006 (currently active)
http://www.conservapedia.com/

Conservapedia is a Wiki -based project with the aim of creating an online encyclopedia from the perspective of some Christian - Conservative circles in the United States . Conservapedia contains around 41,300 (as of May 2015) English-language articles. From December 2010, it was only accessible from US IP addresses to protect against vandalism and denial-of-service attacks . Conservapedia uses a section of the flag of the United States as its logo .

Origin and goal

Andrew Schlafly

Conservapedia was founded in November 2006 by the lawyer and tutor Andrew Schlafly, son of the conservative activist Phyllis Schlafly , as an alternative to the supposedly liberal , anti-American and anti-Christian tendencies of the English language Wikipedia . Schlafly had tried to include statements from creationists in the Wikipedia article about the decision by the Kansas school board to include " intelligent design " in curricula. When his edits were undone, Schlafly began to suspect a left bias in Wikipedia. He also sees the fact that Wikipedia uses British English as well as American English as an indication of Wikipedia's alleged anti-American orientation.

Conservapedia was born with the help of teenagers Schlafly taught in his hometown of New Jersey . The free software MediaWiki of the Wikimedia Foundation is used , but the project has no further connection to it. However, the founder gives a goal comparable to Wikipedia, namely to create an instructive reference work. In his opinion, however, this should be particularly suitable for home schooling . An important difference to wiki projects that want to create free content is that Conservapedia does not have a copyleft license.

Alignment

The Conservapedia is based on the political opinion of conservative US citizens and the worldview of conservative Christians . In the "Commandments of Conservapedia" emphasis is placed on correct citations and family friendliness. A violation of the guidelines and too much participation in discussions compared to article work can lead to exclusion from the project. The neo-conservatism is rejected in the encyclopedia, as neo-conservatives do not support anti-abortion campaigns against are traditional marriage or other conservative social values.

In the article “Bias in Wikipedia” over 150 examples were compiled to prove the supposedly left-liberal tendency of Wikipedia. Among other things, Wikipedia does not establish a causal connection between atheism and suicide and has deleted an article on “Hollywood values” that has shown how “liberal ideology” harms people.

content

Articles on scientific content are written from the perspective of young earth creationists and often do not correspond to the doctrinal opinion . In the article on the age of the earth, Conservapedia falsely claims that the view of young earth creationists is the dominant scientific opinion. So is evolution presented as implausible naturalistic theory and pseudo science and there are cited in great detail only critical voices. The article on dragons does not exclude the possibility that these might have existed and still exist today - albeit in very small numbers.

Conservapedia's article on Albert Einstein's theory of relativity contains 30 counterexamples, including passages from the Bible, which are intended to refute the theory. According to Conservapedia, the theory of relativity is mainly represented by “liberals”.

The presidency of the Enlightenment- influenced Thomas Jefferson is also portrayed in a very negative way, while the biography of the first US President George Washington , who was known for his conservative views, is heavily embellished.

The article on homosexuality first cites passages in the Bible in which it is forbidden under the death penalty and presents it as a curable disease.

Another focus is the confrontation with atheism . In many articles that deal with societal tendencies viewed as negative, atheism is mentioned as a major influencing factor. So there are the lemmas “Atheism and obesity” (Eng. “Atheism and obesity”) or “Atheism and cowardice” (Eng. “Atheism and cowardice”).

The Conservapedia also regards the connection between abortion and breast cancer as proven. Conservapedia supports Todd Akin's extreme positions on abortion, which caused an international stir in the wake of his failed US Senate election campaign in 2012 .

Current news reports on various topics are on the homepage. In these reports, President Barack Obama , the Democratic Party or other so-called "liberals" are often portrayed as unsuitable, if not as the cause, of solving current social and political challenges (e.g. terrorism , financial and economic crisis ).

Fidel Castro is described in the encyclopedia as having died in 2006. Allegedly, a doppelganger of his is to be seen in the photos after 2006.

With regard to the internal American discussion about the right to own weapons , the Conservapedia uncritically takes the position of the lobby group National Rifle Association and describes it as a human rights advocacy group, as it defends a fundamental right of the constitution .

In addition, Conservapedia denies global climate change and rejects the big bang model prevalent in today's cosmology .

criticism

The Conservapedia is criticized because it has many significant factual errors. In an article in The Sydney Morning Herald Conservapedias allegations are several automakers called critical, including the theory that hybrid electric vehicles the manufacturer Toyota secrete electromagnetic radiation can cause cancer. In addition, according to Conservapedia , General Motors is trying to appeal to more homosexuals, and Ford is producing cars that are far superior to their European and Japanese competitors.

In addition, the authors and administrators should miss precisely that, the lack of which is criticized by the founders of Conservapedias on Wikipedia : fairness and honesty. But it cannot be ruled out that some people will enjoy writing satirical articles.

The existence of Conservapedia has contributed to the creation of more wikis . Internal medicine specialist Peter A. Lipson founded RationalWiki after trying to edit Conservapedia's article on breast cancer to question the alleged causal link between abortion and breast cancer, and which was banned by Conservapedia's administrators.

Web links

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b Conservapedia: Christian-conservative alternative to Wikipedia . In: Telepolis , March 2, 2006.
  2. ↑ Statistics page ( Memento of the original from July 16, 2018 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. of Conservapedia, accessed January 4, 2013. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.conservapedia.com
  3. ↑ Discussion of the blocking of foreign IP blocks
  4. ↑ a b Weird, wild wiki on which anything goes. In: Metro , March 19, 2007.
  5. ^ Conservapedia: Data for Birds of a Political Feather? In: National Public Radio , March 13, 2007.
  6. ^ A b c Andrew Chung: Conservative Wants to Set Wikipedia Right. In: Toronto Star , March 11, 2007.
  7. ^ Kansas Evolution Hearings. Transcriptions. In: The TalkOrigins Archive , July 1, 2005.
  8. ^ Shawn Zeller: Conservapedia: See Under "Right". In: The New York Times , March 5, 2007.
  9. ^ Conservapadia: Commandments.
  10. ^ Conservapedia: Guidelines.
  11. ^ Lemma Neoconservatism. In: Conservapedia.com .
  12. ^ Barrett Brown : Conservapedia: Bastion of the Reality-Denying Right. In: Vanity Fair , April 23, 2009.
  13. ↑ Paul Fishbane: Time Warp: Recent Right-Wing Rejections of Einstein's Theory of Relativity echo Nazi Dismissals of What They Called 'Jewish Physics'. In: Tablet Magazine , November 11, 2010.
  14. ^ Max Fisher: E = mc2 Is a Liberal Conspiracy Against Jesus. In: The Atlantic Wire , August 10, 2010.
  15. ↑ Oliver Junge: "Conservapedia": Counter-Enlightenment in the network. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , April 24, 2007.
  16. ↑ Lemma Atheism and obesity. In: Conservapedia.com .
  17. ↑ Chris Mooney: The Republican Brain: The Science of Why They Deny Science - and Reality. Wiley, Hoboken 2012, ISBN 978-1-118-09451-8 , p. 1.
  18. ↑ Steven H. Bagley: Thoughts on a Conservapedia. In: Blast Magazine , September 3, 2007.
  19. ↑ http://conservapedia.com/Fidel_Castro
  20. ^ Donald R. Prothero: Reality Check: How Science Deniers Threaten Our Future. Indiana University Press, Bloomington 2013, ISBN 978-0-253-01036-0 , p. 306.
  21. ^ A fact of one's own ( English ) Clarke, Conor (2007), The Guardian. Retrieved January 5, 2010.
  22. ^ Evan Maloney: Conservapedia: As Accurate as a Catatonic Drunkard's Line of Urine. ( Memento of August 4, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) In: News.com.au , 2007, accessed January 5, 2010.
  23. ^ What Cars Do Conservatives Buy? ( Memento of August 13, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) In: The Sydney Morning Herald , August 11, 2012.
  24. ^ Wikipedia vs Conservapedia ( English ) Sbarski, Peter (2007). Retrieved January 5, 2010.
  25. ↑ Review of Conservapedia.com: A Bias Spin On Facts ( English ) Jan Castagnaro (2007). Archived from the original on October 12, 2009. Retrieved January 5, 2010.
  26. ↑ debate on Conservapedia on Protection against satirical articles ( English ) Retrieved on January 5 of 2010.
  27. ↑ Main page of RationalWiki.org loaded April 30, 2015
  28. ↑ Stephanie Simon: A Conservative's Answer to Wikipedia. In: Los Angeles Times , June 19, 2007.