www.conservapedia.com - What do you think?

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I'm hesitant to accept what is written in an environment where basically anyone can "spin" to their hearts' content. And no, I don't have any examples of un-factual or erroneous information on wiki - it's a gut reaction.

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There was an article in The Chronicle of Higher Education a while back on Wikipedia. Evidently, someone had experts in various fields compare Wikipedia articles with articles in other more traditional encyclopedias like Britannica. Wikipedia did as well as all the other encyclopedias as far as factual errors go.Also, it seems that experts tend to rate Wikipedia higher than the average layman.

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Actually, if their god makes better pancakes, I'm totally switching sides. -- Charley the Australopithecine

Er, that's actually correct. The Moon will tear apart when it gets too close to the earth. Eventually it will do so and we'll end up with a ring.

Rat, read what I said;While NOT ALL conservatives are stupid, stupid people TEND to be conservative.Nowhere in that statement (which is a paraphrase of a John Stuart Mill quote, btw) does it say that most conservatives are stupid.It is speaking broadly about the tendencies of stupid people to be conservative, not the stupidity of conservatives.

Well it was true yesterday.The entry has been redacted and today it says: I have no idea how you can seriously use something like that as a lesson source.The history of the changes can be seen here.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

I've just been reading Lecture One of their World History series and I'm rendered speechless by it. Someone actually wrote this, with it's authoritative tone and dates. And, yet, they didn't even spot such obvious flaws as dating the flood to "around 3000 BC" and then describing a continuous history of Egypt beginning in 3100 BC with the unification of the upper and lower kingdoms.

Curious. They go to great lengths to make clear that they insist on using American spelling, but they apparently don't mind the British custom of treating a group of people as plural.

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The Afrika Korps, a Nazi German military unit led by Field Marshall Erwin Rommel, were very feared.

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Emphasis mine.On the other hand, perhaps the entry was written by someone with less than a passing acquaintance with subject-verb agreement. The rather poor structure of the sentence suggests the latter, I suppose.

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Those who would sacrifice an essential liberty for a temporary security will lose both, and deserve neither. -- Benjamin FranklinWe see monsters where science shows us windmills. -- Phat

One assumes that the author was Andy Schlafly, listed as the instructor of the "course." As far as I've been able to determine, the "lectures" are intended to be used in connection with online courses offered by Eagle University.If the last name sounds familiar to some, it should. He appears to be the son of Phyllis Schlafly.

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Those who would sacrifice an essential liberty for a temporary security will lose both, and deserve neither. -- Benjamin FranklinWe see monsters where science shows us windmills. -- Phat

Eagle Forum UniversityYou can tell the level of competence of EFU by one of the items in their "In the News" section on the linked page. It is "Legisilative Activities". That can be found midway down the page just to the right of the ad for Andy Schlafly's "AMERICAN GOVERNMENT 101
Instructed By: Andy Schlafly"Scroll down the page and you can find Andy's Previous Courses. One interesting one is : In the summary he says; "Under Disney’s current management, some of that entitlement is plowed back into liberal politics. The political donations by Hollywood are, of course, as liberal as possible." His course is directed at the challenge of the Constitutionality of the "Copyright Term Extension Act".While he might see Hollywood as liberal, the Act itself was proposed by the Conservative, Sonny Bono. In addition, the actual arguments presented in Eldred v. Ashcroft, were based on potential economic damage to those who wanted access to using the commercial value of the material should copyright expire and on the constitutional question of whether a retroactive extensions satisfied the "limited term" requirements of the original copyright law.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

I think you would agree that for the most part, statistically speaking, that Wiki is likely more accurate than inaccurate. However, if someone is engaged in a heated debate, the statistical probability is going to mean little if you pulled up an article full of inaccuracies. Its not fair to either party. Both parties should just seek and desire the truth, whatever the truth may be, even at the risk of spoiling one's own argument. Sometimes the truth may hurt, but that's all we've got while we're on this rotating mudball called, Earth.When I wrote this post, it came to light that I misunderstood the premise of the OP's inquiry. When it said "Conservapedia," I thought Tusko was essentially using it as a pejorative by asking if Wikipedia is subject to conservative bias. As you share, yes, there is twisting of facts coming from all sides. I only later found out that, no, they are not using it as a pejorative, but that there really is a "Conservapedia." According to their mission statement, the writers allege that Wikipedia is fraught with liberal inaccuracies, and as a way to ameliorate that, they would host their own version of the online encyclopedia.I am trouble by many of their definitions. I say that I am troubled by them because they use loose definitions, inaccurate definitions, or completely nonsensical definitions. In doing so, they unwittingly create their own biased encyclopedia, something they alleged they wanted to get away from in the first place. And since I might generally consider myself a conservative, it upsets me that they end up giving me a black eye by default.I have sought to write the editors and authors of this site to plead with them to either take it down, or to correct their grossly disfigured "facts." I cannot find any avenue in which to correspond with them.If any of you out their in EvC land can come up with a way to correspond with them, I think we'd all be grateful. I also suggest that you allow me to speak with them since I am a conservative. If some of the liberal minds try to write to them, it will only inflame them and make their resolve all the more resolute. But if you let me talk to them, they might respond better to me since I am one of their own.Does that make sense? Any one in favor of that? Edited by nemesis_juggernaut, : edit to add

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"He has shown you, O man, what is good; And what does the Lord require of you but to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God. -Micah 6:8

Apparently you don't know much about conservativism. The fact that you're writing them a letter of disagreement will be sufficient reason for them to conclude that you're not one of their own, no matter what you say.That's what happened to conservative writer Andrew Sullivan, after all. He's been all but excommunicated by conservatives for disagreeing with certain aspects of the Bush administration.I'm sorry, I shouldn't be so terse. Your post actually contains a fair bit of hope - the hope that you'll see how the qualities you've identified in Conservapedia, the qualities that trouble you - the echo-chamber atmosphere, the primacy of dogma over fact - aren't limited only to Conservapedia but are obvious in other conservative venues such as Fox News and it's assorted talking heads, the right-wing blog-o-verse, various editorial boards of national newspapers (such as the Washington Post and the New York Times), radio figures such as Sean Hannity, Rush, and Laura Ingram, and various major conservative authors such as Michael Medved, Ann Coulter, Dinesh D'Souza, Michelle Malkin, and others.I mean, that's the thing. Was anybody here surprised that "Conservapedia", in practice, would be a place where "facts" were determined as true not by how they matched the evidence but by how they matched conservativism? No, of course we weren't, because that's standard operating procedure for conservatives. What you see in Conservapedia, NJ, is what we see in nearly every media that's supposedly "balanced" towards conservatives.Oh - I was going to suggest: If you want to communicate with the editors of Conservapedia, take advantage of the fact that1) every article has a discussion ("talk") page to discuss its content, and
2) Wikis are universally self-referential. In other words - Conservapedia doubtless has an entry for Conservapedia (just as Wikipedia has an article on Wikipedia). So that's probably a good place for you to voice your concerns about the project.Edited by crashfrog, : No reason given.

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I am trouble by many of their definitions. I say that I am troubled by them because they use loose definitions, inaccurate definitions, or completely nonsensical definitions. In doing so, they unwittingly create their own biased encyclopedia, something they alleged they wanted to get away from in the first place. And since I might generally consider myself a conservative, it upsets me that they end up giving me a black eye by default.

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The thing is, this is the sort of thing that is typical of many conservative sources of information and opinion.What they perceive as "no bias" is actually "bias in favor of conservatism".Conservatives get that mixed up all the time.

Isn't the moon moving farther from Earth? And besides, the TIDES won't break it up even if it DID get that close. The moon causes tides, not the tides cause moon "thingies."Max

The moon causes tides on the earth, and the earth causes tides on the moon. The tidal bulge on the moon is the reason why the moon keeps the same face toward the earth (just as the tidal bulges on the earth are slowing down the earth's rotation).

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Actually, if their god makes better pancakes, I'm totally switching sides. -- Charley the Australopithecine

At the moment, yes, it's moving further from the earth. That will not last forever.

the tides are caused by the earth and moon rotating around a common gravitational center.as to getting too close, I want to say that the gravitational forces would shred it apart--think Hale Bop (the name of the comet shredded by jupiter? that or Haley). Not positive on this, as I can't seem to find anything on the net dealing with this kind of desruction of the moon. Soon as I find something I'll link it.