Talk:Conservapedia

Cannot correct town name on Conservapedia

Their page Arkancide contains cases connected to the German town of Wiesbaden. It is incorrectly written there "Weisbaden". I do not wish to register as an editor. Source: Map. 2001:8003:AC99:3B00:E1C2:7861:28AD:B875 (talk) 00:49, 12 August 2019 (UTC)

You would need to discuss it there. (Though honestly, Conservapedia gets very little traffic, and I probably wouldn't bother.) Conservapedia is entirely independent of Wikipedia; we don't have any control over them. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 00:53, 12 August 2019 (UTC)

I'm a contributor at both wikis, and I don't see "weisbaden" written on any pages. It appears the Arkancide article was created this month, so perhaps it was an older version of the article? As stated by Seraphimblade, Conservapedia is unaffiliated with the Wikimedia Foundation, which operates Wikipedia. PCHS-NJROTC ^{(Messages)Have a blessed day.} 03:28, 23 December 2019 (UTC)

Quotations from Conservapedia (and other concerns)

There are multiple instances of quotations from Conservapedia, and when I checked two, I found the quotations inaccurate. The problem, of course, is that Conservapedia, like Wikipedia, changes frequently. I have some concerns about such quotations and related issues.

First, statements on Conservapedia are ephemeral, and it seems to me that quoting something as "current" is inviting error before long.

Second, statements on Conservapedia reflect a range of posters and not necessarily the site itself. Consider, for example, how many racist or homophobic remarks have been posted on Wikipedia as acts of vandalism. It would be accurate to state that "Wikipedia frequently uses racist language," I think, but it would also be grossly misleading to make the claim without further asserting that almost every instance is reverted within seconds.

Third, finding errors on Conservapedia or claims that contradict, say, established scientific views is trivial. It's not that hard to do the same on Wikipedia.

Fourth, outdated claims on Wikipedia--such as the statement "The project also intends to remove Jesus's prayer on the cross, 'Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing', since it appears only in the Gospel of Luke and since, according to Schlafly, 'the simple fact is that some of the persecutors of Jesus did know what they were doing. This quotation is a favorite of liberals but should not appear in a conservative Bible'" are proved outdated. (I checked the Conservapedia version of the Bible, and the quotation is, more or less, in there ("Then said Jesus, Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.").

Fifth, Conservapedia has a wealth of information (including misinformation). How do we select what to rebut? For example, the claim that abortion leads to breast cancer is covered, but there is no mention of the claim that the suffix "-ic" cannot be added to a proper noun to form an adjective (https://www.conservapedia.com/Democrat_Party) despite words like "German" and "Germanic" or "Slav" and "Slavic."

To be clear, I'll expose my bias. I enjoy Conservapedia. I find it amusing for the absurdity of many of its claims. That said, it seems to me that this page seems to jettison encyclopedic style in favor of piling on. In the process, it uses false (meaning no longer correct) statements to do so.

I suggest a revision that focuses on Conservapedia's stated aims and outside criticisms (such as those of Zimmer et al.) would be an improvement over the current approach, which seems to rely on original research in the sense that it appears people went to Conservapedia, looked up some of the absurd claims, and then found easy-to-find sources to rebut those claims.

I realize that this request may be rambling, but I wanted to voice my concerns about the page.174.195.138.25 (talk) 00:18, 27 February 2020 (UTC)

I comment here because it's relevant to the above: an example is the Liberalism subsection that is an original summary of a primary source (their article on it). It's not necessarily a wrong interpretation but should ideally be that of a secondary source that highlights the projected stereotype. I know of various sources that treat of this but since they're not about Conservapedia and don't mention it, using such would also result in synthesis. I find it rather difficult to find good sources that are really about Conservapedia, it appears to be mostly ignored by the mainstream. Similarly, there are good sources about the friction against the world and fundamentalist cults that could help reframe Conflict with scientific views, but again, they don't mention Conservapedia (although at least there are some news and magazines there currently, versus about the authors' idea of "liberalism")... A source that comes to mind is about "the gospel of the liberal media", but there's still no mention of Conservapedia there. What do other editors think of this one for the liberalism subsection? It does mention the misleading stereotype that is touted although it's only a student paper. Thanks, —PaleoNeonate – 13:20, 19 December 2020 (UTC)

References

RfC on the categorization of Conservapedia as a conspiracist medium

Should the subject of this article be categorized with Category:Conspiracist media? FreeMediaKid! 09:29, 12 December 2020 (UTC)

• Yes. They regularly promote conspiracy theories on most of their pages. A topical example would be United States presidential election, 2020, where the opening sentence is The 2020 United States presidential election was held on November 3, 2020, but Democrat political machines stuffed the ballot box with millions of mail-in ballots, many improperly cast. In fact, the entire article is promoting one huge conspiracy theory. Similarly you could pick their Coronavirus article, which has in the lead, Early treatment of this disease by hydroxychloroquine has been reportedly successful in dozens of studies[3] and numerous individual situations. India, for example, uses hydroxychloroquine as prophylaxis[4] and has one of the smallest mortality rates per million residents of any country.[5] In the United States, liberal government officials have impeded its widespread use to minimize potential credit to Trump in an election year, resulting in a skyrocketing mortality rate higher than in many comparable, but much poorer, countries. The site as a whole overwhelmingly pushes conspiratorial narratives. — Czello 09:48, 12 December 2020 (UTC)

They have 50,000 articles. I doubt "They regularly promote conspiracy theories on most of their pages". I didn't find a single conspiracy theory in 20 clicks of https://conservapedia.com/Special:Random. But all 20 gave the same page so it wasn't that random... PrimeHunter (talk) 12:17, 12 December 2020 (UTC)

• Need sources to add that Above comment by User:Czello looks like WP:OR. Furthermore, as a matter of editorial taste, it would look bad to characterize an arguable competitor that way without overwhelming support from sources. Adoring nanny (talk) 11:09, 12 December 2020 (UTC)
• Agree with Adoring nanny. Despite Conservapedia presenting incorrect, contrary to science and politically motivated content it requires reliable sources to state it is conspiratorial. Robynthehode (talk) 11:34, 12 December 2020 (UTC)
• Sources needed that call the site conspiratorial. While I've been to Conservapedia before and seen plenty of crazy things, my personal experience would be WP:OR. I agree with Adoring nanny and Robynthehode. FreeMediaKid!, would you happen to have any such sources handy? ― Tartan357 ^Talk 09:52, 13 December 2020 (UTC)
• Sources needed per above editors saying sources are needed. Idealigic (talk) 12:56, 14 December 2020 (UTC)

• NO: independent sourcing is needed to support the conspiracy claim. The Ace in Spades (talk) 12:11, 15 December 2020 (UTC) — The Ace in Spades (talk • contribs) is a confirmed sock puppet of Waskerton (talk • contribs).
• Yes Per the sources listed by Psygremlin. They promote several conspiracy theories. Dimadick (talk) 10:54, 16 December 2020 (UTC)
• Yes Agree with Dimadick, sources have been provided. Tgeorgescu (talk) 11:00, 16 December 2020 (UTC)
• No. The sourcing provided so far is insufficient. Conservapedia is a big place with plenty of pages. A source saying that "Conservapedia contains an article that contains a conspiracy theory" (specific) isn't the same as a source saying that Conservapedia is conspiracist media (general). Otherwise, I'm sure Wikipedia would make the cut too, as there have been plenty of conspiracy theories here, and I'd be surprised if some of them haven't been reported on. Also, mediabiasfactcheck.com isn't reliable. R2 (bleep) 21:19, 16 December 2020 (UTC)
• Yes as per sources provided. Plenty of pages include content that could be considered conspiracy theories and there are sources describing the website as a whole as such. PraiseVivec (talk) 13:01, 17 December 2020 (UTC)

Possible sources, to overcome the OR requirement

• New Scientist - "they view [General Relativity] as a far-reaching liberal conspiracy."
• The Atlantic - "E=mc2 Is a Liberal Conspiracy Against Jesus"
• Not Exactly Normal - "Conservapedia: The Encyclopedia for Conspiracy Theorists"
• Media Bias /fact Check lists Conservapedia as "A questionable source [that] exhibits one or more of the following: extreme bias, consistent promotion of propaganda/conspiracies, poor or no sourcing to credible information, a complete lack of transparency and/or is fake news."
• Houston Press - Conservapedia: The Search for the Truth Ends Here. Makes reference to Obama being "reportedly" born in Hawaii, and entry which remains on their page today.

How's that for a start? The problem is that Conservapedia has become an echo chamber for 5 angry white guys, and is ignored by everybody, especially their new target market of the alt-right, Trump-land crowd, so getting any up-to-date impartial sourcing on the conspiracies they spew will be difficult. Psygremlin (talk) 08:53, 16 December 2020 (UTC)