Daffy Definitions: Conservapedia

Just how do you define the ultra-conservative mind?

How about a reactionary encyclopedia? I just discovered the glories of CONSERVAPEDIA - The Trustworthy Enyclopedia!

It's chock full of "enlightened" propaganda (oh, sorry, facts) as written from a conservative viewpoint. It's a reaction to Wikipedia's "liberalism." Here's one reason why:

Polls show that about twice as many Americans identify themselves as "conservative" compared with "liberal", and that ratio has been increasing for two decades.[75] But on Wikipedia, about three times as many editors identify themselves as "liberal" The following is a growing list of examples of liberal bias, deceit, silly gossip, and blatant errors on Wikipedia. Wikipedia has been called the National Enquirer of the Internet:[1] compared with "conservative".[76] That suggests Wikipedia is six times more liberal than the American public.[77] See also liberal quotient.

Huh? How about the possibility that Wikipedia editors are six times better educated and six times more intelligent?

I went to the source of the National Enquirer comment – it’s a blog called Conservative Eccentric. The title of its post is The Wussification of Wikipedia.

Conservapedias subission “Commandments” include:

1. Everything you post must be true and verifiable. Do not copy from Wikipedia[1] or elsewhere unless it was your original work.

2. Always cite and give credit to your sources,[2] even if in the public domain. Conservapedia's Manual of Style assists new wiki users on how to put footnotes in an article. In addition, Conservapedia's Manual of Style shows new Conservapedia wiki users how to flag an article or section of an article which is uncited.

Evidently, the CHICAGO MANUAL OF STYLE is too radical.

3. When referencing dates based on the approximate birth of Jesus, give appropriate credit for the basis of the date (B.C. or A.D.). "BCE" and "CE" are unacceptable substitutes because they deny the historical basis. See CE.

4. It is appropriate to quote or cite Wikipedia to illustrate the liberal view of an issue.

On its home page, Conservapedia trumpets its own self-definition:

Conservapedia has about 21,700 educational, clean, and concise entries, including more than 350 lectures and term lists. There have been over 46,300,000 page views and over 356,000 page edits. This site is growing rapidly!

Growing so rapidly that its own statistics are two months old.

In the coming posts, I'll be highlighting some of those "trustworthy" entries. Hey, we have to know what the entire conservative world is thinking!