I recently ran across a new website, Conservapedia dot com. It piqued my interest, not only because of what its name implied, but also because of a general interest in web collaboration, and a curiosity regarding the vectors of net-based disinformation. I've found indications that wikipedia has been a vector of disinformation's injection, and Conservapedia uses the same mediawiki software that powers wikipedia. Conservapedia is an odd bird, full of contradictions, and at times comical.
First, the domain name owner is listed as Andrew Schlafly, and yes, he is related, Phyllis is his mom.
The main page publishes a stern warning to would be wikivandals:
Minors under 16 years use this site. Posting of obscenity here is punishable by up to 10 years in jail under 18 USC § 1470. Vandalism is punishable up to 10 years in jail per 18 USC § 1030. User IP addresses in these cases are traced and reported.
Aside from this being an open invitation for a chained proxy connect, the applicability of 18 USC § 1470 and § 1030 to this website is a bit of a stretch, which might be why the site doesn't offer a direct link to the text of the code, even though mediawiki's editing function makes this a trivial task, and the first two of their published editing commandments state:
- Everything you post must be true and verifiable. Do not copy from Wikipedia or other non-public domain sources.
- Always cite and give credit to your sources, even if in the public domain.
Reread number 1 above. Wikipedia's copyright notice says it is distributed under the GNU Free Documentation License, and GNU is the gold Standard of Open-Source. Mr. Schlafly isn't finished biting the open source codebase that feeds his streaming absurities to the readers either.
Conservapedia makes many allegations about wikipedia's bias. Within these can be found a a predictable public offering of their Contemporary Conservatism's bona fides: a paranoid delusion that all of wikipedia's bad data and biases are rooted in liberalism. My experiences with wikipedia indicate a neutral political bias. One instance was their article about Reagan's AG, Edwin Meese III, who had a whole chapter of the Walsh Iran/Contra report devoted to his antics, but was not noted. (this has been changed, btw). Wikipedia seems to have certain articles which are watched over by individual and/or groups of editors. It is not discernibly one-sided in political world-view.
Conservapedia has more biases too. One I found amusing is an example of bias towards the Catholic sect of Christianity, and was seen in their Harry Potter article:
Some evangelical Christians have attempted to ban the books in public schools. On October 3rd, 2006, A Georgian mother Laura Mallory attempted to get the books banned from schools because she felt they promote witchcraft. However, in 2003, a Vatican representative said the books "aren't serving as the banner for an anti-Christian theology.... I don't think there's anyone in this room who grew up without fairies, magic, and angels in their imaginary world."
A Vatican spokesperson who nostalgically muses about having childhood imaginings of "fairies, magic and angels", probably considers their job to be a childhood fantasy come true... Yes, young future College Republicans, in Conservapedia namespace land, the Pope always trumps Evangelical Dogma. Many Evangelicals are liable to consider this bit of bias as "Papal Bull", and say "get thee and thy ecumentalist deviltry behind me, Andrew".
