Rocktails Blog > Conservapedia grabs UK publicity ... Wikipedia unfazed

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> Conservapedia grabs UK publicity ... Wikipedia unfazed

Richard Jones, iMagineer-in-Chief // 11 March 2007

There are scores of websites that are publicly for, against or just plain indifferent to the Wikipedia phenomenon. In the light of recent UK press coverage / interviews this one is just too good not to mention: Conservapedia. It sees itself as every conservative American Christian's antidote to the unfettered libertarianism of Wikipedia.

You will get a feel for where this site is coming from in its own entry for satan-incarnate Wikipedia :

"The administrators who monitor and control the content on Wikipedia do not represent the views of the majority of Americans, and many are in fact not American. It is therefore safe to assume that they are extraordinarily stupid and should not be allowed to access such sites, or indeed the internet at all. This however is not a problem for Wikipedia, which does not make claim to represent Americans. For example, only 9% of Americans accept evolution as it is taught in public school, yet many Wikipedia administrators accept it as a sourced fact, and will censor material that contradicts evolution..."

So has someone explained that Wikipedia does not exist to publicise and glorify the American Christian contingent? They nearly seem to have got the point... At least they can rest easy that they are not amongst the "extraordinarily stupid" non-Americans who really should have their PCs confiscated.

I'm not criticising Conservapedia's right to make their point : that is the essence of democracy and free speech. Nor is this blog post anti-American or anti-Christian. My observation is simply that such aggressive denial that others can hold other views (on a global, self-edited basis...) does very little to further their cause, legitimacy or influence. (Note : their cause not being to produce an objectively accurate and reliable encyclopaedia at all...)

The founder and chief agitator of the Conservapedia movement, Andrew Schlafly, has repeatedly sought to make his own edits to Wikipedia to correct what he believes to be inaccuracies, oversights and biases that run contrary to his pro-American pro-Christian beliefs. His complaint is that his edits are corrected (oops, sorry, "amended") - often within a matter of minutes. This simply reflects the editorial basis of Wikipedia to represent and capture a neutral point of view (as determined by millions of global contributors and moderated by those entrusted at a 'senior' level by Jimmy Wales). You cannot really argue that Jimmy Wales is against free speech..

There is a serious point in here of course : Wikipedia struggles to really capture, convincingly, the sheer complexity of beliefs and viewpoints across the globe. Every encyclopaedia has to take an editorial 'line' somewhere in the interests of time, space and utility. The answer to this inevitable compromise is not to sabotage the content so as to override and distort a summary/overview with BIG STATEMENTS coming from one particular point of view. The answer is to recognise what Wikipedia stands for, to recognise the value of sites that provide contrary opinions (Conservapedia plus millions of others) and then ensure people have access to all sources on a democratic and uncensored basis. If Wikipedia just happens to draw in the crowds and - over a sustained period of time - is trusted as a global source of information then that is something that Schlafly will have to live with in an online democracy.

Oh, and as many people have pointed out that the entries in Conservapedia that don't deal with, er, being American or being a Christian (or permutations of the above) are a little superficial and - guess what - disinterested. Not much celebrity scandal in there either - surely that is so very American....

The Conservapedia logo : so conservative it does not have one: