[lenerdenator]

The "Blackjack and Hookers" reflex, from Futurama when Bender gets thrown out of the amusement park on the Moon and says "I'll start my own theme park... with blackjack!... and hookers!... in fact, forget the park!"

EDIT: Basically that's how these projects turn out. Having a theme park was never the point; blackjack and hookers were the point. Having a federated Wikipedia alternative isn't the point; having an encyclopedia where you can push an insane description of a topic and present it as reality is the point. And really, that makes for a shitty encyclopedia. Shitty enough for it to disappear before doing damage to the shared sense of reality society needs? No, but still shitty.

[nick238]

Wikipedia + Blackjack + Hookers - Wikipedia = https://www.conservapedia.com/

[lolc]

Wow I haven't seen a link to Conservapedia in a looong time. Out of curiosity, I clicked. They claim physical reality of the biblical flood: https://www.conservapedia.com/Great_Flood

And wow somebody has put a lot of work in this page https://www.conservapedia.com/Conservapedia_proven_right Great resource if you want to know what US bible people care about. They have institutionalised their confirmation bias.

[nyolfen]

the guy who runs this was an editor on the harvard law review with obama

[hagbard_c]

> They claim physical reality of the biblical flood

There is evidence of the Mediterranean Basin flooding after breach of a land bridge across what is now the Strait of Gibraltar [1,2] some 5 million years ago. In the same way there is some evidence of the Black Sea rapidly expanding some 8000 years ago [3]. Similar 'catastrophic flood' scenarios have played out elsewhere on the planet which has led to the rise of flood myths like the Biblical flood. While Conservapedia goes heavy on scripture in laying out their proof for a historical basis for the flood (i.e. they are just as biased as Wikipedia tends to be on politically contentious subjects) it is a rational position to state that the myriad of flood myths around the world and along the ages are based on historical flood events.

In short, Conservapedia does what Wikipedia does but replaces the 'progressive' bias with a 'conservative' one.

[1] https://www.nationalgeographic.co.uk/science-and-technology/...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zanclean_flood

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Sea_deluge_hypothesis

[bawolff]

There is a big difference between claiming that at some point in the last 5000 years there was almost certainly a big flood, and it plausibly inspired the bible story, versus claiming the specific details of a story from 5000 years ago are definitely literally correct.

[arp242]

> In short, Conservapedia does what Wikipedia does but replaces the 'progressive' bias with a 'conservative' one.

Conservapedia calls e=mc2 "liberal claptrap".[1] The article on Oppenheimer has "Like other liberals, Oppenheimer was not as smart as he wanted to be" right in the lead and the article itself mostly seems to be about Oppenheimer's communist links more than anything else. Articles like Homosexual Agenda[3] contain so much retarded bullshit I don't even know what bit to quote.

What I'm trying to say is "it's the same as Wikipedia, with with Conservative bias" completely and utter bollocks. Conservapedia is a fringe website that's not conservative, but just crazy. Anyone claiming anything else is deeply misinformed.

[1]: https://www.conservapedia.com/E%3Dmc2

[2]: https://www.conservapedia.com/J._Robert_Oppenheimer

[3]: https://www.conservapedia.com/Homosexual_Agenda

[nick238]

The E=mc² article is performative art. The origin of it, if I had to guess, was someone saying "moral relativism is evil" then, "all forms of relativism are evil", then "general and special relativity are evil". I can't really tell if it's an honest view or not, but the related articles also seem to illustrate how hard it is for "big tent conservatism" to form a cohesive world. If Einstein is right, then the speed of light was a constant and matter warps space as we observe with telescopes. If things are billions of light years away, then the world can't be 6000 years old. If the world isn't 6000 years old, the bible isn't literally true in all respects.

[npteljes]

>but replaces the 'progressive' bias with a 'conservative' one.

Now this implies that this "conservative" bias is on a level of the "progressive" one. As if there are two sides, these two, and that the "conservative" has equal, if not more, merit than the "progressive" one. It's the false balance.

Funnily enough, Conservapedia has the article on it. But opening it reveals that it's not that rationality suddenly penetrated the conserva-universe, it's just that they project they exact thing they do onto the "liberals".

https://www.conservapedia.com/False_balance

[getwiththeprog]

The National Geographic link was interesting, I hadn't thought of that.

I'm not so sure I'd call Wikipedia 'progressive'.

[hagbard_c]

Wikipedia as a whole is not 'progressive', it is whatever the editors make of it. Many politically contentious subjects have been - to use a word bandied around quite often in those circles - 'colonised' by 'progressive' editors who allow only their own viewpoint to remain in the articles which has turned those parts of Wikipedia 'progressive'.

If you're looking for the chemical composition of some substance or want to look up something related to physics or mathematics Wikipedia tends to do just fine. Articles on history are a mixed bag, especially recent history and especially anything related to 'the West'. For political subjects Wikipedia is less than useless given the aforementioned 'colonisation' but also because political operatives from 'all sides' do their best to paint as rosy a picture of 'their' side as possible.

[lolc]

Yea these flood events are interesting. But did you read the Conservapedia page? They are very specific about the flood having happened 5000 years ago and say it was a global phenomenon. That was just the first link I clicked on the homepage. I dare you to find something equally implausible on the English Wikipedia homepage.

And if you don't find the biblical flood implausible, well, I'm somewhat intrigued why you believe that to be an option.

[hagbard_c]

Looking at Conservapedia from a 'liberal' standpoint is like looking at Wikipedia from a 'conservative' standpoint. Where a Conservapedia article like the one you mentioned - the Biblical flood being based on a recent 'global' flood event - is hard to take seriously by 'liberals' the same goes for Wikipedia articles like 'Non-binary gender' [1] to 'conservatives'. Both Conservapedia as well as Wikipedia treat highly contentious issues - the 'truth' of Bible stories and the 'truth' of gender ideology - as settled facts where in reality both are very much up for discussion.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-binary_gender

[lolc]

I asked for something that is equally implausible. So I take it you think people feeling non-binary is equally or more implausible than the biblical flood? Do people not identify as non-binary? Or are they lying about their feelings?

Don't give me the "contentious" spiel. I don't care what some reader of Conservapedia may think. I'm asking you.

[brnt]

This is a useful resource but for other reasons than the authors intend.

[geysersam]

That was fascinating!

[levlaz]

Interestingly has a similar mobile experience as OP.

[jeegsy]

> where you can push an insane description of a topic and present it as reality is the point

Fair enough and indeed there are many examples. However I think good faith/steelmanning needs to come back in our discourse. It strikes me as an 'insane' description to suggest that the problems with Wikipedia can be properly captured by their resistance to 'insane' descriptions

[1vuio0pswjnm7]

"I'll write a new UNIX shell... with blackjack!... and hookers!"