This is a response to Conservapedia's page, Examples of Bias in Wikipedia (retrieved on 10 January, 2008, as are all pages linked to).
Conservapedia is an encyclopedia for American Christian Republican Creationist gun-owning pro-lifers. According to Conservapedia, anyone who does not share these characteristics is "biased". Only American Christian Republican Creationist gun-owning pro-lifers have the truth.
Some of Conservapedia's criticisms are valid, some I don't have time to investigate, but the following are all wrong in one way or another.
Conservapedia's Criticisms of Wikipedia
edit12: Prodigal Son
editWikipedia's entry on the Prodigal Son devotes more words to obscure rock band and liberal media references to it
- If that was true it isn't any more:
- http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Parable_of_the_Prodigal_Son&oldid=183209717
19: North American Union
editWikipedia has once again deleted all content on the North American Union
- What, you mean this?
- http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=North_American_Union&oldid=183360214
20: Jesus H. Christ
editWikipedia has a lengthy entry on "Jesus H. Christ," a term that is an idiotic mockery of the Christian faith.
- And as of 10 Jan 2008, Conservapedia displays one of the Muhammad cartoons that caused so much trouble, at:
- http://www.conservapedia.com/index.php?title=Muhammad_cartoons_controversy&oldid=193868
- Not that I'm complaining. You absolutely should show the cartoons, as should Wikipedia. But show some consistancy. You can hardly claim moral outrage about "Jesus H. Christ".
21: Eritrea
editAnother example of Wikipedia liberal bias: "Oh, they aren't really a dictatorship, their charter specifically denies it!"
- Wikipedia has:
- "National elections have been periodically scheduled and cancelled; none have ever been held in the country. Independent local sources of political information on Eritrean domestic politics are scarce; in September 2001 the government closed down all of the nation's privately owned print media, and outspoken critics of the government have been arrested and held without trial, according to various international observers, including Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International."
- Does this not seem ever so slightly critical of Eritrea's political system?
23: Anon edits
editCredible wikis, including Conservapedia, [sic] do not permit editing by anonymous IP addresses
- Conservapedia does (at the time of writing) allow the instant creation of user accounts. Although the account creation process asks for an email address, there is no enforced verification process - so you can create a new account and edit Conservapedia without even having an email address.
- This is in no way superior to Wikipedia's system - indeed, "anonymous" editors on Wikipedia are actually more exposed than accounts on either wiki, since their IP address is visible, which enables you to determine several things about them, such as their ISP and location.
25. Liberal
editWikipedia has two million entries, but not one for liberal. Users who go to that term are redirected to the Wikipedia entry on liberalism
- Uh, yes? So it does have a page.
that conceals the liberal support of gun control and taxpayer funding of abortion, and liberal censorship of prayer in public school
- These issues are peculiar to liberals in America. Conservapedia cannot grasp that there's a place called "the rest of the world". It may however be correct that Wikipedia's page on "Liberalism in the United States" should but doesn't cover such topics - but "liberal" is such a disputed word it's almost lost all meaning. The page on the U.S. democratic party does clearly state:
- "A majority of liberals favor diplomacy over military action, stem-cell research, the legalization of same-sex marriage, secular government, stricter gun control and environmental protection laws as well as the preservation of abortion rights."
26. Deceit
editThe word "deceit" has no entry on Wikipedia.
- Wikipedia is not a dictionary. However, it does currently redirect to "deception". You find this unreasonable?
27. Suicide
editWikipedia promotes suicide with 21,544 entries that mention this depravity
- Is it possible that suicide is relevant to those 21,544 articles?
In yet another example, Wikipedia has an entry for "suicide by cop"
- There are 60,000 Google hits for this term:
- http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=%22suicide%20by%20cop%22&btnG=Google+Search
34. Homosexuality
editWikipedia article on homosexuality fails to mention that the American Psychiatric Association issued a fact sheet in May of 2000 stating that "..there are no replicated scientific studies supporting a specific biological etiology for homosexuality."
- So, out of all the thousands of scientific papers that have been written on homosexuality, you complain that Wikipedia hasn't mentioned one specific "fact sheet"? Wikipedia does mention both biological and non-biological explanations for homosexuality, in a section that cites its sources extremely well.
41. Scientists and evolution
editWikipedia asserts that "One 1987 estimate found that more than 99.84% of almost 500,000 US scientists in the earth and life sciences supported evolution over creation science." [...] The truth is that 700 scientists signed a statement rejecting evolution, but evolutionists then made the illogical claim that every other scientist must support evolution.
- Wikipedia also cites a 1991 Gallup poll of Americans, which found that about 5% of scientists generally (as opposed to scientists in the relevant fields) supported Creationism.
- By contrast, Conservapedia usually only cites one source, the one that comes closest to its political views, even when opposing sources exist.
44. Judeo-Christianity
editWikipedia recently moved further away from Judaeo-Christian beliefs
- Yes, these are the only religious viewpoints that exist. Any neutral encyclopedia must be written from a Judaeo-Christian viewpoint.
Wikipedia complains about the "enormous significance" given by entries to "Al-Qaeda attacks on the U.S., UK and Spain, killing slightly over 3,000 people."
- Wikipedia correctly notes that such events are given more significance than, for example, "the Darfur conflict in Sudan, in which 400,000 civilians were massacred, [which] receives less attention".
45. Worldwide view
editWikipedia has a banner to criticize an American treatment of a topic
- So it should. America is not the only country that exists.
"A worldwide view" is fictional liberal terminology for globalists.
- Yes, and there are black helicopters above your house at this very moment. Or maybe it just means that pages shouldn't always be dominated by American concerns?
47. Castro
editWikipedia claims that Castro became a communist because of the American-backed Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961.
- Wikipedia has:
- "In October 1959, Castro openly declared himself to be friendly towards Communism, though he did not yet claim to be a Communist himself, while the liberal and other anti-Communist elements of the government were purged."
- Also:
- "After [the Bay of Pigs] Castro declared Cuba a socialist republic, and himself a Marxist-Leninist, in May of 1961 and December of 1961 respectively."
- Does Conservapedia have information that these dates are incorrect?
50. GFDL
editConservapedia allows greater and easier copying of its materials than Wikipedia does
- Really? Let's see now:
Conservapedia grants a non-exclusive license to you to use any of the content (other than images) on this site with or without attribution. This license is revocable only in very rare instances of self-defense, such as protecting continued use by Conservapedia editors or other licensees or stopping unauthorized copying or mirroring of entire parts of this site.
- So, everyone has a "non-exclusive license to you to use any of the content", however, this license can be revoked for the purpose of "stopping unauthorized copying"? What's an "entire part"?
53. Liberals on Wikipedia
editWikipedia is six times more liberal than the American public
- America is not the only country that exists.
56. Terrorism
editNo where will you ever find Al-Qaeda, Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Hezbollah described as terror organizations by Wikipedia.
- Wikipedia has:
- "Al-Qaeda [...] is an international alliance of Islamic militant terrorist organizations founded in 1988"
- "Hamas is listed as a terrorist organization by Canada, the European Union, Israel, Japan, and the United States, and is banned in Jordan. Australia and the United Kingdom list the militant wing of Hamas, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, as a terrorist organization."
- "Six countries, including the United States and the United Kingdom, officially list Hezbollah or its external security arm as a terrorist organization, though its designation as such is not unanimous among world powers (perhaps most notably, the European Union). Most in the Arab and Muslim worlds regard Hezbollah as a legitimate resistance movement."
- http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Al-Qaeda&oldid=180777260
- http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Hamas&oldid=183137622
- http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Hezbollah&oldid=183233274
- What you seem to want is for Wikipedia to stop merely reporting other people's views and start having views of its own.
60. The Flood
editAbout 60% of Americans accept the account of the Great Flood in the Bible
- America is not the only country that exists.
61. Atheist editors
editWikipedia editors are about 4 times as atheistic or non-religious as the American public.
- America is not the only country that exists. You could restate this criticism to note that Wikipedia editors are more atheistic than the worldwide population, but then you would have to note other failings, like the fact that it is massively under-represented by Muslims - which Conservapedia does not consider a problem, of course.
- In any event, perhaps they could tell us what they would like us to do? Prevent more atheists from joining until the ratio changes?
72. Young earth creationism
edit[Wikipedia] currently offers an article on the topic under the category "Pseudoscience"
- It doesn't currently, but yes, when over 95% (see the above mentioned Gallup poll) of scientists (even including non-biologists) see it as junk, it's probably junk.
73. Deleted page on bias
editWikipedia removed and permanently blocked a page identifying its many biases
- You mean like this?
- http://www.conservapedia.com/index.php?title=Examples_of_Bias_in_Conservapedia&oldid=140939
77. Processes
editWikipedia policy allows bias to exist and worsen. For example, even though most Americans reject the theory of evolution, Wikipedia editors commenting on the topic are nearly 100% pro-evolution.
- America is not the only country that exists.
81. Feudalism
editWikipedia's article on Feudalism is limited to feudalism in Europe and did not mention the feudal systems that developed independently in Japan and India until this defect was described here.
- You mean that Wikipedia had a pro-Western bias? I thought that was what you wanted.
85. 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica
editThe arcane English descriptions in many Wikipedia entries may be due to its copying, verbatim, passages from the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica. This copying was not disclosed in the debate in late 2005 about whether Wikipedia was as reliable a resource as the Encyclopedia Britannica.
- Eh? It's hardly a secret that many Wikipedia entries are based on the public domain 1911 EB. They should all say:
- "This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain."
- Or words to that effect.
88. Global community
edit[Jimbo Wales said]: "I would say that the Wikipedia community is slightly more liberal than the U.S. population on average, because we are global and the international community of English speakers is slightly more liberal than the U.S. population."
- Indeed. Is Conservapedia telling us that having non-Americans is a sign of bias?
93. Gay category
editIn an example of pro-homosexuality bias, the category allowing users to self identify as Heterosexual was deleted because it served no useful purpose, yet the exact same category for Homosexuals was kept.
- That might have been true then; it isn't now.
Concluding thoughts
editConservapedia: The Trustworthy Encyclopedia?
editConservapedia calls itself the "trustworthy encyclopedia". But who would trust it? I'm what Conservapedia calls a "liberal" (the term is not really common in my country) but I certainly wouldn't trust an encyclopedia edited by liberals for liberals. Why? Because I know it would be as stupidly partisan and biased as Conservapedia!
NPOV and the Conservative Point of View
editWikipedia aims to be neutral. If you think it is biased, you can edit it. If you find your edits being reverted, you can talk about it with your fellow editors, hopefully like civilised adults. Conservapedia, on the other hand, explicitly sets out to present just one side of any debate that involves politics or religion.
Here's Conservapedia sysop Crocoite talking about Conservapedia: (as a humourous side-note, this same user briefly considered leaving the project when he decided that one of its many biases did not quite suit him)
- Do you realize that Conservapedia is a conservative website? Do you have Conservaphobia? You should not be surprised to see a conservative analysis here. We are not going to have a NPOV. As a conservative, I am happy Conservapedia exists as an alternative to Wikipedia. I prefer a conservative bias. I'm annoyed by anything liberal: liberal bias, liberal hate speech, liberal hypocrisy, liberal hysteria, liberal quotient, liberal tools, and liberal behavior on Conservapedia. I love adding more Examples of liberal bias from previous "Breaking News" articles. As a sysop, one of my favorite things, is adding conservative and anti-liberal articles to the Breaking News on the Main Page. Since I don't like politically correct language, if you don't like the news articles... too bad. I'm not here for your liberal enjoyment.
Well, quite.
Not only do they claim - correctly - that Wikipedia fails in its goal to be neutral, they also see neutrality as something not even worth trying for. Wikipedia disagrees, which is why it will remain a mainstream encyclopedia used by millions, and Conservapedia will remain... a joke.