Conservapedia
When I was younger, my Dad always told me to be careful when using the internet. It's full of inappropriate content, that might shock and frighten me, I was told. He wasn't wrong. Yesterday, I stumbled across Conservapedia
It turns out, that Wikipedia just doesn't cut the mustard any more. It may have its flaws (an ever-so-slight imbalance towards pop culture) but apparently this warranted the creation of a brand new encyclopedia, this time giving "full credit to Christianity and America," with answers that are "free of "political correctness.""
The editors of Conservapedia appear to be unable to make the connection that "political correctness" is oft the byproduct of academic writing styles, and is pretty much required where you wish to build an impartial encyclopedia.
It's generated a great little war of words between in the two sites... In Conservapedia's article on Wikipedia it maintains that the site is "Anti-American" and "Anti Christian," presumably because the viewpoints expressed in Wikipedia differ from their own.
It's distressing to see people reject (on the whole) academic, globally-formed consensus - it's a worrying return to fundementalism whereby external viewpoints and consensus are flatly ignored in favour of a perpetuating one's own agenda...
Quite happy for people to disagree, but disagreements should be based on opinionand value judgements, not facts as presented in a peer-reviewed encyclopedia.
It turns out, that Wikipedia just doesn't cut the mustard any more. It may have its flaws (an ever-so-slight imbalance towards pop culture) but apparently this warranted the creation of a brand new encyclopedia, this time giving "full credit to Christianity and America," with answers that are "free of "political correctness.""
The editors of Conservapedia appear to be unable to make the connection that "political correctness" is oft the byproduct of academic writing styles, and is pretty much required where you wish to build an impartial encyclopedia.
It's generated a great little war of words between in the two sites... In Conservapedia's article on Wikipedia it maintains that the site is "Anti-American" and "Anti Christian," presumably because the viewpoints expressed in Wikipedia differ from their own.
It's distressing to see people reject (on the whole) academic, globally-formed consensus - it's a worrying return to fundementalism whereby external viewpoints and consensus are flatly ignored in favour of a perpetuating one's own agenda...
Quite happy for people to disagree, but disagreements should be based on opinionand value judgements, not facts as presented in a peer-reviewed encyclopedia.