On Apr 5, 8:44 pm, Andrew Staker <andrew.sta...@gmail.com> wrote:

IDEOLOGY OVER SUBSTANCE

The biggest problem with the whole thing is that there's really no
need to reinvent the wheel. I use Wikipedia all the time, and
most of the time, it's to look up simple, non-controverial
facts, like the tensile strength of steel or when Bob Marley
died. Wikipedia has become the default first stop for
just about every question I have. This is because huge
numbers of people devote a huge amount of time to to entering
and editing information. Now it's unrealistic to expect
that these people will sit down and do the same thing
again, or that there's an equal number of people waiting
to do it who were just "put off" by Wikipedia's "liberal
agenda". So in the end, the only people who are going to
contribute to Conservapedia are those with am ax
to grind.

-jc

The recent conservative alternative to wikipedia.org is
conservapedia.com. Curious to see the cause of the so-called fuss, I
went over to have a look. What became immediately clear is the blatant
inadequacy of the latter. The cause for this is, in my opinion, the
smaller number of contributors and the higher degree of censorship.
Making knowledge fit a mould by definition forces it to take a
prescribed shape. This is the explicit intention of Conservapedia (CP)
and can be thought of poring water into a jug. This contrasts with
Wikipedia's (WP) approach, which I see as making the vessel fit the
form--sort of like buying shoes that fit really well. Below I list some
glaring differences which, in the spirit of open education and ideas,
will let your own mind decide on which is the more informative and
educative website, for Christian and non-Christian alike.

1. The differences begin at the beginning. Wikipedia dot ORG versus
Conservapedia dot COM is each site's default URL.

2. On the question of size:

[A] From CP: "Welcome to Conservapedia/A conservative encyclopedia you
can trust./Conservapedia has over 6,600 educational, clean, and concise
entries, including more than 350 lectures and term lists".

[B] From WP: "English/The Free Encyclopedia/1 721 000+ articles" and
slightly less than half a million articles in German, French and in
declining number for various other World Languages.

3. On the question of Easter, defined as the single most important event
in the Christian liturgical calendar:

[A] From CP: "Easter doesn't fall on a fixed date in the calendar.
Instead, it is based on a lunar calendar like that used by the Jews. At
the Nicean Council in 325 AD it was decided that Easter would be
celebrated on the Sunday after the first full moon on or after the day
of the vernal equinox. The date of the full moon was to be determined by
using the Metonic Cycle. Eastern Orthodox Churches still use the Julian
calendar when determining the date of Easter and thus have an inaccurate
date for the resurrection." The article in total comes in at a mighty
357 words.

[B] There is no point in quoting from the WP entry for Easter. Suffice
to say that it has about 6,300 words, 16 references and about 20 links
to external websites, plus a list of words for Easter in various other
languages.

4. Calculating Easter's dates?

Aside from whatever insult to Orthodox believers the quotation at 3.[A]
may cause, it does raise the rather intriguing question of how the dates
of Easter are determined and by whom. Thankfully, WP comes to the rescue
withhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computuswhich is an article at around
5,000 words in length with references and external discussing the
various methods in history used to determine this sacred day. If one
tries to find similar information at CP... well, it is blank.

5. Conservapedia's use of language

Take a look at this extract from CP's news section: "MORE FAVORABLE
PRESS COVERAGE OF CONSERVAPEDIA: The Chicago Tribune compares our
entries to Wikipedia's here". The 'here' of the article is this CT
article:http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/lifestyle/living/chi-070403022...

Anyone who bothers to consult the article will realise that unless
'favorable' mention equals a mention (any publicity is good publicity),
then their claim is false. John Cotey writes:

"Even when the heart of the definition is the same, Wikipedia and
Conservapedia differ on the delivery. What follows are excerpts from
both sites."

He then proceeds to provide contrasting quotations on issues such as
evolution, global warming and the US Democratic Party. He does not
provide any opinion, 'favorable' or otherwise.

______________________________________

Without boring you needlessly, I hope I have shown that an open
information source such as WP is better for an informed debate which
aims at garnering truth. One of the aims of Conservapedia is to facility
the education of Christian students... but how can it do this when its
article on Easter is 357 words long? These students would surely be
better served by heading over tohttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianityand taking things from there!
Despite the many scholarly shortcomings of WP, which have been well
documented in the media, CP fails drastically if judged by the very same
criteria.

(c) Andrew Staker, Good Friday 2007