Jump to content

Archive:RationalWiki: Difference between revisions

From IdeaWazaWiki
← Older edit

Waza (talk | contribs)

1 user group
1,040 edits
→Content: If you want to contrast the Goat article that is one thing, but trying to put RationalWiki in the same league as two well known and respected organizations like this is original research.
m 50 revisions imported: Import with full history
 
(39 intermediate revisions by 24 users not shown)
Line 1: Line 1:
{{Short description|Wiki criticizing religion and pseudoscience}}
{{Short description|American progressive online encyclopedia}}
{{pp|small=yes}}
<!-- Please do not remove or change this AfD message until the discussion has been closed. -->
{{AfDM|page=RationalWiki (4th nomination)|year=2026|month=October|day=22|substed=yes|origtag=afdx|help=off}}
<!-- End of AfD message, feel free to edit beyond this point -->
{{protection padlock|small=yes}}
{{Primary sources|date=July 2019}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=June 2019}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=June 2019}}
{{Use American English|date=March 2016}}
{{Use American English|date=March 2016}}
{{Primary sources|date=July 2019}}
{{Infobox website
{{Infobox website
| name = RationalWiki
| name           = RationalWiki
| logo = RationalWiki Logo.png
| logo           = RationalWiki Logo.png
| logo_size = 135px
| logo_size       = 135px
| screenshot = RationalWiki Main Page.png
| screenshot     = RationalWiki Main Page.png
| collapsible = Yes
| collapsible     = Yes
| caption = RationalWiki Main Page {{asof|2019|3|11|lc=y|df=US}}
| caption         = RationalWiki Main Page {{as of|2019|3|11|lc=y|df=US}}
| url = {{Official website|name=rationalwiki.org}}
| website        = {{Official website|rationalwiki.org}}
| commercial = No
| commercial     = No
| type = [[Wiki]]
| website_type    = [[Wiki]]
| registration = Optional
| registration   = Optional
| language = English and 16 other languages<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/RationalWiki:Languages |title=RationalWiki:Languages |publisher=RationalWiki |access-date=October 9, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181009092738/https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/RationalWiki:Languages |archive-date=October 9, 2018 |url-status=live}}</ref>
| language       = English and 16 other languages<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/RationalWiki:Languages |title=RationalWiki:Languages |publisher=RationalWiki |access-date=October 9, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181009092738/https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/RationalWiki:Languages |archive-date=October 9, 2018 |url-status=live}}</ref>
| owner = RationalMedia Foundation<ref name=RMF>{{cite web |url=https://rationalweb.org/about/ |title=About |publisher=RationalMedia Foundation |access-date=November 10, 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191110133124/https://rationalweb.org/about/ |archive-date=November 10, 2019 |url-status=live}}</ref>
| owner           = RationalMedia Foundation<ref name=RMF>{{cite web |url=https://rationalweb.org/about/ |title=About |publisher=RationalMedia Foundation |access-date=November 10, 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191110133124/https://rationalweb.org/about/ |archive-date=November 10, 2019 |url-status=live}}</ref>
| author = Volunteer contributors<ref name=Disclaimer>{{cite web |url=https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/RationalWiki:General_disclaimer |title=RationalWiki:General disclaimer |publisher=RationalWiki |access-date=January 16, 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150106213731/http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/RationalWiki:General_disclaimer |archive-date=January 6, 2015 |url-status=live}}</ref>
| creator        = Volunteer contributors<ref name=Disclaimer>{{cite web |url=https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/RationalWiki:General_disclaimer |title=RationalWiki:General disclaimer |publisher=RationalWiki |access-date=January 16, 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150106213731/http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/RationalWiki:General_disclaimer |archive-date=January 6, 2015 |url-status=live}}</ref>
| key_people = Trent Toulouse (operations manager)<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/RationalWiki_talk:RationalMedia_Foundation|title=RationalWiki talk:RationalMedia Foundation - RationalWiki}}</ref>
| key_people     = Trent Toulouse (operations manager)<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/RationalWiki_talk:RationalMedia_Foundation|title=RationalWiki talk:RationalMedia Foundation - RationalWiki}}</ref>
| content_license = [[CC BY-SA]] 3.0<ref>{{cite web |title=RationalWiki:Copyrights |url=https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/RationalWiki:Copyrights |publisher=RationalWiki |access-date=November 5, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181105231933/https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/RationalWiki:Copyrights |archive-date=November 5, 2018 |url-status=live}}</ref>
| content_license = [[CC BY-SA]] 3.0<ref>{{cite web |title=RationalWiki:Copyrights |url=https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/RationalWiki:Copyrights |publisher=RationalWiki |access-date=November 5, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181105231933/https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/RationalWiki:Copyrights |archive-date=November 5, 2018 |url-status=live}}</ref>
| programming_language = [[MediaWiki]] software
| written_in      = [[MediaWiki]] software
| users = >314 active users{{notetag|To be considered [[Special:ActiveUsers|active]], a user must make at least one edit or other action in a given month.}}<br/>>107,655 registered users
| num_users      = {{Unbulleted list
| launch_date = {{Start date and age|mf=yes|2007|5|22}}<ref name="RationalWiki:Timeline">{{cite web |url=https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/RationalWiki:Timeline |title=RationalWiki:Timeline |publisher=RationalWiki |access-date=August 10, 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170810092526/https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/RationalWiki:Timeline |archive-date=August 10, 2017 |url-status=live}}</ref>
| 314 active users{{notetag|To be considered active, a user must make at least one edit or other action in a given month.}}
| current_status = Active
| 110,998 registered users<ref>{{Cite web |title=Statistics |url=https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Special:Statistics |access-date=2025-03-24 |website=RationalWiki}}</ref>
}}
| launched        = {{Start date and age|2007|5|22}}<ref name="RationalWiki:Timeline">{{cite web |url=https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/RationalWiki:Timeline |title=RationalWiki:Timeline |publisher=RationalWiki |access-date=August 10, 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170810092526/https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/RationalWiki:Timeline |archive-date=August 10, 2017 |url-status=live}}</ref>
| current_status = Active
}}
}}


'''RationalWiki''' is an online [[wiki]] which is written from a [[Scientific skepticism|scientific skeptic]], [[Secularism|secular]], and [[Progressivist|progressive]] perspective. Its stated goals are to "analyze and refute [[pseudoscience]] and the [[antiscience|anti-science]] movement, document [[wiktionary:crank|crank]] ideas, explore [[Conspiracy theory|conspiracy theories]], [[authoritarianism]], and [[fundamentalism]], and analyze how these subjects are handled in the [[News media|media]]."<ref name=Crowdsourced /> It was created in 2007 as a counterpoint to the [[Christian fundamentalist]] [[Conservapedia]] after an incident in which some editors of Conservapedia were banned.<ref name="RationalWiki:Timeline" /><ref name=LAT /> RationalWiki has been described as [[Liberalism|liberal]] in contrast to Conservapedia.<ref name=":1" /><ref name=":0" />
'''RationalWiki''' is an online [[wiki]] which is written from a [[Scientific skepticism|scientific skeptic]], [[Secularism|secular]], and [[Progressivist|progressive]] perspective. Its stated goals are to "analyze and refute [[pseudoscience]] and the [[antiscience|anti-science]] movement, document [[wiktionary:crank|crank]] ideas, explore [[Conspiracy theory|conspiracy theories]], [[authoritarianism]], and [[fundamentalism]], and analyze how these subjects are handled in the [[News media|media]]." It was created in 2007 as a counterpoint to [[Conservapedia]], an [[Conservatism in the United States|American conservative]] wiki, after an incident in which some editors of Conservapedia were banned.<ref name="RationalWiki:Timeline" /><ref name=LAT /> RationalWiki has been described as [[Liberalism|liberal]] in contrast to Conservapedia.<ref name=":1" /><ref name=":0" /> As of March 2026, RationalWiki has 8,000+ articles and 314 active users.


== History ==
== History ==
=== Origin ===
=== Origin ===
In April 2007, Peter Lipson, a doctor of [[internal medicine]], attempted to edit [[Conservapedia]]'s article on [[breast cancer]] to include evidence against Conservapedia's claim that [[abortion]] was [[Abortion–breast cancer hypothesis|linked to the disease]]. Conservapedia is an [[encyclopedia]] established by [[Andy Schlafly]] as an alternative to [[Wikipedia]], which Schlafly perceived as suffering from a [[Modern liberalism in the United States|liberal]], [[Atheism|atheist]], and "anti-American" [[Bias in Wikipedia|bias]]. He and Conservapedia administrators "questioned [Lipson's] credentials and shut down debate". After being reverted and blocked, "Lipson and several other contributors quit trying to moderate the articles [on Conservapedia] and instead started their own website, RationalWiki".<ref name=LAT>{{cite news |last=Simon |first=Stephanie |date=June 19, 2007 |title=A conservative's answer to Wikipedia |url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2007-jun-19-na-schlafly19-story.html |work=Los Angeles Times |access-date=June 13, 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190505222250/https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2007-jun-19-na-schlafly19-story.html |archive-date=May 5, 2019 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref name=ElReg>{{cite web |url=https://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/06/20/conservapedia?page=3 |title=Need hard facts? Try Conservapedia |first1=Lester |last1=Haines |work=The Register |date=June 20, 2007 |access-date=January 19, 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150211031134/http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/06/20/conservapedia?page=3 |archive-date=February 11, 2015 |url-status=live}}</ref>
In April 2007, Peter Lipson, a doctor of [[internal medicine]], attempted to edit [[Conservapedia]]'s article on [[breast cancer]] to include evidence against Conservapedia's claim that [[abortion]] was [[Abortion–breast cancer hypothesis|linked to the disease]]. Conservapedia is an [[encyclopedia]] established by [[Andrew Schlafly]] as an alternative to [[Wikipedia]], which Schlafly perceived as suffering from a [[Modern liberalism in the United States|liberal]], [[Atheism|atheist]], and "anti-American" [[Bias in Wikipedia|bias]]. He and Conservapedia administrators "questioned [Lipson's] credentials and shut down debate". After being reverted and blocked, "Lipson and several other contributors quit trying to moderate the articles [on Conservapedia] and instead started their own website, RationalWiki".<ref name=LAT>{{cite news |last=Simon |first=Stephanie |date=June 19, 2007 |title=A conservative's answer to Wikipedia |url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2007-jun-19-na-schlafly19-story.html |work=Los Angeles Times |access-date=June 13, 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190505222250/https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2007-jun-19-na-schlafly19-story.html |archive-date=May 5, 2019 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref name=ElReg>{{cite web |url=https://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/06/20/conservapedia?page=3 |title=Need hard facts? Try Conservapedia |first1=Lester |last1=Haines |work=The Register |date=June 20, 2007 |access-date=January 19, 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150211031134/http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/06/20/conservapedia?page=3 |archive-date=February 11, 2015 |url-status=live}}</ref>


=== RationalMedia Foundation ===
=== RationalMedia Foundation ===
Prior to 2010, RationalWiki's domains were registered to Trent Toulouse, and the wiki was hosted from a server located in his home.<ref name="RationalWiki:Timeline" /> In 2010, Trent Toulouse incorporated a [[nonprofit organization]], the RationalWiki Foundation Inc., to manage the affairs and pay the operational expenses of the website.<ref name="RMF" /> In July 2013, the RationalWiki Foundation changed its name to the RationalMedia Foundation, stating that its aims extended beyond the RationalWiki site alone.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://rationalblogs.org/rationalmedia/2013/07/30/a-message-from-our-chair/ |title=A message from our Chair |publisher=RationalMedia Foundation blog |date=July 30, 2013|access-date=August 22, 2017 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160405150414/http://rationalblogs.org/rationalmedia/2013/07/30/a-message-from-our-chair/ |archive-date=April 5, 2016}}</ref>
Prior to 2010, RationalWiki's domains were registered to Trent Toulouse, and the wiki was hosted from a server located in his home.<ref name="RationalWiki:Timeline" /> In 2010, Trent Toulouse incorporated a [[nonprofit organization]], the RationalWiki Foundation Inc., to manage the affairs and pay the operational expenses of the website.<ref name="RMF" /> In July 2013, the RationalWiki Foundation changed its name to the RationalMedia Foundation, stating that its aims extended beyond the RationalWiki site alone.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://rationalblogs.org/rationalmedia/2013/07/30/a-message-from-our-chair/ |title=A message from our Chair |publisher=RationalMedia Foundation blog |date=July 30, 2013|access-date=August 22, 2017 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160405150414/http://rationalblogs.org/rationalmedia/2013/07/30/a-message-from-our-chair/ |archive-date=April 5, 2016}}</ref>
In April 2025, the RationalMedia Foundation was sued for defamation by various plaintiffs who were covered on RationalWiki. In the same month, despite concerns about the foundation dissolving, it reached an out of court settlement with the plaintiffs where it agreed to delete their articles.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2025-04-20 |title=RationalWiki (@RationalWiki@mstdn.social) |url=https://mstdn.social/@RationalWiki/114372140485623793 |access-date=2025-04-25 |website=Mastodon 🐘 |language=en}}</ref>


== Content ==
== Content ==
[[File:RationalWiki article lede.png|thumb|upright 2|Partial screenshot of their "Alt-right glossary" article,<ref>"[Alt-right glossary https://rationalwiki.org/w/index.php?title=Alt-right_glossary&oldid=2676671]", ''RationalWiki''. Retrieved 15.09.24</ref> a comprehensive collection of purported [[hate symbols]]]][[File:RationalWiki Goat article screenshot.jpg|thumb|right|Screenshot of RationalWiki's article on [[Goat|goats]]. The humor in the article is a [[running gag]] in the wiki and is not the result of [[Wiki Vandalism|vandalism]].]]
[[File:RationalWiki article lede.png|thumb|upright 2|Partial screenshot of their "Alt-right glossary" article,<ref>"[https://rationalwiki.org/w/index.php?title=Alt-right_glossary&oldid=2676671 Alt-right glossary]", ''RationalWiki''. Retrieved 15.09.24</ref> a comprehensive collection of purported [[hate symbols]]]][[File:RationalWiki Goat article screenshot.jpg|thumb|right|Screenshot of RationalWiki's article on [[goat]]s. The humor in the article is a [[running gag]] in the wiki and is not the result of [[Wiki Vandalism|vandalism]].]]
RationalWiki aims to provide information about [[Pseudoscience|pseudoscientific]] theories<ref name="IntelSys2014">{{cite book |title=Intelligent Systems'2014: Proceedings of the 7th IEEE International Conference Intelligent Systems IS'2014, September 24–26, 2014, Warsaw, Poland, Volume 2: Tools, Architectures, Systems, Applications. Series: Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing, Vol. 323 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=jPuSBAAAQBAJ&pg=PA532 |at=A Method of Automatic Detection of Pseudoscientific Publications, page 533 et seq.|last=Shvets|first=Alexander|display-editors=3|editor-last1=Filev|editor-first1=D.|editor-last2=Jabłkowski|editor-first2=J.|editor-last3=Kacprzyk|editor-first3=J.|editor-last4=Krawczak|editor-first4=M.|editor-last5=Popchev|editor-first5=I.|editor-last6=Rutkowski|editor-first6=L.|editor-last7=Sgurev|editor-first7=V.|editor-last8=Sotirova|editor-first8=E.|editor-last9=Szynkarczyk|editor-first9=P.|editor-last10=Zadrozny|editor-first10=S.|publisher=[[Springer Publishing]] | date=October 2, 2014|isbn=978-3-319-11310-4}}</ref> and to educate "individuals with unorthodox views".<ref>{{cite web |last=Brojakowski |first=Benjamin |url=https://etd.ohiolink.edu/!etd.send_file?accession=bgsu1499383965589843&disposition=inline |title=Digital Whiteness Imperialism: Redefining Caucasian Identity Post-Boston Bombing |publisher=[[Bowling Green State University]] (dissertation) |date=August 2017 |access-date=October 3, 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171003175106/https://etd.ohiolink.edu/!etd.send_file?accession=bgsu1499383965589843&disposition=inline |archive-date=October 3, 2017 |url-status=dead }}</ref>
RationalWiki aims to provide information about [[Pseudoscience|pseudoscientific]] theories<ref name="IntelSys2014">{{cite book |title=Intelligent Systems'2014: Proceedings of the 7th IEEE International Conference Intelligent Systems IS'2014, September 24–26, 2014, Warsaw, Poland, Volume 2: Tools, Architectures, Systems, Applications. Series: Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing, Vol. 323 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=jPuSBAAAQBAJ&pg=PA532 |at=A Method of Automatic Detection of Pseudoscientific Publications, page 533 et seq.|last=Shvets|first=Alexander|display-editors=3|editor-last1=Filev|editor-first1=D.|editor-last2=Jabłkowski|editor-first2=J.|editor-last3=Kacprzyk|editor-first3=J.|editor-last4=Krawczak|editor-first4=M.|editor-last5=Popchev|editor-first5=I.|editor-last6=Rutkowski|editor-first6=L.|editor-last7=Sgurev|editor-first7=V.|editor-last8=Sotirova|editor-first8=E.|editor-last9=Szynkarczyk|editor-first9=P.|editor-last10=Zadrozny|editor-first10=S.|publisher=[[Springer Publishing]] | date=October 2, 2014|isbn=978-3-319-11310-4}}</ref> and to educate "individuals with unorthodox views".<ref>{{cite web |last=Brojakowski |first=Benjamin |url=https://etd.ohiolink.edu/!etd.send_file?accession=bgsu1499383965589843&disposition=inline |title=Digital Whiteness Imperialism: Redefining Caucasian Identity Post-Boston Bombing |publisher=[[Bowling Green State University]] (dissertation) |date=August 2017 |access-date=October 3, 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171003175106/https://etd.ohiolink.edu/!etd.send_file?accession=bgsu1499383965589843&disposition=inline |archive-date=October 3, 2017 |url-status=dead }}</ref> Many RationalWiki articles satirically describe beliefs that RationalWiki opposes, especially when covering topics such as [[alternative medicine]] or [[Christian fundamentalism|fundamentalist Christians]].<ref name=ElReg />
 
RationalWiki differs in several ways from the philosophy of Wikipedia and some other informational wikis. It is written from a self-described "snarky point of view" and "scientific point of view" (both abbreviated as SPOV) rather than a "[[Wikipedia:Neutral point of view|neutral point of view]]" (NPOV), and publishes opinion, speculation, and original research.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/RationalWiki:What_is_a_RationalWiki_article%3F |publisher=RationalWiki |title=RationalWiki:What is a RationalWiki article? |access-date=January 16, 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150209042145/http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/RationalWiki:What_is_a_RationalWiki_article%3F |archive-date=February 9, 2015 |url-status=live}}</ref> Many RationalWiki articles satirically describe beliefs that RationalWiki opposes, especially when covering topics such as [[alternative medicine]] or [[Christian fundamentalism|fundamentalist Christians]].<ref name=ElReg />


Some activity on RationalWiki was used for critiquing and "monitor[ing] Conservapedia".<ref name=LAT /> RationalWiki contributors, some of whom are former Conservapedia contributors, are often highly critical of Conservapedia. According to a 2007 ''[[Los Angeles Times]]'' article, RationalWiki members "by their own admission" vandalize Conservapedia.<ref name="LAT" /> Lester Haines of ''[[The Register]]'' stated: "Its entry entitled 'Conservapedia:Delusions' promptly mocks the claims that 'Homosexuality is a mental disorder', 'Atheists are sociopaths', and 'During the 6 days of creation G-d placed the Earth inside a black hole to slow down time so the light from distant stars had time to reach us'."<ref name=ElReg />
Some activity on RationalWiki was used for critiquing and "monitor[ing] Conservapedia".<ref name=LAT /> RationalWiki contributors, some of whom are former Conservapedia contributors, are often highly critical of Conservapedia. According to a 2007 ''[[Los Angeles Times]]'' article, RationalWiki members "by their own admission" vandalize Conservapedia.<ref name="LAT" /> Lester Haines of ''[[The Register]]'' stated: "Its entry entitled 'Conservapedia:Delusions' promptly mocks the claims that 'Homosexuality is a mental disorder', 'Atheists are sociopaths', and 'During the 6 days of creation G-d placed the Earth inside a black hole to slow down time so the light from distant stars had time to reach us'."<ref name=ElReg />
Line 49: Line 55:
== Reception ==
== Reception ==
=== Analysis ===
=== Analysis ===
Andrea Ballatore, a lecturer in [[Geographic information system|GIS]] at [[Birkbeck, University of London]], categorizes RationalWiki as similar in tone to [[Snopes]] in a 2015 study, finding it to be the third most visible website when researching [[conspiracy theory|conspiracy theories]] in terms of [[Google Search|Google]] and [[Bing (search engine)|Bing]] search results, and the most visible among those sites that made openly negative value judgments about conspiracy theories.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Ballatore |first=Andrea |url=http://firstmonday.org/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/5597/4652 |title=Google chemtrails: A methodology to analyze topic representation in search engine results. |issue=7 |journal=First Monday |volume=20 |series=20.7 (2015) |access-date=March 15, 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160308111444/http://firstmonday.org/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/5597/4652 |archive-date=March 8, 2016 |url-status=live |date=June 19, 2015}}</ref> In ''Intelligent Systems 2014'', Alexander Shvets found RationalWiki to be one of the few online resources that "provide some information about pseudoscientific theories".<ref name="IntelSys2014" /> Likewise, Keeler et al. believe that sites like RationalWiki can help to "sort out the complexities" that arise when "distant and unfamiliar and complex things are communicated to great masses of people".<ref name="Crowdsourced">{{cite web |url=http://necsi.edu/events/iccs2011/papers/45.pdf#page=4 |title=Crowdsourced Knowledge: Peril and Promise for Complex Knowledge Systems |first1=Mary |last1=Keeler |first2=Josh |last2=Johnson |first3=Arun |last3=Majumdar |page=756 |publisher=New England Complex Systems Institute |date=2011 |access-date=January 17, 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150413184123/http://necsi.edu/events/iccs2011/papers/45.pdf#page=4 |archive-date=April 13, 2015 |url-status=dead }}</ref>
Andrea Ballatore, a lecturer in [[Geographic information system|GIS]] at [[Birkbeck, University of London]], categorizes RationalWiki as similar in tone to [[Snopes]] in a 2015 study, finding it to be the third-most-visible website when researching [[conspiracy theory|conspiracy theories]] in terms of [[Google Search|Google]] and [[Bing (search engine)|Bing]] search results, and the most visible among those sites that made openly negative value judgments about conspiracy theories.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Ballatore |first=Andrea |url=http://firstmonday.org/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/5597/4652 |title=Google chemtrails: A methodology to analyze topic representation in search engine results. |issue=7 |journal=First Monday |volume=20 |series=20.7 (2015) |access-date=March 15, 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160308111444/http://firstmonday.org/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/5597/4652 |archive-date=March 8, 2016 |url-status=live |date=June 19, 2015}}</ref> In ''Intelligent Systems 2014'', Alexander Shvets found RationalWiki to be one of the few online resources that "provide some information about pseudoscientific theories".<ref name="IntelSys2014" />


A 2019 study of bias analysis based on [[word embedding]] in RationalWiki, Conservapedia, and Wikipedia by researchers from [[RWTH Aachen University]] found all had significant gender biases, reflecting classical gender stereotypes, but these biases were less pronounced in RationalWiki.<ref name=":0" />  
A 2019 study of bias analysis based on [[word embedding]] in RationalWiki, Conservapedia, and Wikipedia by researchers from [[RWTH Aachen University]] found all had significant gender biases, reflecting classical gender stereotypes, but these biases were less pronounced in RationalWiki.<ref name=":0" />


=== Usage ===
=== Usage ===
In ''Critical Thinking: Pseudoscience and the Paranormal'', Jonathan C. Smith lists RationalWiki in an exercise on finding and identifying fallacies.<ref>{{cite book|last=Smith|first=Jonathan C. |title=Critical Thinking: Pseudoscience and the Paranormal|publisher=John Wiley & Sons |year=2017|page=77 |isbn=978-1-119-02948-9}}</ref>  
In ''Critical Thinking: Pseudoscience and the Paranormal'', Jonathan C. Smith lists RationalWiki in an exercise on finding and identifying fallacies.<ref>{{cite book|last=Smith|first=Jonathan C. |title=Critical Thinking: Pseudoscience and the Paranormal|publisher=John Wiley & Sons |year=2017|page=77 |isbn=978-1-119-02948-9}}</ref>


Writing in ''[[The Verge]],'' Adi Robertson stated that RationalWiki provided a good explanation of [[Time Cube]], though conveying the "full impression" of the original Time Cube website was all but impossible.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.theverge.com/2015/9/2/9247913/time-cube-is-gone |first=Adi |last=Robertson |website=The Verge |date=2015-09-02 |access-date=2022-06-17 |title=Time Cube is gone}}</ref>
Writing in ''[[The Verge]],'' Adi Robertson stated that RationalWiki provided a good explanation of [[Time Cube]], though conveying the "full impression" of the original Time Cube website was all but impossible.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.theverge.com/2015/9/2/9247913/time-cube-is-gone |first=Adi |last=Robertson |website=The Verge |date=2015-09-02 |access-date=2022-06-17 |title=Time Cube is gone}}</ref>
RationalWiki tries to track all the places they are either mentioned or cited.<ref>{{Cite news |title=Mentions |language=en |work=RationalWiki |url=https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/RationalWiki:Mentions |access-date=2023-07-20}}</ref>


== See also ==
== See also ==
{{Portal|Internet|Journalism}}
{{Portal|Internet}}
* [[List of wikis]]
* [[List of wikis]]
* [[List of online encyclopedias]]
* [[List of online encyclopedias]]
Line 72: Line 76:


== External links ==
== External links ==
*{{Commonscat-inline}}
{{Wikidata property|P7775}}
*{{Commons category-inline}}
* {{Official website}}
* {{Official website}}


{{Wikis}}
{{New Atheism}}
{{New Atheism}}
{{Authority control}}
{{Authority control}}


[[Category:American websites]]
[[Category:American online encyclopedias]]
[[Category:Critics of alternative medicine]]
[[Category:Critics of creationism]]
[[Category:Free-content websites]]
[[Category:Free-content websites]]
[[Category:Internet properties established in 2007]]
[[Category:Internet properties established in 2007]]
[[Category:Online encyclopedias]]
[[Category:MediaWiki websites]]
[[Category:MediaWiki websites]]
[[Category:Scientific skepticism]]
[[Category:New Atheism]]
[[Category:Progressive organizations in the United States]]
[[Category:Russian-language encyclopedias]]
[[Category:Scientific skepticism organizations]]
[[Category:Wiki communities]]
[[Category:Wiki communities]]
[[Category:Wikis]]
[[Category:Russian-language encyclopedias]]
[[Category:American encyclopedias]]
[[Category:New Atheism]]
[[Category:Secular humanism]]
[[Category:Liberalism in the United States]]
[[Category:Progressivism in the United States]]
[[Category:Left-wing politics in the United States]]
[[Category:Criticism of religion]]

Latest revision as of 21:37, 28 October 2026

Template:Short description

Template:Protection padlock Template:Primary sources Template:Use mdy dates Template:Use American English Template:Infobox website

RationalWiki is an online wiki which is written from a scientific skeptic, secular, and progressive perspective. Its stated goals are to "analyze and refute pseudoscience and the anti-science movement, document crank ideas, explore conspiracy theories, authoritarianism, and fundamentalism, and analyze how these subjects are handled in the media." It was created in 2007 as a counterpoint to Conservapedia, an American conservative wiki, after an incident in which some editors of Conservapedia were banned.[1][2] RationalWiki has been described as liberal in contrast to Conservapedia.[3][4] As of March 2026, RationalWiki has 8,000+ articles and 314 active users.

History

Origin

In April 2007, Peter Lipson, a doctor of internal medicine, attempted to edit Conservapedia's article on breast cancer to include evidence against Conservapedia's claim that abortion was linked to the disease. Conservapedia is an encyclopedia established by Andrew Schlafly as an alternative to Wikipedia, which Schlafly perceived as suffering from a liberal, atheist, and "anti-American" bias. He and Conservapedia administrators "questioned [Lipson's] credentials and shut down debate". After being reverted and blocked, "Lipson and several other contributors quit trying to moderate the articles [on Conservapedia] and instead started their own website, RationalWiki".[2][5]

RationalMedia Foundation

Prior to 2010, RationalWiki's domains were registered to Trent Toulouse, and the wiki was hosted from a server located in his home.[1] In 2010, Trent Toulouse incorporated a nonprofit organization, the RationalWiki Foundation Inc., to manage the affairs and pay the operational expenses of the website.[6] In July 2013, the RationalWiki Foundation changed its name to the RationalMedia Foundation, stating that its aims extended beyond the RationalWiki site alone.[7]

In April 2025, the RationalMedia Foundation was sued for defamation by various plaintiffs who were covered on RationalWiki. In the same month, despite concerns about the foundation dissolving, it reached an out of court settlement with the plaintiffs where it agreed to delete their articles.[8]

Content

Partial screenshot of their "Alt-right glossary" article,[9] a comprehensive collection of purported hate symbols
Screenshot of RationalWiki's article on goats. The humor in the article is a running gag in the wiki and is not the result of vandalism.

RationalWiki aims to provide information about pseudoscientific theories[10] and to educate "individuals with unorthodox views".[11] Many RationalWiki articles satirically describe beliefs that RationalWiki opposes, especially when covering topics such as alternative medicine or fundamentalist Christians.[5]

Some activity on RationalWiki was used for critiquing and "monitor[ing] Conservapedia".[2] RationalWiki contributors, some of whom are former Conservapedia contributors, are often highly critical of Conservapedia. According to a 2007 Los Angeles Times article, RationalWiki members "by their own admission" vandalize Conservapedia.[2] Lester Haines of The Register stated: "Its entry entitled 'Conservapedia:Delusions' promptly mocks the claims that 'Homosexuality is a mental disorder', 'Atheists are sociopaths', and 'During the 6 days of creation G-d placed the Earth inside a black hole to slow down time so the light from distant stars had time to reach us'."[5]

Both Yan et al. 2019[3] and Knoche et al.,[4] two articles about classifying a writer's biases via text analysis, asserted that Conservapedia was "conservative" and RationalWiki was "liberal". Mic described RationalWiki as "progressive".[12]

When Krebs et al. 2023 compared text on controversial topics across multiple community-managed wikis, they found that content and contributors on RationalWiki leaned liberal while Conservapedia leaned conservative. In contrast, Wikipedia's content was comparable to the Encyclopedia Britannica, leaned slightly liberal and its editors leaned centrist. Both RationalWiki and Conservapedia were "more loaded with moral content".[13]Template:Clarification needed

Reception

Analysis

Andrea Ballatore, a lecturer in GIS at Birkbeck, University of London, categorizes RationalWiki as similar in tone to Snopes in a 2015 study, finding it to be the third-most-visible website when researching conspiracy theories in terms of Google and Bing search results, and the most visible among those sites that made openly negative value judgments about conspiracy theories.[14] In Intelligent Systems 2014, Alexander Shvets found RationalWiki to be one of the few online resources that "provide some information about pseudoscientific theories".[10]

A 2019 study of bias analysis based on word embedding in RationalWiki, Conservapedia, and Wikipedia by researchers from RWTH Aachen University found all had significant gender biases, reflecting classical gender stereotypes, but these biases were less pronounced in RationalWiki.[4]

Usage

In Critical Thinking: Pseudoscience and the Paranormal, Jonathan C. Smith lists RationalWiki in an exercise on finding and identifying fallacies.[15]

Writing in The Verge, Adi Robertson stated that RationalWiki provided a good explanation of Time Cube, though conveying the "full impression" of the original Time Cube website was all but impossible.[16]

See also

Portal Internet portal


Notes

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; no text was provided for refs named RationalWiki:Timeline
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 Simon, Stephanie (June 19, 2007). "A conservative's answer to Wikipedia". Los Angeles Times. https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2007-jun-19-na-schlafly19-story.html. 
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 Yan, Hao; Das, Sanmay; Lavoie, Allen; Li, Sirui; Sinclair, Betsy (June 2019). "The Congressional Classification Challenge". Proceedings of the 2019 ACM Conference on Economics and Computation. EC '19. pp. 71–89. doi:10.1145/3328526.3329582. ISBN 9781450367929. 
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 Knoche, Markus; Popović, Radomir; Lemmerich, Florian; Strohmaier, Markus (September 2019). "Identifying Biases in Politically Biased Wikis through Word Embeddings". Proceedings of the 30th ACM Conference on Hypertext and Social Media. HT '19. pp. 253–257. doi:10.1145/3342220.3343658. ISBN 9781450368858. https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=3343658. 
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 Haines, Lester (June 20, 2007). "Need hard facts? Try Conservapedia". The Register. https://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/06/20/conservapedia?page=3. 
  6. ↑ Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; no text was provided for refs named RMF
  7. ↑ "A message from our Chair". RationalMedia Foundation blog. July 30, 2013. http://rationalblogs.org/rationalmedia/2013/07/30/a-message-from-our-chair/. 
  8. ↑ "RationalWiki (@RationalWiki@mstdn.social)" (in en). 2025-04-20. https://mstdn.social/@RationalWiki/114372140485623793. 
  9. ↑ "Alt-right glossary", RationalWiki. Retrieved 15.09.24
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 Shvets, Alexander (October 2, 2014). Intelligent Systems'2014: Proceedings of the 7th IEEE International Conference Intelligent Systems IS'2014, September 24–26, 2014, Warsaw, Poland, Volume 2: Tools, Architectures, Systems, Applications. Series: Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing, Vol. 323. Springer Publishing. A Method of Automatic Detection of Pseudoscientific Publications, page 533 et seq.. ISBN 978-3-319-11310-4. https://books.google.com/books?id=jPuSBAAAQBAJ&pg=PA532. 
  11. ↑ Brojakowski, Benjamin (August 2017). "Digital Whiteness Imperialism: Redefining Caucasian Identity Post-Boston Bombing". Bowling Green State University (dissertation). https://etd.ohiolink.edu/!etd.send_file?accession=bgsu1499383965589843&disposition=inline. 
  12. ↑ McKay, Tom (2015-09-30). "7 Tips on Gender Relations, According to Men's Rights Activists and the "Manosphere"". https://www.mic.com/articles/125977/7-tips-on-gender-relations-according-to-men-s-rights-activists-and-the-manosphere. 
  13. ↑ Krebs, Marie-Christin; Oeberst, Aileen; von der Beck, Ina (22 April 2023). "The Wisdom of the Crowd is not a Forgone Conclusion. Effects of Self-Selection on (Collaborative) Knowledge Construction". Topics in Cognitive Science 16 (2): 206–224. doi:10.1111/tops.12647. PMID 37086058. 
  14. ↑ Ballatore, Andrea (June 19, 2015). "Google chemtrails: A methodology to analyze topic representation in search engine results.". First Monday. 20.7 (2015) 20 (7). http://firstmonday.org/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/5597/4652. Retrieved on March 15, 2016. 
  15. ↑ Smith, Jonathan C. (2017). Critical Thinking: Pseudoscience and the Paranormal. John Wiley & Sons. p. 77. ISBN 978-1-119-02948-9. 
  16. ↑ Robertson, Adi (2015-09-02). "Time Cube is gone". https://www.theverge.com/2015/9/2/9247913/time-cube-is-gone. 

Template:Wikidata property

Template:Wikis Template:New Atheism Template:Authority control

Retrieved from "https://ideawaza.com/index.php?title=Archive:RationalWiki&oldid=103379"