Conservapedia:Newcomer's Guide

From RationalWiki

Contents 1 Introduction 2 Loyal Conservapedians 2.1 Sysops 2.2 Ex-Sysops 3 Other major players 4 RationalWiki Members 5 Conservapedia Concepts 6 Conservapedia Fun

[edit] Introduction

We talk about a lot of stuff here. Some of it has meaning. Most of it doesn't. If that meaning confuses you, look here.

This guide is intended to provide new RationalWiki users with basic information about Conservapedia, its modus operandi, and to clarify your relationship with regard to this seminal work of Western society. Be forewarned that this guide is written from the liberal perspective, so if creationism is your bag, baby, the following may not be a "friendly" guide, but will give you the general idea.

[edit] Loyal Conservapedians

[edit] Sysops

• Aschlafly: the leader of Conservapedia, and "groomer" of his young students. Though he proclaims himself to be the intellectual leader of the Conservapedians, he regularly misses glaring errors in his own spelling and grammar while at the same time using his enemies' spelling and grammar mistakes to discredit their arguments. The master of godspeed, inventor of the Schlafly Reversal and butcher of Shakespeare, Andy shows us all that it is possible to insert one's head into one's ass and still breathe, although brain damage may be the result.
• RSchlafly: for someone who has a PhD, a truly stupid man (but compared to his brother, a genius). From as near as I can tell, he believes in neither relativity nor evolution, nor heliocentric theory in its modern iteration. Thankfully he's on Conservapedia less & less. An argumentative type, he employs the traditional CP debating style of asking questions of editors but never answering responses, and then banning them.
• RobSmith: widely regarded as a talking horse, this fellow checks over his shoulder every second. More paranoid and psychotic than Joe McCarthy & Richard Nixon at the same time, RobS - Conservapedia's Director of Internal Counterintelligence and resident Reinhard Heydrich - thinks that the more surveillance and the less freedom, the better. The TextBook Ostrich Case when it comes to facts and knowledge, he will ignore any ideas that don't fit his world view, and then ban the proposer. Rob is also convinced of the deep evil of the gay rights movement, and is incapable of having a rational discussion (particularly whenever communism is involved). He created his own phrase, the New Ordeal. Favorite phrase: Disinformation! (inactive since early Dec 2007, premusably defending the Republican Presidential Candidate against subversives)
• Conservative: (AKA Ken, or Kenservative) after being kicked off of Wikipedia for poor writing (consisting only of cutting & pasting "mined" block-quotes) and a farcically far-right creationist perspective, Conservative turned his "talents" to developing this clusterfrack, and, more importantly, his Summa Homosexualita. More recently he has been the poster boy for the hijacked article, notably in his homosexuality series (a subject with which Ken is eerily obsessed). His other hobbies include whining, announcing that he has emailed various people, and using hackneyed and much publicized ploys in an attempt to boost CP's web traffic, to no avail.
• DanH / MountainDew: Often viewed as one of the nicer, more rational CP sysops, but look out, that smile also has teeth! Under both his user names, ole Danny boy has more blocks for petty and ideological reasons than TK or Conservative. Proof again that you can't judge a book by its cover. He's the guy who looks you in the eyes and says: "Welcome, Friend!" while he shoves the knife deep. (resigned on idealogical grounds - see his parthian shot)
• Karajou: a former swabbie in the U.S. Navy and wannabe law enforcement junkie, he is a less cerebral version of RobS, but far less reticent at pulling the block lever. This poor dolt labors under the impression that just because a vandal/troll/sock uses a certain IP address often, then ALL users with the first six digits are trolls/vandals/socks as well! He manages to "defend" CP almost 24/7, on less than 5 hours of sleep each night. Good thing the wife works to support them both, because Karajou is never away from his "command seat" for more than a couple of hours. He also created his own word, insultive. In compensation for a less than heroic military career, he struts about the CP deck informing all within earshot that only he is qualified to judge who reaches the status of a "true soldier."
• Jallen aka Niandra: an Aussie on holiday, and Queen of the generalized, non-specific blocks of hundreds. Ranks third behind Aschlafly and DanH/MountainDew. Protected the vast majority of uploaded pictures in late May 2007.
• Crocoite: Now known as DeanS, one day changed his username in order to ban people for not using their real names... something he started doing that same day. Is quite possibly the "real deal" Conservative, so also most likely to be turned out the door by Andy for being one of those horrible, anti-Jesus Mormons. He's a dick, as it happens. He is open about his outright hatred of liberals et al. which is ironic as behind his bully attittude lies a man extremely sensitive towards comments specifically criticizing his religion. Author of the Mind Your Own Bussiness stratagem which involves instantly obliterating third parties from standing up for his victims.
• Philip J. Rayment, defender of the dinosaur, or at least that dinosaurs and humans co-existed. Nice, well meaning chap, but CP's ultimate defender of Creationism and YEC. Probably the smartest and certainly the most erudite of the group, except for his weakness for medieval late 19th century theories - and a downright scary stance on the issue of religious tolerance and government neutrality but otherwise a perfectly likable editor. Of late, he has found himself increasingly at odds with Aschlafly and some of the other more repugnent sysops (and Bugler), and yet he has shown both remarkable patience in staying around, and remarkable resiliance in not being de-sysoped, where other, lesser contributors would have long since been banned for their dissenting viewpoints. See here and here.
• Ed Poor, a noted homophobe, anti-semite (see also here), sexist and racist (Direct quote: "Well, then no matter how or when I may have found myself hating black people and desiring to discriminate them, don't I have a responsibility to repel those racists thoughts and feelings from my mind?") is like nails down a chalkboard. This may be due to smarmy self-righteousness masked in a weird pseudo-"good faith" thing he has going on. His favorite topics are explaining how to "earn trust", and demanding "writing plans" from peons. Ed was a long-time administrator and bureaucrat at Wikipedia until events in 2005 and 2006 led to accusations of abuse of power and POV warring, which led to the stripping of his authority. That he ever attained such positions of power is astonishing, as his contributions there are about as bad as his contributions at Conservapedia, namely the wretched side of appalling. He was elected "Conservapedia's biggest idiot" by RationalWiki. In late July 2008 he lost an appeal to have his WP sysopship re-instated. He is a Member of the Unification Church.
• TerryH: Perhaps one of the most angry, sexless sysops, TerryH adopts the founders debate policy well. He hurls insults, then retreats when he loses. Often regarded as being the complete opposite of civility, Terry finds it very difficult to discuss something without resorting to insults - a sure sign of a weak argument. Furthermore, he deletes someones account when they gain the upper hand in majority opinion and reason.
• CollegeRepublican: Was promoted to sysop without having made any contributions to CP, and has made only 2 edits since then. Understandably, some long-time editors who considered themselves due for promotion were a bit miffed when this guy got the job they were applying for. He is quite an enigma, and there is some unfounded speculation that he may be the literal spawn of Schlafly himself. (currently inactive)
• Learn together: A name sufficiently sycophantish so as to attract Andy's love and attention. Initially suspected of being a Fifth Columnist, may possibly be for real. UPDATE: He finally got his sysopship! Proof that really digging deep and reaching the hateful, abrasive suck-up within pays off.
• CPAdmin1: Much like Phillip, CPAdmin1 (who usually signs comments as "Tim") frequently stands up for victims of abuse by other sysops and corrects misleading or outright deceitful claims. He also visits RationalWiki rather often.
• Geo.plrd:
• CP Webmaster: A mysterious shadowy figure. It could possibly be Andy's alter ego, most likely some tech guy who fixes up CP.
• HenryS: AKA Bohdan.

[edit] Ex-Sysops

• TK: a puzzle wrapped in an enigma, bundled in a question mark, generously slathered with assholesauce. TK is a 'man' who thinks the Gestapo had the right idea, they were just too pacifistic. Despite this, he enjoys his time at RationalWiki (sometimes) and is a friend of many of the contributors therein. His reception has been luke-cold at best, but he appears to express genuine contrition and a desire to "pull up a goat" and enjoy our lovely site. He was either the leader, or principal tool of Karajou, in the Night of the Blunt Knives. Known for his attempts to threaten and harrass those he dislikes, he has been referred to (even by other Conservapedians) as a second-rate bully. As the O'Brian to Andy's Big Brother, or perhaps the Wormtongue to Andy's Saruman, TK's role was to manipulate talk pages, revert edits and erase history itself to protect his master's reputation and credibility (well, whatever remains of it). But in a confusing turn of events, TK - after telling Andy via IM he was a mean-spirited prick - packed up and left Conservapedia. For good. Except for when he came back, only to get banned by Rational Wiki sock Fox twice!

• Hojimachong: The only self-confessed liberal sysop on CP. Got demoted for "inactivity" despite being more active than several of Andy's homeskuled pets who probably only show up on Holy Days of Obligation. Basically he just spent too much time at RW and got punished for it.

• Tmtoulouse: Yes, that guy. He was promoted to sysop and within an hour was demoted. (See the timeline, under March 24 2007)
• Fox: Despite leaving Conservapedia around the time DeborahB was promoted to sysop, the Foxpuppet returned with a vengeance and was duly raised to the ranks of the exalted. A self -professed "messianic-Jew". Probably the only sysop on CP capable of spotting British parody, did more damage to the ConservaScotland and ConservaBritain articles than the rest put together. Having thrown a moody when he was overlooked for sysop he eventually got bored and was demoted for "inactivity". Finally returned once more in late December, as an editor, citing "recent events" as his reason for doing so. Was welcomed back by Andy and soon he was back up to sysop speed once more. Finally became sick of the "liberal x" articles Andy was spouting left and right while actually important articles were ignored; he began to write some of his own and was promptly demoted for parody. Has left the site "on hiatus", but occasionally drops by RationalWiki for a chat.

[edit] Other major players

• Jinxmchue: Another idiot kicked out of Wikipedia for being an anti-semitic troll. He is easily recognizable by the constant presence of Andy's balls on his chin.

• Bugler: The most obvious parodist ever to be granted powers. Really, people. Wake. The. Fuck. Up. Bugler's parody succeeds because of his unerring imitation of Andy's own phrases and tactics. His greatest achievement is his work in the discussion he started on "Should atheists be barred from Conservapedia?"[1] It should be noted that Andy apparently has enough suspicion about Bugler that he has never been extended to a full sysop, despite Bugler having his head up so far up Andy's arse that he can see daylight.

[edit] RationalWiki Members

• PalMD: practicing physician and loyal Cabal member. PalMD was expelled from Conservapedia largely for calling Aschlafly out on his bad science linking breast cancer to abortion: despite the fact that PalMD is a doctor, and Aschlafly is not, this got PalMD in trouble. He has been involved in sock puppetry for productive edits. Eschews vandalism.

• AmesG: ex-Conservapedian and contributor to RationalWiki. Joined CP in February of 2007, and was blocked 30 times before being blocked permanently in May 2007. Liberal law student; less active lately will never take 15 credits in a semester again. He has the dubious distinction of inciting blocks of a good many CP editors who weren't him on grounds that they must be his sockpuppets.

• Sid: perma-banned from Conservapedia for asking a sysop uncomfortable questions regarding user bans and the Greek language. Several blocks before that (including a block for unauthorized use of sarcasm). Likes to analyze CP in various ways.

• Cracker (Boring history removed) Cracker was cut from the CP rolls in The Night of the Blunt Knives.

• DLerner: On-again off-again Conservapedia member, frequently blocked for inserting sanity or winning arguments with Sysops. A proud Chassidic Jew with intense knowledge of everything/anything Jew-related. Notable for beginning the musical adaptation of Conservpedia. Dislikes vandalism.

• Flippin Joined Conservapedia in March and managed to hang on until The Night of the Blunt Knives. He is from North Dakota and is just starting a career as an editor for an international magazine, which demands more and more of his already limited free time. In addition, he now the proud father of a baby girl. As a college professor, he taught that propaganda and terrorism can be classified rhetorically, and thus Conservapedia drew his attention. CP is the single best example of propaganda going. Bar none. He was banned from CP not because of any single edit, but because TK chose to eliminate him in the purge.

• Human joined conservapedia in April, and was blocked a few short times for small infractions, in spite of staying away from contentious articles and puttering around with building trades and classical music. Oh so proudly wrote the much-needed articles on American Flag, Pledge of Allegiance, and Fourth of July. Once asked Andrew Schlafly what the conservapedia business plan was, but the talk page was archived before he had a chance to answer. Permabanned ("sock, troll, icewedge gang") on The Night of the Blunt Knives for hanging out on RationalWiki 1.0 to laugh at the goings-on over at conservapedia. Now happily adding snark, stubs, and foul language to RationalWiki 2.0 wherever needed.

• Tmtoulouse Founder of RationalWiki. And, for just under an hour, a sysop at Conservapedia.

• AKjeldsen is occasionally seen channeling Andrew Schlafly. The rest of the time, he maintains the Conservapedia Column, a repository of critical analysis of Conservapedia.

• Trashbat appears to the faithful in the form of a small cartoon girl and delights in parody and misinformation. Ritual sacrifice of sockpuppets ensured an abundance of mana for the devout. Nowadays decidedly non-interventionist. Possibly capable of contributing to better articles than this.

• Jtl was apparently banned from Conservapedia for not believing TK's outlandish claims. He still doesn't believe them.

• Stile4aly originally joined Conservapedia and lasted a whole day before getting his first ban. He had made a controversial edit to the United States article suggesting that something other than the Ten Commandments had contributed to the development of the American legal system. This, plus a snarky edit to the Sex article resulted in a permaban. Stile4aly was reincarnated as JohnSmith. With this account, he continued to push such liberal ideas as the etymology and definition of hominid, the question of Mahmoud Ahmedenejad's culpability in the 1979 Iranian hostage crisis and the efficacy of vaccination. This last issue drew Aschlafly's ire, culminating in an epic argument on the Main Talk Page, resulting in the page being blocked to further edits. Stile4aly's first (but not his last) sock was unsurprisingly blocked at this point.

• Helios is a leftover from the original RationalWiki (v1.0). He enjoys wandalizing anything he can get his hands on, taking after his friend Icewedge in this respect. Helios has the most pimped out userpage on RationalWiki, and also happens to be the only resident Greek Sun God. Aliases on the other place included Sanity, Helios, and Favor, all of whom were banned on false or stupid pretences, these being "Sock of banned user Icewedge" by Hoji, "He's the vandalmaster!" again by Hoji, and "Don't need you" by Karajou.

• Sterile. An April addition to conservapedia, Sterile added a lot of science to its pages, most of which was accurate, and argued against pseudoscience and poor arguments on various pages in conservapedia. The added pages included examples of microevolution, some of which was deemed unacceptable such as lactose intolerance. He likes to draw polygons, such as the irregular hexagon, and other pictures. Sterile was listed on the abuse page for weeks under the 90/10 rule, but was never blocked for it. Banned for being a "sock/vandal," even though he is neither.

• Wikinterpreter. Privateer. κοινη-Greek fanatic. Legend. He was also one of the the few remaining RWers on Conservapedia, but the Sysops eventually got rid of him.

• Airdish. Originally joined Conservapedia as User:Dropkickmejesus, which didn't go down well. Was blocked just before the (first) great purge. Has yet to contribute more good to Rationalwiki than he did to Conservapedia.

• Gulik is one of those evil deceitful Liberals who's ruining Conservapedia for everyone with his horrible vandalism. He'd feel sorrier about it if

1. His religion didn't require him to "Preach unto the righteous, that they may renounce their ways and repent", and
2. Andy Schlafly and his Whining Commandoes weren't going to mess that place up far worse than his posting of conspiracy theories, bad jokes, and unwanted facts EVER could, and
3. The RationalWiki crew weren't vastly more interesting to argue with.
4. So these days, he mostly just plots the downfall of all civilization while posting here once in a while.
5. Do You Believe That?

• Linus, the resident geek, in case you didn't figure that out when you saw the fancy-schmancy namespace-removing code he put in the link to his userpage. Although he is suspected of, in fact, being a highly complex computer program, he vaguely maintains that this is not so. He originally joined Conservapedia as Linus M., and was soon blocked for creating Andy doppelgängers. He then rejoined as Hacker, and was soon banned for sockpuppetry. He was let back on as Linus M., and was, again banned, this time for a violation of his parole conditions. He has since engaged in such heinous activities as sockpuppetry (a good deal of it), some vandalism, of which he has reformed, general trolling, induction of reason, etc..

• SirChuckB, A relative newcomer to the ranks of RationalWiki Elite, but still a dyed in the wool Liberal None-the-less. SirChuck is a Music and Political Science Major in a Major Non-Christian University and is credited (by himself) as the inventor of the Liberal boogeyman Political Theory. Not content to dabble in theories, he also created his own religion (The Church of Chrismacarolism) and elevated Liberal Deceit to an artform with his extended stay at Conservapedia, which turned out to be an elaborate plan to mock the entire damn thing. (see conversation with TK)

• EVDebs, a Wikipedian who picked one of the most inflammatory nicks possible and tried to troll CP with an extremely slanted (and completely wrong yet mostly documentable) article on Open Source software, but ran afoul of a certain desperado Impressionist painter (later purged himself for, what, taking the idea of objectivity seriously or something?). Got a week ban, but never went back except to lurk. Still petrified that the ultra-cons are so powerful that people might actually take Conservapedia seriously; not completely convinced even by horrible Alexa rankings. Thinks it's just super that Aschlafly has a gay brother.

• Icewedge, the inventor of the Icewedge Strategy.

• AutoFire, an internet drifter who learned about Conservapedia from, ironically, the website of the Flat Earth Society, while considering trolling the flat earthers. Registered on CP as Autofire, got banned by TK once as a result of mistaken identity, but was soon reinstated shortly after discovering RW. After account problems similar to those of Cracker, is still hanging on at CP, despite having made a couple of snide comments towards Andy and others in the past. Loves the fact that the Flat Earth Society thinks CP is crazy.

• Offeep is boring, with a boring backstory. He got blocked by Jallen for criticizing her on the Best Of page here. Apparently Jallen never read Point #15. Now he's a sysop here despite never contibuting anything of value whatsoever.

• Totnesmartin is also boring, and created several boring articles on CP before flouncing out resigning in protest. Found CP via LiveJournal's Wikipedians comm, and RW via Leopeo at CP. Specialist subject: sniggering at the back, obscure references, tea. Oh, and creating articles in the wrong sections of RW.

• Spica is a Hiver, a type of starfish-like alien. He created a few articles on CP then got into trouble with some total penis over an edit. So he posted a picture of a very nice young lady lying on a beach. Then got banned. Meanwhile, He joined RW, got into a ruck with TK.... and won!. He hangs out on RW occassionally and contributes useful things (sometimes). Plays well with other RWans and would like to be a sysop. Please.

• Of user DogP Winston Churchill once said, "I cannot forecast to you the actions of DogP. He is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma; but perhaps there is a key. That key is DogP's interest in tea and biscuits at four o'clock on the dot."

• Researcher was never a Conservapedian, and really doesn't give two figs about it (though he is secretly extremely amused at how even-handed and downright generous the Wicca article there is). His main interests here are political irrationality, including discrimination.

• Bohdan is a sockpuppet of Tmtoulouse and Human. He's also an episodic contributor to RationalWiki, mostly to tease his sockpuppetmasters. He was once twice Oversight on RationalWiki.

• Pinto's5150 (A.K.A. Locke, and that pinto bean guy) Is a sysop and bureaucrat who contributes surprisingly little, aside from sarcasm and tormenting Bohdan that is. He is rumored to be a hotheaded teenager who has an interest in medicine, and enjoys (well not really) posting without first thinking. _{The above post is guaranteed 99.995% accurate.}
• Hojimachong is the resident hotheaded teenager (much more so than Pinto) who likes to complain about things. Used to be Conservapedia's Pet Liberal.

• Radioactive afikomen has no interest in being a productive citizen, which is why he came here. He spends his time shepherding newbies and getting annoyed when others butcher his multisyllabic name.

• D-Notice joined CP shortly after joining RW. Will mainly be contributing to CP's article on the War on Drugs (since locked after making a link to 1920s alcohol prohibition) and related articles, but will also be making general tidy-up edits on there and RW.

• Arcan was a long time lurker on RW and CP until an event prompted him to get involved. Aside from a random sysopship, he is otherwise unnotable.

[edit] Conservapedia Concepts

• Deceit: Aschlafly is convinced that only liberals are capable of deceit: they are the only humans in the history of time that have ever lied. The definition is narrowed & widened at will to suit challenges to this, errr, "worldview." Many RationalWiki users will refer to "deceit" by hyperlinking to the Conservapedia article, just to have a good laugh. As such, deceit has become synonymous with overzealous persecution of liberals, and paranoid ramblings.
• Liberal: in Conservapedia lexicon, a "liberal" is anyone who is not a young-earth creationist. Even Reagan Republicans are liberals.
• Goat: goats are not welcome on Conservapedia, but on RationalWiki, they're loved... too much. No, seriously, they're just a running joke. Everything always needs goats.
• Homseschooling Homeschooling is by far and away the best possible means for educating children as demonstrated by the fact that some of the finest minds ever produced were homeschooled. Ignoring the fact that most humans haven't lived in societies where public schools existed, Aschlafly also manipulates the data to prove his point by using a broad enough definition of homeschooling that practically anyone could qualify. Only an orphan who never interacts with anyone outside of school could possibly qualify as not-homeschooled.
• Conservapedia Terms: Aschlafly regularly makes up new phrases to describe people or groups he doesn't like, which is frankly just about everybody. Not only are the terms completely unencyclopedic, as they originate in the mainspace of Conservapedia without having been referenced anywhere in the real world previously, they are also a great source of laughs. When Aschflaly unveils another term, most dedicated Conservapedians will fall over themselves to add new examples to the article, and a race ensues as to who will add it to WIGO first. Sid has compiled a useful table here to track each of the Conservapedia terms.

Why not visit our DysLexicon?

[edit] Conservapedia Fun

The following are various examples of fun and snark directed at Conservapedia and Conservapedians

• Fun:Conservapedia, The Musical
• Fun:Conservative Monopoly
• Conservapedia:Liberals: The Garnering