Chapters
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Obama
One of the biggest content issues was over the content of the Barack Obama article. Administrator DanH had resigned over this article, which he rightly described as a smear.
The article claimed that Obama was a Muslim, and included such overwhelming evidence as not changing his name to a Christian one:
Following up on a query from one administrator as to why DanH had left, I posted the following to the Administrator e-mail group, challenging the other administrators to stand up and be counted:
And yes, it has to do with the religion of Barack Obama. See DanH's user page.
It being an American political thing, I've not involved myself with the Barack Obama article until recently when an editor asked my opinion on something to do with it, and when I noticed that AdenJ was blocked for a month for removing the unsubstantiated claim that if Obama was a Christian, he would have changed his name to a Christian name. So beyond that I haven't investigated the claims about his religion, but I have seen enough to convince me that we are definitely going too far. [Karajou] rightly said that we shouldn't include Obama's alleged homosexuality because it was not proven and would be libelous, but Andy is including Obama's alleged non-Christianity despite that not being proven.
I pointed out on the Obama talk page that the material supporting the claim that AdenJ removed was invalid, and Andy conceded that it "needed improvement" (or words to that effect), but it hasn't been "improved", it is still there as incorrect or unsubstantiated information, and AdenJ remains blocked.
We are allowing smear to supplant accurate description, and blocking (AdenJ) and losing (Dan) editors over it. How many here have got the backbone to put our hands up and say that this is wrong? And even to do something about it (such as change the article)?
Two administrators responded to my challenge:
I believe it is fair game to question why he would attend a church for 20 years if his views were so at odds with the senior pastor, and why he did not mention that previously when praising the same pastor he has now broken contact with. I believe it is fair to point out that he may have said 57 states as a flashback to his school studies in Indonesia, where, ostensibly, he would have learned that number.
I do not think it is fair to question his Christianity based upon his not changing his name, when that is not required within Christianity and was not required by his church.
There the matter rested for some time, partly because of my temporary departure from the site on account of my wife's health. Eventually, however, a discussion on the content of the article that spilled over to Andy's talk page prodded me to action. In the time since DanH had left, the claims about Obama being a Muslim had been expanded and gathered into a section titled "Obama will likely be the first Muslim President", which had also been put above the page's Table of Contents, due to its supposed importance. I removed just one dot-point with the comment "Let's just start by removing one claim that four senior sysops have agreed should not be on this page." The four senior administrators (sysops) referred to were the two quoted above, the former administrator DanH, and me. This is the dot-point (whith its footnote) that I removed.
Andy's response was to revert my edit. Another senior administrator put his view on the article's talk page that it was wrong to call Obama a Muslim. So I again deleted the dot-point, with the comment "Revert unexplained reinstatement of point rejected by (now) five senior administrators." This went back and forth a number of times, and I subsequently deleted two other claims as well. Andy's response, apart from reverting my deletions, was to accuse me of "liberal censorship". He also claimed that "no reason has been given for deleting the Hussein reference, and there is none." despite the matter having been discussed numerous times on the talk page.
A few days later, another user posted a list of administrators who disagreed with the content of the article. This included some that I hadn't been aware of, but didn't include the two from the e-mail group. This is the user's post, my addendum, and Andy's dismissal of what he calls "a minority", despite the fact that no other administrator had supported him. Later, one other administrator also expressed his disagreement with the article.
Although no administrator supported Andy's views, it's worth noting that the two editors who did support him the most turned out to be subversives from RationalWiki.
The deletions and reinsertions and the discussion continued, but after a while I failed to keep up with the discussion.
<-- Previous page (Guard Dog) Next page (Explaining Wikis) -->Timeline
22nd November, 2006
Conservapedia is created
17th March, 2007
I join Conservapedia
3rd April, 2007
I am made an Administrator
25th April, 2007
First Admin. e-mail group.
25th May, 2007
Ed Poor proposes me as "template manager".
5th January, 2008
Letter to Andy about wise counsel
28th April, 2008
Bugler joins Conservapedia
around June, 2008
I'm feeling more and more uncomfortable with associating myself with Conservapedia.
11th June, 2008
Bugler gains block rights.
17th June, 2008
I start writing these pages.
20th June, 2008
DanH quits.
31st December, 2008
Bugler loses rights.
1st January, 2009
CPAdmin1 quits.
2nd January, 2009
Bugler outs himself.
22nd March, 2009
I resign