I was a Conservapedia Administrator

RationalWiki

In or by very early April 2007 a number of disaffected Con­serva­pedia editors set up another web-site, which they called RationalWiki, as a base from which to co-ordinate attacks on Con­serva­pedia. Like Wikipedia and Con­serva­pedia, it uses the MediaWiki software.

RationalWiki was originally set up so that pages other than the Front Page were hidden from everybody except registered users. However, one of the Con­serva­pedia administrators registered there, and several of us used his username and password to log on and have a look around the site. We copied some of the content to the Special Discussion Group, and I've reproduced some of this content in appendix F.

Realising that some of the information there was known and could be used against them, they deleted the content and started over again, this time making it open to the public. Thus began what is sometimes referred to as RationalWiki Mk II. RationalWiki's "RationalWiki" page says in its history that RationalWiki was started on 22^nd May, 2007. This is actually the date of Mk II.

RationalWiki is ostensibly intended, in part at least, to have articles refuting various claims made on Con­serva­pedia and other web-sites, although from the occasional browse I've had, these articles usually amount to nothing of substance.

The most popular parts of RationalWiki are where they record what happens on Con­serva­pedia, and their most popular page is "What is Going On?", or WIGO for short. Here they note various presumed shortcomings of Con­serva­pedia, and vote on which entry they like the most.

When, in June 2007, a reporter from the Los Angeles Times left a message on Con­serva­pedia seeking people to interview for an article about Con­serva­pedia, she was also contacted by people from RationalWiki wanting to give their views on the site. This included an admission that they "engage in acts of cyber-vandalism".

Because RationalWiki's reason for existence was not just to rebut Con­serva­pedia, but to destroy it, the RationalWiki name was added to Con­serva­pedia's list of unacceptable words and all attempts to bypass this restriction were deleted by the administrators, often accompanied by the author being blocked.

RationalWiki has some useful records and observations of Conservapedia, but at the same time is filled with invective and profanities. I would like to recommend it as a useful source of criticism of Conservapedia, but am reluctant given the cesspit¹ that it also is.

1. This term was also used by user Bugler of RationalWiki, although I wrote this independently before I ever saw him using it.