Conservapedia

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About

Conservapedia is an alternative internet encyclopedia written from a fundamentalist Christian point of view. Although it was the first partisan encyclopedia of its kind, it is perhaps best known across the internet for hosting the Conservative Bible Project, a crowdsourced effort to create a bible free from liberal interpretations.

History

Conservapedia was launched on November 21st, 2006^[1] by Andrew Schlafly, a lawyer, homeschool teacher, and son of conservative activist Phyllis Schlafly.^[2] Frustrated by what he perceived to be liberal bias on Wikipedia, Schlafly founded the site with the intention of providing an alternative to the popular internet encyclopedia. On March 5th, 2007, The New York Times^[3] published a piece on the site titled "Conservapedia: See Under 'Right'" The piece quotes Schlafly explaining his feelings on Wikipedia, saying:

"“The mob rule on Wikipedia tends to drive out conservatives and tends to drive out intelligent contributors.”

The site was also covered that month by The Guardian^[4] and NPR.^[6]

Features

The site features articles written in support of conservatism in a similar style to Wikipedia entries. Topics include Christian fundamentalism^[8] American exceptionalism^[9] and creationism.^[10] It has also gained considerable notoriety online for its rejection of Albert Einstein's theory of relativity, arguing that the theory was created so that liberals could use it to justify moral relativism.^[15] As of September 2014, the site contains^[16] over 40,500 articles and has had over one million edits.

Conservative Bible Project

The site's most well-known project to date was launched in 2008. Called the Conservative Bible Project,^[17] its stated purpose is to create a "Conservative Bible"^[18] by translating Biblical scripture in a way which purportedly eliminates the perceived liberal bias and outdated terminology of popular modern Bible translations. On October 8th, 2009, Salon^[33] published an article titled "Actual verses from the 'Conservative Bible'" which featured edited versions of bible quotes used in the project including:

"The Liberals then fled from the scene to plot with Herod’s people against Jesus, and plan how they might destroy him."

The project was covered in an article in the New York Daily News^[32] on December 4th, 2009.

Colbert Nation Raid

On October 7th, 2009, Stephen Colbert mentioned the Conservative Bible Project during the Tip/Wag section of his show The Colbert Report, mocking the project's goal of introducing "free market parables" into the Bible.

Colbert encouraged his audience members to visit Conservapedia and to write him into the Conservative Bible in place of God. The site crashed less than five minutes after the request due to the surge of visitors, and the administrators were forced to lock down the Bible page for several days afterwards.^[25]

RationalWiki

RationalWiki^[1] was launched on 22nd, 2007^[1] as a direct response and counterpoint to Conservapedia. Although its original purpose was to monitor the activities of Conservapedia and the online presence of Andrew Schlafly,^[26] it has become an extensive encyclopedia in its own right, written in a self-described "snarky" tone.^[27] It has since overtaken Conservapedia in popularity, with RationalWiki^[30] ranking as the 10,636th most popular site in the United States and Conservapedia^[31] ranking as the 24,448th most popular.