RationalWiki
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RationalWiki (RW for short) is a wiki whose stated aims are to "critique and challenge pseudoscience and the anti-science movement, explore authoritarianism and fundamentalism and analyze how these subjects are handled in the media".
It was created in 2007 to counter Conservapedia after an incident in which Peter Lipson and several other contributors attempting to edit Conservapedia were banned. The website has since explicitly moved its focus away from Conservapedia.
Why It's Rotten
- RationalWiki is not an encyclopedia (even some of its own members admit that), it's instead a snarky blogging site pretending to be one.
- Christopher Langan even described it as "a pseudointellectual tourist trap whose inhabitants are fiercely dedicated to the mockery and defamation of people and ideas to which its proprietor objects."
- Like their right-wing counterpart, Conservapedia, RationalWiki is extremely ideologically biased and can even sometimes exhibit regressive Democrat far-left traits.
- They label a lot of things as "alt-right", including sources that has criticized them such as Encyclopædia Dramatica and Kiwi Farms.
- Many of their articles are simply irrational, one-sided rants.
- The people running and/or contributing to it do a terrible job at sourcing for their articles, many links included are either dead, image only, unarchived Twitter/Tumblr/Reddit posts that can be easily forged, deleted or modified, or heavily biased.
- Filled with logical fallacies, most notably argumentum ad hominem (attacking the person instead of the addressing the subject of debate) and name-calling. They even have categories like Insufferable Assholes, Batshit Crazy, and Pissed at us.
- Ryulong, although they got sick of him eventually.[1]
- Despite being called "RationalWiki", its members act more like petulant jerks than rational individuals who mock people that call them out instead of defeating their arguments rationally.
- Example: The Rebuttal to "It's almost as if Rationalwiki editors aren't rational at all..." is "'But I thought this was supposed to be RATIONALWiki!' Drink!"
- Extremely pro-SocJus. For more information, see more popular definitions of Social Justice Warriors.
- Despite that, RationalWiki completely denies SocJus infestation, as they audaciously claim "If there was a hostile takeover, we didn’t notice."
- On subject of antifeminism, they portray it as negatively as possible, dismissed any issue with third-wave feminism as actions of a handful of "bad apples" or exaggerated details instead of properly addressing them.
- A large chunk of the MRA article is dedicated to debunking MRA's claims (the page even opens up with a feminist quote), while there's no such section on the feminist article.
- They like to present readers with crudely made conclusions instead of letting the evidence speak for itself. This is more of an act of insecurity as they fear that people will not see things they way they do.
- Some of its members consider all Trump supporters to be Neo-Nazis and it should be moral to inflict violence on them.[2]
- They like to whitewash originally well-intentioned but nowadays corrupt and violent groups such as BLM and Antifa.
- Some of its members are extremely toxic and intolerant towards anyone who so much as disagrees with them.
- Even so, they still pretend that they are welcoming to outsiders, claiming that they "only censor with love".
- They have absolutely no qualms in using racial or homophobic slurs.
- They have a policy called "Snarky point of view", in which the articles generally are supposed to be written in the most snarky tone possible. This at times leads to a deterioration of quality and made articles more insulting than funny.
- Many of their articles are badly and lazily made, especially their Niggermania page.
- According to them, charity is nothing but guilt reduction.
- They do not believe in races.
- They aren't immune against their former or even becoming Democratic party members who become Green Party, Independent or even creating fringe Left-wing parties they think SMALL left-wing party to merge of corruptly flaw major party to win.
- On February 7, 2019, they somehow discovered the page covering them on Rotten Websites Wiki, retaliating by calling the users "basement dwellers". But thankfully, both RW and RWW made some arrangement on their discussion page.
Redeeming Qualities
- Its snarky style of writing can be humorous at times.
- It's more factual than Conservapedia.
- They are willing to admit that not all Democrats are good people (see their article on Michael Moore). They likewise have an admiration for Trump-opposing Republicans like John McCain.
- They are against the anti-vaccination, flat-earther and other similar pseudo-scientific movements.
Read More
For more information on how far from rationality RationalWiki can get, please see their Gamergate articles (to their credit, Ryulong is the one behind most of them)[3].
- Here is their List of Gamergate Claims article.
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