I see that Conservapedia has had some work done to it lately. As a consequence it is now less embarrassing for the neo-cons who run it, and less hilarious for the rest of us. Although still pitiful by Wikipedia standards the article on France is at least properly formatted now, longer than a couple of sentences, and has cross-references and everything.
The few funny entries which remain have been flagged as lacking in some way. Even the brilliant entry on soup which reads:
A food created by boiling one or more ingredients in water, stock or broth. Unless it’s gazpacho.
It has also increased to a massive 7,000 articles. Only another 1,722,000 to go and it will catch up with Wikipedia!
There is a more significant consequence of all this than just removing a source of ridicule for us liberals (as we would be called by them) and that is that there must be an increased chance of the whole thing being taken seriously.
You are joking! Read the article on evolution and see that the “scientific evidence” they claim for the Earth being 6000 years old is an article that says it is in the Bible so it must be true!
If you work with Tories it is great fun to pass them this sort of trash and ask them if they believe it. heh heh
The thing is that you now actually have to read it to find the wrongness. Previously they had, for example, an entry on Germany which was just one line which just said it is a country in Europe which likes starting wars.
By making the less contentious articles more robust it can lead the unwary into trusting the religious ones a bit more.
We saw a great exhibit in the National Maritime Museum this week of a map of the world whose caption went something like ‘the map is in a fool’s cap because it shows America – a continent which is not mentioned in the bible’. We nearly got thrown out at that point!
The Random Page search in Conservapedia still has a regular high rating on the snort-ometer. Just 3 random clicks, and I found the Tapeworm, which consists of quotes from the book of Genesis and declares there is further work for Creationist scholars to understand the origin of this creature. Let me same them some effort. You’ve already taken the print off your copy of the KJV. The answer isn’t in there. It’s never going to be.
Fantastic! The next time I am enjoying a chat with a bible-belt fundamentalist I must remember to ask them where America is mentioned in the bible.