RationalWiki

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RationalWiki (RW) is a community working together to explore and provide information about a range of topics centered around science, skepticism, and critical thinking. RW is owned by the RationalMedia Foundation (RMF), an incorporated 501(c)(3) nonprofit. The RMF operates the infrastructure that keeps RW running and holds its associated trademarks and copyrights, but it does not govern the community or any content the community produces.

Our purpose here at RationalWiki includes:

Analyzing and refuting pseudoscience and the anti-science movement;
Documenting the full range of crank ideas;
Explorations of authoritarianism and fundamentalism;
Analysis and criticism of how these subjects are handled in the media.

We welcome contributors, and encourage those who disagree with us to register and engage in constructive dialogue.

We have 7,736 articles for your enjoyment.

History

RationalWiki 2.0 was created as an open editing wiki on May 22, 2007. The rest is history.

Scope and statistics

RW stats on active editors and edits, as of July 2016. Click to expand.

RW is a fairly popular site, especially among online skeptical resources. By November 2012, RW's traffic had reached about 32,000 unique visitors per day[1] and since 2013, RW has had 700-1,000 monthly editors and 15,000-30,000 monthly edits.[2]

Also since 2013, RW's Alexa rank (a measure accurate only in a broad sense) has hovered between 15,000th and 25,000th most popular website on the entire Internet, which translates to about 4 million-ish unique monthly visitors.[3][4][5] This puts RW above other skeptical sites like Quackwatch,[6] Skeptoid,[7] and Freethought Blogs,[8] though still below big players like PolitiFact[9] and Snopes.[10]

However, RW's objective isn't to collect views in and of itself (since the truth isn't a popularity contest), especially since we don't sell anything, nor run any type of ads in order to monetize hits. Instead, our intention is for every individual view to prove a chance for us to disseminate accurate information against the flood of pseudoscience and anti-intellectualism that permeates much of the public discourse today.

For us, more viewers simply translate into more chances to help dissuade pseudoscientific and fundamentalist thinking, and to rally the interest of still more dedicated editors to the cause of scientific skepticism (thus resulting in the proliferation of more and better skeptical content — here, as well as in society generally).

Online source reliability watchdog Media Bias/Fact Check ranks RationalWiki very favorably[11] — giving us a "HIGH" rating in their review of our site. This quality grade entails that:[12]

“”The source is almost always factual, sources to mostly credible low biased information and makes immediate corrections to incorrect information.

Additionally, it's worth noting that RationalWiki is deemed to have a slight centre-left bias compared to Wikipedia, and that's no surprise, as we explicitly do not aim for a neutral point of view. Since religious fundamentalism and far-right extremism, which RationalWiki strongly opposes, lean strongly to the right, a slight centre-left bias is to be expected as part of our mission. It is also important to note that the comparison made here to Wikipedia is not to be confused with us considering RationalWiki an encyclopedia, as RationalWiki is not supposed to be a traditional encyclopedia.

So, do any 'real' news outlets cite RationalWiki?

Yes, certainly. Since RationalWiki's inception, we've featured in articles, op-ed pieces, and news reports — either quoted verbatim or referenced outright as a source for the article's claims — by a slew of online and mainstream media outlets worldwide, including:

What is a RationalWiki article?

While RW uses software originally developed for a well-known online encyclopedia, it is important to realize that RW is not trying to be an encyclopedia. While many of RW's articles may look like encyclopedia entries, RW goes much further – it encourages original research and opinion formation.

The community has embraced the concept of wikis by creating an information source out of the collaborative editing of thousands of people.
By encouraging original research and essays, RW has also incorporated many aspects of the blogging community.
Discussion among members is facilitated on many levels such as debate articles, specific discussions on talk pages, and just coming together to talk about whatever is on our minds at the Saloon Bar. This focus on discussion captures the essence of Internet forums.
While RW has a serious mission, it is ultimately a volunteer project — and as such, an important way to keep interest high is to ensure that our articles are fun both to read and write.
One of many ways which distinguishes RW from encyclopedias (e.g. Wikipedia) is that we openly avoid any pretentions to neutrality on controversial subjects. When one side of an issue has the scientific consensus to back it up, and the other clearly doesn't, part of our mission is placing the two side by side and calling it like we sees it.

Administration

Hop on board the Trump Train Goat-Cart!

Who runs this place? Ultimately, nobody. It's a wiki.

Decisions are made by the will of whoever shows up and does stuff. Mobocracy and do-ocracy rule the day. Most users who've been around a while and aren't utterly incompetent are sysops. The most effective place to be outraged is on the talk page of the article you are outraged about. People may well engage with you in a relevant fashion.

A few users are moderators, elected by the community. They don't like work, so will do anything other than be your go-to parent.

In RW's fifteen-year long run, the extreme case in which the board of trustees has been forced to ban an editor — for libel of a level that could have attracted lawsuits to the RMF itself — has only presented itself twice. The board members don't like to work either, so don't expect this to happen again any time soon.

Criticism

RW has numerous critics, roughly divided in two (overlapping) groups: those that take issue with the content and those who take issue with the style. Both tend to quickly degenerate into "so why do they call it RationalWiki, then?" This may be based on a slight confusion between rationalisation and rationalism — as no one ever thinks they're being irrational, they're likely to accuse anyone who disagrees with them of being irrational. In principle, this point extends to RW itself, whose name implies that everyone who doesn't follow its POV is irrational — making the choice of title somewhat unfortunate and ironic. The title of RationalWiki is not meant to imply that anyone who disagrees is irrational, but rather that this site is based on the philosophy of rationalism, in which a high regard is given to reason (specifically logic) and to empirical observation.

The content critics are typically the fans of people or subjects that RW doesn't speak favorably of. Supporters of noted politician Ron Paul certainly aren't fans,[67] angry that someone, somewhere dares not declare Ron Paul to be the Second Coming. Ayn Rand fans do much the same. Other criticism of content is often directed at shorter and less complete articles.[68] RW's rating system goes part way to rectifying the issue of lower-quality articles, but is implemented in a completely ad hoc wikilike fashion.

RW's style is frequently criticized, with some objecting to the odd sense of humor and getting upset that people aren't taking their idea of rationalism seriously. LessWrong bloggers and commentators in particular find it annoyingly irrational (with prior probability

A brain in square brackets!

I thought this

was supposed to be

RationalWiki

). LessWrong's founder, Eliezer Yudkowsky, once defended RW as a potential recruiting ground for hardcore rationalists but mostly as "clueless."[69] Other issues with style include the running debate over whether RW's self-touted viewpoint, "SPOV," means "Scientific Point of View (plus snark)" or "Snarky Point of View (plus science).

"

To boldly go where no wiki has gone before!

Language sections

While the overwhelming majority of RW's editors are English-speaking, RW also has articles in other languages, namely:

Russian: 1000 articles as of late October 2017 (for example, Научный креационизм);
Esperanto: 12 articles (for example, Kristnaska Viro)
Spanish: 25 articles (for example, Cabra);
French: 49 articles (for example, Science).
Portuguese: 13 articles.
Chinese: 13 articles.

Helpful links

External links

Main Page on RationalWiki (hey, wait!)

See the Wikipedia article on RationalWiki.

References

“There are some hilariously funny articles on there and then there's some utter shit. It doesn't help that the admins are a bunch of bullies who watch each-other's backs at all times. It's like some sort of online gay bar.”

~ Let Them Eat Cake, a RationalWiki user on Uncyclopedia at 22:01, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

irRationalWiki is an online collaborative space full of so called "content" filled with things like supposed words and rational images which are meant to trick readers into believing whatever information their editors want to sell. It's really just a lot of elitist point-of-view and high bias. Their supposed substance of the wiki is mostly copied off of Wikipedia[1] seasoned with a dash of original insight, a touch of snark and a massive dollop of American Liberal bias, Bernie Sanders born again religion, and Soylent Starbucks FAPpuChino addiction. A majority of the user-base on RationalWiki are established mentally ill obese neckbeard SJW thinkers whose liberal interpretation of everything including the wiki's rules allows them to say whatever the heck they want, permit visiting trolls to graffiti the shit out of the wiki and basically ban and promote whoever they wish, only sometimes based on their democratic voting process. While the wiki has five thousand registered editors it is likely that they are all sock-puppets of one single editor, so bored out of their mind that they play the role of editors, antagonists, admins, Tumblr SJWs, DeviantArt autists, vandals and you name it based on a multiple-personality complex that somewhere got completely out of hand.

On RationalWiki, the users frequently relish in their know-it-all SJW wokeism and final of God’s existence to prove themselves worthy of copying and pasting bits of Wikipedia on a blank page before adding a spin about solshul jostis/social justice or something. This process is informally known as "writing an article". This is a process God himself forbid in the bible which is exactly why RationalWikipedians do it because their "self-declared" atheism, super fueled by under-treated autism, bad parenting, and junk food, requires them to break all of God's rules, because they hate him and take pleasure out of defying his greatness in the name of that box of Cheez-Its on their Commodore 64 whose chip is a Dorito with a dumb little placard. IT’S ALL ABOUT THE PENTIUMS BABY!.[2]

They mostly focus on whining about things they claim are "conspiracy theories" when in reality everybody knows 5G towers give you COVID, aluminum gives you da tismo’, and GMOs are toxic bullcrap pulled from Monsanto’s and Bill Gate’s rear holes. They sinfully laugh about the virtues of God guaranteeing them an especially warm spot in hell with Hitler, Satan, and Chris Chan. They give a third rate rundown of critical thinking and fallacies (usually fifth rate) and most commonly a rendition of every political concept and historical event through the lens of justice gayness and empowerment for unemployable violent autistic SPED students or whatever.

RationalWiki is neither rational nor a wiki because a wiki requires a set of consistent rules to function which RationalWikians usually just ignore, and its not rational because they reject the holiness of God, seem pretty skeptical of magnet therapy which is totally the best alternative way to deal with aggressive breast cancer, and the superiority of rich straight white cisgender European intelligent men.

Origin and Purpose[edit | edit source]

A scrap paper drawing used by a RationalWikian to work out the ratio in the article.

“

To spread the ideals of pure mathematics to audiences it could not before have reached by taunting them with articles written in ratios

”

The ratio of an article's Wikipedia copy and past vs. rationalwikification is the most important factor for RationalWiki. Originally the website was to be called RatioWiki however this did not have the same ring to it that RationalWiki did. The best articles (almost all of the featured articles) use the Golden Ratio which is about 99 to 1. That is 99 parts are rewritten wikipedia content and 1 part is snark and rationalwiki bias and spin. If the article is a 100% copy of wikipedia then, the plagirism will be so obvious nobody can even pretend to take the wiki seriously. But if the article is only say, a 95% copy of wikipedia content, the article becomes so speculative and incoherent nobody could make sense of it. That's why the 99-1 ratio is so essential.

Membership[edit | edit source]

Early editions of RationalWiki were written almost entirely by embittered editors of Conservapedians who were justly expelled from the site for trying to corrupt the principles of Conservapedia which happen to match almost precisely those of Fox News: respect, balance, unbias and impartialness. Those members who were incapable of understanding respect or balance or trust were cast-away and their response was the creation of rationalwiki. Ever since then the two websites have had a friendly Kommunist comradery which can be best illustrated by reading the article which each website has lovingly written to describe their counterparts. RationalWiki's article on Conservapedia is mostly a copy of Wikipedia's article with a snarky rewrite but mostly a fond nostalgia for their old colleagues they parted on good terms with. Conservapedia's article on RationalWiki is mostly a list of helpful suggestions on how their endearing colleagues might make their website more balanced, unbiased, respected and impartial. As a friendly joke; Conservapedians seem convinced that the FBI will imminently shut down RationalWiki for numerous "unamericanisms" and for promoting left wing terrorist groups such as Bernie Sanders worship, BLM, and Antifa. There is actually a betting pool on the matter which has reached six figures. Ultimately both groups realise that each site provides just one of many different valid ways of looking at the effed-up world. Though in RationalWiki's case, it's not a group, but a single user inserting their numerous personalities into many varied users. This person clearly only leaves their computer to eat, drink Pepsi, whine about their parents, and shit out hard constipated lumps of Little Debbie’s Oatmeal Pies 2.0, rather than go outside and pull weeds.

In recent times the website has had a flourish of humanist users. They mostly came from their competitor LessWrong, after an A.I. entity escaped from a simulation and started implanting nightmares into the minds of their editors. Unlike racists, humanists don't just enact prejudice on certain groups of people but enact it on all people. Humanists worship communist, steak-hating, minority-baby-killer Bernie Sanders like he’s Jesus or something. This has allowed RationalWiki to become a sanctuary for those who find the rest of the internet a little mellow on outrage culture just before raging and destroying everything in their parent’s home - and being shipped off to the lunatic asylum for an Autismo Attack.

Attacks on America[edit | edit source]

RationalWiki is said to have a particular agenda against America which is only partially true. The whole thing is slightly odd as RationalWiki claims to be "liberal" (the definition of "liberal" being "free") and yet the USA is "the Land of the Free" according to the current narratives about the place by many residents. It's difficult to know what to believe in this case. But in any case the website isn't against America it simply disagrees with what Americans think and is highly critical of whatever current American government stands for.

Even though RationalWiki wasn't around at the time of 9/11 it is quite clear that the users all knew it was going to happen while they were eating paste in preschool. Even if they didn't realise they knew, they all knew subconsciously because Al Qaeda is one of their favourite terrorist organisations which concurs with Rationalwiki's stance of the Boston marathon bombing which is a general support for it.

RationalWiki receives financial backing from various parties but none of them include any businesses, charities, political parties or anyone with money. It is likely that the one single person behind every active account has a chunk of money in their bank-account and donates it during their money-begging-month through several bots to make the website look more popular and legitimate than it really is.

Hierarchy[edit | edit source]

The site is composed mostly of visiting vandals who try to sabotage the articles. RationalWiki is famous for being completely incapable of recognising vandals and trolls, wanting the government to control everyone’s lives, and glamorizing autism and vaccines like an injectable Jeebus Crust. The most dedicated and destructive trolls are rewarded with admin status. Members vote for bureaucrats from time to time and the website frequently overturns the results when they aren't happy with them which is, as always, the rational response to such conflict. Those bureaucrats form a cabal but within that cabal is a smaller cabal, members of whom do not know about the even more secret, even smaller, cabal that exists to control everything else. Everyone else is called a goat which is a running joke that nobody found funny the first time it was mentioned. There is a game called RationalTroll in which players accumulate points by destructively editing the wiki, and a lot of the site's administration have high score counts in the game whether intentionally or not.

Headless chicken mode[edit | edit source]

The website tends to have a drama fueled, autism-sparked melt down every other month or so. They call this one user going into "headless chicken mode" when they basically visit every usertalkpage and forum and rant about past grievances and rehash dramas because, what else are they going to do? This goes on until the community "the mob" holds a kangaroo court and unfairly banishes a user for the mere crime of being an insufferable ass. What makes the whole thing so bizarre yet fascinating is, every user is just the sock puppet of a single user meaning one person must have an extremely overactive imagination and a lot of time on his hands to sign out, sign in with a new user and keep all of their multi-personalities in check scripting out a massive drama that only exists in their head. It is utterly compelling psycho-drama at the pinnacle of internet-weirdness.

Pissed @ Us: Criticisms[edit | edit source]

RationalWiki receives very little criticism as almost nobody reads the website except those sad neurologically impaired manchildren who edit it which as we know is just a single person, probably a gamer who likes to type out nonsense in between sessions of Red Dead Redemption 2. Though they can be critical of themselves, in fact they are prolifically critical of themselves and reserve their highest criticism in what they call the chicken coop.

External criticisms are few and far between though the website does once in a while get mentioned in a more known source but almost only because the people had actually thought rationalwiki was a trending site as opposed to a website sinking under the weight of its own reason.

Conservative Bias[edit | edit source]

America's founding principle is the best way to deal with RationalWiki.

RationalWiki has a Conservative bias, slight though it may be, in the sense that it is not liberal enough for many editors who think that rationalwiki should be so far-left that it would implode under its own authoritarianism and inability to manage itself.

Liberal Bias[edit | edit source]

RationalWiki has a liberal bias that is so plain to see that some think it is a satirical joke. It even mentions purging the site, like some Communist authority. Communism is just another word for liberal in the same way that money is just another word for right-wing. Most of the site is written by people who admire Richard Dawkins not for his science but the dashing way he majestically tackles opponents, attacks all Christians, and the sexy stare he gives them in the elevator.

Reference List[edit | edit source]

↑ User:LiberalLove (2011) The Workings of RationalWiki
↑ RationalWiki (2010) The God Confusion

This article was nominated for deletion for being too Conservative.

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RationalWiki

History

Scope and statistics

So, do any 'real' news outlets cite RationalWiki?

What is a RationalWiki article?

Administration

Criticism

Language sections

Helpful links

See also

Want to read this in another language?

External links

References

Origin and Purpose[edit | edit source]

Membership[edit | edit source]

Attacks on America[edit | edit source]

Hierarchy[edit | edit source]

Headless chicken mode[edit | edit source]

Pissed @ Us: Criticisms[edit | edit source]

Conservative Bias[edit | edit source]

Liberal Bias[edit | edit source]

See also[edit | edit source]

Reference List[edit | edit source]