Usage Statistics for Conservapedia.
_Update_: As emerges in the discussion below, this Top 10 is a little too good to be true, and probably reflects efforts to game the system either by critics or other participants in the Conservapedia world rather than the true degree of readership for these particular pages on the site.
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{ 65 comments }
Cryptic Ned 11.21.07 at 3:09 am
I guess there was an unfilled niche for a good site about fag-hating that users can enjoy contributing to instead of having to merely be consumers of fag-bashing.
I’d like to see some of the page histories to see what kind of discussion goes on between the contributors
thompsaj 11.21.07 at 3:10 am
WTF is “gay bowel disease”?
Jacob Christensen 11.21.07 at 3:22 am
What? No top-ten entry about “Public Restroom Wide Stance”??
Keith 11.21.07 at 3:23 am
Whatever it is, they have a really detailed article about it on Conservapedia.
Are there any other articles on that site or are they all obsessed with what’ coming out of/going into their own asses?
paul 11.21.07 at 4:10 am
The talk page for “Gay Bowel Syndrome” is a delight:
Worth the time?
In reading this article, it seems that a lot of time is dedicated to a disease that is just a disgusting footnote in the medical field. I’m not saying we shouldn’t have this, but how many homosexuals are coming here to read this? Seems like a waste of good effort. That’s just my critique; you do very good work on other articles. Plus, if we’re going to have this much on it, could we have more on the moral implications of this subject? ItMathers 15:28, 5 October 2007 (EDT)
AIDS is a big issue. Homosexuality is a big issue is regards to AIDS patients in the USA (see: Homosexuality and AIDS ). Medscape in 2004 rightly points out that gay bowel syndrome is a significant component in regards to homosexaul population getting AIDS (see: Gay Bowel Syndrome ). Conservative 19:43, 5 October 2007 (EDT)
The relevance is this: Homosexuals brought about the AIDS epidemic in America through homosexual activity. The “disgusting footnote” is due entirely to that disgusting activity.
Moreover, pro-homosexuality advocates have been trying to divert attention from the guilt which homosexuals bear for the epidemic by pretending that AIDS is “not a gay disease”, i.e., that it affects us all equally. The fact is that homosexual men are far more likely to contract AIDS than even promiscuous heterosexuals.
Now I’m not saying that fornication between a man and woman is Biblically correct – but I refuse to concede that homosexuality is no worse that heterosexual fornication. And I don’t agree with any argument that homosexuals should be let off the hook.
Here’s a related point: Defenders of homosexuality keep repeating the slogan, “It’s not a choice.” This is a half-truth which leads to a full lie! Regardless of how or when a person finds themselves desiring to commit a sin, they still have a responsibility to dispel that temptation. If Jesus were alive today on the earth, I’m sure he would say this. Homosexuals do have a choice: the choice to commit sin or to refuse to commit sin.
Is homosexuality a civil rights issue, like having black skin? Well, then no matter how or when I may have found myself hating black people and desiring to discriminate them, don’t I have a responsibility to repel those racists thoughts and feelings from my mind? –Ed Poor Talk 22:35, 5 October 2007 (EDT)
I am not “pro-homosexuality.” I spent time last niht finally linking all the articles on the Great Lakes, adding content. Seems like that is the purpose of this effort–to make a valuable resource for children, not rant about gays. I just wonder if the effort could be better spent. ItMathers 07:52, 6 October 2007 (EDT)
And so on and so forth
paul 11.21.07 at 4:22 am
I can also recommend the talk page for the Richard Dawkins entry.
John Quiggin 11.21.07 at 4:50 am
Oddly enough I was just reading Fruit (slang) in the real-world Wikipedia.
Anon 11.21.07 at 5:25 am
This is so perfect I almost can’t believe it’s real.
David in NY 11.21.07 at 5:29 am
I sort of suspected a hoax, too, anon. Just too good.
thompsaj 11.21.07 at 6:36 am
regarding #6, you could write the great post-modern novel about about editor “ItMathers”. Oh so tragic…
Seth Finkelstein 11.21.07 at 6:45 am
Interestingly, “conservapedia.com” is the 6th result for a Google search for: Homosexuality
(Wikipedia, of course, being #1).
noen 11.21.07 at 6:48 am
This is so perfect I almost can’t believe it’s real.
Oh, it’s real. Anyone in the GLBT community knows that those who scream at us the loudest are the ones most likely to be repressing. It should be obvious if you think about it. Why would someone with no insecurity surrounding their sexual orientation give a rip about someone else’s?
dsquared 11.21.07 at 7:40 am
Isn’t Conservapedia a joke site?
Bruce Baugh 11.21.07 at 8:57 am
Noen @ 13: So very, very true. Self-loathing has a distinct tang to it.
terence 11.21.07 at 9:03 am
giggle giggle, snort, splutter, hah hah hah –
Thank you Kieran!
goatchowder 11.21.07 at 10:59 am
#13: does it also follow that the people who scream the loudest about torture and “enhanced interrogation techniques” are also the kinkiest BSDM practitioners too?
Alison P 11.21.07 at 11:24 am
goatchowder, I often turn that thought over in my mind. It is so obvious that when ‘other people’ rant intemperately it is about something that attracts them, or that they fear within themselves. I can only speak for myself but I think I do have a capacity for anger and cruelty, and a desire for revenge, and that’s why I am so powerfully opposed to torture and executions and so on. I think as long as a person is clear sighted about it, it’s not a problem.
mitchell porter 11.21.07 at 11:45 am
Came here via Majikthise…
Has it not occurred to anyone that these statistics may derive from people looking for porn, and not Conservapedians with a hangup? I suspect that the most “popular” pages on any site will be those that mention sex.
Paul 11.21.07 at 12:00 pm
This, as far as I can tell, is the comparable list for wikipedia from August 06:
1. Main Page
2. Wikipedia
3. United States
4. List of big-bust models and performers
5. JonBenét Ramsey
6. List of sex positions
7. Wiki
8. Hurricane Katrina
9. Pluto
10. List of female porn stars
So there’s a sexual element present, but it wouldn’t seem to be as focused or as all-consuming as conservapedia’s
alexf 11.21.07 at 12:05 pm
“Has it not occurred to anyone that these statistics may derive from people looking for porn, and not Conservapedians with a hangup?”
“Homosexuality and Hepatitus[516,244]”
Man, it turns out that ol’ gay-hep-porn is less niche than we thought…
Paul 11.21.07 at 12:19 pm
And here’s March `07
1. Main Page
2. Battle of Thermopylae
3. Wiki
4. 300 (film)
5. Wikipedia
6. Sparta
7. United States
8. List of Pokémon
9. Naruto
10. World War II
Drake 11.21.07 at 12:41 pm
“I suspect that the most “popular†pages on any site will be those that mention sex.”
Right. Plus, we haven’t controlled for the possibility that the Conservapedia’s articles on homosexuality attract a greater readership because of their unusually high quality.
Drake 11.21.07 at 12:50 pm
“I suspect that the most “popular†pages on any site will be those that mention sex.”
Right. Plus, we haven’t controlled for the possibility that Conservapedia’s articles that mention homosexuality (not just “sex”) attract a greater readership because of their unusually high quality.
Drake 11.21.07 at 12:51 pm
But I repeat myself.
mitchell porter 11.21.07 at 12:56 pm
Here is a five-month aggregate of such statistics.
It is evidently the case that homosexuality is the form of sexuality of the greatest interest to Conservapedians: the pages listed above belong not to the category Sexuality, but to a separate category of Homosexuality. But it is hard to infer anything about why those pages are being visited from the numbers alone. How many searches for porn show up in the logs of the average feminist site, just because it mentions women?
But the source of those Conservapedia hits might not even be the quest for porn, a lot of the time. Half those pages are nominally about health issues.
Seth Finkelstein 11.21.07 at 1:21 pm
THIS MAY NOT BE REAL!
There’s something very wrong with the conservapedia statistics above.
For example, the page “Homosexuality and Hepatitis‎”
is very short, was created 17 October 2007, and only had a few edits. There’s no way such a short new page has had more than half a million legit accesses.
novakant 11.21.07 at 1:28 pm
The Irukandji jellyfish in the top ten?!
MartinM 11.21.07 at 1:51 pm
Good catch. I wonder if it’s counting search engine spiders; the author of those articles is somewhat obsessed with how high his work is ranked – for some reason he seems to believe it’s a measure of quality, as opposed to, say, lunacy – and has a tendency to link-spam.
aaron_m 11.21.07 at 1:55 pm
#27
As far as I can tell the entire site is only a year old (i.e. earliest “Main Page” entry in Nov, 2006). The oldest entry for “Homosexuality” I could find was February 2007. I do not know the actual history of the site, but this is what the provided history information seems to say.
aaron_m 11.21.07 at 1:58 pm
Oh ya, and this is some hilarious and crazy stuff…
Seth Finkelstein 11.21.07 at 2:05 pm
The “Homosexuality” article itself could be popular. But there’s no way something like obscure like “Homosexuality and Hepatitis” is a legit #3. That’s just not reasonable.
Look, no “Bible”? No “Jesus Christ”? in the top ten – again, not reasonable.
Either by accident or deliberately, those stats have to be wrong.
Uncle Kvetch 11.21.07 at 2:08 pm
Medscape in 2004 rightly points out that gay bowel syndrome is a significant component in regards to homosexaul population getting AIDS (see: Gay Bowel Syndrome ). Conservative 19:43, 5 October 2007
Compelling stuff. I’d say these data demand addressing, don’t you think?
Unless, of course, your slavish adherence to political correctness trumps your respect for SCIENCE!
Ralph Hitchens 11.21.07 at 2:16 pm
I am shocked, shocked! to find that “limited government” and “strict construction” aren’t at the top of the list.
aaron_m 11.21.07 at 2:20 pm
“But there’s no way something like obscure like “Homosexuality and Hepatitis†is a legit #3. That’s just not reasonable.”
Obviously a catastrophe of reason. But the question remains, are the statistics accurate or not?
Joshua Zelinsky 11.21.07 at 2:29 pm
Earlier the people at RationalWiki (and anti-Conservapedia site) made a program which was designed to mess with Conservapedia page view stats (by repeatedly calling for certain pages). This is likely a result of them having fun.
Seth Finkelstein 11.21.07 at 2:33 pm
They can’t be accurate, in the sense of reflecting anything except a crawler or a deliberate manipulation.
Seth Finkelstein 11.21.07 at 2:37 pm
Manual trackback:
Conservapedia, Homosexuality, and pranked statistics
Tmtoulouse 11.21.07 at 3:04 pm
Okay, I will come forward with what I know. There are some at RW that have enjoyed inflating statistics for certain pages for gags. Most notably when Vagina and Penis made it to the top at the same time Schlafly was claiming wikipedia was all about sex.
No one has come forward to claim responsibility for this…arraignment…so I can’t say that it was someone from our side. But its not outside the realm of possibility. And occum’s razor and all that.
But some have claimed that things like the Bible and Jesus Christ should get more page views. Thats certainly not true. Conservapedia is all about the “anti” its articles against things like abortion, homosexuality, evolution, etc. all receive the majority of attention and the most promotion.
Stuart 11.21.07 at 3:07 pm
Well it certainly does look too convenient, however even odd subjects like “Homosexuality and Hepatitis†are linked as sub topics from the main Homosexuality topic which has three times as many hits, so it isn’t completely unfeasible. Although it certainly wouldn’t surprise me if it was some sort of setup or manipulation, as much as the sort of people who would use conservapedia are fairly far out there. Of course now the topic is circling the internet, the numbers on those articles are likely to expand rapidly in comparision to other topics on the site anyway as people gawk at the nutters and their obsessions.
Tmtoulouse 11.21.07 at 3:10 pm
Just a minor post script……..even if it is someone manipulating page views remember that there has to be a page to be bumped to begin with. There are dozens of article on the evils of homosexuality on the site. We only work with the material we are given. The obsession is still there even if the page views were “helped”
Stuart 11.21.07 at 3:51 pm
Well you only have to skim through the Homosexuality page itself to get a very good idea of the mentality of the editors.
tavella 11.21.07 at 3:55 pm
Damn you, Seth, using that rationality and logic and investigation thing to ruin the fun!
Seth Finkelstein 11.21.07 at 4:16 pm
Well, otherwise the terrorists will have won :-)
Warren 11.21.07 at 6:04 pm
mitchell porter @ 19:
So you’re suggesting that there are a lot of porn surfers looking up “gay bowel disease”?
Ian B Gibson 11.21.07 at 6:43 pm
Could it be that there are lots of closet conservatives who need some motivational material to help them stay on the straight and narrow?
Jon H 11.21.07 at 6:51 pm
So basically the stats are fake, but accurate.
Nordic Mousse 11.21.07 at 7:13 pm
“Gay bowel syndrome”
If herero women have the.. um… “presumed act” performed on them, what is it called then?
Mary Catherine 11.21.07 at 7:43 pm
Okay, so the stats are fake. But what about the site itself? I can’t shake the notion that the whole thing must be an elaborate hoax.
In its combination of cluelessness and combativeness, this, for example, seems almost too good to be true:
chowderhead 11.21.07 at 9:02 pm
Mary Catherine – Conservapedia is real. Please adjust your world view accordingly.
Bad 11.22.07 at 12:00 am
I was chuckling about this when I saw it on Andrew Sullivan’s blog. It does look sort of suspect though, I’m gonna have to post a skeptical update.
On the other hand, the stats for wikipedia are dominated by Harry Potter, Naruto, and Guitar Hero 3. Conservapedia’s whole reason for existence is to be against the LIBERAL BIAS at wikipedia, but I’m having a hard time understanding how they square that with the reality of wikipedia.
Bad 11.22.07 at 12:10 am
Conservapedia IS real, unfortunately, but it has also basically become a playground for savvy folks trying to make their articles even more absurd than they are naturally, all in ways that won’t get immediately noticed by the VERY restrictive administrators (who basically only allow what they think is the right-thinking conservative view). One of the best was the article on Geroge Washington, where someone apparently tried to see just how many exclamation points they could work into every sentence before it became too obvious how ridiculous the article was.
Down and Out of Sà i Gòn 11.22.07 at 12:45 am
It’s been worse. Conservapedians used to interpret British spellings on Wikipedia as examples of bias:
Wikipedia often uses foreign spelling [sic] of words, even though most English-speaking users are American. Look up “Most Favored Nation†on Wikipedia and it automatically converts the spelling to the British spelling “Most Favoured Nation.†Look up “Division of labor†on Wikipedia and it automatically converts to the British spelling “Division of labour,†then insists on the British spelling for “specialization†also. Enter “Hapsburg†(the European ruling family) and Wikipedia automatically changes the spelling to Habsburg, even though the American spelling has always been “Hapsburgâ€. Within entries British spellings appear in the silliest of places, even when the topic is American. Conservapedia favors American spellings of words.
This snippet is not present in the latest version of their Examples of bias. Never the less, the parochialism of the site is quite depressing.
perianwyr 11.22.07 at 12:45 am
I can assure you that none of my contributions to Conservapedia are real, but they are all intentionally insane. There must be others like me.
Mary Catherine 11.22.07 at 2:17 am
Look up “Division of labor†on Wikipedia and it automatically converts to the British spelling “Division of labour,†then insists on the British spelling for “specialization†also.
Why do they hate Adam Smith?
Honestly, I’m having a hard time with the notion that this site is for real. The sheer range and scope of its stupidity, not to mention its sheer volume…if this is satire, it is overdone. And if this is not satire, then, yes, this calls for a remapping of my mental/moral universe.
Bad 11.22.07 at 2:54 am
Again, it’s real. It is what it says: a site designed by a Schaffly son whose perspective is that “conservative” means “fundamentalist 6000-day earth Christian.”
I note that “Gay Bowel Syndrome” has shot up in the ratings recently.
AWESOME.
Gary D 11.22.07 at 4:18 am
Mary Catherine, many people had your reaction when they first saw the site. Unfortunately it is all too real. There are some real fruitcakes in Jesusland.
“The sheer range and scope of its stupidity, not to mention its sheer volume…”
You can find insane and stupid and shrill examples of seemingly respected conservative thought all over the Internet.
Examples: See Stephen Den Beste, now just reviewing semi-porn anime while swearing he is not watching the dirty parts, getting posted at the Wall Street Journal Online.
A DC right wing think tank having one of its opinion writers seriously promoting that Bush should exterminate Iraq and replace everyone with American citizens to transform the Middle-East and BTW, get rid of that whole democracy thing, the mob is often wrong.
Did you see the top 5 most illuminating right-wing posts contest at the Washington Monthly online?
The more you know the more you worry about the derangement of the right.
BTW, I don’t really think this is a spider issue, these people are freaks. I am reminded of the California preacher who is promoted as an expert on Christian TV that any acceptance of gays must be constantly fought. The reason – if that lifestyle ever became acceptable most men would quit reproducing and having sex with females.
Lewis N. Clark 11.22.07 at 9:33 am
The German spelling (of this German name) is Habsburg.
Lewis N. Clark 11.22.07 at 9:35 am
The German spelling (of this German name) is Habsburg.
BTW the ranking Habsburg just turned 95 Tuesday.
stuart 11.22.07 at 10:22 am
“fundamentalist 6000-day earth Christian.â€
So they believe the earth was created when I was 17. Thats even odder than the regular creationists.
Ferruge 11.22.07 at 7:06 pm
Thats even odder than the regular creationists.
And yet, the same creationist logic, such as it is, can probably be made to fit that thesis equally well.
As far as Conserva – Conservo – oh hell, I can’t even say the word, the whole idea of it being so mind-bogglingly stupid – goes, I’ve not even worked up the courage, or rather, the depravity, to see what is actually on the site. There’s only so much head-slapping and sinus-rubbing I can endure in a day.
Dan Bye 11.22.07 at 9:51 pm
This site will put the satirists out of business.
orion 11.22.07 at 10:37 pm
This isn’t satire. This posting on stats has been making the rounds for a while. I’m only surprised that the slowpokes at Conservapedia haven’t themselves altered their stats to be more realistic. I guarantee you they are kicking themselves now.
Glen Tomkins 11.23.07 at 1:09 am
Why the interest in these topics?
It’s simple. Most people who use Conservapedia have parent-controlled blocking software that keeps them from visiting gay sites, and in most cases, any sites but Conservapedia or worse. So the only way they can find out about those confusing urges they’ve been having is by reading relevant Conservapedia entries. In short, we’re talking about the future Ted Haggards and Larry Craigs of America.
Rubber Toe 11.23.07 at 2:08 am
“Honestly, I’m having a hard time with the notion that this site is for real. The sheer range and scope of its stupidity, not to mention its sheer volume…if this is satire, it is overdone. And if this is not satire, then, yes, this calls for a remapping of my mental/moral universe.”
Be frightened. Be very frightened. I personally know born agains that are this stupid. Yes it is very disturbing. Those people are much more dangerous than they’re currently getting credit for.
Blue-assed fly 11.23.07 at 12:35 pm
It should be noted that the author of all the anti-homosexual articles on Conservapedia has himself manipulated page views. Either by boosting his own pet pages from quite a low base or by abusing his power as an administrator to delete and recreate other pages that had higher page counts, in order to reset their page view count and remove them from the top ten popular pages.
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