Been an interesting year too, during which Conservapedia's sysops tried to shut me down; Terry Koeckritz ran rampant over the few remaining editors; RationalWiki became a bigger site than Conservapedia - a victory in a very real sense of the word; Andrew Schlafly made the Bible more conservative; two parodists were promoted to sysop, where they help Terry undermine CP; and Andy made a fool of himself in front of the New Jersey Supreme Court.
About the only thing that hasn't happened is the demise of CP, but given the downward spiral it's enjoyed over the past 12 months, that day must be drawing close. After all, even the Fab Five, or Super Six super nutty admins can't keep an encyclopaedia running.
Oops... my bad. It's not an encyclopaedia... it's Andrew Schlafly's little soap box.
Happy birthday, WCMTU. How long do you reckon CP has left in it? I'm thinking less than a year anyway, although I don't expect the site itself to vanish. it's more likely to join the walking dead wikis, like aSK. Ah well, at least Andy can still be proud of having been spawned by Phyllis Schlafly. That is without doubt the single greatest achievement of his life.
ReplyDeleteIt's hard to say really. We've been predicting its demise for some time now, but it still keeps blundering on. I guess given that it's run by a core of zealots, some of whom appear to have no life outside of CP, I'd say it'll keep going until Andy pulls the plug. or until Terry Koeckritz finally takes off his mask. As long as Andy has something to bitch about, CP will keep going, populated by the few remaining sysops and the drop-in-and-get-blocked editors. It's already clear that there are no mainstream editors left, except for Jinxy.
ReplyDeleteI have a feeling that CP will still be here next year. It'll just be less an encyclopaedia and more of right-wing news blog cum propaganda machine for the teabaggers.
Hey, a personal blog can be sustained forever! I have several personal blogs no-one reads ...
ReplyDeleteReally the only thing the site needs to keep going is Andy. Look at aSK, it was for all purposes still-born, but so long as PJR pays for his dodgy sell-on virtual server space and DNS (although he did let it lapse for a day after only one year) it will sit there until the day he dies, unedited and uninteresting.
ReplyDeleteBlogs are different again, as usually you sign up to a blog site and it sits there forever or until the site changes its policy and closes down unedited blogs, at no cost to you. Conservapedia will die if Andy doesn't pay the bills, but I wouldn't see that happening for about 3 years.
ReplyDeleteI know it's expecting a lot from Andy, but you'd think that after 3 years he'd start to realise that the conservative elite aren't flocking to CP's door, nor are they quoting it as a reliable source. That might also explain things like Lenski, the CBP and Douglas Moo - it's ever more frantic attempts at jumping up and down and yelling "look at me!". Given the the WND nutjobs didn't have time for the CBP, I'm guessing that all that's really keeping Andy going, is his own personal nuttiness, goaded on by the 6 remaining "senior" sysops and a handful of parodists.
ReplyDeleteThere were 90 active editors at CP last week, compared to the 170 at RW. When it dips below 20 and Andy knows everyone that edits by first name he might begin to think his experiment has failed. The only reason it took off is because he benefited from a lot of press early in the projects existence, otherwise he might be another CreationWiki with a few dozen editors. At least he had the sense not to go a wikifram wiki, they usual don't get more than 5 editors. He has had a good run though. My guess is that its death will be slow, it will only occur when there are a less than 10 editor and Andy himself has lost interest and only edits once a week. Then when the DNS is up he might decided not to renew it. As I said, that would be more than 3 years away.
ReplyDeleteCompare to Citizendium, another project that started with HUGE press ... and is now less active than Conservapedia.
ReplyDeleteThe problem is not that CP are fundy loonies - it's that Schlafly is a miserable failure as a community manager, as was Sanger.
That said, CZ won't go away as long as there's even a few people interested, and Sanger's already cut down his involvement.
I do wish some third party would write about the declines and falls of CP and CZ. RW is of comparable activity, but at least we never claimed to be anything more than a small playground with a few good moments.
I would not say that RW is a "small playground with a few good moments". We are a specialist site, with a niche objective. Despite out limited scope and despite the fact we have not received a millionth of those twos publicity, we are twice the size. Nuff said.
ReplyDeletePi Says:
ReplyDelete10/07/2010 at 4:23 pm e
CP, CZ, and aSK, are all built on the insane notion that they could build a better encyclopedia if they (the founders) were in charge. Wikipedia’s more open policy is what made it successful, not Wales.
PS Psy, could you change your comments format?
David Gerard Says:
ReplyDelete10/07/2010 at 3:36 pm e
I think we’re both of those things. My point is that we’re not pretending to be something we’re not. CP and CZ were founded entirely on pretence and hubris; we’re doing better by taking a sane approach.
You broke our indent tower.
ReplyDeleteI'm sorry. Here, have a cookie.
ReplyDeleteNom nom nom.
ReplyDelete