Conservapedia:Community Portal
This page contains some material that has been moved from Talk:Main_Page. We are attempting to get general discussion of issues relating to Conservapedia's content and policies on this page, leaving the main talk page for its original purpose of discussing the content of the Main Page.
Yet more on the repeated 500 errors
I know people have said things about this before, but such comments always seem to be ignored or minimalized. Every day or two, I get a "500" (Internal Server) error message. Sometimes the site is unavailable for up to an hour and a half before I can get on again. This is not:
- A network problem - I have seen this on at least four different networks, one of which is a high-end professional network.
- Browser problem - By definition, this is a code the server returns, but I've tried at least 6 different browsers, with at least 3 different core engines
- User problem - believe it or not, I do know what I'm doing
That said, I understand that 500 errors are by definition unknown problems. They are sent when the server knows that something bad happened, but has no idea what and couldn't even retrieve the usual error page to serve. In other words, 500 errors are a pain, especially when they come and go. Perhaps there is really nothing which can be done about this. I will say that I've seen this kind of problem before with lower-price web hosting. In my opinion, this is often the source of a 500 error, but I know there are many others as well. If this is the case, complaining to the service provider or changing providers may be the only way to resolve this.
If this is an issue which everyone else does not really care about, then feel free to ignore this post entirely. However, I thought I would just try to show that this is indeed a problem. I know I would want to know if my public website was going down for one or more hours every couple days. Here are some "proof" images (although I know they could be faked) in case my word isn't enough.
March 4th, 2016 at about 10am
March 8th, 2016 at about 2pm
March 10th, 2016 at about 2pm
March 16th, 2016 at about 6pm
March 18th, 2016 at about 8am
March 30th, 2016 at about 3pm
April 2nd, 2016 at about 10pm
April 5th, 2016 at about 12pm
April 8th, 2016 at about 9am
April 8th, 2016 at about 9am #2 - Three browsers shown when IE worked but no others did. This was the only time I know of when this happened, and is a bit of a discrepancy.
April 11th, 2016 at about 11am
April 14th, 2016 at about 9am
Need I go on? Just to be clear, I am not posting this just to complain, but to try to be helpful. Have a great day! --David B (talk) 14:40, 14 April 2016 (EDT)
Copyright
Many of us have been spending most of the past month trying to clean up after TAR. The fact that so many copyright problems have been left behind indicates that Conservapedia editors may not appreciate the importance of copyright law. The edit box always displays the statement "You are also promising us that you wrote this yourself, or copied it from a public domain or similar free resource (see Conservapedia:Copyrights for details). Do not submit copyrighted work without permission!" Permission means an agreement not only to place the text on Conservapedia, but also to license it to others on the same basis that all other Conservapedia content is licensed. In some cases, TAR just copied and pasted from other websites without attributing the content to them. In other cases, TAR copied large portions of text that a blog had quoted from another source. I would suggest that everyone take the time to read Conservapedia:Copyrights again. I also believe that we need more talk page templates to document when people have received permission to copy material. I assume that getting written permissions would be best, and that they should be stored in some central place, just in case misunderstanding occur in the future. JDano (talk) 08:46, 24 April 2016 (EDT)
- The greatest problem for me is that I don't know if they have the right to copy on not, so I agree--it really would help to have a single place where permission proof is stored. I don't know how that would work, though. --David B (talk) 08:39, 25 April 2016 (EDT)
- We could have a template on the talk page which references the letter sent to Aschlafly. Perhaps the letters in the file could be numbered, and the number inserted in the template parameter. The problem is that TAR copied verbatim from a particular blog that welcomed guest editors or copied from them. Under US copyright law, the copyright belongs to the author. We don't know if the author gave the copyright to the blog owner or licensed it with restrictions. The email from the blog owner to TAR was not clear about what licensing rights he conveyed further. He just said, "You can quote my blog up to 800 words at a time." That does not give Conservapedia the right to further license the reuse of the quote (which we generally do.) There is no need to quote that blog verbatim, and TAR should have written his own definitions when he posted them are separate articles. It is almost as if he was trying to generate 100 one-sentence articles each with a footnote to a particular author (perhaps for the search engines). But we now have 100 copyright headaches.
- If Aschlafly had a scanner, we could post scanned copies of each permission letter somewhere on the internet and put a link in the talk page template. JDano (talk) 02:09, 4 May 2016 (EDT)
Please unlock
Please unlock the Essay:Rebuttal to Counterexamples to Relativity page. I need to reinstate (uncomment) item #22, to track the reinstated item #22 in the main counterexamples page. SamHB (talk) 23:00, 24 April 2016 (EDT)
Please don't lock pages (other than templates and other things that can do an inordinate amount of damage.)
I have recently had (and still have) problems with pages being locked. It's easy to see that these acts were performed in response to vandal attacks. But it really isn't a good idea.
- It makes it harder for people to do their work, obviously. We have to request that the page be unlocked. And those requests sometimes go unheeded. See, for example, my request, just above, which has still not been acted upon. The two pages are supposed to stay synchronized with each other; there is a big editor-only-visible comment to that effect at the top of each page, but they are out of sync, and I can't fix this.
- It gives the impression that Conservapedia is not an open-editing "best of the public" web site. It could be taken as evidence that the administrators do not trust the public. Not trusting the public is not a conservative value.
- It is ineffective. We often have vandal attacks, in which someone vandalizes as many pages as possible before they get stopped. The locking is obviously a response to these attacks. But people engaging in mass vandalism will just go on to another page when they see one that is locked. The total number of pages that they vandalize before they are stopped is still the same. The amount of work that sysops (or, in a few cases, I) must do to clean up the mess is the same.
SamHB (talk) 19:00, 1 May 2016 (EDT)
- If it's any consolation, I agree, but your argument seems to have fallen of deaf ears. In my opinion, protection should be reserved for some templates, and perhaps pages which are under heavy attack for a few days at most. While it's true that they can go vandalize elsewhere, sometimes an organized effort is made to attack a single page for one reason or another. For this reason, it could be helpful to temporally protect such a page. However, I'm not as experienced on CP as the admins here--perhaps they have tried it this way and already know it doesn't work. I won't presume to understand exactly how their job works. --David B (talk) 11:52, 12 May 2016 (EDT)
What's going on with user "SoridAtom"?
Can someone explain why SoridAtom's writings were treated the way they were? He wrote an article Atheism is the default position that, within the space of 36 minutes, Cons deleted, restored, deleted again, restored again, moved to an essay with a redirect, deleted the redirect, and deleted the essay, as well as blocking him.
I looked at it, and found nothing outside of Conservapedia's stance on these issues. It seemed to lie fully within what is commonly accepted. I made some notes to myself for future criticism (gently, not fire and brimstone) about the fact that it had two astonishingly bad run-on sentences. One of them had three main clauses and one subordinate clause, without a single comma anywhere. It went on for 3-1/2 lines on my screen.
I would not have bothered with this if I had thought it was going to be considered trolling or vandalism, or if I had thought that he would be blocked for "liberal trolling" or some similar block reason.
Could someone please restore this, so that we can see what it was about? SamHB (talk) 01:26, 12 May 2016 (EDT)
- It was a copy and paste job and I thought his username was sordidatom. I misread his username. I can unblock him, but I am not going to restore his cut and paste essay. Conservative (talk) 01:41, 12 May 2016 (EDT)
The family-friendly nature of this site is being willfully undermined
The bestiality article contains, in the first section, this big quote, with a footnote reference to the "newsreport3738" web site. (By the way, the Conservapedia article says that the quote is about "secular Europe", whereas the actual quote says nothing about being secular.)
| “ | Bestiality is having a weird renaissance in Europe. Perhaps ironically, it kicked off when activists succeeded in banning the practice in places like Germany and Norway. In the background, something else emerged simultaneously: an animal-sex-tourism industry, which has been blossoming in Denmark.[1] | ” |
The web reference is out there for all to see. When you go to that site, you have to make one more click to get to the actual quote. I won't repeat The URL of the web page on which that quote is found, other than to say that it has the a*****-f****** phrase, but the full quote on that page has a little extra something in front, in a large boldface font.
| “ |
Animal F***ers Bestiality is having a weird renaissance in Europe. Perhaps ironically, it kicked off when activists succeeded in banning the practice in places like Germany and Norway. In the background, something else emerged simultaneously: an animal-sex-tourism industry, which has been blossoming in Denmark. |
” |
The quote goes on well beyond that first paragraph, and has a video of a person detailing his tastes in bestiality. The whole thing is utterly disgusting and obscene. And yet it is here at Conservapedia. The third of the Conservapedia:Commandments says that everything, including links, must be "... family-friendly, clean, concise, and without gossip or foul language".
Can someone clean this place up? I'm trying to get students of high school age to read my stuff, and I'm sure a lot of other people are as well. SamHB (talk) 21:21, 13 May 2016 (EDT)
- It's gonna a big job that would require some cooperation between editors. Is this the page those sorts of things are discussed? Rob Smith (talk) 22:44, 13 May 2016 (EDT)
- The godless European evolutionists who want to have sexual relations with their furry "kissing cousins" is an embarrassing problem for evolutionists. It's a shame that pseudoscience would help create such depravity.
- Second, a new source is being used for the information and the new source is at: http://combatingatheism.blogspot.com/2016/05/secular-europes-weird-bestiality.html Conservative (talk) 23:22, 13 May 2016 (EDT)
So, Europe is not very secular and several evolution loving countries didn't have a problem with bestiality recently? The Jerusalem Post was wrong and Copenhagen was not the "bestiality capital" of Europe? The first "bestiality rights" organization in the world didn't happen in Europe? Liberals, it is time to stop living in denial!
AlanE, according to Wikipedia, a website founded by an atheist and an agnostic: "In December 2013, Vice Media expanded its international news division into an independent division dedicated to news exclusively and created Vice News. Vice Media put $50 million into its news division, which now has 34 bureaus worldwide and has been praised for in-depth coverage of international news."[1] Here is the source they used: "Vice News Launches, Promising 'Changing Of The Guard In Media'". Forbes. AlanE, is Forbes magazine a news organization?
Atheists, agnostics, evolutionists and liberals, it is time to put on your sackcloth and ashes and repent of your foray into the decadent sin of bestiality! You were caught red-handed!
Just admit it. There was a notable problem in the atheist population with bestiality and the young earth creationist community didn't have this problem despite the Amish being around animals frequently! The Amish are a tight-nit community and unlike atheists, they haven't had a notable problem with bestiality or loneliness. See also: Atheism and loneliness and Atheism and bestiality. Conservative (talk) 06:31, 14 May 2016 (EDT)
- "As of today, serious journalism officially has a home on Vice: Vice News. The new web channel launched today with reports from Myanmar, Russia, Venezuela and other global hot spots." - Forbes Magazine, 3/14/2014.[2]Conservative (talk) 06:50, 14 May 2016 (EDT)
- I am taking a break from the internet for awhile for the most part. The issue has been resolved.
- Also, there was a notable problem with bestiality in secular Europe. Some European governments passed laws in order to tamp down the problem. Hopefully, there will not be a significant problem with illegal activity in this matter. Conservative (talk) 11:30, 14 May 2016 (EDT)
- I agree. No parent who has their child's welfare as a priority would not allow them to visit Conservapedia. What was once a good conservative resource, meant for children, has devolved into resource that has many more words on bestiality than the Lord of the Rings has on Hobbits.--JamieVa (talk) 11:18, 14 May 2016 (EDT)
- There are some articles related to bestiality that tie it to atheism, evolutionism, liberalism and homosexuality using relevant information. That is what is getting some liberals upset.
- I agree. No parent who has their child's welfare as a priority would not allow them to visit Conservapedia. What was once a good conservative resource, meant for children, has devolved into resource that has many more words on bestiality than the Lord of the Rings has on Hobbits.--JamieVa (talk) 11:18, 14 May 2016 (EDT)
- Also, there was a notable problem with bestiality in secular Europe. Some European governments passed laws in order to tamp down the problem. Hopefully, there will not be a significant problem with illegal activity in this matter. Conservative (talk) 11:30, 14 May 2016 (EDT)
- None of the web pages being linked in the article are from disreputable/salacious sources. In fact, LifeSite News, a pro-life news website which the owner of the website very much likes, has material on the bestiality problem which occurred in Sweden which I cited in the article.
- The Bible mentions the bestiality problem of the Canaanites according to Bible.org (see: Liberal Christianity and bestiality).[3] So certainly Conservapedia can point out the bestiality problem the atheists/evolutionists/liberals in Europe recently had. Conservative (talk) 11:46, 14 May 2016 (EDT)