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A brain in square brackets! The RationalWiki logo.

Then god seperated the state from the church
Secularization

Issues of their times

Jehovah's Witlesses
Christianity
Science
Woman
Overton Window
Malcolm X

We're not burning witches anymore, so we are secular

Misogyny
Incest
Ableism
Pedophilia
Arrogance
Man or Bear?
If Buying isn't Owning, then Pirating isn't Stealing
Slashed Zero
Self-Censoring

Society/Science Education/
RationalWiki

RationalWiki (RW, or lovingly called just RatWiki) is a wiki-based 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©(3) nonprofit. The primary purpose of RationalWiki consists of the following:

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.

I like to think of Rationalwiki as the Wikipedia that doesn't beat around the bush. As RationalWiki puts it themselves: “Wikipedia has NPOV: Neutral Point of View. RationalWiki has SPOV. […] In line with the “not an encyclopedia” guideline, RationalWiki is not required to present “neutral” articles. RationalWiki articles should uncompromisingly explain what is bullshit, what is not, and (most importantly) why. […] The scientific method and the information gained from its application is better than just about anything else humanity has come up with”¹⁾.

The key point of RationalWiki's description of itself is that “Rationalwiki is not neutral”. The reason I quote so much from RationalWiki statements directly is because they make true on that promise. They write about topics like alternative medicine, pseudoscience and conspiracies uncompromisingly and unapologetically from a scientifically hardline position that I will never be unable to appreciate. As part of their mission, RationalWiki is specifically targeting these topics, analysing them, calling out the bullshit and giving good, scientifically based alternatives for what really is true. A very classic example of this is RationalWiki's pages on Flat Earth²⁾, which points out how Flat Earth is wrong, how we know it's wrong and what really is true, using the kinds of resources scientists in the field use to find the scientific consensus (think studies/papers).

RationalWiki was born as a response to Conservapedia; Conservapedia itself was created as a response to Wikipedia, because some editors believed that Wikipedia is riddled with a “liberal” and “atheist” bias. Editors on Conservapedia use the platform to blame liberals, atheists, migrants, gay, trans or any other kind of people for any perceived problem in society. It states Jesus, Christianity and god's creation as fact, denies evolution and describes heteronormativity as the only way to have sex. From there it goes on to pander to virtually any intelligence-based topic under the sun - climate change, conspiracies about 9/11, conspiracies about the moon landing, gun laws, conspiracies big pharma, sexuality, it just never stops. Look, flat earth is a tactial conspiracy made up by, ehem, “evolutionists” (ie. people who believe in evolution) to make Christians look bad.

The result is RationalWiki, a very comprehensive documentation of pseudoscience, crank, quackery and fundamentalism complete with a full, scientifically grounded analysis. While not as influential as Wikipedia herself, RationalWiki is definitely by far one of my favorite internet projects regardless and stands as one of the prime locations on the internet for science communication.

Wiki Culture

To boldly go where no RationalWikian has gone before!

RationalWiki traces its roots as far back as 2007, and it not only looks like that, but it also has a trail that long. As you browse the site, you will stumble on content and culture actually made nearly 20 years ago. For example, RationalWiki has a really cute fixation on goats. Furthermore, RationalWiki has a pretty lax approach to moderation and grants most users sysop permissions in a process they lovingly call “Demotion to Janitor”, as this gives you the powers to clean up the occasional vandalism on the page. Seriously, they will appoint you Janitor and leave a message on your talk page congratulating you for your “demotion”. Similarly, RationalWiki, like Wikipedia, uses citations to back up claims. However, it uses the citation feature for light-hearted writing as well, for example with the {{lie}}^{[Do you believe that?]} tag as indicators for jokes, and {{nofact}}^{[Citation NOT needed]} for some claims that are too trivial to mull over. Some of my style here is inherited from there.

As lax as RationalWiki is with its moderation (at least in comparison to places like Wikipedia), RationalWiki is similarly lax with its style. Due to its nature of wanting to be an encyclopedia, Wikipedia needs to retain a professional tone. RationalWiki can do away with all of that. Instead, RationalWiki likes to have some fun. We're all skeptics in our own little skeptic community, after all. However, and this part is important, the primary objective of each RationalWiki page is to do science education/communication. It's just that RationalWiki can afford to have some fun while it's at it.

RationalWiki also makes it clear that it is a mobocracy. Vandalism and problematic edits are removed, and quite quickly so, but fundamentally most bigger problems will end up being put up as a vote. Whatever the vote decides then becomes law. Hell, even user suspensions (think bans) are done on a vote basis.

One problem I have with RationalWiki is that it tends to get tangled up in political stuff. I like RationalWiki for its pages on pseudoscience, alternative medicine and the like, I don't like to haggle over what individual people are saying. Or in complex words, I like to learn about concepts, not the people using concepts. But, and I admit this, RationalWiki is a collaborative effort. If I want more pseudoscience articles, I can just be the change I want to see in the world.

IrrationalWiki

This joke is probably older than the wiki itself. Whenever someone finds RationalWiki and doesn't like it, IrrationalWiki is the absolute first comment they come up with. RationalWikians, myself included, have seen so many variations of IrrationalWiki comments that we'd have to reinvent the Dewey Decimal System to categorize them all. RationalWiki goes into this at length themselves (see I thought this was supposed to be RATIONALWiki), but the short version is that RationalWiki, like any good scientist, isn't making a claim on being right/correct. It's about the method of inquiry. The reason RationalWiki calls itself RationalWiki is because it uses the method of rationalism to arrive at its conclusions. RationalWiki knows and fully acknowledges that they are probably wrong, but, and this is the point, the way they are thinking is correct. Poor science is improved only by better science.

¹⁾

RationalWiki: SPOV

²⁾

RationalWiki: Flat Earth