Sysop TK has recently provided a list on mr. Schlafly’s talk page of the people he believes are responsible for the vandal attacks on Conservapedia, including your columnist among them:
Most of this isn’t the several people using the “Ice” account, but Tmtoulouse, ColinR, AmesG, AKjeldsen, Palmd and Sterile, among others and their many socks. The poor things are so devoid of a life, they crave argument for arguments sake. Feel free to contact me for a more complete list. —Sysop-TK /MyTalk 17:18, 22 May 2007 (EDT)
I would like to state that I resent this implication. I have never engaged in vandalism against Conservapedia, and would never dream of doing so. I believe the only reason why I am on that list is because of my activities on RationalWiki, which, that is true, has been a hang-out for some of the vandals that have attacked Conservapedia in the past. However, I have not been connected with these activities.
In a recent IRC conversation I have asked TK to remove my name , which he refused. I would call upon him to produce evidence to back up his claim, except that I know he can have none, and that it is well-known that he does not consider evidence necessary.
I know that the management of Conservapedia believes highly in moral laws. I would like to ask, what kind of moral laws support unsubstantiated accusations against an innocent men? I am not a Paulus, and this is not Caesarea, but still: For if I be an offender, or have committed any thing worthy of death, I refuse not to die: but if there be none of these things whereof these accuse me, no man may deliver me unto them. I appeal unto Caesar.
The Conservapedia Column 
Well, the whole conversation on that talk page is ridiculous. They use the word “vandalism” to descibe “icewedge” type phenomenae AND simply ideas they don’t agree with. I wanna puke.
Don’t you know? These are “conservative facts”.
Awfully post-modern, you ask me…
What would some goofy canadian artist know??
Oh, no you didn’t! XD
Better to be a vandal than a terroirist
Or a CP butt pirate!
Birds of a feather, flock together. You are known by the company you keep.
Trite phrases, but usually true. Intellectuals do not plant false information, bogus citations to articles, simply because they disagree with administrative policies. Good and honest men to not participate in wikis/boards/blogs where others make exhortations to do so. At least not without responding that such actions are wrong. Where on RW 1.0 are any of you saying their suggestions/actions are wrong?
People with good intentions, and who claim to be ‘intellectuals” do not make main pages urging people to “go ruin his life”. No matter what the explanation or parsing of the meaning of that is later. The fact it was said at all is more than enough reason to suspect your intentions.
This all boils down to CP not being run as you wish it to be. Basically not being run like WP, to just make a generalization. Normally people faced with such a matter of conscience make a statement of their beliefs and ask for change. When and if that change isn’t made, they stop participation. They don’t make plans to vandalize. They don’t gather the most personal information about those they disagree with, and actually discuss how they could use it to damage that person. They don’t plan and implement planting false edits/citations/facts just so they can discredit a site.
So like it or not, disagree with the useage of the word (although you cannot, because the dictionary will prove you wrong) the fact remains, regardless of what you now say were your intentions, you have acted like “terrorists” and “vandals”. You have conspired with each other to do all or many of those things. Those of you not actually “doing”, knew of their plans, and never once objected in posts to, or gave warning. Like the AIDS activists used to say (and I agreed with them) “silence equals death”, in this case, silence, and not objecting is tantamount to approval, giving your tacit approval.
Basically you took advantage of naive and trusting Christians to get away with your subtle work. Then got pissed off when they found out and became angry and reacted to it.
Perhaps if there was ever some admission of wrong doing, and apologies for the personal remarks and attacks, others would help with at least some of the changes you seek. But I don’t read here anything that suggests there has been wrong-doing.
Naive and trusting Christians?!?
Gimme a break!
Once again, the besieged “oppressed majority” crying about how beat up they are. Boo hoo.
HeartofGold is gone:
http://www.conservapedia.com/User:HeartOfGold
So is TK gonna impose a ban and wipe the pages, like he did with everyone else who took a break? Or is that only for people he doesn’t like?
Hey ToolKit, I’ve been meaning to ask you for a while now… oh, never mind.
Maybe the Sysops need to wipe the shit of their noses.
That chunk of chat linked above is classic. The strange and contorted “logic”, the denial…
“What a perfect illustration of liberal morality! Under your logic, someone would be justified in vandalizing property if told to leave” – ashfly.”
Um, we were friggin’ polishing the furniture when you called it vandalism and kicked us out.
The man is, as they say, tripping.
TK,
Your lengthy exposition does not change or justify the fact that you are accusing me, and others, for something that is not true.
-AKjeldsen
Woo, another sock of TK. OK, I’ll tell you what I thought: why I bothered contributing. I thought, for a bit, that CP could be better; I thought that when you said ‘it’s good to have liberals here, they keep us sharp’, you actually meant it. I thought that when you didn’t receive my emails, you didn’t receive them, rather than just not bothering to reply and lying that my email was broken – my mistake was that I assumed good faith, a uniquely WP concept.
But I’d like to call your bluff TK. I’m sorry if I’ve made any personal attacks, or efforts to subvert CP. Look at my contributions; do they suggest much of that? I wrote a large part of the articles on politics and such, and I think that I was fairly balanced, but I’m sorry if it didn’t seem that way to the wider world. There’s only one truth, after all, and we’re both seeking it from different sides.
I’ve made my concession. Gonna hold to your word?
http://www.conservapedia.com/Conservapedia:Was_the_European_colonization_of_the_Americas_good_for_the_native_people%3F
Seems like CP really is becoming a bastion for racists. In addition to the above link about how good it was for the Indians for white Christians to come and “help” the, there is also a couple of new articles on “gay disease”. Hell of an ecyclopedia you guys have there.
Maybe someone should write an article on the sometimes blatant racism that is allowed on CP because sysops are busier defending the castle walls agains the onslaught of the dark armies of Liberalism.
Hey, looks like the Forces of Dorkness got to the 10,000 mark (including redirects, fake articles and wishful thinking). Maybe we should throw a party or something.
So the totally artificial milestone has hit and….nothing happened. CP didn’t magically get better or gain more readers or anything, although they got a new sysop. whee!
10,000? Cool. I’ll bet the Evil Liberal Junta that runs Wikipedia is trembling at the thought of being shown up, with only 1,783,000 articles to go until they’re obsolete!
Argh! Cognitive dissonance!
Okay, lemme get this straight. The white European invasion that eventually killed so many natives was a good thing, and yet you have to show respect to the leader allegedly responsible for all those human sacrifices that we saved them from. This from the same brain that thinks the Iraq war was justified because we got rid of a dictator, right? AAARGH! Andy Schlafly, you make my brain hurt!
Say, I’d forgotten about this one, until I started digging in the archives, but wasn’t everyone tarring Brown University with the “racist” brush for a while back in March for stuff at pretty much the same level of the stuff Dr. Pal refers to?
I am very pleased with the push for articles. An act of genius using the WP article as a guide. Yea us!!
I notice that TK has banned Auld Nick and Heart of Gold, who quit to start her(?) own more jackballish right wing christian wiki. It just gets stranger and stranger over there. BTW, Andy is in a debate with couple of Franklin scholars on his own talk page, and he is getting his a** handed to him. Ditto the discussion regarding home schooling in Germany
Im sorry to steal your bytes, but I HAD to reproduce the above-referenced discussion here…in case AS deletes it, not that anyone there knows how.
==Benjamin Franklin==
His autobiography was published in 1791. I added this to the article [http://www.conservapedia.com/index.php?title=Benjamin_Franklin&diff=prev&oldid=166743 here]. –[[User:Ed Poor|Ed Poor]] 09:28, 18 May 2007 (EDT)
: Was that a posthumous publication? Do we know when he actually wrote it?–[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 17:25, 18 May 2007 (EDT)
::Franklin wrote it over a period of time, starting and stopping. He wrote the first few chapters in 1771, wrote more in 1784-5, and finished it in 1788. It was, like Ed Poor says, partly first published, posthumously, in French in 1791, and then translated into English in 1793.–[[User:Epicurius|Steve]] 19:53, 18 May 2007 (EDT)
::: Thanks for the enlightening information. Obviously any claim that Franklin said he was a deist should have a date next to it, as people’s religious views change throughout their lives. Moreover, no one should claim that a work is an autobiography if it was published without his consent, as in posthumously. The best I can infer from this is that Franklin viewed himself as a deist in 1771, but by 1787 (Constitutional Convention) viewed the world differently, and by the time he died he viewed it still differently again. If our entry about Franklin does not yet reflect this, then I’ll change it now. Thanks for your efforts. Godspeed.–[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 00:16, 19 May 2007 (EDT)
::: Further review reveals that Franklin did not even claim to be a deist in 1771, but merely said he was a deist in his youth! Really, the attempts by liberals to insist that Franklin was a deist towards the end of his life are astounding.–[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 00:50, 19 May 2007 (EDT)
::::[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]], you are ignoring some ambiguity about the meaning of the word “deist.” At the end of his life Franklin was not a deist, according to current dictionary definitions of the word, but his stated views in his “Creed” accord pretty well with the definition of deist according to [http://www.iep.utm.edu/h/herbert.htm#Deism Edward Herbert of Cherbury], who coined the word. And that may have been the definition that was current in his time.
::::Everyone in their life acquires what I’m going to call a stock of “fables,” which are narratives that do have some connection with reality but have been grossly oversimplified and distorted. A good neutral example of one would be “Columbus thought the world was round when everyone else thought it was flat.” The simple statement “The Founding Fathers were deists” is a good example of a liberal fable.
::::It’s certainly fair to say Franklin advocated public prayer, and admired Christianity in some sense. But he wasn’t a traditional Christian or close to one, either. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith]] 09:13, 19 May 2007 (EDT)
::: It’s common for [[liberals]] to deny that people find faith in life. Once an atheist or deist, always an atheist or deist, according to anti-Christians. Under this view, [[Abraham Lincoln]] was there an atheist (not true, he found [[faith]] as he grew older), and [[Benjamin Franklin]] was a deist (not true, he request divine intervention at the Constitutional Convention). Citing what Franklin wrote in 1771 about his youthful deism is obviously not proof that he was a deist at the Convention in 1787. Quite the contrary, as deists do not believe in divine intervention.–[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 15:03, 19 May 2007 (EDT)
Read Franklin’s letters to Ezra Stiles, written one month before his death. The first paragraph shows his deist leanings, while the in the second one he acknowledges the value of Christianity, but doubts that Christ was the son of god. –[[User:McIntyre|McIntyre]] 17:23, 19 May 2007 (EDT)
: I did read them here: [[Benjamin Franklin]]. ”’Franklin does not describe himself as a deist.”’ Enough said. About Jesus’s divinity, Franklin says he has not studied it and is open to the possibility. A [[deist]], by the way, requires a non-interventionist God. Franklin rejected that.–[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 22:57, 19 May 2007 (EDT)
I must note the irony here in connection with a prior discussion. Liberals insist on calling all supporters of abortion “pro-choice” rather than “pro-abortion” because that is the term they use for themselves. But then liberals insist on falling [[Benjamin Franklin]] and [[Thomas Jefferson]] “deists” when they did not use that term to describe their views as adults! Franklin believed in an interventionist God and Jefferson frequently attended a Christian church until he died.–[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 15:18, 20 May 2007 (EDT)
A more careful reading of the letter to Stiles, written a month before Franklin’s death, reveals his diest leanings. Franklin states that he believes in one God and that our behavior in this life dictates how we be treated in the next. Notice he does not identify the God, or use the term Christian. Sounds very much like a diest. As for the second paragraph, doubting if Christ is divine does not seem very Christian. Please respond to the content of Franklin’s letter, rather than attempting to divert the discussion with refrences to current terms used in highly charged debates today. –[[User:McIntyre|McIntyre]] 15:45, 20 May 2007 (EDT)
: The most important aspect of that letter is that Franklin does not call himself a deist. He’d known the term all his life, and he clearly would have used it if applied to him. It did not. We should not call him by a religious name that he himself rejected. Surely you wouldn’t claim that someone is a Catholic, for example, if the person himself rejects that label.
: Where do you get that Franklin “does not identify the God”??? He says, “Here is my Creed: I believe in one God, Creator of the Universe.”–[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 15:54, 20 May 2007 (EDT)
:*Odd, McIntyre, but that was what I was about to post to you. You are the one adding modern interpretations and your own suppositions, to almost 300 year old letters. Revisionist thinking at its finest! I think the ”fact” that Jefferson attended church services weekly speaks louder than all the modernist “conclusions”. –[[User:TK|Sysop-TK]] [[User_talk:TK|/MyTalk]] 15:59, 20 May 2007 (EDT)
He was also familar with the term Christian, and he did not use it. Plus, he doubts the divinity of Christ. That does not sound like a firm statement of Christian faith, does it? Eigthteenth century diests tended to subscribe to the notion of God, but declined to identify the deity in question. As TK’s objection: Where did you get the idea that I am using modern ideas? I also do not recall discussing Jefferson–[[User:McIntyre|McIntyre]] 16:04, 20 May 2007 (EDT)
: You didn’t respond to our rebuttal of your claim that Franklin did not identify God. I assume you’re conceding that Franklin expressly did identify God.
: I would also like a concession that Franklin was not a deist towards the end of his life before moving on to the very different question of whether Franklin was a Christian. More generally, I don’t want a perpetuation of the [[liberal]] view that people cannot grow into stronger [[faith]]. Many do.–[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 16:11, 20 May 2007 (EDT)
Franklin does identify there is a god or deity of some sort. But he does not identify it as Christian. Why do you want a concession that Franklin was not a deist? It appears (based on his writings up to the end of his life) that he was.–[[User:McIntyre|McIntyre]] 16:25, 20 May 2007 (EDT)
: McIntyre, unfortunately I can only conclude that you don’t have an open mind about this. Perhaps you’re repeating something you heard elsewhere and won’t reconsider your views about it. Franklin strongly believed in an interventionist God and that disqualifies him from being a [[deist]]. Franklin did not call himself a deist. It’s slanderous to insist that Franklin was a deist, and a sign that you’re pushing an agenda based on bias. Enough. Please move on to another topic here with more of an open mind. Thanks and Godspeed.–[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 17:06, 20 May 2007 (EDT)
::This reminds me of a larger theme called “debunking the founding”. The idea is that whatever flaws there may be in America’s founding (and Founding Fathers) somehow ”invalidates” America’s special claim to being a Godly nation. Like, since we didn’t immediately abolish slavery, we are worthless slime.
::Don’t forget the prayer imbedding in our patriotic song: “God mend thine every flaw and crown thy good with brotherhood”. America is great because it strives to be good. It is the cream of the crop and will continue to be as long as it so strives. –[[User:Ed Poor|Ed Poor]] 17:57, 22 May 2007 (EDT)
Aschlafly, I think your desire that McIntyre concede that Franklin was deist is unfortunate. He has cited primary sources–Franklin’s own writings–rather than “something he heard.”, He also correctly noted that Franklin did not identify the god in question–all hallmarks of eighteenth century deism. If someone does not have an “open mind” on the subject, as you put it, it is not McIntyre. I even think I know who McIntyre is, and when I see this person this weekend, I will ask him. He is really quite a scholar.–[[User:Jamest|Jamest]] 12:12, 24 May 2007 (EDT)
: The insistence on liberals describing Franklin as a deist continues to amaze me. I’ll bet the correlation between those who insist Franklin was a deist and liberals is nearly 100%. It doesn’t matter if the claim is made by a scholar or a student. Liberals want Franklin to have been a deist, even though Franklin himself implicitly rejected that label and prayed for divine intervention, something deists rejected.–[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 12:22, 24 May 2007 (EDT)
You should not be amazed. A reading of eighteenth century diest works revals they have nothing against praying, and you have not addresesed this point: Franklin never says he is a Christian, but he did say he was a deist. You say it “does not matter” who makes the claim, and that you willfully choose not to address the point that the writings McIntyre noted were Franklin’s own. I think it is rather obvious who has the closed mind in this debate. –[[User:Jamest|Jamest]] 12:42, 24 May 2007 (EDT)
By the way, the thought occurs to me: why do you reject what a Franklin scholar has to say? Surely a scholar has read more works by and about Franklin than you. Why do you reject their asserations out of hand or wish for them to concede something that they know–base on their research–is not true? Conservapedia wants to accurate and true, right? –[[User:Jamest|Jamest]] 12:55, 24 May 2007 (EDT)
: James, please disclose your political point-of-view along with that of the “scholar”. Let me guess: do both of you oppose prayer in the classrooms of public schools? Enough said.–[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 13:11, 24 May 2007 (EDT)
We are discussing the past, not the political present. So, why bring up school prayer? What does that have to so with Franklin’s deism?–[[User:Jamest|Jamest]] 13:17, 24 May 2007 (EDT)
: It explains your views. If you’re opposed to prayer in the classroom, then there is over a 90% chance that (1) you’ll insist that Franklin was a deist and (2) you believe in evolution. That extraordinary correlation suggests that the facts are irrelevant. If you’re not open-minded about prayer in the classroom, then it’s futile to expect you to be open-minded about these other issues.–[[User:Aschlafly|Aschlafly]] 18:41, 24 May 2007 (EDT)
Wow, that non-sequiteur about school prayer at the end speaks volumes about Schlafly’s mental process, doesn’t it? What a maroon!
What an imBEcile! Pulling stats out of his ASch, linking it somehow to school prayer…
The Jamest guy will probably be banned today. Here is his response to Andy
Mr. Schlafly, I fail to see how my position on school prayer (which, by the way, you do not know) is germane to a conversation regarding Benjamin Franklin’s spiritual beliefs. You also do not know my position regarding evolution (I am also uncertain as to how that is relevant to this conversation). As for your other suppositions (the 90% figure), do you have evidence to support this? Now could you please show a little intellectual integrity, and address the substance of McIntyre’s arguments, rather than engaging in distractions? I do have an open mind about such matters sir, and I hope that you have the same. –Jamest 08:23, 25 May 2007 (EDT)
Andy is veering well into Dadaism, methinks. His latest reply takes “non-sequiteur” to a whole new level.
Andy told the Jamest guy to get off his talk page. I guess he got tired of being b****slapped by someone who is WAY smarter than he is. I guess he will be banned now. Too bad.
Heres a good one for you http://www.conservapedia.com/index.php?title=HPV_vaccine&diff=177247&oldid=177244
Brilliant, Doc, and thanks for bringing it here. I don’t really go to CP anymore, so I miss the gems. I’m starting a txt file to make an article, though, on ashfly’s “correlations” – do you realize how often he makes his percentage claims? And, as pointed out above, his source is, um, “exit only” in his case.
I also *loved* where he referred to the Franklin article on CP *under discussion* as being where he read the letter they were talking about. That’s about as short a circular reference as you can get.
“Conservative Christians can’t accept that anyone they think is important didn’t find Jesus at some point in their life, especially if that person made America cream.” – Me, original deduction from above postings.
http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Jimbo_Wales_to_create_'code_of_conduct'_for_bloggers_and_the_Wikimedia_Foundation
Jimbo Wales is teaming up with book publisher Tim O’Reilly to create a “code of conduct” for bloggers.
The code is expected to address issues of free speech and the practice of allowing mean-spirited comments made by users to remain in the blogosphere. It will also address a perceived need to delete posted comments, particularly those by anonymous users, that are at odds with the code of conduct. Under consideration is the question of whether it is an admissible action in a public forum to delete a comment if it meets one of several objectionable reasons for removing it.
“That is one of the mistakes a lot of people make, believing that uncensored speech is the most free when in fact, managed civil dialogue is actually the freer speech,” said O’Reilly.
Some of the proposed rules of the code, as it is being discussed, might include:
We are committed to the “Civility Enforced” standard: we will not post unacceptable content, and we’ll delete comments that contain it.
We define unacceptable content as anything included or linked to that:
– is being used to abuse, harass, stalk, or threaten others
– is libelous, knowingly false, ad-hominem, or misrepresents another person,
– infringes upon a copyright or trademark
– violates an obligation of confidentiality
– violates the privacy of others
The code is a draft proposal undergoing development at Wikia, a privately held web hosting company founded by Wales and Angela Beesley.
“If it’s a carefully constructed set of principles, it could carry a lot of weight even if not everyone agrees,” said Wales.
The reception of the code is mixed, but there are many bloggers who feel that such a code of conduct would reduce the effects of unpleasant or malicious speech. “I’ve been assaulted and harassed online for four years,” Richard Silverstein of richardsilverstein.com said. “Most of it I can take in stride. But you just never get used to that level of hatred.”
If you’ve got such a strong desire to post random shit, TK, why not get your own blog? They’re free.
Well, I assume the above was a quote of a news article, but given that he quoted it, it seems reasonable to believe it. My response is, if you don’t fucking like it, sign out and go bugger yourself. If the administrator of this blog doesn’t like it, he can do whatever he wants with it. Let me elaborate in detail. The writer of the above can :
1) Remove clothes
2) Find blunt object
3) insert in anus
4) repeat step 3 over and over until you get that “happy” feeling.
I wish I was smart enough to violate all those precepts in a single sentence. Maybe if I said something like “
stuff“, but I would hope the blogger would have the good taste to remove that.EDIT: Yeah, he did. 😉
-AK
The Franklin conversation on Andy’s page gets weirder and weirder. More people are challenging Andy to address the issue, and now TK and other sysops are trying to run interference. One went on a new user’s page and threatened him with blocking.
Karajou has actually gone onto user pages and left threats. He is officially “The Enforcer” now. TK has never really been comfortable in that role.
“Documenting” is going to be one of deadly sins of CP. Is this also “documenting”?
On deleted User talk:WhatIsG0ing0n TK said: “Goodbye. If you are here to edit and contribute, fine. If you are here to document and parody, all I can say is Godspeed!”
Does “Godspeed” as used by Ashfly and TK derive from the older expression “God speed your journey…to HELL!”
Ive been informed that Karajou thinks Im a sock that Im not. K, please don’t be surprised if I’m not the only one who considers you a bully.
I was wondering about that. Whoever Franklin is, I’m sure they’re either confused or laughing thier ass off.
Maybe both, Kakajoujou has that effect on people.
He fancies himself (sorry, that makes him sound gay) the enforcer, and then wonders why people consider him a bully. I don’t need a sock to say it. Hey there, buddy…you’re a bully.
Jeez, Karajou, you really are feeling persecuted, aren’t you? http://www.conservapedia.com/index.php?title=User_talk%3AFranklin&diff=183287&oldid=183222
Apparently you think I’m the only one who disapproves of your tactics. You also apparently think my Hippocratic Oath somehow enforces silence in the face of absurdity. My professional responsibility is to my patients, not to you. My desire for truth is mostly a personal desire. My dislike of bullies and those who ban people from speaking because they don’t like the truth, well, my folks taught me that. If I have ever engaged in sock-puppetry, I probably won’t bother to inform you of that peccadillo. Anyway, I’d much rather air my grievances publicly, as you do not wish me to air any truth on CP. Godspeed, whatever the hell that means.
TK banned Franklin for violation of the 90/10 rule and for “being a bore.” In reality it appears that the sysops at CP do not want editors who are intelligent, and who can cogently argue with them. What a bunch of pussies.
Also, Franklin is a fancier of goats.
Mmmmmm, goats!