Why do American conservatives always seem to think that the English Wikipedia is an American encyclopedia? And why do they always act so angry when they discover that most people in the world don’t agree with them? Even Conservapedia has a stars and stripes logo in it, which is really quite hilarious. Wikipedia is global and it reflects the global point of view – that is the crux of the problem.
American conservatives are peculiar for us non-Americans in that foreigners (and foreign ideas and opinions) to them are automatically treated with suspicion, if not outright hostility. We are all “liberals” it seems. And given that American conservatives number only at 40% of the total US population, with the US population being only around 5% of the world population. That would mean ~97% of the world are “liberals”.
That probably explains the paranoia and hysteria they always seem to exhibit. The following is the summary of the most common conservative reactions I’ve noted in Wikipedia talk pages:
“OH NOES, there are Canadians/Europeans/Mexicans/communists/Russians/Chinese/Blacks/Muslims/Hindus/Jews/women/homosexuals/scientists editing Wikipedia!!!”
And you know the funniest thing about it? THAT was exactly why Schlafly left Wikipedia in the first place, and the reason why he started Conservapedia. He couldn’t bear the thought of actually seeing information that ran counter to his own beliefs. That was his definition of “bias”.
