Top ten most viewed pages on Wikipedia and Conservapedia

[UPDATE: The Conservapedia Top 10 list is probably the result of click bots skewing the results. See Seth Finkelstein's blog entry and the comments below.]

Wikipedia is "The Free Encyclopedia." What's on the mind of Wikipedia its readers? Here are the top ten most viewed pages on Wikipedia:

Main Page [30,090,900]
Wiki [904,800]
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows [413,400]
Naruto [401,400]
Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock [396,000]
United States [330,000]
Wikipedia [329,400]
Deaths in 2007 [321,300]
Heroes (TV series) [307,500]
Transformers (film) [303,600]

Conservapedia is "The Trustworthy Encyclopedia." What's on the mind of its readers? Here are the top ten most viewed pages on Conservapedia:

Main Page‎ [1,906,729]
Homosexuality‎ [1,572,713]
Homosexuality and Hepatitis‎ [517,086]
Homosexuality and Promiscuity‎ [420,687]
Gay Bowel Syndrome‎ [389,052]
Homosexuality and Parasites‎ [388,123]
Homosexuality and Domestic Violence‎ [365,888]
Homosexuality and Gonorrhea‎ [331,553]
Homosexuality and Mental Health‎ [291,179]
Homosexuality and Syphilis‎ [265,322

(Via Why, That's Delightful!)

Mark Frauenfelder is the founder of Boing Boing and the editor-in-chief of MAKE and Cool Tools. Twitter: @frauenfelder. Come and hear Mark speak at the ALA conference in Chicago on July 1.

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jredmond

There are also a lot more articles on Wikipedia than on Conservapedia (~2.1M vs ~45K), so the clickbots don’t have to work as hard to disrupt the stats.

Also, Wikipedia has an informal policy that discourages friends of gays from editing:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Friends_of_gays_should_not_be_allowed_to_edit_articles
This likely drives friends of gays elsewhere.
Mark Frauenfelder

Joshua — Where did you learn this? I’m interested in finding out more.
JoshuaZ

Mark, it is common knowledge among the right circles. I am a Wikipedia admin ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JoshuaZ )
and helped Conservapedia when they were young (I’m not completely sure why)(http://www.conservapedia.com/User:JoshuaZ ) so I have contacts among some of the more sane people at Conservapedia as well as among the people who went and founded RationalWiki in response to Conservapedia (see http://archives.seattletimes.nwsource.com/cgi-bin/texis.cgi/web/vortex/display?slug=conserv23&date=20070623 which has some details about RationalWiki’s history)(and sorry about the long link which may do some ugly wrapping). If you want I’ll ask around and see if I can get anyone at either RationalWiki or Conservapedia to consider talking to you about it.
Absent

Yeah, something’s gotta be up those stats. You could interpret that as 82.5% of the visitors to the main page visit the homosexuality page. That page appears 11th on Google compared to 1st for Wiki’s homosexuality page, so you’d think Wiki’s would have at least around the same number of visits.
Mark Frauenfelder

I ‘d rather see some evidence that bots are responsible than hear what someone at Conservapedia has to say about this..
RealCatholicMen

Wll Mrk, th nly ppl wh wld hv vdnc tht bts r rspnsbl r th ppl wh rn Cnsrvpd, whch y jst sd y dn’t wnt t hr frm.

s wht y dd thr.
RealCatholicMen

Hr’s n pc f vdnc:
Wkpd hs 30m mn pg hts nd th nxt n dwn s 900k. Th ttl hts f th tp pgs 2-10 d nt dd p t nythng nr th mn pg ht cnt, mnng th vst mjrty f Wkpd hts cm frm ppl wh ht th mn pg frst.

Sspcsly, Cnsrvpd hs lmst s mny “Hmsxlty” hts s mn pg hts, nd th sm f #2 – 10 dds p t sgnfcntly mr thn mn pg hts, mnng tht th vst mjrty f Cnsrvpd hts cm frm ppl wh g drctly t th dsrd pg, lk, sy, bt mght d.

Pls, jst frm cmmn sns stnc, t mks n sns tht hmsxlty tpcs wld cnsttt th tp 10 bv, sy, “Crtnsm” r “Bg Bng Thry” mng cnsrvtvs nlss t ws dtrmnd ffrt by smn tryng t thrw ff th stts. ls dn’t ctlly blv tht Cnvrspd s pplr ngh t pll ff ths knds f nmbrs.

prtclrly dn’t blv tht Cnsrvpd’s #2 mst pplr pg wld b vr 1.5x mr pplr thn Wkpd’s #2 pg. T blv ths stts y bsclly hv t blv tht Cnsrvpd s prtty drn pplr.

f Wkpd s msr, thn th tp nn-mn pg shld b bt 1/30th tht f th mn pg, whch wld mn tht Cnsrvpd’s ctl tp nn-mn pg shld b bt 66 thsnd hts, whch thnk snds lt mr crdbl.
Mark Frauenfelder

Please don’t try to twist what I said, realcatholicmen. I don’t want to get on the phone and talk to anyone about this, unless they can send me some evidence that shows they’ve been hit by bots.
ratatoskr

This is mildly amusing in a “The Brothers Grunt” way but fake. There is no reason to debate or dwell for more than 5 seconds.
Landowner

So the most popular page on Conservapedia is getting three times the hits the most popular page on Wiki is?
HMMMM..
jibbles

Bots, pranks, whatever. None of it explains the extent to which this article has been lovingly authored and edited. It contains 287 carefully compiled footnotes, is roughly 60 pages long, and stretches to about 18,000 words — the string “Larry Craig”, of course, is nowhere to be found. I think until all of this is deleted and replaced with “God Hates Fags,” there’s no denying the joke is on them.
RealCatholicMen

@21, Jbbls,
Lkng t th hstry, t pprs tht lmst th ntr rtcl ws dn by n vry bsy cntrbtr ptly nmd “Cnsrvtv”.

Whch s ls gd vdnc f th prnk: n ctl nprtctd wk pg srvvs 1.5 mlln hts whl stll hvng nly 1 dtr fr mnths t tm. Y’d thnk *sm* f ths ppl wld hv hd sm npt? h, bt bts dn’t typclly hv mch t sy.
Anonymous

I had never heard of conservipedia before this. Is it possible that those subjects are so popular because the site provides a patina of academic rigor to an anti-gay agenda? I’d just guess that there is a lot of online literature that links to conservapedia as “proof”, and not much that links to it on less contentious subject matter.
Jericho

homo, schmomo…I can’t believe Naruto gets so many looks! Now that’s gay.
mrfitz

Yeah, big surprise there.

This just in: conserv-o-bots available for xmas; spies on your teenagers to ensure they do not engage in liberal activities.
JoshuaZ

Mark, well I might be able to put you in touch with the RationalWiki people who run the bots. My general impression is that they don’t like talking much about their more greyhat activities (like running these bots). I’ll send one of their heads an email and see what he says.
js7a

Also note that the Wikipedia counts are per month, but the Conservapedia stats are totals since inception.
nex

Milton (#3) might be on to something there, but still, I’m afraid of conservapediphiles.
tmtoulouse

I am one of the administrators at http://www.rationalwiki.com. A few of us at the site have in the past bumped page views at CP for the hell of it. So yes we can do it, yes we have done it…….now did we do this? I can’t say…it was not an organized effort and no one has stepped forward to claim responsibility for it. Perhaps Occum’s razor would dictate the answer.

However, this is the big point, we can only bump pages that all ready exist. And there are dozens and dozens of pages about homosexuality for us to choose from. Someone created them, someone is obsessed and those someones are one of the major administrators at the site who has protected the articles and “owns” them. And the site owner himself.

Also in the past the pages that we “bump” are whitewashed pretty quickly. You can do this by deleting and recreating the page. For example our bumping of vagina and goat are no longer visible. They choose let the homosexuality articles remain, and are actually very proud of this fact. So even if they are bumped stats there is still a message here.
RealCatholicMen

Thr s mssg hr, bt thnk t’s ths:
t’s mzng tht lft wngrs sm t b s n fvr f frdm f spch nd frdm f nfrmtn bt whn smn dsn’t gr wth thm, thy wll g t grt lngths t slnc, dscrdt r dsprg th ppsng vwpnt. s Cnsrvpd rlly sch thrt tht y hd t crt bts t mss wth thr pg vws n wys tht n mr hmn cld mng?

dmttng tht y crt bts jst t nct srt f <>d hmnm ttck n smn y prcv t b rvl ds ndd crry n ntrstng mssg, jst prbbly nt th n y wr thnkng f.
tmtoulouse

Ha, your quick to equivocate bumping stats on a page with going to great lengths to silence an opponent? The people at conservapedia represent very clearly a hate filled backwards ideology the deserves all the ridicule it gets. The fact that they promote outright lies and idiocy to slander people based on sexual preference and advocate them being second class citizens and devote countless man hours to creating dozens of articles with more than questionable facts all to create hatred for someone as natural and simple as how you love……thats nothing……….but god forbid you highlight there idiocy….then your evil. Even if we did bump the stats we didn’t create those hate filled diatribes…that’s on them and the more the world realizes the kind of people they represent and the danger they are the better.
js7a

Throwing light on hate-mongering is only seen as an attempt to silence it because the bigots know in their heart that they are wrong.
nzruss

The links from this page have some interesting information: (thanks to the person who provide the other link above) http://rationalwiki.info/

RationalWiki started its existence shortly after a rash of bannings of liberal editors on Conservapedia who could not abide the conservative and Christian friendly encyclopediaâ€™s ideas.

THis page http://rationalwiki.info/index_files/Page266.htm mentioned bots…. But looks like some wanted to use them and some didn’t…

but this page: http://rationalwiki.info/index_files/Page440.htm talks about

Yes, this self-described â€œrationalâ€ group went from vandalism of articles to inflicting real monetary damages upon Conservapedia, and did so with a real malice, in an attempt to make them shut it down. In fact, in the pages that follows, that becomes the Cabalâ€™s obsession, finding ways to make the Owner abandon his project, or lock it down, turn it into a private wiki instead of a alternative educational wiki.
tmtoulouse

Er, for the record rationalwiki.info is written by a sociopath. The pasted images of our message board are fine to use for info about us, but the um narrative thats included elsewhere should be viewed…skeptically.
RealCatholicMen

Rmmlt,
S rlgs blfs mk ppl ntrstwrthy, vn whn t cms t srvr dt?
Anonymous

As of August 11, 2008:

Most viewed pages

Atheism (3,892,209)
Main Page (3,272,636)
Homosexuality (3,153,747)
Wikipedia (523,129)
Theory of evolution (335,848)
Examples of Bias in Wikipedia (328,379)
Ex-homosexuals (320,949)
Hillary Rodham Clinton (269,212)
Aesthetics (260,616)
Unicorn (252,380)

Maybe the December 2007 results were a result of vandalism?
Tuke

Alright. So here’s a grain of possible salt: this is just a log of how many people looked at whichever page, not a log of /who/ looked at the pictures. If I wanted to see whichever crazy thoughts the conservatives were thinking up, what better page than homosexuality (and all the associated odd links)? So, yeah, the conservative kids can be crazy sounding, but these numbers might just be other more mainstream kids looking at what the conservs are thinking up.
Clayton Counts

RealCatholicMen, bias and dishonesty often go hand in hand. Napoleon said, “History is a set of lies agreed upon,” and for the most part he was right.

I’m all for selectivity in reporting, but when you suggest that it’s not dishonest to report on Clinton’s scandals, while giving Bush, who has been at the center of considerably more scandals, a pass, well… perhaps you’re not being entirely honest with yourself.

In other words: Bush’s article could mention these scandals and be every bit as biased. Furthermore, your understanding of this subject is shaky at best. Yes, some articles at BoingBoing are biased. Nature of the beast, really. This is a blog. It shouldn’t be held to the same standard as any kind of -pedia, conservative or otherwise.

That’s why sites like Wikipedia attempt to enforce a strict non-POV policy. Let’s say I work for a pharmaceutical company, and the board elects me to craft a Wikipedia entry about one of their products. There is little doubt that the article in question will be biased, yet if I knowingly omit information about known side-effects of the product, I am being dishonest.

You can spin it however you like. It doesn’t change the fact that Conservapedia exists in stark contrast to Wikipedia. After all, you were the one who asserted that facts should mean something. Completely ignoring the fact that Bush is tremendously unpopular, and that his administration has been beleaguered by scandals, whilst disparaging Clinton and utterly denying his popularity… that’s disingenuous.

Pretty cowardly, also.
DCN

“Also, I would not call wikipedia any more of a fountain of truth than conservapedia is.”

That’s because you’re a knuckledragger.

This was an amusing prank, but not nearly as hilarious as what’s actually on Conservapedia. Spend sixty seconds there and see for yourself!
Todd Sieling

It’s amazing that left wingers seem to be so in favor of freedom of speech and freedom of information but when someone doesn’t agree with them, they will go to great lengths to silence, discredit or disparage the opposing viewpoint

That’s actually a property of most human populations, regardless of their political leaning. If you want an example from the right, the contortions of Intelligent Design to get around the abundant evidence for evolution and natural selection is a good place to start.

RCM, I dub thee Troll.
Seth Finkelstein

While the site speaks for itself, the statistics above are virtually certain to be a prank. See:

Conservapedia, Homosexuality, and pranked statistics
jbang

Mark said:

Joshua — Where did you learn this? I’m interested in finding out more.

Joshua said:

If you want I’ll ask around and see if I can get anyone at either RationalWiki or Conservapedia to consider talking to you about it.

Mark:

I ‘d rather see some evidence that bots are responsible than hear what someone at Conservapedia has to say about this..

And then words were put into your (Mark’s) mouth.

How else would one find evidence that bots were responsible than talking to the individuals who run the site and might have access to the click-through info – whether it was bots, people, suspicious IPs etc, etc.

No sure how else one would “see” this evidence, except through some sort of psychic osmosis.

Talking to the parties involved is where one might divine any sort of evidence.

Is this the difference between invesitgation / journalism and blogging – searching for answers or having a reader convieniently send you an explain-all piechart?
Mark Frauenfelder

JBang — Talking to someone at Conservapedia is about as good as psychic osmosis. But if they send me server logs that show evidence of click bots, that would be great. I’m interested in hard data in this particular case, not stuff coming out of someone’s mouth. If you have a better idea, let me know.

For now, the only hard data I have are the stats Conservapedia itself has on its page. I’m waiting for them tor someone else to send me something that shows me those stats are wrong.
eclectro

Another attack the fundies because they are stupid story from boing boing, only wonderful if you’re a bigot. As they say, lies, damned lies, a boing boing story on fundies. Next time, check the numbers. But that would imply real journalism.
Also, I would not call wikipedia any more of a fountain of truth than conservapedia is.
RealCatholicMen

Spkng f psychc smss, wht mks y s sr t’s thr rdrs, s y sy, nd nt, sy, bts, s smn n ths vry cmmnt chn hs dmttd t sng?

h wll, wh nds fcts whn y cn jst ttck thr chrctr.
Clayton Counts

RealCatholicMen, I’m not sure that creating bots really constitutes an ad hominem attack. Not that you’re any kind of authority. Besides, an understanding of how this data is interpreted should be foremost on your list of concerns. Any suggestion that good, conservative Christians don’t engage in personal attacks, however, is a flying laugh riot.

As for the legitimacy of these figures, I have to agree with Mark. I wouldn’t trust anything coming from Conservapedia, unless they made their stats page available to the public, or, at the very least, to a few reporters. This is a website that routinely distorts the truth and discourages editing, often preventing it entirely by locking controversial (and, by extension, reasonably important) articles.

A good example of the kind of unapologetic dishonesty one might expect from the site: more than half of Conservapedia’s article on Bill Clinton is comprised of point-of-view commentary on his various “scandals,” while completely ignoring the fact that he remains one of our most popular leaders. By contrast, nothing is said of the immense unpopularity of our sitting president, George W. Bush, whose approval rating has done little but flop about like a dying fish for years on end. Dubya’s article, to be frank, has roughly as much acuminous content as My Pet Goat.

Conservapedia is a lot like the Creation Museum. Many go there just to poke fun at the insanity of it all, and five minutes is all that anyone really needs to assess our predicament. Speciousness is as appealing to some as freedom from deceit is to others. Peace in the Middle East!
The Mad Hatter

I hate what goes on in this site, and so many other sites that have public discussions on politics are peoples generalizations of the left or the right, and along with that pushing guilt by (sometimes non-existant) affiliation. By the former I mean something like oh, I dont know. . .

It’s amazing that left wingers seem to be so in favor of freedom of speech and freedom of information but when someone doesn’t agree with them, they will go to great lengths to silence, discredit or disparage the opposing viewpoint. Is Conservapedia really such a threat that you had to create bots to mess with their page views in ways that no mere human could manage?

The latter I mentioned I could probably quote something from the fox porn board, associating mark (or cory, I forgot) with CNN which would make them hypocrites.

I don’t think it’s RCM’s fault that he comes off as a troll though, it’s just most people can’t use their brain correctly when posting on a site of their oppisite ideology. Try surviving on Little Green footballs for a week and you’ll know what I mean.
RealCatholicMen

Clytn Cnts,
Th prblm hv yr yr rgmnt nd Mrk’s s tht y bth sm t b syng tht nythng y hrd frm Cnsrvpd dtr wld b ntrstwrthy. Whch lds m t wndr why.

Thr’s crtcl dffrnc btwn smn wh blvs n Crtnsm bcs f hs rlgn nd smn wh smply ls. Smlrly, ‘m sr y bjct t th Bblcl qttns rgrdng hmsxlty, bt qtng thm dsn’t ctlly mk smn lr. Ths r rlgs blfs, nt ls. Thy my nt b scntfclly bckd trths bt thy stll rn’t ls.

lng th sm lns, fcsng n Clntn’s scndls rthr thn hs ccmplshmnts rflcts <>bs, nt lck f trth. Bng Bng tslf hs clr bs n sm sss, bt jst bcs thy dn’t rprt th thr sd f th stry dsn’t mk thm ntrstwrthy r lrs.

S f smn frm Cnsrvpd cm hr nd sd, “Ys, t’s bts”, dn’t s why y wldn’t tk thr wrd fr t.

Bsclly, ‘m tkng bt f ffns t th d tht “cnsrvtv” = “ntrstwrthy, lbl t l bt nythng”, whch sms t b th flng hr. Jst bcs tll y, “Gd xsts” nd y dn’t blv m dsn’t mn tht y shld ssm tht f y sk m fr th tm f dy ‘m gng t l t y bt tht, t. (nlss hd rlly strng rlgn tht lwys thght t ws 6pm, gss.)

s fr th prnk, cll t d hmnm n th sns tht t’s mnt t cst cnsrvtvs n bd lght, s f thy wr ll hghly fxtd wth hmsxlty. Th ntnt f th prnk ws t st p strw mn styl ttck nd bt fr th cmmnts sctn f Bng Bng, t prbbly wld hv wrkd. (Thy’d hv gttn wy wth t t, f nt fr ths drn kds.)
Mark Frauenfelder

RealCatholicMen — I mean talking to *anybody* isn’t of much use. People can say whatever they want.
iveexa

@RealCatholicMen:

There’s a critical difference between someone who believes in Creationism because of his religion and someone who simply lies.

Yes: one doesn’t realize the falsehood and the other is doing it intentionally.
remmelt

> So religious beliefs make people untrustworthy, even when it comes to server data?

I never said that, did I?

I’m just pointing out that in my opinion, a lot of what is on Conservapedia is scientifically (and sometimes ethically or even morally, depends on your POV) wrong.

Also, I was trying to poke gentle fun. Please, please let us not make this in an us-vs-them thing, it’s not worth it. I think there’s a lack of respect between religious and non-religious people (yes, both sides.)

I can only explain why I think sites like Conservapedia or wrong. Religious people believe stuff that I don’t. Nothing wrong with that. They live their lives according to certain rules, which is on the whole very noble.
Once they start selling their faith as fact, even in the face of undeniable scientific evidence, this is kind of weird and icky.
When the lives of other people, non-religious or of another religion, are being influenced based on beliefs, gut feelings, and faith, a faith that is not shared, that’s where it starts going wrong.
Then again, in a democracy, the leading party will not always be the party you chose, so that’s how it works.
My point is that Conservapedia is selling their faith for a political agenda, stating their belief as fact, even when it’s not. It could be a really good religious website, now it’s just a crackpot political pusher, denouncing everything that is not just and right in their eyes.

I’ve never really understood why religion and science don’t match. The bible has a bunch of lessons for us to learn, even if science proves that natural selection exists, right? Why the need to disprove that? Why the need for elaborate websites detailing how it’s all wrong? Are people really that nutty?

These are some random thoughts, I hope you can better understand what irks me about Conservapedia and the like. I believe that most people aren’t really that radical in their beliefs, and I suppose that this particular website could be seen as proof for the Great Internet Fuckwad Theory.

Either way, the original BB post is kind of stupid in that regard. We really all know that the top 10 pages aren’t all homosexuality-related, and it wouldn’t have been my choice of post. Then again, this is not my blog.
remmelt

> anything you heard from a Conservapedia editor would be untrustworthy. Which leads me to wonder why.

Obviously, you haven’t actually _read_ anything on Conservapedia. Which is a good thing.
Uchiha

Yes, it’s true (and obvious) that the stats are being boosted by refreshbots of some sort. But who wrote and sanctionned all those article – including gems like “Gay Bowel Syndrome” and “Homosexuality and Scotland” – in the first place? That was all Conservapedia’s doing. More specifically, the doing of a certain User:Conservative, whose subsequent exploits can be viewed here.

With respect to RationalWiki, the boost was not actually any sort of organized or even acknowledged effort. You can see their stance on Conservapedia here – while their distaste for the site is apparent, vandalism, in general, is not condoned.

Evidently there’s a good chance that whoever did this does have an account at RationalWiki, but that doesn’t make the site accountable for the vandalism – and certainly not for Conservapedia’s inherent insanity anyway.
Miss Cellania

Bwahahahaha!

Obsessed, much?
javitrino

whatever… everybody out of the closet now!!! don’t you think so?
pete_darby

All I want to do is pass on my colleague’s comment that Gay Bowel Syndrome should be the opposite of Irritable Bowel Syndrome.

It’s where you spontaneously fart jaunty show tunes.
nikos

@#1:
You took the words right outta my brain pan.
Milton

Conservapedia is getting as many hits as Wiki? I smell a click-bot.
Stephen Ockham

That’s too rich, LOLs for sure.
Mark Frauenfelder

Yes, I’ll admit it did reinforce my previous held beliefs about Conservapedia. Have you read its entry on Larry Craig? Whose definition of “trustworthy” is that?

To the fellow taking me to task for letting this post run for eight hours before adding a disclaimer to the post — Conservapedia continues to run its misleading stats on its site daya after day without mentioning that the stats are almost certainly fudged. Whose definition of “trustworthy” is that?
Dan

I’d say I was surprised at the obsessions of Conservapedia readers, but, really, how can anyone be surprised? They probably treat the thing as a gay sex manual for their curiosity.

So, in light of that, it’s clear at least someone is learning something from that collection of mindless gibberish at Conservapedia.
Tits McGee

Gay Bowel Syndrome?

Oh, my head.

Thank you for a well-needed laugh. Delightful, indeed.
Advice_Network

And is it any wonder a conservative politician gets busted for gay sex every 17 days? These people are obsessed. I wonder why, hum?
Laurie Mann

Not that I want to support Conservapedia in any way, but they’ve apparently been punked. It might be considerate of Boing-Boing to say so up front.
ratatoskr

It’d be funnier if it was less obviously fake.

Next time..

Maybe set the click-bots to be less ambitious. Keep the main page to homosexuality ratio to the 1:60 or so you see with Deathly Hallows. Then toss in Leo Strauss or Roy Campbell for less obvious fun before closing out with Gay Bowel Syndrome.
JoshuaZ

This appears to be due to people at rationalwiki http://www.rationalwiki.com/ who made a program that messes with Conservapedia page stats.