Conservapedia is a wiki-based online encyclopedia designed for Americans who are conservative Christians. It was created by Andrew Schlafly. Conservapedia is a reaction to what its creators see as a "liberal point of view" in Wikipedia. Conservapedia has articles on many things, but most of the site is about politics and religion. It also has lectures and other materials for students, and classes taught by Mr. Schlafly for free. All articles are written from a conservative point of view dominant in the Right-wing of the Republican Party in the United States of America. Conservapedia has some different ideas on community. They have Administrators who have the most power. Users cannot edit at nighttime in the U.S. (because of vandalism), upload images, or do other things they could do at most wikis. Users are granted these rights and can also earn the right to block other users. As of August 2018, Conservapedia owned 47,610 articles.
Conservapedia was founded by lawyer Andrew Schlafly because of what he felt was liberal bias in Wikipedia. He did this with his homeschooled World History class after one of his students used Common Era dating methods instead of his preferred Anno Domini ones.
Unlike Wikipedia, anonymous people are not allowed to contribute to Conservapedia. They have to create accounts that should be using part of their real names (such as the preferred real first name and last initial setup). Edits should follow the site's conservative, Christian point of view. Administrators control every aspect of the site and have the final say in editorial authority. Vandals often edit Conservapedia to mess up the pages because they do not agree with the site's point of view. Some editors are banned for making minor mistakes.
In part of Conservapedia, editors edit the Bible to remove what they call "liberal bias" from modern versions. They claim that the New International Version of the Bible is written at the seventh-grade level and that it has politically correct language. Critics say that it is not good to rewrite the Bible and say it was bad for them to remove Jesus' prayer in Luke 23:34 and the adulteress story.
Schlafly got into an argument with Michigan State University researcher Richard Lenski over his twenty-year experiment with e.coli samples he used to show evolution happening. Schlafly mailed Lenski asking for the results. Lenski replied by showing Schlafly his paper on the subject. Schlafly (who did not read the paper) asked for the evidence and Lenski refused to hand him the samples since Schlafly is not enough of an expert. Conservapedians got in a campaign criticizing Lenski.
Critics use this as a way to show how ignorant they think Conservapedia is.
Conservapedia has had some bad reactions from people who think that it is untrue. It has also been criticized for supporting some ideas such as creationism.
A site called RationalWiki was created mainly to criticize Conservapedia. Some editors of that site decided that they wanted to vandalize or destroy Conservapedia. Rational-Wiki now mocks and criticizes other things too.
Two other sites, A Storehouse of Knowledge, and Ameriwiki were created as alternatives to Conservapedia.
The Bible Retranslation project has come under criticism by people who feel it is wrong to change God's word.
However, there are still some who praise Conservapedia.
Text grammar
A text grammar is the study of texts above the level of the sentence. It shows how texts are put together so as to convey ideas, facts, messages, and fiction.
A similar term is discourse analysis. Both are mostly concerned with natural language use; discourse analysis would include spoken language. Speech is also the parent of rhetoric, the ancient study of persuasive speaking. In a similar way, literary criticism parallels text grammar, because both concentrate on the printed word. A text grammar approach puts emphasis on the linguistic structure of a text, rather than its cultural or symbolic meaning.
A text is a coherent body of sentences. Coherent means they are linked by a consistent "theme". The text ends when "completion" is signalled. For example, when a problem introduced at the start is solved, or when a promised discussion has reached a conclusion.
Each text focuses on certain things. If texts are grouped by what they are doing, then there are five basic text types:
Many texts, of course, can and do have a mixture of two or more of these types.
Discourse analysis
Discourse analysis is a subject which studies a text or a conversation. This is a subject in linguistics which does not study sentences, like in syntax, but the entire text or conversation. The text or conversation is known as discourse. Discourse analyst prefer to use real life discourse in their studies, rather than invented sentences like in traditional linguistics. This way of studying real life discourse is called corpus linguistics.
Discourse analysis is related to text linguistics. However, text linguistics studies how discourse is structured so that they are connected (how sentences are joined to each other). Discourse analysis studies this, and also how the discourse is connected to the context. This context includes who the people talking or writing are, the social and cultural context. Also, it studies the way mode, which is the way the language is represented (is it a letter, speech, email, Internat chat?), influences discourse. Discourse analysis is also interested in the genre (topic) of the discourse.
Discourse analysis is studied not only in linguistics, but also in sociology, anthropology, psychology, communication studies and translation studies.
Super Paper Mario
Super Paper Mario (also known as Paper Mario 3) is a Wii role playing game released in 2007. It is the third game for the "Paper Mario" series to be released on platform. The game was going to be released for the GameCube, like ), but was instead released for the Wii.
The player controls Mario and his companions and has to explore different lands of a town called Flipside, fights enemies to gain levels and solves puzzles. As the story progresses, Princess Peach, Luigi, and Bowser become playable. "Super Paper Mario" is a 2D and 3D game since one of Mario's abilities is to change the perspective of the environment.
Mario and his friends set out to collect eight Pure Hearts in each chapters, in order to destroy the Chaos Heart and prevent the black hole from destroying the world.
In each "Paper Mario" game, there have always been members that follow Mario and help him in battles. Pixl is a name that comes from the word pixel, but is also a reference to pixie, which is a name for a fairy. Each pixl has a different power and look, but despite having many members, the player can only use one. In "Super Paper Mario", Tippi, also called Tiptron, is the player's butterfly partner. She has the ability to give tips to Mario and makes invisible objects appear. The player can recruit one of the Pixls in each chapters as the game progresses.
Most of the reviews for "Super Paper Mario" were positive such as IGN that gives a score of 8.9 out of 10. Most critics praised the plot because it has a great sense of humor, but said that the graphics were fine, but not extraordinary. The game has sold more than 2.28 million copies worldwide.
Power-up
A power-up is an item in a video game that gives the player's character the ability to do something. Power-ups can be found in many video games.
Kamloops
Kamloops, British Columbia is a city in British Columbia, Canada. It is ranked 37th on the list of 100 largest metropolitan areas in Canada.
At the 2006 census, 86,376 lived in Kamloops.
Tsutomu Sonobe