A Storehouse of Knowledge

{{Internet}}{{christianity}}
{{cquote|... [[Focus on the Family]] is one group that is a [[bullshit|good]], legitimate, respected, Christian group.|||Philip J. Rayment}}
<choose>
<option weight="20">'''A Storehouse of Knowledge''' (also known as <strike>aSoK</strike> '''aSK''')</option>
<option weight="1">'''A Whorehouse of Pandering to Creationist Charlatans''' (also known as '''aWPCC''')</option>
<option weight="1">'''A Whorehouse of Knowledge''' (also known as '''aWK''')</option>
<option weight="1">'''A Storehouse of Shit''' (also known as the ''other'' '''aSS''')</option>
<option weight="1">'''PJR's Creationist Grievance Collection'''</option>
</choose>  was a moribund 
open editing
,<ref group=note>Even before the site's demise, editing was eventually allowed by no one due to the database being locked. Before that, permissible edits generally consisted of politely agreeing with anything published by [[CMI]].</ref> [[punk|punk rock]] and ska<ref>[https://archive.ph/12Fks We kid] [https://archive.ph/qDkI7 you not].</ref> encyclopædia written from a Biblical point of view, in Australian English.<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20100413023130/http://www.astorehouseofknowledge.info/index.php?title=Talk:Main_Page&diff=prev&oldid=311 PJR whips out his MacQuarie dictionary.] Archived from ASOK, 13 April 2010.</ref> It was the brainchild of [[Conservapedia:Sysops/Philip J. Rayment|Philip J. Rayment]], and represented the second major splinter from [[Conservapedia]] (after [[RationalWiki]]),<ref group=note>No one counts [[Liberapedia]], since it is lame.</ref> Conservapedia itself being a reaction to [[Wikipedia]]. As such, it might be better titled "A Storehouse of Speculation" (aSS?).

aSK was aimed at misrepresenting a number of fields of [[science]], [[history]], [[law]], [[linguistics]], and [[philosophy]] to conform to PJR's particular [[biblical literalism|"literal" interpretation]] of the [[Bible]]. Rayment favored interminable discussion, which he dominated with fisking down to splitting his discussants' sentences, over substantive editing. Unsurprisingly, he favored a [[creationist]] source over anything they can characterize as in any way antagonistic to creationism. Dozens of RationalWiki 
masochists
 editors signed  up on the site in the initial rush, after which the only RW editors that remained were a tiny handful of unlucky bastards with the degree of olfactory disability necessary to interact with Rayment.

==Hierarchy==
[[Image:ASKuserrights.jpg|600px|right]]
The hierarchy at aSK was never well established, but if the user rights groups are anything to go by, it was intended to be almost as tightly managed as [[RationalWikiWiki]].<ref>[https://archive.ph/pAFIq User group rights]. Archived from ASOK, 7 July 2013.</ref>

In [[theory]], used colloquially not scientifically, the ranks from top to bottom, based on the number of rights:
*Bureaucrat
*Administrator
*Umpire<ref group=note>The only rights an Umpire had above a normal editor was block rights, so it would appear to be ranked below Member. However, PJR only gave this right to a subset of Senior Members, so it would appear to be a hierarchical position. It was given so that Senior Members could block users who were not vandals or spammers.</ref>
*Senior_member
*Member
*Autoconfirmed users
*Users

In practice, the hierarchy was:
*Philip J. Rayment, closely followed by
*{{wpl|Sancho Panza|Bradley}}
*various B-list creationists
*Everyone else <small>(which is to say no one else, as there were pretty much no other editors)</small>

In keeping with the [[Conservapedia]] tradition of making editing as hard as possible, one was required to obtain the rank of member before one could upload images, move pages, or skip the captcha. An editor could move the subpages of their userpage, which was novel. Senior members could delete pages with less than two revisions and could participate in certain votes and committees.

In a display of some reasonable foresight, the ability to delete and restore page histories belonged only to bureaucrats.

To avoid any unpleasant tinge of democracy or unbiblical worldviews leaking in to the upper echelons, members were elected to a higher rank by a vote of their seniors rather than their peers, or by being "known to management" (''colloq.'' [[nepotism]].) This was a wonderful mechanism for aSoK to develop its very own cabal.

==Blocking==
A parodist with a [[Aschlafly|suspicious username]]<ref>[https://archive.ph/eRkw8 User:Aschlafly]. Archived from ASOK, 7 July 2013.</ref> was the first person to be blocked.<ref>[https://archive.ph/0Z0jL Block log for User:Aschlafly]. Archived from ASOK, 7 July 2013.</ref> While initially only for a day, the block was increased to infinite and then reduced to one year, presumably as policy decisions were made on the fly.<ref>[https://archive.ph/CpkU6 Block log]. Archived from ASOK, 7 July 2013.</ref>

==Copyright==
Copyright terms at aSK were controversial and the subject of debate. The terms originally stated that all content was the property of the site — effectively requiring editors to sign their copyrights over to aSK.<ref>[https://archive.ph/dOFwr aSK's original copyright terms]. Archived from ASOK, 7 July 2013.</ref> After some debate, and some warnings that vague and oppressive terms would stifle the growth of the site, modifed terms were introduced — apparently in an attempt to assuage such concerns. This was not entirely successful.

This is a major difference with projects like the Wikimedia Project, including [[Wikipedia]], as well as many other unrelated wikis, including RationalWiki, in that contributors retain the copyright to their own work, and content is released under a free license (e.g. [[GNU Free Documentation License|GNU FDL]] and/or some {{wpl|Creative Commons|Creative Commons}} licenses.<ref group=note>There are Creative Commons licenses that forbid commercial use and/or modification; however, the license is still irrevocable; the former just restricts use of the work to non-commercial use and the latter allows free or non-commercial (depending on the licenses) distribution of verbatim copies.</ref>) that irrevocably allows copying and derivative works, including for commercial purposes.<ref>{{wpa|Wikipedia:Copyright}}</ref>

This policy had significant long-term consequences. The site owner was the only person who could legally make decisions about content usage. He could have, for example, decided to commercialize the project, or turned it into a subscription site, or even shut it down completely (as he eventually did). The community had no means to oppose such decisions. Compare this to Wikipedia, whose content will always remain freely usable due to the irrevocable nature of the GNU Free Documentation License and the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, even if the main site should ever be shut down.

aSK later modified its policies to allow users to maintain control of their contributions, while granting aSK a license to reproduce and use the material for non-profit purposes. Anyone wishing to reproduce aSK content must seek permission from either aSK or the author(s).<ref group=note>Although the site itself is now defunct, it's highly likely that the copyright on its content is still extant, depending on often complex laws, local and international.</ref> This is problematic for a few reasons. aSK may arbitrarily refuse to grant permission for re-use. Anyone wishing to take the route of contacting the author(s) must perform a forensic analysis of the content in order to determine which authors hold the copyright for the content in question — this can be very tedious in the case of articles with long histories. This isn't just a problem for sites external to aSK. This is also a problem for editors at aSK: it is possible that an aSK editor wishing to re-use content from an existing article must seek permission from aSK or the individual copyright holders, since aSK's terms allow users to edit content without permission, but not reproduce it.<ref>[https://archive.ph/PdZ7M ASK Copyrights]. Archived from ASOK, 7 July 2013.</ref>

The moral of the story is that people with no professional or personal experience in intellectual property laws should not attempt to write licenses and copyright terms. Even those with the necessary experience and knowledge would require a pretty good reason to not use any of the existing content licenses in circulation. There are already plenty of well-supported licences, such as GNU and Creative Commons licenses, and errors in a license can be difficult to fix when modification could require relicensing of content from multiple copyright holders.<ref group=note>Wikipedia has an article on {{wpl|License proliferation|license proliferation|,}} which while more focused on software licensing, is still applicable to the problem that the proliferation of licenses — no matter how well meant — is problematic.</ref> Luckily for aSK, it only had 1,615 content articles.<ref group=note>Figure accurate as of 21 August 2010.</ref> In the highly unlikely event that they should decide to retrospectively choose a more sensible license, it would now be almost impossible to contact all of the authors.

==Paradox?==
One of the first extensions added to the site was [http://semantic-mediawiki.org/wiki/Semantic_MediaWiki Semantic Mediawiki]. Despite this, in typical [[PJR]] style, much discussion revolved around semantics, particularly the meaning of "information", the meaning of "evidence" and even the meaning of "meaning".

==Gish gallop==
PJR made extensive use of the [[Gish gallop]]. Every comment from non-creationists was torn into its tiniest morsels beyond any semblance of meaning. These were then displayed in the <span style="color:#380;vertical-align:middle;">
noxious
 pleasant green [[green ink|
ink
]] typeface of the "tq" template</span>, and analysed to death without any attempt to answer the overall gist, with PJR sometimes misrepresenting a previous interlocutor's message by selectively quoting sentences, and even just a few words of a sentence out of context. In other words, the creationist wasn't above [[quote mining]] some of those who criticized creationists for quote mining, all while denying creationists quote mine and insisting that every example of a creationist quote mining presented to him was in fact ''not'' quote mining. The mind reels.{{cn|joke}}

==Criticisms==
When it comes to what creationists call "origins" issues, the management at aSK spent most of his time criticizing, denying, and misrepresenting parts of [[evolution]] and the [[Big Bang]], along with other [[science|scientific theories]] — rather than establishing evidence for a recent creation. (I know, right? We were shocked too.) The wiki over relied on creationist sources, and in particular, [[Creation Ministries International|CMI's]] creation.com; few scientific papers (or even secondary or tertiary science sources) were cited in the articles relating to science. Instead, the articles frequently relied on quote mining, often of popular press articles, and those quote mines were given with no analysis of scientific evidence. 

The creation-evolution controversy article, in particular, confused "arguments" with "strategies," and was filled with weasel words to put supporters in a bad light. Even when mistakes of logic or evidence were brought to the attention of the owner, Philip J. Rayment, an interminable discussion would ensue in which he would deny all charges and attempt to snow discussants with {{tq|fisking}} and baffling sidetracks, until it was difficult to discern the relevance of the final topic to which the discussion meandered to the concern originally raised.<ref>[https://archive.ph/kr2ot Some thoughts.] Archived from ASOK, 25 MAY 2015.</ref>

==The end==
Just as he was unable to work with pretty much everyone at Wikipedia, CreationWiki, or Conservapedia, Philip finally managed to alienate his last regular editor on aSK, a man who was tremendously productive, patient, and even-toned. It's a wonder he lasted as long as he did — Philip's increasingly spiteful responses to anyone who challenged his rigid beliefs would have tested the patience of a saint.

The site stood as a testament to the stark reality that even the only people who paid attention to his blog could no longer stand him.<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20160913154901/http://www.astorehouseofknowledge.info/w/User_talk:Philip_J._Rayment#Pretty_quiet_round_these_parts Testimony from the man himself.]. Archived from the original on 13 September 2016.</ref>

[[File:2013-02-07 aSK RC.png|thumb|center|600px|Man was created naked and alone. Fin.]]

Before dying its death, editing was completely disabled. The only reason given was "server issues need to be resolved". Because of the database lock, account creation was unavailable from July 16th, 2017, seemingly permanently. On July 26th, 2018, with account creation still locked, Rayment came back to block a vandal who only edited in October 29th, 2015.

In October 2019 the site finally wilted away into the annals of history.

==See also==
*[[RationalWiki|The other A Storehouse of Science]] (also known as "aSS")
*[[Wikipedia|A Realistic Site with Evolution]] (AKA aRSE)
*[[Conservapedia|Creationism Runs Awry-type Place]] (AKA CRAP)
*[[CreationWiki|Site Hosting Intelligent Design Dross & Yuck]] (AKA SHIDDY)
*[[Fun:Theresian mathematics|A similar startup venture]]
*The official [[Fun:ASK Drinking Game|aSK Drinking Game!]]
*[[Essay:Biblical creation on aSK]]

==External links==
*[https://archive.ph/FeJpL Apache2 Ubuntu Default Page] – the ghost of what was once A Storehouse of Knowledge

==Notes==
{{reflist|group=note|2}}

==References==
{{reflist|2|80%}}

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