Check Out Theopedia

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I have recounted my experiences with Wikipedia (here, here and here) and continue to monitor and edit some of its entries. Although I understand and appreciate Wikipedia's Neutral Point of View policy, it allows for some clashes over issues that should not be seriously disputed. For example, regarding the Jesus Myth entry I expanded, the entry has gone back and forth over whether the group of scholars who advocate the Jesus Myth is "small." This is so obviously true that only hardcore proponents of the Jesus Myth would deny it (and even most of them will concede the point). Still, some Wikipedians hid behind the "Neutral Point of View" policy to justify their repeated efforts to remove the offending "small" description. Clearly, such gamesmanship can be problematic for Christians because many of the articles that may interest us are going to be the result of tugs-of-war between skeptics and Christians. I still like to check Wikipedia out and taste the different points of view, but I am glad to have discovered an alternative.

Today I ran across Theopodia, a Christian-oriented wiki site. The format and functions are much the same as Wikipedia, but the articles are from a Christian perspective. It its own words:

Theopedia is a new, yet growing, online encyclopedia of Christianity. Theopedia uses Wiki technology, which is essentially a community driven information management system. Registered users of our community add and edit articles and refine their information and presentation. This results in a network of interconnected pages, constantly being refined and updated. Please join us. The Theopedia owner and administrator is Aaron.

It has some well-written articles, though its present strength seems to be on issues theological and in biographies. The historical and apologetics angles require some development, with a need for more fleshed out articles on each book of the Bible. Started in June 2004, Theopedia has over 1,000 articles. It looks like a project worth checking out and one to which it would be worth contributing.

Update: Check out this recent NY Times article about problems on Wikipedia.

Comments

Jordan Barrett said…
Theopedia needs contributors! We are still growing, but we would love to have other Christians come along side us and add to the content of our articles. I would ask that your prayerfully consider doing this. Thanks.
3/15/2006 05:51:00 PM
Anonymous said…
Theopedia according to the company Alexa is currently getting about 1.2 page views per visitor. It is not a very well done wiki in regards to presenting the evangelical view in a scholarly way. There are much better websites in this regard.
7/06/2008 09:19:00 PM
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