Rationalwiki And The Coronavirus Pandemic

The article Internet atheism: The thrill is gone! points out that internet atheism has been in a significant slump since 2011. See also: Internet atheism web traffic volume and Internet atheism

The coronavirus pandemic started in atheist-controlled, communist China that allowed thousands of COVID-19 infected people to leave China during the early stage of the pandemic when the world was not aware of it.^[1] China has state atheism. In terms of world's countries, China has the largest atheist population in the world (see: Atheism and China). Most of the world's atheists are East Asians (see: Asian atheism and Global atheism).

RationalWiki is a politically left-leaning website that skews towards atheism/agnosticism in terms of its worldview. RationalWiki has a small fraction of the web traffic it had before October 2019 (see: RationalWiki and web traffic).

Several atheist websites did very poorly during the coronavirus pandemic and lost a large amount of their traffic since the early part of 2020 (see: Internet atheism and the coronavirus pandemic).

Historically, religiosity increases during pandemics. Pew Research found people's religious faith grew during the pandemic - especially in the United States.^[2] Nearly three-in-ten U.S. adults say the outbreak has boosted their faith; about four-in-ten say it has tightened family bonds.^[3]

In addition, many atheist organizations have significant difficulty in getting their fellow atheist to financially support them (see: Atheist organizations and fundraising), so their web marketing budgets could have been low during the pandemic. In addition, many atheist organizations have poor fiscal management so they may not have had reserves built up before the pandemic (see: Atheist organizations and financial mismanagement).

On May 29, 2022, one of the founders of the RationalWiki website indicated "Currently the donations we get are sparse... We have not done a donation drive in a long time and have not been self-supporting for over a year....".^[4] Rationalwiki has not complied with non-profit reporting requirements for 7 consecutive years.^[5]

RationalWiki may never gain that traffic back again as the number of atheists in the world is expected to drop soon after 2022 according to the scholars at the Center for the Study of Global Christianity at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary.^[6] Currently, the global atheist population is losing market share in terms of the world's population (see: Global atheism statistics).

RationalWiki and its large drop in Google referral traffic since October 2019 and during/after 2020[edit]

See also: RationalWiki and web traffic

According to the leading web marketing company SEMRush, the RationalWiki.org website has experienced a huge drop in Google referral traffic in the latter part of 2019 and as of December 22, 2022 it merely receives 75,100 monthly visits via Google referral traffic.

Google uses over 200 factors to evaluate the quality and the relevance of a website to various topics.

RationalWiki and its poor leadership during the pandemic[edit]

See also: Atheism and leadership and Atheism and social skills

The godless have a reputation for having poor leadership (see: Atheism and leadership) and as can be seen below RationalWiki is no exception to this matter which helps explains its socially challenged atmosphere and impoverished state as well as it falling web traffic and falling influence. See also: Atheism and social skills

On July 14, 2022, during the election process for the RationalMedia Foundation board of directors, RationalWiki users admitted that RationalWikians were offering weak candidates so far.^[7]

GrammarCommie[edit]

GrammarCommie is known for his bullying.

Research on the dark triad of personality traits (narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy) indicate a correlation with bullying.^[8] See also: Atheism and narcissism and Atheism and psychopathy

Portrait of Niccolò Machiavelli by Santi di Tito.

See also: GrammarCommie

GrammarCommie (GC) is a RationalWiki administrator.

He formerly served on the RationalWiki Foundation board of directors until he had a mental health crisis which consisted of him threatening to cut himself and commit suicide in order to get his way at RationalWiki (See: Screenshot captures of RationalWiki posts related to GrammnarCommie). He is an atheist and leftist.

GrammarCommie has anger management issues which sometimes results in him angrily posting abusive posts in all caps laced with profanity (see also: Atheism and anger and Atheism and profanity).^[9][10] The RationalWiki admin who goes by the moniker CorruptUser wrote about GrammarCommie on March 25, 2021: "GC has this belief that there's a Certain Way you have to make arguments, and seeing anyone deviating from that Certain Way results in him losing control, and he has little ability to regain his composure. During this time he will write vicious screeds, make threats, or engage in blockwars including removal of rights."^[11] See also: Atheism and social/interpersonal intelligence

GrammarCommie frequently bans people which contributes to RationalWiki being a wiki that has a low edits to blocked editor accounts ratio at a wiki. He also frequently reverts other editors. A wiki with a low edit to block ratio tends to be a closed-minded wiki that is dogmatic and intolerant (see also: Atheism and dogmatism and Atheism and intolerance).

He is also known for his bullying. Research on the dark triad of personality traits (narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy) indicate a correlation with bullying.^[12] See also: Atheism and narcissism and Atheism and psychopathy

In June of 2022, GrammarCommie was banning and unbanning himself. Before banning himself initially, GrammarCommie said that RationalWiki was "half-dead" and filled with "twits".^[13] Specifically, he wrote: "You know what, fine. Take your half dead site, where most of you twits obsess over one or two articles and et the rest of the site rot, where I can't even perform basic category maintenance without someone getting on my ass, which by the way is why i haven't touched mainspace in ages, where trolls are humored as long as there's the barest minimum level of plausible deniability, and shove it right up your f**king *ss."^[14] In reply, the RationalWiki user 2friedeggs said: "This site is dying for a reason" and he indicated that GrammarCommie was chasing good faith editors away. On July 3, 2022, the RationalWiki Moderator LeftyGreenMario gave Grammarcommie an ultimatum. He could either unblock himself and "contribute to the community without taking swipes at other people" or he could stay blocked.^[15] In response, GrammarCommie replied: "@LeftyGreenMario What, exactly, am I supposed to contribute? I try to deal with trolls and asshats, I get burned. I try to clean up categories, I get burned. So. What, exactly, am I supposed to contribute?".^[16]

GrammarCommie often pontificates about politics and economics and sees himself as very knowledgeable about these areas despite describing himself as being lower middle class. On July 30, 2021, GrammarCommie wrote: "I asked for data, not random factoids. Just as we can't infer that every white person lives at the lower middle class level because I do...".^[17] He is also known for correcting people's grammar and being intolerant of people's grammatical errors.^[18]

GrammarCommie describes himself thusly, "Deeply cynical and borderline misanthropic. Very much not Utopian. Unconventional left-winger. If you want more info engage me in a conversation. I'm an asshole, but I'm honest."^[19] GrammarCommmie is admin at RationalWiki, which is a wiki that intentionally lies about its web traffic statistics on its article about itself in that it greatly inflates its web traffic and global market share

LeftyGreenMario[edit]

See also: LeftyGreenMario

LeftyGreenMario (LGM) is a RationalWiki moderator.

LeftyGreenMario is not sure if she has bad judgment. She feels as if she is a bad person due to her gossiping about other RationalWikians at the RationalWiki Discord server.

The above screenshot was taken from the RationalWiki Discord server.

LeftyGreenMario (LGM) is a lady RationalWiki (RW) moderator and administrator. She is also a RationalWiki Foundation trustee. RationalWiki.org is a politically left-leaning wiki website that skews towards atheism/agnosticism in terms of its worldview. LeftyGreenMario became a RationalWiki moderator in January of 2018.^[20]

LeftyGreenMario is a feminist, self-described asexual, atheist, evolutionist, proponent of abortion, environmentalist and a video game enthusiast.^[21] LeftyGreenMario is a student of Herbert Marcuse's partisan tolerance, and almost singlehandedly destroyed what little bit of balance and tolerance of diverse viewpoints existed in the Rationalwiki community since its founding in 2007. Her asexual outlook on life has been transformed into feelings of hostility and meanspiritedness toward other human beings. As a Trustee of the RationalMedia Foundation,^[22] LeftyGreenMario has led the project down the road of leftist intolerance. Many longtime contributors abandoned the project after her rise as a central figure. See also: RationalWiki and web traffic and LeafyGreenMario and Google referral traffic

Google has a number of quality indicators by which is rates a website. According to SEMRush, RationalWiki had 1.49 million monthly referral visits from Google in January of 2018 (which is when LeafyGreenMario became a RationalWiki moderator). According to SEMRush, RationalWiki's peak Google referral traffic was 3.5 million visits per month in August 2019. In June of 2020, according to SEMRush, RationalWiki had 464,000 monthly referrals from Google. In January of 2022, according to SEMRUsh, RationalWiki had 185,661 monthly referrals from Google. RationalWiki has lost a massive amount of web traffic since its peak in August of 2019 (see: RationalWiki and web traffic).

LeftyGreenMario is not sure if she has bad judgment (see screenshot graphic to the right). She feels as if she is a bad person due to her gossiping about other RationalWikians at the RationalWiki Discord server.

She was threatened with impeachment by a former RationalWiki Moderator and current Administrator of RationalWiki, who goes by the username Ace McWicked, due to her involvement in the RationalWiki GossipGate scandal (She gossiped about Ace McWicked). She apologized to Ace McWicked to turn things around, to no effect (see screenshot graphic to the right).

RationalWikians and fear/paranoia of getting a coronavirus infection[edit]

See also: Atheism and death anxiety and Atheism and death and Atheism and cowardice and Atheism and anxiety and Atheism and mental toughness

An RationalWiki user wrote on March 12, 2021: "Can't wait to get the COVID vaccine. Been extremely paranoid for the past year. At least more paranoid than I normally would be." - User: Eggs Over EASyPlus

Another RationalWiki editor wrote in response: "There's a story floating around about a 39 year old from Utah who died after taking the covid vaccine. As tragic as that situation is, really hope it doesn't scare people off from taking it. Even if this was directly caused by the vaccine (we're still unsure it was or not), far less will die from this vaccine vs COVID itself. But expect this to make the front lines of anti-vax websites everywhere." - User: Aaronmichael5, March 12, 2021

According to a study performed in the United States by the researchers Wink and Scott, very religious people fear death the least.^[23]

For more information, please see: Atheism and death anxiety

References[edit]

1. ↑ To Confront China After Coronavirus, We Must See the Bigger Picture, National Review
2. ↑ More Americans Than People in Other Advanced Economies Say COVID-19 Has Strengthened Religious Faith, Pew Research, 2021
3. ↑ More Americans Than People in Other Advanced Economies Say COVID-19 Has Strengthened Religious Faith, Pew Forum
4. ↑ Difference between revisions of "RationalWiki talk:Site support", Revision as of 17:15, 29 May 2022 (edit) (undo)
5. ↑ Is the Foundation Defunct?, RationalWiki talk:RationalMedia Foundation/Archive2, 22:50, 26 August 2021‎. Rationalwiki.org.
6. ↑ Status of Global Christianity, 2022, in the Context of 1900–2050
7. ↑ RationalWiki users admit the election for its Board of Trustees is offering weak candidates so far, Examining Atheism blog, July 14, 2022
8. ↑ Chabrol H.; Van Leeuwen N.; Rodgers R.; Séjourné S. (2009). "Contributions of psychopathic, narcissistic, Machiavellian, and sadistic personality traits to juvenile delinquency". Personality and Individual Differences. 47 (7): 734–39. doi:10.1016/j.paid.2009.06.020.
9. ↑ Revision as of 22:51, 4 January 2022 (edit) (undo) GrammarCommie (talk | contribs)
10. ↑ Revision as of 22:55, 4 January 2022 (edit) (undo) GrammarCommie (talk | contribs)
11. ↑ RationalWiki talk:All things in moderation - March 25, 2021 post by Admin CorruptUser
12. ↑ Chabrol H.; Van Leeuwen N.; Rodgers R.; Séjourné S. (2009). "Contributions of psychopathic, narcissistic, Machiavellian, and sadistic personality traits to juvenile delinquency". Personality and Individual Differences. 47 (7): 734–39. doi:10.1016/j.paid.2009.06.020.
13. ↑ Revision as of 03:49, 10 June 2022 (edit) (undo) GrammarCommie (talk | contribs)
14. ↑ Revision as of 03:49, 10 June 2022 (edit) (undo) GrammarCommie (talk | contribs)
15. ↑ LeftyGreenMario's ultimatum to GrammarCommie
16. ↑ LeftyGreenMario's ultimatum to GrammarCommie
17. ↑ RationalWiki Saloon Revision as of 04:33, 30 July 2021 (view source) GrammarCommie (talk | contribs) (→‎Critical Race Theory)
18. ↑ Grammar Commie - Urban dictionary
19. ↑ GrammarCommie user page at RationalWiki
20. ↑ LeftyGreenMario's post on her user page that she became a RationalWiki Moderator
21. ↑ LeftyGreenMario - RationalWiki
22. ↑ https://opencorporates.com/companies/us_nm/4330247
23. ↑ Fear of death: worst if you’re a little religious?, World of Science]