| StudyWebTM Award - July 1999 to May 2000 |
StudyWebTM Award Revoked
In July, 1999, we recevied this e-mail:
Subject: Congratulations
Date: Fri, 23 Jul 1999 17:47:32 -0400 (EDT)
From: webmaster@studyweb.com
To: webmaster@ridgenet.net
Congratulations!
Your website, http://www.ridgenet.net/~do_while/sage/newsletters.htm, has been
selected as a featured site in StudyWeb as one of the best educational resources
on the Web by our researchers. You will be able to view it in our
Science:Biology:General Biology:Evolution section very soon.
StudyWeb is one of the Internet's premier sites for educational resources for
students and teachers. Since 1996, our expert reviewers have scoured the
Internet to select only the finest sites to be included in StudyWeb's listing
of educational links. Each site in StudyWeb includes a detailed review
describing its editorial and visual merits.
If you are unfamiliar with StudyWeb, please check us out at:
http://www.studyweb.com/
Inclusion in StudyWeb will increase your exposure and attract new visitors to
your site: our reviews have been featured on Webcrawler Select, The Lycos Top
5%, Education World and many others, and StudyWeb updates are provided to
media and educational resources around the world.
We invite you to display the prestigious 'StudyWeb Excellence Award' icon,
which is only offered to sites included in the StudyWeb directory. It is
available at: http://www.studyweb.com/about/swaward.htm
We would appreciate it if you would link the icon back to our homepage.
Thanks -- and again, congratulations!
Sincerely,
Leslie Kenny
Webmaster/Senior Editor
StudyWeb
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On May 25, 2000, we were disappointed to receive this message.
Subject: StudyWeb Award
Date: Thu, 25 May 2000 08:23:58 -0400
From: Debbie Thomas
To: do_while@ridgecrest.ca.us
CC: dthomas@studyweb.com
Dear Web Master,
Your site has been removed from StudyWeb due to many complaints about
the controversial materials that may give students the wrong
information.
Please remove the StudyWeb award from your site.
Sincerely,
Debbie
Debbie Thomas
Site Producer
StudyWeb
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StudyWeb is a commercial web site. They are free to link to whatever web sites they want. If they choose not to include our site, that is their privilege.
This is not censorship--it is freedom. They are not obligated to link to every web page on the net any more than we are. There are countless evolution pages that we don't have links to. We choose what we feel is worth publishing. They have the same right.
We are sorry that they have chosen to drop us, but we are not bitter. Their web site hasn't had any noticeable affect on our traffic, so it really doesn't matter much. But we were curious about the reason for their decision, so we sent this message:
From: Do-While Jones
To: Debbie Thomas
Sent: Thursday, June 08, 2000 4:34 PM
Subject: Re: StudyWeb Award
Dear Debbie,
Over the past week or so our curiosity has been bothering us. We wonder
if you would be kind enough to answer a few questions for us.
Were we the only site found to be "controversial", or were we just one
of several anti-evolution sites that people objected to?
We get very few e-mail messages charging us with factual errors. When
we do get them, we put them on the web site and try to clarify any
misunderstandings. Did any of the complaints you received cite any
specific factual errors? If so, what were they?
Did the complaints that you received seem to come from independent
individuals? Or did they seem to be part of an organized campaign
against anti-evolution web sites?
Are you willing to forward the complaints to us so that we can respond
to them directly.
Sincerely,
R. David Pogge
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She replied,
Subject: Re: StudyWeb Award
Date: Thu, 15 Jun 2000 09:17:32 -0400
From: "Debbie Thomas"
To: "Do-While Jones"
CC: "Leslie Kenny"
Dear David,
I don't mind answering your questions at all.
The notes come from individuals of the Science community, usually educators.
The concern seems to be that children using StudyWeb and viewing the
information on your web site will get confused because we had your link in
the Science area. Even when it was moved to the Religion area there were
concerns that our award was on your Science page.
Here is an excerpt from one of the notes I have received
"The introduction to that page reads:
Science Against Evolution is a California Public Benefit Corporation
whose objective is to make the general public aware that the theory of
evolution is not consistent with physical evidence and is no longer a
respectable theory describing the origin of life."
I know we have had several more notes from other people but I can't find
them at this moment.
Your web site was the only one we got a note about in that topic area so it
wasn't a conspiracy from a group to ban those types of sites in general.
It is StudyWeb's policy not to give out viewers email addresses so I cannot
send you the notes.
I hope this helps to answer your questions.
Thank you for writing.
Sincerely,
Debbie
Debbie Thomas
dthomas@studyweb.com
Site Producer
StudyWeb®
http://www.studyweb.com
|
When given the opportunity to list factual errors, all she could come up with was one objection to our mission statement.
We are flattered, however, that some evolutionists think our site is persuasive enough to be threatened by it.