I'm just trying to understand the epistemology of non-mainstream cosmologies. If I could ask a further question, how do you decide on whether a source of information is reliable enough to include in your wiki? I know that you said you have discussions about this, but what are your criteria for inclusion?
We talk about it and investigate its veracity, like we did here. It is now up to us to come up with a legitimate rebuttal to the information 3DGeek provided, and if one cannot be created then the information won't go into the wiki.
You do understand that everything in your wiki can be easily refuted with easily verifiable facts, right?
Since it is so easy, why have you yet to do it?
I think the RET community has very effectively done that - many, many times over in the pages of this very forum. Pick any page on the Wiki that disagrees with RET and I'll be very happy to give you a refutation with easily verifiable facts.
Hey - let's just start with the very first page:
PAGE 1:
https://wiki.tfes.org/The_Flat_Earth_Wiki "(Rowbotham's) experimental evidence is very easily reproducible and requires only access to a long body of standing water and a little trig to conclude that water is not convex, that the surface of the earth does not curve as round earth doctrine mathematically predicts."
...OK - so in refutation, I present: Alfred Russel Wallace's 1870 experiment which refuted Rowbotham. Wallace was a qualified surveyor and the matter of whether his experiment was correct or not made him the subject of death threats from one of Rowbotham's supporters (who went to jail over that!). Because Wallace had done his experiment to win a bet (and was adjudged to have won it) - the matter went to court - and Wallace won the case. Henry Yule Oldham was able to repeat the experiment - and found Wallace to be correct. Ulysses Grant Morrow also repeated the experiment and came to the conclusion that the Earth was concave - and so we may conclude that this experiment is not a reliable source of information.
I have not, personally, done this experiment - but the undeniable FACT that it produces wildly varying conclusions says that without deeper understanding, it's simply not valid evidence.
Incidentally, Rowbotham was a nut-job. He was a huge supporter of "Owenism" (the failed idea of setting up rural communes for the poor) and Phrenology (That you could tell someone's mental orientation by feeling the bumps on their heads). He also lied about his "scientific" investigations. In 1864 he agreed to a test of his flat earth theory at Plymouth Hoe, witnessed by Richard A. Proctor, a writer on astronomy and a large number of journalists and other observers. They proceeded to the beach where a telescope had been set up. His opponents had claimed that only the lantern of the Eddystone Lighthouse, some 14 miles out to sea, would be visible. In fact, only half the lantern was visible, yet Rowbotham claimed his opponents were wrong...despite the "clear" evidence of his eyes. He subsequently claimed that refraction was the cause of this observation...conveniently ignoring the fact that refraction effects would utterly invalidate his previous observations.
So - there, Page 1 is refuted.
PAGE 2:
https://wiki.tfes.org/Circumnavigation...oh...wait - even you don't believe in this map anymore - right? Maybe we should count this one as "self-refuted".
"Circumnavigation on an FE is achieved because on a compass East and West are always at right angles to North. Traveling Eastwards continuously takes you in a circle around the North Pole. East and West are curved."
...true - but you conveniently ignore circumnavigation in a north-south direction. Ooopsie!
Honestly - you can't account for the MANY issues of airplane flight times, distances and fuel capacities in the Southern Hemisphere...this is an utter bust. Just look at those Qantas airline schedules.
" Q. Can't we just circumnavigate the earth by traveling in a straight line without a navigational aid?"
" A. It is not possible to travel in a perfectly straight line for very long without a navigational aid."
...I guess you never heard of an inertial navigation system?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inertial_navigation_system...well, never mind - it's irrelevant. Qantas flight times...international shipping times and charges...many *MANY* data points about the size of the pacific and south atlantic oceans just don't work out in FET...and the mathematics of topology PROVE that there is no fancy map you can possibly come up with that will fix the problem. The only map representations that produce the right answers are a round earth or the weird-as-all-hell "concave earth" nonsense. FET can't ever get this right, no matter how you slice it.
PAGE 3:
https://wiki.tfes.org/Erathostenes_on_Diameter(Eratosthenes...in the original Greek: Ἐρατοσθένης - see the theta there after the sigma - it would have been nice if you could have spelled his name correctly.)
The problem with this "proof" that FET works is that you use Eratosthenes to calculate the elevation of the FET Sun - it should be: 500/sin(7'12") - which works out at 3,968 miles - not the 3,000 you claim elsewhere. That's a pretty large error - and one that you really can't sweep under the rug. If you used 3,000 in your "Bishop Equation/Constant" then you're a LONG way off!
PAGE 4:
https://wiki.tfes.org/Formation_of_Mountains_and_VolcanoesThis page basically says that mountains and volcanoes operate in the same way they do in RET...much of what it says here is therefore unimportant. However the first paragraph offers some problems:
"Mountains are created over long periods of time by tremendous forces within the flat earth. Below the crust there is tremendous pressure
due to acceleration, which has created a vast underground ocean of magma within the earth's mantle."
...this says that "acceleration" is the cause for volcanoes. The "universal acceleration" theory is busted by the fact that gravity is greater at the north pole and less at the equator...a commonly observed fact. Universal acceleration also cannot conveniently account for why sun, moon, stars and planets do not come crashing to earth. One might claim that universal acceleration simply applied to all objects at once - but then the crust would be pushed upwards by the same force as the magma - and then there would be no pressure and not volcanoes.
...look - I could go on. But I maintain that there is not one single page of the Wiki that isn't riddled with errors and inconsistencies...and it can ALL be refuted with very simple observations.