Psiram

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EsoWatch is a mostly German Internet project founded in 2007 with a similar purpose as RationalWiki. The platform has a wiki, a blog and a forum. The wiki holds the largest German compilation of cranks and bullshitters with over 2 000 articles dedicated to quackery, esotericism, conspiracy theories, pseudoscience and lots of other crap. Various articles exist in English (just about 60 articles), French and Italian and some even in Polish and Dutch. In general, the German articles are more current and better maintained.

Contents

Anonymity

All authors use anonymous nick names, the operator is unknown. This is due to the fact that several stalker pages have appeared in the Internet, throwing all kinds of accusations and mud against assumed authors and members of EsoWatch. A common claim by the anonymous(!) stalker pages is that EsoWatch is operated anonymously and thus not trustworthy. The operators were accused of being right wing, left wing, Nazis, Jews, child pornographers, convicted of various crimes and other things.[1]

New authors (in various languages) are always welcome, but may contribute to the wiki only after getting screened by the staff to avoid vandalism.

Public reception

EsoWatch received some favorable media coverage for it's work exposing fraudsters and cranks. Several German newspapers wrote about it or referenced it in articles. The article on Prahlad Jani,[2] an Indian guru who claims to have lived without food and water since 1940 was even referenced by PZ Myers[3] and their article on night milk crystals[4] was referenced by the Guardian.[5]

A German court based a decision (in part) on arguments collected by EsoWatch[6] and an inquiry in the Austrian parliament was based on the information collected in the wiki.[7]

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References

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