Guerrilla Skepticism on Wikipedia
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“”The mission of the Guerrilla Skepticism editing team is to improve skeptical content of Wikipedia. We do this by improving pages of our skeptic spokespeople, providing noteworthy citations, and removing the unsourced claims from paranormal and pseudoscientific pages. Why? Because evidence is cool. We train – We mentor – Join us.
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| —GSoW slogan |
Guerilla Skepticism on Wikipedia is a group that edits Wikipedia articles to improve skeptical content.
It's also the tyrannical shadow government of Wikipedia, censoring views not in alignment with the Skeptical Scriptures.Do You Believe That?
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[edit] Activities
The group was founded by Susan Gerbic, co-founder of Monterey County Skeptics, with the intention to improve skeptical content on Wikipedia and to guide and mentor fellow skeptics regarding how to contribute.[1][2]
GSoW have written or improved a number of Wikipedia pages about skeptics, science educators, and science-based medicine proponents who push back against pseudoscience and the paranormal in the media, such as Ken Feder, Sara Mayhew, Indre Viskontes, Kiki Sanford, Bryan & Baxter, Jennifer Ouellette, Tim Farley, Alan Melikdjanian, William B. Davis, Mary Roach, and Sikivu Hutchinson. They also try to make sure all claims on paranormal themed pages are balanced and have citations to notable secondary sources. (For example, lots of obscure psychics have Wikipedia pages full of nutty claims that often turn out to be written by the psychics themselves.) GSoW also assists with translations of high-importance skeptical articles from English into other languages, such as Arabic, Dutch, Russian, Spanish, Swedish, and Portuguese.[3]
[edit] Operation Bumblebee
GSoW founder Gerbic and several members the Bay Area Skeptics "stung" self-proclaimed psychic and ghost hunter Chip Coffey[4] in September 2014 when they showed up at one of his public appearances in the guise of true believers. The skeptics created personal details useful to a cold reader and even carried photos of "dead family members" that, unknown to Coffey, were entirely fictitious. As expected, Coffey took the bait, and claimed to be communicating with these nonexistent individuals.[5]
[edit] Conspiracy theory
GSoW is unpopular among supporters of paranormal and fringe science theories.
Characterizing the group as a hit team of "trained atheists and skeptics", they claim the group is unfairly boosting the biographies of skeptics and adding biased information to denigrate their most beloved woo and paranormal subjects. Rupert Sheldrake accused GSoW of being "a commando squad of skeptics" who have "captured the Wikipedia page about me" and are "rewriting my biography with as much negative bias as possible, to the point of defamation."[6]
According to skeptic Tim Farley, "none of Susan's editors are editing that article. It's completely a conspiracy theory."[7]
Cranks occasionally claim RationalWiki is involved,[8] though we know of nobody active in both.
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
[edit] Footnotes
- ↑ Wikapediatrician Susan Gerbic discusses her Guerrilla Skepticism on Wikipedia project Csicop.org
- ↑ Token Skeptic #95 - On Skeptical Women Online: Julia Lavarnway, Susan Gerbic and Desiree Schell Podbay.fm
- ↑ Susan Gerbic And Wikiskepticism DJ Grothe, Randi.org
- ↑ Coffey confronted by skeptical host on live SportsTalk Radio, flees the studio. KFAN.com
- ↑ Sheldon Helms Operation Bumblebee stings psychic medium Chip Coffey Randi.org, 9/29/2014
- ↑ Do you dare fight them? Subversivethinking.blogspot.com
- ↑ Maverick Biologist Rupert Sheldrake Criticizes Attacks Guerilla Skeptics Dailygrail.com
- ↑ e.g. Anthony Peake [1]