WikiSynergy

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WikiSynergy is a project that attempted to be a central clearinghouse for "fringe" or "frontier" topics, such as, but of course not limited to, ESP and alternative medicine. Their alleged goal is to create a "clearinghouse" of information on such topics, in a "collegial" atmosphere, focusing especially on controversies with skeptics. Instead, it has been used as an attack site, with many articles set up to paint skeptics in as negative light as is possible, and updating their attacks on skeptics has been the only real focus of the site for years. WikiSynergy's main focus, for a time, was in outing skeptical editors to their real names and attacking them, with no regard for the truth. Now the site is basically dead.

The site owner made it completely unavailable in early September 2009 due to threats that crossed over into real life. On the 7th it was partially resurrected, with viewing and editing limited to Administrators, with most trusted editors (mostly from RW!) being made Admins at that time.

It has since largely died, with few contributions and little activity, much like almost all other attempts to create a woo competitor to Wikipedia.

Contents

[edit] Aims of the site

Contributors are encouraged to add as many articles on woo as possible, in whatever format they want, to its diverse stockpile.

The wiki self-styles itself as being for a special kind of "skeptics": those with minds open enough to "believe and observe", and brands those who do not explore "frontier" topics of inquiry with equally open minds as "pseudoskeptics." When you link the word "woo" at WikiSynergy, you get redirected to a page called "Why skeptics lose,"[1] which is a bit incoherent,[2] but a fun read.[3]

[edit] Pseudoskepticism

One of WS' longest and most popular original articles is on Pseudoskepticism, a term that is described as "thinking that claims to be Skeptical but is actually faith-based disbelief".[4] In practice, they use this term to describe anyone who isn't as delusional enough to fall for someone's snake oil.

[edit] WikiSynergy on Wikipedia

WikiSynergy is extremely critical of Wikipedia. In WS' case, it is highly critical of Wikipedia's policy of neutrality (NPOV), pointing out - reasonably correctly - that its policy on a neutral point of view is often abused in practice. WikiSynergy's response to the problem of NPOV is that of GPOV, or Global Point of View. How this differs to NPOV is unclear but it states that the wiki should allow "each point of view [to] express itself fully in its own space". This indicates that GPOV may be just the same as NPOV, but with Wikipedia's strict notability guidelines lifted, thus allowing any crank or quack to post their view regardless of how fringe it may be. WikiSynergy is far too fledgling to conclude if this idea will lead to an excessive balance fallacy, however.

Many of WikiSynergy's articles are supposed exposés of prominent Wikipedia contributors who dared to take a stand against alternative medicine or other woo there, mixed in with a few articles promoting alternative medicine, EVP or other psuedosciences and nonsense. It's stalker-like behavior of Wikipedians with whom they disagree is almost laughable, considering that many a troll has stalked WikiSynergy editors and been banned as a result.[5]

[edit] WikiSynergy on Rationalwiki

They have a semi-accurate page on us, in which they say:[6]

Rationalwiki tends toward a strongly "non-believing" stance regarding virtually all "frontier" topics of investigation, when they aren't making goat jokes or uploading pictures of their cats.

[edit] Off line

The site went off-line in the start of September 2009 when it seems that some sort of "real life" intervention - threats - caused the site owner to shut up shop, over threats of having personal information released. While that shouldn't be done to anyone, it's still somewhat ironic, given that WikiSynergy has many articles revealing the real names and private information about skeptics.

[edit] A comeback?

It would appear that WikiSynergy, as of September 7, 2009, began allowing administrators only to edit and view the site. This was okay, though, as it is taking a page from RationalWiki and making anyone that isn't a vandal into an administrator. These days, however, it appears that WikiSynergy is accepting editors-at-large again.

[edit] How it works

The following has been copied from WikiSynergy under CC-BY-SA-3.0, though some of it has been changed in accordance with RationalWiki's SPOV[7]

A given topic may have many separate articles. Proponents of woo topics are welcome and invited to write articles expressing (and protecting) their perspectives (multiple articles are quite possible, written from different proponent perspectives). Likewise, skeptics are invited to write separate articles expressing their views on the topic. Each "side" will be able to develop their articles without being overwritten or whitewashed by the other. The hope is that the articles, and their challenges, will improve all articles on a given topic (though this seldom works). The woo-meisters will address legitimate skeptical arguments (except ones for which they have no answer, which they can dismiss as "pseudoskepticism" to avoid answering), and the skeptics will learn what parts of the proponents' presentation are legitimate (none). These articles on any given topic should all link to each other at the top. Different viewpoints can also be put in different sections or paragraphs of the same article, as long as editors are in agreement about this format.

Ideally, a "cluster" of articles on any given topic will result - one or many articles from varying proponents' points of view, experience, and research, and one or more articles expressing skeptical points of view.

Collegial discussions and editor-to-editor arguments are encouraged on the talk pages, but should not be expressed in edit wars over each others' article contents.

In due respect of this site's desire to present bullshit topics in a comfortable environment, the "simple" title of a topic (i.e., EVP) will belong to the proponent, and the rebuttal (if any) by skeptics (or pseudoskeptics) will be subtitles (i.e., "EVP, a skeptical view") so as to avoid detection of the skeptical rebuttal.

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

[edit] Footnotes

  1. http://wikisynergy.com/wiki/Woo
  2. The main incoherence is that at some meta-level, they wish to claim the title of "skeptics", but in this essay they appear to use to the term to indicate those they call "pseudoskeptics". You know, the people who don't believe in magic. The people "[who] are nasty about what they believe"
  3. PS, the article is intentionally incoherent. What fun!
  4. http://www.wikisynergy.com/wiki/Pseudoskepticism
  5. Unfortunately, much of the evidence has been memory-holed.
  6. WikiSynergy on Rationalwiki - and by "they", we mean user:human (yeah, that guy), if you check the diffs.
  7. Wikisynergy - how it works


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