Guerrilla Skepticism on Wikipedia

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.

Guerilla Skepticism on Wikipedia (GSoW) 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.🇱🇮

Activities
GSoW was founded by Susan Gerbic, co-founder of Monterey County Skeptics, with the intent of improving skeptical content on Wikipedia and guiding fellow skeptics on how to contribute. Gerbic, a Center for Inquiry fellow and adviser to Skeptical Inquirer magazine, is also active in local skeptic organizations, and took part in a "sting" operation against self-proclaimed psychic and ghost hunter Chip Coffey.

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.

Conspiracy theory
GSoW is very unpopular among the many supporters of paranormal, pseudoscience, and fringe science theories who would argue that their cranky views are the least bit plausible, or even of any noteworthy relevance to the scientific consensus view on any given topic. These brave whistleblowers frequently accuse GSoW of devising an organized effort to prevent fringe lunacy from permeating Wikipedia thereby bolstering the scientific quality and skeptical tone of the articles. This, of course, cannot stand, and so resistance needs to be mounted.

Claims
In March 2013, Robert McLuhan wrote on his blog Paranormalia that GSoW were coordinating the actions of editors at the online encyclopedia to label paranormal subjects as pseudoscience and to promote a skeptical point of view about psychic phenomena. He also claimed GSoW editors had destroyed Rupert Sheldrake's Wikipedia article.

Later in 2013, self-proclaimed "psychic healer" Craig Weiler published a blog post titled "The Wikipedia Battle for Rupert Sheldrake’s Biography", stating:

Weiler wove a complex conspiracy theory that claimed Sheldrake's article was being unfairly edited to marginalize his ideas, not just by Gerbic's group, but by organized skeptics everywhere. Encouraged by McLuhan and Weiler, Sheldrake endorsed the new conspiracy theory, posting a wacky rant titled "Wikipedia Under Threat". Gratified by Sheldrake's response, Weiler erupted with a series of blog posts that accused atheists and materialists of taking over Wikipedia. Weiler soon began posting his accusations of a skeptical conspiracy on the discussion page of Wikipedia's Rupert Sheldrake article.

In October 2013, Rupert Sheldrake stated:

Sheldrake claimed the group is unfairly boosting the biographies of skeptics and adding biased information to denigrate paranormal subjects. Sheldrake accused GSoW of having "captured the Wikipedia page about me" and of "rewriting my biography with as much negative bias as possible, to the point of defamation."

An increasing number of people have taken up the narrative, including Deepak Chopra and David Wilder.

Rome Viharo, posting under the username Tumbleman, appeared on the Sheldrake article's Talk page to accuse skeptics of conspiracy, stating his purpose there was to oppose "bias" by members of Guerrilla Skepticism on Wikipedia (the group Sheldrake claims is conspiring against him), Viharo has since denied that he thought GSoW was to blame. . After finally being nailed for sock puppetry and disruptive behavior on Wikipedia, Viharo (posting as Tumbleman) was indefinitely blocked from editing by the unanimous decision of five Wikipedia administrators.

One astrologer claimed that Sheldrake and Viharo were "slandered, mocked and ridiculed" by GSoW due to "the Sun opposed by transiting Pluto" and other planetary conditions (which are somehow also connected to Julian Assange).

Even the BBC got pulled in, giving Sheldrake 5 minutes on their World Service programme, without bringing any opposing views on.

According to the woo-friendly Epoch Times, Sheldrake believes the aim of GSoW is “to control information" and that "Ms Gerbik (sic) glories in the power that she and her warriors wield.”

Occasionally it is claimed that RationalWiki is involved, though we know of nobody active in both.

Paranormal researcher Callum E. Cooper has claimed that GSoW are paid editors, although he gives no evidence for this.

Reality
Despite the name "Guerrilla Skepticism", the edits actually being made by the group were rather tame and typically uncontroversial, such as improvements to biographies of high profile skeptical personalities like Carl Sagan or additions of criticism to balance fringe claims in articles like Chupacabra.

However, there was never any evidence the GSoW group had ever edited the Sheldrake Wikipedia article. In fact, the editor who did most of the editting to the article posted a response to many of Sheldrake et. al.'s points. According to skeptic who investigated the edits:

And, according to "Julie", member of GSoW:

In December, 2013 GSoW founder Susan Gerbic discussed how the conspiracy theory had no real basis in fact, but woo-believers were still promoting it.

GSoW's activities have apparently not been affected by the entire incident.

Since Wikipedia policies actually require that pseudoscience and other fringe views be marginalized, the group's work was completely in sync with the encyclopedia's goals. A notice at the top of Sheldrake's talkpage mentions many relevant WP policies, including

Weiler responded to WP:FRINGE by saying:

Despite Weiler's attacks, reliable secondary sources are the only way Wikipedia can ensure that fringe views are shown to be such. The paucity of reliable secondary sources from mainstream academia for parapsychology just underscores how far from mainstream it is.

Proponents of the GSoW conspiracy theory
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Failed closure attempt
Guerrilla Skepticism on Wikipedia had been investigated by ArbCom in 2022. Other than one of the editors being topic banned, the motions adopted were general praises from arbcom.