Just encountered an blog that is sending "traffic" to this site. Apparently "The Daily Grail" posted a blog a couple weeks ago about his frustration over editing Wikipedia on "TDG-related topics". (which I hope someone will enlighten me about.)
I've reread his blog and the comments that follow. I think that I'm understanding his frustration.
His point seems to be that Wikipedia needs to keep the "riff-raff" out but it is going too far, with "bias articles towards mainstream opinion without fair representation of alternative views." He seems to think that Wikipedia should be balanced. He also states that "it was quite obvious that there was a fairly large, and loud, contingent of pseudo-skeptics in place there who would soon revert any open-minded content, no matter how well referenced and written the piece was." He discovered the Guerrilla Skepticism blog and is pointing his finger at us for being the problem. He even claims that we are astroturfing.
Well okay then. I'm open to new ideas.
The example he gives concerns a trance medium called Leonora Piper, the blogger wrote an article about Piper and tried to quote it on Wikipedia as a reference.
He seems a bit confused about the Wikipedia policy to favor a secondary source over the primary one, believing that when a reputable source reports on the original primary source it becomes more noteworthy and creditable. Reading the blog again I'm understanding that he thinks his blog on Piper should be considered equal to a book review about Martin Gardner's assessment of Leonora Piper.
The blogger feels that Martin Gardner should not be used as a reference on Leonora Piper because he (the blogger) found many factual errors in Gardner's research.
Now I'm not going to go into the background on all this, I'm simply bringing it up to you all intelligent people to kinda see the other sides point of view.
Here are a few samplings from the comment section.
and lastly
I hope this gives all of us some pause.
I've reread his blog and the comments that follow. I think that I'm understanding his frustration.
His point seems to be that Wikipedia needs to keep the "riff-raff" out but it is going too far, with "bias articles towards mainstream opinion without fair representation of alternative views." He seems to think that Wikipedia should be balanced. He also states that "it was quite obvious that there was a fairly large, and loud, contingent of pseudo-skeptics in place there who would soon revert any open-minded content, no matter how well referenced and written the piece was." He discovered the Guerrilla Skepticism blog and is pointing his finger at us for being the problem. He even claims that we are astroturfing.
Well okay then. I'm open to new ideas.
The example he gives concerns a trance medium called Leonora Piper, the blogger wrote an article about Piper and tried to quote it on Wikipedia as a reference.
He seems a bit confused about the Wikipedia policy to favor a secondary source over the primary one, believing that when a reputable source reports on the original primary source it becomes more noteworthy and creditable. Reading the blog again I'm understanding that he thinks his blog on Piper should be considered equal to a book review about Martin Gardner's assessment of Leonora Piper.
The blogger feels that Martin Gardner should not be used as a reference on Leonora Piper because he (the blogger) found many factual errors in Gardner's research.
Now I'm not going to go into the background on all this, I'm simply bringing it up to you all intelligent people to kinda see the other sides point of view.
Here are a few samplings from the comment section.
"So, on Wikipedia, different people operate by different rules. It takes time and effort to understand those rules. Like learning how to deal with bureaucrats."
" find wikipedia attracts certain types that write their pages and edit their pages -- it seems geared toward the 'tiny detail' types, the OCD/asperger's types who are focused on details."
"When I was in high-school, my Psychology teacher used to call them 'anal retentives'"
"You have my sympathy: I once tried to correct a minor mistake about the history of the village I live in only for it to be re-edited within days. Some people get a fixation about certain things and nothing, but nothing, will shift their viewpoint."
"This explains why there are so many alternatives to Wikipedia, obviously you're not the first person to encounter a Wikitroll."
and lastly
"After a few years of following CISCOP, Penn and Teller, and other similar outfits I sometimes get the distinct feeling that the founding fathers of these groups are really all about supressing any and everything that might point to the wider powers of mind. It is not just that they are skeptical - they are outright hostile to the very idea of heightened mental and sensual faculties, and they assiduously stomp down even the slightest of glimmerings. It really feels to me like they have been "tasked" to stifle the human potential movement. There is a coordination among them if you happen to read them all at once. It was first obvious with 911 conspiracy theory which they endlessly and vociferously tried to quash, and they often had to abandon hard science to do so. Watching the Amazing Randi jettison his normally acute powers of observation to make allowances for the official government sanctioned 911 theory was the first real eye opener for me. These guys are not on the up and up at all.
Randi's adolescent rebuttal of quantum entanglement may be the most ludicrous assignment he ever gave himself or had given to him, but he has so boxed himself into a logical corner that he can't now really think very clearly. They really have the smell of hired whores to me, and the larger view might be that they have been tasked to keep as many people as possible dumb to a larger dimension. What really attracted Randi's attention about quantum entanglement was not the physics of it but that it implied an avenue from which things like ESP might find footing. The very idea of that immediately sets the works to grinding over there at CISCOP. They are like crazy fundamentalist preachers who must stick to their Good Book at all costs and no matter what."
I hope this gives all of us some pause.
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