Half-Dozen New Releases - Skeptic's Toolbox Faculty

The day has finally arrived!  I'm super excited to launch two brand new pages and four rewrites to Wikipedia today.  I'm really hoping that everyone reading this will read through each page and follow the links.

If you thought you knew these people, you're about to get to know them better.  If you have never heard of these people, then frankly you need to brush up on the history of the modern scientific skeptical movement.  Get back to basics. 

The Skeptic's Toolbox is the longest running skeptic conference in our history, bet you never heard of it! 

Beyerstein and Andrus are no longer physically with us, but their memories and work continues.  I'm very proud to have met them both.  

When you meed Alcock, Hyman and Pankratz at a conference, make sure you introduce yourself, thank them for making the skeptical movement possible and then ask them what they got up their sleeves next.  Cause they aren't even slowing down. 


Before I get to the launchings, I might add that faculty member Harriet Hall already has a beautiful Wikipedia page that Tim Farley launched over a  year ago.  I have just been keeping it updated for this release.

HERE YOU GO

Skeptic's Toolbox - brand new

Loren Pankratz - brand new

James Alcock - before

James Alcock - current

Ray Hyman - before

Ray Hyman - current

Jerry Andrus - before

Jerry Andrus - current

Barry Beyerstein - before

Barry Beyerstein - current

One more random thing I want to mention.  The Guerrilla Skepticism on Wikipedia team has decided that moving forward when we link to the term skeptic we are going to start linking to the WP page for scientific skepticism. If you find pages where this has not happened, please make the change for us.  If you are not comfortable doing this,  and don't want to be trained, please just drop me a email.

Like what you see.  think you want to get involved?  Please contact me at susangerbic@yahoo.com and I will keep you busy. 

Let them in on the Joke!

Just returned from the awesome Skeptic's Toolbox in Eugene, OR.  This skeptic conference is very different from most, in that the attendees are not allowed to just sit and listen to lectures.  They are assigned a "academic" paper to read in groups, research the topic with their fellow attendees (generally a group of 5-8 people) and then on the last day of the conference (Sunday) present their findings. 

On one of the days before breaking for dinner we tried to show a video that I had just uploaded 15 minutes prior.  The video is only one minute long and has Jim Underdown, Ray Hyman and Scott Nopp discussing Jim wrestling a bear.  That is all the group was told.  We didn't get the computer hooked up right and ended up trying to show it with a microphone held to the computer.  Lets just say that the audio was  bad and most people missed out on the joke.

The next morning I was thinking through the previous days events and suddenly realized that there is a world of people out there that can not get the joke, when it is presented as a video only. 

I'm going to ask you to watch this video without sound or captions.  So turn them off now.  (the video is only a minute long)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D4RKBMOnOHM

See what I'm saying?  This video makes no sense except that Jim is fairly animated, and Scott and Ray think something is funny. 

Now what can be done to allow others into the joke?

That's right, captions.  New to the Guerrilla Skepticism on Wikipedia project is Brad McDowell from Iowa.  Brad wanted to help out with the project but wasn't sure where to start.  I don't give assignments, as I want people to work on things they enjoy.  So after a bit of discussion, Brad decided he wanted to caption videos into English. 

And so he has.

Watch the video again, this time with the subtitles only on.  Make sure not to have audio on.

Now you can get it, by watching the faces and reading the text you can get the joke.  Okay, it isn't the best piece of comedy that exists on YouTube, but it does show off their personalities and how even the great skeptic Jim Underdown got scammed by the owner of this bear. 

Now watch the video one more time (I promise this is the last time).  Turn on captions and audio. 

The purpose of this blog isn't to tell you the story of Jim wrestling a bear (though it is a fun story) but to appeal to people to please get involved in the Wikipedia project.  Once these videos are captioned, not only does it allow someone who can't hear to be able to enjoy, but it makes it a lot easier for other people to caption into all kinds of languages.  Once that is done the video can be cited on Wikipedia in that language. 

I'm always desperate for editors, photographers and video people. I need content created, found, uploaded and so on in order to "prove" citations that we want to make.  I've asked you to look through your photos and videos, get them uploaded and correctly tagged so we can find them.  They aren't doing anyone any good sitting on your hard drive (besides, if something happens to that hard drive/memory card/DVD then a small piece of our history is gone, thanks a lot!)  It does not have to be high quality and professionally edited, just get the darn thing uploaded!






I've discovered that captioning videos is actually fun.  I'm watching videos in detail that I would normally have just glanced at.  It is really not that difficult to do once you get through a couple videos.

From what I understand, in order for the video to be captioned we have to have the owner of the video upload the captions.  We could "host" the video on a place like Amara (this is the company we are using to caption) but I'm not comfortable allowing this to happen, at least until I know more. 

I have over 200 videos (most concern skepticism in some way) waiting to be captioned.  I have other friends that would be willing to upload captions when they are ready (Kitty Mervine springs to mind).  And I'm sure lots of video owners would be willing to do so if asked.  BTW please share your passwords and permissions (with a close friend and/or family member) so that everyone else is not held hostage with the inability to move forward if needed. 

So if you have some history laying around someplace that you think should be brought to our attention, or want to help out and need training and what to caption first, please contact me at susangerbic@yahoo.com.

ONE MORE THING




About uploading images to the Internet.  Please consider uploading to WikiMedia Commons.  I believe Kitty Mervine was the photographer in the case of the below photograph.  This is my son, Stirling and we were on a JREF cruise "Chasing el Chupacabra" in Mexico.  Kitty had purchased this dried out skate and was telling everyone it was a chupacabra.  The picture was uploaded years ago to WikiMedia and just a week or so ago, Kitty got a message from one of her friends "Hey, isn't that Stirling?"  Sure enough Cracked Magazine used this image for an article on the chupacabra.  When the image is clicked on, you are taken to WikiMedia where the JREF is mentioned. (there are over 1,400 comments, so someone is reading this article) Pretty cool!

We Got Your Wiki Back! - Kendrick Frazier

Make sure your sitting down.

I'm so proud of editor Lei Pinter I could shout.  This woman has Got It!  She totally understands what the We Got Your Wiki Back Project! is all about.

The whole goal is to improve the pages of our skeptical spokespeople in order to tell the world that our people are noteworthy, respected, intelligent and real people.  We aren't boring scientists working on the fringe of science.  When Mr. America asks his wife "who is this guy on TV and why should we care what he is saying?" we need to make sure that when the name is searched and they end up on Wikipedia (you know that is going to be the first place they go) they will discover quality.  Remember our spokespeople represent us too. 

The Wikipedia page that Lei started out with was bare bones.  Dull.  So vacant that I would expect a bum would be sleeping in one corner with a newspaper over his head, and not a clean newspaper either.

Here is what she found when she decided to re-write his page. Kendrick Frazier April 23, 2012.

The images she got Kendrick to upload tell a story all by themselves.  They are loving, intelligent and look like a man that any one of us would want to hang out with.

The text tells a rich story as well, this man has done so much in his life and is still more active than most of us.  Reading over the page I had no idea there was so much to this man.  How dare the old page say that he might not be notable enough to have his own Wikipedia page.  Shame on the skeptical community for allowing this to happen.  This flag went up November 2009! 

What kind of respect do we have for ourselves?

So I know your sitting down now.  Here is the brand new page.  Kendrick Frazier

Thank you Lei, you really came through in a big way.

If you are reading this and think that you would like to become involved.  There are hundreds of ways to do so.

First, open up an account on Wikipedia.
Second, read my entire blog
Third, contact me at susangerbic@yahoo.com

We will make it happen and you can be a hero like Kendrick and Lei.

Forget English - What does the rest of the World see?

Just finished reading Kylie Sturgess's interview with Amardeo Sarma concerning CFI's World Skeptic Congress in Berlin, May 2012.  Would love to be able to afford to go but alas there is that house payment I must take care of every month.

Sarma states that alternative medicine (mainly homeopathy) is becoming a nuisance in Central Europe. He reasons this is because politicians are promoting it.  In America, creationism in the classroom is an ongoing issue.  Sturgess asks Sarma if they are seeing it as a problem in Europe as well.

"I must say that in Germany “evolution versus creationism” is not really an issue yet. But we see that coming up a little bit, not because of the Christian variants of creationism but because of the Islamic variants. That’s not an issue so much in Germany, but it is in some of the other countries like in Belgium. Interestingly, even though that’s the case, at the same time in Germany it’s not been so much of an issue yet with the Turkish population here as far as I can see. But it is becoming a problem more and more in the last years. That’s something I think we should be aware of and that’s why this has been one of the topics that we’ve taken up for this particular conference." 

So I wondered what non-English readers are seeing when they access Wikipedia pages on Homeopathy and Evolution? 

Homeopathy in English  (over 100K hits in Feb. 2012)

Homeopathy in German  (with over 35K hits in Feb. 2012)

Homeopathy in French  (with over hits 22K in Feb. 2012)


The following pages appear (to my non-expert eyes) to be in good shape.  I'd rather have an expert like Dr. Eugenie Scott's opinion.

Evolution article in English

Evolution article in German 

Evolution article in French
 
Evolution article in Arabic


Evolution article in Punjabi 

Evolution article in Hindi

Evolution article in Kurdish

As you can see, these pages vary in content.  I have no idea what these pages say, but some are obviously only a few paragraphs long, with only one image.  When a reader of Hindi or Punjabi opens the Evolution page and sees only one or two paragraphs what do you think they are thinking?  Imagine what the Kurdish readers are thinking when they access the page and are only given a couple sentences?  How important could evolution be if editors are ignoring the topic?

Evolution hits for February 2012 in English

Evolution hits for February 2012 in German  

Evolution hits for February 2012 in French

Evolution hits for February 2012 in Hindi

Evolution hits for February 2012 in Arabic

So what is my point?

We are so focused on educating English readers that we forget about the rest of the world. These people deserve to understand the science of these topics, with real citations they can follow to more detailed articles.

Wikipedia is being accessed expediently as the world adds more Internet users.  Just like in English, when someone is curious about a topic, if they don't directly go to Wikipedia, they will turn to a search engine for a neutral point of view.  Within the first 5 hits they will see a Wikipedia link waiting for them.  Wikipedia is virus and spam free, no pop-ups, click-able links to other pages if they don't understand a term, citations and external links for more in depth information and they don't even have to have an account to access the information. 

Shame on us if we are ignoring this chance to educate.

Lists of languages on Wikipedia

Join me at Cafe Inquiry Feburary 29 @ CFI Hollywood

Just a quick mention I will be conducting a workshop at CFI West in Hollywood, CA.  This will be a hands on workshop with some lecture and lots of do-it-yourself editing.  CFI has a WiFi connection that will allow users to learn basic to more advanced editing. 

The workshop is free! 

http://www.cfiwest.org/calendar/CafeInquiry.htm

Bad Astronomer gets 2 hour makeover on Wikipedia

I'm really busy. I'm working on the examples that I will be using for the Cafe Inquiry workshop at CFI West on Feb 29, 2012.  At this workshop I am going to talk for a bit about this Wikipedia project and then allow people to edit real pages for the remainder of time.  My idea is to forward the participants a email with specific instructions of exactly what to edit.  Mainly the first few examples will be "copy this" and "paste exactly here".  I'm also giving them the reasons why they are doing what they are doing, and forcing them to add it to their watchlists.  I'm hoping they will go home and look at the watchlist again and look more in depth at their edit.

As I said, I am busy creating these examples and making sure they work correctly and the instructions are very clear.

I've written about Phil Plaits Wikipedia page many times here on this blog.  He is one of those skeptical spokespeople that keep popping up in the public's eye and I know every time he does there is a spike in his Wikipedia hits.  Currently he's generating about 3.5K hits each month.  A page we ought to have an eye on, right? 

I wondered if maybe I could write an example that could be used at the workshop.  Looking over his page I felt that the changes I wanted to make are too advanced for beginners to copy/paste.  I needed to move on to easier edits.  But I felt guilty about leaving Plait's page for the to-do list that its been on for ages.  So I decided I would invest 2 hours.  That's it!  Whatever I could accomplish in that time I would do.

I've just learned how to add filmography info to a Wikipedia page, and noticed Plait has a imdb link.  So I ventured over and saw that he has quite a few film credits but not like William B. Davis's page that took me 8+ hours to edit.  I'm not going to go into detail how to add tables like I did.  Put it this way, I learned by copying the info from a famous actors page and studied the pattern.  I played with it for awhile until I figured it out.  Its the kind of task you don't want to stop in the middle of, you get into a kind of rhythm with all the | and the |- and
.

Once done I realized I had 20 minutes left.  I quickly uploaded an image I took when the IIG awarded Plait's "Bad Astronomy" show for critical thinking content.  Popped that image onto the page (there is a nice empty area caused by the Filmography table) and time was up.

I still don't like the lede.  As I've said before the sentence about him quitting his job in order to write a book is unprofessional.  It might be true but there must be a better way of saying it.  Phil Plait's page is going back on the to-do list.  Maybe someone will get there before me and continue working on his page?  Hopefully so.

Phil Plait Before

Phil Plait After

Wikipedia and Skeptic Women

My first She Thought blog mentions Rebecca Watson, Debbie Goddard, Greta Christina, Jennifer Michael Hecht, Annie Gaylor, Sikivu Hutchinson, Susan Jacoby, Wafa Sultan and Ophelia Benson.

Institute for the Study of Secularism in Society and Culture

Quite a mouthful, further known on this page as ISSSC.  I received an email from CFI announcing a new Director, Barry Kosmin.  The email sat in my inbox for a week or so before I had time to read it over and see if I needed to update a WP page or two. 

I had not know of Kosmin or the ISSSC before, but I have known of the American Religious Identification Survey as I'm sure all you good skeptics have as well.  This is the group that every 20 years asks the question "When you die will you want a religious funeral?" and other questions in order to judge the religiously of Americas population.  Remember all the discussion of the new category "none"? Yep, that's the study that had us all talking.

Well I tried to look for Barry Kosmin's WP page as he is the author of 20 books on secularism and religion, and the founder of the ISSSC.  Seems like someone that should have his own page, guess not.  While searching for him on WP I found the page for the ISSSC and boy was that disappointing.  There were 4 flags on the page dating from 2008 for problems with formatting, notability , quoting primary sources and the like.  The two links to the ISSSC's own webpages were broken.  What a waste!

I ventured over to the ISSSC's web pages and followed the links they gave there to the media and so on and read a few articles about Kosmin.  Sounds like a pretty fascinating guy, too bad no one in our community has his Wiki back!  As I keep saying, it is extremely important that our spokespeople AND our organizations have well tended Wikipedia pages.  I know, I know these people/organizations have great websites.  Yes, that is true, but don't tell me.  The world is visiting these WP pages and are looking for answers to their questions.  Often times the WP page gets the same page rating on a search as the main website. Are we going to continue to allow the world to view these nasty WP pages, letting them think that they have so little importance and credibility that the community that should support them, doesn't? 

As I was saying, I spent about an hour reading over the articles on the ISSSC's page and cleaned up their WP page as best I could.  I removed one of the four flags at the top of the page.  There remains a lot to do.  They need more references to outside sources that mention their relevance.  The page needs an info box along with all the details.  I think it even needs a picture or two, if not of the building/office then maybe at one of their functions, even when they are at a lecture somewhere.  Does someone have a picture they can upload? 

Oodles remain to be done, but there is a big difference from what I found to what I left.  Here is a couple hours ago.  And here is the current page.  Maybe someone from the ISSSC could contact me at susangerbic@yahoo.com or leave a comment here pointing me in the direction of where I can find more citations. (WP does not want you to work on your own page)  And if there are problems with how the page currently looks then please also bring that to my attention. 

Richard Dawkins and Wyndgate Country Club

I was forwarded a link to the Wyndgate Country Club vs Richard Dawkins and CFI-Michigan from Wikipedia editor Linda Long.  I had already seen this link and really didn't think much could be made of it. It isn't like Dawkins has never seen criticism, so I looked over his page and decided that it just wouldn't fit into his article.  Today I got another link from someone, this time with a YouTube video of Sean Faircloth and Dawkins on Fox news.

I decided that there is plenty of media focusing on this right now.  Protests at the Country Club (yeah team!) and possibly some legal action by CFI.  So I left mainly the same blurb on Richard Dawkins, Sean Faircloth, The Magic of Reality: How We Know What's Really True and CFI's Wikipedia pages.

Its current news right now, so this should go up.  I did a lot of linking between the 4 pages so they should be getting hits to each other.  I also didn't use just one citation, I listed 4 citations.  Check out these pages.

I'm really sad that the Wyndgate Country Club does not have its own page.  I know they are really hating all this publicity right at the moment, they refuse to comment according to the newspapers.  But I would have loved to have left the same blurb on their site.  

Hits wise we are talking quite a lot.  Between the four sites over 107K each month.  This controversy didn't hurt hits to Dawkins page.  Normally he gets 4-5K hits a day.  There is a big jump to 6.2K and 5.4K during this time.  A 38% jump.  Sean Faircloth's Wikipedia page had a 50% spike in hits for one day.   CFI didn't see a rise in numbers.  The book The Magic of Reality: How We Know What's Really True saw a 65% increase in hits to his page.

On another note...  When I was looking over the books page trying to decide if I should include it in all the edits.  I noticed an editor leave a note on the discussion page, Sept 21, 2011 "Can we prepare for a WP:DYK for this article?"  Ahhh "no"  These have to be launched within days of the launching of the page. What a missed opportunity.  I left a snarky remark in response. 

Oscillococcinum, Boiron and CFI

So working backwards here is a project that someone might be interested in tackling.  Keeping in mind that Wikipedia Editors are a bit nervous about me sending a bunch of skeptics over to a page for some of this "guerrilla skepticism" stuff.  I think it is called "sandbagging".  Anyway, this arrived in my email a few weeks ago and I thought it might be useful but never got to it.

CFI and CSI Petition FDA to Take Action on Homeopathic Drugs

Apparently CFI and CSI have this going in a press release.  Here is the link to the article.  I haven't looked into it in great depth, so I'm not sure that a press release is a good citation.  There may be links to follow that will get you to something more noteworthy.  Remember a secondary cite is better.  Don't quote the person writing the blog/petition/press release but quote the newspaper/journal/TV news show that quotes the primary cite.

Anyway, I think a mention on the Boiron and the Oscillococcinum pages might be warranted.  Its not every day they get such attention from skeptical groups...or maybe they do?  If so why isn't there already a bunch of mentions on their pages?  We can't just assume that the public knows as much as we do about these products.

Bioron gets about 1,000 hits a month, and Oscillococcinum gets 7,000-8,000 hits a month.  I would avoid the homeopathy page unless you have a really awesome citation and blub.  That is a well-watched page and the editors have worked long and hard coming to some kind of agreement about what should be on the page.  Before editing homeopathy (which is semi-protected) discuss what you want to do on the discussion page, listen to the comments from the other editors.  BTW homeopathy gets about 90,000 hits a month, so people are clearly interested in this topic and coming to Wikipedia for answers.

And don't just stop there, I'm sure there are a lot more places the citation can be used, with slight modifications to the blurb left on the page.  There are a lot of "fringe" smaller pages that the public is reviewing and we need to make sure they are getting the entire picture. 

Remember editing on Wikipedia needs to be neutral, let the article speak for you.  Less is more sometimes and make sure the citation is really good.  Think about the importance of this, over 1 million people are reading the homeopathy page each year, do you think that a well-written blog/podcast on that subject would reach that many people? No pressure or anything.  

Did You Know... James Underdown?

Wow this was so fun!  I've been working on creating a Wikipedia page for James Underdown from CFI and IIG and I learned so much that I'm bursting to share my experience.  But I know I'll just bore you all to death.  Lets just say that I'm better able to answer questions you might have about editing that I didn't know a few weeks ago.  Please please please ask if you need help on anything.  Leave comments here on the blog and I'll answer as quickly as I can.  Or email me at susangerbic@yahoo.com.

Did you know...?  Here is a blog I wrote about Karen Stollznow's 8 hour experience on the front page of Wikipedia.   Make sure you read the comments as well as I give the numbers for the 8 hours.

So I was able to manage through the crazy "paperwork" Wikipedia requires to nominate a page for the Did You Know... ? section and I persisted until it happened.  I think this had a lot to do with it.  Editors would leave a note saying...this needs to be fixed...or that sentence isn't cited correctly...  I would check back pretty regularly (by watching my Watchlist) I would fix everything they wanted fixed, added and removed anything that was a problem.  I felt that they finally approved it and put it up because I was so on them.  

Why is DYK important?  When you manage to get your page listed in this section you are exposing the Wiki page to an audience outside of skepticism that we are aiming for.  Thousands of people hit that page, and a lot of them scroll down to see the DYK section.  Maybe they like to see what is newly released?  Maybe they just have a "thing" for DYK?  Who knows, but they are going there and we should be aiming for the attention that DYK offers us.

Not only did Jim's name get hit on, but so does all the skeptical links that are included on his "hook" and on his main Wiki site.  The ripple effect.  When we are aware that this is going to happen, it forces us to really step things up and make sure that all the pages that are about to be hit are cleaned up.

Also Jim's page has now been checked over by some serious editors from Wikipedia looking at the writing, checking out the sources and so on.  His discussion page announced the DYK and the results.  I'm not going to link to the pages here because I really want you to go there and look for yourself.  That's what this blog is all about, doing things.

Here are some of the results from that 8 hour window.

Jim normally receives about 30 hits per day.  He received about 6,400 hits in that 8 hour time.  WOW!

Here is the hook ... Did you know... that James Underdown (pictured), an investigator of fringe science claims, once declared himself Poet Laureate of Calumet City, Illinois, and toured Midwest comedy clubs under the name Jim U-boat?"

I originally had submitted this......that James Underdown director of Center for Inquiry West CFI and founder of the Independent Investigations Group IIG, once declared himself Poet Laureate of Claumet City, IL and toured Midwest comedy clubs under the name Jim U-boat?

They shortened it and added fringe science and took out IIG and CFI.  But that's what Wikipedia is all about, you don't "own" anything.

Calumet City got an extra 200 hits.   Poet Laureate got about 300-400 more than normal.  The term fringe science (that I didn't even know was in Wikipedia) got an extra 4,400 hits.  These were all in the hook.

Once you are on his page, lets see how the things hyperlinked did.

Center for Inquiry got about 285 hits extra
Humanist about 60 extra
IIG got about 150 extra

So there was some activity with the hits.  I report these in numbers, but you have to remember that if I were talking about a percentage, then we would be seeing 500% increases and higher.

The IIG did see a small about of hit increase to its main page www.iigwest.org from people following the links from Wikipedia.  Barry Karr from CFI is having problems accessing his numbers today but will get back to me with them.

Here is a screen shot from that day.  

 

Walmart and Homeopathy

Wow this was really a big one in my book. Same SI magazine an article on page 7 about CSI and CFI teaming up to condemn Walmart on its support of homeopathy products. Walmart is a big company and has a massive Wikipedia page. They even have a separate criticism page that I didn't want to use.

Here is the blurb I left

The Committee for Skeptical Inquiry [[CSICOP]] and the [[Center for Inquiry]] along with several medical doctors and one [[Noble Laureate]], [[Venki Ramakrishnan]] teamed up to condemn Walmarts promotion of [[homeopathic]] medicines in its stores and websites. Walmart states that Boiron Oscillococcinum is effective against flu-like symptoms, when in fact there is no science that shows Boiron Oscillococcinum or any homepathic solution contains a single active ingredient and performs no better than a [[placebo]].

I had to keep it factual and neutral so I think it is as good as I can get it. Would welcome anyone else who wants to clean up grammar or whatever. The page is semi-protected so not just anyone can go on the page and edit it.

The reason why I didn't want to use the criticism page is because in the discussion area of that page people were saying that there was no evidence of the criticism. Well in the case of CFI and CSICOP there is a lot of evidence. Anyone just needs to follow the hyperlink to homeopathy I left for evidence. This will be my argument if pushed to it. If I have no choice I will move the blurb to the criticism page, but not until pushed to it. Besides on the normal page there looks like there is some criticism already of Walmart's gender relations when hiring/firing/promoting.

So for the moment it is there 5:23pm on Tuesday June 15, 2011. Maybe it will squeak by?

Also a cool note I learned how to make the size of the category text change. I had to leave a category in order to put my blurb so I called it "support for homeopathy" when I looked at what I wrote it didn't match other categories on the page already. So I kept looking and looking when finally I realized that my category looked like this ==Support for Homeopathy== and the other categories were like this ===Support for Homeopathy===. The extra equal sign on each side of the phrase increases/decreases the font. Wow! I'm still a long way from being good at this.