James Randi and Madonna

There are two names I doubt you will see in the same blog title.  Been having a great day/night.  Fresh from TAM 2012 I've got all my pictures uploaded as well as videos.  And I'm all organized with the Wikipedia World project.  People are starting to arrive, I'm placing them in the World group where only English is spoken, and we have groups set up for each language.  At the moment we have; English, Spanish, German, Russian, Turkish, Portuguese and French.  People are still arriving home from their vacation in Las Vegas, so we will probably see a lot more activity in a week or so.

So, the first edit we were going to work on was to get the IIG tribute to James Randi photo over onto all the Randi pages we could.  I asked people at TAM to translate one sentence.  "The Independent Investigations Group [[IIG]] tribute to James Randi TAM9, July 2011".  I didn't plan this very well as I asked people to translate onto a piece of paper.  Once they gave them back to me, I realized that I do not know how to write all that out, plus I had a very hard time reading handwriting.

Some people emailed me the translation and that allowed me to copy and paste.

So how did I do this when I can barely speak English, and what does it have to do with Madonna?

First I opened up the Edit page of the English James Randi page.  And copied the edit for the picture that I left months ago.  It looks like this in English.

[[Image:JREF TAM9 Beard Photo.jpg|thumb|300px|The Independent Investigations Group [[IIG]] tribute to James Randi TAM9]]

Once the picture is loaded to WikiCommons any language can use the image.  So this part is what the photographer (me) named it.

 JREF TAM9 Beard Photo.jpg

Okay then I went to the Spanish James Randi page.   Clicked on the "editar" tab which is in the exact same place as "edit" in English.

I found the place I wanted it to be located and then pasted in the English (above) edit.  Then changed the caption to what someone sent me on email.  I think it was Patrick Mahoney, but not sure at the moment as several people sent me this caption.

It looks like this

[[Image:JREF TAM9 Beard Photo.jpg|thumb|350px|Un tributo a James Randi, dado por el grupo independiente de investigación durante TAM9 (La Junta Asombrosa, edición 9) en julio del 2011]]

I hit preview which is located in the same place as it is in English.  Here it is called mostrar previsualizacion.

Then I wrote "photo" in the reason for edit area and hit save (grabar la pagana).

I was feeling pretty proud of myself but only slightly because I already speak Spanish, so wanted to try something more difficult.

Noticed I have a translation from Ken Archbold in Russian, sitting on my email.

I went to the Russian James Randi page (took me a while to figure out what the word Russian looks like when written in Russian, but I have a son and they always want to appear smart so he pointed it out to me "Русский".  I clicked on the edit page tab which is labeled in a way that I would only know was correct because it was in the same place in English.  And because when I clicked on it, the edit page opened up.

Now I was really in trouble.  I have no idea how to write "image" in Russian.  Possibly it would have worked if I just did it in English, but I decided to find a page that would have pictures on it in the body of the page.  So I went to the Russian page for Madonna, opened up her "edit" page and found an edit for a picture.  Looks like this

[[Файл:Madonna 1990 cropped.jpg|thumb|180px|Мадонна во время [[Blond Ambition World Tour]] в [[1990 год]]у]]

So as you can see the format is the same as in English.  I simply removed the Madonna picture (Madonna 1990 cropped.jpg) and pasted in the Randi Beard jpg.  Then I removed the writing about Madonna that would be the caption area.  Мадонна во время [[Blond Ambition World Tour]] в [[1990 год]]у

Then pasted in Ken's text, and was left with this.

[[Файл:JREF TAM9 Beard Photo.jpg|thumb|180px|Должное Джеймсу Рэнди от независимой группы исследования в TAM, июля 2011]]

I "previewed" the edit and didn't like how small it looked so I raised the px to 300.  I don't do things in a small way.

I didn't know what to put in the "reason for edit" area, so just left a ?  I suppose I could have written in English "photo added" and most editors would understand.

Anyway, Nix caught the bug and went ahead and took care of the Portuguese James Randi page.

Everyone involved in the World project is going to become VERY familiar with this tool.  http://stats.grok.se/

So lets just see for fun, how many people are going to be viewing the photo we just uploaded?

You must copy the name of the page you are trying to look at exactly, and you must pick the language.  Here is what July 2012 looks like in Russian  for James Randi.

I think you get the idea. 

Here is a link from Lei Pinter (who is at the English only WP page) she thought this would be helpful to everyone, Inline interlanguage links.  

There is nothing keeping others from adding pictures to other pages.  If you get in trouble just don't "save" the page.  Or if you mess it up really bad, someone who has that page on a watchlist will clean up your mess with only two clicks of the mouse.  


One more thought, wonder if I'm going to see an surge in hits to this blog because I mentioned Madonna?  If so I better add a few more


Lindsay Lohan, Kevin Bacon, George W. Bush, President Obama, Mitt Romeny

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

Guerrilla Skepticism on Wikipedia a year in review

Reading Tim Farley's blog Skeptical Software Tools (SST) this morning really has me thinking about how we can measure the impact we have on the skeptical movement.  His blog today is "My Top Posts of 2011" where he lists the various blogs he has written for SST and on SWIFT and compares the hits to the Wikipedia pages he has created.  His conclusion was that if you don't count the very popular Mabus blog he wrote, then all of the Wikipedia pages he has created have been more popular than the blog posts, by far.

Do I dare write a blog stating the numbers I have for this blog?  Tim's far outdistance mine. And not by just a little bit.  This isn't a competition, Susan, Guerrilla Skepticism on Wikipedia is even more a specialty blog than SST is.   I love numbers also, I also need to know where I've been and where I'm going, numbers really help make things clearer.

So here goes... my year-end recap.

Okay actually it is on a 6-months recap as the blog began in June 2010 because I knew I would be doing a paper presentation at TAM9.  Previously to that I had spoken at SkepticCamp: Fort Collins, CO and then SkeptiCal 2010 in Berkeley, CA.

I have been on a few podcasts talking about this project as well as my other hobby The Independent Investigations Group.  The Pod Delusion, The Token Skeptic (which is the same interview but a different compilation of other interviews) and Rational Alchemy (where a became a host after my first interview).

I have also been fortunate enough to have a blog on SWIFT that generated 5,841 hits.  That link got picked up by the Richard Dawkins Foundation and they featured it on their news site.

Tim Farley has been kind enough to give me shout-outs from time to time that have brought in traffic as well.  Farley, JREF and Brian Dunning have tweeted about me several times also bringing in hits.  William B. Davis on the Good Atheist Podcast discussed with the host his experience of getting his Wikipedia page made over (they didn't mention me by name though).

I and this project have become known as a place to go to when asking "what do I do if I want a WP page of my own"? or "someone vandalized my page, what do I do"? and the popular "there are a lot of wrong things written on my WP page, how do I get that changed"?  I answer these questions usually privately but I suppose I should get a blog together I can just refer people to.  I hear from people forwarding me blogs and articles that are written about Wikipedia.  And I love all of this, keep sending me these questions and forwarding me the articles, I can't be everywhere at once and unless it is in my inbox, I'm probably going to miss it.

Now to Wikipedia itself.  I've only created a few pages from scratch, Mark Edward (which probably needs to be rewritten now that I've learned so much more, James Underdown and The Steve Allen Theater (which is located inside CFI West). 

Mark Edward launched May 10, 2011 has generated 5,788 hits
The Steve Allen Theater launched Sept 18th, 2011 has 882 hits
James Underdown Sept 1, 2011 has 8,371 hits.  5.6K from one day when it was a Did You Know? article.

Besides these I worked on several existing pages that needed re-writes.

Ben Radford's Playing Gods game
Sean Faircloth
William B. Davis
Institute for the Study of Secularism in Society and Culture
Brian Dunning

plus many more pages that I've worked on.  I'm very happy that nearly all of the pictures I've added to WP are still on the pages.  Over 40 images have been used on skeptical sites this year.  And at least 10 are up because I've asked the photographer to up load their images.  This will become a focus in 2012.

I had no idea how many edits would be a lot for 2011, so I kept track on a spread sheet every time I did something that had an impact for skepticism (not just corrected spelling or grammar).  I count 241 edits, 105 of those were to sites I considered "skepticial" like Kylie Sturgess, Barry Beyerstein, CFI, James Randi.  59 sites are "normal" pages that the general public wouldn't think skepticism when looking at the page, like Ya-Man Chan, Seth Shostak, J. Stewart Burns and The Stanley Hotel.  Then there are the "woo" sites that I hit 77 pages.  Examples are Haunting Evidence, Pet Psychics, Ghost Hunting, Power Balance and Sally Morgan pages.

Because of this blog I've been able to connect with several awesome editors that totally "get-it" thank you Dustin and Lei who continue to edit regularly.  Many others have made contributions irregularly but that is completely awesome as I know they have the skills and can pop in and work on projects as they feel the urge.  This project is perfect for people who can't completely dedicate themselves to writing a blog, or recording a podcast or anything that needs a commitment.  A no-guilt project!

Now for this blog.  What were the most popular posts?  The very first post I wrote has generated the most hits, 1,903.  Which seems odd because I wrote 10 blogs before announcing the blog to anyone, so when I started publicizing the blog people would have been directed to the most recent post, not the first post. 

Wikipedia and Sylvia Browne 
SGU-24hour show - What were their stats? - 582
We Got your Wiki Back! project - 286
Lamar Odom and Power Balance Bracelets - 267
We Got your Wiki Back! The Numbers from Nightline - 228

My blog hit 17K hits by the end of 2011, which is only a little bit more than the hits that were created from the 3 Wikipedia pages I created (which was about 14K). 

2012 should be an interesting year.  I have several Rational Alchemy podcasts coming out, and a SI article someday.  I have earned the nickname WikiPediatrician from IIG friend Brian Hart, which is pretty awesome just by itself.  I will be doing a lecture in late February at CFI West on how to edit (they already understand why we need to edit).

By the way, I'm really approachable and am willing to lecture at any skeptical meetup or event that I am invited to.  I will be at Dragon*Con this year, but not as a speaker (at least no one has asked yet).  Also I will be at TAM10 and SkeptiCal in Berekely April 21st. (not lecturing as I did last year). 

My goals for 2012 are to continue to push for exposure hoping to generate more editors.  Also increasing the hands-on training to anyone willing to learn the basics. 

I've become more organized with my to-do list and am still focusing on improving pages I feel inspired to fix and not just the ones that reach the most people.

I will be including more information about other WP languages throughout as we have to get the message out to non-English language sites.  As more and more people across the world gain Internet access so will their reliance on Wikipedia.

Photography is also a focus, we really need to improve these pages of our skeptical spokespeople, and getting photographers involved is a great way to do so.  Plus it gets people excited to contribute more. 

Sooo many pages still need work, Kylie Sturgess's page was almost deleted by someone Hell-Bent on removing it, it does need a major rewrite (I have a lot of the references but not the time to do so).  Would love to see a page for the Skeptic's Toolbox, again the problem is time.

What has been done already is mostly still up.  We are making improvements and making a difference to people who are not in the choir.  We have to keep the movement moving forward.  It is a big task, but it is an important task.  We need you!  

Thank you for your support!

Squeezing one more out and How to delete a page on Wikipedia

It all started with a mess of newspaper articles that I just can't get myself to recycle.  I just finished up James Underdown's Wikipedia page and have some leftover articles I didn't use.  I don't like just filing things away somewhere as I doubt I will get back to it anytime soon, usually it just gets covered up with more stuff.  Well reading through one article by the Chicago Tribune from 2007 I was struck by some really great quotes by the author of the article Larry Potash.

I had used one of the quotes on the main psychic page, but I want to use more of this article.  Pure gold, and I hate to just toss it.  Thankfully I found the article on-line so you all can follow along.  This is an example of working backwards.  Start with the noteworthy article and then try to find a place to put it.

I had used the beginning of the article for the psychic page.

Concerning the television psychics, James Underdown states that testing psychics in a studio setting is difficult as there are too many areas to control, the psychic could be getting help from anyone on the set. The editor controls everything, they can make a psychic look superior or ridiculous depending on direction from the producer. In an Independent Investigation Group IIG expose of John Edward and James Van Praagh they discovered that what was actually said on the tape day, and what was broadcast to the public were "substantially different in the accuracy. They're getting rid of the wrong guesses... Once you pull back the curtain and see how it's done, it's not impressive at all.

But love this part.

Psychics don't seem to rely on their "powers" to detect their own cancer -- they go to the doctor, like the rest of us. They don't predict when the train will arrive -- they look at the train schedule. And even psychics (along with everyone else) can guess correctly now and then. But under scientific scrutiny, and incorporating statistical probability, no psychic has met the test.

When producers see that psychics aren't making the grade, I fear they may lower the bar in their testing methods or simply elevate the psychics' performance through creative editing.

In the end, the psychic phenomenon you see on TV will only be an illusion, much like it is in real life.

Great isn't it?  But where to put it?  I can't add more to the psychic page, that would just be too much, besides I would really like to quote him, and that is Really too much.

So I reread the article again and realized that its about a TV show called America's Psychic Challenge.
 Do they have a Wikipedia page?  Yep they do.  (while searching for this page I found another one Paranormal Challenge I'm going to save that for another blog I think).

Looks like the winner from the first (and apparently only season) was Michelle Whitedove, who is not noteworthy enough to have her own Wikipedia page BTW.  ("yes" I guess I am turning into a bit of a snob, but it seems to me that someone who can communicate with dead people should be changing the world of science as we know it) Looks like she won $100K so maybe she is just being really frugal and making the money last?

This page seems to be neutral enough, but a stub.  So what to do?  Is it even worth the effort?  I'm sure you know the answer already, of course it is relevant.  If it is on Wikipedia then even if they receive zero hits, it still needs to be done.  Tomorrow might be the day that it receives thousands of hits.  Actually this page gets about 1,000 a month.

Noticing that there is a wiki hyperlink to this person Jackie Barrett who was the runner up.  More on Jackie later.

Now I'm reviewing the page more in detail.  I think that the present tense should be changed to past tense.  Also note that this is here List of prizes for evidence of the paranormal and no one seems to have noticed or cared.  Looking at the discussion page someone in 2008 wrote that they edited to eliminate the awful pro-bias of the article.  And someone in 2010 removed a link to a broken URL.  That's all the conversation going on there, so I don't feel any need to write there with my proposed changes.  Doubt anyone would get back to me in a timely manner.

So after playing with it for a bit here is what I came up with. 

Reporter Larry Potash writing for the Chicago Tribune states that paranormal reality shows like APC are cheap to produce which means we will probably see more of them. Potash contacted James Underdown from the Independent Investigation Group IIG who says that the TV set is a horrible place to test a psychic. There are too many things to control, you can't know if the psychic is receiving help from an audience member or someone working on the crew. Potash believes that psychics are not so psychic when the cameras are off, they "go to the doctor... look at train schedules" just like everyone else. Psychics sometimes do guess correctly, "but under scientific scrutiny, and incorporating statistical probability no psychic has ever met the test". He worries that when producers see that the psychic isn't showing spectacular results, they may lower the testing bar or "elevate the psychic's performance through creative editing". Underdown states "Once you pull back the curtain and see how it's done, it's not impressive at all."

This is Wikipedia, if you can write this better please do so, won't hurt my feelings at all.   I took the same citation from the psychic page, changed the access date to today (because I did access it).

On to Jackie Barrett's page.  Yikes!  The discussion page says that this is written like an advertisement, boy is that true.  The citation that states she has worked with law enforcement is from her own blog.  Another reference is to her website.  There is a critical heading, but it is empty.

Here is the person who wrote the page.  23:01, 24 November 2007 Lyndela (talk | contribs) (4,529 bytes) (←Created page with ''''Jackie Barrett''' (White Serpent) is a psychic medium, spiritual healer, author, and humanitarian.[[http://www.mylifetime.com/on-tv/sh...')

The next edit is from someone who wants to have it deleted the same day it was posted.  23:05, 24 November 2007 Tiggerjay (talk | contribs) m (4,540 bytes) (Requesting speedy deletion (CSD A7). using TW) (undo)

Then right after that there is this edit.  23:21, 24 November 2007 Irishguy (talk | contribs) (4,310 bytes) (removed speedy, reference cleanup. Notability asserted) (undo)  

I'm going to look into it a bit further and see what was going on.  That seemed to be happening really quickly.  Well Irishguy has retired, but he lists all the pages he created and Jamy Ian Swiss was one of those pages.  Interesting, and he is the person who removed Jackie Barrett's page from deletion.  Tiggerjay, is into editing anything Disney and edits here and there.  The page creator is Lyndela, who does not have a editor page.  

Looking over the page again I note that there are only 5 references.  One is her personal website, one is her blog, one is a video that no longer exists, one is a reference on a website showing that she has been on a ghost hunt and lastly the only credible one is the reference to the show America's Psychic Challenge.  And LOL just clicked on that link and it does not exist anymore.  Boy it sure helps to check out the references they leave.  

So as far as I'm concerned this page should be deleted.  She is getting 100-400 hits a month.  Not very noteworthy for someone who is psychic.  Now how to delete a page?  No idea. 

Took me awhile to find this instruction page.  Guess you all are going to be following me through this process.  It says that there are 3 steps.  Leave this template {{Tfd|{{subst:PAGENAME}}}} on the discussion page you want removed.  Okay so far so good.  


Next I follow a link and put this at the top of the page


{{subst:Tfd2|TemplateName|text=Why you think the template should be deleted. ~~~~}}

Here is what I wrote. 

Template:Jackie Barrett

Template:Jackie Barrett (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs|delete)

The page has only 5 sources One is her personal website, one is her blog, one is a video that no longer exists, one is a reference on a website showing that she has been on a ghost hunt and lastly the only credible one is the reference to the show America's Psychic Challenge that she was on and the link is broken. This person does not fit Notability standards. Her one claim to fame is that she was the runner up on the aforementioned APC, the winner of that show and the other contestants do not have Wikipedia pages. The show host John Burke does not even have a WP page.
(sorry this is my first attempt at asking for a deletion, I see that it is in red when I preview my edit, but can't figure out how to fix it, I'm trying to do it just like the Big Sky one below)Sgerbic (talk) 05:49, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

Here on this blog it looks like the links are all in blue, there when I click preview there is a lot of red.  I tried over and over and could not figure it out.

For my future reference (and possibly yours) here is the html of what I wrote.

 ==[[Template:Jackie Barrett]]==

{{Tfd2|Jackie Barrett|text=The page has only 5 sources}} One is her personal website, one is her blog, one is a video that no longer exists, one is a reference on a website showing that she has been on a ghost hunt and lastly the only credible one is the reference to the show [[America's Psychic Challenge]] that she was on and the link is broken. This person does not fit Notability standards.  Her one claim to fame is that she was the runner up on the aforementioned APC, the winner of that show and the other contestants do not have Wikipedia pages. The show host John Burke does not even have a WP page.

(sorry this is my first attempt at asking for a deletion, I see that it is in red when I preview my edit, but can't figure out how to fix it, I'm trying to do it just like the Big Sky one below)~~~~



Now I have to go to the user page who first launched the page and let them know what I'm doing.  Lyndela does not have a user page, but I went to the discussion page for her non-existent user page and left the message that I have requested its deletion and why.  It appears that I went to the right place because the other time in 2007 someone left her the same message (but more official).  

At no time did Lyndela respond.  Wonder if she has done any editing other than this page?  I clicked on the "contrubutions" next to her user name on the history of Jackie Barrott's page.  Here is what I got.  Looks like she has only made three edits in total. 


 Pretty interesting page that user page.  Put any editor's name in that box and you can see all the edits they have been making.  


So now I'm done.  We have been learning together tonight. All this just because of a few sentences from a newspaper article I wanted to squeeze one more edit from.   I'll report back on what happens to the deletion of Jackie Barrett's page.  




This just in from a WP editor... 

You chose the wrong deletion method. (Not a surprise. There are a gazillion of them) WP:TFD is Templates for deletion. You were wanting an article deleted. So you wanted one of the three deletion systems that can delete articles. WP:AFD, WP:PROD, and WP:CSD. Those are Articles For Deletion, Proposed Deletion, and Speedy Deletion. The one closest to the TFD that you tried to use is AFD. Your TFD debate was removed from TFD soon after you entered it, but was started as an AFD discussion for you. (Wikipedians can be quite helpful when they want to be. :) ) Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Jackie Barrett is the link to the full AFD discussion.

For future reference, the differences in the three article deletion methods are: CSD is Speedy deletion. It is for extremely limited criteria. If the situation does not exactly meet one of the CSD criteria, then speedy deletion *cannot* be used. OTOH, it is the fastest criteria. Admins like me can apply it at will if we find an article that we think meets the criteria. And anyone can tag for speedy deletion, and an admin will deal with it fairly rapidly. This is what you saw in the older history of the article you want deleted. Someone thought that the article met a speedy deletion criteria, tagged it as such, but someone else (usually but not always an admin) came along and disagreed and declined the CSD deletion.

In this particular case the reason was Notability. The bar to avoid speedy deletion is much much lower than the bar to avoid it in a full debate. An article really only needs to assert notability in some vague way to avoid speedy notability deletion.

Next deletion method is WP:PROD. Prod is intended for uncontroversial deletions. You can use (almost) any reasoning in your PROD deletion request. The key though is that it only takes a single protest of a PROD deletion to invalidate PROD deletion for that article. PROD is thus fairly simple, but if anyone disagrees, they are free to remove the PROD deletion notice.
Last is AFD. Articles for Deletion. This is where you launch a full deletion debate on the article. This is what you tried to do with your deletion attempt. Except for using the wrong system, I think you made a pretty good deletion argument. :)

There are also deletion systems for Templates (WP:TFD), Categories (WP:CFD), Redirects (WP:RFD), Files/Images(WP:FFD), and Misc (WP:MFD). I likely missed a few in this list. So there's no real surprise that you missed the correct one on your first try. :) - TexasAndroid (talk) 21:40, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

 
UPDATE on Jan 9, 2012

Today is clean out my computer day.  Went to Facebook and realized that there are "hidden" messages there that I have never seen.  One was from Jackie Barrett (who is calling herself Joanne, but posting from Jackie Barrett's FB account)

Here is what she told me the responses...

Sept 25, 2011

"Hello, I am writing you in regards to Jackie Barett's wiki page it has come to my attention that you have marked the page for deletion I would like to address this. If you are not aware Jackie is the author of 2 published books , holds both a captains badge and FBI badge for her work she has done on cold cases, on the tv show Medium P.I the captain of cold cases Sean Crowley of NYPD stated that Jackie has worked with him on hundreds of cases. She also was featured on AE special titled the Amityville The Final testament , has appeared on an episode on WE tv Secret Lives Of Woman. She has a long list of media appearances so to correct you in your statement that the only notable apparance was Americas Psychic Challenge you are not correct in this statement. So for future reference before trying to delete an informative wiki page about a person that is notable you should research further. Thank you Joanne"

my response today...

"Just now noticing this Joanne (or are you Jackie?)

Wikipedia does not do all the work looking for the citations. If the notoriety and citations are not on the page then the page has to be deleted.

The problem is that the page was not informative. You can't just make these claims on a FB message page, there must be evidence of what you are saying.

Also all discussions like this one should be done publicly on the deletion page (which is now closed) or on my talk page on Wikipedia.

I would love to see this captians badge and FBI badge. Is there a URL that can prove they exist? If so it will be the first time I've ever heard of a psychic receiving some kind of recognition from the police."

Her response...


"Well you obviously have not done your research have fun policing wiki lol"

As usual the psychic is making a claim that they can not (or will not?) back up.  People have to understand that on Wikipedia and when trying to make a claim elsewhere you have to back it up.  Some seem to think that the burden to prove something does not exist relies on the skeptic.  Why can't they understand this?  If you are making a claim, then it has to be backed up in order for it to be taken seriously.

I don't want to have a back and forth with this person who isn't even clever enough to hide her identity on FB.  Maybe I should look into this Sean Crowley of NYPD person?  Here he is now as a PI.  It gets more interesting, here she is appearing with Crowley for some radio show.  I'm thankful that Jackie/Joanne brought this to my attention. 


 



 
 

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.  

 

Skeptic Awards

I've written here about the JREF Pigasus Awards, the name is really adorable and when it is left lying around on Wikipedia sites people can't help but click on the hyperlink to learn more about what a Pigasus Award might be. Its all about linking articles to each other and getting people to read articles isn't it?

As I stated in the Pigasus Award blog it is important to not only keep the award site current, but to make sure the "winners" pages are notified that they won the honor.  If relevant try to include the reason why they won the award, it gives a lot more attention to the blurb you are leaving and makes the article more relevant.

I just want to point out that there are other awards out there that have been presented over the years but we need to do a better job of making sure they are hyperlinked.

For example the Australian Skeptics give out a Bent Spoon Award each year.  On their page they have each "winner" listed (with the reason).  Yet not all of the winners pages have a hyperlink back to the award.  Dr. Kerryn Phelps has a mention...

In 2008 Phelps was awarded the "Bent Spoon" by the Australian Skeptics Association, an award "presented to the perpetrator of the most preposterous piece of paranormal or pseudoscientific piffle"

And so do a few others, but not all.  On the Phelps page there is no hyperlink to the Bent Spoon Award, this needs to be done so that readers can quickly click on the cute name to be able to learn all about the award.  (click edit, put [[ and ]] around the words Bent Spoon Award, click preview to make sure you did it correctly, leave a reason in the citation like "added hyperlink to bent spoon award", add page to your watchlist and then click publish)

Other skeptic (and I suppose science groups) give out positive and negative awards.  The Independent Investigation Group (IIG) gives both each year.  The Truly Terrible Television (TTTV) Awards as well as normal awards giving to individuals for critical thinking and work in the field of skepticism.  All of these awards need to be linked to the winners, and a quick survey through them looks like it has been done. 

Here is one example for Psychic Detectives...

August 2007 Psychic Detectives was awarded The Truly Terrible Television (TTTV) Award for peddling pseudoscience and superstition to its audience by the Independent Investigative Group IIG. Other winners have been Montel Williams for every episode that has showcased Sylvia Browne, Paranormal State and SciFi's Ghost Hunters. ^[1]

 
Nice hyperlinking done here.  The reader will be exposed to a lot of further reading if they should choose to do so. 

These are all easy edits to do, and someone should be able to get them all current with just a couple hours work.   If anyone knows of other awards sites please list in the comment area.