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!

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.  

 

James Underdown ~ Writing a page from scratch ~ Stating NPV

This is really advanced and a time consuming task.  Not impossible, totally doable but not something new editors should be working on IMO.  We are going to talk about building a page from scratch. 

First off do not expect the page to be ready to publish quickly.  The example I'm going to give took several weeks.  Then I held onto it for a few more weeks waiting to make sure there was nothing else I wanted to include, plus I was trying to understand the instructions for the "Did You Know" project. 

Tim Farley gave me some really great advise when starting a new page, don't actually work on it on the page it will eventually become.  Work on it on your "user" page or in the Wikipedia Sandbox.  Let me explain.

When you decide that you are going to write a page, you first have to discover if there already exists a page.  Before I started Jim Underdown's page I tried looking on Wikipedia for Jim Underdown and James Underdown and made sure it wasn't already done.  I also asked him if he knew if someone was working on it, don't want to get all done and discover someone else has beat me to it. 

What I discovered was that there used to be a page called James Underdown, but it was long deleted.  It had been for a rugby player or something.  So the search brought up a page giving me that info, and it wanted me to write the page right there.  If I had done that, then the whole time I was editing it other people would be able to watch me, and help.  Also every edit I did would also be in the history of the page, Tim suggested that having a fresh clean history would be a good thing.  So I created a user page for Jim.  It looked like this User:Sgerbic/James Underdown. 

If you would like to go back to the beginning of the history of this page, you can "watch" me build the page before your eyes.  Here is the very first draft created on June 8, 2011.  Looking back on it now, this is a far better draft than a lot of real pages out there. 

To see the history of the page you go to the top right of the page you want to view.  Click on "view history" and you will see a lot of links appear.  Go to the very bottom of the page (in this case it is only one page, but  some pages you may have to click on further edits).  What you are looking for is a date written in blue like this. 05:51, 8 June 2011  You can watch the page grow as you move up in time.  Interesting.

You will discover that I do not write the page all by myself.  I allowed Jim to give me links to his articles and he helped me with grammar and spelling.  In the world of Wikipedia at first this seems like a major no-no.  Wikipedia believes that if a person is noteworthy enough to warrant a page then there should be enough data floating around for the writer to find, plus the writer shouldn't be personally involved because then they won't be neutral.  This is all really true, we don't want people making vanity pages, or trying to hide unflattering information.  We are trying to write an encyclopedia not People Magazine.

In truth I don't have the time to gather all the information by myself when I know that a quick email to Jim and he would be able to come up with most of the links quickly.  Who better than the subject to have the info stored somewhere.  In reality I could have gone to a website Jim already had stored somewhere and copied the links and never have contacted him at all.  The only difference is that I notified him that I was doing this, and asked for as much info as I could get. 

Once you have gathered everything you can find, you have to sort through it.  Read each link, toss out the ones that are not going to be helpful, and follow up on other leads.  It can be very time consuming and something that the subject should not be helping you with.  Only the writer can know what to keep in, as I said you don't want to hide unflattering but noteworthy items.

In Jim's case it was a little easier as I was able to find him mentioned elsewhere on Wikipedia with citations.  I just copied the links to the citation and then pasted them back into his page.  It is important to re-follow those links to make sure the link still works, and it is going to the place you intended.  Plus on a on-line citation you need to write the date you "accessed" the page.  

While your working on the page you should make sure it is clear that it is not a regular Wikipedia page.  Pasting this {{Userspace draft|source=ArticleWizard|date=June 2011}}  into the top of your edit page will give you this...
 

This is not a Wikipedia article: It is an individual user's work in progress page, and may be incomplete and/or unreliable. The current/final version of this article may be located at James Underdown now or in the future. For guidance on developing this draft, see Wikipedia:So you made a userspace draft or Wikipedia:Requests for feedback.This draft was last edited 30 days ago.

When you are completely sure you are done with the page and ready to publish, then you need to check with a few more people.  When I wrote my first page I tried to leave it on a page where other editors will look it over and offer advise.  I don't even remember where that was because after a few days and getting no response I grew frustrated and actually went to a few editors I had "met" on Wikipedia.  They looked it over and made some changes to it.  Then you have one more decision to make.  Do you want to try and get the page featured on the front page of Wikipedia?  It will mean a lot of views.  See this blog for more info.

In the case of Jim Underdown, I wanted to get him featured as a Did You Know?  That was kinda tricky as I'm not the type that follows written directions well.  The reason why this needs to be decided right away before publishing is because only pages five days old or less can apply (or pages that were severely edited). I'm not going to detail how I got Jim on that DYK page at the moment because I don't know if I did it right, and I don't know if he will be accepted.  

When I decided to actually publish the page (I call it launching) then I went to "edit page" and copied everything (except the "This is not a Wikipedia article...") and then went to normal Wikipedia and typed in "James Underdown" in the search bar.  It came up with the same page I had found in June when I started the project.  I simply pasted everything into the page, wrote in the edit summary area, hit preview and reread the page again, and added the page to my watch list then finally hit publish.  This page now has a different URL than the Sgerbic/James Underdown page.  And it has a clean fresh history.

But I was not done.  Remember I know Jim Underdown.  

You need to disclose this to anyone who might think that the page isn't neutral or wants to make ugly for some reason.  Wikipedia editors have this policy called "In Good Faith" which means that until you have other knowledge contradicting it, you need to assume that the editor means well and isn't trying to fool/hide/lie or whatever the rest of the readers/editors.  

So on Jim's discussion page I left this little message.  

Launching James Underdown's page today. To be clear about any possible NPV I want to admit that I do know Underdown personally, I stand by everything in this article. If you have any concerns with any possible conflict of interest, I will gladly stand back and allow you to make the necessary changes without complaint from me. I understand that though I am the creator of this page, I do not "own" this page, it is the property of the world. Sgerbic (talk) 23:17, 31 August 2011 (UTC)  

And I mean it.

We Got Your Wiki Back! ~ How To

So you've read my blog on why we need to have our spokespeople's backs.  Awesome, I hope you 'got it' and and wondering where to start.  As you can guess there is a ton of work to be done.  Throughout this blog you will see lots of ways you can help.

A visit to a site that is quickly growing to be one of my favorite resources on Wikipedia.  The page devoted to 93 American Skeptics.  There are pages for other countries too.  Now you and I know that 93 is an very low number.  We could probably just go through one of those Steve and Stephanie shirts that list 1,000 scientists named Steve or Stephanie who believe in Evolution and get a lot of  them on this page.  (seems like that would make an interesting blurb that could be copied/pasted on every one of those pages)  I've discussed a couple times how to add people to this list so I won't go into it again here.

The American Skeptics listed here may be a great starting point for anyone interested in the We Got Your Wiki Back! project.  Simply close your eyes and click and make that person your project for awhile until you feel it is better than what you started with.  I'm sure that many editors are going to need to collaborate to get these things right.

I also advocate that when you are editing a page you should approach that person and let them know you have updated that page.  I'm sure this isn't correct Wikipedia policy, but FaceBook and email make this so easy today that we should take advantage of it.

My reasons for doing so are these.

1.  They need to know we care.  They need to feel supported.  They need to know We Got Their Wiki Back!

2.  I approach nearly everyone (skeptical world) that I quote or edit.  I have never received a bad response, mostly it is just a thank you.  And several times they have been confused how they got a page in the first place, it just seemed to appear.  They don't know how to edit it (I explain they aren't allowed to edit their own page) or the power of having a Wiki page.

3. The best person to know if there is something incorrect on the page is The Person you are editing.  I'm not saying to hide unflattering things about the person, but many times there are errors with dates and names and are easily corrected.  Maybe they have some new research you can look into if they want to point you in that direction.

I hear this from time to time "So and so needs their own page" and they might be right.  There is a growing list of people who need their own pages.  I'm currently working on James Underdown (CFI West and IIG founder) followed by Barry Karr (CSICOP).  There is a lot of work involved when you start a page from the ground up.  I would not recommend it at all.  If you start it then you need to finish it.  It is heartbreaking and frustrating for the person who is getting the page if you just drop the ball and leave it unfinished.  The grief is not worth it unless you really are driven, have the necessary editing skills developed and can write the whole page from a neutral point of view.  These aren't Fan Pages we are making, but encyclopedia pages used for references.

Thought I would mention a comment from someone I know who recently discovered he had a really nice Wikipedia page.  This person had approached a group overseas about a project he wanted to do with them.  They wrote back and asked for more information about who he was.  This person told me that he said "check me out on Wikipedia" and when he said that he felt really good about it.  We have his Wiki Back!

Google Alerts (Doonesbury & Jenny McCarthy too)

Have a favorite topic or person you want to edit on Wikipedia.  Hoping for some "new" information to fall into your inbox.  Don't be afraid to use Google Alerts (just search for the phrase on Google and you will find full instructions on how to set up your custom alert).

This awesome easy to use tool allows you to completely customize your search to include or reject words, narrowing down your search to just want you are trying to find.

I have at least 10 searches set up to notify me daily.  I'm not overwhelmed with results, maybe one or two a day come in allowing me to quickly see what is new to the Internet.

For example I have James Underdown on Google search, with this I received the newly uploaded YouTube videos from a lecture he gave at ReasonCon last month.  I quickly cited the videos and stuck the citation after the blurb I had already written on his not-yet launched Wikipedia page.

Another example for using Google Alerts deals with a issue I have with Jenny "bodycount" McCarthy and the cartoon Doonesbury.  Some of you may remember Doonesbury writing a awesome Sunday cartoon about her rants about vaccines and autism.  Well I tried to put up on her Wikipedia site a reference and link to the cartoon.  That was quickly pulled and there was a bit of a discussion about it by us editors.  Here is the exchange...

I think this is more than relevant to Wikipedia. Doonesbury is a major player in the cartoon world and choosing to lampoon McCarthy is like an top-fold political cartoon. This isn't up there with McCarthy liking her feet rubbed, it is a carefully thought out statement by Doonesbury and I think it is relevant to her controversy. Feb 20, 2011 Cartoon Doonesbury lampoons McCarthy's endorsement of the discredited Wakefield report saying "she's done real harm to preventive healthcare...". ^[1] SGerbic (talk) 16:29, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

While I agree that Doonesbury is a major player, not just a run-of-the-mill cartoon, we have other sources saying the same thing, so using a cartoon seems gratuitous in this case. If other disagree, fine with me, but I think it warrants discussion. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:39, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, Doonesbury is a significant cartoon. However, we're still in the realm of the dreaded "In popular culture" here. Using the suggested test there, let's see how we do: "Has the subject acknowledged the existence of the reference?" No. "Have reliable sources that don't generally cover the subject pointed out the reference?" No. "Did any real-world event occur because of the reference?" No. "If you can't answer "yes" to at least one of these, you're just adding trivia. Get all three and you're possibly adding valuable content." - SummerPhD (talk) 19:07, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

Agree with SummerPhD above. Doonesbury is notable, McCarthy is notable, but Doonesbury having a strip about McCarthy isn't necessarily notable unless other reliable sources pick it up. Dayewalker (talk) 19:47, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

And that's the beauty of Wikipedia.  Some rules work perfectly in conjunction with our plans and some work against it.   In this case the editor is saying that we don't want to just place "Trivia" up on people's pages, we need to make sure it is relevant otherwise it is just "fill".  Sometimes trivia should be used to humanize us and I think in some cases that might be interesting but it should be done with a "light touch".

We are looking for NOTABLE references which is why I state we need to work backwards.  Start with the notable reference and then move to the blurb and citation.

So in this case I have a Google alert for Jenny McCarthy and Doonesbury.  I haven't received any notification and will probably give up this search if the media were going to pick up the reference they would have done so by now.  But it was a good effort, if McCarthy had gone to the public (Tweet, Blog, Interview or whatever) and mentioned her Doonesbury lampoon then I would have received notification of it.  And WHAM there it would be on her Wikipedia page.