World Wikipedia - 4 months later

World Wikipedia has been busy.  We are on month four of the formation of this group and moving forward. 

Here are a few updates. 

Luis Garcia Castro created the Spanish version of SkeptiCamp's page.  That really makes me smile when thinking about a grassroots group like SkeptiCamp being supported by another grassroot group.

Today, the Dutch Wikipedia group (lead by editor Rian van Lierop) launched the 7th version of Jerry Andrus, this means the page is available in English, French, Spanish, Arabic, Russian and Portuguese.

I've learned how to add info boxes to Dutch Wikipedia pages that already exist, and have had some success improving the appearance of a few skeptical pages. 

James Randi Before
James Randi After

Michael Shermer Before
Michael Shermer After

The Wendy Hughes video that explains the We Got Your Wiki Back! project has now been translated into Spanish and Dutch (plus the English subtitles). 

The French Paul Kurtz page now has some new pictures, waiting for the French team to start improving the whole page, but in the mean time there is more to look at. Same for the Polish page.

We now have an Indian Wikipedia team.  This is a unique approach we are taking, as they will be editing in English but will focus on topics more associated with India.  This group just formed and is still in the reading everything process of learning, but expect great things from them. 

One thing that came out of the formation of the group was that a page on this elderly gentleman was brought to my attention.  I spent a bit of time cleaning out most of the nonsense (maybe more will need to go).  I was amazed that he was reported to be several hundred years old, someone had even added his name to a category stating that he was born in the 900's.  Yet we know that he died in the 1970's.  I don't think so. 

I've left only one reference and am waiting to see if others come in and improve the article, otherwise this mud man's page is likely to be deleted.

Devaha Baba Before
Devaha Baba After

We also added our first Urdu editor, just waiting for him to get settled in before we start him on projects.

Nix Dorf arranged our first Google Hangout for the editors.  It was a blast but as usual we had a bunch of technical problems.  Getting those all ironed out for our second try.  Finding a time was also interesting, but really very exciting to have people from all over the world on the call. 

Nix is in Brazil
Nicola Mazbar in Atlanta, Georgia
Svetlana Bavykina in Russia
Luis García Castro in Spain
Luis Filipe Pratas in Portugal
and myself in California



If you haven't been keeping up with the World Wikipedia project, here is the blog from our 2 month anniversary. 
 

We Got Your Wiki Back - Jerry Andrus en Español

The World Wikipedia project is still moving along as planned.  Joining Arabic, English, French, Portuguese and Russian is a brand new Spanish page.

Thank you Linda Mazarredo and the Español team for another beautiful page everyone in our community should be familiar with, Jerry Andrus.

As a special treat Linda seems to have found a new video of Jerry Andrus performing his illusions, the video is in Español, but don't let that keep you from watching.  There are a few illusions I've never seen before and I thought I had seen them all.  The ability to WOW us with his own handmade illusions is one reason I selected Jerry Andrus to be the first focus of the World Wikipedia project, he is Universal, no words are needed to amaze us. 

As I look out my window tonight I see a gray and cold evening closing in.  The perfect night to stay home bundled up, take some time to watch all of these videos in whatever language you chose (many of these, our World Wikipedia editors have captioned in several languages).  You can show these to the young people in your life and open their eyes to the amazing world of optical illusions, and then have the discussion of how easily we can be fooled by our eyes.  Think about it, Jerry Andrus can be a discussion everyone on every political spectrum will enjoy, maybe it will facilitate that all important discussion we need to start having with each other, how do we know what we know?

Enjoy!

Jerry Andrus in Español



25,252 11/8/12

We got your Wiki Back Jerry Andrus - Russian

Following on the heels of Nicola Mazbar's Arabic translation of Jerry Andrus this week, we have another first in the World Wikipedia project.

Editor Svetlana Bavykina has created the Jerry Andrus page in Russian!

 

We got your Wiki Back Jerry Andrus - Arabic العربية

I'm amazed at the talent I have on this team.  Out of the blue tonight, Nicola Mazbar posts "Done" in the Arabic team page.  I look and there is this beautiful page all translated and ready for the Arabic world.  I'm just a bit stunned that he made it look so easy. 

Jerry Andrus

What makes this more cool is that although I didn't have a speaker position at Dragon*Con, I talked to everyone that would listen about the World Wikipedia and the Guerrilla Skepticism on Wikipedia projects.  Nicola must have just heard a couple minutes of me talking (probably on a unguarded microphone) when he approached, got my business card and the next thing I knew he was involved and editing.

So I hope you all are as proud as I am of our very first Arabic release.

Thank you Nicola Mazbar! 

Wikipedia World - 2 Months - How are we doing?

This is an update on the World Wikipedia project.  Our two month anniversary is here and so much has been accomplished since my last update 5 weeks ago.

If you are not familiar with the World Wikipedia Project please first check us out here.  

Currently we have 45 World Wikipedia editors. 

In no special order these are the current groups.  16 language groups.

French - français - La guérilla scepticisme
German - Deutsch - Guerilla Skepsis
Russian - Русский - Партизанский скептицизм
Korean - 게릴라 위키 회의주의 (한국어)
Portuguese - Português - Ceticismo de Guerrilha
Spanish - Español - Escepticismo de Guerrilla
Arabic - Guerrilla Skepticism on Wikipedia 
Turkish - Türkçe - Skeptik Vikipedi Gerillaları
Polish - Polska - Guerrilla Skepticism on Wikipedia
Farsi - Guerrilla Skepticism on Wikipedia فارسی
Norway - Norsk - bokmål - Geriljaskeptivisme på Wikipedia
Danish - Dansk - Guerillaskepticisme på Wikipedia

Hebrew - Guerrilla Skepticism on Wikipedia - עברית

Dutch - Nederland - Guerrilla Skepticism on Wikipedia
Swedish - Svenska - Guerrilla Skepticism on Wikipedia
English - Guerrilla Skepticism on Wikipedia
-------------------------------------
Jerry Andrus - 

Nix Dorf finished the first Jerry Andrus page. 

We Got Your Wiki Back Jerry Andrus in Portuguese.

We have the Andrus page started in French, Arabic, Dutch, Swedish and Russian.


------------------------------------


Bob Carroll -

I noticed that Bob Carroll had a WP page in French - actually it was a stub.  I took the English picture (I photographed at SkeptiCal 2011) and added it to the French page.  Editor Patrick Mahoney translated the English caption and while he was at it, he translated a lot more of the page.

Before

After

While I was at it, I added the picture to Carroll's  German, Spanish, Czech, Japanese and Romanian pages.


 -------------------------------------

Massimo Polidoro -

I emailed Massimo Polidoro and asked him to upload a new image to Wikimedia Commons that we could use on all the pages that exist for him.  He did so and I added the picture to his English, French, Italiano and Eesti pages. I keep trying to add it to the Finnish page (Suomi) but a bot keeps deleting it.  We don't have any Finnish editors to help fix this.  Also don't have any Italian editors, I explained this to Massimo and hopefully some will step forward.

Look at the image that was being used.  Pretty awful isn't it?

Patrick Mahoney, again came in after I added the picture, and changed the caption to French.
---------------------------------------

Ray Hyman - Portuguese by Nix Dorf is almost done but didn't make the two month deadline.

---------------------------------------

Penn & Teller - Portuguese by  Filipe Russo

Before
After

Blog link
---------------------------------------

James Randi -

Nicola Mazbar added the IIG beard photo and a Arabic translation to his page.

Istem Fer added the Beard image to the Turkish Randi page along with a caption.

Nicola Mazbar added the photo to the Hebrew page as well.

---------------------------------------

Video captions

You might remember that we are trying to caption videos (where we know the video owner) in English.  Once translated in English, then it is easier for the video to be translated into other languages.  Once that is done then we can use the captioned video as a citation on other language pages. 

We have one editor Brad McDowell from Iowa who is systematically captioning videos, first we focused on Jerry Andrus videos.  Now he is working on James Randi and Ray Hyman videos.  This is a big help, but a big project.  Brad could really use some help, and I can train, so please be in contact if you want to help.

Here are a few that we have finished right now...

Ray Hyman on Jerry Andrus on Wikipedia
English, Portuguese, Spanish

Rex Young and Jerry Andrus at TAM
English, French, Dutch

James Randi Describes Jerry Andrus
English, Portuguese, Spanish, French, Dutch

James Underdown Wrestles a Bear
English

Wendy Hughes Explains Guerrilla Skepticism on Wikipedia
English

Ray Hyman and Mark Edward discuss Mentalism
English

Ray Hyman on Sylvia Browne
English

Conversations with Ray Hyman (part 3)
English

Conversations with Ray Hyman (part 2)
English

Conversations with Ray Hyman (part 1)
English

Conversations with Ray Hyman (part 4)
English

-------------------------------------

We were given a lot of space on the "Flying Teapot" blog which is one of the largest Portuguese blogs.  Nix Dorf arranged and wrote this article.

-------------------------------------

A few interviews about the project in the last two months.

Penny Chan from The Skeptic Zone podcast
Tumbling Brain Matter Public Radio
TAM 2012 with Chris Brown
The Skeptical Teacher blog
Tim Farley lecture at Dragon*Con
Tim Farley lecture at TAM 2012

-----------------------------------
 I hope I didn't forget someone or something.  Its been a busy 2 months just getting organized.  We are just getting started.  I hope to catch everyone up on what is happening with this project every few months.

You know my plea!  We have a lot of people involved, yet, we have room for so many more.  Don't think just because I already have a Spanish or German or whatever group we don't need your help. Some of these groups only have one lonely editor, they need company.   And look at how many missing languages we don't have.   

And even if you don't speak another language, or you feel rusty, don't be shy.  You will quickly pick on these skills.  I read only in English, yet I'm making edits in Russian, Dutch, Portuguese and more.  We also need more people captioning videos in English so they can be translated to other languages.  We need more pictures uploaded, more videos uploaded and so on.  There is enough work to be done for a thousand editors, and still need more. 

Please please please consider helping with this project.  Contact me at susangerbic@yahoo.com and I'll help you get started.

Thank you

We Got Your Wiki Back in Portuguese - Jerry Andrus!

I received a lot of kudos over the six pages I just launched last week, that was a lot of work and took a ton of time.  I'm very proud of those pages, but I think this announcement tops that.  Our first World Wikipedia project is completed.! The editor is Nix Dorf who lives in Brazil and has never written a page before.  He contacted me a few days after TAM 2012 when he saw a 2 minute video of me talking about needing foreign language editors. 

Nix completely understood what the goal of the project was, and started right in.  He forged ahead and just started editing.  I wasn't quite sure how this all would happen, and thought it would move a lot slower, but guess that wasn't Nix's plan. 

Several of the videos we are using for references on this page are now captioned in Portuguese.  Other videos are pure Andrus's illusions and need no translating.  Which is one reason I decided to start with Jerry Andrus.  Optical Illusions are universal.

Now we have several other pages started and I'm really enjoying watching them learn.  Every question they have helps me improve how I explain things and train.  This is great fun and very exciting.  Browsing through pages in Portuguese I can't find anyone in the skeptic universe  that has a nicer more detailed page than Jerry Andrus has now.

The plan was to use Jerry Andrus as a starting point.  One page on skepticism that was well written that we could branch off of, hopefully, someday all the names and topics on Andrus's page will have a blue hyperlink to another Portuguese page.

Now the Portuguese editors can move on to other skeptical spokespeople and topics. I'm really hoping that we won't just concentrate on Americans, but try to focus on people that are relevant to that language's pages.  Skeptics that appear on TV, radio, print media in Portuguese.  I don't know who these people are, but hope that the team will identify them and get started. 


So here is the link to our first Wikipedia World new page.  Thank you again Nix!

http://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerry_Andrus

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. 

Wikipedia World - 3 weeks later

There has been a lot of interest in the Wikipedia World Project.  Most are obviously not involved in the group but still rooting for it to be a big success.

We are now about 3 weeks out from TAM 2012 when I announced this project.  And I think an update would be welcome about now.

We now have 13 language groups formed; English, German, Norsk, French, Turkish, Dutch, Korean, Russian, Portuguese, Espanol, Danish, Farsi and Swedish.

The IIG Randi Beard photo has gone worldwide with it included on these pages...

English
German
Turkish
French
Spanish
Russian
Dutch
Portuguese
Norsk

Our next project is to produce a Jerry Andrus page in each language.  After that page is done we will be able to branch off onto more pages.

The English page re-write is almost done and just waiting for me to spend a week in Eugene, OR gathering more interviews and photos.

The Portuguese and Dutch pages for Andrus are about a forth of the way complete. 

We have identified 7 videos that show Jerry performing or just show his illusions.  These 7 videos have very few words and no need for captioning, they are ready to go.

We have 5 videos that discuss Andrus and need to be captioned first in English and then in all the other languages.  We have 3 of these done in English, and 1 in Portuguese and 1 in Dutch.

I'm really enjoying doing the English captioning, at first it was confusing to me and took a long time.  Now I've got the hang of it and its like a video game of sorts, but with an actual purpose.  I've done several others in my video library but only the 3 for this project,  I will focus on improving that number this weekend.

We have have several Andrus videos that are already in a language other than English.  Those are ready to go onto pages as is.

Several of the language groups have done a cursory look at what lies ahead for us.  From what we can discover we have our hands full.  Nix Dorf provided us with a good overview of the Portuguese and Spanish Wikipedia pages on this blog.

We are making to-do lists in many of the language groups, and of course the individual editors are free to work on whatever projects/pages they want.  Several have already expressed the desire to work on homeopathy in their native language.  Niels is very interested in creating this page in his language, MusiCure.  Apparently it is big news in Denmark.

My goal is to also really focus on creating pages (or improving pages) for people and groups that are specific to that language.  We get so focused on English speakers being the big-wigs in the skeptical movement that we forget there are skeptical spokepeople all over.  Each language group will need to identify who/what these are and make a plan.

We have had many glitches, most of Wikipedia World team are brand new editors, we are stumbling through this together as so far the editing screen is exactly the same in English and all languages.   Kind of like using an ATM with a different language on the screen, you just hopefully push the right buttons.

On Portuguese Wikipedia apparently you can't use YouTube videos as a citation unless you get the URL on the "whitelist" first.  That was interesting, but we managed to work through that.

I usually make a user page for myself on the different WP language pages.  On one I instantly received a "welcome to Wikipedia" kind of notice, and then seconds later a notice for speedy deletion of my user page.  It is still there but that was a bit unnerving.  Rian also got the same notice when she created a page on the Dutch WP.  We never figured that out.  Its been interesting, but we are starting to get the hang of this. 

As usual we really do need your help.  We need 20 times the amount of editors we have now.  Its an exciting time to be doing this, and an exciting project.  Even if you don't have a second language, we can help you find your way to helping out with this project.

Please write to me at susangerbic@yahoo.com

Guerrilla Skepticism on Wikipedia - World

The English guerrilla skepticism project has been amazingly successful in the last year.  With only a handful of active editors, we have created many new pages, re-written many more, and acted as police just about everywhere.  TAM 2012 has become a turning point for this project.  As I've been saying since March, we need to be global.  Wikipedia is the most important tool for skepticism that exists today, we can not keep ignoring that the vast majority of the world does not speak English.  Let's get over that, with current Internet tools we can easily communicate, organize and get this done.

The World project begins today.  We have already created a Portuguese, Spanish and French group that will work on WP in those languages.  All discussions (accept from English only editors like me) will happen in that group's language.  I want to encourage people who do not speak English to feel comfortable editing in their language to participate.

In the World discussion group we will discuss all the who/what/how of editing.  I have a bunch of volunteers (and still need more) with all levels of editing experience.  We will learn from each other, looking over edits and correcting grammar and so on.  I'm sure your reading/writing skills will really improve.

The World project will mainly follow the structure of the English project.  Improve pages of our skeptical spokespeople, add photographs, promote science and skepticism, remove vandalism, promote science/skeptic groups and tons more.

What this is not, a group promoting vandalism, or ganging up on other editors.  You have to still follow the rules of Wikipedia, we are going to turn around the reputation WP has amongst our community.   We aren't writing this for our own group, this is for the world.

How this is going to happen.  As I said if you talked to me at TAM, we are going to begin with some simple edits as a group.  First we are going to insert one JREF picture into James Randi's WP in all languages that the page exists in.  I have no idea what all those languages are.  So that is one of the first steps, 27 are listed. This is the area on the far left of the page.  This is the picture. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:JREF_TAM9_Beard_Photo.jpg and I already have the caption translated in many languages and hopefully will get this done tonight.

Months ago I tried to get people interested in editing the word Evolution in all languages, but it is an intimidating subject, very technical and too advanced to start with. 

So we are going to start with Jerry Andrus.  I have almost finished his page in English and we are not going to translate it, but write a new one in every language possible.  We are going to do this mainly by translating existing videos.  There are many Andrus videos already existing in other languages, we just need to know what they are.  We will all be using the same captioning software recommended by Tim Farley.  We need a ton of volunteers to subtitle in English as well.

Keep in mind that you do not have to only work on Jerry's page, you have free reign to edit everything, I highly encourage you to do so.  That kind of thing will happen naturally, once you learn how to add a picture to one page, you will go and add to others.  I'm using the Andrus page as a training tool, also it will make sure we all are together with a rich history of modern skepticism under our belts.  Once Andrus  is done we can link to Randi's, JREF, CFI, optical illusions, Uri, cold-reading, Ray Hyman and on and on.  So we do need to know what exists and what we need to create.

Please contact me if you would like to become involved in this project.  susangerbic@yahoo.com  You will also need to friend me on Facebook. (I apologize in advance if you refuse to use Facebook, you can use an alias and call it Bookface, but all communication about the projects are going to happen there in closed groups)

Thank you in advance, looking forward to getting to know you all and making real changes to critical thinking happen world-wide.

Susan

Video of Ray Hyman discussing Jerry Andrus and Wikipedia with me at TAM 2012

Video of Wendy Hughes explaining the We Got Your Wiki Back! project

Instructions on how to get started editing.

Blog on the speakers at the 6th World Skeptic Congress.

Jerry Andrus - a Universal Icon - Lets get started!

Jerry Andrus - Skeptic's Toolbox 2004 - from my camera

My current project is to improve/rewrite the faculty pages for the Eugene, Oregon Skeptic's Toolbox pages, as well as to create the Toolbox page.  I've discovered during my research on re-writing the Jerry Andrus page that there exists many YouTube videos about or by Andrus in languages other than English.  Yet Jerry's current page is only available in English.

What a shame.

I have discussed many times that the Guerrilla Skepticism on Wikipedia project is far too important to remain in English only.  Yet, I lack the skills necessary to read/write in other languages.  You don't know how frustrating that is for me, but it just shows how important it is to find editors who can.

In the call-out linked above where I discuss the need to expand our outreach to controversial topics outside English, I've not received a single email volunteering to help.  When I've approached Facebook "friends" who have other languages other than English (I tried a personal message to 30 people) when I got a response (7 people) I was mainly told "sorry, but I don't read/write well enough in that language."  (insert deep sigh here)  I think they were worried that they lacked the technical knowledge to translate a page on like "evolution" into their native language.

Possibly so.  So now I'm trying an easier subject to focus on. 

I'm thinking that Jerry Andrus may be a great place to focus our efforts when we do find those editors.  For those of you who did not know Jerry, he was a genius.  A gentle man, who could not tell a lie and wanted more than anything to show others his amazing optical illusions.  These illusions are universal, made with simple household objects, string, cardboard and tape.  Something a child anywhere in the world could copy and improve on with little instruction other than that spark to get them started.

And what a spark!  Teaching people about optical illusions teaches them how easily the brain can be fooled, which may inspire them to begin to think critically in other areas.

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

What I'm suggesting is that we find people willing to edit in their language and start with the existing videos.  All the articles I'm finding on Andrus would need to be translated into that language as well, possibly they have already been created?  The Did You Know? front page of Wikipedia project exists in all languages as well, and it would be a great push to get people who would normally not search out his page, to discover it. 

This would be a time consuming effort, but I guarantee an important project in bringing the skeptical message to anywhere an Internet connection exists.

Here are just a few of the videos I've found of Andrus performing...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CwxWtK0uHxw

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

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

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1_fKf-GLgc

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

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FAJr6sFFQC4

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

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H1hkU6k80ew

We have just finished the 6th Skeptic World Congress last week in Berlin.  Surely we had attendees wanting to get involved in improving skepticism in their native languages?

So I'm suggesting if you personally don't read/write in a second language can you pass this on to someone you think might want to get involved?  Help me find a way to get this project out to skeptic groups outside the English speaking world.  And lets get started.

BTW - really could use some help finding sources for the Skeptic's Toolbox page (in English).

Please contact me at susangerbic@yahoo.com