Half-Dozen New Releases - Skeptic's Toolbox Faculty

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

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

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

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

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


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

HERE YOU GO

Skeptic's Toolbox - brand new

Loren Pankratz - brand new

James Alcock - before

James Alcock - current

Ray Hyman - before

Ray Hyman - current

Jerry Andrus - before

Jerry Andrus - current

Barry Beyerstein - before

Barry Beyerstein - current

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

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

Let them in on the Joke!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And so he has.

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

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

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

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

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






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

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

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

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

ONE MORE THING




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

Catch up with me this summer

Taking Guerrilla Skepticism on Wikipedia on the road, catch up with me if you can.

July 6th - Silver Legacy - "End of Time" conference for MENSA (this is a closed conference unless you are a member of MENSA)  Skepticism in Action - I will be on a panel with Brad Lutts (Reno Skeptics), Ben Radford and Mark Edward.

That Friday night July 6th. Join the Reno Skeptics who are hosting a Skeptics in the Pub meetup.  Location to be determined but here is the FB group announcing it.

Saturday, July 7th - Reason4Reason will be featuring Mark Edward discussing his upcoming book Psychic Blues.  I will be there as well, so please if you are in the area of San Francisco that night come hang out with us.  

July 12 -16th find me wandering the venue with camera in hand at South Point (Las Vegas) during the TAM conference.  I will be gathering lots of data for Wikipedia.

August 9-12 find me in Eugene, OR for the Skeptic's Toolbox hosted at the University of Oregon.  I will be launching the re-writes of several faculty at the beginning of August.

August 30-Sept 4th - Dragon*Con in Atlanta, Georgia.  I'm told I might be able to arm-wrestle for a spot on a panel or two. 

September (Date to be determined) I will have my own lecture on Wikipedia for the Reason4Reason group in San Francisco.  Stay tuned for that.

Video Interviews and Guerrilla Skepticism on Wikipedia

I hear from people all the time they love this project, but they are looking for a non-editing way to help out. 

So, this blog is for you.

Editors of Wikipedia can not add in content that does not exist.  Most of us do not have the ability to create articles and publish them in noteworthy places, we badly need more content.  Editors can quote from podcast interviews (better if the podcast is noteworthy, but not necessary) but then again very few of us have the ability to create a podcast.

Blogs generally are a good way to stay informed and create community.  But Wikipedia editors are not supposed to cite blogs.

What most of us do have, is the ability to create video interviews of noteworthy people (not forgetting those who will soon become noteworthy).

I'm finding the use of video interviews increasingly valuable for the We Got Your Wiki Back! project.  You can't write a whole Wikipedia page based on YouTube video interviews, but it can work to supplement an article, shore up vagueness, and bring lots of personality back to a Wikipedia page that may otherwise seem dry.

The YouTube video just needs to be dated and location is also a good idea.  Any extra information you can add on the video is also helpful.

I am currently re-writing the Wikipedia pages for several of the founders of the skeptical movement.  As well as creating from scratch the Skeptic Toolbox page.  I've been having trouble finding citations about the formation of the Toolbox as well as the motivation for creating it.  So I sat down with the creator Ray Hyman on Father's day and on video asked him about the history and motivation.  Uploaded it to YouTube, quoted him and cited the video.  DONE!

While I was at it I managed to get 4 more videos about his history in science and skepticism.  His comments not only shore up citation holes on his page, but they work to confirm other citations on other people's pages.  When he mentions that the first workshop was with Jim Alcock and Steve Shaw (now Banachek) that strengthens citations on Alcock and Shaw's pages.  We have to constantly remember that back in the 70's and 80's people didn't carry around video cameras in their pockets, and no one realized how important those first meetings would be, the media surely wasn't paying attention.  We need to document our history moving forward, as well as recapture what we can of our past.

Some other examples of using videos for citations on Wikipedia.

I've met James Randi many times, and with my good friend Kitty Mervine we tag-team taping just about every story he tells.  You never know if it will be a magic trick or a personal story, or something about the history of skepticism, but it is always something worth capturing.

When I began editing in 2010 I went through my videos for some reason and came across this one.  Randi discusses Claiborne Pell.   (I was on a rocking cruise ship and missed the beginning of the story) and I had to ask Facebook friends who Randi was talking about because I had never heard the name before.  Here is the Pell page before I added a Paranormal belief section.  And now here is the page with the Randi interview. 

Another great example of using videos to support a page.  When the Reason Rally happened at the beginning of the year the WP page was heavily edited by religious editors trying to diminish the rally.  They quoted all the news sources they could find, which were noteworthy sources but they were all religious.

I didn't attend the rally, but a woman whom knew of this project but had never thought she would ever have a need for help, wrote to me.  The page was a mess, skeptics had not yet come out with any media supporting the rally.  As you can see from this link, the page had become very religious friendly.  According to all the newspaper articles, there were hundreds of Christians handing out flyers and free water to the bad Atheists.  The Atheists were holding really evil signs and saying bad things about religion.

One example was this one "Other atheist activists held more controversial signs such as “So many Christians, so few lions,” in reference to the Diocletianic Persecution, in which several Christians were tortured." That's right "one example", there were thousands of people there and one person holding a sign should be mentioned?  Funny that they said only "several Christians were tortured", I guess they didn't have the room to name each one individually?  Seriously, the bias of that editor was obvious.  

The page went under many changes with two people sitting on the page.  They were arguing and reverting edits like crazy.   See the talk page for more info on how crazy it was. 

It took me some time to finally take this page seriously and go in and change it to what it looks like now.  Finally skeptics started posting videos of the speakers, and people like Brian Engler uploaded images.  Once the videos were up, I searched for the ones with the best quality, and edited out the quotes that I thought represented the speaker best.  Then cited the video.  We never want to remove all criticism, but just get down to the facts.  


The video you get does not have to be fancy, don't wait until you have the perfect setting, turn on the camera and do the best with what you got.  When you upload it, tag it with everything you can think of, and again don't fuss on it too much, its more important that it is uploaded quickly than playing with it for months until you forget about it (or worse delete it)

As in the case of the Reason Rally, we do not always have time to wait for the "official" videos to come out.  Citations must be freely available to anyone who wants to follow the link and see whatever it is you saw when you wrote the citation. (note: this does not mean that you must have a URL, the reference has to be one that without a lot of effort they can also obtain)

So pull out your smart phone,  or video camera and get these interviews recorded.  I could also use some help finding these interviews that should be on these pages.  Please contact me with whatever you got stored on your YouTube feed that might be relevant. 

I was just asked yesterday to recommend a good book talking about the modern skeptical movement's history.  Other than a few mentions in journals, there isn't one that I know of.  We are still waiting on the biographies (or auto-biographies) for our founders.  In the meantime, some of us over on Wikipedia are doing our best to get the citations, pictures and videos all in one place.  Future historians will thank us!

As usual, if you would like to help out with this project contact me at susangerbic@yahoo.com

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