Slate’s David Auerbach published an article this week called “Encyclopedia Frown”. It’s a great summary and it’s showing how this problem is just increasing. “The encyclopedia that anyone can edit” is at risk of becoming, in computer scientist Aaron Halfaker’s words, “the encyclopedia that anyone who understands the norms, socializes him or herself, dodges the…
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As readers of this site may know, I come into this ‘problem’ facing mind/body topics on Wikipedia as an outsider, I have no ‘mind/body’ agenda in my professional life – as my focus is media architecture with a focus on online consensus building. I got involved with this community primarily because I offered to help…
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Dear Tim, While reviewing your latest report on skeptic activities on Wikipedia, I realize it’s possible this site may have been wrong about you this whole time. Perhaps you’re not a black hat mastermind. Perhaps your data is just corrupted and I just assumed you should know better. Using pseudoscience to expose pseudoscience probably not…
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. Spiked online just published a broad review of the unaccountability issue on Wikipedia. Much of it is not new, but I was happy to see Wikipedia’s influence being understood as a method of manipulation for influencing public opinion, and if abused properly an essential tool in propaganda. By controlling Wikipedia they could set the…
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. Tim Farley is not my ideological opponent. Contrary to how he passionately prefers to frame these issues to his audience of a few hundred skeptics, a number of the people complaining against skeptic activism online are not believers or promoters of parapsychology or psi/esp or even Rupert Sheldrake. I’m not a parapsychology promoter and…
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“Trust Me, I’m Lying: Confessions of a Media Manipulator” by Ryan Holiday, suggests another motive for contributing to Wikipedia. “Wikipedia acts as a certifier of basic information for many people, including reporters. Even a subtle influence over the way that Wikipedia frames an issue – whether criminal charges, a controversial campaign, a lawsuit, or even…
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I was fumbling through the Wikipedia arbitration requests for pseudoscience, going back to 2006. Mainly the case handled the issues between scienceapologist and Ian Tresmen. What I found interesting coming up in the hearing are similar issues and problems that are still occurring in 2014, yet at least discussed with a bit more reasonably,…
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. Tim Farley, author of Skeptools and of unique interest to the WWHP project, shares with his readers this past January what some academics consider a rich question. Why do people edit Wikipedia? He brings up a (preliminary) study by Sciences Po, Harvard Law School, and University of Strasbourg, which wind up citing social image and…
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. An inconvenient truth for Tim Farley? . Tim Farley does not seem to want to be honest about what’s been happening on Rupert Sheldrake’s article on Wikipedia. Neither does prominent skeptic Jerry Coyne in his article in the New Republic. Either does Susan Gerbic, leader of the skeptic activist organization Guerilla Skepticism on…
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. Susan Gerbic and the GSoW appear to think I have enough credibility to clear them of involvement on the Sheldrake article. Today on their Facebook fanpage she writes: From Susan: One of the trouble makers from the Sheldrake drama believes GSoW when we say we were not involved. http://wikipediawehaveaproblem.com/the-battle-begins/#guerilla-skepticism-on-wikipedia-or-just-wikipedia-skepticism Well first off I’m glad…
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