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Monday, July 25, 2011

We Got Your Wiki Back! ~ Page Makeovers!

I'd like to take a minute to thank everyone that is working on the edits for this project.  I'll update this page as I find more.  But wanted you to check out the before and after. 

You can always find the before of a page by clicking on the "view history" tab on the upper right side of the Wiki page you are viewing. Click on the "Date written in Blue".

I'm linking to the page as I originally saw it.  The after page may change from the time I'm posting this to the time you get a chance to view it.

Brian Dunning (skeptic)  BEFORE
Brian Dunning (author)  NOW

Sean Faircloth BEFORE
Sean Faircloth   NOW

MonsterTalk BEFORE (the before is what was written in 12 hours and launched when Karen Stollznow's page made the Did You Know? front page of Wikipedia on Saturday July 23, 2011. 
MonsterTalk  NOW

Jennifer McCreigh  BEFORE  (this was what the page looked like on July 24, 2011)
Jennifer McCreigh   NOW

Ben Radford  BEFORE
Ben Radford   NOW

Looking for a page that needs improvement?  Check out some of these Category Pages.  Close your eyes and click on a name, and that is your "date" for the next hour or so.  Do what you can to clean up as best you can.  Remember that these Category Pages are lacking entries.  Follow the directions from this blog to add more people to the page so everyone can play along.

[[Category: American skeptics]]
[[Category: Australian sceptics]]
[[Category: New Zealand sceptics]]
[[Category: Brazilian skeptics]]
[[Category: Indian skeptics]]
[[Category: Finnish sceptics]]
[[Category: British sceptics]]
[[Category: English skeptics]]
[[Category: Canadian skeptics]]


Sunday, July 24, 2011

Psychic Detectives

As more and more people get turned onto the idea of editing Wikipedia for skeptical content they ask me "what should I do?"

My advise is always the same.  Open a Wikipedia account (Wiki Commons if you are going to upload pictures) and read my entire blog.  Then pick something that interests you and get started.  Ask for feedback if you feel you need it.  Then comment here on the blog letting us know what your working on. 

Ben Radford and I are on the same mindset of a page that badly needs help.  Psychic Detectives (in my opinion the lowest of the woo people).  I remember reading an article in SI ages ago about the best evidence for a actual "solved" case using psychics.  I didn't know (at that time) any of the parties concerned, but some time has passed and I'm familiar with all the players now.  The investigator of that article was Ben. 

At TAM9 at the CFI table they were giving away free copies of SI, one issue was this one from March/April 2010.  I snagged it and kept trying to read it at the IIG table when I wasn't talking to people.  I never got more than a couple sentences into the article when I had to put it back down.  To make a long story short (too late) I did not come home with that issue, nor can I find the one I had at home and it isn't on-line.

So I'm asking for help.  I can't update this site without having access to articles.  That issue was totally awesome with references to Sylvia Browne and the "best case for psychic detectives" in it.

When you look at the psychic detective page you will see how pathetic it actually is.  Badly sourced for something that we could easily fix.  It does not generate a lot of hits (only 493 in June 2011) but we don't know who these people are, they might be total believers or maybe fence sitters accessing this page.  It does not matter, this page is in the public's eye and needs attention.

Besides, once the blurbs are written for this page, we can take the citations and blurbs and leave them on all the mentioned psychic pages.  Sylvia Browne included.  Spread the knowledge.

Please help.

Friday, July 22, 2011

Did You Know? Front Page of Wikipedia ~ Karen Stollznow

What would you do if you were given a 24 hour notice that 5,000 strangers were going to come trampling in your house, looking through your drawers and cupboards, when your not there to greet them?   The catch is that you want them to visit, you want them to look under the bed and behind the couch.  These are total strangers who you are inviting in.  Kinda a scary idea isn't it?  How does your house look, is it ready?

This is about to happen to a Wikipedia page that Tim Farley created for Karen Stollznow.  I helped add a few links here and there, but the credit for the site and getting Karen on the front page of Wikipedia for 8 hours on Saturday July 23, 2011 is completely Tims.

First go to the main Wikipedia page (I've heard this is one of 3 leading pages on the Internet).  You will see several catagories...

Today's Featured Article
In the News
On this Day...
Did you know?

Tim Farley apparently figured out how we can use the "Did You Know?" section to our skeptical advantage.  This is right up there with the "Got Your Wiki Back" project.  I'm not exactly sure how this all works (and you can read about it right there on the Wiki site) but from what I've learned the featured pages are there because someone requested they be there.  The Wiki page has to be new and the quote that is left there must be something that can be linked to a really good source.

Why is this important?

Well because the 8 hours that the site is listed will generate about 5K extra hits.  And not only will Karen's page be accessed, but the ripple effect will cause all the links that are on her page to also be accessed (to a lesser degree). 

So there is a flurry of activity going on behind the scenes tonight, getting the last bit of crumbs off the counter and linking everything possible in order to get ready for the visitors.  Nothing like a looming deadline in your face to get things done.  This Wiki page was created today in anticipation of Karen's premier.  

For those interested in how things work, here is the queue for the Did You Know page.  

BTW today Tim Farley released this blog giving more reasons why skeptics should be editing Wikipedia. 

Check out the home page for Wikipedia Saturday July 22, 2011.

Tuesday, July 19, 2011

Lets Talk Numbers

 
Get out there and Edit!




We are going to talk about numbers today.  We all can agree that editing Wikipedia for skeptical content is a great idea, but how can we measure results?  Do we know if people are actually accessing these sites?  I'm very interested in your opinions about the following stats.

I know that Sylvia Browne is not really performing these days, her star is fading as the criticism is rising.  The Montel Williams Show isn't promoting her anymore (in fact they were cancelled) so I would think that few people access her site.  Well just a few 11,966 looked at her page during June 2011.  I don't know how many hits Robert Lancaster got from his Stop Sylvia Site, but I would bet it would also be in the 5 digits.  Comparing June hits to her Wiki page she had 11,940 in 2008, 10,646 in 2009 and 9,681 in 2010.  So she is averaging about 10K hits in a month.  Robert if you are reading this, would you be so kind to let me know how many hits you got to your site in June of any of the above years? 

Power Balance Bracelets Wiki page was launched in Dec 2010, fairly recent but they have been getting in the news a lot lately.   Reading over the Wiki page there is almost nothing positive there.  Yeah Us!   Would you believe that 20,720 people looked at that Wiki page in June 2011?  Amazing!

I don't know how many hits we get to the IIG Wiki page from the Power Balance Wiki hyperlink, but I do know that in total 1,179 people visited the site for June 2011.  I can't access (yet) where the hits are coming from, direct from outside Wiki or because of a hyperlink left elsewhere on Wikipedia. 

If you have been following this blog you will remember my tussle for an edit on the  Lamar Odom Wiki page.  See this blog on the history of my effort to get my blurb to remain on his page.  Apparently he is a pretty popular fellow.  I had no idea how popular until now.  232,555 hits to his Wiki page just in June 2011.  Wow!

I suppose people are looking at his stats, but anyone a bit curious about Lamar will look at the section on his personal life and find these two blurbs...


On October 28, 2010 Olympic champion gymnast Dominique Dawes working for Yahoo Weekend News investigated Power Balance Bracelets for their claim that they improve balance, flexibility and strength. Odom endorses Power Balance bracelets and states on camera that "if it gives you an advantage, that's the advantage you want". Dawes asked "are you superstitious knowing you won...wearing power balance?" Odom's answer: "100%". After a scientific double blinded test done by IIG's LA office and Dawes the end result was no improvement when wearing the Power Balance bracelet.[30]

A class-action lawsuit was filed January 21, 2011 against Power Balance, Shaquille O’Neal and Lamar Odom for endorsing the bracelet. The Power Balance company in Australia was forced by a court to admit that the $30 bracelet works no better than a placebo. The lawsuit by Brian Casserly and 100 others claims that Odom and O'Neal "wear the product in front of millions of impressionable fans watching on national TV."[31]
Now doesn't that feel good knowing that over 200K people were exposed to Guerrilla Skepticism left on his page?  I know I feel good about it. 

Lets look at some other numbers, I'm just going to list June 2011 for no other reason except for consistency. These are all places that I've hit with some guerrilla skepticism. 

CVS Pharmacy - 9,924
Walmart - 121,493
John Edward - 21,956
James Van Praag - 6,258
TAPS - 23,277
Psychic Detectives - 493
Ghost Hunting - 11,177
Vassula Ryden - 1,238
Peter Popoff - 12,145
Harold Camping - 115,795 (with 20K hits on June 1st - 2nd)
Jenny McCarthy - 115,081 (ranked 1,950 in traffic that month) (this is a site that I didn't tag, others did)
Senator Claiborne Pell - 2,005
Wem Town Hall - 166
Stanley Hotel - 2,868
Andrew Wakefield - 9,215

Really really interesting isn't it. 

What does this all mean?  Well numbers are a great tool, you can view them in many ways.  I'm taking that these numbers mean that skeptical content is being put in the face of Wiki readers.  Are they actually reading the blurb and following the links?

That might be a bit harder to discover unless you are able to look at website stats.  Fortunately I can see the IIG stats each month.  Jan - June we averaged about 6.75% of the hits coming to www.iigwest.org are coming from Wikipedia.  Barry Karr (from CSI) checked May and June stats and they were 4% for May 2011 and 4.75% for June 2011.  Is that a lot?  It is difficult to say.  We know that people are venturing over to Wikipedia and being exposed to the skeptical content.  Only a small percent look further and actually go to the websites to read the original article, maybe their question about the person/place/thing was answered in the blurb written on the Wiki site?

It is also possible they are following other hyperlinks to explain what they are reading?

cold reading - 23,502
hot reading - 2,943
fallacy - 42,573
Occam's razor - 121,724 (ranked 2763)
conspiracy theory - 59,598
skepticism - 31.459

So how am I gaining access to all of these numbers?  I'm giving you the link at the bottom of this blog, otherwise you would not read another word.  This is an awesome toy tool that Tim Farley sent me today, I think it is going to become one of my favorite sites, use it wisely.

http://stats.grok.se/

PS.  Photo by Kevin Eldridge 








 

Monday, July 18, 2011

TAM9 ~ The Amaz!ing Meeting

Wow!  Just getting in from The Amaz!ing Meeting (which it was) and the first thing I'm doing is uploading pictures so I can get started adding them to Wikipedia.

I did not attend any lectures accept 10 minutes of Richard Wiseman's awesome lecture.  And the two Sunday paper presenters who followed me.  Ashley F. Miller was very well received with her lecture on "Emotions Aren’t the Enemy".  I followed Michael Hartwell's polished lecture on "The Media Isn't Calling Your Skeptics Group, and It's Your Fault".  Michael at one point in his presentation talked about how ridiculous would it look if an Alt Med Wikipedia page had no skeptical criticism on it.  It was a perfect lead in for my talk. While I was in the room for the other papers I was focused on my notes and sadly didn't get to hear any of the other presentations.  Guess I will have to wait for the DVD's.

I spent an enormous amount of time in the hallway mostly at the IIG table, meeting people and snapping pictures.  It was such a blast.  Besides hanging out with friends and the "Hug Me I'm Vaccinated" campaign (which was so well done, important and FREE) the best part about TAM was meeting people interested in talking about Guerrilla Skepticism on Wikipedia (and the Got your Wiki Back project).   

Oh my gosh, what a blast it was to be up on stage and have all those people listening to me.  I could have gone on for hours giving examples and answering questions...but I only got 15 minutes.  I gave away maybe 200 business cards with the URL for here, so I can only hope.  If you are new to this blog, Welcome!  We really want you here, please look over the past posts, add us to your RSS feed and please, please, please comment.

About the presentation.  I really had to cut way back on everything, giving a general overview of a project this big is really difficult.  The examples I gave were Joe Nickell's article on Vassula Ryden (which Anna finished editing the same day I presented) and the JREF Pigasus Award to CVS Pharmacy.  I have the video of my lecture and will clean it up and load it to my YouTube site.  I'll let you know when that is finished but I suspect at least a week. 

So here is the Wikipedia lowdown, I'll try to keep it in some kind of chronological order.

Sean Faircloth & Secular Coalition for America:

Wednesday night Stirling and I arrive at South Park Casino in Las Vegas and head to the Del Mar Bar, that's where everyone hangs out.  I struck up a conversation with Sean Faircloth from the Secular Coalition for America, I have seen his lecture at least once before and I remember being very impressed.  He is a great speaker with a "go get em" kind of personality that I can relate to.  I had never visited his Wikipedia page nor the one for the SCA.  I told him about the "Got your Wiki Back" project and asked if he had a picture on his page already.

He said he hated having his picture taken because he rarely came out looking good in pictures.  So I sat him down and snapped one.  I think it turned out rather well, and just added it as the main picture to his page.  I moved the image that was already there to lower on the page (I thought it looked rather gray and dull, but it is one of those nice "action" shots that work well). 

Sean told me that he had heard that it was possible to somehow link the names on his page to other links.  He mentioned Richard Dawkins and several others.  I explained that this should be an easy change and I would look into it when I got home.  And this is exactly what I have done, if you look at the history of the page you will see the before and after. (click on the "view history" tab at the top of the page).  I also went through the page and added hyperlinks to all the proper nouns throughout.

To add hyperlinks go to "edit" at the top of the page next to "view history".  Then you will be looking at the HTML writing, every word or phrase that you want to hyperlink to you just put the [[ in front of the word, then ]] at the end of the word.  Write something in the "edit summary" like "added several hyperlinks".  Check the "watch this page" box so it can be added to your watchlist and you will know if someone has changed this page.  Then hit "preview changes" and look at what you changed.  If there is any red writing then something is wrong.  In the case of Faircloth I tried to hyperlink to name Woody Kaplin and it came out red.  Either Woody Kaplin does not have a Wikipedia page, or the name of his page is different than Woody Kaplin, maybe his real name is Robert Kaplin?  Anyway, I'll leave that for someone else.

I linked to all the names which should have been done when the page was created.  The page really needs a lot more work than I have time for.  Someone with more writing skill than I have needs to go into "edit" and rewrite the page.  This would take me hours to do correctly, but I'm sure one of you can finish it up in minutes.  For example nearly every paragraph starts with "Faircloth this..." or "In (insert year) Faircloth...that". 

Also if his page needs work I'm sure the SCA page needs the same kind of work.  I didn't really look at the page but someone please check into it.  (as usual if you are working on the page could you please comment).  Just checked out the "discussion" page for the SCA, totally funny. 

James McGaha:

I am shocked to discover that he does not have a Wiki page, only a mention.  I've got pictures waiting for a page to put them on...hint...hint...hint.  His TAM9 blurb looks pretty impressive, I've seen him lecture a few times at skeptical events and I would think he needs a page as a part of the "We Got your Wiki Back" project.

Richard Saunders

You don't know how bad I want to put this picture on Saunders Wikipedia page.  But I suppose I won't because he is really a good guy.  I think it would jazz up the page quite a bit and it is a tribute to Randi. 

Richard has one of those pages like Brian Dunnings that goes to a   disambiguation page.  Really would like to figure out how to fix this, but I don't have the skill.








While we are on the subject of changing pictures on sites that already have images, take a look at these two pictures I got.  Would love to hear some opinions if these images should go on their pages.

 

Brian Dunning


This next edit I did was completely the idea of Tim Farley.  I was invited to a speaker dinner on Saturday night and Tim pulled me aside and asked me to get a picture of the 4 latest JREF fellows.  Tim had already added a blurb on the JREF page in anticipation of getting an image to go there.

Here is the addition to the JREF page.  While I was in the adding picture mood I just copied the citation and added the image to Karen Stollznow and Steve Novella's pages.  Quick to do once you have it written correctly.  Its just a matter of knowing where to put the image in the page.  Here is what the reference looks like.  

[[Image:Four JREF fellows 2011.jpg|thumb|250px|Latest [[JREF]] fellows.  Tim Farley, Karen Stollznow, [[Steven Novella]] & Ray Hall.  Portrait taken at The Amaz!ng Meeting TAM9 from Outer Space July 16, 2011]]

The 250px that is listed here can be a larger or smaller number depending on how big you want the image to be when saved.  Play around with the number and keep hitting "preview" looking at what the page will look like.  When you have it correct then hit save.  

When Tim Farley's wiki page is launched (hopefully soon) we can add this exact same reference to his page.  Same for Ray Hall.

I had some really great conversations with some of the speakers that were kind enough to talk to me.  The questions I received were all pretty typical ones, "How do you get an edit to stay on the page?", "Can I edit my own page?" and so on.  They all sounded pretty excited about someone having their Wiki backs, even a little modest about having a page at all.  Most said they have seen their page and wish it could be updated. 

Carol Tavris asked if I could retake her picture when she was wearing something colorful. She was wearing a burgundy outfit at the time we were talking but she got scooted away too quickly.  Actually I really like the image I took of her that is on the page right now. 
I had so many things I wanted to get done those days, but really there was so much going on and by the third day I was exhausted. The same can be said for all the speakers that wanted help with their Wikipedia pages, they were overwhelmed and tired.

After I gave my paper presentation I had several people come up to me to talk about helping out.  This was one of my favorite parts of the whole weekend.  Everyone of them were intelligent and pumped on wanting to help out.  Most asked "what do you want me to do?" as you remember I only had 15 minutes on stage to get the plea out for help as well as describe what the project is all about.  I usually asked each one about their interests and also tried to determine what was their Wiki editing skill level.  I had beginners as well as advanced, but all willing to help out.  

I really wish I had done a better job of getting names from those that approached me, I got a few business cards but only a few.  The things I heard from them were great, one woman (her name was Britney but I think it was spelled differently than normal) told me that as a whole the skeptic community has more intellectual ability than it knows what to do with, editing Wikipedia is an obvious outlet for that.  She said that she hangs out with some really smart people who love to complain, but when she asks what they plan on doing about it, she just hears crickets.  (I'm sure I misquoted you a bit Britney, but that was the general overview of our conversation?)

Linda was another one that Got It!  She said that she could spend as little or as much time working on this project.  Exactly correct.  You can work on these projects when you have the desire and time to do so.  I ask that you please write on the "discussion page" of the article you are working on telling other editors what you had planned to do next, and so on, giving them a guide of how to finish what you were doing. 

I explained that we need help with everything.  Grammar, photos, re-writes, adding citations, adding references, getting people into categories, and on and on.  Editing Wikipedia for skeptical content should be a joy, I don't want to assign anything to anyone.  I might make a few suggestions for people who are beginning, but really I want editing done in an area that is of interest. 

Tim Farley suggests that an editor should not stay only on one subject matter as it is possible that the other editors will feel there is a conflict of interest.  Yes, I know, I have a  conflict of interest as I'm editing with the clear goal of adding skepticism to the articles.  But unless someone looks really closely at my edits they won't see that pattern.  What would turn up would look more like a list of edits I've made.  It would look something like this, Steve Novella, Power Balance, John Edward, The See Clearly Method, The Simpsons, IIG and Sean Faircloth.  No clear pattern for someone outside the skeptic community to see.  Tim suggests that if you are worried about creating a pattern, you should edit something completely different like your hometown's page or maybe your school. 

All in all, I'm exhausted but super thrilled that I was able to meet like-minded people out there who understand how important this project is.  We are the front line people.  We have the ability to change minds and really impact the skeptical community.  Pick the area that is of interest to you and get to editing! 





Friday, July 8, 2011

The Bem Experiments

Been wanting to get to this one for a couple weeks.  I have only an hour flight from San Jose to LA so I settled down with James Alcock's article about Daryl Bem's "Feeling the Future: Experimental Evidence for Anomalous Retroactive Influences on Cognition and Affect."   Several IIG people had been talking about this excellent review by Alcock and I knew I would need some uninterrupted time to sit and understand what I was reading.

The IIG were right, it is an excellent critique by Alcock, and I understood almost all of it once I started underlining and taking notes in the margin of the magazine.

So here is is several weeks later and I have a few minutes before I leave for work and want to pop it into the Daryl Bem Wikipedia article.  Guess what someone has beat me to it!  Awesome.  This person left it before it became published in SI but gave the SI citation (this will be published in the March/April 2011 issue)

So I cleaned that reference up (guess they forgot to go back and take it out) and then added what I wrote on the plane.

Who ever did the first blurb didn't quote Alcock, only just stated the facts. This is just a matter of editors style choice.  I think it makes for an interesting comparison between styles.  I'm a quoter.  I want to bring as much of the original article writer's "personality" into my blurb as possible.  Wikipedia is only about facts, but we don't want it so dry that someone reading the page will not want to follow up on reading the article that is on-line at SI (just click on the link cited).  What I added is in Red. 

"Feeling the Future" and the resulting controversy

In 2011, Bem published the article "Feeling the Future: Experimental Evidence for Anomalous Retroactive Influences on Cognition and Affect" in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology that offered statistical evidence for psi.[12] If "Feeling the Future" is correct, it would provide evidence for psi, significantly altering the assumption of the linear nature of time, challenging the very core of modern scientific thought on the matter. Both the presentation of this article by a highly respected researcher, and the decision of an upper tier journal to publish it has engendered much controversy. Not only has the paper's publication led to a criticism of the paper itself[13], but it also prompted a wider debate on the validity of peer review process for allowing such a paper to be published.[14] Bem has appeared on MSNBC [15] and the Colbert Report [16] discussing the experiment.

The methods that Bem uses in his experimentation itself has been viewed as controversial as well. According to understood statistical methodology, Bem incorrectly provides one-sided p values when he should have used a two-sided p values.[17] This could possibly account for the marginally significant results that he produced in his experiment.

Professor of Psychology, member of CSI and Skeptical Inquirer Magazine, James Alcock after evaluating Bem's 9 experiments finds metaphorically "dirty test tubes" Serious methodological flaws exist throughout including changing the procedures partway through the experiments. Combining results of all tests that had a 50% chance of significance with tests that had a 33% chance. The amount of actual tests done is unknown and no explanation of how it was determined that participants had "settled down" after seeing erotic images. Alcock concludes that almost everything that could go wrong with this 9 trial experiment did go wrong. "Parapsychology is not honored by having this paper accepted by a mainstream psychology journal."

One of the nine experiments in Bem's study ('Retroactive Facilitation of Recall') has since been replicated by scientists Stuart Ritchie, Chris French, and Richard Wiseman who found no evidence of precognition. Wiseman has also set up a register to keep track of other replicating efforts. The meta-analysis on registered replication efforts will begin on Dec, 1st 2011.

So none of what is written is incorrect.  Again how you write your blurb is entirely up to you.  Styles differ between editors, and you will find your style as you do more editing and grow confident.  You will also note that the original editor did not hyperlink to James Alcock, SI Magazine or CSI, its all about using each other as resources.  I also added the hyperlink to psychology to give Alcock more creds (it is a psychology journal afterall). 

It is pretty lengthy even before I added my blurb.  But no one seems to be complaining (at least not yet) and if other editors want to change things that's fine with me.  I have it on my watch list.

Thursday, July 7, 2011

Use your Lists!

Part of the "We Got Your Wiki Back" Project

Lists dominate my life.  My boss teases me that I write things on my to-do list that I have already completed just so I have the pleasure of being able to cross it off.  Maybe he is right, I do like lists.  I like to know where I've been and where I need to go next.

I have discussed a ton of projects to be done with  Guerrilla Skepticism on Wikipedia as well as the "We Got your Wiki Back" project, that I'm almost thinking I should back down on adding more items to the list.

Almost.

This blog is about how to use lists to our advantage.  Maybe writing blurbs isn't your thing. Maybe your just starting out and want something simple to do, but still important.  Got just the thing for you.

Start with your favorite skeptical journal/magazine whatever.  Usually in the front of most of these magazines there is a list of people who are fellows of that organization.  JREF, Skeptical Inquirer, Skeptic Magazine and probably many more.  Probably choose the most recent publication so you have a current list.

In Skeptic Magazine I've found a list of people who are on the Editorial Board.  Looking up a random name "Gregory Forbes" I am able to find his Wikipedia page.  This page is a stub, badly maintained, hardly any information and clearly no picture.  Shame on us.  How will the general public view this man if he becomes a spokesman for skepticism today?  Even if he does not speak out for skepticism but still appears in the media readers are going to go to his page and not find a single mention of Skeptic Magazine.

Here is all we know about Gregory Forbes
Dr. Greg Forbes (born 1950) is The Weather Channel's current severe weather expert and has a significant research background in the areas of severe storms and tornadoes.
Born and raised near Latrobe, Pennsylvania, Forbes earned a Bachelor of Science degree in meteorology at Pennsylvania State University. He studied tornadoes and severe thunderstorms at the University of Chicago, where he obtained his M.S. and Ph.D. There, Dr. Forbes studied under famous tornado scientist Ted Fujita and his thesis was regarding the 1974 Super Outbreak where he and Fujita made researches in areas hardest hit to help determine which thunderstorms can spawn the most intense tornadoes. It was by then, he discovered that the hook echo can produce the strongest tornadoes.
He has taught such classes as Severe Storms Seminar and Computer Applications in Meteorology at Pennsylvania State University before moving to The Weather Channel in Atlanta. He continues limited research and was on the development team of the Enhanced Fujita Scale which in 2007 replaced the original Fujita Scale from 1971.
That's it.  I just grabbed a random name off a list and this is what I found.  

Now lets take SI magazine.  Front cover of March/April 2011 shows a long list of fellows.  Lets pick another random name from the list.  "Jere Lipps" who was one of the first people I met when I went to my first "conference" in San Jose, CA in 2000.  I have never looked at Jere's Wikipedia page, but apparently he does have one.  Well guess this is where we stand on his page

He has been elected a fellow of eight organizations and serves on the board of directors of Micropaleotology Project and the Cushman Foundation.
Not a single mention that he has been actively involved in the skeptical movement and is a Fellow for CSI.  Why?

Have you heard about Project Steve?  Stirling, my son loves his Steve shirt and I've looked at it many many times and thought "very clever".  That shirt contains a list of 1,000 Steve and Stephanie scientists that support Evolution.  One quick blurb that links to Project Steve Wiki page as well as the National Center for Science Education website would be all it takes. I randomly looked for these people on Wikipedia and didn't find a page for any that I selected.  As we do find these pages a quick copy/paste of the blurb and citations you have already written would suffice.  Also check to see if they are on the American skeptic list of people.  (I just added Jere Lipps page, now we are up to 95 American Skeptics)

Looked at Stephen Jay Gould's Wikipedia page.  No mention of Project Steve on his page.  Just looked at his "Discussion" page and still no mention of it.  The reason why it is called Project Steve is because of Stephen Jay Gould.  Wow!  At least he has a picture. 

I'm sure you have your favorite lists.  Please help out this project if only by supplying ideas of lists we can use to get more skeptical content onto Wikipedia.

Susan