Sunglasses Needed: March - April GSoW updates!

GSoW continues to shine through 2014.  We have been so busy with training and updates I almost forgot that there is a world outside GSoW that enjoys reading about all the changes we are making. Look at what we have done to bring quality articles about scientific skepticism to Wikipedia. 

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First thing I want to show off is our Voice Intro project run by Kyle Hamar and Ryan Harding.  It has been a struggle working on how to make this as efficient as possible, but we think we have it figured out.  All editors are now trying to collect audio from their "targets" to make this project grow.  Its slow going but we are making progress.  This week we just added our first non-English audio to the list, check out Peter Erdi's Hungarian audio.

If you know of someone that who has a Wikipedia page and needs audio, please contact us at GSoWteam@gmail.com for instructions.  We are also featured on the main page of the Russian Skeptic organization. 

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GSoW made the short list for an Ockham this year.  Very exciting to get this kind of recognition. Hopefully we will be able to impress the judges for next year. 

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I've just returned from speaking at QED in Manchester, England.  What a frickin blast!  Several of my editors descended on the venue where we bonded and plotted.  We also had many new editors join us along the way.  I'm looking forward to all the great talent we can add to our team.  Thank you to two of my team photographers Robert McDermott and Andrew Merritt for allowing me to put my camera down from time to time knowing they would be everywhere getting the photos we needed.  See their work on many of the pages we have released.  Watch our podcast recording here and here. 

I'm going to give you only one link to look at if you are interested in what went down at QED, and that is to the one-stop website of Lanyrd.  I can't encourage you enough to become familiar with this conference site, when people add content here, everyone wins.  Here is the QED area, but as you explore you will find that most conferences are located here.  Anyone can add content, so please take a minute and help fill in the gaps from past conferences.  

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One more thing if you would like to keep up-to-date on all things GSoW, please "like" our Facebook page here.

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I think you will notice a theme with a lot of these pages, lots of focus on anything connected with Cosmos and astronomy.  Our thought is that when Cosmos is on TV and in the news, people will be curious about the program and the people surrounding it, it is in our best interest to make sure those readers are getting the best information and we also want to show off our spokes people.  

So put on your sunglasses as these updates should dazzle you.  Turn on HatNote to set the mood and enjoy our March-April updates!

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Climate Scientist Andrew Dessler's page received a rewrite from Bill, complete with audio.  Before and After

QED speaker Coralie Colmez received a brand new page from editor Richard who noticed that her mother was also due for her own Wikipedia page so he made that happen.    Leila Schneps not only received a brand new page, but she was featured on the front page of Wikipedia as a Did You Know.  Check out the view stats for that day, total outreach, total win for our community.

Hemant Mehta was long over due for a page - Fred Green & Tad Callin spent long hours making that happen.  We knew we were also going to try for a Did You Know, but before we could nominate it we wanted to make sure Mehta's "I Sold my Soul on Ebay" page was in order.  So everything stalled until Jairo Arce & Christine Daley were able to get that page rewritten.  Even the Secular Student Alliance WP page received a spike in views.

The Mark Crislip/QuackCast page was an embarrassment. It is what I call a "non-scroller" which means you don't have to scroll to see the whole page.  Our community really should be ashamed that we allow pages like this to exist on Wikipedia.   Sean Whitcomb got to work and turned out this amazing transformation.  We contacted Mark for audio and I think he wins for funniest Intro Audio.  After

Rachael Dunlop now has a brand new page (with audio) written by new editor Sean Whitcomb. Rachael has been sitting on our list since we started collecting people to put on our list. She kept getting passed over, not because we were worried that there wouldn't be enough information, but because creating a page from scratch is a lot of work. I think Sean and team did a terrific job. Rachael was also featured on the front page of English Wikipedia as a Did You Know... Here are the stat views during that day.

Edinburgh Skeptics received a page rewrite from editor Julie.  This happened while I was at QED which was most exciting, loved bragging about it when I was traveling in Scotland.  Before & After

 Elizabeth Pisani another speaker at QED received a rewrite from editor Jay Young. Before & After

The Dutch category page for Cognitive Bias is now available for Dutch readers thanks to Emile Dingemans.

The MC of QED was Paul Zenon whose page also received a make-over.  Paul's page rewrite was something I attempted at the beginning of GSoW back in 2011 but just got to busy to finish.  Julie picked it up and finished just in time. Before & After

Angela Saini's page was one of those pages we kept thinking we were done with, but every time editor Christine Daley asked for feedback someone kept giving her more to add. Before & After  And then there is this sweet tweet...

Normally I don't assign work to be done.  Only in training, which is what happened in this case. GSoW was joined by a talented editor that wanted to join our team.  I had been thinking about the Audrey Santo page for some time and found that our new editor Andrea Crain was the perfect person to take it on.  And she sure did.  This will require some reading as the changes aren't as obvious as many of the above make-overs.  Before & After

A brand new page for Anne Nicol Gaylor was created by Sean Whitcomb. Keep an eye out for her page to be a DYK soon.

Brand new page for Emily Lakdawalla by Nathan Miller - And on April 1st the page was featured on the front page of Wikipedia as a Did You Know. And to keep up with the theme of the day, Nathan came up with a April Fools hook. See if you can spot it. Here are the view stats from the extra exposure she received that day.

Jennifer Michael Hecht received a rewrite by Jim Preston and this is Jim's first rewrite. Before & After

R. Joseph Hoffmann cleanup by Kevin Elsken. This is Kevin's first major improvement. Before & After

Not exactly one of our skeptical spokespeople, but Nellie Bly is someone you are going to enjoy reading about - Translated from English into Dutch by Vera de Kok & Leon Korteweg.

The Péter Érdi page had all kinds of citation problems and was an orphan (which means nothing links to it) before Peter Mogyoros got a hold of it and rewrote it.  This was Peter's first launched page.  It also has audio and once the page is launched in Hungarian (very soon) it will have our first non-English audio. Before & After 

Coen de Bruijn, Emile Dingemans and Leon Korteweg translated the Simon Singh page into Dutch.

Ray Hyman has been a focus of ours for almost two years, and has been translated into Portuguese and Dutch.  He now has a Wikipedia page in Spanish courtesy of Cristina.  

Brand New page in Dutch created for the series Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey by Coen de Bruijn, Leon Korteweg and Wim Vandenberghe. And also Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey in Portuguese by Filipe Russo.

The Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain now has a page in Dutch because of team leader Leon Korteweg .  

The Swedish Skeptic Society better known as Föreningen Vetenskap och Folkbildning now has a Dutch Wikipedia page thanks to Wim Vandenberghe and Leon Korteweg.

Here is an unusual one.  I lectured at the Center for Inquiry in Amherst, NY summer 2013.  You might not realize it, but CFI has an amazing library full of donated personal libraries and just about everything in print that has anything to do with skepticism and the paranormal.  While there the librarian Tim Binga showed me Steve Allen collection.   Allen was interested in everything and collected information on many subjects.  This archive also has the original script for Allen's TV series Meeting of Minds and I snapped a few photos while browsing through the archive.  I uploaded the images and then assigned this page for a rewrite which Kevin Elsken took care of.  Before and After

A brand new page for the Oh, No Ross & Carrie Podcast by Sean Whitcomb. I had several editors that were hoping they would get to be the one that wrote this page. Sean was quickest on the draw.

Penny4NASA received a brand new page written by Nathan Miller.  This page sat for over a year incubating until it received enough notoriety for release.   Our plan was to add the mention of Penny4NASA to Neil deGrasse Tyson's WP page which we did months ago.  Only with Nathan's release of an actual page have we been able to really see the impact we have had.  With the popularity of Cosmos, Tyson's WP view stats have gone from 100,000 a month to 300,000+ a month.  In April 2014 his page was the 313 most viewed page in Wikipedia.  That is a unheard of number, a total win for science and scientific skepticism.  Possibly Penny4NASA has been fighting for media attention and some people may find them on Wikipedia totally independent from its mention on the Tyson page.  Nevertheless Penny4NASA's WP views are doing well, 1,445 in April 2014.   

And one more... this one has a bit of a story behind it, so bear with me. As you all know I was scheduled to appear at QED in Manchester, England. I asked my GSoW team to please help with the pages of all the speakers that would be at the conference. One of my new team members (who actually had been a WP editor for years but new to GSoW) Chris Allen was assigned the Nathan Phelps page rewrite. On our forum we discussed for over a month some of the changes Chris was making to the page, we went back and forth about all kinds of things. The page was nearly ready for release, but we had weeks left until QED, no real hurry.

One night I was scrolling through my Facebook feed I saw a post from Nathan Phelps saying that his father, Fred Phelps had just been taken to hospice. This is the kind of event that GSoW works so hard to be prepared for, one of our spokespeople making the news. Ok, Fred Phelps isn't one of our spokespeople.... but Nathan is. So I contacted one of my team leaders who would be the first one awake to get that page published. Ryan was in England (I'm in CA) and quickly proofread the page and managed to contact Chris and told him to publish it. The team worked wonderfully, and Chris was a trooper. He went to the Westboro Baptist and Fred Phelps pages and made sure that Nathan was mentioned on them. Nathan Phelps - Chris Allen Before & After

So then came Fred's death and the views to his Wikipedia page soared. Because of the ripple effect Nathan's page views also spiked. Here are the WBC views. This is a major win for Wikipedia and Scientific Skepticism.

Because the English page is in great shape, that means it is ready to be translated.  The Dutch team was quickest to respond and now Dutch Wikipedia readers can now read all about Nathan Phelps because of Leon Korteweg & Coen de Bruijn.

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Here are a few recent interviews that explain GSoW and will keep you up-to-date on all things GSoW.  

In Portuguese - Nix Dorf explains GSoW to the Fronteiras da Ciencia podcast.

Susan after QED an interview by Eran Segev on Skeptic Zone.

QED attendee András Pintér's write-up on the conference in Hungarian. 

Susan being interviewed on Virtual Skeptics

Dave Gamble's blog responding to Rupert Sheldrakes accusations. (yes, this is still happening!)

Detailed blog by Tim Farley about the actual numbers concerning who is editing Wikipedia.

GSoW editor Peter Mogyoros is interviewed by a Slovakian podcast. 


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Write to us at GSoWteam@gmail.com

Jan & Feb 2014 - We've been Busy!

I think you will find that GSoW has had a couple really busy months. We have completed more tasks in the last two months than we did in the 6 busiest months of 2013.  I am glowing with pride as I write this blog.  This is truly getting stuff done.

Things are just starting to come together with our forum.  I've taken over the training process and it is insane but I love it.  I assign tasks that are as simple as correcting spelling, rewording a paragraph, repairing a citation.  To difficult tasks like completely re-writing a page. 

Mostly new people are assigned what I call "backwards edits" mainly from podcast interviews.  I've made spreadsheets with every episode of specific podcasts, and then assign the new editor the task of listening and relistening to the interview and seeing if they can use the podcast to support or improve the Wikipedia page.  Most times I have not listened to the episode, and many times the new editor has not heard of the "target" before.  In other words this is the opposite of how most WP editors edit.  We are not starting with a "target" in mind and looking for sources to improve it, but having the citation and looking where to put it. 

This forces us to expand to people and organizations we have never heard of.  And it exposes our editors to podcasts and people they were unfamiliar with.  Once the podcast has been used as a citation, then that spreads the Skeptic Love to Wikipedia readers who might never have discovered that podcast.  We are working through entire podcasts and in time will be able to ask what percent of their website hits are coming from Wikipedia.  It might take a while, but we are here for the long haul.  

Below you will see many page improvements.  There are a few brand new page creations, but most are re-writes.  Many came from brand new editors who have joined since January.  They started with the assignment to add one backwards edit to a page, and then they were supposed to leave it alone and then start a new assignment.  But instead they got interested in the "target" and kept working on the page. 

This is just what we finished in January and February.  As I write this blog, there are many many more that are in the works, some are mostly done but we are waiting on audio, photos or just one more thing before launching the page.  

Our goal is to get as many as possible on the front page of Wikipedia as Did You Knows.  This is an outreach to the general Wikipedia reader who might never have heard of scientific skepticism.  We are also approaching our "targets" once we are almost done with the page and asking for an audio recording.  You will see a few on the pages below, and I think you will agree with me that it really brings the page alive. 

I want to quickly mention that I've tried to give a shout-out to the person(s) responsible for working on the page.  Usually there is one strong lead person.  But GSoW is a team, many people contribute to this effort.  People find photos and citations,  proofread and all kinds of other support functions.  And the audio team is working to clean up the audio, get the correct licensing, uploading and turning it into the correct format and adding it to the page.  In some cases you will find we have added closed-captioning to the audio.  I also have photo people who do their photoshop magic on images before we add them to the Wikipedia page.  There is a lot going on behind the curtain.

If any of this interests you, please consider joining our team.  We need people with all kinds of skills.  We do train and mentor.  Training does take a bit of a commitment, so approach us when you have some time to learn.  

Write to us at GSoWteam@gmail.com

And see below to catch up on what we have been doing in the media.  Also where you can meet us in person.     

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Freedom from Religion Foundation (Chris and Bill)
Before &  After

Phil Plait - This page has been evolving since I started GSoW, it keeps getting improvements.  With the 14 citations that Nathan Miller has added I think we are done for awhile.  Before & After 

Alan Melikdjanian - Like Plait above, Melikdjanian's page was previously mentioned in a past blog as receiving a makeover.  This is Captain Disillusion, but all you cool cats already knew that.  Editor Kyle Hamar has managed to expand it even further. Before & After

Arthur T. Benjamin  -  Was on our to-do list because of an interview he had done with the Meet the Skeptic's podcast - Sean Whitcomb was given this as a backwards edit and kept going.  He has done a terrific job with this re-write. - Before & After 

Pamela Gay - Received a brand new page courtesy of senior editor Nathan Miller.  Nathan has been focusing on astronomy because of the release of Cosmos in March, we feel that once that is released the world will become more interested in science and the people associated with it. We need to have something for all those readers to find when they are searching.  In order to encourage outreach Nathan managed to get Gay's page featured on the front page of WP for 8 hours as a Did You Know? feature.  This gave Gay's page an additional 1,000 readers.

Burzynski Clinic' s Wikipedia page continues to be updated in English.  Now our German team has completed a rewrite of the English page.  

Edwina Rogers's page received a make-over from editor Tad Callin (who came to GSoW after reading a tweet from Phil Plait) Before & After 

Todd Robbins also received a mini-makeover by Christine Daley who heard of us from the Skepticality Podcast.  Before & After

Kylie Sturgess - one of the first to participate in our new Voice Intro Project.  She has a few updates and check out the new feature.  Really awesome isn't it?

I Sold my Soul on Ebay -  book by Hemant Mehta just got a makeover as well.  We are about to launch Mehta's personal page and felt that the book's page had to be in great shape as well.  Notice that the before only has 3 citations, hardly understand why this page existed on Wikipedia at all.  Before & After

Peter Mogyoros completed a quick makeover on Hungarian scientist Szilveszter E. Vizi. Before & After

Adam Rutherford - Richard did an amazing job with this rewrite I think you will find.  Before & After

Susan Haack's page was expanded from 9 citations to 12 by new editor Michael Bigelow who has just about finished GSoW training. There was a time that I was worried that Michael had disappeared from GSoW, I wrote to him and he said he has been busy reading her book. Before & After

Seth Shostak received some additional citations and improvements from Christine Daley, since these updates I have found several more citations, so expect to see Shostak's name back on this list.  Before & After 

Jerry Coyne also received a nice page remake from newish editor Kyle Hamar. Coyne came to my attention when he wrote about GSoW over the Sheldrake drama. Still I didn't look at his WP page until a month ago when I was going through old episodes of the Point of Inquiry podcast looking for backwards edits I use for training people. I looked at his page and asked Kyle, can you find anything else for this page, I think it looks a bit lean. Oh my gosh, Kyle could have written two WP pages for him. Before & After

Paul Offit was another rewrite from Kyle Hamar. Just like with Coyne, the Offit rewrite came because I assigned a backwards edit to Kyle, the page started with 17 citations, and Kyle has expanded it to 22. Before & After

Mark Edward received some small updates as well as audio.

James Underdown had audio added as well.

Maryam Namazie got a lot of attention from the Dutch powerhouse Leon Korteweg.  He and Ryan Harding re-wrote the English page (from 6 citations to 22) and then Leon and editor Rik Delaet translated that to create the Dutch page. English Before & After  -  Dutch  And this is a perfect example of how the World Wikipedia team works. 

Elizabeth Pisani's page was saved from deletion by another new editor Jay Young.  This page had 2 flags on it, notability and lack of citations.  I'm looking back at Jay's training thread on our forum and see that this was almost his first project with GSoW, he learned quickly.  At the time of this writing I see that we could not find a image, we tried many sources and Jay even contacted the TED people, but we didn't find one.  Before & After 

Emery Emery also received a brand new page.  This was another of Jay Young's creations, and now that I'm writing this blog I see we really handed him a lot of work. When you look at these pages it might not look like a lot of work, but really it is.  When we approached Emery and asked for audio, I realized that I really didn't know what the time limits were.  We were given a few examples that were all cookie cutter type examples.  Emery broke those rules as you will see when you review his page.  Quite refreshing.

Annie Laurie Gaylor - This was rewritten months ago by Chris Peterson but it slipped by getting mentioned in the blog.  Before & After 

Archie Cochrane - You might remember was mentioned last year as it was translated into Dutch.  But now editor Peter Trussell (who is still in training) rewrote the page in English.  Before & After 

John Allen Paulos - Rewrite work by Coen de Bruijn who is not completely finished with training yet. Coen will be joining the Dutch editing team when he is done. I should mention that this is another backwards edit from the Meet The Skeptic's podcast. Because I'm limited to English, I train in English. As the teams grow bigger, eventually we will be able to accommodate training non-English editors. Before & After

Ray Hyman - Now has a page in Dutch thanks to Rian van Lierop and Leon Korteweg

Bill Nye the Science Guy - Before the Nye vs Ham debate, GSoW took a look at the Bill Nye page which appeared to be in good shape. The Bill Nye the Science Guy page (yes it is a completely different page) had some citation issues. Jay Young took a look at it and gave it a quick makeover. Just in time too. GSoW believes that we need to have WP pages in great shape in order to make sure we have them ready for when the public becomes interested. Before & After

The following graphs are quite interesting.  The first one shows the spike on the Bill Nye page on Feb 5th the day of the debate.  



 This graph shows the spike for the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry page on Feb 5th. The only mention of CSI on the Bill Nye page was a hyperlink under a photo.

Here are the results for the Bill Nye the Science Guy's page on Feb 5th.

 

Eugenie Scott seems to be always on this update list. We have translated her page into several languages the last year. I thought we were done with her English page. But newish editor Christine Daley went in and added even more. Current Page

Scientific American Magazine - Just received a rewrite in Portuguese, I think calling the page a re-write is being generous,  probably should just say Filipe Russo created the page brand new. I'm amazed that these pages were allowed to exist on Wikipedia.  Great work Filipe.  Before & After 

Jan Zaanen - This person knows what quantum actually means and probably can explain it too. This awesome re-write courtesy of Coen de Bruijn. Before & After

Atheist Manifesto - or maybe I should say Atheïstisch manifest has been newly created in Dutch by our prolific Leon Korteweg and Vera. 

Sanal Edamaruku was finished just in time to make this blog.  Thank you Lei Pinter and Christine Daley for such great improvements. Before & After

Lastly I was able to squeak in a photo on the Neil deGrasse Tyson page that I noticed on Facebook. The photographer was our very own Richard Saunders.  

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Skepticality Podcast 

Our first Russian podcast -  Общество скептиков

Skeptical Connections Podcast 

Skeptic Zone Podcast - Richard Saunders and I discuss GSoW and my cancer treatments.

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Where you can find us next... I will be speaking at QED in Manchester, England in April.  And of course you can find me hanging out at TAM in July in Las Vegas and SkeptiCal in Berkeley, CA in May.  

Our German team leader Michael Steinkellner will be speaking at SkepKon in Germany in May. 

I think that is all we have scheduled at the moment.