Should Skeptics write pages for Paranormal People?

Really hoping for a great discussion on this topic.  You all know my motivation, I want to improve skeptical content on Wikipedia, but always by following the rules of Wikipedia.  I also want to hold all paranormal topics and people to those same rules.  They can't make a claim on their page unless it is completely backed up with correct citations.

But what about skeptics writing pages for topics and people that are clearly on the other side of skepticism?  Aren't we exposing readers to the opposition?  Maybe even giving them more notoriety than they deserve?  Shouldn't we concentrate on our own skeptical spokespeople?  I mean I'm forever going on and on about how badly our people's pages need help. 

Lets take a look at a few pages that already existed and we have spent quite a bit of time keeping up-to-date.  Sylvia Browne, Chip Coffey, John Edward and James Van Praagh. 

Sylvia received 11,454 hits in February 2012.  Her star is really fading as she is either being replaced by others or because she isn't in the news as much anymore, I seem to remember seeing numbers in the 30K area each month.  Looking over her page a reader will find that nearly the entire page is devoted to her downfalls.  Whenever someone has tried to post something positive about her it is ripped down.  Why?  Because the positive things can't be backed up by good citations, noteworthy sources aren't writing about her, and editors aren't allowed to put up excerpts from her books and her blog saying how "nice she is".  Sorry.  The only things allowed are the facts, which includes the court transcripts of her indictment of fraud. 

Chip Coffey is another story, the page as you can see is a mess.  There is at least a picture of him.  Where is the skeptical side of the story?  We can only add in edits if the story is already written.  Either the articles don't exist or we haven't added them in yet.  This page was once on the list for deletion but it was saved mainly because of uninterest by other editors.  In Feb 2012 it received 4,026 hits.  That's quite a lot for a stub.  I think this page needs quite a bit of attention. 

John Edward is the new hot psychic thing now that Sylvia isn't as active.  His page received 25,464 hits in Feb 2012.  This page is far from ignored by skeptics, several of my edits are on this page as well as from others.  At least once a week one of us has to revert vandalism of someone calling him the Biggest Douche in the Universe somewhere on the page.  The reference already exists in its correct place on the page. 

James Van Praagh is in the middle of Sylvia and John as far as attention.  With 4,598 hits, the page is an advertisement for a bad psychic.  The criticism section is longer than most Wikipedia pages in total. 

Now why are we maintaining these pages?  Because readers are visiting them and we want to make sure there is a neutral place to leave the articles written from the skeptic world. 

Here are a couple more examples I bet you have never heard of.  Newly joined to the Guerrilla Skepticism world is Rick Duffy from Colorado.  Rick wrote a couple pages for two men who are rising in prominence in Colorado.  Voters there will recognize Jeff Peckman and Stan Romanek.  Rick told me he wrote these pages because they have become noteworthy enough to warrant them, and this way readers can get the whole story and not just the bits and pieces from TV news clips. 

Peckman received 530 hits and Romanek 902. 

I'm all for Rick's work, the pages are neutral from the perspective of the reader.  I'm sure Romanek and Peckman would love to remove some of the edits, but we can only add in what is out there already.  If positive information hits the media, we will add it in also. 

To answer the last question, shouldn't we be working on pages for our skeptical spokespeople instead?  I would love to see more focus on the skeptical pages, but Duffy's work allowed citations from Bryan Bonner and Matthew Baxter's work in Rocky Mountain Paranormal.  I've already written about this group on the Stanley Hotel blog and Wikipedia page.  At the moment RMP is not noteworthy enough to have their own Wikipedia page, but that is quickly changing now that Rick has done his work.

Also, I think that it is really important to remember that we aren't getting paid for all this editing work.  This is a passion and a mission for me, it should be something you enjoy doing.  We should be working on the projects we enjoy, not crossing off items that Susan has assigned.  Find your passion.  I'll be happy to assist if you need some guidance but I think just spend some time on Wikipedia and start following the hyperlinks to other pages, in time you will be far away from your initial start and maybe you will bump into your mission. 

As always, if you want to become more involved in this project or need help learning how to edit please contact me at susangerbic@yahoo.com 

Anderson Cooper and John Edward ~ a new friendship

I'm just sick over this, well not sick but pretty close to it.  I've respected Anderson Cooper for years.  My avatar on the JREF forums is a picture of Cooper and Browne on CNN with the screen shot that says "Dead Wrong".  Cooper has always asked the hard questions and did his research, he never let anyone get away with vagueness, he slammed them to the floor.  Psychics were always handled firmly.

Now this.

Anderson allowed John Edward onto his show to give readings to his mother and himself.  Nothing skeptical mentioned from what I've heard.  This JREF SWIFT blog sums up how I feel.

Tim Farley on October 20th SWIFT blog talks about skeptical tools to measure how successful we are.  I concur we really need to be able to measure our impact.  We can't keep throwing darts into the forest if we never go and look to see if we hit anything.  When involved in any kind of event, there should be some discussion about how it went, what could we have done better and where did we go wrong.  We need to learn, and improve.

Tim asks the question.  Who of these psychics is more popular (Browne, Van Praagh or Edward)?  Interesting question.  Where do you concentrate your efforts if you have very limited time and resources?  I'm sure there are many ways of doing this, book sales on Amazon maybe?  Google search results?  Tim would probably have 34 different ideas if we asked him.

Here is a simple way.  Use the Wikipedia Article Statistics Tool.  It only takes 1.364 seconds and you will be amazed.   Keep in mind this tool has a bit of a delay.  So if we want to look to see if John Edward's Wikipedia page got any hits after his Oct 14th, 2011 debut on Anderson, we can just look it up.

Generally Edward has about 600 hits a day to his Wikipedia page.  On Oct 16th his page got 3.7K hits.  Then the next day 3.1K, then 2.7 and finally 1.6K  (maybe people were finally watching Anderson from their recording on Tivo?)

Wikipedia is a great way of judging popularity because it is accessed by the general public (believer, skeptic and fence sitter)  We can assume that Wikipedia users tend to be people who have access to the Internet, and I'm only looking at WP in English.

What kinds of things are people reading on his page?  There is quite a lot of skeptical content that I and other editors have left.  His page is patrolled quite carefully, I am one of them and have reverted edits from skeptics many times.  I've erased "he's the biggest douche in the Universe" at least 5 times this year alone, others have probably caught those edits before I got to it.  (BTW this isn't guerrilla skepticism)

I'm waiting for some other source (secondary) to pick up the JREF blog post so I can (or someone else can) put the article up on Edward's page.  We rather not put up primary sources if we can help it.

Lets just answer that question.  Which of these psychics is more popular?  Quick come up with your own guess before I reveal my answer.  Using Wikipedia as a resource we can come up with a few numbers.  I'm picking Sept 2011

Sylvia Browne - 14,003
John Edward - 16,244
James Van Praagh - 4,156

This just added Dec 25, 2011  


22K John Edward "fans" will read this quote from Michael Shermer this month "Pretending that the dead are gathering in a television studio in New York to talk twaddle with a former ballroom-dance instructor is an insult to the intelligence and humanity of the living".

JREF President issues challenge to psychics

If I might paraphrase Wikipedia editor Dustin Phillips who says he got into editing Wikipedia because he kept putting up great links on his Facebook page to share with his skeptic friends, after awhile it seemed to make more sense to put those same links up on Wikipedia so everyone could see them.  Exactly.

Posting links for your friends is a good idea.  A better idea is to get the links in a place that the world can enjoy.  A place that holds an encyclopedic hold on our hearts and knowledge.  Maybe a place like Wikipedia?

Found this link left on Mark Edward's Facebook page today and I knew exactly who needed to be reading it.  Yep you know where. 

So I read through all the links on the page (thank you DJ for including so many).  I went through every single link and made a nice paragraph that could be inserted on the pages of Van Praagh, Sylvia Browne, Carla Baron, John Edward and Alison DuBois.  I just changed a few words here and there to make it fit nicely into their pages.

On Van Praagh's page I went a bit farther.  Because of the links that DJ left in the Huffington Post I was able to add two awesome YouTube videos to his page.  I didn't label them as "failures" like the videos state, but just mentioned one as "Van Praagh often appears in the media to promote his group readings, seminars and workshops. One such appearance on the TV show "The Circle" shows Van Praagh giving a 5 minute reading to several audience members". The 5 minute reading is pretty horrible to watch BTW.  I didn't put these two sentences under criticism/skepticism but under the category of "Career as a Medium", mainly because I don't want to give my opinion that it is a failure of a reading, I'm just letting the viewer decide.  I'm sure true believers will think he did rather well (he did seem to get a few hits) and they might say that they know he is for real because sometimes he has a bad day. 

In another link I wrote a completely separate paragraph about a medical statement he made about Barbara Walters.  He told her that she had elevated white blood cells, she went to the doctor and found out that her blood was normal.  She states on the video that what he told her is harmful.  So I left that video for his fans as well.

I'm sure that the JREF's exposure on TIME.com, ABC, Nightline, AOL, Huffington Post and on and on will get more readers than my few paragraphs on the psychics pages on Wikipedia.  But they work together, people go specifically to Wikipedia to learn about these people, and will look at the references left.

What kind of numbers are we talking about anyway?  Lets look at only Sept 2011 and see what kinds of hits we can expect Oct 2011 will get.

James Van Praagh - 4,156
Carla Baron - 718
John Edward - 16,244
Sylvia Browne - 14,003
Alison DuBois - 263

So about 35K people are looking at these pages each month.  That's quite a lot when you think it just took me about an hour to update these pages.  Almost a half a million will view these citations in a years time.  Also leaving these citations exposes readers to our skeptical spokespeople, publications and organizations, that is a win for Guerrilla Skepticism!  

So keep this in mind the next time you paste a link to your Facebook page or Twitter feed.  That's nice and keeping your friends informed is a good thing.  But if you aren't willing to take an hour once in awhile to edit that link into Wikipedia, then maybe you should bring it to the attention of someone who will.

Seriously think about this next statement of mine.  Are you a skeptic, part of the skeptical community?  Fine, hang out, share links, socialize and bitch about stuff.   Or are you a part of the skeptical movement?  If so, what are you doing? If you are in the movement then you need to start doing so. 

Squeezing one more out and How to delete a page on Wikipedia

It all started with a mess of newspaper articles that I just can't get myself to recycle.  I just finished up James Underdown's Wikipedia page and have some leftover articles I didn't use.  I don't like just filing things away somewhere as I doubt I will get back to it anytime soon, usually it just gets covered up with more stuff.  Well reading through one article by the Chicago Tribune from 2007 I was struck by some really great quotes by the author of the article Larry Potash.

I had used one of the quotes on the main psychic page, but I want to use more of this article.  Pure gold, and I hate to just toss it.  Thankfully I found the article on-line so you all can follow along.  This is an example of working backwards.  Start with the noteworthy article and then try to find a place to put it.

I had used the beginning of the article for the psychic page.

Concerning the television psychics, James Underdown states that testing psychics in a studio setting is difficult as there are too many areas to control, the psychic could be getting help from anyone on the set. The editor controls everything, they can make a psychic look superior or ridiculous depending on direction from the producer. In an Independent Investigation Group IIG expose of John Edward and James Van Praagh they discovered that what was actually said on the tape day, and what was broadcast to the public were "substantially different in the accuracy. They're getting rid of the wrong guesses... Once you pull back the curtain and see how it's done, it's not impressive at all.

But love this part.

Psychics don't seem to rely on their "powers" to detect their own cancer -- they go to the doctor, like the rest of us. They don't predict when the train will arrive -- they look at the train schedule. And even psychics (along with everyone else) can guess correctly now and then. But under scientific scrutiny, and incorporating statistical probability, no psychic has met the test.

When producers see that psychics aren't making the grade, I fear they may lower the bar in their testing methods or simply elevate the psychics' performance through creative editing.

In the end, the psychic phenomenon you see on TV will only be an illusion, much like it is in real life.

Great isn't it?  But where to put it?  I can't add more to the psychic page, that would just be too much, besides I would really like to quote him, and that is Really too much.

So I reread the article again and realized that its about a TV show called America's Psychic Challenge.
 Do they have a Wikipedia page?  Yep they do.  (while searching for this page I found another one Paranormal Challenge I'm going to save that for another blog I think).

Looks like the winner from the first (and apparently only season) was Michelle Whitedove, who is not noteworthy enough to have her own Wikipedia page BTW.  ("yes" I guess I am turning into a bit of a snob, but it seems to me that someone who can communicate with dead people should be changing the world of science as we know it) Looks like she won $100K so maybe she is just being really frugal and making the money last?

This page seems to be neutral enough, but a stub.  So what to do?  Is it even worth the effort?  I'm sure you know the answer already, of course it is relevant.  If it is on Wikipedia then even if they receive zero hits, it still needs to be done.  Tomorrow might be the day that it receives thousands of hits.  Actually this page gets about 1,000 a month.

Noticing that there is a wiki hyperlink to this person Jackie Barrett who was the runner up.  More on Jackie later.

Now I'm reviewing the page more in detail.  I think that the present tense should be changed to past tense.  Also note that this is here List of prizes for evidence of the paranormal and no one seems to have noticed or cared.  Looking at the discussion page someone in 2008 wrote that they edited to eliminate the awful pro-bias of the article.  And someone in 2010 removed a link to a broken URL.  That's all the conversation going on there, so I don't feel any need to write there with my proposed changes.  Doubt anyone would get back to me in a timely manner.

So after playing with it for a bit here is what I came up with. 

Reporter Larry Potash writing for the Chicago Tribune states that paranormal reality shows like APC are cheap to produce which means we will probably see more of them. Potash contacted James Underdown from the Independent Investigation Group IIG who says that the TV set is a horrible place to test a psychic. There are too many things to control, you can't know if the psychic is receiving help from an audience member or someone working on the crew. Potash believes that psychics are not so psychic when the cameras are off, they "go to the doctor... look at train schedules" just like everyone else. Psychics sometimes do guess correctly, "but under scientific scrutiny, and incorporating statistical probability no psychic has ever met the test". He worries that when producers see that the psychic isn't showing spectacular results, they may lower the testing bar or "elevate the psychic's performance through creative editing". Underdown states "Once you pull back the curtain and see how it's done, it's not impressive at all."

This is Wikipedia, if you can write this better please do so, won't hurt my feelings at all.   I took the same citation from the psychic page, changed the access date to today (because I did access it).

On to Jackie Barrett's page.  Yikes!  The discussion page says that this is written like an advertisement, boy is that true.  The citation that states she has worked with law enforcement is from her own blog.  Another reference is to her website.  There is a critical heading, but it is empty.

Here is the person who wrote the page.  23:01, 24 November 2007 Lyndela (talk | contribs) (4,529 bytes) (←Created page with ''''Jackie Barrett''' (White Serpent) is a psychic medium, spiritual healer, author, and humanitarian.[[http://www.mylifetime.com/on-tv/sh...')

The next edit is from someone who wants to have it deleted the same day it was posted.  23:05, 24 November 2007 Tiggerjay (talk | contribs) m (4,540 bytes) (Requesting speedy deletion (CSD A7). using TW) (undo)

Then right after that there is this edit.  23:21, 24 November 2007 Irishguy (talk | contribs) (4,310 bytes) (removed speedy, reference cleanup. Notability asserted) (undo)  

I'm going to look into it a bit further and see what was going on.  That seemed to be happening really quickly.  Well Irishguy has retired, but he lists all the pages he created and Jamy Ian Swiss was one of those pages.  Interesting, and he is the person who removed Jackie Barrett's page from deletion.  Tiggerjay, is into editing anything Disney and edits here and there.  The page creator is Lyndela, who does not have a editor page.  

Looking over the page again I note that there are only 5 references.  One is her personal website, one is her blog, one is a video that no longer exists, one is a reference on a website showing that she has been on a ghost hunt and lastly the only credible one is the reference to the show America's Psychic Challenge.  And LOL just clicked on that link and it does not exist anymore.  Boy it sure helps to check out the references they leave.  

So as far as I'm concerned this page should be deleted.  She is getting 100-400 hits a month.  Not very noteworthy for someone who is psychic.  Now how to delete a page?  No idea. 

Took me awhile to find this instruction page.  Guess you all are going to be following me through this process.  It says that there are 3 steps.  Leave this template {{Tfd|{{subst:PAGENAME}}}} on the discussion page you want removed.  Okay so far so good.  


Next I follow a link and put this at the top of the page


{{subst:Tfd2|TemplateName|text=Why you think the template should be deleted. ~~~~}}

Here is what I wrote. 

Template:Jackie Barrett

Template:Jackie Barrett (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs|delete)

The page has only 5 sources One is her personal website, one is her blog, one is a video that no longer exists, one is a reference on a website showing that she has been on a ghost hunt and lastly the only credible one is the reference to the show America's Psychic Challenge that she was on and the link is broken. This person does not fit Notability standards. Her one claim to fame is that she was the runner up on the aforementioned APC, the winner of that show and the other contestants do not have Wikipedia pages. The show host John Burke does not even have a WP page.
(sorry this is my first attempt at asking for a deletion, I see that it is in red when I preview my edit, but can't figure out how to fix it, I'm trying to do it just like the Big Sky one below)Sgerbic (talk) 05:49, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

Here on this blog it looks like the links are all in blue, there when I click preview there is a lot of red.  I tried over and over and could not figure it out.

For my future reference (and possibly yours) here is the html of what I wrote.

 ==[[Template:Jackie Barrett]]==

{{Tfd2|Jackie Barrett|text=The page has only 5 sources}} One is her personal website, one is her blog, one is a video that no longer exists, one is a reference on a website showing that she has been on a ghost hunt and lastly the only credible one is the reference to the show [[America's Psychic Challenge]] that she was on and the link is broken. This person does not fit Notability standards.  Her one claim to fame is that she was the runner up on the aforementioned APC, the winner of that show and the other contestants do not have Wikipedia pages. The show host John Burke does not even have a WP page.

(sorry this is my first attempt at asking for a deletion, I see that it is in red when I preview my edit, but can't figure out how to fix it, I'm trying to do it just like the Big Sky one below)~~~~



Now I have to go to the user page who first launched the page and let them know what I'm doing.  Lyndela does not have a user page, but I went to the discussion page for her non-existent user page and left the message that I have requested its deletion and why.  It appears that I went to the right place because the other time in 2007 someone left her the same message (but more official).  

At no time did Lyndela respond.  Wonder if she has done any editing other than this page?  I clicked on the "contrubutions" next to her user name on the history of Jackie Barrott's page.  Here is what I got.  Looks like she has only made three edits in total. 


 Pretty interesting page that user page.  Put any editor's name in that box and you can see all the edits they have been making.  


So now I'm done.  We have been learning together tonight. All this just because of a few sentences from a newspaper article I wanted to squeeze one more edit from.   I'll report back on what happens to the deletion of Jackie Barrett's page.  




This just in from a WP editor... 

You chose the wrong deletion method. (Not a surprise. There are a gazillion of them) WP:TFD is Templates for deletion. You were wanting an article deleted. So you wanted one of the three deletion systems that can delete articles. WP:AFD, WP:PROD, and WP:CSD. Those are Articles For Deletion, Proposed Deletion, and Speedy Deletion. The one closest to the TFD that you tried to use is AFD. Your TFD debate was removed from TFD soon after you entered it, but was started as an AFD discussion for you. (Wikipedians can be quite helpful when they want to be. :) ) Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Jackie Barrett is the link to the full AFD discussion.

For future reference, the differences in the three article deletion methods are: CSD is Speedy deletion. It is for extremely limited criteria. If the situation does not exactly meet one of the CSD criteria, then speedy deletion *cannot* be used. OTOH, it is the fastest criteria. Admins like me can apply it at will if we find an article that we think meets the criteria. And anyone can tag for speedy deletion, and an admin will deal with it fairly rapidly. This is what you saw in the older history of the article you want deleted. Someone thought that the article met a speedy deletion criteria, tagged it as such, but someone else (usually but not always an admin) came along and disagreed and declined the CSD deletion.

In this particular case the reason was Notability. The bar to avoid speedy deletion is much much lower than the bar to avoid it in a full debate. An article really only needs to assert notability in some vague way to avoid speedy notability deletion.

Next deletion method is WP:PROD. Prod is intended for uncontroversial deletions. You can use (almost) any reasoning in your PROD deletion request. The key though is that it only takes a single protest of a PROD deletion to invalidate PROD deletion for that article. PROD is thus fairly simple, but if anyone disagrees, they are free to remove the PROD deletion notice.
Last is AFD. Articles for Deletion. This is where you launch a full deletion debate on the article. This is what you tried to do with your deletion attempt. Except for using the wrong system, I think you made a pretty good deletion argument. :)

There are also deletion systems for Templates (WP:TFD), Categories (WP:CFD), Redirects (WP:RFD), Files/Images(WP:FFD), and Misc (WP:MFD). I likely missed a few in this list. So there's no real surprise that you missed the correct one on your first try. :) - TexasAndroid (talk) 21:40, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

 
UPDATE on Jan 9, 2012

Today is clean out my computer day.  Went to Facebook and realized that there are "hidden" messages there that I have never seen.  One was from Jackie Barrett (who is calling herself Joanne, but posting from Jackie Barrett's FB account)

Here is what she told me the responses...

Sept 25, 2011

"Hello, I am writing you in regards to Jackie Barett's wiki page it has come to my attention that you have marked the page for deletion I would like to address this. If you are not aware Jackie is the author of 2 published books , holds both a captains badge and FBI badge for her work she has done on cold cases, on the tv show Medium P.I the captain of cold cases Sean Crowley of NYPD stated that Jackie has worked with him on hundreds of cases. She also was featured on AE special titled the Amityville The Final testament , has appeared on an episode on WE tv Secret Lives Of Woman. She has a long list of media appearances so to correct you in your statement that the only notable apparance was Americas Psychic Challenge you are not correct in this statement. So for future reference before trying to delete an informative wiki page about a person that is notable you should research further. Thank you Joanne"

my response today...

"Just now noticing this Joanne (or are you Jackie?)

Wikipedia does not do all the work looking for the citations. If the notoriety and citations are not on the page then the page has to be deleted.

The problem is that the page was not informative. You can't just make these claims on a FB message page, there must be evidence of what you are saying.

Also all discussions like this one should be done publicly on the deletion page (which is now closed) or on my talk page on Wikipedia.

I would love to see this captians badge and FBI badge. Is there a URL that can prove they exist? If so it will be the first time I've ever heard of a psychic receiving some kind of recognition from the police."

Her response...


"Well you obviously have not done your research have fun policing wiki lol"

As usual the psychic is making a claim that they can not (or will not?) back up.  People have to understand that on Wikipedia and when trying to make a claim elsewhere you have to back it up.  Some seem to think that the burden to prove something does not exist relies on the skeptic.  Why can't they understand this?  If you are making a claim, then it has to be backed up in order for it to be taken seriously.

I don't want to have a back and forth with this person who isn't even clever enough to hide her identity on FB.  Maybe I should look into this Sean Crowley of NYPD person?  Here he is now as a PI.  It gets more interesting, here she is appearing with Crowley for some radio show.  I'm thankful that Jackie/Joanne brought this to my attention. 


 



 
 

James Van Praagh ~ How to Edit

With all the fame and fans supposedly licking the heels of grief vampires like Van Praagh you would think that their Wikipedia pages would be extra patrolled by the thousands that he has helped put in contact with their dead family and friends.  When in fact his page is rarely touched, and the criticism area has had very little action (just the one I will mention in a minute).  His page doesn't even have a picture, guess the paranormal community doesn't have Van Praagh's back, wonder why?

There already was a criticism area when I started editing his page, so I just added on the SI article by Joe Nickell.

Investigator Joe Nickell believes modern day self-proclaimed mediums like John Edward, Sylvia Browne, Rosemary Altea and James Van Praagh are avoiding the Victorian tradition of dark rooms, spirit handwriting and flying tambourines as these methods risk exposure. They instead use “mental mediumship” tactics like cold reading or gleaning information from sitters before hand (hot reading). Group readings also improve hits by making general statements with conviction, which will fit at least one person in the audience. Shows are carefully edited before airing to show only what appears to be hits and removing anything that does not reflect well on the medium. ^[9]

And the investigation by the IIG.  

In 2003 the IIG attended a taping of James Van Praagh's syndicated series “Beyond,” in order to document the difference between what actually occurred at the taping and how it appeared on TV after editing. As suspected, there were many significant differences, the IIG concluded that Van Praagh’s power emanates from the editing room. ^{[10] [11]}

While I had the Joe Nickell blurb and citation already completed I just mosied over to John Edward, Sylvia Browne and Rosemary Altea's pages and "tagged" their sites as well.

Caution Wiki Technology Below

When you do something like this you have to remember to "link" and "unlink" the Wikilinks to the apporate page.  Using the Joe Nickell example above, you have several names mentioned in your blurb.  Each person that is NOT ON THE PAGE you are editing needs to have [[ and ]] around the name.  If I am on Sylvia Browne's edit page then I remove the brackets from around her name.  [[Sylvia Browne]] and put them around the person whose page I'm not on.  

When you "preview changes" before you publish the article you will see that the names that have the [[ and ]] around them are in blue "hyperlink" color.  If you have red writing then you know something isn't linked right.  Misspelling or missing a middle initial ect.   That gets more complicated to sort out in this blog.  The easiest way to solve this problem is to open another "tab" on your browser and go to the Wikipedia page you are trying to link to.  Copy the name of the page and paste it into the page you are trying to edit.  

For example you might have problems linking to C Everett Koop's page unless you have a period after the C.  There are ways around this and it can get complicated but for now just copy from the page you are hoping to link to and paste it into the edit. 

Back to Van Praagh

Whenever you make an edit to any page (no matter how small) you need to write in the "Edit Summary" box a summary of whatever you just did.  And don't try to hide your edit by writing something other than what you did.  This is what someone who thought they were clever tried to do with Van Praagh.  On the watchlist (I explained on an earlier blog)whenever you refresh you will see all the pages that you have on your watchlist that have had any kind of change done to it.  The edit summary will tell you briefly what change was made, like "corrected misspelling of the word dozen" or maybe "revised comma use" or "added article by Joe Nickell".

Well someone named Booradley08 thought they would be clever and wrote "references removed" when what he/she did was remove the ENTIRE criticism section.  Not funny!  Editors might not think to check on something like a spelling error, but they would check in a flash if Booradley08 had written that they had removed the criticism section.

Thankfully I was in a curious mood that day and only 2 days passed before I noticed this edit.  You do not have to go through the entire page looking for what was changed.  You simply just click on "dif" and you can see "before and after" edits.

It is also possible for edits to be hidden by making a big change, correctly writing what you did, saving the page and then going back editing it again with a very small change, writing on the edit summary about the simple change and possibly the person watching the page will only notice the last change done (which was the small change).  I've done this by accident several times, and it is not ethical to hide your edits this way.  I'm only pointing this out in case if you are watching a page, you should look over changes carefully, maybe looking at the history of the page from time to time to see if someone is trying to hide the major edit.

Guerrilla Skepticism of Sylvia Browne on Wikipedia

Anyone that knows me understands that I hold the "grief vampires" like Sylvia Browne, Robbie Thomas, James Van Praagh and John Edward on the top of my to-do list. Anyone that can tell a desperate family that their loved one has been kidnapped and sold into slavery in Japan needs to be slapped down hard. The grief that is heaped on these families must be overwhelming and adding these sick opportunists to the stress is just uncalled for. Whether or not they offer to do it for free or not is not the case, if they manage to even get it partly correct they will claim victory (heck they will claim that even if they get nothing right). They are hoping for publicity which will lead to fame and money. As they say "given enough time, enough monkeys...eventually the monkeys will type out Hamlet".

I'm not going to rant on and on about how much I hate these people because I really need to keep my blood pressure down. Lets just say that of all the woo out there, psychics that reportedly receive messages from the dead are right up there with the worst of the worst. (We all know that anyone can "talk" to the dead, I do, its getting messages back that is the problem).

I've just finished reading an amazing book that came highly recommended to me from Mark Edward and James "The Amazing" Randi. Nightmare Alley (and the movie version) follows the fictional story of Stan who begins his career as a magician in a carney act, over time he becomes a slick medium that cons people into believing he is in contact with their dead loved ones. Though this is fictional it does show how far these people will go to pull off a con. Another great read by Lamar Keene is The Psychic Mafia which is about his years working as a psychic. He exposes the whole gaff. Mark Edward's soon to be now published book Psychic Blues is a modern update of the years he spent working in the psychic industry and is also a "tell all".   All three of these books I highly recommend to expose psychics for what they are.

So now with that background on to what this blog is supposed to be about. Sylvia Browe's Wikipedia site. I'm writing this June 8th, 2011 and maybe by the time you read this there may be a lot of changes to her site, but essentially reading it through right now you will find almost nothing positive about her as a spiritual medium or as a person.

Wikipedia prides itself on having a neutral point of view and just reporting the facts that are carefully cited in the media. They do not allow opinions (except when quoting an article that is giving an opinion), no eye-witness testimony and no stories stating how great something is. So that really doesn't leave much when it comes to Sylvia Browne except negative articles.

Her many books are listed on her site which is only appropriate as she is an author of many works. Her personal very pro-Sylvia website is also listed and that's about it. Because of the amazing Robert Lancaster, we have been shown the way to create a website where the facts are laid one on top of the other until there is a mountain of evidence showing Sylvia Browne for what she is. He repetitively has asked Sylvia and her followers for just one case where she has been correct. Other than Sylvia hiring private detectives to find dirt on Robert, and her also having a lawyer send him a "stop" letter no word has come from the Sylvia Browne camp, nor from any of her many followers.

The opening bio on her page reads thus..."Sylvia Browne is an... who describes herself as a psychic and spiritual medium." Awesome, very appropriate. Often times these pages are written by a fan and you have to watch out for "peacock words" which violates the neutral policy of Wikipedia.

The second paragraph about Sylvia Browne includes what I call Guerrilla Skepticism, carefully cited facts that should be neutral in tone, but come from reliable sources. "In 1992, Browne was convicted of investment fraud and grand theft, and has been involved in numerous controversies regarding her claims and predictions, with reports about her failed predictions and claims appearing in several newspapers." All factual and relevant as to the character of Sylvia Browne.

"Critics such as James Randi, with whom she has had a long running feud, say that she is a cold reader whose readings are indistinguishable from those achieved by mentalists using cold and hot reading techniques. Recent press coverage has asserted that she is overall inaccurate." Again here the editor is using facts to state terms that readers can follow to explain how psychics appear to do what they do. This sentence also exposes readers to James Randi who has a long-standing feud with Sylvia Browne.

"A detailed three-year study of her predictions about 115 missing persons and murder cases, published in Skeptical Inquirer, concluded that despite her repeated claims to be more than 85% correct, "Browne has not even been mostly correct in a single case." This final sentence from the second paragraph should be the last straw to anyone who is not a total fan of Sylvia Browne. (face it trying to convince them will take more than this Wikipedia article, but as Robert Lancaster has reported over and over, he receives emails from her fans telling him that after reading his www.stopsylvia.com site they are now ex-fans).

Love this line, "She has given thousands of one-on-one readings and with a wide variety of groups and individuals; as of 2008, she charges $850 for a 20-30 minute telephone reading." All factual and in-your-face about what kind of money we are talking about, any reader with any common sense can see why Sylvia is in this business. If she just did 100 readings in a year at that rate then she earned $85,000 for 50 hours of work, unbelievable! Wikipedia does not have to do the math (that wouldn't be neutral) but hopefully anyone reading the article with a critical eye will discover this outrageous amount.

"Browne claims to have provided information to police departments and the FBI as a psychic detective. James Randi has researched this and in at least one case found that a police officer Browne claimed to work with did not work at the police department." Again the word "claims" and the citation at the end of the article (which isn't here BTW) leads to where this information was published. Even if you aren't a fan of James Randi you have to wonder why this article still is allowed to be up if it isn't factual?

"She was married to Gary Dufresne from April 1959 until 1972 in that time she moved to Kansas City, Missouri. Dufresne said in a February 10, 2007 interview that he does not think Sylvia has any paranormal abilities, and that she admitted it, saying that the gullible deserve to be taken advantage of. Dufresne again called Browne a "fraud" in a 2010 interview with KMOV-TV" Really don't think I would place much credibility on an interview with an ex-husband, but if you follow the links you will witness his genuineness on the video, and that with the mountain of other evidence just is overwhelming.

"Sylvia acquired the surname Brown from Kenzil Dalzell Brown during the third of her five marriages, and added a final e after she was indicted on security fraud charges." It just keeps getting better and better.

"Browne appeared on CNN's Larry King Live eight days before the September 11, 2001 attacks, but did not predict the event. After the fact she claimed she had disturbing dreams involving a lot of fire in the week preceding the attack". This is a stab at all psychics that did not prevent the 9-11 attacks.

I'm not going to go on and on about all the failed predictions that are listed (and correctly cited) on her Wikipedia page, spend some time yourself and enjoy the facts... But I do want to mention one of my very first edits to Wikipedia. I added Mark Edward's punking of Sylvia Browne to her page, I went back and forth about how to go about writing it in the article. I finally decided on this blurb, "At the Gibson Amphitheater, Universal Studios, Los Angeles, Dec. 29, 2009 Skeptic/Mentalist Mark Edward approached the microphone during the question portion of Sylvia Browne's show and said he had been hearing voices in his head, they were giving him the names...Opal Jo Jennings...Terrence Farrell...Holly Krewson and the Sego Miners. Browne could not tell he was lying and explained the voices were his spirit guides" the video if you haven't already seen it has a surprise ending and really shows what kind of person Sylvia Browne is. If you have already seen it, watch it again, this time with friends.

Many causal readers are not aware of what goes on behind the main Wikipedia page. Little do they know that with a click of a button "Talk" which is usually a blue tab next to the word "article" you can discover that the editors are real people.

This is where the discussion about what to put on the page, take out, rewrite ect... goes on. Here are a few interesting exchanges you might be interested in.


Question: "Rarely has so much negativity been contained in a biographical article. It should be split in two, one called 'Sylvia Browne' and the other, 'Sylvia Browne Criticisms.'"

Answer: "It's really not the right way to write an encyclopedia article, it should contain a description of all the relevant facts in an article of appropriate length for a person with this degree of popularity. The criticisms should be shortened to one section of appropriate length and linked to references."

Question: "Rather than removing critical material, why not just add more supportive material? As long as it can be cited, it should be fine."

Answer: "Thing is though, there are many referenced and verifiable facts that show her failure as medium and clairvoyant and how many that that show her success? Oh yes, I remember, bugger all." AND "I concur. How could this entry be anything BUT overwhelmingly negative?"

another Answer: This is absurd. Your idea of "weight" is a destruction of reality. If you look at the article for suicide, you don't see an argument that more "positive" effects of it should be added for "weight". You won't find people arguing the "sex abuse" article should have more positive points made either. If a person's public life overwhelmingly consists of fraudulant activities, it is disingenuous to try to alter reality in an article by intentionally "weighting" it down with positives, and acting to remove the negatives. But this is precisely what most of you are proposing."

Question: Sylvia is notorious yes, to a certain audience. But she's also written book after book that have all made it to New York Times Bestseller status as well as thousands of fans on online social networks, indicating that a separate group of people find sufficient validation in her work. Who are any of us to say what is "obvious" when so many people support her, and so many people do not? She needs to be represented fairly for both her successes and failures. As this article stands, it is still tangibly negative to a neutral reader."

Answer: "That would be false balance, again. Wikipedia isn’t about balancing info from fans and detractors, it’s about verifiable information from reliable sources. It’s obvious what’s right and what’s wrong when the “many people [who] support her” are fans and the “many people [who] do not” are people with training, education and experience that clues them in to her tricks and low rate of success."

Another person posted a headline in January 2011 that said that the article was overly negative towards Sylvia Browne. They wrote..."I realize that much of this page is dedicated to discussing the bias of the article and whether or not that bias is justified. But all that notwithstanding, the "Predictions" section needs special attention for bias for a few key reasons...Basically, whether or not one believes the bias of subject matter in this section is justified, bias in the writing is not and needs to be removed. I plan to do so in the near future, though I encourage anyone reading this to do so before I do."

The response: "Given that your plan to address the claimed bias (which has been discussed before ad nauseam) in the "near future" has proven to be as accurate as Browne's predictions, I'm going to go right ahead and assume you couldn't find well sourced balancing information or a better way to put the section in the intervening 2 months. I'll take that tag off for you." March 2011

Here is another section again talking about how slanted the article is toward criticism of Sylvia Browne...near the end yours truly chimes in.

Question: "It's beyond pathetic. This whole thing needs a re-write. It's so negative and Browne-bashing, how could this have gone so long without action being taken?"

Answer: "How so? Her claims are extraordinary and the reason for her notability are those claims. It seems most if not all serious sources that look at those claims critically have seen no indication of them actually being true. As such the biography should definitely be written to reflect that her claims have serious scrutiny. What would you change more specifically?"

Another response: "I personally worked with Browne and Company, and I can say that they are all frauds. This article is really too nice and gives Browne way too much credit. Browne is a self-promoter, and those who think that people are too hard on her do not know who or what Browne and her money making empire are really all about."

Apparently there was a tag saying that the criticism section was too large, and the next person removed the tag (in other words saying that we were going to stay with the article as is).

Answer: "I removed the tag. There has been four months to add in "positive" references. The reason the article is "slanted" is because there are no WP:RS to prove her claims. There is no proof she has been right once. If anyone has any positive sources, add them in. Until then, we won't be removing WP:RS. The article reflects WP:RS"

Supporter SmithJones "Don't bother trying to get people to be more reasonable here. Sylvia Browne being a fraud is an article of faith here; when even the takedown of the StopSylviaBrowne site isnt enough to convince people to reconsider, nothing said here can do that. Rob Samuels - your operation w. Browne and her FAMILY is unverifiable, and FOUR MONTHS is HARDLY enough time to do any serious research on any academic subject. I ask you politely and with reaspect to SERIOUSLY CONSIDER extending our time limit to find more reliable sources that fit within Wikipedia policies and write more additions to this article. the psirit of Wikipedia depends on it; if only u can edit, how can this be an OpenSource WIkpieda"

It was mentioned several times on the talk page about the history of www.stopsylviabrowne.com being taken down, the fact was that the webmaster Robert Lancaster had a stroke and he lost the URL while he was in the hospital. The site was turned into a pro-psychic page. Friends of Robert purchased the www.stopsylvia.com URL and transferred all the articles to that site. Many of Sylvia's followers do not understand the history behind it and claim that the original site was "taken down" because it was wrong.

Sgerbic: "Smith Jones - why do you need 4 months, it should take you 4 minutes to find credible sources that show Browne has actually solved a unsolved crime. If you can't find it in 4 months then you won't find it in 4 years. Browne has been asked repeatedly for evidence of her best case, so far nothing has come out of her camp except testimonials from people who claim to have been helped, which proves nothing. BTW Lancaster's site was NOT taken down, he had a stroke and the domain got purchased out from under him, so now www.stopsylvia.com is alive and well."

SmithJones: "no disrespect but its obvious you have no serious background in serious scientific reserch endeavors. I do, and I know it takes MUCH longer than 4 minutes to do much even the basic underpinnings of a major resarch expedition. Its much more than just a Google event; it is most required that you can go to libraries, resarch museums, and find sources that are NOT ONLY deeply incredibly detailed to provide information but are also have meeting the WP:RS statutes. I admit that 4 months is in error; it should require nearly .5x times with that, to do such a good job that would meet the standards of Wikipedia."

Sgerbic: "Smith Jones - Gee we are only asking for ONE example. Well the scientific community will be waiting for that evidence. Why don't you just ask Sylvia? Seems she should be able to supply some evidence. Good luck on that."

Another editor answers SmithJones: "Smith Jones, see WP:THEREISNODEADLINE. Wikipedia will wait for you to find a reliable, verifiable source to substantiate the claims Browne makes. Until then, the article must rely on the already substantiated evidence against her."

SmithJones: "very good, and i was not aware of that policy. is it new? either way, i thank you for your patience and forbearance and i agree with your assertionthat we must rely on the allegedly "substantiated" evidence against her for now. BUT MAKE NO MISTAKE this will not stand as the status quo inedefinitely. just because the truth has been scoure d from theInternet doesnt mean thtat it exists nowhere on earth. I just hope that these policies will be respected continuously when that day comes very soon on wings of rosyfingered dawn...SGerbic -- as for www.stopsylvia.com; it's only a matter of time..."

Sgerbic: "Smith Jones - Really? Can't wait to see what could possibly take down a website like that. Guess I'll set the stopwatch. LOL" This was from November 2010

When it hits November 2011 I guess I better go in and add that we are all still waiting...