July-August updates

Hello everyone, what a busy summer it was for GSoW.  Many of our team members were away from the project but we still managed to get a lot done as you are about to see.  

For those of you not familiar with this blog you will find below all the pages that we have either created brand new or completed major rewrites of.  I encourage you to click on the "before" and "after" for each of these rewrites.  When I see the differences I always get a thrill chill, even after seeing hundreds of these over the last 3 years.  Most of these "befores" have been in this horrible condition for years and if not for GSoW would have probably remained this way forever. 

There is an interview at the bottom of this blog that has this exchange between myself and Emery Emery.  He was thanking us for creating his Wikipedia page.  I answered that I was glad he liked it, but we didn't create it for him, it was created because we felt that it was warranted.  The work we do here is for YOU the reader and for all the Wikipedia readers out there.  I hope you learn something new.  

Enjoy!

Susan Gerbic


A treat for all our readers... Listen to Wikipedia being edited


The Vaccination Chronicles
GSoW members and other skeptics are currently in the process of captioning Richard Saunders' documentary, that features interviews with people who have lived in the time before widespread immunization was introduced, and victims of vaccine-preventable diseases suffered tremendously, often leading to death. It is a pressing warning to everyone: please vaccinate your children.

Progress so far:
Danish subtitles - Claus Larsen (non-GSoW)
Dutch subtitles - Rik and Leon Korteweg (GSoW)
German subtitles - Steff (GSoW)
Italian subtitles - Raffaella Vitali (GSoW)
Portuguese subtitles - Nix Dorf (GSoW)
Russian subtitles - Svetlana Bavykina (GSoW)
Turkish subtitles - Isil Arican (non-GSoW)
Expected: Hungarian, Serbian, Slovak, possibly also Norwegian, Greek, Spanish and Finnish. If you don't see your language here, contact Richard Saunders to see if you can help! (GSoW membership not required)

Leon talks about the project here and here

Dutch

Rob Nanninga - Leon, Emile - Before & After

Stichting Skepsis - Leon, Emile - Before & After

The Four Horsemen (atheïsme) - an edit war and intense discussion about possible deletion resulted in improvement by Leon, Emile and others; the page was kept in a much better condition. Before & After

Victor Stenger - Wim Vandenberghe

English

Alton Lemon - Brand new page

Astronomical Society of Victoria - Greg Neilson  

Bart Bok - Greg Neilson - Before & After

Bill Bradfield - Greg Neilson - Before & After

Brian Brushwood - Todd Dietrich - Before & After

Center for Inquiry - Chris Allen - Before & After

Chris Mooney - Kevin Elsken & Dustin Phillips - Before & After

Comité Para - Leon Korteweg

David Koepsell - Dave Trumbore & Christine Daley - Before and After

Daniele Bolelli - Greg Neilson - Before & After

Dickson Despommier - Kyle Hamar Before & After

Flim-Flam! Psychics, ESP, Unicorns, and Other Delusions - Before & After

Friends Of Science In Medicine - Christine Daley - Before & After

Gesellschaft zur wissenschaftlichen Untersuchung von Parawissenschaften (GWUP) - Michael Steinkellner, Leon Korteweg

Heather Dewey-Hagborg - Janyce Boynton - Before & After

Ian Patrick Harris - Erik Hess - Brand new page 

Joe Nickell - Sarah Gilbert - Before & After

L. Sprague de Camp - Before & After - Janyce Boynton

"List of skeptics and skeptical organizations" was renamed "List of notable skeptics",

List of skeptical organizations split off from it and expanded. - Leon Korteweg

List of skeptical conferences - Leon Korteweg

List of skeptical magazines - Leon Korteweg

List of skeptical podcasts - Leon (additions by András, Svetlana, Todd, Raffaella and Michelle)

Lists about skepticism ("One List To Rule Them All") - Leon Korteweg

Massimo Polidoro - Raffaella Vitali - Before & After 

Matt Dillahunty - Jay Young - Before & After

Vincent Racaniello - Before & After - Kyle Hamar 

Maynard - Greg Neilson - Before & After

Neil Gershenfeld - Jelena Levin - Before & After

Robert Ingersoll Birthplace Museum - new photos (thanks to Tom Flynn & Monica Harmsen)

Richard Wiseman - Walkiria Nubes Cordova & Dustin Phillips - Before & After

Rosemary Altea - Lee Christie - Before & After

Skepter - Leon Korteweg

Skeptics with a K podcast - Leon Korteweg - New page

Stichting Skepsis - Leon - Before & After

Template:Skeptical magazines - Leon Korteweg

Template:Skeptical podcasts - Leon Korteweg

Victor J. Stenger - Todd Dietrich - Before & After

Wonder en is gheen Wonder - Leon Korteweg

Hungarian

Christopher Hitchens - Peter Mogyoros, Attila Harta - Before & After (including June)


Hungarian Skeptic Society - Attila Harta, András Pintér - Before & After (including May and June)

Italian

Massimo Polidoro in Italian - Raffaella Vitali 

Portuguese

Steven Novella - Nix Dorf

Richard Wiseman - Valério Andrade Melo

Russian

Richard Wiseman - Svetlana Bavykina & Jelena Levin

Spanish

Leo Igwe - Erik Hess

----------------------------

Just in case you have missed it, GSoW has had some great new interviews, be sure to check them out.

Skeptically Yours recorded at TAM 2014 - Emery Emery & Heather Henderson Interviewed Susan, Nix and Lei

Data Skeptic - lots of numbers in this interview - skeptics like stats don't they?

A Public Thank you from a Fan

Skepticule talks about the GSoW secret forum (at about 8:00)

Here is a dowser's site that is frustrated with Wikipedia editors you might enjoy

------------------------------

As usual if you want to join GSoW or have questions please contact us at GSoWteam@gmail.com

Wikipedia World - 2 Months - How are we doing?

This is an update on the World Wikipedia project.  Our two month anniversary is here and so much has been accomplished since my last update 5 weeks ago.

If you are not familiar with the World Wikipedia Project please first check us out here.  

Currently we have 45 World Wikipedia editors. 

In no special order these are the current groups.  16 language groups.

French - français - La guérilla scepticisme
German - Deutsch - Guerilla Skepsis
Russian - Русский - Партизанский скептицизм
Korean - 게릴라 위키 회의주의 (한국어)
Portuguese - Português - Ceticismo de Guerrilha
Spanish - Español - Escepticismo de Guerrilla
Arabic - Guerrilla Skepticism on Wikipedia 
Turkish - Türkçe - Skeptik Vikipedi Gerillaları
Polish - Polska - Guerrilla Skepticism on Wikipedia
Farsi - Guerrilla Skepticism on Wikipedia فارسی
Norway - Norsk - bokmål - Geriljaskeptivisme på Wikipedia
Danish - Dansk - Guerillaskepticisme på Wikipedia

Hebrew - Guerrilla Skepticism on Wikipedia - עברית

Dutch - Nederland - Guerrilla Skepticism on Wikipedia
Swedish - Svenska - Guerrilla Skepticism on Wikipedia
English - Guerrilla Skepticism on Wikipedia
-------------------------------------
Jerry Andrus - 

Nix Dorf finished the first Jerry Andrus page. 

We Got Your Wiki Back Jerry Andrus in Portuguese.

We have the Andrus page started in French, Arabic, Dutch, Swedish and Russian.


------------------------------------


Bob Carroll -

I noticed that Bob Carroll had a WP page in French - actually it was a stub.  I took the English picture (I photographed at SkeptiCal 2011) and added it to the French page.  Editor Patrick Mahoney translated the English caption and while he was at it, he translated a lot more of the page.

Before

After

While I was at it, I added the picture to Carroll's  German, Spanish, Czech, Japanese and Romanian pages.


 -------------------------------------

Massimo Polidoro -

I emailed Massimo Polidoro and asked him to upload a new image to Wikimedia Commons that we could use on all the pages that exist for him.  He did so and I added the picture to his English, French, Italiano and Eesti pages. I keep trying to add it to the Finnish page (Suomi) but a bot keeps deleting it.  We don't have any Finnish editors to help fix this.  Also don't have any Italian editors, I explained this to Massimo and hopefully some will step forward.

Look at the image that was being used.  Pretty awful isn't it?

Patrick Mahoney, again came in after I added the picture, and changed the caption to French.
---------------------------------------

Ray Hyman - Portuguese by Nix Dorf is almost done but didn't make the two month deadline.

---------------------------------------

Penn & Teller - Portuguese by  Filipe Russo

Before
After

Blog link
---------------------------------------

James Randi -

Nicola Mazbar added the IIG beard photo and a Arabic translation to his page.

Istem Fer added the Beard image to the Turkish Randi page along with a caption.

Nicola Mazbar added the photo to the Hebrew page as well.

---------------------------------------

Video captions

You might remember that we are trying to caption videos (where we know the video owner) in English.  Once translated in English, then it is easier for the video to be translated into other languages.  Once that is done then we can use the captioned video as a citation on other language pages. 

We have one editor Brad McDowell from Iowa who is systematically captioning videos, first we focused on Jerry Andrus videos.  Now he is working on James Randi and Ray Hyman videos.  This is a big help, but a big project.  Brad could really use some help, and I can train, so please be in contact if you want to help.

Here are a few that we have finished right now...

Ray Hyman on Jerry Andrus on Wikipedia
English, Portuguese, Spanish

Rex Young and Jerry Andrus at TAM
English, French, Dutch

James Randi Describes Jerry Andrus
English, Portuguese, Spanish, French, Dutch

James Underdown Wrestles a Bear
English

Wendy Hughes Explains Guerrilla Skepticism on Wikipedia
English

Ray Hyman and Mark Edward discuss Mentalism
English

Ray Hyman on Sylvia Browne
English

Conversations with Ray Hyman (part 3)
English

Conversations with Ray Hyman (part 2)
English

Conversations with Ray Hyman (part 1)
English

Conversations with Ray Hyman (part 4)
English

-------------------------------------

We were given a lot of space on the "Flying Teapot" blog which is one of the largest Portuguese blogs.  Nix Dorf arranged and wrote this article.

-------------------------------------

A few interviews about the project in the last two months.

Penny Chan from The Skeptic Zone podcast
Tumbling Brain Matter Public Radio
TAM 2012 with Chris Brown
The Skeptical Teacher blog
Tim Farley lecture at Dragon*Con
Tim Farley lecture at TAM 2012

-----------------------------------
 I hope I didn't forget someone or something.  Its been a busy 2 months just getting organized.  We are just getting started.  I hope to catch everyone up on what is happening with this project every few months.

You know my plea!  We have a lot of people involved, yet, we have room for so many more.  Don't think just because I already have a Spanish or German or whatever group we don't need your help. Some of these groups only have one lonely editor, they need company.   And look at how many missing languages we don't have.   

And even if you don't speak another language, or you feel rusty, don't be shy.  You will quickly pick on these skills.  I read only in English, yet I'm making edits in Russian, Dutch, Portuguese and more.  We also need more people captioning videos in English so they can be translated to other languages.  We need more pictures uploaded, more videos uploaded and so on.  There is enough work to be done for a thousand editors, and still need more. 

Please please please consider helping with this project.  Contact me at susangerbic@yahoo.com and I'll help you get started.

Thank you

6th World Skeptics Congress

Exciting times in Berlin May 2012.  The 6th World Skeptics Congress will be hosting a wide array of speakers.  Some of them I'm already very familiar with, others I have no idea who they are.  So off to Wikipedia to discover who these people are that are representing the skeptical community. 

Regular readers already know where this is going... The We Got Your Wiki Back! project aims to support all the skeptical spokespeople's Wikipedia pages.  Because we know that people outside of our community are going to access these pages shame on us if we don't have their backs.  If we don't care about our spokespeople then why should anyone else?

So I'm going to access the pages of these speakers to see what the rest of the world is seeing when they do the same.  An added challenge, remember this is a world congress.  What do the pages look like in their native language? 

One more side note - If you haven't already read my blog Forget English: What the Rest of the World Sees you might want to check it out.  I talk about this same World Congress's message to combat Creationism and Medical Quackery.  Talk directly to the people needing the message (in their own language) by making sure Wikipedia pages related to Evolution/Creationism and medical quackery are all in good order, YOU might not use Wikipedia as a resource, but this isn't about preaching to the choir, its about getting the correct information in a place they will read... Wikipedia.

The Speakers...

Gerd Antes  -  No Wikipedia page exists in English or Deutsch

Anila Asghar -  No Wikipedia page exists

Johan Braeckman - Page exists but as a stub (more like a stub of a stub)

Chris French - Wikipedia page exists but needs work.

Luigi Garlaschelli - No Wikipedia page but mentioned here.

Dittmar Graf - No Wikipedia page - but mentioned on this page.


Harriet Hall - Great page

Sven Ove Hansson - Very nice page (needs a picture)

Holm Hummler - No Wikipedia page

Ray Hyman - Nice page

Walter Kramer - No Wikipedia page

Benedikt Matenaer - No Wikipedia page

Chris Mooney - Needs expanding but still a nice page

Simon Perry - No Wikipedia page

Massimo Polidoro - Good page in English - Page in Italian (but with a horrible picture)

James Randi - Awesome page with 40K hits in Feb 2012.  There is a page in Deutsch as well with 1,800 hits in Feb 2012.  French page got 700+ hits. 

Gita Sahgal - Very informative page

Eugenie Scott - Very nice page

Simon Singh - Awesome page! (received 6,600 hits in Feb 2012)

Samatha Stein - No Wikipedia page

Kylie Sturgess - Darn good page

Rebecca Watson - Already addressed the issues with this page here.

Jurgen Windeler - No Wikipedia page but mentioned here.

Tomasz Witzowski - No Wikipedia page

Its either hit or miss with these pages.  If no page exists then it is possible that person has not met the notability requirements for Wikipedia.  It is also possible that they do meet the requirements but no page has been created.

So what can we do to help?  

The pages that need help like Braeckman's page need someone to re-write the page.  The speakers from non-English speaking countries should also have pages in that language.  Everyone needs to have a nice picture taken of them (at the podium with the Skeptics World Congress logo) in the shot.  If we don't use the picture now (giving publicity to the Congress BTW) then we might use the picture later. 

Uploading images to Wikimedia Commons

Thank you to several photographers that are currently uploading images to Wikimedia Commons.  It really adds a lot to the page.  Just want to mention that my very first edit to Wikipedia as a skeptic was uploading a image of Brian Dunning I took on a JREF cruise.  Now look at me.

I find Wikimedia Commons really confusing to use when you try to do anything other than just upload an image you took yourself.  I have no idea how to edit or delete something, so I try to get it correct the first time, otherwise I just rename the file and reload it.  I'm sure I'm not the best teacher when it comes to uploading pictures.  But I'm going to try and do it anyway, at least just the basics.

Skeptic Brian Engler sprang to action when I asked if he could add some of his images from CSICON to Wikimedia, but he asked some really great questions along that journey, hopefully the answers will be of use to others. 

First question was...

"I'm always happy to share photos with our community and ask only that I be credited (Brian D. Engler) when my photos are used.  Question:  My Wikipedia edit name is not my actual name.  With it, however, I find that I can log onto WikiCommons.  If I upload photos there, though, how do I get my actual name attached for photo credit?"


My solution was for Brian to make a user page for himself on Wikimedia, that way anyone who clicks on the contributor's name will end up going to his user page.  You can add all the images and a bio to the page.  I don't have much of a user page on Wikimedia so I guess I should get on it.  But you can click on my uploads and you will get this page.

One thing Brian did to give himself photo credit was to rename himself on Wikimedia to his real name.  The only problem I can see with that is that he will have two separate accounts,  if he wants edit the image into Wikipedia then I believe he will have to sign back in under the new name.  I use the same name on Wikipedia and Wikimedia so I can move back and forth without signing in again.  I guess it might be easier to change his name on Wikipedia to his name, and then on his old user account write that he has changed his name, so Wikipedia does not think he has a sock-puppet.

Next question from Brian...

"I followed their upload steps, adding both categories and a description, but once the photo showed up I found that it was labeled "Uncategorized" and did not show the description I'd added ("Tom Flynn at CSICON in New Orleans, October 2011").  I then tried to edit and add categories, which seemed to work except they're listed now in red under "Template." I saw no obvious way to add the description."

This is a little more complicated.   Generally when something is in red then that means it is not "linked" correctly.

When you want to upload first go to the Wikimedia main page.  On the left hand side click on "upload file" it will ask you to click on "select media file to upload".  Make sure that whatever your going to upload has some kind of name and not just the numbers that your camera named it.  I'm going to select one of my favorite pictures of Mark Edward that I took in Solvang, CA last month.  Save it as a .jpg,  it does not have to be high resolution.  Find the image on your computer and select upload.  Once it has uploaded, select "complete".

Click the "this is my own work" button.  Then "next".  It should look like this. 

There is a blank box you can write in next to description. 

Here is where you can write all the information about the image you want.  Be descriptive and informative.

Now click on the blue "add categories..." link.



Start typing something in the box and it hopefully will auto-link.  It should "suggest" categories for you.  I know "American skeptics" is a category, so I'm going to type this in the box.  When you have a category you want, hit "save category".  The link should be a blue hyper-link.  If it appears in red ink, that means that the category does not exist.  Think of all the categories you can and select them all, in this case I added "mentalist" and "mentalists" and many other categories.  Generally you can look at the bottom of the WP page and see all kinds of categories.  These are case sensitive.  When you think you are done, select "next".  It will upload and you should be left with something like this.

This blog explains how to upload the image onto the Wikipedia page. 

Keep in mind that having pictures on the WP page does more than make the page look good.  It can also be a great advertisement for the event it was taken at.  Having the podium with the event's logo really helps.  Andy Ngo from the Portland Humanist Film Festival uploaded several images that I put on WP.  Here is one he did of Roger Nygard. 

Barry Karr gave me the names of several people at CSICON that did a lot of photography.  I've contacted Robert Sheaffer and Adam Isaak who are both opening up their portfolios for possible WP images.  Robert Sheaffer BTW uploaded an old image he had of Phillip Klass to Wikimedia and now his page has an image.  

Thank you again photographers.  I hope this inspires more people to look through their photo files and start uploading.  If you don't want to be the one inserting the image onto the WP page, then bring it to the attention of a WP editor like myself and maybe soon thousands of people will be viewing your image.  Don't let this become a gloating match, pictures go up and pictures go down on WP.  

EDITED November 27, 2011
Thanks to Brian Engler several WP pages have been updated with great photos.  A few of these pages were completely missing even one picture.  I referenced CSICON on the caption (as well as most of the pictures show the podium with CSICON on it).  Because there isn't a WP page for CSICON what I did was add this to each edit... What this does is make the words on the WP appear saying CSICON but when it is clicked on, the reader will be redirected to Committee for Skeptical Inquirer's WP page.  

[[CSICOP|CSICON]]

Now that CSICOP has announced that it will be having CSICON yearly, it is probably a good idea to add a reference to the event on their page.  Adding this hyperlink to these pages exposes WP readers to the CSICOP page.  What is the potential?  October 2011 showed 53,862 hits to the following pages. 

Seth Shostak
Chris Mooney
Massimo Polidoro
Bill Nye
Tom Flynn
 

Barry Karr's Wikipedia page is currently being written and not publicly launched yet.  I added one of Brian's pictures to the page for later use. 

Thank you Brian Engler.  I look forward to you looking through all your old photo albums and uploading more.  Especially helpful was the way Brian cited the images, in the description area he wrote completely the citation that was needed to insert under the image, I copied the text, changed CSICON to

[[CSICOP|CSICON]] and pasted it in. Very simple for an editor to quickly add the image and description.

Here is Brian's Wikimedia page.   

Another Edit 11/27/11

example of adding a picture to a page that already has an info box but no image.  

Here is what it looks like before I add the picture.  

 

I am only concerned with the areas for "image =" and "caption =" Now I'm going to take a .jpg from Brian's wikimedia page.  I'm copying and pasting exactly what he wrote.  

 

Now I'm going to change the CSICON in the caption to  [[CSICOP|CSICON]] so that when someone clicks on the hyperlink they will go to the CSICOP page.  



Then hit "preview" and write an reason for the edit.  Click the "add to watchlist" box so you can know if someone changes the page.  Then if you like the way it appears then click on save.  

 

In this case I'm not sure that this image is the best image for his page.  William B. Davis is not known for his work in the skeptical movement, but as an actor.  That should be the main image, but because there is no image on the page and Brian and I have William B. Davis's Wiki back this is the image that is going up.  

When we get something that better reflects his career then all the steps I just explained will be done again and this picture along with the caption will be inserted into the text somewhere on the page.  Exactly where?  You just try it out in different places, keep hitting "preview page" and seeing if you like it where it is appearing.  

When this picture is moved the edit will look just like this.  

[[Image:CSICON 2011-William B Davis.JPG |thumb|250px|William B. Davis participating in
"Skepticism and the Media" panel at [[CSICOP|CSICON]] 2011 in New Orleans ]]

If you think the image is too big or too small, try changing the number of px in the citation.  Try 100 or 150 to make the image a lot smaller.  The reader can always click on the image to make it bigger and get the specifics of who the photographer was.