Single Purpose Accounts and Editor Assistance

Wanted to wait a bit before bringing this all up.  I don't want to influence people into getting involved in discussions or edit wars unless they already were editing that page.  So it appears to have run its course and I want to discuss it here.  You don't have to know all about the history of the page, or even understand the topic to learn some valuable lessons.

This is going to be about Vassula Ryden whom you might remember was one of the first pages I had added skeptical content to.  I've used her edits as an example of working backwards, when I found an article in Skeptical Inquirer Magazine by Joe Nickell and added it to her Wikipedia page. 

A month ago I received a letter from an anti-Ryden blogger who had read this blog and appealed to me for help.  She had been trying to edit the Ryden Wikipedia page and kept getting her edits reverted.  I went to Vassula's page and realized that my Joe Nickell edits had been removed.  So I put it back in, this nearly started an edit war (something you do not want).

The talk page got heated up with a person or two (they weren't signing their posts so I'm not sure who said what) I'm going to sum this all up for you, but include the links if you want to read all the details.

They said that they removed my edits because Ryden is a living person and you can't put anything negative (or opinion) about a living person.  Also Nickell had never met Ryden so he could not comment on her spiritual writings from God.

I said "oh yeah! I don't think so, that is stupid" (actually I was much more professional)

They said, "Yeah!  and if you don't like it we are going to tell on you"

So I said "Fine!  I just asked an editor to assist us in this disagreement"

And I did.  I had never done this before but made a request on the Editor Assistance page, I stated my case and then provided the link to the people who I was arguing with back on the Ryden talk page.  The other editors went to the Assistance page and made their argument too. 

Then senior editor looked over the page and said.

Not only should the Nickell edit be put back on, but there should be more criticism like that on the page.  The page is fringe and it is slanted too far towards Ryden.  Editors can not leave their opinion on a page, but the person we quote can leave their opinion, and clearly Nickell was qualified to do so.

The editor then looked at the contributions of all the editors that work on the page and found that these people mostly only work on Ryden's page. Opps!  It appears that they are supporters of Ryden and are not interested in improving Wikipedia, only improving Ryden and they need to knock it off.

So time has passed, my Nickell edit has now been moved up to the beginning of the page and not nearer the end where it was before.  These people I think have stopped editing.

Lessons to be learned here?  Stay calm.  Be professional.  Clearly state your facts.  Allow your opponent to have their say.  You might be completely wrong, step back and see the edits from their point of view.  Also ask for help, sometimes you are right and they are wrong.

Tim Farley is a very smart man.  He has suggested many times that editors need to branch out from editing skeptical sites and edit other topics like your home town page, or your college page.  You don't want to be accused of having a single user account.

Link to Ryden talk page (search for sgerbic)
Link to Editor Assistance page (search for sgerbic)

You can see another editor's contributions by clicking on the blue "contribs" after their name. 

TAM9 ~ The Amaz!ing Meeting

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sean Faircloth & Secular Coalition for America:

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

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

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

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

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

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

James McGaha:

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

Richard Saunders: 

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

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








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

 

George Hrab

Brian Dunning

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

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

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

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

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

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

Carol Tavris asked if I could retake her picture when she was wearing something colorful. She was wearing a burgundy outfit at the time we were talking but she got scooted away too quickly.  Actually I really like the image I took of her that is on the page right now. 

I had so many things I wanted to get done those days, but really there was so much going on and by the third day I was exhausted. The same can be said for all the speakers that wanted help with their Wikipedia pages, they were overwhelmed and tired.

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

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

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

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

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

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

General Overview and Plea for Help

We know that shouting and being in people's faces about their lack of critical thinking does not work.  It might make you feel superior for the moment but really belittling people about their beliefs is only going to force them to "circle their thinking wagons" and just defend their beliefs more.  When they can go onto sites like Wikipedia and see a well written blurb about their favorite woo or paranormal belief they might just get curious and start reading links on cold-reading and other methods, maybe even follow the footnote to the actual article.  Once on that site they might look around at other articles and so on...   People change their minds when THEY get to do the research and THEY make the decision that what they once believed is no longer making sense to them.  Wikipedia (which is going to be one of the first hits they receive when searching for a word/phrase/person on the Internet) is the place to facilitate that experience.


Most of us came about becoming skeptics in this same fashion (not necessarily through Wikipedia which has only been around 10 years) but by questioning our beliefs through discussion with ourselves and others.  Articles, TV shows and other media play a big part in getting the conversation going.

Originally I had written this introductory post explaining the overview and philosophy of Guerrilla Skepticism for the JREF TAM committee.  They asked if I would write a blog post that they would put up on their site.  I did so and was selected to present a paper at the Sunday morning session at TAM9 Las Vegas July 2011.  I then decided to pull the blog article from this site so as not to conflict with the blog they were going to be putting up.


I started this personal blog after giving two lectures one at SkeptiCamp: Fort Collins, Colorado in February, and at SkeptiCalCon in Berkeley Memorial Day weekend 2011.  I get a lot of questions about what I'm doing and how can people help.  This blog answers all kinds of those questions.  How you can help is easy.  Just comment on this blog so we can get started.  I could make this a 40 hour work week job for the rest of my life and still not get caught up.

We need lots of help.  I can show you how to edit if you need that kind of help.  (First you need to make an account on Wikipedia).  We need people who are great at writing blurbs for articles that are well cited (this means journal articles, newspaper articles, magazines ect...)  I say start backwards by finding your source first that fits all the Wikipedia requirements and then look at places to put it on, write your blurb and citation and place it in as many locations as possible.

If you don't want to edit Wikipedia you can just work on writing the blurbs.  I read an SI article on the plane yesterday and wrote the blurb on the page of the magazine.  Now all I have to do is type it out, cite it and paste it in.

We need photographers to get to the skeptic pages and update with current images.  Events as well as portraits.  I think we need a whole blog just on this subject which I will get to soon.  Photographers don't need to actually post the pictures on the Wiki site but they will need to open an account on WikiCommons and upload the image and make it available to editors.

People to correct my grammar and spelling before posting it on Wikipedia are easy to find.  I have found having over 1,000 Facebook friends rather helpful.  I get instant feedback on any problems.  Then I can go in and make the changes to my blurb and post.

Barry Karr from Skeptical Inquirer Magazine and I have been having an on-going conversation about a comment that Dr. Eugenie Scott (yes that Eugenie Scott!) made during my lecture at SkeptiCalCon.  She said that SI magazine does not have 100% of its print articles on-line for people to link to.  Barry's concern is that he needs to sell magazines and if the entire content is on-line why would people want to subscribe to a print magazine?  Good point.  I'm not in the business of selling magazines, I just want people to find the article on-line.

So what he proposes is for us to begin by going to the http://www.csicop.org site and find an article we want to write about and then place the link in the Wikipedia article.  That way we know that the article is on-line.  I think this is brilliant and where we should tackle first (working backwards remember).

If you look at my "tag" on Vassula Ryden's page you will see that the footnote does not go to a on-line link.  Only to a print magazine reference.  Most people will just stop there and not research further.  I'm sure if we ask Barry nicely he will put up specific articles like Joe Nickell's on Vassula Ryden.  But in the mean time we should try doing articles that are already on-line.

Barry was pretty excited about the "tag" I put up on Walmart's massive page concerning their support of homeopathy. (See my blog for discussion on this event) He says he "likes the idea" of what we are doing and would like me to write an article for the online version of SI.  Of course I would love to do so but will have to wait until after TAM9 so as not to step on the JREF toes that got me first.

BTW I keep giving SI examples to work on and there are thousands that need to be done.  But that does not mean that is the only area to tackle.  We have many many science and skeptic journals that relate to pseudoscience topics.  Plus we need to keep up our support of those scientists/skeptics who are on the front lines writing the articles and educating people on critical thinking. 

Barry has informed me that CSI gets about 4% of its hits from people following links from Wikipedia.  I'm really glad we have a starting number and with some effort I'm sure we can make that percentage rise.  The IIG gets about 6% of its hits to www.iigwest.org from Wikipedia.  The number has risen from about 5% when I started.  IIG receives most of its hits from UFO Wiki sites on Billy Meyer.  Our Wiki UFO articles have been translated to Japanese as we get the majority of hits from Wiki Japan.  Guess that makes sense.

Anyway, I'm going to "launch" this blog now that I'm over 10 articles.  I'm sure you will get the drift of what I'm advocating by just reading through the blogs.  The skeptical community really needs your help on this.  If you have the desire to reach out and do something that will really make a difference please consider getting involved in this project.

Welcome

"We Got Your Wiki Back" Project ~ The Bigger Picture

Hopefully by now everyone understands that Guerrilla Skepticism usually involves "tagging" paranormal Wikipedia pages inserting a bit of critical thinking into the knee-deep woo. At its best that is what I advocate.

But what about the skeptical sites. Do we really need to update and cite people involved in the skeptical movement. Why do they need their own personal pages? Everyone knows who Carl Sagan is so why keep up his page?

Because I said so! That's why!

No seriously, it is a good question. We need to think about what the "big picture" goal here is. When our skeptical "heroes" speak out for us in the "real world" they need the credibility of having a well maintained and cited page backing them up. Face it most people don't know who is who in the skeptical movement, Carl Sagan may be the exception but stop 10 people on the street today and ask them who James "The Amazing" Randi is and they will sadly shrug their shoulders. That's almost unfathomable to us skeptics. My point is, we don't live in the real world (so to speak) our language is unique to us (woo, troother, JREF, IIG, SI) are just a few examples. When someone turns on CNN and there is Randi talking about Sylvia Browne how many people are going to say "who is that?" a quick search on Wikipedia is going to do a lot of educating, and shame on us if we don't have Randi's back.

Also skeptical topics and people should have a ton of links the researcher can follow that will expand the knowledge of not only the lay person but also avenues that we skeptics didn't know existed. Many times I have been reading a Wikipedia page and discovered podcasts and articles that I didn't know they were on. Having a live link to click on opens up my interest level and the next thing I know I've found a new podcast to subscribe to.

Face it we are a very small group of fish in this ocean. There are more bowling activists than there are skeptic activists (don't ask for the stats on this cause I just made it up). We have a lot of work to do to get the message out that skepticism is awesome and active. We also need to look out for each other. Someone looking on Joe Nickell's page is going to see links to other podcasts and articles he has been quoted in.

When someone looking at Vassula Ryden's (see earlier blog post) Wikipedia page sees the article by Joe Nickell they might follow his hyperlink. When they say "who is this guy?" they can click on his link and find out exactly who this guy is. There are a ton of people on her site that reportedly have investigated her, only one has a hyperlink to a Wikipedia page, all the others I say "who the hell is this?" No credibility at all.

We need to remember that most of the skeptics on Wikipedia also have other interests not related to skepticism. For example Yau Man Chan is known for his time on the reality show Survivors, plus he is really active in the world of ping-pong. We know him for being one of the Skeptologists. I recently listened to him lecture at SkeptiCalCon in Berkeley this May, while there I photographed him wearing his nametag and holding the JREF Pigasus. I uploaded the picture to WikiCommons and posted it on his Wikipedia page along with this reference "Yau-Man Chan & JREF Pigasus after lecture at SkeptiCalCon, May 29, 2011 Berkeley, CA". There wasn't any reason to post a blurb on his site as he lectures all the time and there was nothing notable about the SkeptiCalCon lecture. BUT the picture is really cute and awesome and I'm able to link back to the JREF and if SkeptiCalCon had a Wikipedia page of its own it would also be linked.

Also from that same conference I photographed Anthony Pratkanis, Robert Carroll and Peter Gleick all three of these men had Wikipedia pages but none with a picture. Now they all do, with the reference back to SkeptiCalCon. This might expose people reading their pages to this concept of skepticism.

Mark Edward is known as a mentalist as well as a skeptic heavily involved in Guerrilla Skepticism, his Wikipedia page expresses both of these worlds. I have left his name on the famous mentalist Wikipedia page as well as the Street Magic page. People interested in knowing more about the mentalists and street magicians will see his name and follow the hyperlink and discover Mark. This is kinda a back door to exposing them to skepticism, there is a quote on Mark's page saying "I've always been a skeptic because I'm a magician. When I see something in this hand (points to right hand) I automaticly want to know what the other hand is doing." This quote may engage anyone coming to his site with a magic interest.

In some minds, Skepticism is thought of as a negative term, "only old white men with no humor are skeptics" seems to be the statement most popular. My friend John Rael from Skeptically Pwnd recently told me that we need to "take back the term skeptic and remind people how cool that word is". Well okay John I agree, in my opinion we don't need to be looking for a better word to describe ourselves, just need to market ourselves better.

One way is to show on the Wiki pages how human we actually are. Check out Barry Beyerstein's page. When I first tried to read this page I nearly fell asleep (look at history of page before I began to edit it and you will see what I mean) another editor on Wiki approached me and asked if I could help edit the page. I knew Barry and loved his sense of humor and compassion for people (he would go to any lengths to explain something) just an all-round neat guy. So I remembered that he had signed a book for me that he wrote an auto-bio essay in called "Skeptical Odysseys" (yes we can and should be quoting from books also). So after reading the essay a few times I took notes and quoted a ton from it.

Should note that this is not the correct way to edit references on Wikipedia, you are to use your own words as much as possible. But I loved the tone and that it seemed to come from Barry's voice so I did something totally different and wrong. So sue me! Its been months and no one has said a word (its on my Watch List). If and when someone does I'll clean it up or allow them to do so. But for the moment Barry describes himself like this " I frequently found myself the odd man out...(they thought) I was a nice guy, but hopelessly 'linear' and 'left-brained', despite my de rigueur shoulder-length hair, tie-dye t-shirt, bell bottoms and cowboy boots.” How human is that?

He didn't even have a picture on his site. I did have some group pictures I had taken years ago, so I cleaned them up the best I could and inserted them on his page. I then "friended" his daughter on Facebook and let her know I had updated his page. She was delighted and said that her dad would be very happy with it. Recently I asked Lindsay if she would please upload some nicer images of her dad (she is a photographer) to WikiCommons and I'll link those pictures to his site. She assured me she would get to it soon and again thanked me.

So remember the big picture. We need to keep these pages up to date and well tended. If they don't have a site maybe we should consider making one (currently I am working on James Underdown and Barry Karr's pages). We want to market skepticism better and give these people more creditability, so get on it.

Vassula Ryden on Wikipedia ~ Working Backwards

Work Backwards!

This is one of my Guerrilla Skepticism mantras when you aren't sure where to start editing Wikipedia. Its nice if you have favorite topics but it can be a bear to find the citations that Wikipedia needs to be notable.

In the case of Vassula Ryden (whom I had never heard of) I found an article in Skeptical Inquirer written by Joe Nickell about her purported written messages from God and friends. So I had a well sourced document on hand and she had a Wiki page that was mostly positive or neutral. Start with all this, carefully read the source and write a small blurb about the article, then "tag" the Wiki page while also using "ref" tags linking it back to the original article. And your done!

Here is the article...

"Rydén is best known for her writings entitled "True Life in God", which is a compilation of nearly 2000 messages she claims to have received from God since the year 1985 when she was living in Bangladesh. While she was writing a grocery list, she reports to have suddenly experienced a light electrical feeling in her right hand and, at the same time, an invisible presence. She says she felt led by this presence and, permitting her hand to be guided, she wrote a line in a very different style from her own with the words: "I am your guardian Angel and my name is Daniel."

A long list of "investigators" all listed on her page looked into her writings and here is what they determined...

"...three possibilities are open for discernment – a diabolical origin, a psychic origin or a supernatural origin. The findings of these investigations of Rydén’s case – documented in books and articles – systematically rule out the first two possibilities and conclude that the writings are a phenomenon of supernatural origin"

How about just FRAUD. Have you thought about that? Apparently not. Wonder if someone should check these references?

Another investigator researched her writings and came up with this...

"Laurentin carefully examines and addresses the many objections made against Rydén. He states: "Vassula is one of the most balanced and transparent seers that I know. Nevertheless, she has excited more opposition than any other. As is often the case for mystics, disbelief, fear, opposition and calumny appear in like measure with the graces received."

One more...

"”The theological analysis of her writings brings into relief themes like: devotion to the Holy Spirit, the Alliance of the Hearts of Jesus and Mary, Christian unity, the conversion of Russia, devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, the spreading apostasy."

Kinda makes you want to be sick doesn't it? Anyone looking this woman up would find little criticism of her "talent" to someone on the fence it kinda looks like she is the real thing. Messages from God? Well Okay, why not? She is not telling people to jump off cliffs but to Love one another and spread the Word of God. This was the article before I got a hold of it.

Enter Joe Nickell. CFI investigator of the paranormal, also an expert on handwriting analysis.

"In Skeptical Inquirer Magazine investigator Joe Nickell took an objective look into these “purported messages” and found “the contrived handwriting, the linguistic lapses, and the indications of fantasizing all suggest that Vassula Ryden is not in touch with supernatural entities but is simply engaging in self-deception that in turn deceives the credulous. Her automatic writings therefore are not works of revelation but simply of pious imagination.” Furthermore Ryden's personal misspellings and grammar are identical to those written by Jesus, God, Mary and her own invisible “guardian angel, Daniel which all seem to have the same hand writing and grammar. Nickell states, “If God deigns to use the English language, should we not expect it to be rendered accurately?” In conclusion Nickell writes, “One suspects that if Ryden were prevented from seeing what was being written, the entities supposedly guiding her hand would be unable to so faithfully follow the lines! I invite Ryden to accept my invitation to perform a scientific test to refute or confirm this suspicion."

Insert arm pumping here! That is pretty exciting to this Guerrilla Skeptic! There was nothing critical of her on her page, and shame on us for that. We should never allow this kind of woo to go unchallenged. Do you think any hint of doubt ever entered the head of one of her followers? This isn't so in your face that I'm calling her a fraud (which I have no idea or not if she truly believes these claims) and that isn't important here. What is important is to state the facts with no opinion. But it was okay for me to quote Nickell's opinion. See the difference?

Still we badly need more criticism on her page. She isn't one of the popular woos so she doesn't get the attention that grief vampire Sylvia Browne does. We need to get the link to the SI article "active" I've written to Barry Karr of SI and asked if we can't get these articles to become something people can click on and in an instant able to read. As it stands now they have to order the magazine article or go to the library and look it up. Hardly something people are likely to do. Just waiting for a reply from Barry.

This adventure isn't truly over. I had a problem with the wording in the first paragraph of the article. They had written...

"She receives no personal royalties, fees or benefit for her efforts.

Yeah sure. So I added the line "Other than personal recognition from devoted fans, she receives no personal royalties, fees or benefit for her effort".

That was taken out. So on the discussion page I state that the editor is not NPOV (in other words not neutral point of view, which is against Wikipedia's policies) the editor is showing bias towards Vassula Ryden. I say either remove the line completely or allow mine to stay. This all happened in March 2011. I waited and waited and no one said anything (the page is on my Wikipedia Watch List) so in June I wrote rather aggressively...

"Been more than 2 months. I'm removing the non-NPOV statement about her "doing this for free" line. Does she SELL her books or not? Amazon has quite a few books listed of hers for sale, wonder if they know they are supposed to be for free? I'm willing to go through arbitration with Wikipedia senior editors if you try to put it back into her page. Sgerbic"

So far so good. Sometimes you have to get a bit aggressive and use Wiki phrases to make them think you know what you are doing. Just be confident.

Just for the fun of it check out a few of the comments from other editors on the discussion page which just reek of bias and craziness.

if you read the documents from the Vatican, there can be no doubt that the writings ARE NOT private relevation (from Heavan) but personal considerations of Mrs Ryder. It is implied that, like Fatima and Lourdes, the writings are on the same level. This is blatently misleading, because Fatima and Lourdes ARE private relevations, recognised by the church, without warnings from the Vatican, and Mrs Ryder's writings are only personal consideration, with warnings from the vatican."

AND

"Since it appears that the real theologians at the Vatican have nixed the possibility that Jesus "this time" is really communicating through this woman, it seems that demons would most likely be responsible. They like to lie about who they are. They love to pretend to be good beings suggesting that they are Jesus or angels of Heaven. Look at the stupid demon who began talking to Joseph Smith. Smith was arrested for divining which is an occultic activity. Then when the supposed angel Mormoni began talking to him he believed that it was a Heavenly angel. What he didn't seem to understand is that someone who messes around with the occult is not going to get Heavenly visiters but demonic ones! I mean Mormoni? Please!"

To the person who "trusts" the messages of Mrs. Ryden why not just read the real Bibles and get your messages from them instead of another Christian who seems to be loosing her way by one of Satan's monkeys?"

"If anyone tries to re-modify this article, putting author-opinionated comments such as stating Vassula's writings not being of divine origin etc, this WILL be taken on to the next level and we will get an independent 3rd party to intervene based on the abovementioned guidelines.
I don't feel like getting an account to make the needed changes..."

Priceless...

There is a bit of hope though. this is from August 2010.

"Does making "prophetic" predictions automatically give someone notability? How many predictions did she make that didn't come true? This article has problems. Like this blatantly biased statement, "Vassula has recorded many prophetic messages, some already fulfilled and others yet to unfold." This is ridiculous and implies that she has some kind of mystical power, a theme found throughout the article. And regarding notability, almost all the references to her writings are from religious organizations, her own website, or clergy with very few sources in the non-religious media. I think that this article needs to be heavily edited and unsubstantiated, biased claims of prophecy and especially the section on "supernatural phenomena" removed. The sections on her work with other churches and the United Nations, and the controversy with the Catholic Church is fine and well sourced, but the rest is questionable. I may be out of bounds, I don't edit a lot here. ch473 "

I wrote to ch473 thanking him/her for their skepticism and advising them to please make the changes they think will improve the article.

I'm telling you there is A LOT of work out there to do. I have Vassula Ryden on a Google Alert hoping for more articles about her (hopefully critical ones) that I can add to the page. So far I've only gotten a couple hits, mostly in some other language and a link to her fan page on Facebook. (Which only has 39 fans BTW).