Guerrilla Skepticism on Wikipedia
Another thing I do in my free time. As an editor of Guerrilla Skepticism on Wikipedia international team I can focus on elimination of bs&woo with great support and help. 95% of my work is in Czech (’cause Czech Wiki really needs to improve…).
So, what’s this GSoW thing? It’s 2010, and Susan Gerbic (our fearless fairy leader) realises the world needs more facts and fewer bs on Wikipedia. Thus, GSoW was born – a diverse team of volunteers armed with nothing but critical thinking skills and a passion for the truth.
What we do (when we’re not fighting misinformation in our Pajamas)? We craft and polish articles about skepticism, critical thinking, and science (no cape required, but encouraged), same as pages about so-called alternative medicine or conspiracy theories. We hunt down pseudoscientific nonsense lurking in Wikipedia’s depths. We inject articles with credible sources making them real. And we translate our skeptical magic faster than you can say “cognitive dissonance” in 10 languages.
How we roll? Being in GSoW is like being in a secret book club discussing the best way to explain why your friend’s crystals won’t cure his cold. We train, we edit, we fact-check, and sometimes, we even sleep (but don’t tell Susan).
Why I do this (besides looking cool in an Invisible cape)? In a world where your social media feed can convince you the Moon above the flat Earth is made of cheese, someone’s got to stand up for science. That’s us. Also. We’re making sure that when you’re arguing with your uncle at Thanksgiving about whether climate change is real, you’ve got solid Wikipedia articles with relevant sources to back you up.
Want to join our merry band? Sure! If you’ve ever lost sleep over a missing reference, or if you get a little too excited about peer-reviewed studies, you might be one of us! We’re always looking for new great apes to join our mission. No cape required (but strongly encouraged for team morale). Just contact me and I will tell you that you should contact Susan.
So next time you’re browsing Wikipedia and you come across a well-referenced and neat article debunking a popular myth, remember – that might just be me and my GSoW pals, fighting the good fight from our online Cabal.
I did 115 pages till September 2024, with 442,402 total page views. The most popular now is Access Bars woo. Wikipedia is mostly the first source of information on the Internet so it is really important to keep it right. Right? RIGHT?!
A shout-out and hat tip to GSoW team, very probably the world’s most influential activists promoting the cause of scientific skepticism and critical thinking – making the world a better place without any pay or even personal recognition. That’s the definition of service.
– Brian Dunning
FYI:
As of September 9, 2024, “our” wikipages has received more than 175,800,000 hits. We can call it an impact, right?