Things about Wikipedia that frustrate me

• Guerilla Skepticism has apparently been confirmed to be a real thing, as has bullying and harassment by authorities on Wikipedia. 
  

Oh it is real alright. Wikipedia has a comprehensive entry for the leading "guerilla" - Susan Gerbic. Very little by way of criticism of her or her movement, it should be noted.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susan_Gerbic

Oh it is real alright. Wikipedia has a comprehensive entry for the leading "guerilla" - Susan Gerbic. Very little by way of criticism of her or her movement, it should be noted.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susan_Gerbic

I've not looked into it much recently. However from past discussions on the topic of guerrilla sceptics, I came to assume that their natural habitat was within the infrastructure of Wikipedia - among other places.

Oh it is real alright. Wikipedia has a comprehensive entry for the leading "guerilla" - Susan Gerbic. Very little by way of criticism of her or her movement, it should be noted.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susan_Gerbic

She is a piece of work, I agree. There's another particularly irritating zealot, styled Mr Bill, who made it his duty to remove anything about near death experiences that suggested 'something more' than the brain was at work. He was active on several of the pages, really annoying. To test it, I deleted one word which altered the meaning of what he'd previously edited and within a few hours it was back to NDE's CAN be explained instead of can't. 

Here is an article about the kind of bullying and pseudo-skepticism on Wikipedia:
https://ethericstudies.org/wikipedia-bullying-editors/

Wikipedia editors frequently argue with each other over what content is allowed on their articles so much it's sickening. 

But you know what's ironic? This page on Wikipedia itself: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedi...f%20itself.

There's also this: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reliabil..._Wikipedia 
And this: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Wikipedia

The co-founder of Wikipedia also said this about it's article on Intelligent Design back in 2017: 
https://evolutionnews.org/2017/12/wikipe...ly-biased/

As the originator of and the first person to elaborate Wikipedia’s neutrality policy, and as an agnostic who believes intelligent design to be completely wrong, I just have to say that this article is appallingly biased. It simply cannot be defended as neutral. If you want to understand why, read this. I’m not here to argue the point, as I completely despair of persuading Wikipedians of the error of their ways. I’m just officially registering my protest. —Larry Sanger (talk) 05:30, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

I am impressed that Wikipedia seems to be so self-aware of its own problems and yet has done little to address them. Wikipedia is simply not neutral in any way. Larry Sanger complains to this day of the bias on Wikipedia, particularly in terms of politics and religion. No wonder school teachers and most universities don't allow it to be cited. Their general reasoning can be found here: http://www.findingdulcinea.com/news/educ...pedia.html

Here's the thing about internet sceptics. I think of them as the equivalent to fundamentalists and I abhor fundamentalists of any stripe ... religious, atheist or scientistic (adherents of scientism as opposed to science enthusiasts). Unfortunately, such fundamentalists represent a consensus view. Science has become synonymous with materialism (or, as they prefer, naturalism). 

The so-called supernatural is, by definition, not scientific because it falls outside of that which is within the scope of scientific inquiry. So any research into the paranormal or phenomena which challenge naturalism is labelled pseudo-science. Thus people like Gerbic feel justified in their crusade against exposing the general public to pseudo-science. They feel further justified in these troubled times when science is under attack from political factions who deny climate change or reject vaccines. I'm not commenting on those issues - there are other sub-forums here which allow for political and conspiracy theory discussions. All I am saying is that they tend to lump anything they consider a challenge to their scientistic worldview into one basket - and that has the label pseudo-science.

Now I have conversations with people I like and respect. I often share their views on politics, for example, or social and cultural matters (such as combating racism or on human rights). But by and large these are people who turn to Wikipedia for information and what we here may see as bias, they see as the consensus view. They trust the voices that say that science is fact - the truth - whereas religion, philosophy, spirituality, etc., are, at best, unproven beliefs. For the most part, I trust science too. But I recognise its limits and I do not believe that science has replaced philosophy or can pronounce with any authority on the existence (or otherwise) of God or a spiritual reality. My view is clearly not that of the scientific consensus as represented, I think, by this summary of methodological naturalism (my bold):

Arthur Strahler, a geologist who has taken particular interest in the claims of supernaturalists to be able to supersede naturalistic explanations of the world, points out the essentiality of naturalism to science:

"The naturalistic view is that the particular universe we observe came into existence and has operated through all time and in all its parts without the impetus or guidance of any supernatural agency. The naturalistic view is espoused by science as its fundamental assumption."

Strahler's point ... is that science must operate as though this is true. So philosophical naturalism serves minimally as a regulative, or methodological, principle in science, for the following reasons given by Strahler:

"Supernatural forces, if they can be said to exist, cannot be observed, measured, or recorded by the procedures of science--that's simply what the word "supernatural" means. There can be no limit to the kinds and shapes of supernatural forces and forms the human mind is capable of conjuring up "from nowhere." Scientists therefore have no alternative but to ignore the claims of the existence of supernatural forces and causes. This exclusion is a basic position that must be stoutly adhered to by scientists or their entire system of evaluating and processing information will collapse.... To find a reputable scientist proposing a theory of supernatural force is disturbing to the community of scientists. If the realm of matter and energy with which scientists work is being influenced or guided by a supernatural force, science will be incapable of explaining the information it has collected; it will be unable to make predictions about what will happen in the future, and its explanations of what has happened in the past may be inadequate or incomplete."

As paradigms break and shift, fundamentalists will seek to preserve old orders.

Wikipedia is a resource subject to change as time passes.

Stone whispers patience...