A window into Guerrilla Skeptics of Wikipedia

I remember back when the Guerrilla Skeptics activities became public knowledge, it may have been when Skeptical Inquirer published: Wikapediatrician Susan Gerbic Discusses Her Guerrilla Skepticism On Wikipedia Project. As the article says "The Guerrilla Skepticism on Wikipedia (GSoW) project was started in May 2010" and people certainly noticed organized resistance to attempts to give more balanced views on parapsychology etc., but I think most articles about this are from 2013 to present. Guerrilla Skeptics by Robert McLuhan is a good example. The Skeptical about Skeptics website has many more recent articles about Wikipedia. To the Skeptical movement at large parapsychology is a rather trivial subject, anti-vaxxers and much else are regarded as much more troublesome and skeptics in general prefer easy targets, Sylvia Browne rather than studies with Sean Harribance. Now and then the amount of public attention forces them to comment on psychic claimants and things such as Bem's meta-analysis, but more often they have bigger fish to fry. I think it is fair to say that most of them do what they do because they sincerely believe it is the right thing.

Such things as asking for help from other editors, organizing groups of editors, and such, was taboo before Guerrilla Skeptics. I wrote an essay about how to be an editor in Wikipedia for my website and they raised hell, claiming I was asking for help to attack Wikipedia.

(And yes, they were watching my every move back then. In fact, the last time I tried to edit an article, three of the skeptics showed up within a day or two to revert me.)

So along comes rumors of an organized group calling themselves Guerrilla Skeptics. The Skeptic editors denied there was such a group. Today, the skeptics are very well and openly organized and it is difficult to tell the difference between one calling themselves a Guerrilla Skeptic and just a pushy skeptic editor.

I agree that some of the more notorious admin cases were concerned with global warming rather than a paranormal subject. But Nemo, have you looked at the List of topics characterized as pseudoscience? Considering pseudoscience is intended as an insult, that is a skeptic's list. It is a "hit list!"

You said, "Now and then the amount of public attention forces them to comment on psychic claimants ..." That sounds as if you think it is their public duty to correct public impression. That is the kind of talk that starts wars between infidels and true believers. In fact, they exhibit all of the traits of true believers in scientism rather than scholarly science apologists.

I am reasonably well educated and about as pragmatic as people get in the paranormalist community. All of the hundreds of skeptic editors I have contended with have either been conscious, deliberate asses hiding behind a screen name, or stubbornly focused on mainstream science as the only truth. (I do not allow screen names on my board.)

You ended with "I think it is fair to say that most of them do what they do because they sincerely believe it is the right thing." I expect those government people burning Wilhelm Reich's books were doing what they thought was right. That does not make it right. http://www.orgonelab.org/fda.htm

Take a look at https://atransc.org/research_funding_nsf/. Organized skeptics have succeeded in making pseudoscience a synonym for everything the National Science Foundation (NSF) fears most about frontier science. In fact, a few years ago, the NSF was quoting skeptic literature for the meaning of pseudoscience. In practice, there is little-to-no funding from the NSF for any paranormal-related subjects unless it is to debunk the subject.

All of this matters, organized suppression of new ideas is the very thing that drives paranormalists underground and societies into a dark age of stagnation and ignorance. The same kind of insanity that causes people to become radical adherents of conservative, liberal and religious causes makes it possible for some people to become advocates of scientism. Skeptics, no matter their subject of choice, may as well be the public-facing army defending the status quo.