Wikipedia:WikiProject Skepticism/Old

WikiProject Skepticism is the central hub for Skeptical Wikipedians to get together and work on improving Wikipedia.

It was created on January 9, 2006.

Scope
Dedicated to creating and adding to articles related to science and philosophy, while checking the POV currently present in various Wikipedia articles dealing with such topics as psychics, magick, "alternative" medicines, etc.

The neutral point of view must be preserved where it exists and created where it does not exist.

This WikiProject aims primarily to coordinate the efforts of Wikipedians who wish to promote science and reason in an effort to improve the general quality and range of Wikipedia articles on various topics, while maintaining the NPOV.

The goals of this WikiProject are as follows:


 * 1) To create new articles relating to science and reason.
 * 2) To create new Wikipedia articles regarding those topics not yet covered by Wikipedia, but which are covered by The Skeptic's Dictionary.
 * 3) To place pseudoscience tags on articles related to pseudoscience, fraudster tags on articles concerning convicted fraudsters, and add to criticisms sections where criticism is due.
 * 4) To identify cases of fraud and other unethical/illegal activities undertaken by religious and quasi-religious organizations, as they often go unreported.
 * 5) To improve those articles which need help.
 * 6) To serve as a nexus and discussion area for editors interested in doing such work.

Guidelines proposal
See the talk page for this discussion.

Assessment

 * Assessment Page, for WikiProject Skepticism - Tool that will automatically categorize articles, after they have been assessed as per instructions on assessment page.

Collaboration
RationalSkepticismCollaboration

To do
RationalSkepticismTasks

Article banner
Rational Skepticism

Project team
If you wish to join this project or see it's current members then please see the subpage below. If you want to join then simply add your name to the list of "active members" and don't forget to list your interests and specialties.


 * WikiProject Skepticism/Participants

Project member banner and userbox
Rational Skepticism-Member

User WikiProject Skepticism

Skeptic watchlists
A page for skeptics to post their watchlist suggestions, or links to their own watchlists:
 * Skeptic watchlists

Relevant user categories

 * Category:Skeptical Wikipedians

Relevant article possibilities parked here

 * List of articles related to quackery

Featured articles

 * Carl Sagan
 * Isaac Asimov

Good articles

 * Richard Dawkins

Active alerts

 * Immanuel Velikovsky has a number of claims regarding Velikovsky being shown "correct" in his theories or flummuxoing the academic communities that need to be vetted for accuracy.
 * What, you mean the way the article states: "Put most concisely, it can be said that Velikovsky's theories have been wholly rejected by mainstream academia, often vociferously.", and where it notes that even in the few ironic cases where ideas V was lambasted for have made their way into the mainstream (e.g. extinction of the dinosaurs by an asteroid impact), the "mainstream academia contends that its acceptance of such ideas has little or nothing to do with Velikovsky's work, which is generally regarded as erroneous in all its detailed conclusions by academia. Moreover, Velikovsky's unorthodox methodology (for example, using comparative mythology to derive scenarios in celestial mechanics) is viewed by most orthodox scholars as an unacceptable way to arrive at conclusions"? I fail to see the problem.--feline1 14:51, 11 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Morgellons article under attack from newbie. Needs watching and probably reverting until (s)he learns to collaborate and edit properly. -- Fyslee 19:30, 28 October 2006 (UTC)


 * New article Joint manipulation needs to be watched. Bubba73 (talk), 01:03, 6 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Help newcomer with Quackwatch, please! I'm new to "edit wars" and want to develop skills and techniques to make GOOD edits to these articles.  I characterize changes on the talk page, address criticisms to my changes, etc.  Please lend support and proper constructive criticism and help me deal with those who just don't want information presented, and how to separate them from legitimate feedback.  &mdash;Długosz December 21, 2006


 * Basava Premanand - skeptic and rationalist from Tamil Nadu, India - article could use expansion, pictures, and more sourced citations. Smee 11:56, 24 February 2007 (UTC).


 * Ghost and Qi - These two articles, as well as a multitude of others if you look hard enough, need to make very clear that the existence of their subjects is thorough unsupported by science. This is analogous to requiring articles about fictional subjects to not be written in an in-universe style. I've tried doing this for the article ghost, but was promptly reverted for not being NPOV. --JianLi 05:08, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Urgent attention needed here:


 * Hair analysis in alternative medicine, medical research and in consumer experiments. The article Hair analysis in (alternative medicine) has been hijacked and renamed to the above by promoters of alt med.

-- Fyslee 17:29, 3 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Some piling on here, where the editing status of a trusted collaborator, User:Fyslee, is under ArbCom consideration: Wikipedia_talk:Requests_for_arbitration/Barrett_v._Rosenthal/Proposed_decision  .... thanks, Jim Butler(talk) 09:28, 3 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Would welcome input on this AfD: Articles_for_deletion/Scientific_acupuncture.  thanks! Jim Butler(talk) 08:02, 13 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Would welcome input on this related DRV. --ScienceApologist 13:15, 16 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Magnet therapy being used for promotion by the same company that sells the devices; WP:COI concerns. &mdash; BillC talk 19:52, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Related projects

 * WikiProject Pseudoscience