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Crowd-Sourced Activism is Amazing!

by Mark Edward, Apr 30 2013

Tired of talking (or reading) about skepticism and want to take real action?

The Fabulously Busy Susan Gerbic & Myself

The Fabulously Busy Susan Gerbic & Myself

Join the Guerrilla Skepitcism movement and take a few minutes to really DO SOMETHING.

This is Susan Gerbic’s amazing new project that everyone can get involved in.  Please follow @SkepticAction on Twitter and follow the instructions on the one tweet you get each day.  Most are WoT rates but in time will expand to Rbutr, GSoW and The Odds Must be Crazy.
All are actions you can do while standing on your head, they are very easy and also fun.
No More Excuses!
Get Busy.

10 Responses to “Crowd-Sourced Activism is Amazing!”

  1. Archie Clebberdale says:

    For something that tries to spur people into action, this article is damned unspecific.
    If you want to enthuse people, you’ve got to tell what they’re going to do, how to ideally go about it (and how they can help if the ideal way is not an option), what the envisioned goal is, and so on and so forth. Right on the tin, preferably with an actionable right up front.
    As I read this, I only see ‘Someone wants me to do something. On that hell hole called Twitter of all sites.’

  2. markx says:

    Without venturig into twatter, it would appear perhaps to be a Wikipedia editing group, and primarily about promoting prominent skeptics on Wikipedia…..?

    http://guerrillaskepticismonwikipedia.blogspot.com/

    There is something about the idea of an organized group editing Wikipedia which worries me, although I guess there may be other less positive organized groups at work already.

    Certainly they are doing some good; undoubtedly Prothero should be referenced in Wikipedia, and undoubtedly the uneducated certainty of Bill Maher’s anti-vaccine beliefs “… I would never get a swine flu vaccine or any vaccine. I don’t trust the government, especially with my health..” deserve some highlighting and criticism. (from the above link)

    • markx says:

      Ooops – needed a smiley, and a spellcheck – Without venturing into Twitter, it would appear perhaps to be a Wikipedia editing group, and primarily about promoting prominent skeptics on Wikipedia…..? :-)

  3. markx says:

    There is a lot going on there:

    We translate well-written Wikipedia pages into other languages, currently we have 18 language teams working on the project (but we badly need more editors working with us, we train and mentor, see bottom of this blog for contact info).

    Not only do we translate but we need to write (or re-write) the pages that will be translated. We have (and need far more) photographers, video interviewers, copy-editors, researchers, people to caption videos and just motivated people who like doing stuff.

    http://guerrillaskepticismonwikipedia.blogspot.com/

  4. LindaRosaRN says:

    I heartily applaud this skeptic effort at activism. Count me in!

    For those who want to help oppose legislation that seeks to promote quackery, you can also subscribe to RationalNurse on Twitter.

    Here’s an idea for the group: promote fluoridation. Just see what’s happening in Portland now.

  5. Max says:

    WoT, Rbutr, and LOIC, got it. Scratch the last one.

  6. Susan Gerbic says:

    I have just now updated the instructions. Some people dove right in without need for instruction, others seem confused. I’m going to start out with just the WoT (Web of Trust) and see how that goes.

    I will add other ideas (thanks Linda BTW) in time.

    I will probably also add a Facebook group that people who are uncomfortable with Twitter can use instead.

  7. Susan Gerbic says:

    Okay – Just for you all. A Facebook Group page for people who want to be involved but don’t want to tweet.

    It is exactly the same thing, you will receive a URL on the Facebook page every day.

    http://www.facebook.com/groups/374214662687994/

    Happy?

  8. Brian Dunning says:

    I strongly recommend Susan’s projects to anyone who wants to help even the tiniest bit. Plus, she’s awesome.

  9. tony duncan says:

    Susan #8. YES I am now happy. I still don’t quite get the point of twitter. And isn’t facebook starting to incorporate aspects of twitter?. What about google +, though I don’t really use that either.

    I just had a long argument with some climate change deniers who insist that NAZI’s were left wing socialists, As proof I was sent to the wikipedia site of Anthony Sutton. It gives a very nice somewhat informative summation of his contention that the United States supported the Soviet Union ( and to some extant the NAZI’s -Henry Ford and others) from the beginning and basically guaranteed it’s success, because it was part of the corporate elitists master plan to have a world government. There are no critiques of his conspiracy theories, though google quickly got some scholars who seemed to devastate his arguments as being based on fantasy.
    Is this the sort of thing that needs to be edited to give accurate information to people?