We have just recently witnessed one of the funniest episodes of UFOlogical stupidity in recent memory: Some of UFO’s top Disclosure Warriors dramatically announce they have uncovered a “secret cabal” manipulating Wikipedia articles about UFOs. Matt Ford of the Good Trouble Show posted this dramatic announcement on TwitX on January 21:
TODAY 530pm Pacific. @RobHeatherly1
joins
us as he exposes the Secret Cabal of debunker Wikipedia Editors run by a
non-profit 501(c)3 targeting Wikipedia pages on UFOs with a written
statement by @LueElizondo
.
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| Guerrilla Wikipedians must be good saucer pilots, since they are “wreckless.” |
Disclosure: Technically I am a member of GSoW, although I have not participated in it very much. I did add some info to a few pages, and I have uploaded a number of my photos to Wikimedia Commons that might have relevance to UFO history.
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Susan Gerbic, with her camera as always, making friends with the Dinosaur in the Creation Museum in Santee, California in 2012.
To maintain the highest standards possible, Wikipedia has a strict inclusion policy that demands verifiability. This is best established by attributing each statement in Wikipedia to a reliable, published source (but see Rules 7 and 8 on excessive self-citing)…. All articles in Wikipedia should be impartial in tone and content. When writing, do state facts and facts about notable opinions, but do not offer your opinion as fact. Many newcomers to Wikipedia gravitate to articles on controversial issues about which people hold strong opposing viewpoints.
There is a “talk” page for many articles, to discuss or debate the application of these rules to the contents of that page. These sometimes turn into big debates for controversial articles, so if you have a problem with something you read in a Wikipedia article and want to change it, you’d better be able to solidly back up your claim. Given many UFOlogists’ propensity for making exciting but unfounded claims, it is frankly no surprise that the articles they write would run afoul of Wikipedia rules, and end up removed or re-written.
Meanwhile, for any UFOlogist who believes that GSoW has been inaccurate or unfair in what it wrote in a Wikipedia article – then challenge them on the article’s Talk page. If you can make a good case that they are not correct, it will get changed, and the change will remain. Plus, you can brag to all your friends about how you defeated the nasty Debunkers on Wikipedia. But I don’t see this happening, and I think we can figure out why. 😉
