Thursday, June 23, 2011

John Edward & Granite State Skeptics

Today I received a flurry of messages about the Guerrilla Skepticism (off of Wikipedia) done by the Granite State Skeptics this last Tuesday night.  Awesome work people!  Even more interesting is that they got quite a bit of press in the local paper.

Mark Edward called me to tell me he had just done a blog on the subject as he is so proud of the group.  I got all excited when he mentioned the newspaper article, because as you all know that is noteworthy for Wikipedia.  So I strolled over to John Edward's Wiki page and saw a few old edits in the criticism section that I had left a few months ago.  (the criticism section is growing fast)

I read through the newspaper article a few times trying to figure out what I wanted to say in the blurb. I have to stay neutral and only state facts but I want people to really think about how much money is involved, so I went with a nice long number $100,000 with lots of zeros.  The article says the same thing but with more math involved, "he filled the 840-seat Palace Theater on Tuesday at $125 a pop".   I went back and forth trying to glean a really great quote from Travis Roy (the spokesman for Granite State Skeptics) and finally decided to go with this

On June 21, 2011 Granite State Skeptics attended Edward's New Hampshire show handing out cold reading BINGO cards to the attendees. Spokesman Travis Roy states that Edward and psychics like him are "causing emotional damage by preventing people from properly dealing with their grief", the skeptics want to get people to "think critically" about the general terms Edward uses. The Nashua Telegraph reports Edward's ticket sales for that night were over $100,000.

I'm not the final word on all this.  Someone could come in and take this edit out, we will just have to see.  And there is no reason why someone else (hint hint) could go in and rewrite this blurb better.  Or in the comment section below leave me some ideas on improving it.

By the way, blogs aren't noteworthy for Wikipedia.  But I referenced Mark's blog all the same next to the citation for the newspaper.

On a small side note I would welcome some conversation about this.  Someone else left this sentence in the criticism section "John Edward claims he never uses cold-reading techniques" and the citation leads to a book written by John Edward.  At first thought, I just don't think this fits in the criticism section, nor anywhere on the site as it is straight out of Edward's book and clearly a "duh" kind of thing.  But I'm kinda torn, I almost like the sentence there as it just screams "what a liar he is".

Anyway, opinions please.

2 comments:

  1. Sadly, I have lost the edit of John Edward and the Granite State Skeptics. It was up on and off for a few days but now it is just in the "history" section of the page.

    The other editor who will not back down is saying that Granite State Skeptics and Travis Roy are not "noteworthy" enough to be quoted on Wikipedia. So sorry people.

    If Travis Roy and/or The Granite State Skeptics had their own well-maintained Wikipedia page (and enough citations to prove it) then possibly we would be able to re-post the blurb.

    But as a consequence that would mean that Granite State Skeptics would be doing a lot more Guerrilla Skepticism as well as gaining a lot of media attention. Hum Sounds like a cunning plan.

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  2. Here is the blog from Granite State Skeptics discussing their Guerrilla Skepticism.

    http://www.granitestateskeptics.org/2011/07/05/john-edward-protest-a-recap/

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