Skeptic Exchange has grown out of the desire to build a community around scepticism that has emerged over the last decade. It may be hard for some of us to remember a time without Facebook and Twitter but these have become conduits along which ideas and people can flow. It is the aim of Skeptics Exchange to harness the power of the community and focus it toward creating a primary resource that skeptics can use constructively.
Envisioned by Richard Stelling, who along with Christine Mohr and Richard Craig at the end of 2009 set up the Bristol Skeptics and the Bristol Skeptics in the Pub.
Richard says, “Skeptic Exchange was a culmination of my work on several social networking projects and ideas born out of working for an online marketing company.
“It a site that is very beta, things will move and change. We haven’t even got a proper logo yet.”
Skeptic Exchange is designed as a question and answer platform for skeptics, critical thinkers and rationalists. A place to get honest, expert answers to clams in the; media and advertising, politics and science.
Richard elaborates, “I always loved the Brian Dunning podcasts where he’d answer questions or when a question would be answered on the SGU [Skeptics Guide to the Universe] and Bad Science of course.
“Wouldn’t it be great if there were a place I could ask my stupid questions, and more importantly get good, evidence based answers.”
The similarities with Wikipedia are numerous and deliberate, the major difference is a Skeptic Exchange user has to earn their “reputation” by supplying good quality answers and engaging with the community.
A new user (regardless of reputation) can ask and answers any question they like, it is then up to the community to vote it up or down. The more up votes the more reputation, the more reputation, the more privileges. It’s a self policing model with an element of competition.
An over-arching goal for this project is to increase awareness of scepticism and critical thinking online.
Richard explains, “One of my pet-hates is how bad we [skeptics] are at online marketing. It comes form the fact there’s no money in what we do — but there’s plenty in what the other side do.
“We’re aiming to fix that, by owing Google for search terms like ‘is vaccination safe’ and ‘alternative swine flu cures’.
“All the content [on Skeptic Exchange] is completely free to use and distribute under the Creative Commons licence. This will make it an attractive aid to teachers and other skeptic organisations around the world, and with any luck journalists will use it too. It’ll be like have an online Goldacre in every news room.”
As of writing, Skeptic Exchange is only a few hours old but attracting a lot of comments and feedback.
Richard says, “We haven’t got much of a plan past, little changes very often and listen to the feedback. After all it a community driven site.
“We need people to vote up the stuff they like and down vote the crap. And of course ask and answer questions. We’ll be choosing some moderators early in the new year and possibly a logo competition (most people seem to hate it).”
Skeptic Exchange is not a project that will make anyone any money but it can only succeed with wide-scale community adoption. Adverts will be sparing and used only to promote other sceptical events and resources.
Summing up Richard says, “We can only succeed if we add value to the community, it would be a shame if it fizzles out in 3 months but I’ve got plenty of other ideas.
“I’m hoping by giving ad space away for free to skeptics, rationalists humanists and secularists with a book, DVD or event to plug I can get some ‘celebrity’ endorsements.”
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