Psiram

Psiram is a mostly German Internet project founded in 2007 under the name EsoWatch with a similar purpose as RationalWiki for sceptics who haven’t found RationalWiki. The platform has a wiki, a blog and a forum. The wiki holds the largest German compilation of cranks and bullshitters with over 3,000 articles dedicated to quackery, esotericism, conspiracy theories, pseudoscience and lots of other crap. Various articles exist in English (just about 60 articles), French and Italian and some even in Polish and Dutch. In general, the German articles are more current and better maintained.

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Anonymity

All authors use anonymous nick names; the operator is unknown. This is due to the fact that several stalker pages have appeared in the Internet, throwing all kinds of accusations and mud against assumed authors and members of Psiram. A common claim by the anonymous(!) stalker pages is that Psiram is operated anonymously and thus not trustworthy. The operators were accused of being right wing, left wing, Nazis, Jews, child pornographers, convicted of various crimes and other things.[1]

New authors (in various languages) are always welcome and can edit the English wiki as usual, but all edits have to be reviewed by staff members of Psiram before they become visible.

Public reception

Psiram received some favorable media coverage for its work exposing fraudsters and cranks. Several German newspapers wrote about it or referenced it in articles. The article on Prahlad Jani,[2] an Indian guru who claims to have lived without food and water since 1940 was even referenced by PZ Myers[3] and their article on night milk crystals[4] was referenced by The Guardian.[5]

A German court based a decision (in part) on arguments collected by Psiram/Esowatch[6] and an inquiry in the Austrian parliament was based on the information collected in the wiki.[7]

gollark: Or I should just be supreme dictator for life, then made immortal and supreme dictator for eternity.
gollark: To stop tyranny of the majority, elections should be decided entirely randomly.
gollark: The specific bizarre way it's arranged gives tons of power to a bunch of arbitrary regions, especially ones which are likely to vote either way.
gollark: Anyway, thing is, the electoral college is not actually a very good mechanism for giving rural areas more power, that just works as a pretext for it.
gollark: But not split proportionally *by area* or something.

References
  1. Psiram disclaimer
  2. Prahlad Jani at psiram.com
  3. Physiology explains it all, Pharyngula, May 2010
  4. Night Milk Crystals, at psiram.com
  5. German night milk may aid insomniacs, The Guardian
  6. VG Saarlouis verdict on 9/9/2010, 3 K 573/09
  7. 6639/J XXIV. GP, Inquiry to the Austrian parliament
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