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Language is essential in forming a community. It provides a method to unify and connect the group members and shape their identity. In the 21st century, online communities have sprung up, allowing a broader way to accumulate members and efficiently communicate. I am currently researching the James Randi Educational Foundation (JREF), which is an online community dedicated to "promote critical thinking by reaching out to the public and media with reliable information about paranormal and supernatural ideas so widespread in our society today." It can be reached at randi.org. The JREF was founded in 1996 to help people defend themselves from paranormal and pseudoscientific claims. Pseudoscience is basically when something is claimed to be scientifically supported, but is not. People will hear that certain products or services are "scientifically proven" to do whatever it is they claim to do. They will waste their time and money on those products and make the charlatan who runs the operation rich. Ironically, James Randi used to be a magician. This gives him insight on how easy it is to fool people. The JREF is not a malicious organization by any means, they just expect evidence for something before accepting it as fact. Some people are offended by such an organization because it may be attacking something that they believe to be true. One of the more publicized events was when Randi went after self proclaimed psychic, Uri Geller. Geller
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unsuccessfully tried to sue Randi a number of times, accusing him of libel. Another thing the JREF did that captured the attention of the media was the formation of the One Million Dollar Paranormal Challenge. The JREF will pay one million U.S. dollars to anyone who can demonstrate a supernatural or paranormal ability under agreed-upon scientific testing criteria. There have been over one thousand applicants but none have been successful. I selected to report on the JREF because it is so much different than organizations my classmates selected. I wanted a community that has open communication online so it would be easy to collect samples of their communication. Additionally, the community needed to be something I am interested in. My interest in the JREF began when I saw a man named Dr. Oz on television promoting homeopathic medicines. This struck me as odd because I already knew that homeopathy was controversial. I did a bit of research and eventually came across Youtube videos of James Randi testing to see if homeopathy was legitimate. I admired his attitude and patience. He was very entertaining to watch. Everyone who gave me feedback after I selected to research the JREF said they had never heard of it. I didn't expect a lot of people to know about it but I thought maybe at least a couple of people would know who James Randi is. I have followed the JREF for a few years now, but just recently made an account of the forums. I feel like I have a strong grasp on what the community is about and the way they use language. One of the first things I did was try and find the official site rules. The reason is because I wanted to compare the expected conduct and the actual conduct and see if they are similar. Due to the nature of the topics at hand, people can forget that they are speaking with other real people who have real feelings. Anonymity creates a sense of power attained by knowing you will not have to ever meet the people you are speaking with, and not being aware of their
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feelings. The JREF forums are a place where ideas are welcome to be shared, but if they are a claim that is not backed by any sort of evidence whatsoever, the person who threw out the idea might be ganged up on. I'm not completely against that, as it's a site that celebrates the application of skepticism, but sometimes it can get out of hand. When most people hear the word "skepticism" they may immediately think of close-mindedness and arrogance. I really disagree with that claim because while it's good to be open-minded, you don't want to be so open minded that your brain falls out. What I mean by this is that some people will accept anything as fact without proper investigation. I am interested in learning people's first reactions when going to the site and glancing through the forum posts for the first time. Obviously I can only speak for myself on this, but I felt like some of the titles of the forums were either purposely controversial or a play on words to get you to click on it. Although the organization's beginning was focused on refuting pseudoscience and the paranormal, the website has expanded to cover a broad range of information through the subtopics. These include mathematics/science, politics, religion/philosophy, education, economics, computers, literature, and so much more. Almost everything you can think of has a place in this forum. There is even a section for members only for humor, puzzles, and sports. I believe having a members section like this that allows people to discuss things they enjoy is a nice break from the more serious and controversial topics. It's not hard to see why arguments break out in some of the threads, especially in those that discuss politics and religion. I delved into those areas just to see how people treat each other based on one position they disagree with. Some people will blatantly attack someone personally and others will try and mask it with sarcasm mixed with a condescending tone.
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Luckily, there are active moderators, or mods, who are constantly monitoring the threads to make sure that the rules of conduct are being followed and upheld. The JREF policy is that disagreement is okay, and discussion on why you disagree is welcome, but going out of your way to personally attack someone without providing any reason for why you disagree is just spam and is an offense that could result in a ban. When browsing the JREF forums, you may be overwhelmed by so much information among so many threads that you just don't know where to start. I decided to take a sample of threads from the politics, science, and humor categories to compare the type of language that is used. In the political subgroups, the original poster will likely either share a current event they found, or state a certain political view they have and ask if others agree with them. An interesting political thread I discovered was titled "If you were the boss of the world, how would you design a health care system?" (Cat) This gives users a chance to be creative and compare their ideas with the other users. My favorite part of the thread is that people aren't just posting their own ideas and leaving it at that. They are quoting pieces of other ideas and are either questioning or agreeing with certain aspects. Aside from a few disagreements, I did not really notice hostility. Comparing the political threads to science threads is interesting because in a typical science thread, you either have to state your own credentials to help validate what you're about to say, or cite others with credentials that support what you are about to say. In political threads, a lot of it is just opinion based with the admission that there is no one hundred percent effective way to guarantee happiness for all. In a science thread, reliance on evidence is much more crucial in getting the members of the forum to agree with you. Since the JREF's core foundation is built upon critical thinking and skepticism, it's no
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surprise. There is one thread called "Why is there so much crackpot physics?" (Perpetual
Student) which was created in 2010 and has almost two thousand replies. The original poster is
asking why people try and use physics and cosmology to justify their unsupported beliefs, and wants to know why they're so passionate about it. He then goes on to say "I have no intention of insulting anyone; so I hope to hear mainly from non-crackpots." His opinion of a crackpot probably differs from other users on the site, so naturally there will be some discourse. Most people responding to the post agree with what the original poster is saying but I believe if he would have mentioned a specific belief that people subscribe to, there would be more disagreement because not everyone would consider that a crackpot idea. There's a lot of cognitive dissonance that ripples through some people's mind when they consider such ideas. Some will say they are justified because they have evidence when in fact the "evidence" they have is either flawed or just doesn't exist. They may still believe they're correct, and still jump on the bandwagon of skepticism, but they will be quickly put in their place by other members. The political and scientific based threads obviously ruffle some feathers, and have a more serious tone than the humor subsection. The humor area is what reminds people that you don't always have to be serious and sometimes kicking back and telling a joke or two is good for you. One thread was where people would post the best jokes they could come up with, and it turned out to be so popular that a second thread was born. If you are not a member of the site, you can still see the titles of the threads, but will not be able to access any of the replies. An incentive of becoming a member is being able to give your opinion and address other people's opinions. It's fun to become a part of the discussion if it's a topic you're interested in. One aspect of the JREF forums that I really think is interesting and relates to our writing
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and inquiry class is that users have the option to nominate posts for the monthly language award. The post that receives the most votes from the community wins the award. The post does not have to be the most lengthy, or include the most complicated jargon, it just needs to have the best use of language. This could include posts that are witty, informative, polite, and/or clear to understand. I feel like this encourages people to put quality into their posts. The only reward you get is a banner under your name for a month but it's still something that would feel really good to have. Even being nominated for the language award is a huge honor on the JREF forums. I believe that having this opportunity present for the community reinforces the importance of well put together forum posts in an intelligent manner. I noticed that people will try and use intelligent sounding words to try and bolster their image on the site. Generally these people will be shown greater respect than someone who makes tons of spelling and grammatical errors. It's very easy to pick apart someone with syntactical errors and take attention off of what they're actually trying to argue. I cannot do the JREF enough justice in a report like this, because it's a site that I really believe you need to see in operation to understand the full effect it can have on people. People may not know anyone else in real life who they can talk to about skepticism and critical thinking without feeling awkward, so the JREF is an excellent place for them to visit. It creates a sense of unity among its users and inspires them to keep standing up for what you believe in and always remember the value of critical thinking. I look forward to comparing the JREF with other communities in the future and investigate what keeps a community together.
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Works Cited Cat, Emily. "JREF Forums." James Randi Educational Foundation. Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd, 17 10 2013. Web. 23 Oct 2013. Perpetual Student, . "JREF Forums." James Randi Educational Foundation. Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd, 11 12 2010. Web. 24 Oct 2013.