Tuesday, November 27, 2012

Power Balance on Wikipedia

I've written about my experiences editing the Power Balance Wikipedia page and how important it is to get the message out to people who need to hear it.  Nothing has changed, Power Balance is still one of the top search terms that bring people to this blog, and the WP page still gets over 25K hits a month.  I don't know if those people are following the link from Lamar Odom's WP page, or maybe they just purchased the product and are curious how it "works" or possibly searchers are trying to remind themselves how thoroughly the product was debunked. For whatever reason we still need to make sure the Wikipedia page correctly reflects the best definition and citations possible.

My friend Steve Muscarella shared a new link on Facebook about Mark Cuban's opinion of the product.  He's upset that the NBA is still endorsing the bracelets.  Nathan Miller added the quote to the growing list of criticisms on the WP page. (citation #25)

This made me take another look at the Power Balance Wikipedia page.  I must say that I'm still impressed with the amount of coverage and citations.  I discovered a second period at the end of a sentence but left it for one of you to find and correct.  (One way to get you all to discover how easy it is to edit)

What amazes me is that with all this amazing evidence gathered in one easy to use place, that people still are endorsing and purchasing the product.  I expect that probably with the demise of Power Balance, the spin-offs are taking up where PB left off.  Creating a WP page for each of these companies will happen if they become noteworthy enough, but at the moment that hasn't happened.

So just want to take a moment and thank each and every person/group that has done their research and written (filmed or tested) about this product.  This allowed several Wikipedia editors (not all are from my guerrilla skepticism group) to place these citations (with quotes) onto the WP page for the use of over 300,000 readers each year.  Imagine that. 

One more point.  I'm always a little thrilled to see the familiar red WOT symbol on pages like this.  (see citation #5) This means that if you are one of the 40 million people who have WOT (Web of Trust) installed on your computer, you can rate Internet pages based on your opinion of trustfulness.  Here is one of several articles by Tim Farley explaining WOT much better than I can. Obviously enough people rated Power Balance's website negativity, which is why you see a red warning screen if you try to access their page. Try it!  www.powerbalance.com  



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