Re: [Wikimedia-l] Regarding knowledge
Oliver: I mean I'm working on a comprehensive answer to your question (singular). Anthony Cole http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Anthonyhcole On Tue, Apr 7, 2015 at 4:10 PM, Anthony Cole ahcole...@gmail.com wrote: Thank you for your thoughtful replies. Oliver: I'm working on a comprehensive answer to your questions. Anders: I, too, am very relieved when I see something from a scholarly society or highly-regarded institution out-ranking us on search engine results for medical queries, and am pleased to see Google relying on such sources and not Wikipedia for their sum of all human knowledge. In case it got lost in the terrible formatting of my opening post, I'd very much like to know if the foundation intends employing staff to oversee the measurement of Wikipedia/-media quality and to nurture strategic initiatives aimed at making Wikipedia more reliable. Anthony Cole http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Anthonyhcole On Mon, Apr 6, 2015 at 2:03 AM, Anders Wennersten m...@anderswennersten.se wrote: For medical articles we at svwp are very wary as there exist very good webpages issued by the health authorities related to all healthproblems and we certainly do not want our wp pages to contradict those. We encountered severe problems when the English(American) articles were first introduced at svwp, as their recommendation differed from what is recommended here. For example when you have an urinary tract infection, it is here often not treated at all here, as bacteria is seen as normal, not to be taken away. But the big problem was he different recommendation of use of antibiotics and penicillin, which are prescribed much more restricted here then in US. In our case we came to a proper article but only after long discussion, and most of us are laymen in medicin, so not able to check as closely all articles. And actually we at svwp are quite happy that the webpages from the authorities on health is ranked higher then our pages, at least when articles have sections around treatment and recommended prescriptions. Anders Oliver Keyes skrev den 2015-04-05 19:36: Has there been work to determine the accuracy of our medical coverage that's found it lacking? All the studies I've seen have said it's pretty good, but that was a while ago, and I know anecdotally that we've got a lot of work to do around, for example, womens' health issues. On Sat, Apr 4, 2015 at 9:37 AM, Anthony Cole ahcole...@gmail.com wrote: (I just posted this with bad formatting. Would a moderator please delete that earlier version?) Among my friends and acquaintances, everybody distrusts Wikipedia and everybody uses it. — Freeman Dyson, How We Know The New York Review of Books, 10 March 2011. (Discussing recent UK survey results.) We're trusted slightly more than the BBC. Now, that's a little scary, and probably inappropriate. ... We all know it's flawed. We all know we don't do as good a job as we wish we could do ... People trusted Encyclopedia Britannica - I think it was, like - 20 points ahead of us. — Jimmy Wales, State of the Wiki Wikimania speech, 10 August 2014. The Wikimedia Foundation vision: Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge. That's our commitment. But knowledge of something implies confidence in its accuracy. While Wikipedia is untrustworthy, it is purveying something other than knowledge. This is a problem for the foundation, since it is failing to realise its vision - and for humankind, who deserves an encyclopaedia it can trust. It is also a critical, existential vulnerability for Wikipedia. Google is factoring trustworthiness into its ranking algorithm.[1][2] It has already stopped using Wikipedia's medical articles in its knowledge graph. Rightly. Soon we'll see Wikipedia's medical content (rightly) demoted from (often) the top search result to 5th or 10th - or oblivion (rightly) on page two. The recently released State of the Wikimedia Foundation 2015 Call to Action [3] lists a set of objectives. One of the items under the heading Focus on knowledge community is Improve our measures of community health and content quality, and fund effective community and content initiatives. The quality parameter that most needs measuring and improving is reliability/trustworthiness - if we take the survival of Wikipedia as an important goal. *Will the Foundation be funding any staff positions whose purpose is to measure the quality of the encyclopedia and nurture strategic initiatives specifically aimed at making Wikipedia an encyclopedia people can trust?* Five years ago the Wikimedia Movement Strategic Plan [4] resolved to measure and measurably improve the quality of our offering, and no resources were allocated and it did not happen. 1. Hal Hodson 28 February 2015 Google wants to rank websites based on facts not links New Scientist 2. Hal Hodson 20
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Regarding knowledge
Thank you for your thoughtful replies. Oliver: I'm working on a comprehensive answer to your questions. Anders: I, too, am very relieved when I see something from a scholarly society or highly-regarded institution out-ranking us on search engine results for medical queries, and am pleased to see Google relying on such sources and not Wikipedia for their sum of all human knowledge. In case it got lost in the terrible formatting of my opening post, I'd very much like to know if the foundation intends employing staff to oversee the measurement of Wikipedia/-media quality and to nurture strategic initiatives aimed at making Wikipedia more reliable. Anthony Cole http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Anthonyhcole On Mon, Apr 6, 2015 at 2:03 AM, Anders Wennersten m...@anderswennersten.se wrote: For medical articles we at svwp are very wary as there exist very good webpages issued by the health authorities related to all healthproblems and we certainly do not want our wp pages to contradict those. We encountered severe problems when the English(American) articles were first introduced at svwp, as their recommendation differed from what is recommended here. For example when you have an urinary tract infection, it is here often not treated at all here, as bacteria is seen as normal, not to be taken away. But the big problem was he different recommendation of use of antibiotics and penicillin, which are prescribed much more restricted here then in US. In our case we came to a proper article but only after long discussion, and most of us are laymen in medicin, so not able to check as closely all articles. And actually we at svwp are quite happy that the webpages from the authorities on health is ranked higher then our pages, at least when articles have sections around treatment and recommended prescriptions. Anders Oliver Keyes skrev den 2015-04-05 19:36: Has there been work to determine the accuracy of our medical coverage that's found it lacking? All the studies I've seen have said it's pretty good, but that was a while ago, and I know anecdotally that we've got a lot of work to do around, for example, womens' health issues. On Sat, Apr 4, 2015 at 9:37 AM, Anthony Cole ahcole...@gmail.com wrote: (I just posted this with bad formatting. Would a moderator please delete that earlier version?) Among my friends and acquaintances, everybody distrusts Wikipedia and everybody uses it. — Freeman Dyson, How We Know The New York Review of Books, 10 March 2011. (Discussing recent UK survey results.) We're trusted slightly more than the BBC. Now, that's a little scary, and probably inappropriate. ... We all know it's flawed. We all know we don't do as good a job as we wish we could do ... People trusted Encyclopedia Britannica - I think it was, like - 20 points ahead of us. — Jimmy Wales, State of the Wiki Wikimania speech, 10 August 2014. The Wikimedia Foundation vision: Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge. That's our commitment. But knowledge of something implies confidence in its accuracy. While Wikipedia is untrustworthy, it is purveying something other than knowledge. This is a problem for the foundation, since it is failing to realise its vision - and for humankind, who deserves an encyclopaedia it can trust. It is also a critical, existential vulnerability for Wikipedia. Google is factoring trustworthiness into its ranking algorithm.[1][2] It has already stopped using Wikipedia's medical articles in its knowledge graph. Rightly. Soon we'll see Wikipedia's medical content (rightly) demoted from (often) the top search result to 5th or 10th - or oblivion (rightly) on page two. The recently released State of the Wikimedia Foundation 2015 Call to Action [3] lists a set of objectives. One of the items under the heading Focus on knowledge community is Improve our measures of community health and content quality, and fund effective community and content initiatives. The quality parameter that most needs measuring and improving is reliability/trustworthiness - if we take the survival of Wikipedia as an important goal. *Will the Foundation be funding any staff positions whose purpose is to measure the quality of the encyclopedia and nurture strategic initiatives specifically aimed at making Wikipedia an encyclopedia people can trust?* Five years ago the Wikimedia Movement Strategic Plan [4] resolved to measure and measurably improve the quality of our offering, and no resources were allocated and it did not happen. 1. Hal Hodson 28 February 2015 Google wants to rank websites based on facts not links New Scientist 2. Hal Hodson 20 August 2014 Google's fact-checking bots build vast knowledge bank New Scientist 3. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Communications/State_of_ the_Wikimedia_Foundation#2015_Call_to_Action 4.
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Regarding knowledge
With respect to the SV medical content issue: 1) Urinary tract infections are treated with antibiotics in Sweden. I have check with a Swedish speaking medical professional 2) Asymptomatic pyuria is NOT a urinary tract infection. They are not to be treated with antibiotics in either Sweden or any were else (unless a person is pregnancy) It would be good to stop confusing the two. Something appears to have been lost in translation somewhere. -- James Heilman MD, CCFP-EM, Wikipedian The Wikipedia Open Textbook of Medicine www.opentextbookofmedicine.com ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Regarding knowledge
While Wikipedia's medical content is far from perfect, Google knowledge graphs however have issues as well. For example they say that Hepatitis C is MAINLY spread by sexual contact. This 2010 review in Hepatology states Regarding heterosexual transmission, the weight of evidence is that there is no increased risk of sexual transmission of HCV among heterosexual couples in regular relationships WHO says it is a less common method. The main methods of transmission are injection drug use and unscreened blood transmission. -- James Heilman MD, CCFP-EM, Wikipedian The Wikipedia Open Textbook of Medicine www.opentextbookofmedicine.com ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Regarding knowledge
Thanks Lane. Bloody Mayo Clinic. Google can dump them, too, in my opinion. Has anyone told Google? Anthony Cole http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Anthonyhcole On Wed, Apr 8, 2015 at 12:51 AM, Anthony Cole ahcole...@gmail.com wrote: James: Google obviously made a bad choice of source there, or a good source got something catastrophically wrong. That does not mean Google (or anyone) should rely on Wikipedia's systemically unreliable content. Wikipedia should not be trusted for anything - least of all health matters . Anthony Cole http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Anthonyhcole On Wed, Apr 8, 2015 at 12:40 AM, Anthony Cole ahcole...@gmail.com wrote: James: Wow. Like wow. Do you have screen shots of that Google Hep C thing? That's appalling. Is there any indication of what the source was? My mate runs the local Hep C council and that particular canard is something they fight very hard to debunk. Anthony Cole http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Anthonyhcole On Tue, Apr 7, 2015 at 8:36 PM, James Heilman jmh...@gmail.com wrote: While Wikipedia's medical content is far from perfect, Google knowledge graphs however have issues as well. For example they say that Hepatitis C is MAINLY spread by sexual contact. This 2010 review in Hepatology states Regarding heterosexual transmission, the weight of evidence is that there is no increased risk of sexual transmission of HCV among heterosexual couples in regular relationships WHO says it is a less common method. The main methods of transmission are injection drug use and unscreened blood transmission. -- James Heilman MD, CCFP-EM, Wikipedian The Wikipedia Open Textbook of Medicine www.opentextbookofmedicine.com ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/guidelineswikimedi...@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Regarding knowledge
James: Google obviously made a bad choice of source there, or a good source got something catastrophically wrong. That does not mean Google (or anyone) should rely on Wikipedia's systemically unreliable content. Wikipedia should not be trusted for anything - least of all health matters . Anthony Cole http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Anthonyhcole On Wed, Apr 8, 2015 at 12:40 AM, Anthony Cole ahcole...@gmail.com wrote: James: Wow. Like wow. Do you have screen shots of that Google Hep C thing? That's appalling. Is there any indication of what the source was? My mate runs the local Hep C council and that particular canard is something they fight very hard to debunk. Anthony Cole http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Anthonyhcole On Tue, Apr 7, 2015 at 8:36 PM, James Heilman jmh...@gmail.com wrote: While Wikipedia's medical content is far from perfect, Google knowledge graphs however have issues as well. For example they say that Hepatitis C is MAINLY spread by sexual contact. This 2010 review in Hepatology states Regarding heterosexual transmission, the weight of evidence is that there is no increased risk of sexual transmission of HCV among heterosexual couples in regular relationships WHO says it is a less common method. The main methods of transmission are injection drug use and unscreened blood transmission. -- James Heilman MD, CCFP-EM, Wikipedian The Wikipedia Open Textbook of Medicine www.opentextbookofmedicine.com ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/guidelineswikimedi...@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Regarding knowledge
On related points concerning the accuracy level and overall usefulness of Wikipedia as compared with other resources, people may be interested in my posting here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Newyorkbrad/Newyorkbradblog#A_reference_librarian_reviews_Wikipedia and the second half of my book review here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2014-07-30/Book_review Regards, Newyorkbrad/IBM On 4/7/15, Anthony Cole ahcole...@gmail.com wrote: It's an encyclopedia, Marc. The world's encyclopedia. People should be able to trust it. You and the rest of the WMF need to get that through your heads or you'll wake up one morning soon and find Wikipedia on page 2 of Google and you out of a job. This is the most important issue facing Wikipedia. Denial isn't helping. Anthony Cole http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Anthonyhcole On Wed, Apr 8, 2015 at 1:04 AM, Marc A. Pelletier m...@uberbox.org wrote: On 15-04-07 12:51 PM, Anthony Cole wrote: Wikipedia should not be trusted for anything - least of all health matters . That's a perfectly true, but perfectly vacuous assertion. Wikipedia should be trusted exactly as much as any other single source may be trusted, for exactly the same reason. Striving to find the most reliable sources is fraught with pitfalls whether you attempt do to it yourself or rely on the collective efforts of Wikipedia editors to do so. Wikipedia is a giant collection of summaries and overview of topics, and it never pretendend to be anything else. If you *end* your reasearch there for anything of importance, then you commit as sin no graver (nor lighter) than picking any other random book on the topic and ending your research there. -- Marc ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Regarding knowledge
It's an encyclopedia, Marc. The world's encyclopedia. People should be able to trust it. You and the rest of the WMF need to get that through your heads or you'll wake up one morning soon and find Wikipedia on page 2 of Google and you out of a job. This is the most important issue facing Wikipedia. Denial isn't helping. Anthony Cole http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Anthonyhcole On Wed, Apr 8, 2015 at 1:04 AM, Marc A. Pelletier m...@uberbox.org wrote: On 15-04-07 12:51 PM, Anthony Cole wrote: Wikipedia should not be trusted for anything - least of all health matters . That's a perfectly true, but perfectly vacuous assertion. Wikipedia should be trusted exactly as much as any other single source may be trusted, for exactly the same reason. Striving to find the most reliable sources is fraught with pitfalls whether you attempt do to it yourself or rely on the collective efforts of Wikipedia editors to do so. Wikipedia is a giant collection of summaries and overview of topics, and it never pretendend to be anything else. If you *end* your reasearch there for anything of importance, then you commit as sin no graver (nor lighter) than picking any other random book on the topic and ending your research there. -- Marc ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Regarding knowledge
Back in 1989-90 I was working in a telecom company. We then said mobile phones can never really challange fixed phone as it is not at all reliable compared with fixed phone and will never be of the same quality. We then learnt reliable enough for the purpose it it used for as an explanation for the explosive use of mobiles for almost all usages I use to to say Wikipedia consists of a number, say 1000, encyclopedias on different subject areas. And I would say for something like 80% of these wp is reliable enough and in many cases outstanding compared to competitors. In many subject areas there does not even exist an alternative. But in some areas, say 20% of total there exist good alternatives if we look at content, and in some cases (like health) I see the demand for reliability and quality so high that perhaps wp can not be seen as the best alternative. (and the Hot line still rely on the fixed phone...) I am proud to (again) be part of a movement that wins the world by producing products that are being reliable enough for its purpose at the same time being extremely easy to access and useful Anders Anthony Cole skrev den 2015-04-07 19:16: It's an encyclopedia, Marc. The world's encyclopedia. People should be able to trust it. You and the rest of the WMF need to get that through your heads or you'll wake up one morning soon and find Wikipedia on page 2 of Google and you out of a job. This is the most important issue facing Wikipedia. Denial isn't helping. Anthony Cole http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Anthonyhcole On Wed, Apr 8, 2015 at 1:04 AM, Marc A. Pelletier m...@uberbox.org wrote: On 15-04-07 12:51 PM, Anthony Cole wrote: Wikipedia should not be trusted for anything - least of all health matters . That's a perfectly true, but perfectly vacuous assertion. Wikipedia should be trusted exactly as much as any other single source may be trusted, for exactly the same reason. Striving to find the most reliable sources is fraught with pitfalls whether you attempt do to it yourself or rely on the collective efforts of Wikipedia editors to do so. Wikipedia is a giant collection of summaries and overview of topics, and it never pretendend to be anything else. If you *end* your reasearch there for anything of importance, then you commit as sin no graver (nor lighter) than picking any other random book on the topic and ending your research there. -- Marc ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Regarding knowledge
That's a really good point, Anders. I agree 100%. Anthony Cole http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Anthonyhcole On Wed, Apr 8, 2015 at 2:37 AM, Anders Wennersten m...@anderswennersten.se wrote: Back in 1989-90 I was working in a telecom company. We then said mobile phones can never really challange fixed phone as it is not at all reliable compared with fixed phone and will never be of the same quality. We then learnt reliable enough for the purpose it it used for as an explanation for the explosive use of mobiles for almost all usages I use to to say Wikipedia consists of a number, say 1000, encyclopedias on different subject areas. And I would say for something like 80% of these wp is reliable enough and in many cases outstanding compared to competitors. In many subject areas there does not even exist an alternative. But in some areas, say 20% of total there exist good alternatives if we look at content, and in some cases (like health) I see the demand for reliability and quality so high that perhaps wp can not be seen as the best alternative. (and the Hot line still rely on the fixed phone...) I am proud to (again) be part of a movement that wins the world by producing products that are being reliable enough for its purpose at the same time being extremely easy to access and useful Anders Anthony Cole skrev den 2015-04-07 19:16: It's an encyclopedia, Marc. The world's encyclopedia. People should be able to trust it. You and the rest of the WMF need to get that through your heads or you'll wake up one morning soon and find Wikipedia on page 2 of Google and you out of a job. This is the most important issue facing Wikipedia. Denial isn't helping. Anthony Cole http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Anthonyhcole On Wed, Apr 8, 2015 at 1:04 AM, Marc A. Pelletier m...@uberbox.org wrote: On 15-04-07 12:51 PM, Anthony Cole wrote: Wikipedia should not be trusted for anything - least of all health matters . That's a perfectly true, but perfectly vacuous assertion. Wikipedia should be trusted exactly as much as any other single source may be trusted, for exactly the same reason. Striving to find the most reliable sources is fraught with pitfalls whether you attempt do to it yourself or rely on the collective efforts of Wikipedia editors to do so. Wikipedia is a giant collection of summaries and overview of topics, and it never pretendend to be anything else. If you *end* your reasearch there for anything of importance, then you commit as sin no graver (nor lighter) than picking any other random book on the topic and ending your research there. -- Marc ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/ wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/ wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Regarding knowledge
Wikipedia has been, is, ever shall be a work in progress. I don't think
anyone is denying that any Wikimedia project is imperfect nor is anyone
suggesting that there is no room for improvement. Regarding
trustworthiness, *Доверяй, но проверяй* [Trust, but verify
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trust,_but_verify]. One should always go to
the citation sources. A Wikipedia will always be a summary of information,
not the be-all or end-all.
Anthony, if your comments were on on Wiki, I might have posted {{Uw-sofixit
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Template:Uw-sofixitredirect=no}}
on your talk page. Please, we need you help. If you see something wrong,
please be bold fix it. Sometimes Wikipedia can only be improved one
article one edit at a time.
Yours,
Peaceray
On Tue, Apr 7, 2015 at 10:16 AM, Anthony Cole ahcole...@gmail.com wrote:
It's an encyclopedia, Marc. The world's encyclopedia. People should be able
to trust it. You and the rest of the WMF need to get that through your
heads or you'll wake up one morning soon and find Wikipedia on page 2 of
Google and you out of a job. This is the most important issue facing
Wikipedia. Denial isn't helping.
Anthony Cole http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Anthonyhcole
On Wed, Apr 8, 2015 at 1:04 AM, Marc A. Pelletier m...@uberbox.org
wrote:
On 15-04-07 12:51 PM, Anthony Cole wrote:
Wikipedia
should not be trusted for anything - least of all health matters .
That's a perfectly true, but perfectly vacuous assertion. Wikipedia
should be trusted exactly as much as any other single source may be
trusted, for exactly the same reason. Striving to find the most
reliable sources is fraught with pitfalls whether you attempt do to it
yourself or rely on the collective efforts of Wikipedia editors to do so.
Wikipedia is a giant collection of summaries and overview of topics, and
it never pretendend to be anything else. If you *end* your reasearch
there for anything of importance, then you commit as sin no graver (nor
lighter) than picking any other random book on the topic and ending your
research there.
-- Marc
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Regarding knowledge
Has there been work to determine the accuracy of our medical coverage that's found it lacking? All the studies I've seen have said it's pretty good, but that was a while ago, and I know anecdotally that we've got a lot of work to do around, for example, womens' health issues. On Sat, Apr 4, 2015 at 9:37 AM, Anthony Cole ahcole...@gmail.com wrote: (I just posted this with bad formatting. Would a moderator please delete that earlier version?) Among my friends and acquaintances, everybody distrusts Wikipedia and everybody uses it. — Freeman Dyson, How We Know The New York Review of Books, 10 March 2011. (Discussing recent UK survey results.) We're trusted slightly more than the BBC. Now, that's a little scary, and probably inappropriate. ... We all know it's flawed. We all know we don't do as good a job as we wish we could do ... People trusted Encyclopedia Britannica - I think it was, like - 20 points ahead of us. — Jimmy Wales, State of the Wiki Wikimania speech, 10 August 2014. The Wikimedia Foundation vision: Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge. That's our commitment. But knowledge of something implies confidence in its accuracy. While Wikipedia is untrustworthy, it is purveying something other than knowledge. This is a problem for the foundation, since it is failing to realise its vision - and for humankind, who deserves an encyclopaedia it can trust. It is also a critical, existential vulnerability for Wikipedia. Google is factoring trustworthiness into its ranking algorithm.[1][2] It has already stopped using Wikipedia's medical articles in its knowledge graph. Rightly. Soon we'll see Wikipedia's medical content (rightly) demoted from (often) the top search result to 5th or 10th - or oblivion (rightly) on page two. The recently released State of the Wikimedia Foundation 2015 Call to Action [3] lists a set of objectives. One of the items under the heading Focus on knowledge community is Improve our measures of community health and content quality, and fund effective community and content initiatives. The quality parameter that most needs measuring and improving is reliability/trustworthiness - if we take the survival of Wikipedia as an important goal. *Will the Foundation be funding any staff positions whose purpose is to measure the quality of the encyclopedia and nurture strategic initiatives specifically aimed at making Wikipedia an encyclopedia people can trust?* Five years ago the Wikimedia Movement Strategic Plan [4] resolved to measure and measurably improve the quality of our offering, and no resources were allocated and it did not happen. 1. Hal Hodson 28 February 2015 Google wants to rank websites based on facts not links New Scientist 2. Hal Hodson 20 August 2014 Google's fact-checking bots build vast knowledge bank New Scientist 3. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Communications/State_of_the_Wikimedia_Foundation#2015_Call_to_Action 4. https://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Movement_Strategic_Plan_Summary/Improve_Quality Anthony Cole http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Anthonyhcole ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Regarding knowledge
For medical articles we at svwp are very wary as there exist very good webpages issued by the health authorities related to all healthproblems and we certainly do not want our wp pages to contradict those. We encountered severe problems when the English(American) articles were first introduced at svwp, as their recommendation differed from what is recommended here. For example when you have an urinary tract infection, it is here often not treated at all here, as bacteria is seen as normal, not to be taken away. But the big problem was he different recommendation of use of antibiotics and penicillin, which are prescribed much more restricted here then in US. In our case we came to a proper article but only after long discussion, and most of us are laymen in medicin, so not able to check as closely all articles. And actually we at svwp are quite happy that the webpages from the authorities on health is ranked higher then our pages, at least when articles have sections around treatment and recommended prescriptions. Anders Oliver Keyes skrev den 2015-04-05 19:36: Has there been work to determine the accuracy of our medical coverage that's found it lacking? All the studies I've seen have said it's pretty good, but that was a while ago, and I know anecdotally that we've got a lot of work to do around, for example, womens' health issues. On Sat, Apr 4, 2015 at 9:37 AM, Anthony Cole ahcole...@gmail.com wrote: (I just posted this with bad formatting. Would a moderator please delete that earlier version?) Among my friends and acquaintances, everybody distrusts Wikipedia and everybody uses it. — Freeman Dyson, How We Know The New York Review of Books, 10 March 2011. (Discussing recent UK survey results.) We're trusted slightly more than the BBC. Now, that's a little scary, and probably inappropriate. ... We all know it's flawed. We all know we don't do as good a job as we wish we could do ... People trusted Encyclopedia Britannica - I think it was, like - 20 points ahead of us. — Jimmy Wales, State of the Wiki Wikimania speech, 10 August 2014. The Wikimedia Foundation vision: Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge. That's our commitment. But knowledge of something implies confidence in its accuracy. While Wikipedia is untrustworthy, it is purveying something other than knowledge. This is a problem for the foundation, since it is failing to realise its vision - and for humankind, who deserves an encyclopaedia it can trust. It is also a critical, existential vulnerability for Wikipedia. Google is factoring trustworthiness into its ranking algorithm.[1][2] It has already stopped using Wikipedia's medical articles in its knowledge graph. Rightly. Soon we'll see Wikipedia's medical content (rightly) demoted from (often) the top search result to 5th or 10th - or oblivion (rightly) on page two. The recently released State of the Wikimedia Foundation 2015 Call to Action [3] lists a set of objectives. One of the items under the heading Focus on knowledge community is Improve our measures of community health and content quality, and fund effective community and content initiatives. The quality parameter that most needs measuring and improving is reliability/trustworthiness - if we take the survival of Wikipedia as an important goal. *Will the Foundation be funding any staff positions whose purpose is to measure the quality of the encyclopedia and nurture strategic initiatives specifically aimed at making Wikipedia an encyclopedia people can trust?* Five years ago the Wikimedia Movement Strategic Plan [4] resolved to measure and measurably improve the quality of our offering, and no resources were allocated and it did not happen. 1. Hal Hodson 28 February 2015 Google wants to rank websites based on facts not links New Scientist 2. Hal Hodson 20 August 2014 Google's fact-checking bots build vast knowledge bank New Scientist 3. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Communications/State_of_the_Wikimedia_Foundation#2015_Call_to_Action 4. https://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Movement_Strategic_Plan_Summary/Improve_Quality Anthony Cole http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Anthonyhcole ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at:
[Wikimedia-l] Regarding knowledge
(I just posted this with bad formatting. Would a moderator please delete that earlier version?) Among my friends and acquaintances, everybody distrusts Wikipedia and everybody uses it. — Freeman Dyson, How We Know The New York Review of Books, 10 March 2011. (Discussing recent UK survey results.) We're trusted slightly more than the BBC. Now, that's a little scary, and probably inappropriate. ... We all know it's flawed. We all know we don't do as good a job as we wish we could do ... People trusted Encyclopedia Britannica - I think it was, like - 20 points ahead of us. — Jimmy Wales, State of the Wiki Wikimania speech, 10 August 2014. The Wikimedia Foundation vision: Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge. That's our commitment. But knowledge of something implies confidence in its accuracy. While Wikipedia is untrustworthy, it is purveying something other than knowledge. This is a problem for the foundation, since it is failing to realise its vision - and for humankind, who deserves an encyclopaedia it can trust. It is also a critical, existential vulnerability for Wikipedia. Google is factoring trustworthiness into its ranking algorithm.[1][2] It has already stopped using Wikipedia's medical articles in its knowledge graph. Rightly. Soon we'll see Wikipedia's medical content (rightly) demoted from (often) the top search result to 5th or 10th - or oblivion (rightly) on page two. The recently released State of the Wikimedia Foundation 2015 Call to Action [3] lists a set of objectives. One of the items under the heading Focus on knowledge community is Improve our measures of community health and content quality, and fund effective community and content initiatives. The quality parameter that most needs measuring and improving is reliability/trustworthiness - if we take the survival of Wikipedia as an important goal. *Will the Foundation be funding any staff positions whose purpose is to measure the quality of the encyclopedia and nurture strategic initiatives specifically aimed at making Wikipedia an encyclopedia people can trust?* Five years ago the Wikimedia Movement Strategic Plan [4] resolved to measure and measurably improve the quality of our offering, and no resources were allocated and it did not happen. 1. Hal Hodson 28 February 2015 Google wants to rank websites based on facts not links New Scientist 2. Hal Hodson 20 August 2014 Google's fact-checking bots build vast knowledge bank New Scientist 3. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Communications/State_of_the_Wikimedia_Foundation#2015_Call_to_Action 4. https://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Movement_Strategic_Plan_Summary/Improve_Quality Anthony Cole http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Anthonyhcole ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
[Wikimedia-l] Regarding knowledge
Among my friends and acquaintances, everybody distrusts Wikipedia and everybody uses it. — Freeman Dyson, How We Know http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2011/mar/10/how-we-know/ *The New York Review of Books*, 10 March 2011. (Discussing recent UK survey results.) We're trusted slightly more than the BBC. Now, that's a little scary, and probably inappropriate. ... *We* all know it's flawed. *We* all know we don't do as good a job as we wish we could do ... People trusted *Encyclopedia Britannica* - I think it was, like - 20 points ahead of us. — Jimmy Wales, State of the Wiki http://new.livestream.com/wikimania/sunday2014 Wikimania speech, 10 August 2014. The Wikimedia Foundation vision: Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge. That's our commitment. But knowledge of something implies confidence in its accuracy. While Wikipedia is untrustworthy, it is purveying something other than knowledge. This is a problem for the foundation, since it is failing to realise its vision - and for humankind, who deserves an encyclopaedia it can trust. It is also a critical, existential vulnerability for Wikipedia. Google is factoring trustworthiness into its ranking algorithm. It has already stopped using Wikipedia's medical articles in its knowledge graph. Rightly. Soon we'll see Wikipedia's medical content (rightly) demoted from (often) the top search result to 5th or 10th - or oblivion (rightly) on page two. The recently released State of the Wikimedia Foundation 2015 Call to Action [3] lists a set of objectives. One of the items under the heading *Focus on knowledge community* is Improve our measures of community health and content quality, and fund effective community and content initiatives. The quality parameter that most needs measuring and improving is reliability/trustworthiness - if we take the survival of Wikipedia as an important goal. Will the Foundation be *funding any staff positions* whose purpose is to measure the quality of the encyclopedia and nurture strategic initiatives specifically aimed at making Wikipedia an encyclopedia people can trust? Five years ago the Wikimedia Movement Strategic Plan [4] resolved to measure and measurably improve the quality of our offering, and no resources were allocated and it did not happen. 1. Hal Hodson 28 February 2015 Google wants to rank websites based on facts not links http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22530102.600-google-wants-to-rank-websites-based-on-facts-not-links.html#.VPNoi-HQOtt *New Scientist* 2. Hal Hodson 20 August 2014 Google's fact-checking bots build vast knowledge bank http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22329832.700-googles-factchecking-bots-build-vast-knowledge-bank.html#.VPNqO-HQOts *New Scientist* 3. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Communications/State_of_the_Wikimedia_Foundation#2015_Call_to_Action 4. https://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Movement_Strategic_Plan_Summary/Improve_Quality Anthony Cole http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Anthonyhcole ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
