On Thu, May 8, 2014 at 8:17 AM, Anthony Cole <[email protected]> wrote:
> Regarding expert review, Doc James has just announced that a version of > Wikipedia's article "Dengue fever" has passed peer review and been accepted > for publication by the journal Open Medicine. I think this is a special > moment. > > > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:MED#This_conversation_is_notable > > Anthony Cole <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Anthonyhcole> > The article will apparently be listed on PubMed. That's indeed an achievement to be proud of. Well done! There was a discussion earlier in this thread about the likely quality of Wikipedia's medical articles, and the curatorial work of WikiProject Medicine. I note that in the same post in which Doc James announced this on en:WP, he also said: ---o0o--- How good is our content? Having looked at much of it I have an okay idea. We have about 100-200 high or excellent quality medical articles. We have about 20,000 that are short and just starting out. We have a couple thousand that are okay ish. We have another few hundred to maybe few thousand or so that are a complete disaster. So in summary article quality is variable with a randomly selected article likely to be of moderate to low quality. ---o0o--- Given his qualifications and his longstanding work in WikiProject Medicine, James' guess is probably better than most. But it's not something you could cite. > > > > On Thu, May 8, 2014 at 3:02 PM, rupert THURNER <[email protected] > >wrote: > > > > > Andreas, you seem to have pre-determined that Wikipedia's medical > > articles > > > > are all terrible and riddled with errors. > > > > > > > > > > > > And I think you are being needlessly defensive. I have an open mind as > to > > > what the results might be. What I am sure of is that neither you nor I > > nor > > > the Foundation really know how reliable they are. Why not make an > effort > > to > > > find out? > > > > Anybody interested can do it. Now. Anybody interested can improve it. > Now. > > Why it does not happen? It happened for other domains as well. > > > > In my experience there is only one single measure to improve quality: > point > > out the single error which cam be corrected. If you can propose a system, > > either human or automatic, to do this, feel free. > > > > What imo is the bigger problem: many medical articles are written in a > > language a mortal cannot understand any more. > > > > > > > > > Realistically, they're amongst > > > > the most likely to receive professional editing and review - > > Wikiproject > > > > Medicine does a much better job than people are willing to credit > them. > > > > > > > > > > > > > Yes, and many editors there are sorely concerned about the quality of > > > medical information Wikipedia provides to the public. > > > > This is the core value of wikipedia since its beginnings: provide a big > > enough gap to fill. > > > > > Incidentally, there was a discussion of the JAOA study in The Atlantic > > > today: > > > > > > > > > > > http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/05/can-wikipedia-ever-be-a-definitive-medical-text/361822/ > > > > > > A member of WikiProject Medicine is quoted in it, as is the study's > > author. > > > > > > —o0o— > > > > > > So both sides acknowledge: There are errors in Wikipedia’s health > > articles. > > > And that’s a problem, because people use them. > > > > Internet literacy includes learning beeing sceptical on what you read i > > guess .... Wikipedia is not Jesus and never will be, in no domain :) > > > > Rupert > > _______________________________________________ > > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: > > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines > > [email protected] > > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, > > <mailto:[email protected]?subject=unsubscribe> > > > _______________________________________________ > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines > [email protected] > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, > <mailto:[email protected]?subject=unsubscribe> > _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:[email protected]?subject=unsubscribe>
