Jimbo's talkpage of horrors - medical edition

[DanMurphy]

I looked at Wales' page today because of the discussion about how Cooley LLP, the lawfirm hired by the Wikimedia Foundation to send a cease and desist letter to paid Wikipedia editing service Wiki-PR, has itself been engaged in paid editing of Wikipedia.

But, as always on my visits to his talk page, I found fresh horrors. Here's a reasonably responsible editor suggesting that perhaps prominent disclaimers that Wikipedia's medical content is not vetted by professionals, and is frequently inaccurate, should be placed at the top of the website's medical articles:

Following on the (long and well-documented at WP:ENB) mess caused by student editing in the medical realm, Alanyst and I began working on ideas at User:Alanyst/sandbox/reliability disclaimer. Joe Q. Public believes that Wikipedia articles are vetted, and isn't aware that RandyFromBoise wrote that medical content that came up first on Google. People are getting health advice from Wikipedia, and our disclaimer is buried in teeny tiny print at the bottom of the article. The general public does not understand the nature of the Wikipedia, or the enormity of the medical misinformation in here. SandyGeorgia (T-C-L) (Talk) 17:22, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

Which elicited this response:

Where to begin... Let's see- John Q. Public does not in the least believe that Wikipedia is "vetted" in fact Wikipedia unfortunately has the opposite problem with Mr and Mrs Public, the fact that Wikipedia is not taken seriously BECAUSE there is a perception that there is no oversight. Second- if you take medical advice solely from Wikipedia you're a moron and there's a concept called "survival of the fittest" that I'd like those people to meet, along with this building called a "hospital" where experts in the medical field will answer all your questions with expert answers. Third- there is not an "enormity of medical misinformation in here"... We don't need more disclaimers and policy has always been against adding more over what we currently do. WP:NOT spells out quite clearly we aren't a "how to" guide and that applies to diagnosing or treating illnesses or injuries nor do we need disclaimers telling people "moron, don't try this at home". No to further disclaimers. Camelbinky (T-C-L) (talk) 17:34, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

Think about it. A PR company that spiffs the articles of lawyers and lame silicon valley start-ups is the height of evil in the Wikipedia world, to the extent that charitable donations are spent hiring law-firms to threaten them with (unlikely) legal repercussions if they don't stop editing Wikipedia. But irresponsible and frankly vicious characters like this "Camelbinky" construct are the heart and soul of the loving and thoughtful community, as Mr. Wales likes to call it.

Who does more harm to Wikipedia's reputation? And far more importantly, who does more harm to the interests of the general public who have this thing inflicted on them at the top of search-engine hits?

Does this anonymous little sociopath actually think that even 1% of Wikipedia readers know what "WP:NOT" is?

[enwikibadscience]

TLDR:

Does this anonymous little sociopath actually think that even 1% of Wikipedia readers know what "WP:NOT" is?

Corrected:

Does this anonymous little sociopath actually think?

Answer:

No.

[Mancunium]

But, as always on my visits to his talk page, I found fresh horrors. Here's a reasonably responsible editor suggesting that perhaps prominent disclaimers that Wikipedia's medical content is not vetted by professionals, and is frequently inaccurate, should be placed at the top of the website's medical articles:

Following on the (long and well-documented at WP:ENB) mess caused by student editing in the medical realm, Alanyst and I began working on ideas at User:Alanyst/sandbox/reliability disclaimer. Joe Q. Public believes that Wikipedia articles are vetted, and isn't aware that RandyFromBoise wrote that medical content that came up first on Google. People are getting health advice from Wikipedia, and our disclaimer is buried in teeny tiny print at the bottom of the article. The general public does not understand the nature of the Wikipedia, or the enormity of the medical misinformation in here. SandyGeorgia (T-C-L) (Talk) 17:22, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

Which elicited this response:

Where to begin... Let's see- John Q. Public does not in the least believe that Wikipedia is "vetted" in fact Wikipedia unfortunately has the opposite problem with Mr and Mrs Public, the fact that Wikipedia is not taken seriously BECAUSE there is a perception that there is no oversight. Second- if you take medical advice solely from Wikipedia you're a moron and there's a concept called "survival of the fittest" that I'd like those people to meet, along with this building called a "hospital" where experts in the medical field will answer all your questions with expert answers. Third- there is not an "enormity of medical misinformation in here"... We don't need more disclaimers and policy has always been against adding more over what we currently do. WP:NOT spells out quite clearly we aren't a "how to" guide and that applies to diagnosing or treating illnesses or injuries nor do we need disclaimers telling people "moron, don't try this at home". No to further disclaimers. Camelbinky (T-C-L) (talk) 17:34, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

Thank you, Dan. I have been trying to bring attention to the Wikipedia Project Medicine horrorshow in this WO thread link since September. On 22 October I posted this: link

From Wikipedia_talk:Medical_disclaimer (T-H-L)

Giving medical advice is legally regulated in nearly every country in the world. This focus is here in part for legal reasons -- legal reasons of the "having to do a bunch of tiresome paperwork" kind, not of the "you have to be real dumb to trust your life to a website that is regularly vandalized" kind. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:47, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Add in legal reasons of the "I haven't seen you so I don't know what's causing those pains in your chest" kind and you've covered it perfectly. --Philosopher Let us reason together. 06:05, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Hi, I noticed that EN wp does not anymore is placing a medical disclaimer template on the medical articles. Does anyone know how that has come to be? Coming from a wikipedia that does that it feels to me irresponsible to not use it. --Walter (talk) 12:55, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

Every single page has an automatic link to the Disclaimers.
Do you honestly think that readers are simultaneously smart enough to use information off the internet to diagnose and treat themselves, but still stupid enough to trust a website that is obviously vandalized thousands of times each day? And if the readers are really that stupid, then do you think that a boilerplate note on each page would really protect them from their own foolishness? WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:30, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

Basically, you claim that readers should be able to infer the content of the note, hence there should be none. This reasoning is a typical and terrible mistake in writing, as taught in courses on professional, non-artistic writing. If you want the reader to reach a conclusion, it must be part of the text.
A boilerplate note might not be foolproof but is still helpful for people actually reading it.
For a concrete and interesting example, take a look at Talk:Water intoxication#Misleading Article: there's a comment at the end from a patient which is "so stupid" to take medical advice from Wikipedia and so savvy to be able to write in a talk page.
Finally, the Italian Wikipedia still has such a template, and I was looking for it. It took me ages to find this discussion - could this be made part of some FAQ?--Blaisorblade (talk) 00:17, 5 November 2011 (UTC)

Nothing was ever done about these concerns, of course. WhatamIdoing (T-C-L) represents herself as the WM Foundation's official voice in all matters medical (there are other horrendous examples of this in the thread), and the Foundation is blindly driving Project Medicine into medical disaster territory.

[DanMurphy]

Good lord. Years ago I worked on the Bloomberg wire (in Singapore and Jakarta) at a time when the feed to customers (mostly investment wankers and treasury guys) was filled with stuff from other parties - AFP, Reuters, a host of small financial based news and commentary services you've never heard of, etc. etc. etc. All the stories began in the format of dateline-service acronym- "hyphen." Like so: "Singapore (AFP) - The quick brown fox jumped over an extremely lazy dog today, sending the benchmark Straits Times Index to a record high of..."

A Bloomberg customer paid $1,500 a month at the time for a terminal to be on their desk. These were not stupid or unsavvy people. But in my three years or so as bureau chief I received at least five complaints a month from customers about my bureau's biased and shameful reporting when in fact the article started not with "BBN" (Bloomberg Business News) but "AFX" or "AP" or you get the picture. I came to people who are otherwise intelligent are profoundly stupid when it comes to basic media literacy. They get better with clearer information (Bloomberg ultimately came up with a better way of differentiating content than the telegraph era acronyms) and that isn't disputable. Ignorant, energetic "assume good faith" true believers like "WhatamIdoing" are dangerous menaces.

[Poetlister]

Do you think that if anyone comes to harm as a result of believing medical advice on Wikipedia, and tries to sue, this could be used in evidence against WMF? They are clearly being negligent.

[enwikibadscience]

Do you think that if anyone comes to harm as a result of believing medical advice on Wikipedia, and tries to sue, this could be used in evidence against WMF? They are clearly being negligent.

In the US anything can happen in a lawsuit.

[roger_pearse]

Does this anonymous little sociopath actually think that even 1% of Wikipedia readers know what "WP:NOT" is?

Nice example.

Only a question of time before WP manages to do something actionable to someone with the money to punish them. Hate the idea of lawsuits against websites; but the arrogance of WP makes it, for me, an exception.

[Hex]

Does this anonymous little sociopath actually think that even 1% of Wikipedia readers know what "WP:NOT" is?

That dimwit suffers from a common nerd disease, which is the complete inability to empathize with people in a different group - typically, non-technical users.

I call it Works-For-Me Syndrome, because one of the symptoms is responding to a problem with "why change it when it works for me?" Their inability to understand that other people may see things differently to them, or operate in a completely different fashion (e.g., not understand the intricacies of "policy" and "shortcuts" and other Wikipedia goop) manifests itself as complete resistance to change. The necessity for change implies the necessity to understand the needs of others, to imagine being in their shoes - an alien and possibly even frightening concept. The frequent suggestions by some of the presence of the autistic spectrum among users like these rings true to me.

[DanMurphy]

Somewhat interesting news: A successful disclaimer was placed at the top of the Cancer pain (T-H-L) article at the end of last month.

Anyone can edit Wikipedia; do not rely on its medical content

News that indicates change will be fought tooth and nail by the free culture kooks via arbitration committee candidate and former Wikimedia spokesman in the UK David Gerard:

Jimbo dropped out of the conversation very early on. I invited Sue, sj, David, MastCall, Fiachra, SlimVirgin, Eric and Tarc to comment and none did.‎ Look at the discussion at Wikipedia talk:MED#Medical disclaimer. Moral norms may have to be imposed from without on this community. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 09:05, 1 December 2013 (UTC)

I couldn't really think of anything non-generic to add that wouldn't have already been said repeatedly tl;dr there's a non-trivial case for a disclaimer, but there's a non-trivial case against in-article disclaimers (that don't say "help fix this") at all; insert detailed arguments for and against - David Gerard (talk) 12:19, 1 December 2013 (UTC)

What is that non-trivial case against disclaimers? --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 12:27, 1 December 2013 (UTC)

You could only ask that if you consider all the arguments that others have raised against your idea so far "trivial", which is not the sense I meant it in. Tapping out now. You have fun - David Gerard (talk) 16:32, 1 December 2013 (UTC)

There is no decent argument against having a prominent disclaimer on the top of all their medical articles.

[Poetlister]

There is no decent argument against having a prominent disclaimer on the top of all their medical articles.

There is no decent argument against having a prominent disclaimer on the top of all their articles, full stop. Obviously, mistakes in medical articles will probably have more serious consequences than in articles on pop singers or baseball players, but a major error anywhere may cause some damage.

[Mancunium]

There is no decent argument against having a prominent disclaimer on the top of all their medical articles.

There is no decent argument against having a prominent disclaimer on the top of all their articles, full stop. Obviously, mistakes in medical articles will probably have more serious consequences than in articles on pop singers or baseball players, but a major error anywhere may cause some damage.

Exactly. But the Wikimedia Foundation says that anyone who relies on "information" found in Wikipedia is too stupid to live.

Before anyone is allowed to see any other Wikipedia page they should be required to read this: Wikipedia:Risk_disclaimer (T-H-L),
and to hit an "Agree" button before they can proceed to viewing the article.

[enwikibadscience]

Does this anonymous little sociopath actually think that even 1% of Wikipedia readers know what "WP:NOT" is?

That dimwit suffers from a common nerd disease, which is the complete inability to empathize with people in a different group - typically, non-technical users.

I call it Works-For-Me Syndrome, because one of the symptoms is responding to a problem with "why change it when it works for me?" Their inability to understand that other people may see things differently to them, or operate in a completely different fashion (e.g., not understand the intricacies of "policy" and "shortcuts" and other Wikipedia goop) manifests itself as complete resistance to change. The necessity for change implies the necessity to understand the needs of others, to imagine being in their shoes - an alien and possibly even frightening concept. The frequent suggestions by some of the presence of the autistic spectrum among users like these rings true to me.

The first time I noticed this on en.Wikipedia was with SarahStierch (T-C-L). She absolutely cannot see or understand how any human on the planet could look at anything different from how she does. I rather wonder about her. She's a piece of work. But a successful self-promoting one.

[enwikibadscience]

Somewhat interesting news: A successful disclaimer was placed at the top of the Cancer pain (T-H-L) article at the end of last month.

Anyone can edit Wikipedia; do not rely on its medical content

This is good, but I think they are planning to water it down into the usual templates that are vomited on the top of Wikipedia articles.

[Hex]

Somewhat interesting news: A successful disclaimer was placed at the top of the Cancer pain (T-H-L) article at the end of last month.

This has arisen out of the discussion going on at User talk:Alanyst/sandbox/reliability disclaimer (T-H-L).

[enwikibadscience]

Somewhat interesting news: A successful disclaimer was placed at the top of the Cancer pain (T-H-L) article at the end of last month.

Anyone can edit Wikipedia; do not rely on its medical content

This is good, but I think they are planning to water it down into the usual templates that are vomited on the top of Wikipedia articles.

Thanks, could not find it.

No one will read this (below), and it is always surprising to me that as commonly lazy as Wikipedia editors are (TLDR), they keep making long templates that loose all meaning. KISS. The point is the warning, why go sideways and bracket that with what will stick, nothing?

Anyone can edit Wikipedia. Please do not rely on it for medical advice. Help improve medical content using high quality sources

.

[Anthonyhcole]

Somewhat interesting news: A successful disclaimer was placed at the top of the Cancer pain (T-H-L) article at the end of last month.

Removed by Geni, the user who removed

Wikipedia articles should respect the basic human dignity of their subjects.

from en.Wikipedia's BLP policy. Disclaimer restored to Cancer pain (T-H-L) by SandyGeorgia, the editor championing the disclaimer idea.

[Hex]

The Delusion of Wikipedia Grandeur strikes again, in the discussion at WikiProject Medicine (emphasis added):

Oppose any disclaimer which includes anything saying "Do not rely on it for medical guidance." Wikipedia is not a resource for the exclusive benefit of the upper classes of society who are empowered to be able to use Wikipedia as a supplement to the other privileges they have to access medical information. It would be unfair and oppressive to people with less access to medical resources if the community which maintains medical content here perpetuate the false idea that most of society has better choices for access to health information than Wikipedia. Wikipedia is a radically ambitious project and its failure to be a perfect medical resource highlights society's failure to provide good medical information, and not the Wikipedia community's failure to deliver this. Readers should use Wikipedia as they like and not get a bogus consumer disclaimer that they should do otherwise or even that they could do otherwise if they wished. Readers might be fairly warned of the many problems with Wikipedia's content but for most people in the world, Wikipedia is and will be for the foreseeable future the best or only medical guidance they can have for most purposes. I would sooner favor a demand that every health organization in the world drop all their other educational projects and devote all their resources to Wikipedia than I would discourage people from using Wikipedia in favor of other resources. People who have better access to better services will use them. Online and for most people, Wikipedia is the best the world has to offer despite its many faults. If this disclaimer is used then it should explicitly state what people should do instead. Blue Rasberry (talk) 16:32, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

[enwikibadscience]

The Delusion of Wikipedia Grandeur strikes again, in the discussion at WikiProject Medicine (emphasis added):

Oppose any disclaimer which includes anything saying "Do not rely on it for medical guidance." Wikipedia is not a resource for the exclusive benefit of the upper classes of society who are empowered to be able to use Wikipedia as a supplement to the other privileges they have to access medical information. It would be unfair and oppressive to people with less access to medical resources if the community which maintains medical content here perpetuate the false idea that most of society has better choices for access to health information than Wikipedia. Wikipedia is a radically ambitious project and its failure to be a perfect medical resource highlights society's failure to provide good medical information, and not the Wikipedia community's failure to deliver this. Readers should use Wikipedia as they like and not get a bogus consumer disclaimer that they should do otherwise or even that they could do otherwise if they wished. Readers might be fairly warned of the many problems with Wikipedia's content but for most people in the world, Wikipedia is and will be for the foreseeable future the best or only medical guidance they can have for most purposes. I would sooner favor a demand that every health organization in the world drop all their other educational projects and devote all their resources to Wikipedia than I would discourage people from using Wikipedia in favor of other resources. People who have better access to better services will use them. Online and for most people, Wikipedia is the best the world has to offer despite its many faults. If this disclaimer is used then it should explicitly state what people should do instead. Blue Rasberry (talk) 16:32, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

That's right, CDC stop printing info for docs and public and start editing Wikipedia where experts are welcome.

[Poetlister]

And the official British Pharmacopoeia team will have to pack up and go home, so they won't consult me any more.