Doctor Wikipedia

[Mancunium]

UCSF First U.S. Medical School to Offer Credit For Wikipedia Articles
Course Aims to Teach Students to Increase Reliability of Medical Information
UCSF, 26 September 2013 link

UC San Francisco soon will be the first U.S. medical school at which medical students can earn academic credit for editing medical content on Wikipedia.

Wikipedia is one of the most widely used medical references in the world and the most consulted source for many health topics. But medical entries can lack reliable sources and have gaps in content.

“Wikipedia generates more than 53 million page views just for articles about medications each month, and is second to Google as the most frequently used source by junior physicians,” said Amin Azzam, MD, MA, an associate clinical professor at the UCSF School of Medicine and an instructor for the new class. “We’re recognizing the impact Wikipedia can have to educate patients and health care providers across the globe, and want users to receive the most accurate publicly available, sound medical information possible.”

[...]

“We know that nearly all medical students use Wikipedia. However, we want nearly all medical students to contribute to Wikipedia,” said James Heilman, MD, president of the not-for-profit Wiki Project Med Foundation, an organization dedicated to trying to improve Wikipedia's medical content by forming collaborations with like-minded institutions. “I see this collaboration as a very important first step in this direction, a step which will not only be beneficial for Wikipedia but will be exceedingly useful for the students themselves.”

The new class is available to fourth-year medical students and will focus on editing 80 key articles that are the most frequented but have lower quality levels on Wikipedia.

All articles on Wikipedia are given a grade ranging from Featured Article, which reflects a professional level of encyclopedic information based mostly on the factual completeness of the article, to “C” which is defined as a substantial article that would be useful to a casual reader, but lacks important content. Featured articles are displayed on the main page and frequently are written by experts

Currently, medicine-related articles make up 58 Featured Articles on Wikipedia, and 145 Good Articles, which is less than 1 percent of the total articles in those categories, according to Azzam. “So there is a clear need to bring medicine articles up to par,” he said.

The class, which begins in December, is part of an ongoing collaboration between the UCSF School of Medicine and the Wiki Project Med Foundation. For the launch of this partnership earlier this year, UCSF invited two “Wikipedians” to visit San Francisco to give lectures and run editing sessions on the significance of Wikipedia to medicine. The class has its own evolving Wikipedia page.

Wikipedia:WikiProject Medicine/UCSF Elective 2013 link

My questions are:

If fewer than 1% of medicine-related Wikipedia articles are Good or Featured, why on earth would it be used as a reference by physicians?

Even if this project succeeds in bringing a few more articles up to Good Article standard, would they not then be obliged to stand eternally guard over these little puddles of excellence, against the "anyone can edit the free encyclopedia" mob?

Why not move WP's medicine-related articles to a separate medical wiki, editable only by licensed health care professionals, researchers, and medical students-- all using their own names and displaying their credentials?

[Anthonyhcole]

If fewer than 1% of medicine-related Wikipedia articles are Good or Featured, why on earth would it be used as a reference by physicians?

Even if this project succeeds in bringing a few more articles up to Good Article standard, would they not then be obliged to stand eternally guard over these little puddles of excellence, against the "anyone can edit the free encyclopedia" mob?

Medicine is one of the most heavily curated categories on the project. There is a quiet but very diligent group of gnomes in all time zones patrolling recent changes to medical content.

I used to do a lot of that and found that the category is better than you'd expect, in terms of reliability. But as the article you cite hints, there are massive gaps. I would guess that we need to expand our medical coverage at least twenty-fold before we can make any claims of completeness.

Why not move WP's medicine-related articles to a separate medical wiki, editable only by licensed health care professionals, researchers, and medical students-- all using their own names and displaying their credentials?

Take a look at

JMIR Wiki Medical Reviews

I have some hope for this initiative. There will be a link at the top of the current version of the article (next to the title, I hope) pointing to the scholar-reviewed version - something like a button reading "Read the version reviewed by (X)".

The bloody borders of our medical content are in the regions of alternative medicine. Andreas points out there are large remnants of promotional language in cosmetic surgery. I'm hoping to one day have the energy to take on psychoactive drugs - whose articles largely lack the most recent findings of deceptive publication bias.

Moderators: Should this be moved to the Wikimedia Medicine thread in General Discussion?

[Randy from Boise]

Oh, I thought you meant this...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eaADQTeZRCY

RfB

[EricBarbour]

Even if this project succeeds in bringing a few more articles up to Good Article standard, would they not then be obliged to stand eternally guard over these little puddles of excellence, against the "anyone can edit the free encyclopedia" mob?

Yes, and this is why such projects are a fool's errand. Classes end, people move on, but Wikipedia articles are targets forever. And protecting them is impossible if one nut-case manages to become an administrator, and decides to trash the article(s) in question.

[Randy from Boise]

Even if this project succeeds in bringing a few more articles up to Good Article standard, would they not then be obliged to stand eternally guard over these little puddles of excellence, against the "anyone can edit the free encyclopedia" mob?

Yes, and this is why such projects are a fool's errand. Classes end, people move on, but Wikipedia articles are targets forever. And protecting them is impossible if one nut-case manages to become an administrator, and decides to trash the article(s) in question.

"Good Article Standard" is bureaucratic poppycock — a circle jerk of Manual of Style worshipping copy editors seeking kudos and tools...

The general trend of articles at WP is from non-existent or underdeveloped status to a more developed, better state. The process is slow, incremental. However, size is constantly expanding and sourcing improving. The problem of vandalism isn't insignificant, but it is being managed by a whole other group of volunteers outside of the content writers.

It's also a misconception, by the way, that newcomer college students add excellent content. Having just seen the work of one class at a big league Southern California university up close and personal, I think it's safe to generalize and say that classes of newbie college students add some middling content and some that is worse... Of this, some is inevitably washed away through the deletion process, as is the case for contributions by new editors for years and years now. So it goes...

RfB

[EricBarbour]

The general trend of articles at WP is from non-existent or underdeveloped status to a more developed, better state. The process is slow, incremental.

In some areas, not all.

It's also a misconception, by the way, that newcomer college students add excellent content. Having just seen the work of one class at a big league Southern California university up close and personal, I think it's safe to generalize and say that classes of newbie college students add some middling content and some that is worse... Of this, some is inevitably washed away through the deletion process, as is the case for contributions by new editors for years and years now. So it goes...

Yes, and the average Wikipedia administrator was a high-school or college boy when he started editing. And that seems to be the quality of the content he also writes -- if any.

[Poetlister]

It doesn't matter if medical articles are not comprehensive; if people can't find what they want, they can easily go elsewhere. Reliability of what is there is vastly more serious. Even if it is 99% correct, there is still potential for an error that could have extremely serious consequences. This is one area where crowdsourcing just can't work.

[thekohser]

Medicine is one of the most heavily curated categories on the project. There is a quiet but very diligent group of gnomes in all time zones patrolling recent changes to medical content.

I used to do a lot of that and found that the category is better than you'd expect, in terms of reliability.

Are you saying the situation has improved since 2008? (see page 6)

[Poetlister]

Are you saying the situation has improved since 2008? (see page 6)

Of course it has. Wikipedia is continuously improving.

[Mancunium]

Editing Wikipedia Pages for Med School Credit
The New York Times, 29 September 2013 link

Medical students at the University of California, San Francisco, will be able to get course credit for editing Wikipedia articles about diseases, part of an effort to improve the quality of medical articles in the online encyclopedia and help distribute the articles globally via cellphones. While professors often incorporate Wikipedia work into classes, hoping that student research can live on online, the university and others say this is the first time a medical school will give credit for such work.

“We as a profession have our corpus of knowledge, and we owe it as a profession to educate the lay public,” said Dr. Amin Azzam, a health sciences associate clinical professor at the U.C.S.F. School of Medicine who will teach the monthlong elective course in December.

[...]

Wikipedia editing will force students to think clearly and avoid jargon, he said. “We do a great job in helping them talk to doctors, but we don’t do as good a job in helping them speak to the public,” he added.

The students’ editing will be part of Wikiproject Medicine, which focuses contributors on the 100 or so most significant medical articles, including those on tuberculosis and syphilis, but especially on those important articles that need the most editing. (The project lists more than 350 active editors, many of whom cite an advanced degree under the header “medical qualification.”)

[...]

“If we want to get high-quality information to all the world’s population, Wikipedia is not just a viable option, but the only viable option,” Dr. Azzam said.

He credited one of his former students, Dr. Michael Turken, 32, a first-year resident in internal medicine at Stanford Hospital and Clinics, with helping to conceive of the course.

Dr. Turken said the importance of Wikipedia’s medical information became clear to him a couple of years ago when a friend asked him how long H.I.V. tests could give false negative readings.

A Wikipedia entry said two weeks, and “that didn’t seem right,” he said. “I checked with the literature, and it is up to 28 days, based on the test.” He made the change, then looked at how many people read the article a month — often tens of thousands. Rather than be offended at the open access to Wikipedia pages, Dr. Turken said he found it “very reassuring that it is a collaborative effort,” with many people checking what is written.

[dogbiscuit]

I am amazed that someone in the medical profession would consider that putting the stamp of authority on Wikipedia articles is a good idea. If the word on the street was that Wikipedia was reliable because the articles were typically written by health care professionals then the danger is that people will take them seriously.

There are two problems: you cannot differentiate lay people ruminating without sound knowledge, the healthcare nutjobs who can add sourced doubter articles into the mainstream, and the real people who know what they are talking about - oh, and subtle vandalism.

Why would you not want to point your students to a closed system where the only contributors are authorised and work is checked before publication. Or perhaps this healthcare professional is suggesting that most medicine is folklaw anyhow so the man in the street is as good as a doctor?

[thekohser]

Rather than be offended at the open access to Wikipedia pages, Dr. Turken said he found it “very reassuring that it is a collaborative effort,” with many people checking what is written.

Herp-a-derp.

[Mancunium]

Rather than be offended at the open access to Wikipedia pages, Dr. Turken said he found it “very reassuring that it is a collaborative effort,” with many people checking what is written.

Herp-a-derp.

In the wake of the New York Times story:

Edit Wikipedia, Get Med School Credit
MedPage Today, 30 September 2013 link

Med Students Earn Credit by Editing Wikipedia Articles
Inside Higher Ed, 30 September 2013 link

You Can Get Med School Credit For Editing Wikipedia Pages Now
BetaBeat, 30 September 2013 link

Medical Students Can Now Earn Credit for Editing Wikipedia
Motherboard, 30 September 2013 link

Also in the German and Dutch press.



Nobody has questioned the most damning statements in the New York Times story:

Dr. Turken said the importance of Wikipedia’s medical information became clear to him a couple of years ago when a friend asked him how long H.I.V. tests could give false negative readings.

A Wikipedia entry said two weeks, and “that didn’t seem right,” he said. “I checked with the literature, and it is up to 28 days, based on the test.” He made the change, then looked at how many people read the article a month — often tens of thousands.

As I understand this, Wikipedia was saying that false negative readings for HIV could be ruled out two weeks after exposure.

The good news: "You're HIV-negative. Carry on with your busy prostitution business."

Months later: "Oops! It turns out you're HIV-positive. Someone has corrected the Wikipedia article, and it seems I should have waited four weeks before relying on a negative reading. Do you think you could track down all your Johns, and let them know?"

[EricBarbour]

Nobody has questioned the most damning statements in the New York Times story:

Dr. Turken said the importance of Wikipedia’s medical information became clear to him a couple of years ago when a friend asked him how long H.I.V. tests could give false negative readings.

A Wikipedia entry said two weeks, and “that didn’t seem right,” he said. “I checked with the literature, and it is up to 28 days, based on the test.” He made the change, then looked at how many people read the article a month — often tens of thousands.

Yes, this is a case of Wikipedia having the power to kill people, and yet they continue to escape responsibility for it.

Life can be one long popularity contest at times, but this is ridiculous.

[Anthonyhcole]

Medicine is one of the most heavily curated categories on the project. There is a quiet but very diligent group of gnomes in all time zones patrolling recent changes to medical content.

I used to do a lot of that and found that the category is better than you'd expect, in terms of reliability.

Are you saying the situation has improved since 2008? (see page 6)

Nobody knows: there is insufficient rigorous research, but the existing tenuous evidence is mixed. link The live anyone-can-edit wiki model is no more appropriate for medicine than it is for BLPs. But it is what we have.

What's needed is some leadership in the medicine field. Someone needs to get the WHO, the world's major medical education charities, and government and specialist bodies in one room and knock their heads together, get them collaborating on a secure, reliable, evidence-based encyclopedia. While their individual offerings are atomised all over the web, the intrinsically unreliable (and as pointed out above) dangerous Wikipedia behemoth just pushes them all down the search-engine results.

[thekohser]

I was involved in the very early stages of community input into OurMed.org, a wiki-based source of healthcare information, launched by Dr. Greg Miller. They had big hopes in 2010, but today, Alexa says that they still aren't in the top 100,000 of visited websites.

[Mancunium]

Should I Be Getting Health Information From Wikipedia?
Students at UCSF can soon get course credit for editing medical Wikipedia articles, joining a group of medical professionals and others dedicated to improving available health information online.
The Atlantic, 1 October 2013 link

According to a recent report from the Pew Research Center, one in three Americans have, at some point, taken to the Internet to try to diagnose a medical condition (for themselves or others), and 72 percent of Internet users have looked more generally for health information online in the past year. Since Wikipedia is the sixth-largest website in the world, it comprises a good deal of the health information readily available online, but being editable by anyone means that the quality of information available isn’t always up to snuff. We are a culture of Googlers, though, and it’s unreasonable to expect someone to go to a doctor every time they have a medical question.

Through Wikiproject Medicine, some medical professionals (and other health-savvy Wikipedia editors) have taken it upon themselves to improve the quality of medical information available on the site. And, in the same spirit, the University of California, San Francisco will be offering a class this year that gives fourth-year medical students course credit in exchange for editing Wikipedia articles. I spoke with Dr. Amin Azzam, a health sciences associate clinical professor at UCSF, who will be teaching the course, about how it will be run, and the impact that Wikipedia has on public health.

[...]

So the editing that your students do is going to be part of Wikiproject Medicine?

Anybody who is interested in improving the quality of medicine-related topics on Wikipedia is welcome to edit. You can edit Wikipedia anonymously, or you can login and edit it with whatever pseudonym or name you want to use. For the purposes of our course, I’m going to need to be able to track our students if they’re going to get academic credit for it. So I will need to have them create pseudonyms so that when they edit, I’ll be able to see that they edited and be able to track their progress over time. But, as is the case with all the rest of Wikipedia, anyone else in the globe will be editing simultaneously, too, so other people might edit their edits and improve the articles further based on our students’ input, as well.

[...]

Do you have any numbers at all about how many people are turning to Wikipedia for health information?

This information is all going to be coming from folks from Wikipedia. Some of it comes from Dr. James Heilman, an ER doctor and Wikipedia editor who came and talked to us at UCSF last January. The vast majority of the public doesn’t go to the Internet for medical-related topics; it’s a tiny fraction of what people spend their time on the Internet doing. But when you look at the places people go for health information, it turns out that [people go to] Wikipedia for medical information more than any other website. More than the National Institutes of Health, more than WebMD, more than Mayo Clinic. It’s more than many of those combined. That’s really staggering if you think about it, and I think it speaks to the popularity of Wikipedia in contrast to other sites.

For example, schizophrenia is one of the most highly-trafficked medical-related topics [on Wikipedia]. In the month of March 2013, there were 348,026 views of the schizophrenia page on Wikipedia. That adds up to something like 4 million pageviews a year on that page. That ranks 387th in traffic on Wikipedia for the month of March 2013.

Are there any examples that come to mind of egregious falsehoods that you’ve seen on medical Wikipedia pages?

There are examples of controversy that occur on Wikipedia where you have editing wars, and people go back and forth about things. As part of the press that’s come out around this [class], I received an email last night from a physician in Switzerland. He says, “I’m often very much annoyed at the medical information related to breast cancer screening on Wikipedia. The controversy spreads and the anti-screening people control that part of Wikipedia. A more balanced view would serve millions of women.” So this is an example of a faculty member in Switzerland who also serves as a consultant for quality assurance for Swiss cancer screening and mammography screening. Although I don’t know him personally and I’m just reading his email signature, he appears to be someone who has some legitimate expertise in this domain, and he emailed me to say “What a great idea; I’d love to participate in some way. I’m happy to be an expert for your medical students as they review those pages.” I don’t know breast cancer screening well, so I can’t speak as an expert in that domain about what is true on Wikipedia, but I think that’s an example where there may not be controversy within the medical community, but there is controversy within the public at large—people’s opinions about what we should or shouldn’t be doing

It's time to fix California's outdated medical malpractice law
The Medical Injury Compensation Reform Act of 1975 has destroyed the ability of large segments of California patients to file malpractice lawsuits.
Los Angeles Times, 9 July 2013 link

[thekohser]

Dr. Amin Azzam is in for a long road of headache.

[Mancunium]

Dr. Amin Azzam is in for a long road of headache.

The quality of health care in California, where the good doctor practices and where I usually live, is so poor that I have chosen to have recent surgery in another jurisdiction.

Victims of medical malpractice call for California law to be changed
Law caps award at $250,000
ABC 10News, 3 September 2013 link

[Mancunium]

This story has gone global, with German, French, Spanish, and Dutch articles found in Google News search.

You may wish to comment here:

Wikiproject Medicine
Boing Boing, 1 October 2013 link

You're feeling tired and achy. Everything tastes strange, and something deep within warns you not to sample the chip dip in the staff room. You're just not up for much at all, really, and the malaise only grows as the day drags on. Sounds like a case for Dr. Wikipedia! Julie Beck, at The Atlantic, covers an initiative that could supplant the dismal Dr. Google and his psychotic colleague, Dr. Yahoo Answers -- but wonders whether we should be getting health information from the Internet at all.

Get a second opinion from one of Dr Wikipedia's esteemed colleagues--

Dr. Google: link

Dr. Yahoo Answers: link

Doctor...please help?
how to control my eye sight,can't we control it?which type of food i have to take?
4 days ago - 38 minutes left to answer.

We can't control our eyesight and it is unaffected by diet. Provided it is basically balanced additional supplements have no effect.
Source(s): GP for more years than I care to remember
4 days ago

[Mancunium]

Doctors Decide They Need to Be the Ones Editing Medical Wikipedia Articles
WebProNews, 1 October 2013 link

Unless you’re some sort of know-it-all who thinks that you can scour the internet and self-diagnose any ailment that might befall you, I bet that you prefer to get your medical advice from people who spent years developing medical knowledge. You know, med students and doctors.

But the reality is that no matter how much you’d prefer the knowledge of a doctor, there will be times that you’ll have to consult the internet when you find yourself in a medical quandary. And it’s likely that you’ll consult either WebMD or WIkipedia. The problem with the former is that all paths eventually lead to some sort of terminal cancer. We’ve all experienced the WebMD sweats – the general panic that comes from just knowing that you have a brain tumor. No, seriously, it’s a brain tumor. I have all the symptoms…

Wikipedia is great, if not a bit flawed. You see, it’s carefully edited and all revisions go through a screening process – but in the end you’re left with medical articles mostly written by average joes, not medical professionals.

[...]

A knowledge database is only as strong as the knowledge of those who contribute. And when it comes to your health and well-being, the stakes couldn’t possibly be higher.

[Mancunium]

Imagine a world
in which every single person
is given free access to the sum of all medical knowledge.
That's what we're doing. link

Wiki Project Med (WPMEDF) is a nonprofit corporation whose purpose is to promote the development of medical content on Wikimedia projects by, among other things, forming collaborations with other like-minded organizations, giving talks / lectures at universities and other organizations, and working to develop greater access to the medical literature for Wikipedians. It is a proposed thematic organization first announced at Wikimania in 2012.

[...]

Domains
Have currently purchased the domains wikimediamedicine.com and wikimediamedicine.org

[...]

Board members
James Heilman Doc James
Jacob de Wolff
Biosthmors
Peter.C (talk)
Vinicius Siqueira (talk)
Daniel Mietchen - WiR/OS (talk)
RexxS (talk)
Anthony Cole (talk)
Jake Orlowitz Ocaasi (talk)

The Sole Founder of the Foundation is Dr James Heilman: Jmh649 (T-C-L)

I'm Doc James, user Jmh649. In real life I go by James Heilman. My spelling and grammar are poor, so thank you for correcting them. If something I write is completely unintelligible, please send me a request for clarification.

LinkedIn: [link]http://caLIVE by the wiki, perhaps die by the wiki. .linkedin.com/pub/james-heilman/36/304/561[/link]

James Heilman's Overview

Current
President at Wiki Project Med Foundation
Administrator and editor of medicine content at Wikipedia at Wikipedia
ER Physician at James Heilman, MD Inc

Past
President at Wikimedia Canada
Wikipedian at Wikipedia

Travel Site Built on Wiki Ethos Now Bedevils Its Owner
LIVE by the wiki, perhaps die by the wiki.
New York Times, 9 September 2012 link

On Aug. 24, Internet Brands filed a lawsuit in Superior Court of California for Los Angeles County against Dr. Heilman and a longtime Wikitravel volunteer, Ryan Holliday. The suit did not challenge the right to copy the material; instead it focuses in particular on the efforts of the two men to encourage Wikitravel contributors to consider forking.

[...]

Dr. Heilman, an emergency room doctor who is on the board of the foundation’s chapter in Canada, has often encouraged Wikipedia to “liberate” information. A few years ago, he pressed Wikipedia to publish the images used in the Rorschach inkblot test; some psychologists said the publication would allow people to “cheat” on the test, while others said it was integral to the educational purpose of an encyclopedia.

In February, he posted a note to Wikitravel proposing that Wikitravel be integrated within Wikimedia: his reasons included the absence of advertising at the Wikimedia project, and the potential for better performance because of Wikimedia’s robust infrastructure.

While advertising does not affect the freedom of the content it surrounds, Dr. Heilman made it clear that he viewed the situation as less than ideal, if only because it meant people like him would not want to contribute to the site and help spread “the sum of all human knowledge.”

Rorschach and Wikipedia: The battle of the inkblots
The Globe and Mail, 29 July 2009 link

In mid-June, the physician and Wikipedia editor posted 10 Rorschach inkblots and the most common interpretations of them at the online encyclopedia, a move that has plunged him into an intense, and at times personal, debate with psychologists who want the 86-year-old evaluation method kept from the public eye.

"People take it very seriously," Dr. Heilman said during a lull in his shift at Moose Jaw Union Hospital. "They don't want their profession exposed. They want to stay as a secret society."

His single act of uploading may have taken down one of the oldest and most famous psychological tests around. It has also placed the Saskatchewan doctor at the centre of three long-standing debates involving secrecy of psychological testing, the effectiveness of the Rorschach test and the controversial editing process at the world's largest encyclopedia.

The discussions turned cruel yesterday after Dr. Heilman was quoted in the New York Times.

"You must be very proud of yourself ... from Moose Jaw to the NY Times," a commenter identified as Faustian wrote in a Wikipedia discussion forum. "All at the relatively small cost of just harming people who could benefit from the test."

That argument seems the most compelling rebuttal to Dr. Heilman and other Wikipedia users for whom online disclosure is a dearly held conviction. Conceivably, a patient could research the Rorschach test online before taking the evaluation and overplay or underplay a mental condition.

A Rorschach Cheat Sheet on Wikipedia?
New York Times, 28 July 2013 link

What had been a simmering dispute over the reproduction of a single plate reached new heights in June when James Heilman, an emergency-room doctor from Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, posted images of all 10 plates to the bottom of the article about the test, along with what research had found to be the most popular responses for each.

“I just wanted to raise the bar — whether one should keep a single image on Wikipedia seemed absurd to me, so I put all 10 up,” Dr. Heilman said in an interview. “The debate has exploded from there.”

Psychologists have registered with Wikipedia to argue that the site is jeopardizing one of the oldest continuously used psychological assessment tests.

[...]

“Restricting information for theoretical concerns is not what we are here to do,” Dr. Heilman said, adding that he was not impressed by the predictions of harm from those who sought to keep the Rorschach plates secret. “Show me the evidence,” he said. “I don’t care what a group of experts says.”

And so much more. These are just the results of the first page of a Google search on "Doc James".

[thekohser]

Doctors Decide They Need to Be the Ones Editing Medical Wikipedia Articles
WebProNews, 1 October 2013 link

...You see, it’s carefully edited and all revisions go through a screening process...

That's according to Josh Wolford, writer for WebProNews. "He likes beer, Sriracha and movies that make him feel weird afterward. Mostly beer."

This is how our society will decay into oblivion.

[Mancunium]

Wikipedia:WikiProject_Medicine (T-H-L) Talk page:

Scope, completeness, and accuracy of medicine and drug information in Wikipedia.

What's the latest reliable findings on this, please? --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 03:04, 29 September 2013 (UTC)

Havn't seen anything new recently. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 04:23, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

I also feel that what I want to see does not yet exist. See Wikipedia:WikiProject Medicine/Wikipedia and medicine for what has been identified. Blue Rasberry (talk) 19:15, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for that link. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 01:21, 1 October 2013 (UTC)

Should we commission an independent study to determine the reliability, safety, clarity and comprehensiveness of Wikipedia's medical and pharmacology information?

Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 01:21, 1 October 2013 (UTC)

International medical information conference

Should we invite the "information dissemination decision-makers" from the WHO, the world's major medical education charities, and relevant government and specialist bodies to a conference, to discuss strategies and create opportunities to collaborate in the building of easily identified comprehensive and reliable free medical medical information online? --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 01:05, 1 October 2013 (UTC)

See Category:Medical conferences and http://www.allconferences.com.
—Wavelength (talk) 01:51, 1 October 2013 (UTC)

Which conference? Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 03:43, 1 October 2013 (UTC)

I'm suggesting we host something. Or, more precisely, you. It should be held in North America or Europe and my health won't permit me to attend. I have something small in mind. A summit, if you like. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 05:20, 1 October 2013 (UTC)

Hum, there must be a similar conference that we can all just go to and meet at. If we can get interest we could have a whole section of medical talks at Wikimania. I am not much of a conference organizer. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 05:50, 1 October 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia Medical disclaimer link

WIKIPEDIA DOES NOT GIVE MEDICAL ADVICE

Wikipedia contains articles on many medical topics; however, no warranty whatsoever is made that any of the articles are accurate. There is absolutely no assurance that any statement contained or cited in an article touching on medical matters is true, correct, precise, or up-to-date. The overwhelming majority of such articles are written, in part or in whole, by nonprofessionals. Even if a statement made about medicine is accurate, it may not apply to you or your symptoms.

The medical information provided on Wikipedia is, at best, of a general nature and cannot substitute for the advice of a medical professional (for instance, a qualified doctor/physician, nurse, pharmacist/chemist, and so on). Wikipedia is not a doctor.

None of the individual contributors, system operators, developers, sponsors of Wikipedia nor anyone else connected to Wikipedia can take any responsibility for the results or consequences of any attempt to use or adopt any of the information presented on this web site.

Nothing on Wikipedia.org or included as part of any project of Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., should be construed as an attempt to offer or render a medical opinion or otherwise engage in the practice of medicine.

[Vigilant]

This will end when the first medical malpractice suit names the WMF as a co-defendant.

I don't know how many of you have dealt with medical malpractice attorneys, but they are a whole 'nother kettle of fish(Carcharodon carcharias) from IP lawyers(Cyprinidae).

[Mancunium]

Doc James seems to have moved on from Moose Jaw, but he is fondly remembered.

RateMDs link

Dr. James Heilman
Location: Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan
Gender: Male

"I took my 89 year old father in at 2:00 AM and the way this person spoke to my dad was totally unacceptable. He was rude and treated my elderly father like he was disposable. He didnt seem to have any compassion at all. I would not and will not EVER let this person treat myself or any of my family or friends again. I think this person has choosen the wrong profession. I also plan on telling the hospital what I think of this so called doctor."

"I was there with a mentally challenged individual and Dr. Heilman treated him like he was a waste of time and that we were wasting his time. Very disappointed in his attitude. Not the first visit with him that I found him rude and almost sarcastic."

"Arrogant and rude. We can only be thankful that he is gone. The worst doctor-patient relationship display ever."

From the doc's User page:

"Truth is mighty and will prevail. There is nothing the matter with this, except that it ain't so." Mark Twain

[thekohser]

Doc James seems to have moved on from Moose Jaw, but he is fondly remembered.

Now, now... he had some very nice reviews, too. Maybe it's sort of an Ayn Rand approach to medicine. Those who are a drain on the social safety net, who would continue to be a drain even if healed, he dismisses rudely... so that he has more time to spend carefully and thoughtfully tending to society's more productive and noble individuals.

[Mancunium]

Wikipedia:WikiProject_Pharmacology (T-H-L)

Scope, completeness, and accuracy of drug information in Wikipedia.

Is there more recent data on the scope, completeness, or accuracy of drug information in Wikipedia than this 2008 study?

Clauson, KA.; Polen, HH.; Boulos, MN.; Dzenowagis, JH. (Dec 2008). "Scope, completeness, and accuracy of drug information in Wikipedia.". Ann Pharmacother 42 (12): 1814–21. doi:10.1345/aph.1L474. PMID 19017825.

Cheers. Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 03:02, 29 September 2013 (UTC)

You are presuming that the Clauson article was methodologically sound. JFW | T@lk 19:56, 29 September 2013 (UTC)

I haven't even read past the abstract. So, no. I'm assuming nothing about that study. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 20:35, 29 September 2013 (UTC)

[Mancunium]

Wikipedia:WikiProject_Medicine/Collaborative_publication#JMIR_Wiki_Medical_Reviews (T-H-L)

JMIR Publications will publish the first 20 articles free of charge, deposit them in PubMed Central, and will apply for PubMed indexing. JMIR Wiki Medical Reviews is hoped to become the first peer-reviewed journal publishing Wikipedia articles.

Dr James Heilman has agreed to serve as Editor-in-chief, other editorial board members are to be recruited (ideally active in Wikipedia Medicine). Editorial board members encourage Wikipedia authors to submit their articles to the journal for peer-review, select external peer-reviewers, and guide articles through the peer-review process.

JMIR Publications Inc. (formerly JMIR – Journal of Medical Internet Research) link

Title: JMIR Publications Inc. (formerly JMIR – Journal of Medical Internet Research)
Class: Professional OA Publisher (Small)
URL: http://www.jmir.org
Owner: Privately owned company, primarily owned by founding editor and publisher, Professor Gunther Eysenbach
Address: 59 Winners Circle, Toronto M4L 3Y7, Canada

Most JMIR journals have an Article Processing Fee, which is only charged in case of acceptance, ranging from for example from $325 (Medicine 2.0) to $1900 for the J Med Internet Res. Some JMIR journals also have a nominal submission fee (e.g. $90), which is charged on submission. Most JMIR journals have an optional Fast-Track Fee (e.g. $450), which guarantees an editorial decision within 3 weeks after submission and publication within 4 weeks after acceptance.Institutional Memberships are available and cover APF charges of corresponding authors from these members, see http://www.jmir.org/cms/view/support_%2 ... membership.

Gunther_Eysenbach (T-H-L) is also a Wikipedian:

Eysen (T-C-L)

[Mancunium]

Centre for Global eHeath Innovation link

Gunther Eysenbach, MD (Freiburg) MPH (Harvard), is a Senior Scientist and member of the management committee at the Centre for Global eHealth Innovation at the Toronto Research Institute/Toronto General Hospital and Division of Medical Decision Making and Health Care Research. He also holds an academic appointment as Associate Professor at the Department of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation, University of Toronto.

eHealth names Ray Hession as interim CEO
Toronto Star, 27 September 2013 link

eHealth Ontario board chair Ray Hession will do “double duty,” adding the title of interim chief executive officer until departing boss Greg Reed is replaced at the scandal-prone agency, the Star has learned.

Hession, whose daily pay rate of $600 plus expenses will not change, was given the dual role at a board meeting Thursday as Reed leaves with a $406,250 severance package after quitting six months before his contract expired.

Critics have called the golden handshake “ludicrous” for a taxpayer-funded body trying to overcome a spending scandal as it pushes to get every Ontarian an electronic health record by 2015.

Hession was named chair of eHealth in 2010 when the government cleaned house following financial controversies that included consultants, who were paid up to $3,000 a day, expensing tea and cookies to taxpayers.

[...]

A 2009 report by the Ontario auditor general found the electronic health records initiative was rife with “favouritism” toward friendly consultants who received untendered sweetheart contracts and squandered $1 billion with little to show for it.

“Ontario taxpayers have not received value for money,” said then-auditor Jim McCarter

[Mancunium]

Doc James seems to have moved on from Moose Jaw, but he is fondly remembered.

Now, now... he had some very nice reviews, too. Maybe it's sort of an Ayn Rand approach to medicine. Those who are a drain on the social safety net, who would continue to be a drain even if healed, he dismisses rudely... so that he has more time to spend carefully and thoughtfully tending to society's more productive and noble individuals.

It looks like his ER is now online: link

See a licensed BC doctor online with Medeo. Secure video visits using your computer, iPhone or iPad. There is no cost with valid MSP coverage. All from the comfort of your home.

[EricBarbour]

If you're looking for a "weak link" in WP's medical coverage, Heilman is an obvious candidate.
He's rude, imperious, semi-competent, prone to pathetic misspellings and poor grammar, etc.

And has a tendency to post photos of his patients on Commons without permission.
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Speci ... les/Jmh649
Plus photos of his 2011 trip to Mt. Everest. This one has special resonance.
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File: ... verest.JPG
"Animal dung being died in the sun for us as cooking and heating" (sic)

Don't forget David "MastCell" Gorski, who makes Heilman look like a good guy.

[Mancunium]

If you're looking for a "weak link" in WP's medical coverage, Heilman is an obvious candidate.
He's rude, imperious, semi-competent, prone to pathetic misspellings and poor grammar, etc.

And has a tendency to post photos of his patients on Commons without permission.
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Speci ... les/Jmh649
Plus photos of his 2011 trip to Mt. Everest. This one has special resonance.
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File: ... verest.JPG
"Animal dung being died in the sun for us as cooking and heating" (sic)

Don't forget David "MastCell" Gorski, who makes Heilman look like a good guy.

But he seems so cutting edge.

[HRIP7]

Medicine is one of the most heavily curated categories on the project. There is a quiet but very diligent group of gnomes in all time zones patrolling recent changes to medical content.

I used to do a lot of that and found that the category is better than you'd expect, in terms of reliability.

Are you saying the situation has improved since 2008? (see page 6)

Nobody knows: there is insufficient rigorous research, but the existing tenuous evidence is mixed. link The live anyone-can-edit wiki model is no more appropriate for medicine than it is for BLPs. But it is what we have.

What's needed is some leadership in the medicine field. Someone needs to get the WHO, the world's major medical education charities, and government and specialist bodies in one room and knock their heads together, get them collaborating on a secure, reliable, evidence-based encyclopedia. While their individual offerings are atomised all over the web, the intrinsically unreliable (and as pointed out above) dangerous Wikipedia behemoth just pushes them all down the search-engine results.

Yes, In fact, I'd like to see a major cooperation between the world's academic bodies and universities to create an internet encyclopedia to rival Wikipedia. Something with flagged revisions, identified authors and verified credentials.

In the interim, it is a good thing if medical experts are getting actively involved in writing Wikipedia articles. For one, it will improve the quality of the information on offer. As a secondary benefit, there is a chance that these experts will see what happens to their work as time goes by. Ultimately, it may speed up the rate at which a more informed understanding of Wikipedia's culture and failings penetrates public consciousness.

[EricBarbour]

Yes, In fact, I'd like to see a major cooperation between the world's academic bodies and universities to create an internet encyclopedia to rival Wikipedia. Something with flagged revisions, identified authors and verified credentials.

In the interim, it is a good thing if medical experts are getting actively involved in writing Wikipedia articles. For one, it will improve the quality of the information on offer. As a secondary benefit, there is a chance that these experts will see what happens to their work as time goes by. Ultimately, it may speed up the rate at which a more informed understanding of Wikipedia's culture and failings penetrates public consciousness.

I seriously doubt the medical profession will do this willingly. Because people will inevitably use it to self-diagnose, and then there will be lawsuits. Nothing attracts sleazy lawyers like liability suits against major universities and medical firms.

Laymen have been using the PDR for decades, which means the PDR's publisher had been sued repeatedly, along with the drug manufacturers and the FDA.

Wikipedia's drug coverage is (usually) pretty good, but the PDR database is now available online for free. I would trust that first. It will be interesting if someone tries to sue Wikipedia or Wikipedia editors over medical information thereon. Only a matter of time.

[Anthonyhcole]

As mentioned above, I've proposed commissioning a study into the reliability, safety, clarity and comprehensiveness of Wikipedia's medical and pharmacology information. link. I can't think of a more suitable bunch of ratbags to design such a study than you lot, so any ideas (here or at the WT:MED talk page) on the best study design would be very welcome.

[Mancunium]

What should I think about the fact that James Heilman is the President of the Wiki Project Med Foundation and Editor-in-chief of JMIR Wiki Medical Reviews, a privately owned company, which charges $325 to $1900 to publish an article, plus a $90 submission fee and a $450 Fast-Track Fee? And that funding will also be needed to cover the XML tagging / copy-editing of articles before publication, and this will require in the range of $1200 per article?

And that he is unaware of the latest reliable findings on the scope, completeness, and accuracy of medicine and drug information in Wikipedia?

[Anthonyhcole]

What should I think about the fact that James Heilman is the President of the Wiki Project Med Foundation and Editor-in-chief of JMIR Wiki Medical Reviews, a privately owned company, which charges $325 to $1900 to publish an article, plus a $90 submission fee and a $450 Fast-Track Fee. And funding will also be needed to cover the XML tagging / copy-editing of articles before publication: this will require in the range of $1200CAD per article.

And that he is unaware of the latest reliable findings on the scope, completeness, and accuracy of medicine and drug information in Wikipedia?

James has a better grasp than most of the severe limitations of our medical content and no one works harder than he to improve it. If there was someone else putting up their hand to do any of the things he's taken on, I'm sure he'd gladly give them up but, sadly, there isn't. They're all there for the talking, Mancunium. If you're qualified, take a couple. If you're implying there is something improper about what he's doing with Wiki Medical Reviews, please explain what that is.

(I'd also appreciate a little reflection from you on the impact of unfounded public slurs. You of all people.)

[EricBarbour]

link

Title: JMIR Publications Inc. (formerly JMIR – Journal of Medical Internet Research)
Class: Professional OA Publisher (Small)
URL: http://www.jmir.org
Owner: Privately owned company, primarily owned by founding editor and publisher, Professor Gunther Eysenbach
Address: 59 Winners Circle, Toronto M4L 3Y7, Canada

Gunther_Eysenbach (T-H-L) is also a Wikipedian:

Eysen (T-C-L)

Who openly wrote his own Wikipedia biography. Nice.

[EricBarbour]

As mentioned above, I've proposed commissioning a study into the reliability, safety, clarity and comprehensiveness of Wikipedia's medical and pharmacology information. link. I can't think of a more suitable bunch of ratbags to design such a study than you lot, so any ideas (here or at the WT:MED talk page) on the best study design would be very welcome.

I don't need to look any deeper to tell you that this whole thing stinks. Heilman is a sub-average Wikipedia content writer at best, has abused his administrative power repeatedly, engaged in completely insane editwars, and cofounded Wikimedia Canada -- installing himself as Chair.

And with this deal with Eysenbach's JMIR, it would appear that Heilman now qualifies as a paid editor. I see no statement saying that he would not accept remuneration for doing work for JMIR, do you?

Wanna see the Portrait Of An Asshole? Try this.

Perhaps we should also look closely at one of Wikipedia's oldest administrators, Jfdwolff (T-C-L), for further abuses. He habitually supports Heilman in all kinds of messes, and nominated his RFA.

It appears that Wikipedia has every other kind of dodgy "organization", echoing the real world. Now it's getting its own AMA. We could study the medical content of Wikipedia for problems, but this stuff tends to indicate there are problems. How do we prove that an article is favorable to a corporation, such as a drug company, after these guys have mucked with it?

[tarantino]

Plus photos of his 2011 trip to Mt. Everest. This one has special resonance.
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File: ... verest.JPG
"Animal dung being died in the sun for us as cooking and heating" (sic)

Well, at least he's not burning bodies that have died in the sun that litter the trails on Everest, for cooking and heating.

[EricBarbour]

Well, at least he's not burning bodies that have died in the sun that litter the trails on Everest, for cooking and heating.

Unfortunately, Bing doesn't work properly on Macs, in any browser. The Google version always works.

[trout]

Well, at least he's not burning bodies that have died in the sun that litter the trails on Everest, for cooking and heating.

Unfortunately, Bing doesn't work properly on Macs, in any browser. The Google version always works.

So can someone explain why asking about Jimbo's odd facial expression is not OK on this forum?

[Mancunium]

What should I think about the fact that James Heilman is the President of the Wiki Project Med Foundation and Editor-in-chief of JMIR Wiki Medical Reviews, a privately owned company, which charges $325 to $1900 to publish an article, plus a $90 submission fee and a $450 Fast-Track Fee. And funding will also be needed to cover the XML tagging / copy-editing of articles before publication: this will require in the range of $1200CAD per article.

And that he is unaware of the latest reliable findings on the scope, completeness, and accuracy of medicine and drug information in Wikipedia?

James has a better grasp than most of the severe limitations of our medical content and no one works harder than he to improve it. If there was someone else putting up their hand to do any of the things he's taken on, I'm sure he'd gladly give them up but, sadly, there isn't. They're all there for the talking, Mancunium. If you're qualified, take a couple. If you're implying there is something improper about what he's doing with Wiki Medical Reviews, please explain what that is.

(I'd also appreciate a little reflection from you on the impact of unfounded public slurs. You of all people.)

Thank you for suggesting I should join the anonymous mob that is editing the medical articles in Wikipedia.

I have reflected.

On the one hand, there is Wikipedia's medical disclaimer: link

Wikipedia contains articles on many medical topics; however, no warranty whatsoever is made that any of the articles are accurate. There is absolutely no assurance that any statement contained or cited in an article touching on medical matters is true, correct, precise, or up-to-date. The overwhelming majority of such articles are written, in part or in whole, by nonprofessionals.

On the other hand, there is the Wiki Project Med Foundation (WPMEDF), an organization devoted to crowd-sourced health care, and to promoting the idea that an encyclopedia that anyone can edit is a reliable medical reference. The president of the Foundation is also editor-in-chief of a privately-owned "medical journal", with which the Foundation is in commercial partnership.

The Foundation has its own Wikimedia-hosted newsletter now: link

UCSF Education Project.
In January Jake Orlowitz (Ocaasi) and James Heilman (Jmh649) joined fourth-year UCSF medical student and Wikipedian Michael Turken (Michaelturken). ... Big news, UCSF has proposed a 4th-year medical elective, for credit, in which students would choose and improve a medical topic on Wikipedia. This is the first medical school education project we have heard of, ever!

Yes, it was big news. Major publications around the world, including the New York Times, reported on this incredibly bad idea. It was the third time the NYT has reported on the Wikipedia-related activities of the doctor in Moose Jaw:

Travel Site Built on Wiki Ethos Now Bedevils Its Owner
New York Times, 9 September 2012 link

Internet Brands filed a lawsuit in Superior Court of California for Los Angeles County against Dr. Heilman and a longtime Wikitravel volunteer, Ryan Holliday. The suit did not challenge the right to copy the material; instead it focuses in particular on the efforts of the two men to encourage Wikitravel contributors to consider forking.

and

A Rorschach Cheat Sheet on Wikipedia?
New York Times, 28 July 2009 link

Restricting information for theoretical concerns is not what we are here to do,” Dr. Heilman said, adding that he was not impressed by the predictions of harm from those who sought to keep the Rorschach plates secret. “Show me the evidence,” he said. “I don’t care what a group of experts says.”

There are no secrets in Wiki Project Medicine: [link]Wikipedia:WikiProject_Medicine[/link]. If you are looking for information about the "scope, completeness, and accuracy of medicine and drug information in Wikipedia", WikiProject Medicine's own assessment statistics state that, of the "top importance" medicine articles, 10 are of Featured Article standard, and 23 are of Good Article standard.

I of all people, and my minor children, were mercilessly harassed and defamed by Wikipedia for years, despite that fact that we are in no way notable. Dr Heilman is most definitely notable, and the "unfounded public slurs" you refer to are quotations from Doc James's own Wikimedia text, and from the news media. It would have been unnecessary to post them here if Doc James had ever deigned to explain his Wiki Project Med Foundation, and its "collaborations with other like-minded organizations".

Doc James called all this attention upon himself. Here is WikiProject Medicine's Talk page today: link

Media mention

Have you seen this? Should we respond? Should I Be Getting Health Information From Wikipedia? NCurse work 07:35, 2 October 2013 (UTC)

I would say so, but I haven't read the article. I've just been plotting to start a centralized place to do so from. Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 07:58, 2 October 2013 (UTC)

Dr Azzam's project has been described before in the lay press—I think that Doc James highlighted it. The article already gives the message that we want to send. There is no need to respond. Although I want to copy-edit the article. Axl ¤ [Talk] 08:27, 2 October 2013 (UTC)

[Anthonyhcole]

I hope no one from en.WikiProject Medicine or WikiProject Med Foundation is promoting the idea that an encyclopedia that anyone can edit is a reliable medical reference. I'd appreciate it if you could point me to any instances of that you come across.

Have you understood the point of Wiki Medicine Reviews? It is to get those unreliable medical articles that are there, at the top of your Google results, reviewed and vetted by independent subject experts. Personally, I think it's an excellent solution to the very real problem that we're all so conscious of.

Another, complimentary, strategy is to get institutions with funding dedicated to health education such as the WHO and NIH whose missions align with ours, to take ownership of our medical content, with the WikiProject members acting as actual editors - conforming their contributions to the MOS and essential content policies, or for them to work together, independent of us, on their own free online medical encyclopedia. (Presently their contributions are atomised all over the net. If they could just get together and bundle what they've already got into one monolithic resource, they would knock Wikipedia's medical articles off the top of Google, I think.)

It is the earnest wish of all involved in WikiProject Med Foundation and in en.WikiProject Medicine that the day soon arrives when the top search engine result for any medical term is clear, concise, comprehensive and reliable, and none of us could care less whether it's got Wikipedia's name on it.

There is no commercial partnership between the publisher, JMIR, and WikiProject Med Foundation.

[Vigilant]

Hi Anthony,

I think your stated goals are laudable.
They are, however, at odds with en.wp's stated principles.

How do you intend to get and keep articles in a known good state in the face of WP:OWN and the lack of flagged revisions/pending changes?

[Anthonyhcole]

Hi Anthony,

I think your stated goals are laudable.
They are, however, at odds with en.wp's stated principles.

How do you intend to get and keep articles in a known good state in the face of WP:OWN and the lack of flagged revisions/pending changes?

That's why my preferred solution is my last mentioned - that the many institutions whose missions involve spreading health information take this on. It may come down to the first mentioned, though - them using the existing category-killer, Wikipedia, as their platform.

The plan is for articles that have been through independent scholarly review to have a link to the reviewed version at the top of the editable version. I'm vaguely thinking we could host those reviewed versions on a separate wiki, perhaps Citizendium, or something like it; something with a recognisable brand, something that people will identify with "reliable". Hopefully, if people get into the habit of clicking through to the "authorised" versions, those iterations will float to the top of Google. Don't know, really. Any ideas?

I should add that Wikipedia medical articles are on the whole remarkably stable so, on the whole, entropy will be less of a problem than with many other topics. Fringe, alternative and controversial topics will always be a problem, though, and once they're reviewed I'll be arguing for "pending changes".

[dogbiscuit]

Hi Anthony,

I think your stated goals are laudable.
They are, however, at odds with en.wp's stated principles.

How do you intend to get and keep articles in a known good state in the face of WP:OWN and the lack of flagged revisions/pending changes?

That's why my preferred solution is my last mentioned - that the many institutions whose missions involve spreading health information take this on. It may come down to the first mentioned, though - them using the existing category-killer, Wikipedia, as their platform.

The plan is for articles that have been through independent scholarly review to have a link to the reviewed version at the top of the editable version. I'm vaguely thinking we could host those reviewed versions on a separate wiki, perhaps Citizendium, or something like it; something with a recognisable brand, something that people will identify with "reliable". Hopefully, if people get into the habit of clicking through to the "authorised" versions, those iterations will float to the top of Google. Don't know, really. Any ideas?

The fundamental problem here is that you are putting the onus on the reader to work out that what he finds on Wikipedia, with some degree of promotion by authoritative sounding individuals like doctors, is not to be used, but is just a development platform for somewhere else.

Now, you might just get away with a system with some form of tightly controlled flagged revisions, but the reality is that life-changing information should really be maintained and hosted by authoritative bodies only. To be honest, I don't see why anyone would think for a moment that the Wikipedia model is suitable for anything but the most trivial pseudo-medical information ("A headache is where a person's head hurts. You can take pain killers to help, as long as you follow the instructions. Some headaches mean you are going to die imminently, others are less severe.").

[Mancunium]

There is no way that Wikipedia should be publishing problematic medical articles. It should cease to do so immediately.

WikiProject Medicine and WikiProject Med Foundation are promoting the idea that an encyclopedia that anyone can edit is a reliable medical reference. I'd appreciate it if you could admit that this is their only objective.

Wikipedia:WikiProject_Medicine/JMIR_Wiki_Medical_Reviews (T-H-L)

JMIR Publications, publisher of the Journal of Medical Internet Research, is currently pilot-testing an innovative peer-reviewed journal JMIR Wiki Medical Reviews [1] which sets out to publish Wikipedia (Review) and Wikiversity (Original Works) papers. Authors who have made significant contributions to Wikipedia articles are invited to submit the article to http://wikimedical.jmir.org/author

JMIR Wiki Medical Reviews (JMIR Wiki Med Rev) is an innovative journal which takes the best wikipedia articles in medicine, peer-reviews them, and publishes them as citable scholarly review article, with the goals to 1) Improve Wikipedia articles, 2) enhance public trust in the accuracy of medical Wikipedia articles, 4) improve visibility and indexing of outstanding Wikipedia articles (e.g. by indexing in bibliographic databases and featuring them on JMIR), 5) to acknowledge authors who volunteer their time on wikipedia to improve articles by listing them as authors in a "citable" publication, 6) to add an additional layer of formal peer-review to wikipedia articles (JMIR Wiki Med Rev - About us/Focus and Scope)

JMIR Publications will publish the first 20 articles free of charge, deposit them in PubMed Central, and will apply for PubMed indexing. JMIR Wiki Medical Reviews is hoped to become the first peer-reviewed journal publishing Wikipedia articles.

Dr James Heilman has agreed to serve as Editor-in-chief, other editorial board members are to be recruited (ideally active in Wikipedia Medicine). Editorial board members encourage Wikipedia authors to submit their articles to the journal for peer-review, select external peer-reviewers, and guide articles through the peer-review process. The publisher (JMIR Publications, represented by Dr Gunther Eysenbach) will coordinate production, which includes converting the Wikipedia article into XML, and depositing the articles in various bibliographic databases and full text databases. It is hoped that the journal will be Medline-indexed and will receive an impact factor. For the latter it is important to primarily publish articles which will be highly cited.

JMIR link

Publication Fees Policy

As we aim to publish widely indexed, carefully copyedited, high-quality manuscripts, that are also deposited in repositories such as PubMed Central, publication of an accepted paper requires expensive production steps such as copyediting, reference checking and XML tagging. In the editing & production stage, JMIR employs professional full-time staff and freelancers, and we have to pay our bills too. To defray these costs (and because we cannot sell subscriptions like toll-access journals) we require authors to pay certain fees.
Authors publishing in JMIR are paying a nominal submission fee ($90), an article processing fee (APF) only in case of acceptance, and (optionally) a fast-track fee for expedited review.
These fees are usually funded from research grants, and new researchers in the area are urged to budget for open access publications in their grant proposals, much as they budget for conference presentations (please budget about $2000 per article).

When comparing the costs for publishing in JMIR against the cost of publishing in other OA journals, please consider that 1) JMIR is consistently ranked #1 in its field by impact factor, 2) JMIR employs professional copyediting after acceptance, which is a service many OA journals with lower costs do not provide. Given these considerations, JMIR is currently one of the most cost-effective OA journals on the market.

For a detailed fee overview see Instructions for Authors.

JMIR Instructions for Authors link

The publication of a high quality online journal service such as JMIR is an expensive business. In addition to all the fixed costs usually associated with print journal publishing (reviewing, editing, data processing, printing, and distribution), there are costs associated with online publication (including software development costs, hosting, and user support). The scientific research community considers author charges as a viable way of covering publication costs.

Authors should understand that JMIR is employing professional staff (technical, copyediting) and we have to pay our bills too. Our authors usually budget for JMIR membership or knowledge dissemination activities in their research grant proposals, and cover JMIR publication fees or membership fees through their research grants, CME funds, or other sources. Authors not holding such grants should contact their department or library, encouraging them to become an institutional member.

Fee Schedule (2012)

1) Submission Fee (JSF)

*The submission fee is non-refundable, even if the paper is rejected, with or without external peer-review.

Letters to the editor, invited articles................................. FREE

JSF for regular papers (original work, viewpoints etc.)........ US$ 90

2) Fast-track Fee (optional) (FTF)

Payment of the Fast Track Fee guarantees a speedy turnaround (initial decision within 15 working days, publication within 1 month after acceptance + APF payment). The fast-track fee is non-refundable, even if the paper is rejected, with or without peer-review.

Fast-Track Fee.................................................................... US$ 450

3) Article Processing Fee (APF)

Only payable in case of acceptance of a manuscript.

Letters to the editor**................................. FREE

Corresponding author from institutional member organization....................... FREE

Corresponding author not from institutional member organization................ US$ 1900 (submitted before 21-Apr-2010: US$ 1500)

Grant proposals and research protocols (now published in our new spin-off journal JMIR Research Protocols) which are already peer-reviewed (review reports must be submitted)................ US$ 950

** Letters to the editor should be a response or comment on a recently published paper in JMIR. Original research is not accepted as letter **

NOTE: All prices are stated and fixed in US$. Payments made via PayPal will be processed in US$. Payments made via PsiGate (credit card processing platform) will be processed in CAD$ (using the daily bank exchange rate to convert from US$ to CAD$). Purchasers using credit cards dominated in US$ are advised that due to the currency conversion process (US$ -> CAD$ -> US$, the final amount in their credit card statement may differ slightly from the amounts stated here.

CHEQUE FEE: A 7% surcharge is added for non-credit card payments.

Why do we charge fees? The fee will be paid to a research account at the Centre for Global eHealth Innovation, Toronto, and will be used to pay the costs for administrative support for the peer-review process, copyediting, hosting of the journal, production of the XML/HTML versions of articles, membership in CrossRef, and for further development of the journal and website. In open access journals, authors retain the copyright for their work, and access to the published paper is provided free of charge for readers. Because of this, open access journals have limited possibilities to generate revenue and offset costs by licensing content. Therefore, processing and publication costs need to be carried by the authors' institution or research grants. The article processing fee, payable upon acceptance, is waived if the corresponding author is from a department or university that is a JMIR institutional member at the time of submission and acceptance. Authors should encourage their department or university to become an institutional JMIR member prior to submitting an article, as this actually costs less than the fee for a single article.

For authors not affiliated with institutional members at the time of the submission (login into your userhomepage and click on membership to see a list - in addition, there is a drop-down list in the submission form), articles accepted by JMIR are subject to the article processing fee, payable in the period between article acceptance and copyediting. This fee is usually paid by a grant of one of the authors (most if not all funding agencies allow payment of APFs from their grants) or by the academic department of the author (much as they already pay for reprints, page charges, or color plates in subscription-based journals). Authors who have no sources of support to pay for the processing fee should lobby their department to become an institutional member prior to submission.

Where are all the fees for this vanity publication supposed to come from?

I posted all of this yesterday. Since you insist on making this a personal issue, please believe me when I say that having to review all this nonsense is injurious to my health.

[Vigilant]

Hi Anthony,

I think your stated goals are laudable.
They are, however, at odds with en.wp's stated principles.

How do you intend to get and keep articles in a known good state in the face of WP:OWN and the lack of flagged revisions/pending changes?

That's why my preferred solution is my last mentioned - that the many institutions whose missions involve spreading health information take this on. It may come down to the first mentioned, though - them using the existing category-killer, Wikipedia, as their platform.

The plan is for articles that have been through independent scholarly review to have a link to the reviewed version at the top of the editable version. I'm vaguely thinking we could host those reviewed versions on a separate wiki, perhaps Citizendium, or something like it; something with a recognisable brand, something that people will identify with "reliable". Hopefully, if people get into the habit of clicking through to the "authorised" versions, those iterations will float to the top of Google. Don't know, really. Any ideas?

I should add that Wikipedia medical articles are on the whole remarkably stable so, on the whole, entropy will be less of a problem than with many other topics. Fringe, alternative and controversial topics will always be a problem, though, and once they're reviewed I'll be arguing for "pending changes".

This is an unworkable solution.
First, most users will miss this unless it's huge, garish and animated.
Second, most of en.wp will hate this because it drives traffic to another site (one they don't control).

You need to rethink how you're going to do this.