Doctor Wikipedia

[Anthonyhcole]

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.

So let's make it garish and animated.
So let's make the scholarly reviewed site a Wikimedia site - Wikipedia Scholar.

Now, you might just get away with a system with some form of tightly controlled flagged revisions

Dogbiscuit, I'd love to have flagged revisions on all reviewed articles on normal Wikipedia - and that may be doable. Sadly, all of this is at the mercy of the mob.

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

Well, first, it had better not be a vanity publication. The whole point of the exercise is that the work should pass rigorous independent scholarly review. Whether we proceed with JMIR will depend on how the first ten (?) articles go - which are free. If that goes well, I hope the WMF will give serious consideration to funding an institutional subscription. If they don't, and I think it's worth proceeding with, I'll chip in, and I'm sure James and others will too.

[Mancunium]

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.

So let's make it garish and animated.
So let's make the scholarly reviewed site a Wikimedia site - Wikipedia Scholar.

Now, you might just get away with a system with some form of tightly controlled flagged revisions

Dogbiscuit, I'd love to have flagged revisions on all reviewed articles on normal Wikipedia - and that may be doable. Sadly, all of this is at the mercy of the mob.

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

Well, first, it had better not be a vanity publication. The whole point of the exercise is that the work should pass rigorous independent scholarly review. Whether we proceed with JMIR will depend on how the first ten (?) articles go - which are free. If that goes well, I hope the WMF will give serious consideration to funding an institutional subscription. If they don't, and I think it's worth proceeding with, I'll chip in, and I'm sure James and others will too.

You could do more good with your money by donating to St._John_Ambulance (T-H-L)(sorry about the dreadful and shamefully inaccurate Wikipedia article).

The Wiki Project Medicine Foundation/JMIR Wiki Medical Review propaganda -- trying to convince (poor) people to trust their life, and the lives of their children, to Wikipedia's anyone-can-edit medical information -- has been diffused worldwide in the past two days, I'm sorry to say. Most stories just uncritically repeat the Foundation's irresponsible claims.

Wikipedia Goes To Medical School: UCSF Med Students Will Learn How To Improve Online Encyclopedia
International Business Times, 3 October 2013 link

Most professors frown on students relying too much on Wikipedia. But for some medical students at the University of California, San Francisco, it’s going to be the foundation of the curriculum for at least one course.

In today’s world, where every stray twinge or headache sends us frantically Googling our symptoms, a more accurate Wikipedia is in everyone’s best interest. More than one in three American adults have consulted the Internet to try and self-diagnose a medical condition, according to the Pew Research Center; of those surveyed, more than half visited a medical professional to get their opinion.

[...]

The initial idea for the Wikipedia course at UCSF came from one of Azzam’s former students: Michael Turken, now a resident in internal medicine at Stanford University. One of Turken’s friends was curious about how long an HIV test could deliver false negatives after someone was exposed to the virus. On Wikipedia, an article gave the time period as just two weeks, but Turken knew from his studies that the real answer was about four weeks. Before that error was corrected, someone that contracted HIV could have gotten a negative result three weeks after exposure and felt unjustly reassured.

Teaching Wikipedia editing in the classroom isn’t a wholly new concept. In 2011, University of Kansas School of Medicine-Wichita’s Robert Badgett and University of Miami Miller School of Medicine’s Mary Moore reported on their success encouraging medical students at the University of Texas Health Science Center to succinctly summarize studies on Wikipedia. Wikipedia itself maintains a list of university courses that encourage students to improve articles, from a developmental biology course at Boston College to a class on feminist science fiction at the University of Oregon.

[...]

In the medical sections of Wikipedia, “there are a number of key articles still needing improvement, including: sepsis, leukemia, prostate cancer, fever, cerebral palsy and pregnancy among others,” James Heilman, an emergency room doctor, University of British Columbia instructor and avid Wikipedian, wrote in an email.

Keeping in line with Wikipedia’s non-hierarchical structure, WikiProject editors do not have special privileges over others. And Wikipedia’s operators typically only interact with WikiProjects if there are technical matters (related to the website) that arise.

“There are hundreds of WikiProjects that self-organize and produce amazing work without ever interacting with us, and that's great,” a spokesperson for the Wikimedia Foundation (the non-profit that operates Wikipedia and its sister projects) wrote in an email. “They are an integral piece of improving Wikipedia.”

While Wikipedia can certainly always use more expert help, it turns out the online encyclopedia can be fairly reliable. In 2005, reporters working for the journal Nature sent 50 pairs of articles – one from Wikipedia, one from the Encyclopedia Britannica -- on scientific articles to experts in the field. The experts were not told which article came from which source, and were asked to count the errors in each piece. The results showed Britannica only slightly more accurate than Wikipedia, with an average of slightly less than 3 errors in each article. Wikipedia articles, by comparison, had an average of just under 4 errors. (Wikipedia also maintains a section of errors in Encyclopedia Britannica that have been corrected in its own entries.)

Azzam is particularly excited by the partnership between WikiProject Medicine and the group Translators Without Borders, which is working on converting some of the top medical articles on Wikipedia into other languages. And soon, it may be even easier for people in the developing world to look up their symptoms. The Wikimedia Foundation is working with cell phone carriers in developing countries to offer free access to all or parts of Wikipedia.

You can tell I'm a doctor because I drape a stethoscope around my neck

[Mancunium]

Oh look what Vigilant found: link

Paper written as science hoax published by 157 science journals

Published: Oct. 3, 2013 at 8:34 PM

LOS ANGELES, Oct. 3 (UPI) -- An error-ridden science paper submitted in an effort to expose unethical academic publishers was accepted by 157 open-access science journals, its author says.

The sting operation by the journal Science uncovered problematic and unethical behavior by publishers of "fee for publication" journals, some of which resort to false addresses, use overseas bank accounts and routinely provide only superficial "peer reviews," the Los Angeles Times reported Thursday.

"From humble and idealistic beginnings a decade ago, open-access scientific journals have mushroomed into a global industry, driven by author publication fees rather than traditional subscriptions," Science contributing correspondent John Bohannon, who wrote the hoax paper, wrote in a report on the operation.

Bohannon put together a spurious and fatally flawed study on a purported cure for cancer -- including purposeful blunders that should have been detected during a proper review -- to 304 open-access journals.

A worrying total of 157 journals accepted it, Bohannon said, while only 98 rejected it. The remaining 49 did not respond, he said.

Many of the journals accepting the paper demanded fees of thousands of dollars for publication.

What a clever idea it was, for a couple of Canadian wiki-doctors, to find a way to direct donations to the Wikimedia Foundation to an "open source" medical journal that demands "fees of thousands of dollars for publication".

[Mancunium]

You can tell I'm a doctor because I drape a stethoscope around my neck

It's not so much the stethoscope as the Wikipedia credential he's wearing around his neck. Did he attend a WP meetup dressed in his hospital scrubs and stethoscope, or does he wear the Wikipedia badge while on duty in ER?

Imagine you are a drawing your terminal breath in Emerge, and the last thing you see, in the dying of the light, are those indifferent eyes, and Wikipedia's banal, empty, and broken puzzle-globe logo.

[iii]

Oh look what Vigilant found: link....
What a clever idea it was, for a couple of Canadian wiki-doctors, to find a way to direct donations to the Wikimedia Foundation to an "open source" medical journal that demands "fees of thousands of dollars for publication".

Some moons ago, I posted about the issues related to predatory open access journals. Jeff Beall has extensive criteria for deciding whether the journal is predatory or not. Apropos of this, page fees in and of themselves are actually not a deciding factor because that's the way open access journals (and indeed many scholarly journals) work, though I must admit that I've always felt the practice to be somewhat unseemly at the very least.

Anyway, Jeff Beall has his own analysis of the Science piece here. Enjoy!

[Mancunium]

Still spinning.

Do you trust Wikipedia with your health? Med students aim to make it better
Public Radio Internation, 4 October 2013 link

Though it's great for clearing up bar arguments over how many actors have played Batman (seven so far), or finding a list of the world's tallest buildings, Wikipedia is a website that generally doesn't sit well in the world of academia.

But that could soon be changing.

Medical students will soon be able to get course credit for editing Wikipedia articles about diseases in a new effort by the University of California at San Francisco.

The goal of the course is to improve the quality of medical information available for Wikipedia's global audience, said Dr. Amin Azzam, a health sciences associate clinical professor at the university who will be teaching the one-month course in December.

[...]

He expects that the updated articles will be translated into hundreds of different languages worldwide and made available on cellphones for free through the help of the Wikimedia Foundation.

"Everyone uses Wikipedia," Azzam said. "It's the fifth-most trafficked website on the planet these days and the fact that it is so heavily used speaks to the value of the information that individuals believe they are getting when they go to Wikipedia."

[...]

However, the very accessibility that enables the site to be edited and read almost everywhere can also be somewhat of a liability, since the good work of the medical students can be undone by just about anyone who wants to contribute to a topic.

Still, Azzam is hopeful his efforts will spur interest in the medical community around the idea of open-source, accessible medical information and, in turn, keep the pages in good order.

"If the entire health professional community were engaged with this process, we would actually be able to counterbalance some of those inaccuracies because we all, as a profession, are committed to accurate information and helping the health of the public regardless of any efforts at undermining what's there," Azzam said.

If the entire health professional community spent all its time editing Wikipedia, it would still be unable to prevent their good work being undone by just about anyone.

I do not like thee, Doctor Fell,
The reason why - I cannot tell;
But this I know, and know full well,
I do not like thee, Doctor Fell.

[Mancunium]

Dr. Google: Survey finds big gap in time patients spend looking up health info online, time with their doctor
Inforum, 6 October 2013 link

When Joel Haugen started practicing medicine in 1982, patients would turn to books or ask for advice from neighbors to learn more about their woes. They still do that research today, the Essentia Health family medicine physician at the West Acres walk-in clinic said – but they’re letting the medical encyclopedias gather dust and using WebMD instead. “Now, it’s readily available on their smartphone or their iPad or the Internet, and there’s just so much more of it,” he said. “It may even make it harder for them to sort that out.”

A recent national survey conducted by Makovsky Health and Kelton found the average American spends about 52 hours each year looking up health information online. They only average one hour – three 20-minute visits – with their doctor each year.

[...]

Monjur Alam, a family medicine physician who practices at Sanford Health’s clinic in East Grand Forks, Minn., said the best advice is to look for evidence-based websites. Organizations that represent specific medical fields often are a good choice, he said. Some examples include the websites of the American Academy of Family Physicians, the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Board of Internal Medicine. “They have it in plain layman’s terms, and it’s very easy to read and the patients can understand it much better,” he said. Haugen said he advises patients to look for official government sites – easy to spot because their website address ends with “.gov” – because they’re likely to be free of bias and won’t be trying to sell medications or untested theories.

Other federally sponsored sites, such as the National Institutes of Health at http://www.nih.gov and the searchable databases of http://www.healthfinder.gov, also are good choices, he said. Haugen said patients can learn more about specific conditions through large nonprofit organizations, such as the American Diabetes Association, the American Heart Association and the American Cancer Society. Many health systems now offer information and links through their own websites, too. He said the Rochester, Minn.-based Mayo Clinic has good resources available on its site at http://www.mayoclinic.com.

Essentia Health patients can find updated information about diseases, treatments and surgeries on its website at http://www.essentiahealth.org. Like many health providers, Haugen said Essentia subscribes to a third-party service to make sure the information is updated and accurate. Sanford also has a searchable health database on its site at http://www.sanfordhealth.org. Both health systems offer options for patients to chat with medical providers and keep track of appointments through their websites. Haugen said WebMD also has a large amount of information available for free. The popular site does have advertising, he said, but it’s “fairly benign” and still a good option.

But he said not all privately run health websites are as reliable, and patients should take the information they find through Google or in a Wikipedia article with a grain of salt.

[...]

While the average American visits their doctor for about an hour each year, they spend about 52 hours searching for health information online. A recent national survey from Makovsky Health and Kelton found:

- WebMD is the most popular online health resource, with 53 percent of respondents using the site.

- Almost one-quarter (22 percent) went to Wikipedia for information.

- While most Americans still use a computer for health searches, and not a tablet or smartphone, the rate decreased from 90 percent in 2012 to 83 percent in 2013.

- About one-fourth of respondents use social media, including YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and blogs, to conduct their health research.

Obviously the Wiki Project Med Foundation wants 100% of the online health information market, but it still has some work to do before people like Dr Haugen and Dr Alam stop warning their patients away from Wikipedia's medical articles.

Ideally, physicians will soon be saying, "Oh, don't bother going to the National Institutes of Health or the American Cancer Society websites. Wiki Project Med Foundation's information is the most reliable and up-to-date, because it's constantly being improved by random anonymous editors".

[Mancunium]

News from WikiProject Medicine: link

We can make comments such as WP medical content gets about 200 million hits. I say that it is one of the most used medical resources in the world and likely the most used resource. Doubt the WMF would be in an any stronger position to comment on this than we are. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 04:17, 3 October 2013 (UTC)

Yes, the number of hits is the more important than the content.

Is it really necessary that we have a redirect called bitch tits to gynecomastia? I would prefer to deal with this like how cleft lip and palate deals with hare lip. Yes there it is a redirect, but in the article at least it is implied that it is a historic term, and probably more offensive now than anything else. However on gynecomastia, "bitch tits" is not even listed as a synonym. Need a source to support this questionable redirect imo ... Lesion (talk) 13:09, 3 October 2013 (UTC)

Why is it questionable? What else could it logically refer to? Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 13:12, 3 October 2013 (UTC)
It was used 70 times in the last month, for whatever it's worth. Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 13:14, 3 October 2013 (UTC)

But it's fun to talk about bitch tits.

We seem to have lost our google juices as our readership is down by half these last three months Wikipedia:WikiProject_Medicine/Popular_pages. I noticed that there is a new health box on google which features the NLM. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 04:14, 7 October 2013 (UTC)

I experimented by typing in several different medical conditions into google. Not sure if this is unique to google.co.uk ... but Wikipedia's place at the first google hit has dropped to four or fifth for medical conditions. NHS choices and patient.co.uk results are now usually appearing first. I understand that google does not actually rank the search results in order of most visited, but rather they adjust the order of search results for reasons of their own. Apparently wikipedia has been demoted. Lesion (talk) 13:54, 7 October 2013 (UTC)

We should be number one! Never mind that the project's articles are a public health hazard.

How bad are they?

I think this calls attention to the importance of the issue that was just fixed with gastrointestinal cancer. The fewer embarrassments we have floating around the website the more likely we are to be the default choice of google (if that has influenced our page-view stats). We currently have over 19,000 issues identified in our ~28,000 articles. We should make it an explicit goal to reduce this count every month. How about we make a time in the future at which we hope to have these issues down by? How about by 1 Jan 2015 we shoot to have only 8,000 issues identified, for example? Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 09:34, 7 October 2013 (UTC)

I do not find the cleanup tags the most useful. Any article that is not a GA/FA needs work and that means more than 99% of them. A number of GAs/FAs are in need of a good updating. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 23:43, 7 October 2013 (UTC)

Yes, of course 99% of our medical articles are unsatisfactory, but we nevertheless want 100% of the online health information market.

[Mancunium]

A thing I don't understand about the Wiki Project Med Foundation link,

Someone has "purchased the domains wikimediamedicine.com and wikimediamedicine.org, and "We will be initially incorporating as Wiki Med Foundation if available until we get authority to use Wikimedia Med from the WMF". And here, link, money seems to be a major consideration.

I thought it would be a good idea to draft up a donor appeal letter for future use when we try to solicit for money. The Google Docs for it can be found here. This is of course a collaborative effort so feel free to change it in any way you please. Thoughts, questions, concerns? Peter.C (talk) 15:23, 2 June 2013 (UTC)

The begging letter: link

Any donation whether it be $1 or $100 will help us.

No doubt. But where will the Foundation keep all its money?

At the last Wiki Project Med meeting some people were asking about banking. As of now, the organization does not have a bank account. Some people suggested that the bank ought to be in New York City, since the organization is incorporated in New York. Just last week was the Wikimedia New York City annual meeting. I talked with their treasurer Peter, en:User:Becksguy, about the issue and we thought to propose that Wikimedia NYC and Wiki Project Med might share some financial reporting organizational infrastructure. The two organizations could share a common member, which seems natural since they are based in the same place, and perhaps they could do peer review on each other. Blue Rasberry (talk) 15:45, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

WPMF seems poised to process at least tens of thousands of dollars in the next year with in-kind donations. So far several members - in independent capacity - have received funding to travel to conferences relevant to WPMF. When they have gone, it was for reasons in addition to WPMF goals, but WPMF could be noting the activity of its members and take some credit for when its members go out and do things in its name. It might be prudent to note donated travel funding in the organization's records of donations, if those receiving the funding would agree that they received the money as WPMF representatives or project partners. It seems likely that the WPMF will also be supporting Wikipedians in Residence in the future, and although those people will not be paid through the WPMF, I still feel that noting that this organization was a player in the creation of the jobs would be appropriate, and the salaries paid to people who take such jobs are a sort of in-kind donation to WPMF and could be noted as such if the employee agreed. Keeping records of projects and funding is essential for other grant writing and funding requests.

It could well happen that WPMF receive funding directly to send other people to conferences or to develop materials. If that happens, it would be ideal to have a bank on hand if there are no significant additional costs to doing it sooner rather than later. I see opening a bank account somewhere in the world to be a reasonable goal of any organization which might ever solicit donations, and free accounts are available. Paypal might not be appropriate for processing travel or anyone's salary, if funding ever appeared for those things. Thoughts? Blue Rasberry (talk) 14:52, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

Here's a thought: apparently, this Foundation has already been incorporated, and plans to have their own website, and to do their own begging for money which will be kept in their own bank account. Are there other examples of Wikipedia topic areas going rogue like this?

[EricBarbour]

Here's a thought: apparently, this Foundation has already been incorporated, and plans to have their own website, and to do their own begging for money which will be kept in their own bank account. Are there other examples of Wikipedia topic areas going rogue like this?

This might be the first, although some of the national chapters could be described as "rogues". I'm thinking of the endless stupidity around WMUK, plus Wikipedia Italia scandals and a few others.

[Poetlister]

Yes, the number of hits is the more important than the content.

It's not irrelevant. If there were very few hits, we wouldn't be worrying about whether the content is unreliable or even dangerous. If it's really the most consulted medical reference in the world (and I have no reason to doubt that), then it's extremely worrying.

[iii]

Here's a thought: apparently, this Foundation has already been incorporated, and plans to have their own website, and to do their own begging for money which will be kept in their own bank account. Are there other examples of Wikipedia topic areas going rogue like this?

Arguably, Conservapedia and RationalWiki, among others.

[EricBarbour]

Arguably, Conservapedia and RationalWiki, among others.

Conservapedia had nothing to do with the WMF except they used MediaWiki (and were heavily vandalized by Wikipedians).

RationalWiki, now that's a tale. A David Gerard side project of sorts. Numerous Wikipedia insiders have accounts there, and
it's been notorious for occasional use as a meeting-place for coordinating attacks on WP opponents. I haven't been able to dig
up much more, because it appears they've been censoring its database heavily.
It's a 100% troll wiki, ED with an alleged "serious use" claimed.

[Mancunium]

NCurse (T-C-L)

My name is Bertalan Meskó, MD, PhD.
I'm the author of the medical blog scienceroll.com.
I've been contributing to the English Wikipedia since May, 2006. I became an administrator on 7 October, 2006.
I'm interested in all parts of science, but mainly genetics.
I'm the maintainer of featured Portal:Medicine.
I'm the creator and the coordinator of Medical genetics WikiProject.
I'm the maintainer of Medicine WikiProject and Science collaboration of the month.

Wikipedia: A Key Tool for Global Public Health Promotion
JIMR: link

Conflicts of Interest

All authors are members of the English Wikipedia's WikiProject Medicine and have contributed to Wikipedia and various other wikis. Michael F Martone is involved in the development of an iPhone application that may in the future integrate Wikipedia content. Tim Vickers is Director of the Molecular and Cellular Biology WikiProject. Dr Bertalan Meskó is the founder and managing director of Webicina.com, a company providing web 2.0 services to medical professionals and patients.

Webcina.com: link

OUR CLIENTS

[Mancunium]

It was nice of NCurse (T-C-L) to let JIRM know about his conflict of interest. I guess it's not necessary for the maintainer of Portal:Medicine (T-H-L) and of Wikipedia:WikiProject_Medicine (T-H-L) to do the same on his Wikipedia User page.

"Client" means they give you money, right? You're paid by Bayer (T-H-L), Johnson_&_Johnson (T-H-L), Sanofi (T-H-L), Merck_&_Co. (T-H-L), Abbott_Laboratories (T-H-L), Bristol-Myers_Squibb (T-H-L)GlaxoSmithKline (T-H-L) and so on, but that's not worth mentioning on your User page?

I think you're smart enough to know better, because I've read your LinkedIn profile:link

Bertalan Meskó, MD, PhD's Summary
Current
Medical Futurist at The Medical Futurist
...
Education
FutureMed at Singularity University

Singularity University: link

Thank you to our FutureMed Sponsors! Genentech, GE, Biogen Idec, California HealthCare Foundation, Celgene Cellular Therapeutics & Healthcare Innovation by Design, medGadget, Medical Devices Group

The Medical Futurist: link


You can tell I'm a doctor because I drape a stethoscope around my neck

Bertalan Mesko's confession:

[Mancunium]

Med Student Helping Shape Medicine on the 'Net
Medscape, 13 May 2007 link

From his desktop computer in Hungary, Bertalan Meskó is changing the way medical information is accessed and exchanged around the world. And he's not even a doctor yet.

This busy, ambitious medical student not only maintains personal blogs in both Hungarian and English, he's also become an important contributor on Wikipedia, one of the most popular sites on the Internet. I recently corresponded with him about these projects and about his interest in genetics and screening.

Dr. Genes: You're the first medical blogger I'm aware of who's really involved with Wikipedia. Please tell me how you got involved with the project and, more important, what rewards you get out of it. Is anonymously editing a wiki page as gratifying as writing one of your popular blog entries?

Bertalan Meskó: I've been working with the Hungarian Wikipedia since September 2005. Last October, I successfully applied to become an administrator, and I started editing the English Wikipedia last May. Now I'm a coordinator in the medicine "wikiproject": I maintain the featured medicine portal, the medical collaboration of the week, and the science collaboration of the month. I'm also the creator and maintainer of the Medical Genetics Wikiproject.

I love working on Wikipedia and improving medical articles. Most of us Wikipedians don't need any kind of rewards. Sometimes this hard and energy-killing work leads to success: Recently, I was mentioned by Brandon Keim in Nature Medicine (March 2007). He asked me to give him an interview, to talk about my medical projects and the future of Wikipedia.

Editing wiki articles and writing blog posts are totally different. Your personality, your point of view must not be included in Wikipedia. And a blog with perfect neutrality would be boring.

Dr. Genes: Do you think it's safe for doctors to use Wikipedia? Some say that it's dangerous, since the editing is open to anyone. It's okay if a term paper has a mistake, but not drug dosage information. Are some medical entries in Wikipedia "locked" to prevent tampering?

Bertalan Meskó: Of course it's safe. Wiki entries are made for laymen, not doctors. If you want to know more about doses, you have to go to PubMed or Ask Dr. Wiki. That's why I'm not worried about it.

It won't be a disaster if doctors use Wikipedia to treat patients, as they can't find dose-related information in the articles. Why should you trust information created by "just anyone"? If I read a statement anywhere and there is no reference with it, I wouldn't rely on the information no matter what kind of professor wrote it. On the other hand, if I find the proper references in an article, then I can rely on them no matter what kind of nonexpert wrote it.

There are protected or semi-protected articles because sometimes, there is a serious vandal siege and we must prevent them from further editing. But articles are not protected just because they're medical ones.

My dream is to have my genome sequenced!
JustGiving, Bertalan Meskó's Fundraising Page: link

Story
Thank you for visiting my fundraising page. Please dig deep and sponsor me online.

I know I’m not a Craig Venter, Misha Angrist or anybody else in the list of the 10 subjects of the Personal Genome Project (PGP) whose genomes (genetic materials) will be sequenced and published, but as I plan to pledge my life to personalized genetics, I’d love to know more about my genetic destiny. So I’ve created this fundraising page to try to make my dream come true.

According to the PGP or Venter, the 1000$ (500£) genome is going to be reality somewhen in the next few years. I believe it’s not going to be so easy, that’s why some SNPs (Single nucleotide polymorphism) of mine would be enough to know about. I want to try to prevent some diseases I have elevated risk for (e.g. proper diet in case I have elevated risk for obesity or diabetes). And even I don’t say I would make my genome public, I would like to take part in constructing the future of personalized medicine like that.

Donating through this site is simple, fast and totally secure. It is also the most efficient way to sponsor me: Jeans For Genes Campaign will receive your money faster and, if you are a UK taxpayer, an extra 28% in tax will be added to your gift at no cost to you.

So please sponsor me now!

Many thanks for your support.

Textop Wiki:

User:Bertalan Meskó

My name is Bertalan Meskó. I'm a medical student in University of Debrecen, Hungary (4th year of six).
I work in the department of Human Genetics of University of Debrecen. I maintain their homepage [1].
I'm interested in all part of science. But mainly genetics, medicine.
I'm administrator in hungarian Wikipedia, Wikiquote, Wikibooks (+bureaucrat) and Uncyclopedia (+bureaucrat).

Wikipedia vs Medpedia: The Crowd beats the Experts
University of Iowa, 31 May 2011 link

In his keynote talk at the recent Medical Library Association annual meeting, Clay Shirky told the story of how Wikipedia, which is done by volunteers, has far surpassed the Medpedia project, which was founded in 2009 as an expert-doctor-produced system to compete with Wikipedia. Marcus Banks’s write-up of Shirky’s talk has a good segment on this:

"Skirky contrasted the entry for biopsy on Wikipedia to that for biopsy on Medpedia, which utilizes physician editors rather than the unwashed masses. Turns out that the Wikipedia entry is much more robust and developed, a thorough introduction to the topic of biopsy available to all. On the other hand, Medpedia offers a puny paragraph and calls it a day."

In fairness, Shirky does exaggerate the contrast a bit, in not mentioning that the Medpedia article has links to five specific types of biopsy. But those other articles are relatively short, and Shirky is right that the total amount of information in Wikipedia far exceeds Medpedia. So he’s certainly correct that Wikipedia has won the battle for the general medical online information market. Searching PubMed shows it: A search for wikipedia retrieves 83 articles; a search for medpedia retrieves 0 (zero!) articles. So, indeed, Medpedia has just never caught on.

Bertalan Meskó: “I believe elitism kills content”

Shirky said in his MLA talk that he had predicted when Medpedia launched that it would be a failure (confirmed here). He also mentioned that other commentators had similar questions about the purpose of Medpedia. One of those was the prominent Hungarian physician-blogger Bertalan Meskó (@berci). He’s a Wikipedia administrator, and echoes the sentiments of Shirky in questioning the need for Medpedia at the time of its launch in 2009 (boldface added):

"When we have a Wikipedia, why do we need a Medpedia? … [do] we need Medpedia to provide reliable medical content? That’s what we are working on in Wikipedia. … I believe elitism kills content. Only the power of masses controlled by well-designed editing guidelines can lead to a comprehensive encyclopaedia.

Finally, a recently-published article gives more evidence for Wikipedia’s supremacy as the king of the medical information hill – Wikipedia: A Key Tool for Global Public Health Promotion, in Journal of Medical Internet Research (2011) is written by a group of Wikipedia medical administrators (including Meskó). The authors document the important place of Wikipedia in the online health information sphere, and make an appeal for more people with medical interests to participate as Wikipedia editors. Tellingly, the corresponding author, Michaël R Laurent, has an association with Medpedia — Apparently, from his leadership in Wikipedia, though, he’s decided it’s a better way to go than Medpedia.

An open letter to pharma: please employ a Wikipedian
STweN, 13 June 2012 link

Dr. Bertalan Meskó (@Berci) writes:
Dear Pharma Companies,

The place of Wikipedia in the dissemination of medical information online is indisputable now. If you want your customers to access information about your products from the quality perspective and in the simplest way, you have to deal with using Wikipedia.

Based on the pretty negative past encounters between pharma employees and Wikipedia editors (pharma employees trying to edit entries about their own products in a quite non-neutral way), we advise you to employ a Wikipedia editor if you want to make sure only evidence-based information is included in entries about your own products. Appointing someone from within your company as a “spokesperson” in Wikipedia who would perform all edits on behalf of the company is an excellent way to update those entries.

For more details, please see our open access social media guide.

But basically, we, Wikipedians, are more than open to starting a discussion about this with you.

I’m looking forward to working together.

Dr. Bertalan Mesko
Webicina.com

[thekohser]

This Mesko guy is in way too deep. His blood is 50% Jimbo Juice. I shudder to say that he's likely to kill a patient soon with his misinformation, if he hasn't already.

When the family of the dead patient come crying to him, he can tell them about the important work he's doing on Wikipedia.

[Mancunium]

This Mesko guy is in way too deep. His blood is 50% Jimbo Juice. I shudder to say that he's likely to kill a patient soon with his misinformation, if he hasn't already.

To be fair, he's only 28 years old, and spends so much time on the internet (24,100 Google search results) that he probably doesn't have any patients.

Any prospective patients could easily find out, as I did, that he:
begs online for strangers to pay for his own genome to be sequenced,
is a bureaucrat on Uncyclopedia, the content-free encyclopedia,
has proclaimed: "only the power of masses controlled by well-designed editing guidelines can lead to a comprehensive encyclopaedia",
and has publicly advertised his services as a paid Wikipedia writer for pharmaceutical companies.

As for his interview with Webscape, it drew these comments: link

You might remember Bertalan Meskó from the recent article from Nature Medicine on Medical Wikis. He’s a 22-year-old medical student at the University of Debrecen, Hungary who writes a whole lot of medical articles for Wikipedia and is the administrator of the Medicine WikiProject. He is interviewed in MedScape this week:

Med Student Helping Shape Medicine on the ‘Net
http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/553194_print
(Free subscription may be required to view).

An excerpt:

Dr. Genes: Do you think it’s safe for doctors to use Wikipedia? Some say that it’s dangerous, since the editing is open to anyone. It’s okay if a term paper has a mistake, but not drug dosage information. Are some medical entries in Wikipedia “locked” to prevent tampering?

Bertalan Meskó: Of course it’s safe. Wiki entries are made for laymen, not doctors. If you want to know more about doses, you have to go to PubMed or Ask Dr. Wiki. That’s why I’m not worried about it.

Among the things that trouble me about Meskó’s response:

“Wiki entries” aren’t meant for anyone generally. Wikipedia entries might be intended for laypeople, but to suggest that all Wikis are intended for laypeople is not only incorrect, but contradicted by the second part of Meskó’s response. (Tangentally, I’m becoming a little frustrated with the popular misconception that a Wiki isn’t really a Wiki unless it is a completely open endeavor and intended for popular use. Wiki is a kind of Web site platform that allows multiple users to collaborate without the need for knowledge of Web markup languages.)

I don’t follow Meskó’s logic that health information in Wikipedia is harmless, even if inaccurate, because it is written for laypeople.

Meskó is right in saying that if the information seeker is looking for information about dosage, PubMed is a good place to start looking- but AskDrWiiki, until recently, had no restrictions on who could edit it, making it hardly more authoritative than Wikipedia. Would Meskó actually look to AskDrWiki for dosage information without confirming it elsewhere?

I don’t intend to disparage Meskó’s work on Wikipedia (which has been impressively voluminous and probably quite good), but his attitude towards the need for authoritative sources worries me.

There’s nothing wrong with looking to Wikipedia for an initial overview of a topic, and I routinely use it for that purpose. It can be a wonderfully handy way to start making notes for more involved research. It worries me, though, to think that anyone would STOP their research of a medical topic at Wikipedia.

I know that a handful of physicians, nurses and other clinical professionals stop by this blog now and then. If any are reading, please share your opinion: Would you recommend that your patients seek answers to their health questions with Wikipedia? Given the choice between Wikipedia and MedlinePlus, which would you sooner direct patients to (and why)? Would you think it appropriate if a colleague decided on a dosage based solely on a Wiki article editable by anyone who registered?

To readers who are not clinical professionals: How would you feel if your doctor decided on your medication dosage based on an article from a Wiki editable by anyone without checking it elsewhere?

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This entry was posted on Friday, March 16th, 2007 at 6:18 am and is filed under Technology, Consumer Health Info, Wikis, For Medical Libraryfolk, "Social Software". You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
2 Responses to “Medscape interview w/ Bertalan Meskó (Medical Wikis)”

1
Mary Carmen Says:

Wow. I mean, really, wow. Um, I hope that I never have a doctor who shares this attitude.

I don’t care how good Mesko’s writing is, the fact that he seems to think that the medical information contained in the wikipedia is safe for medical professionals to use completely invalidates every other point he makes.

And his answer regarding dosage information is also not spot on either, yes you can go to PubMed to look at articles that discuss dosing, but I can list 5 other references that I would point a physician to before telling them to go jump into the vast pool of citations that is PubMed. We need to get out of this mindset that everything needs to be readily available online for it to be of value. There are some fantastic PRINT (yeah they probably are available online too) resources where a clinician can quickly access the dosage and other information about a drug.

You ask how I would feel if my doctor based my medication dosage from information he found in a wiki article, well I would be very upset and scared. I would also feel the same way if my doctor made the decision based on a cursory search of PubMed where he/she found a small number of articles.

I feel like I am ranting, but this all comes back to the same topic that you have mentioned here before: authority. I don’t know who is writing wiki articles, just like I don’t know how proficient my physician is at searching and evaluating the medical literature. To make a clinical decision based on one or two articles is completely negligent.

I put this out there again: this is a perfect example why medical librarians are important and need to become more involved in health sciences education. We have the evaluative and search skills that clinicians need to help make treatment decisions. Evidence-based practice is important and will only work if the process of getting the evidence is a good one. Searching a wiki, no matter who writes and edits it, is not (at least at this moment in time) a good way to gather evidence.

And in answer to one of the other questions you asked, I would still, hands down always refer consumers to MedlinePlus for health information. As far as I am concerned no site has provided the amount of information, in an understandable, easy to read, in many cases multi-lingual format, as MedlinePlus has.
March 16th, 2007 at 7:58 am
2
Bertalan meskó Says:

First, thank you, David, for mentioning me. Second, I’d like to make some things clear.

The point that you and the commenter, Mary Carmen misunderstood is the question of authority. Authority must be based on references, not credentials.

In my opinion, it’s my fault if I can’t decide whether an article is reliable or not. Why? If I find a statement, data, number in the article without a proper reference, I’ll not trust that sentence even if a professor wrote that. And I trust a well-referenced article even written by a teenager.

I won’t consider an unreferenced article reliable even if it’s written by experts. So answering your concerns:

* wiki entries: we, wikipedians, don’t repeat the word Wikipedia all the time, we refer to it as wiki generally. I know well that there are many other wikis, most of them created for specialists, far not laymen. So this must be my fault for not being more clear.

* your second concern: I can’t see where I wrote that sentence, but anyway, if a Wikipedia article contains only well-referenced pieces of information which are created for laymen (I mean no doses, no medical advice…), then it must be objective, neutral and like that: harmless. That’s what we struggle to reach in Wikipedia.

* I tried to register to AskDrWiki and I had to send them and verify my credentials, my university, my studies, my achievements. So this specialized wiki can be edited just by specialists.

And at last, please never forget that I’m still only a medical student. I never said that I’m something important or my work should be seen everywhere. Brandon Keim and Nick Genes asked me to answer their questions (which was my honor).

Through my blog and my work on Wikipedia, I just try to make medicine more accessible even for laypeople. As a medstudent, I can’t see everything in its right way, that’s why I need opinions like yours now.

And the second thing we should never forget is that Wikipedia is a work in progress (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia: ... n_progress).

I hope we can make others to think about it and many more posts on the subject will show up.

Thank you again,

Yours sincerely,

Bertalan Meskó
March 18th, 2007 at 7:49 am

[Mancunium]

Accept It, Wikipedia Is a Public Health Issue. Now Let's Fix It
PharmaExec, 9 October 2013 link

Medical articles on Wikipedia receive about 150 million page views per month, and nearly 50% of practicing physicians use Wikipedia as an information source for providing medical care. And while Wikipedia itself has disclaimers that information included on its site may be inaccurate, that doesn’t stop consumers and medical professionals alike from using it as a health source that they consider credible. What should we do? Stop sticking our head in the sand and take accountability to fix this very concerning public health issue.

I recently spoke with a colleague whose doctor’s medical assistant provided her with incorrect information and referenced Wikipedia as the source. Thankfully, she knew enough to go online herself (not to Wikipedia!) and learned the information was wrong. But, that’s not the case for many consumers. They trust their medical professionals without question, and believe that everything they read online is fact, especially from such a popular site as Wikipedia – never realizing that the information might be inaccurate and sometimes downright dangerous.

Those in the healthcare industry, especially drug manufacturers and the FDA, have a public health responsibility to play a role in helping to fix the inaccuracies and incomplete information on Wikipedia. Sure, there are some challenges – like the perception that the drug manufacturers have a conflict of interest or that getting anywhere near user-generated content will result in a visit from the FDA, but we should work toward common sense solutions.

Drug manufacturers, though they must be very careful in how they edit content on Wikipedia to avoid having a conflict of interest, should document and notify Wikipedia when content is inaccurate or incomplete. In fact, each Wikipedia article has a discussion area where a company representative could post the suggested changes or additions, leaving the broader community to determine if it should or shouldn’t be included. No, this isn’t a perfect solution, but at least the manufacturers would be doing their part to try to fix the inaccuracies. And the FDA should either establish clear guidelines around user-generated content, or let manufacturers do what’s right in trying to correct inaccurate information, without fear of repercussions.

Wikipedia has a role to play as well – it needs to embrace drug manufacturers and assume they have the right intent in ensuring accurate information is available to the public. Some might argue that drug manufacturers in the past have been caught trying to game the system by removing damaging information about their products. But the beauty of Wikipedia is that the community will find and fix those self-serving changes. The sins of a few shouldn’t punish everyone else’s access to accurate and complete health information.

Let’s step up and make some real and meaningful changes soon. The public’s health depends on it.

You'll get no argument from Bertalan Meskó; in fact, here is his ad offering paid Wikipedia editing for pharmaceutical companies: link

You can also reach him at NCurse (T-C-L).

And by the way, PharmaExec, the FDA has no jurisdiction over a pill-pusher in Hungary.

David Cameron fails to challenge Hungary on draconian press laws
The Telegram, 9 October 2013 link

Victor Orban, the Hungarian Prime Minister, has been condemned by world leaders for introducing the "most terrifying press laws since the Cold War".

Mr Cameron's failure to confront Mr Orban is the first evidence of warnings by William Hague, the Foreign Secretary, that introducing statutory regulation in Britain will undermine Britain's ability to promote free speech.

[EricBarbour]

Shit, if you keep digging up stuff like this I'll have to write up Wikiproject Medicine with its own article.
Dig into some of the other members, especially Ocaasi.

[Mancunium]

Columnist attacks med school’s homework to edit Wikipedia
The Collegian, University of Richmond, 9 October 2013 link

Medical school is supposed to teach students how to be doctors. Or so we think.

The University of California, San Francisco implemented a new policy for its medical students regarding academic credit. Medical students who update Wikipedia pages on diseases will receive medical credits, and frankly I couldn’t be more disheartened.

Wikipedia is probably one of the most unreliable sources on the Internet. It is pretty widely accepted that Wikipedia is not highly respected or particularly accurate. There is no doubt in my mind that medical students are some of the most brilliant and respected people in the world.

I highly doubt that the most brilliant students need or want to gain their credits by editing a website that is commonly thought of as unreliable. I have no doubt that these edits will not change the unreliable reputation of Wikipedia and I don’t believe that it should.

Medical students are still learning; they are the babies of the medical field, unaware and naïve about how to handle the ER and or research diseases. Shouldn’t experienced professionals be the ones editing online resources? They are the ones who know what diseases look like and have seen how they affect people. Medical students should be focused on becoming professionals and finding solutions for diseases, not writing about the causes on a website.

I truly believe that professors and the general public will still never accept Wikipedia as being valid, so why waste the precious time? What are my future doctors doing posting information on the Internet—shouldn’t they be learning about biology, chemistry, anatomy and medicine? Why use up time on the Internet that could be spent learning?

I know receiving credits and getting good grades is important, but learning and understanding the material seems more crucial to me as a future patient. I don’t think updating websites is worthy of academic credit and don’t believe that students should receive them.

I know that if I’m getting wheeled into an emergency room, I want the comfort of knowing that the person who has my life in his or her hands will know exactly what to do. How can I expect my doctors to know exactly what to do when they are wasting time updating the Internet? There is something that doesn’t seem ethically right in giving medical students, the people who perform 20-hour surgeries and take oaths to save people’s lives, academic credits for website updating.

I question where in society the line is drawn for what is acceptable and what isn’t. I don’t think giving medical students credits is acceptable nor should be tolerated. Should architects be given credits for every advanced calculus problem they help fellow students solve? Should professional athletes be paid more money for publicly dispelling rumors about players or their sport?

I certainly don’t think so, and therefore, I believe that the University of California, San Francisco and any other educational institutions that are permitting these credits should rescind these policies and think long and hard about the consequences.

[Mancunium]

This Mesko guy is in way too deep. His blood is 50% Jimbo Juice. I shudder to say that he's likely to kill a patient soon with his misinformation, if he hasn't already.

When the family of the dead patient come crying to him, he can tell them about the important work he's doing on Wikipedia.

No fear. He has never practiced medicine.

Medicine Must Get Social
Information Week, 16 September 2013 link

Based in Hungary, Mesko is an M.D. and also holds a Ph.D. in genomics. Rather than practicing medicine, he has wound up doing business as a medical futurist, speaking widely on medical technologies and consulting with their developers, as well as teaching. Having always been a tech enthusiast, he says he realized about the time he was completing his Ph.D. that "my geek self might be a bit stronger than my doctor self." [...] Mesko's company, Webicina, also offers a curated directory of apps, blogs and other resources.

[Mancunium]

The Wisdom of Crowds
American Journal of Neuroradiology, 8 October 2013 link

[Mancunium]

Shit, if you keep digging up stuff like this I'll have to write up Wikiproject Medicine with its own article.
Dig into some of the other members, especially Ocaasi.

Ocaasi seems to be an open book. Like many people of his age, he has a large internet presence: 2,210 Google search results, going back to his high school years. His User page is an unusually-detailed biography. He makes no secret of the fact that he is Jacob "Jake" Orlowitz, a 30-year-old resident of Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania. He received a BA in 2005, and then worked as a children's tutor in Colorado from 2005 to 2009; he was also employed by the State of Colorado's Division of Insurance. He explains that he "went a little nutty" in 2009 and, as a result, moved back to his home state of Pennsylvania. His only travel outside the US was a brief trip to Nepal, where he saw Mount Everest from a safe distance: this was literally the high point of his existence to date.

He describes his interests as a transhumanism, singularitarianism, libertarianism and Bitcoin, and created a website called "The Ron Paul Database". Wikipedia is his life. He has been an admin since January 2013, and is a board member of, and the Outreach Coordinator for, Wiki Project Med Foundation. He is trying to organize a position as Wikipedian-in-residence at the medical research NPO Cochrane_Collaboration (T-H-L). LinkedIn explains his source of income as "Wikimedia Foundation Grantee"; the first grant, of $10,000, was to allow him to design the ill-fate Wikipedia Adventure, and the current $7,500 WMF grant pays him to "expand and combine partnerships into The Wikipedia Library".

He is a self-styled COI expert, and has presented workshops on COI Wikipedia editing to the United_States_Department_of_Defense (T-H-L), the Public_Relations_Society_of_America (T-H-L), Monitor_Deloitte (T-H-L), Occidental_Petroleum (T-H-L) and Eli_Lilly_and_Company (T-H-L).

To be honest, reviewing his Google search results made me quite depressed.

[EricBarbour]

To be honest, reviewing his Google search results made me quite depressed.

Join the club. I think his Google+ is quite funny. He buttlicks every prominent Wikipedian he can find.

[Mancunium]

Why Medical Schools Add Wikipedia Editing to Curriculum
Center for Digital Education, 9 October 2013 link

A new university elective could help medical students provide accurate health information to people around the world.

In "Expanding WikiProject Medicine," fourth-year students at the University of California San Francisco (UCSF) School of Medicine will edit health articles on Wikipedia this semester. And their class is one of the few in the U.S. that is updating medical Wikipedia pages.

The month-long class starts in November, but it's part of a broader move in the medical community to share valuable research and raise the quality of Wikipedia health articles.

[...]

Between his third and fourth year of medical school, a friend asked him a question about HIV, and when Turken clicked on a Wikipedia article about it, he found that the timeframe listed in the article was inaccurate. He looked up research that provided another answer and edited the page. Then he decided to propose an elective class that would allow medical students to make health articles on Wikipedia more accurate.

"It just seemed like sort of an obvious way to marry the work that medical students are already doing with a resource that everyone uses, but that isn't always up to date and isn't always accurate," said Turken, who continues to edit articles.

Turken explained his idea to Amin Azzam, health sciences associate clinical professor at the medical school at UCSF. While Azzam wasn't so sure about the idea at first, he's now scheduled to teach the class.

"When we initially started talking about it, I was quite skeptical because like many faculty members in academia, we were taught to believe that Wikipedia was an inaccurate and unreliable source of information," Azzam said.

But if health professionals start editing these articles, medical information on Wikipedia could become more reliable, Azzam said. Many articles contain inaccuracies now because few medical professionals edit them, and in controversial areas of medicine, some people make edits that are biased, he said.

A number of doctors are already editing articles and working together on WikiProject Medicine, a collaborative project that strives to make medical information more "reliable, neutral and accessible." Dr. James Heilman started participating in the project after he saw how inaccurate some of the Wikipedia articles were.

"Back in 2007-2008, I was working on night shift," said Heilman. "I was looking around the Internet, and I came across this really horribly written article. Then I noticed an edit button, and I realized I could fix the article in question."

Nearly a quarter of a million people read that article each month, and the misinformation it contained generated a public health issue, Heilman said. He believes that physicians have an obligation to make high-quality health care information available to their patients.

[...]

"Our students have a chance not just to see the individual patients they see," Azzam said, "but now you have a chance to be making a much bigger social and public health impact by contributing to where the world reads and gets information."

Wikipedia-trained surgeons inserting NPOV into a medical article

[Mancunium]

A large scale student assignment – what could possibly go wrong?
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia link

Analysing the contributions of the 317 registered students was a lengthy task. The student list was divided among three Wikipedians in the Medicine WikiProject (Colin, Doc James and Peter.C). None of them have training in psychology and they had limited access to the sources the students used so this imposed some constraints on the ability to detect bad edits or plagiarism. Due to the subjective nature of this analysis, and the different scoring methods used, it isn't possible to combine the results of the three groups of students.

Colin reviewed 116 students, of whom 63 edited articles. Of those 63, 11 (17%) added content that was a direct copy/paste of the source or too close a copy and so was removed. Note that where the students used class textbooks or journal articles behind a paywall, we were not generally able to detect plagiarism. A further 36 (57%) made edits that were so bad they were reverted. For example, totally inappropriate text, adding paragraphs of text to disambiguation-list articles, or writing so poor as to be incomprehensible. So of the 63, 47 (75%) made edits that left Wikipedia so much worse than before that their work was best removed. On the other hand, 31 (49%) made edits that added sourced information to Wikipedia that was acceptable.

Doc James reviewed 98 students, of who 49 edited articles. Of those 4 (8%) added copy/paste text and 1 (2%) added simple vandalism. 35 (71%) added unsourced content, or gave a source that wasn't appropriate, or added incomprehensible text. Just 9 (18%) added content that was ok.

Peter.C similarly found that for the most part students did not contribute in a way that was beneficial to Wikipedia's content and there were very few good edits made.

[...]

Psychology articles on Wikipedia are lousy. Many are stubs and not all are clearly scoped. Referencing is poor and often only general references are used if at all. While this may appear to make them an attractive target for an improvement exercise, they make very poor learning material and are difficult to work with.

Wikipedia has an unfortunate tendency towards detailing research studies when it should rather be merely stating the encyclopaedic facts. There is a place, of course, for articles and sections describing scientific research. However, students who are learning the science of psychology, and who are often using their textbooks or research papers as sources, will naturally fall into the trap of writing inappropriate content. The writing style of such sources (where facts are frequently attributed to the discovering researchers: Jones (2009) found that ....) is also inappropriate for Wikipedia.

[...]

The experiment assumed that bad material would not survive Wikipedia's quality control, and that edit retention could be used to semi-automate the assessment of students. This is a flawed assumption. Psychology is a neglected subject. And even on popular subjects, the actual number of committed Wikipedians able to police edits is generally over-estimated. That the plagiarism and poor content was reverted or fixed is almost wholly down to the extraordinary efforts of three Wikipedians.[5] Several articles were subject to so many misguided student edits (not all from this assignment it has to be said) that they were wreaked had simply had to be reverted a good month or two back in time, with the odd worthy edit restored by hand.

WikiProject Medicine hopes to avoid fiascos of this sort in the future: link

Student editors

I have moved the 'classes editing' to our 'departments' page for prominence. Might I suggest:

Developing and posting on that page a 5-step curriculum so that poor biosthmors and other interested editors have a standardised and evolving way to educate students. For example:
Step 1: create account
Step 2: introduction to guidelines on wikipedia
Step 3: introduction to reliable sources
Step 4: how to create articles, selecting an appropriate title or place for edits
Step 5: encouragement to be bold, position statement.

Development of a tag to be appended to talk pages so that the aggregated edits on student-related talk pages can be easily tracked.
A wikiproject statement that outlines our position towards student editors (particularly those in editing classes). This may include:
Acknowledgement of student editors as valuable contributors who may or may not have a permanent prescence after the project is done
Respect for the autonomy of student editors.
Encouragement to be bold (within reason)
Acknowledgement that student editors may not be as aware of guidelines as other editors, but this doesn't detract from the quality of their contributions
Encouragement of feedback given to be clear and concise without excessive use of guidelines.
Example:

Wikiproject medicine acknowledges the valuable contributions that can be provided by our student editors. We respect the autonomy of these editors to make edits as any other users. We recognise that these editors may not be familiar with guidelines and may only have a temporary presence on Wikipedia, and thus encourage existing users to be positive, clear and concise in their feedback to this group of new users. We encourage these users to make bold, but well thought-out and well-sourced edits, and recognise that students have the potential to make lasting, high-quality edits.

This would have the additional benefit of standardising and clarifying our current stance. Kind regards, LT90001 (talk) 09:15, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

In other words: tag and provide extraordinary monitoring of the student editors, clean up after them on an ongoing basis, and overlook all indications that they are unable to create or improve encyclopedic articles. Our goal is to create the appearance of a successful project.

[Mancunium]

Medicine isn't a Game — But Can Learn From Gaming
LinkedIn Today, 12 October 2013 link

by Lucien Engelen
Director Radboud REshape & Innovation Center at Radboud University Medical Center

Validation is hot, that much we know. This is especially true when it comes to gaming in healthcare.

Games for Health 2013 is an upcoming conference where I will present on Google Glass along with several extraordinary keynote speakers. The conference, running in Amsterdam for its third year, is an interesting place to be, and more often than not the concept of validation comes into play.

For the medical world, testing its solution is paramount, but most of the time the same testing is not feasible in the gaming universe. Validation is a time-and money consuming project that renders games outdated before they’re even implemented. On the other hand, if most therapies (experimental and alternative) aren’t validated, why should games be?

I’m not telling you anything new here: this is basically the standard introduction and topic of conversation when talking about the validation of games for health.

[...]

Harald Anderson is a board member of Swedish Wikimedia foundation (the guys behind Wikipedia) and he wants to create a wiki-like system for collecting anonymized medical data from games. His notion of validation is by engaging thousands of players in a common citizen science project.

Then there is a representative of the European Commission, Gerald Cultot, coming to hear others and explain the commission’s stake in making the healthcare affordable and accessible, undoubtedly with his (and the regulators) own view on how to validate games.

Overall, this is promising to be one heated discussion, and I am very much in favor. If you think of coming, here’s a special discount code for my readers to receive 10% off the registration cost: just write JOINGFH2013 during the sign-up.

Hope to see you all at the conference!

Not if I see you first, Lucien_Engelen (T-H-L)

This article has multiple issues. Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page.
This article may require copy editing for grammar, style, cohesion, tone, or spelling. (August 2013)
This article may have too many section headers dividing up its content. (July 2013)
This article needs more links to other articles to help integrate it into the encyclopedia. (June 2013)
A major contributor to this article appears to have a close connection with its subject. (September 2013)

Maybe it's just a coincidence that the only person interested in Lucien Engelen is Lucienengelen (T-C-L).

Styrelseledamot Harald Andersson
Wikimedia Sverige: link


Don't worry. I'm, like, a doctor.

[Poetlister]

Amazingly, nobody's mentioned Surgipedia yet.

User:Jdrrmk (T-C-L)

[Mancunium]

Wikipedia is Also a Pharma Marketing Issue
PharmaExecBlog, 14 October 2013 link

Writing last week on this blog, Beth Bengtson, principal at healthcare marketing and communications company Hale Advisors, highlighted the problem posed for public health by Wikipedia.

In her post, Beth linked back to a report on Manhattan Research’s 2009 ‘Taking the Pulse’ study that showed medical articles on Wikipedia receiving about 150 million page views per month. I’m betting it’s way more than that in 2013.

In Health Online 2013, the Pew Research Center said one third of Americans have turned to the Internet to diagnose a medical condition at some time; almost three quarters had looked for health information online in the previous 12 months.

A July 2013 study from New York based healthcare marketing company Makovsky Health and research firm Kelton shows that more than 20 percent of these searches will end up on Wikipedia — that’s a lot of people going to the online encyclopaedia for help with their health.

Whether it’s 150 million or 250 million pages views, the concern is that the general public is accessing inaccurate and potentially dangerous health information online. A recent paper by Dr Thomas Fergus, of Baylor University in Waco, Texas concluded that ‘Cyberchondria’ – compulsively searching the Internet for information about particular real or imagined symptoms of illness – could be “exacerbated by a glut of sometimes dubious material available at the click of a mouse.”

While acknowledging that drug manufacturers must avoid conflict of interest, Beth calls on the industry to help fix the inaccuracies and incomplete information on Wikipedia. “Stop sticking our head in the sand and take accountability to fix this very concerning public health issue,” she wrote.

Work to improve publicly accessible health information on Wikipedia is underway. WikiProject Medicine describes itself as a “an area for focused collaboration among Wikipedians”, where anyone who wants to help improve the quality of medical and health content on Wikipedia can raise issues and collaborate on fixing them. Even pharma people.

The New York Times recently reported on another project to raise the quality of healthcare articles in Wikipedia. Medical students at the University of California, San Francisco, will be able to get course credit for editing articles.

Good news.

The bad news is that this will all take time; meanwhile the public is still accessing unverified information. Potentially more worrying, so are their doctors. Manhattan Research’s ‘Taking the Pulse’ data showed almost half of practicing US physicians surveyed use Wikipedia as a source of medical information; a 2011 survey of hundreds of doctors across Europe put the number using Wikipedia as high as 60 percent.

I come away from those numbers wondering, “Why are doctors using Wikipedia?”

I get why patients use it. As the world’s sixth largest website, people are familiar with it. And it’s omnipresent in the search results — type almost anything into Google and a Wikipedia article is almost guaranteed to be in the first few results.

Other than sites like WebMD (which claims 55% of health searches according to Makovsky and Kenon), the ordinary patient in the street doesn’t really have anywhere else to go. Doctors, on the other hand, should have more information than they know what do with.

Sure they’re human, they Google stuff just like the rest of us. But is the fact that HCPs are turning to the web first not a clue to Pharma companies that they need to make their information more accessible online.

It’s unlikely that any company, even a Big Pharma company, will ever elbow Wikipedia off the search-engines top spots, but a regular stream or relevant, specific content has a chance to feature alongside it. I’m not sure how it sits today, but if you typed ‘What is a magazine’ into Google earlier this year, a guest post on my Flipping Pages blog sat right under Wikipedia’s answer to that enduring media question.

While I was writing this, I saw a tweet from Lee Odden, CEO of Minneapolis-based agency TopRank Online Marketing. He wrote, “Google is an answers machine. Give Google and customers what they want with content that answers questions.”

In a previous post on this blog, Catch on to content marketing, I wrote that Pharma’s content-marketing opportunity is to make sure that when a doctor or a patient goes searching for health information that the right content is there waiting for them. In the same post I quoted Dr Candice O’Sullivan of Australia’s Wellmark agency describing Pharma as “an industry well used to the rigours of consistently producing high-quality content.”

And yet, millions of patients and doctors still go to Wikipedia every month for the answers to their questions. I think that’s what’s known on the internet as a #Fail.

[Mancunium]

The post above referenced this story:

'Worried well' just feel worse if they catch cyberchondria
Hypochondria among worried well has reached new levels, psychologists warn, due to growing use of the internet diagnoses
The Telegraph, 8 October 2013 link

Many perfectly healthy people will recognise the symptoms: reading about some illness only to be left with a nagging concern that they may be suffering it themselves

But hypochondria among the worried well has reached new levels, psychologists are warning. Growing use of the internet has led to what they have termed “cyberchondria”.

Researchers found that those who fear the unknown with regard to their health only find the condition worsens as they seek answers on the internet.

Searching websites to discover what is ailing individuals is becoming increasingly common.

A recent survey showed that millions of Britons seek answers online rather than visiting their doctor, prompting warnings that they were risking their health.

In the latest study, Dr Thomas Fergus, of Baylor University in Waco, Texas, said that fearing a catastrophic disease or injury, unfounded or not, can trigger worries about disability, job loss and potential medical bills.

That can lead to even more searching of the internet, obsessing, visits to doctors, unnecessary medical tests and distress, he said.

Cyberchondria could be more harmful than its traditional version, because of a glut of sometimes dubious material available at the click of a mouse, he added.

“If I am someone who does not like uncertainty, I may become more anxious, search further, monitor my body more, go to the doctor more frequently – and the more you search, the more you consider the possibilities,” Dr Fergus said.

“If I see a site about traumatic brain injuries and have difficulties tolerating uncertainty, I might be more likely to worry that is the cause of the bump on my head.”

Following research showing that about eight in 10 American adults seek medical information on the internet, Dr Fergus sampled 512 healthy people with an average age of 33 to analyse how it affected their anxiety.

In the study, published in the journal Cyberpsychology, Behavior and Social Networking, he used several measures, including a scale on which respondents assessed such statements as “I always want to know what the future has in store for me”, and “I spend most of my time worrying about my health”.

Two thirds of the participants were unmarried, just over half were women, about two thirds had at least a two-year degree and more than half worked at least 20 hours a week.

Dr Fergus concluded that while fearing the worst about health was not new, some online medical information may be more disturbing than details contained in medical manuals that people consult or obtained directly from a doctor.

He added: “When you look at a medical book, you might not see all the possibilities at once, but online you are presented with so many.”

Last week the Information Standard, an NHS-backed body, reported that four in 10 people admit putting off going to their GP, with more than half saying they had turned to the web instead.

Almost one in six was told by their doctors that they had a “lucky escape” when they finally booked an appointment and were properly diagnosed. More women (43 per cent) delayed a visit to the GP than men (37 per cent). They were also more likely to turn to the internet for health information.

WikiProject Medicine admits that 99% of the encylopedia's medical articles are problematic. To mitigate the harm it does, the project should, at the very least, place its terrifying Medical Disclaimer at the top of every one of its tens of thousands of medical articles: Wikipedia:Medical_disclaimer (T-H-L)

WIKIPEDIA DOES NOT GIVE MEDICAL ADVICE

[Mancunium]

How many readers are aware of Wikipedia's disclaimers?

Wikipedia:General_disclaimer (T-H-L)

WIKIPEDIA MAKES NO GUARANTEE OF VALIDITY

Wikipedia:Content_disclaimer (T-H-L)

WIKIPEDIA CONTAINS CONTENT THAT MAY BE OBJECTIONABLE

Wikipedia:Legal_disclaimer (T-H-L)

WIKIPEDIA DOES NOT GIVE LEGAL OPINIONS

Wikipedia:Medical_disclaimer (T-H-L)

WIKIPEDIA DOES NOT GIVE MEDICAL ADVICE

Wikipedia:Risk_disclaimer (T-H-L)

USE WIKIPEDIA AT YOUR OWN RISK

PLEASE BE AWARE THAT ANY INFORMATION YOU MAY FIND IN WIKIPEDIA MAY BE INACCURATE, MISLEADING, DANGEROUS, ADDICTIVE, UNETHICAL OR ILLEGAL.

Yet somehow people continue to ignore these risks. The site's content rule is Wikipedia:No_disclaimers_in_articles (T-H-L):

Why disclaimers should not be used

They are redundant with the disclaimer linked at the bottom of every page.
Wikipedia is not censored.
Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, and is not a how-to guide.
It is hard to define which articles should have a disclaimer (e.g., what defines an "adult content" article, which varies dramatically by culture and individual). Allowing some disclaimers would generate a significant overhead of disputes regarding where to draw the line; this draws editors away from more productive tasks.
The lack of the disclaimer on certain pages as opposed to others might open Wikipedia to lawsuits.
They take up large amounts of page space when used in banner form.

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)

Of course, English Wikipedia will not follow the example of more responsible Wikipedias, as that would detract from WikiProject Medicine's hubristic goal of being the world's most referred-to source of medical information.

Note the irresponsible WhatamIdoing (T-C-L):

Hello, World.

I'm working for the Wikimedia Foundation as a community liaison to answer questions and report problems with the transition to Wikipedia:VisualEditor. If you want to reach me in an official capacity, then try leaving a message at User talk:Whatamidoing (WMF). Contributions under this account are exclusively in my individual, personal capacity.

This user's Intelligence Quotient is annoyingly high.

I estimate this user's IQ to be in the two digits.

User:Whatamidoing_(WMF) (T-C-L)

Official mistakes will be made in this temporary staff account. Unofficial mistakes are still made in my personal account. To find me in my volunteer capacity, look for me at WikiProject Medicine on the English Wikipedia or say hello at User talk:WhatamIdoing.

I wonder how much the Wikimedia Foundation is paying this asinine anom.

[dogbiscuit]

Those disclaimers aren't worth the paper they are written on. In the UK, the test is what a reasonable person would think and do. I would suggest that a reasonable person would not understand the issues with Wikipedia content and would tend to assume that as it is published without any obvious disclaimer then it is reliable and true. In the UK, we consumers are not expected to have to read small print - you can't hide behind it. Similarly, as the reasonable person does not access Wikipedia through some sort of front page, but simply can step straight into an article, it is unreasonable to suggest that they should first go looking for the disclaimers (which are hardly obvious).

Start stamping authoritative sounding approvals from WikiProject Medicine or the like, without any proven medical approval for the current version and you just make the problem worse.

[Mancunium]

Those disclaimers aren't worth the paper they are written on. In the UK, the test is what a reasonable person would think and do. I would suggest that a reasonable person would not understand the issues with Wikipedia content and would tend to assume that as it is published without any obvious disclaimer then it is reliable and true. In the UK, we consumers are not expected to have to read small print - you can't hide behind it. Similarly, as the reasonable person does not access Wikipedia through some sort of front page, but simply can step straight into an article, it is unreasonable to suggest that they should first go looking for the disclaimers (which are hardly obvious).

Start stamping authoritative sounding approvals from WikiProject Medicine or the like, without any proven medical approval for the current version and you just make the problem worse.

They could at least stamp medical articles with the WikiProject's own evaluations of their merit. Most recently: Wikipedia:WikiProject_Medicine (T-H-L)

Goals
200 Featured articles: 28% complete
300 Good articles: 49% complete
Reduce number of articles with issues each month

Month
No. articles with issues
October 2013
19,065

The 18,900+ "articles with issues" should be taken down, and replaced with the Medical Disclaimer, until such time as the project decides they are "good" by its own standards-- whatever those standards may be.

[dogbiscuit]

They could at least stamp medical articles with the WikiProject's own evaluations of their merit. Most recently: Wikipedia:WikiProject_Medicine (T-H-L)

Goals
200 Featured articles: 28% complete
300 Good articles: 49% complete
Reduce number of articles with issues each month

Month
No. articles with issues
October 2013
19,065

The 18,900+ "articles with issues" should be replaced with the Medical Disclaimer until such time as the project decides they are "good" by its own standards-- whatever those standards may be.

In other words, by their own criteria, nearly all the articles related to the medicine project are unreliable in some way.

What is even more worrying is that things like "good" and "featured" articles are unlikely to be assessed by any criteria that the medical world would consider appropriate.

[Mancunium]

They could at least stamp medical articles with the WikiProject's own evaluations of their merit. Most recently: Wikipedia:WikiProject_Medicine (T-H-L)

Goals
200 Featured articles: 28% complete
300 Good articles: 49% complete
Reduce number of articles with issues each month

Month
No. articles with issues
October 2013
19,065

The 18,900+ "articles with issues" should be replaced with the Medical Disclaimer until such time as the project decides they are "good" by its own standards-- whatever those standards may be.

In other words, by their own criteria, nearly all the articles related to the medicine project are unreliable in some way.

What is even more worrying is that things like "good" and "featured" articles are unlikely to be assessed by any criteria that the medical world would consider appropriate.

It gets worse: Wikipedia:WikiProject_Medicine (T-H-L)

Our initiatives
Partnering with the field of medical education: see Wikipedia:WikiProject Medicine/UCSF Elective 2013 for current pilot course and proof of concept elective that we're supporting.

This "proof" will be supplied by 3 or 4 medical students whose every edit will be monitored and corrected by Wikiproject Medicine (see my post supra on the methodology of this initiative, as described by the New York Times).

Collaborative publication: including an effort with the Journal of Medical Internet Research to start a Wikipedia-based peer-reviewed journal so articles can be improved and academics might start editing medical topics more.

A pay-for-inclusion "medical journal" whose Editor-in-Chief is James Heilman, AKA "Doc James" and Jmh649 (T-C-L), the President of the WikiProject Med Foundation.

Translation Task Force: an effort to first improve health care's most important topics in English followed by translation into as many other language Wikipedia articles as possible (including simple English).

Here we see the neo-colonialist Wikimedia Foundation simultaneously creating partnerships with mobile service providers in developing countries, and deliberately targeting the most vulnerable people in those countries with medical articles containing known "issues".

Native_American_disease_and_epidemics#Disease_as_a_weapon_against_Native_Americans (T-H-L)

The spread of disease from European contact was not always accidental. Europeans who were arriving in the Americas had already been exposed to the diseases, attaining immunity, and thus were not affected by them. Therefore, it would be an effective technique when others were exhausted to use disease as a biological weapon.[7]

[Poetlister]

Those disclaimers aren't worth the paper they are written on.

Of course, they aren't written on paper. That's like Sam Goldwyn's comment that a verbal contract isn't worth the paper it's written on.

[dogbiscuit]

Those disclaimers aren't worth the paper they are written on.

Of course, they aren't written on paper. That's like Sam Goldwyn's comment that a verbal contract isn't worth the paper it's written on.

[HRIP7]

Those disclaimers aren't worth the paper they are written on. In the UK, the test is what a reasonable person would think and do. I would suggest that a reasonable person would not understand the issues with Wikipedia content and would tend to assume that as it is published without any obvious disclaimer then it is reliable and true. In the UK, we consumers are not expected to have to read small print - you can't hide behind it. Similarly, as the reasonable person does not access Wikipedia through some sort of front page, but simply can step straight into an article, it is unreasonable to suggest that they should first go looking for the disclaimers (which are hardly obvious).

Start stamping authoritative sounding approvals from WikiProject Medicine or the like, without any proven medical approval for the current version and you just make the problem worse.

I spoke to an experienced nurse the other day. She had no idea that anyone could change any Wikipedia page at any time. She assumed there was an editorial board ... or something ...

[Mancunium]

Those disclaimers aren't worth the paper they are written on. In the UK, the test is what a reasonable person would think and do. I would suggest that a reasonable person would not understand the issues with Wikipedia content and would tend to assume that as it is published without any obvious disclaimer then it is reliable and true. In the UK, we consumers are not expected to have to read small print - you can't hide behind it. Similarly, as the reasonable person does not access Wikipedia through some sort of front page, but simply can step straight into an article, it is unreasonable to suggest that they should first go looking for the disclaimers (which are hardly obvious).

Start stamping authoritative sounding approvals from WikiProject Medicine or the like, without any proven medical approval for the current version and you just make the problem worse.

I spoke to an experienced nurse the other day. She had no idea that anyone could change any Wikipedia page at any time. She assumed there was an editorial board ... or something ...

As Anthonyhcole said in another thread, medical articles and BLPs should be treated differently from other Wikipedia pages. If WikiProject Medicine is serious about mitigating the harm it does, it should at the very least lock their 19,000 articles against anonymous editors and vandals. Anthonyhcole/Depression_(mood) (T-C-L)

[Mancunium]

How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever?
How long will you hide your face from me?
How long must I take counsel in my soul
and have sorrow in my heart all the day?
How long shall my enemy be exalted over me?
-Psalm 13:1-2

Tel Aviv University medical students learn to write for Wikipedia
First course of its kind aims to improve quality of medical information available to the public online.
Haaretz, 17 October 2013 link

A new course offered at Tel Aviv University seeks to teach medical students a skill that may be of use outside the clinic: writing and editing entries for Wikipedia.

The one-credit elective, called “Wiki-medicine: The Wonderful World of Wiki and Free Medical Information in Hebrew Wikipedia,” is the first of its kind in Israel. Participants will meet with writers who regularly contribute to Wikipedia in both Hebrew and English to learn how to produce reliable entries and about intellectual property rights.

Across the world, as well as in Israel, there are a number of cooperative arrangements between educational institutions and Wikipedia, which require students to write Wikipedia entries as part of the coursework. But this is the first time that an Israeli academic institution is offering a course dedicated entirely to writing for the online encyclopedia.

Shani Evenstein, a Wikimedia Israel board member who thought up the course, underlined the significance of medical students contributing to one of the largest websites in the world.

“Students who take the course will contribute to creating freely available content in Hebrew Wikipedia, which will serve the general public free of charge," Evenstein said. "We hope that the students will use the knowledge and experience they gain in the course to become regular editors, thus increasing the number of volunteer Wikipedia editors who contribute their free time to expand the largest human knowledge database in the world."

Prof. Yosef Makori, dean of the Sackler Faculty of Medicine at Tel Aviv University, welcomed the initiative, saying that in an era when nearly everyone searches the Web for medical and health information, it is very important to give students the tools to write and edit medicine-related entries.

“I’m convinced that the students who take the course will vastly improve the level of online medical information available to the public,” he said.

User:Esh77 (T-C-L)

Hello, Everyone. My real name is Shani Evenstein and I'm from Israel.

I work at Tel-Aviv University [TAU], at Sackler School of Medicine and also teach, mainly children, English, Math, Piano and Yoga [not in that particular order.. ].

I have a B.A. in English Lit and French Culture, Faculty of Humanities, TAU, and am now working towards an M.A. in East Asian Studies [specifically India and Sanskrit], at TAU.

Have been studying and teaching Yoga since 2000.

[Poetlister]

No doubt, if qualified doctors or medical students get involved with editing articles it should lead to improvements and the removal of gross errors (though even qualified or part-qualified people can make mistakes). The trouble is that as long as the articles are there for all to edit, fresh errors might creep in, deliberately or accidentally. Also, if the impression is given that all the articles were produced by experts, it will lead to ever more belief in them.

[Anthonyhcole]

Anthonyhcole said in another thread, medical articles and BLPs should be treated differently from other Wikipedia pages. If WikiProject Medicine is serious about mitigating the harm it does, it should at the very least lock their 19,000 articles against anonymous editors and vandals. Anthonyhcole/Depression_(mood) (T-C-L)

Yes please. Full pending changes would be good, with trained and monitored (paid?) reviewers. How do we organise that? Not only would it be the responsible thing to do, but it would make experts far more likely to contribute, knowing their work won't be screwed up by Randy in Boise (not you Tim).

[Anthonyhcole]

Those disclaimers aren't worth the paper they are written on. In the UK, the test is what a reasonable person would think and do. I would suggest that a reasonable person would not understand the issues with Wikipedia content and would tend to assume that as it is published without any obvious disclaimer then it is reliable and true. In the UK, we consumers are not expected to have to read small print - you can't hide behind it. Similarly, as the reasonable person does not access Wikipedia through some sort of front page, but simply can step straight into an article, it is unreasonable to suggest that they should first go looking for the disclaimers (which are hardly obvious).

Start stamping authoritative sounding approvals from WikiProject Medicine or the like, without any proven medical approval for the current version and you just make the problem worse.

That's a good point. I agree (per Vigilant, earlier) we should have a big colourful button at the top saying, "This is the unreliable version that anyone can edit; for the version that has been reviewed and endorsed by three subject--matter experts, click here."

Getting back to the idea of getting scholars to review our medical content. I suggested some time back - but got no takers - that once an article is ready, we pay big bucks (enough to make them want to) to 3 known subject-matter experts to do the review, and put their name on it as the reviewers.

If they are gods in their fields it will bestow far more credibility on the finished article than any anonymous journal review, regardless of the impact factor of the publishing journal. If their name is at the top (and they have any sense at all) given Wikipedia's prominence they will make damn sure the article is not only error-free but also excellent. Mmmm. Did I see somewhere the Foundation is looking for something to spend its money on that has a measurable result?

Before I humiliate myself before the cheque-wielders, and permanently alienate (even more than I've already permanently alienated) the anti-paid editing people, am I being insane here? (I'm not suggesting we pay big bucks to the gods forever, just long enough to get the thing rolling, after which I hope the demigods might do it for less - or someone might think of a way to get transparent reviews from them for nothing. Seed money. Seeding the reactor ... or something. Perhaps, I know it sounds ridiculous, if our reviewed medical articles become the gold standard for quality and trustworthiness, the rising stars will review them for the prestige.) Crazy?

[dogbiscuit]

That's a good point. I agree (per Vigilant, earlier) we should have a big colourful button at the top saying, "This is the unreliable version that anyone can edit; for the version that has been reviewed and endorsed by three subject--matter experts, click here."

Getting back to the idea of getting scholars to review our medical content. I suggested some time back - but got no takers - that once an article is ready, we pay big bucks (enough to make them want to) to 3 known subject-matter experts to do the review, and put their name on it as the reviewers.

If they are gods in their fields it will bestow far more credibility on the finished article than any anonymous journal review, regardless of the impact factor of the publishing journal. If their name is at the top (and they have any sense at all) given Wikipedia's prominence they will make damn sure the article is not only error-free but also excellent. Mmmm. Did I see somewhere the Foundation is looking for something to spend its money on that has a measurable result?

Before I humiliate myself before the cheque-wielders, and permanently alienate (even more than I've already permanently alienated) the anti-paid editing people, am I being insane here? (I'm not suggesting we pay big bucks to the gods forever, just long enough to get the thing rolling, after which I hope the demigods might do it for less - or someone might think of a way to get transparent reviews from them for nothing. Seed money. Seeding the reactor ... or something. Perhaps, I know it sounds ridiculous, if our reviewed medical articles become the gold standard for quality and trustworthiness, the rising stars will review them for the prestige.) Crazy?

The fundamental problem for Wikipedia with this is the admission that the system doesn't work - crowdsourcing does not produce the best possible article and you need traditional means to sort it out.

Most likely it would be quicker and cheaper to licence other material from around the Internet rather than use the hotchpotch of Wikipedian stuff... which is sort of what Wikipedia does with added bias and unreliability and nonsense.

[Mancunium]

Why compete with well-funded projects such as the United_States_National_Library_of_Medicine (T-H-L) and its free database PubMed (T-H-L)?

Wikipedia visits the National Library of Medicine and NIH
PubMed Health, 17 July 2013 link

World’s biggest encyclopedia – meet the world’s biggest medical library!

The activities at NLM were a joint project with WikiProject Medicine. James Heilman traveled to Bethesda from Canada, and Lane Rasberry traveled from New York. James is an emergency room doctor who’s a Wikipedia Administrator (the Wikipedia equivalent of moderators). Lane is Wikipedian-in-residence at Consumer Reports.

Edit-a-thons in a packed training room and invited meetings over three days attracted over 60 people. There were Wikipedians and staff from PubMed Health, the National Library of Medicine and from all around the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

We started on Tuesday 28 May with a tour of the Library organized by NLM Office of Communications and Public Liaison (OCPL) and its History of Medicine division. Medical information motherlode! You can see photos of Wikipedians enjoying themselves down amongst the closed library stacks underground and more at NLM in the Wikimedia Commons' photo collection for the week.

[...]

Plans for future joint activity bubbled up early. Melanie Modlin from OCPL pointed out the oil paintings of NLM’s directors dotting the walls of the Reading Room. Local Wikipedians quickly established there weren’t digital versions online or Wikipedia entries, volunteering to write the articles. NLM OCPL will supply images and pointers to bio information.

By the end of the day, the first Wikipedia entry for an NLM director – current director, Dr Donald Lindberg – had begun. It was the first of many initiatives of the week, as NIH-ers and Wikipedians worked their way through the role of an institution in the generation of accurate but independent encyclopedia content about it.

Encyclopedic content about the Library of Health, not about medicine. Yes, taking photos of the artwork on the walls of the NLH is fun. It is not health care. PubMed is a branch of the National Library of Health, which itself is a division of the National_Institutes_of_Health (T-H-L). The NIH have published Guidelines for Participating in Wikipedia from NIH: link

Time spent on Wikipedia entries must be approved by the immediate supervisor and the time permitted for this outreach activity predetermined before the work is begun. It is recommended that the staff person indicates the areas he/she will contribute to in the time allotted.
...
In your NIH capacity: NIH staff scientists and science writers and health professionals may only contribute to Wikipedia entries in their own scientific and health areas of expertise from the NIH.
...
There is constant vigilance by Wikipedians in favor of fact over opinion; inaccurate information is corrected through a series of permissions.
...
The Wikimedia Foundation has established a switchboard, staffed by volunteers, for NIH editors and contributors. Contributors should use the NIH Switchboard for Wikipedia to ensure that your contributions are welcomed. We will be posting information about contacting the switchboard on line.

While it must be gratifying for a small-town doctor to associate with such distinguished institutions, I must say that I have some doubts as to the direction Dr Heilman is taking his WikiProject Med Foundation. In another thread on this site I find this: link

However, the following quote is directly from the Medscape article in regards to masturbation and labia hypertrophy which is considered a valid reference by Doc James. I did not make this up. See Medscape at:
http://reference.medscape.com/article/1 ... view#a0102
"In other women, hypertrophy of the labia minora is observed later in life and has been attributed to factors such as mechanical irritation by intercourse or masturbation, childbirth, lymphatic stasis, and chronic irritation and inflammation from dermatitis or urinary incontinence"

And this: link

I can forward you an email from your good friend and collaborator Doc James Heilman User:Jmh649 stating that the exact article I cited was an excellent reference source (even though he used it and admittedly misquoted it).

[Mancunium]

Now Jimmy Wales is aware of what is going on at WikiProject Medicine: link

Pharma companies exempt from Bright Line Rule?

Jimbo, one of Wikipedia's admins who also happens to be a doctor working on WikiProject:Medicine said the following:

"Dear Pharma Companies... we advise you to employ a Wikipedia editor if you want to make sure only evidence-based information is included in entries about your own products. Appointing someone from within your company as a 'spokesperson' in Wikipedia who would perform all edits on behalf of the company is an excellent way to update those entries."

Are we to assume that Dr. Bertalan Meskó is interpreting your Bright Line Rule somewhat loosely, or is there an exception for pharmaceutical companies, because of their expertise in ensuring evidence-based information? - 68.87.42.110 (talk) 20:51, 9 October 2013 (UTC)
...
While I agree with you of course about some errors that have been made in the past, but I encourage you not to say things like "In practice, there is no 'bright line rule'." Such a statement will be twisted by people who do not agree with you to suggest that you think that it's ok for POV pushers to edit Wikipedia articles directly. A better statement might be "Going forward, we should begin to vigorously enforce the "bright line rule" as a bare minimum expectation of behavior from editors with a financial conflict of interest, including big Pharma, big Oil, employees of religious movements, etc." Don't give up the good fight - make it consensus that we will do the right thing.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 20:11, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

User:NCurse has not been very active recently, and has not interacted with WikiProject Medicine for over a year, so it's a bit misleading to describe him as a "doctor working on WikiProject:Medicine". The ideas he stated in that post are not consistent with what most members of WPMED would view as good practices. Looie496 (talk) 19:59, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

Indeed, and there is no "pharma" exception to the bright line rule.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 20:08, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

So what does the NCurse (T-H-L) page still say?

I'm the maintainer of featured Portal:Medicine.
I'm the creator and the coordinator of Medical genetics WikiProject.
I'm the maintainer of Medicine WikiProject

We know that Bertalan Meskó publicly advertised his services as a paid WP editor. We know his business is sponsored by major pharmaceutical companies. If anyone is being misleading, it is Dr Meskó, who ballyhoos everywhere, including on his User page, that he is "the maintainer of Medicine WikiProject". Jimbo Wales says: "A better statement might be: 'Going forward, we should begin to vigorously enforce the "bright line rule" as a bare minimum expectation of behavior from editors with a financial conflict of interest, including big Pharma, big Oil, employees of religious movements, etc." Don't give up the good fight - make it consensus that we will do the right thing'.

Well then: why isn't NCurse desysopped and indefinitely banned?

What does Dr Heilman think about this? link

I indefinitely blocked the last PR person I encountered as they were trying to manipulate Wikipedia's medical content to their companies commercial advantage. I than had to put up with a couple of months of real life attacks by this nasty firm as they had docs on their pay role email my colleagues with me cc'ed to insult me professionally / attempt to put pressure on me to allow them to change Wikipedia. I am not easily intimidated; however, we need to do more to protect our editors from these sorts of folks / take a harder line toward these activities.

Supposedly if I would have published on this incident I would have been in violation of WP:OUTING and based on strict Wikipedia law could have been indefinitely banned myself. So what do we do about WP:OUTING? We need a clause that keeps it from protecting those who are being paid to be here. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 07:54, 12 October 2013 (UTC)

Absolutely agree. Smallbones(smalltalk) 11:22, 12 October 2013 (UTC)

Shocking and disgraceful. Coretheapple (talk) 13:26, 12 October 2013 (UTC)

Cool story, bro. Tell us more.

When Internet Brands sued me personally over suggestion that we invite Wikivoyage to join us, Sue Gardner called and offered to provide legal assistance to myself and the other person involved in the case. The legal support they provided was amazing. Literally one of the best firms in the world. We won and I am grateful to the foundation. Enough so that I gave a substantial donation this last year. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 05:05, 13 October 2013 (UTC)

And I gave a substantial donation to Credit Suisse.

IB never sued the WMF, they denied ever having issues with the WMF. They sued two Wikipedia editors personally. It was about us suggesting we allow Wikivoyage to join the WM movement. There have not been many lawsuits against Wikipedians. I heard about one that is going on right now that the WMF is involved in. Some lawyer wanting to get the personal details of a Wikipedia so that she can hold him liable for the edits he made. I have banned the lawyer in question per No Legal Attacks. Do not know the specifics of the case though. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 12:10, 17 October 2013 (UTC)

Nice to see you're keeping up with all the latest medical news, Doc.

[Mancunium]

The Stethoscope: A Wiki Project Med Foundation Review link

We evolved through several variations on our name. First we were Wikimedia Medicine Foundation, but "medicine" is a controlled term in New York and the WMF had concerns about us using "Wikimedia" before we had achieved Thematic Organization status. Then we were Wiki Med Foundation, but folks pointed out that Wiki Med and Wikimedia were terribly close. We settled on Wiki Project Med Foundation to appease all parties. It's a good name for now!

So good that "Wiki Project Med Foundation (WPMEDF) was formally incorporated in New York as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit".

So, you have money?

WPMEDF sent two representatives (through generous scholarships) to the conference in Milan. Daniel Mietchen and Brian Badsen did a great job of sharing our goals and our progress. Extensive notes on the event were taken here: Talk:Wiki_Project_Med#Chapters_Meeting_2013. It looks like the general sentiment was that before we achieve Thematic Organization status (which would allow us to apply for FDC funding and use the Wikimedia name, perhaps) that we need to continue to grow our base, increase global participation, and build networks among the community. Working on that!

FDC is the WMF's Funds Dissemination Committee: link

In FY2012-2013, US$9,173,409 was allocated to fifteen entities, or US$4,714,409 excluding WMF's allocation. US$537,911 was spent on support and overhead costs as follows: US$175,835 on personnel, US$65,424 on face-to-face deliberations (travel, venue, accommodation), US$2,466 on operating expenses, and US$294,186 on one-time expenses covering The Bridgespan Group's consultancy fees during the creation of the FDC process.

I'm sure the child in Africa appreciates your selflessness and austerity.

Is there anyone else on the gravy train, besides Mietchen and Badsen? link

Wiki Project Med Foundation
7 February
Congrats to @WikiDocJames, new editor-in-chief of JMIR Wiki Medical Reviews http://t.co/A1vHP1i6
JWMR-JMIR Wiki Medical Reviews
wikimedical.jmir.org
JMIR Wiki Medical Reviews (JMIR Wiki Med Rev) is an innovative journal which takes the best wikipedia/wikiversity articles in medicine, subjects them to peer-review, and publishes, archives and disseminates them as citable scholarly review articles (wikipedia) or original articles (wikiversity).

Because this is not a conflict of interest, Editor-in-Chief of Wiki Medical Reviews and President of the WikiProject Med Foundation Doc James should be honoured with one of the WikiProject_Medicine/Awards (T-H-L):


File:Barnstar of Golden Vagina.png

[eagle]

Assume for the moment that you found English Wikipedia articles on medical topics to have value and give a nuanced view of the clinical literature and data. You then want to use the volunteers from Translators Without Borders (TWB) to move those well-written articles to other language Wikipedias. Doc James et al chose an unfortunate path by proposing that the articles be first ported from English Wikipedia into Simple English Wikipedia. The theory was that volunteer translators could more readily understand the Simple English version.

Simple English Wikipedia had already experienced problems with medical topics https://simple.wikipedia.org/w/index.ph ... id=3307500 But Doc James came along with his proposal:

The process involves:

Bringing the core topics up to WP:GA or WP:FA status by updating the pages on the English Wikipedia using secondary sources
Translating the article to simple English
Translating the articles from full or simple English into as many other languages as possible (carried out by TWB)
Reintegration of articles back into the appropriate language wiki (carried out by Wikipedians in those languages → currently recruiting)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia: ... on_project and https://simple.wikipedia.org/w/index.ph ... id=3307965 This plan did not fare well because Simple English admins interpret Simple English as involving 1) narrow vocabulary, 2) trimmed down sentence structure as well as 3) simple ideas.

Even an article on a "simple" disease like Strep Throat ran into big problems. https://simple.wikipedia.org/w/index.ph ... id=3334695

More problems meeting the exacting standards of Simple English Wikipedia ensued. https://simple.wikipedia.org/w/index.ph ... id=3381420

Yet another example of WikiTurfWar.

[HRIP7]

Those disclaimers aren't worth the paper they are written on. In the UK, the test is what a reasonable person would think and do. I would suggest that a reasonable person would not understand the issues with Wikipedia content and would tend to assume that as it is published without any obvious disclaimer then it is reliable and true. In the UK, we consumers are not expected to have to read small print - you can't hide behind it. Similarly, as the reasonable person does not access Wikipedia through some sort of front page, but simply can step straight into an article, it is unreasonable to suggest that they should first go looking for the disclaimers (which are hardly obvious).

Start stamping authoritative sounding approvals from WikiProject Medicine or the like, without any proven medical approval for the current version and you just make the problem worse.

That's a good point. I agree (per Vigilant, earlier) we should have a big colourful button at the top saying, "This is the unreliable version that anyone can edit; for the version that has been reviewed and endorsed by three subject--matter experts, click here."

Getting back to the idea of getting scholars to review our medical content. I suggested some time back - but got no takers - that once an article is ready, we pay big bucks (enough to make them want to) to 3 known subject-matter experts to do the review, and put their name on it as the reviewers.

If they are gods in their fields it will bestow far more credibility on the finished article than any anonymous journal review, regardless of the impact factor of the publishing journal. If their name is at the top (and they have any sense at all) given Wikipedia's prominence they will make damn sure the article is not only error-free but also excellent. Mmmm. Did I see somewhere the Foundation is looking for something to spend its money on that has a measurable result?

Before I humiliate myself before the cheque-wielders, and permanently alienate (even more than I've already permanently alienated) the anti-paid editing people, am I being insane here? (I'm not suggesting we pay big bucks to the gods forever, just long enough to get the thing rolling, after which I hope the demigods might do it for less - or someone might think of a way to get transparent reviews from them for nothing. Seed money. Seeding the reactor ... or something. Perhaps, I know it sounds ridiculous, if our reviewed medical articles become the gold standard for quality and trustworthiness, the rising stars will review them for the prestige.) Crazy?

I suggested much the same at the FDC portal talk page where Gardner made her comments about chapters' use of funds (result: crickets) and at the WMUK watercooler (result: crickets and a "Nooooo ..." from Martin Poulter). (In the German Wikipedia, the response has been a little better.)

But if they've got tens of millions to spend, that's the sort of thing they should consider spending them on. I believe it's the sort of thing donors would imagine their money would be spent on. Hell, you could ask donors: What would you like us to do with your funds? Install a Wikipedian in Residence in some regional museum? Send Wikipedians to pop concerts as accredited photographers to take pictures? Or improve the reliability and quality of Wikipedia content?