Wikitherapy - exploiting the mentally ill for fun and profit

[Rogol Domedonfors]

Arising out of the discussion of The Ladder of Citizen Participation we find at level (2) the concept of "Therapy" – community engagement as a way of "correcting" the incorrect thoughts of the community members – "under a masquerade of involving citizens in planning, the experts subject the citizens to clinical group therapy." This was intended, I believe, as a trenchant analogy rather than explicit and exact fact. But it turns out to be an appalling reality. The Wikitherapy project, ideated by Mina Theofilatou and funded by the Foundation, it is a programme in which patients in mental hospitals in /athens will be encouraged to edit Wikipedia as a form of therapy.

Am I the only person to find the exploitation of the mentally ill a new low for the Wikipedia movement?

[AndyTheGrump]

Would you care to expand on the 'profit' you mention in the thread title. Who profited, and how?

[Rogol Domedonfors]

By presenting this rather disturbing piece of exploitation as "therapy", as they did in this blog post, the Foundation encourages people to donate money. Since the Foundation already has more money than it knows what to do with, I'd call that profit.

[AndyTheGrump]

Sorry, but I'm not seen any evidence of exploitation here. I would assume that participation was voluntary, and can see no reason to regard it as any more sinister than any other attempt to encourage people with mental health problems to find a constructive outlet for their talents. I can speak from personal experience in this regard (long-term issues with depression) when I state that it certainly can sometimes be therapeutic to involve oneself with charitable work, or in similar schemes for the public good. Not only does this encourage social interaction in people often reluctant to seek it out, but will often improve self-esteem too. As to whether editing Wikipedia is actually of any great benefit to society as a whole, that is another matter, but presenting this as some sort of scam to exploit the mentally ill seems rather far-fetched.

[Bezdomni]

I disagree with the formulation, but not with the conclusion. WMF has gained profit from my own dissatisfaction with the imperfect state of the world and the Wikipedias in it. I don't always consider myself immune to mental illness, and I know that when I know something is wrong I want to keep at teasing out why, rather than doing more reasonable things like cook a chicken or have sex.

The hook for an article on lsjbot's trainer at France 24? "C'est un boulimique de Wikipedia"....

I have thought of several other examples beyond this bot guy who I don't know at all... but I'm not going to make a list of editors who might (very objectively) raise some eyebrows based on their excessive actions.

Also, Rogol, I think you left out the most important details of what FF wrote up on WS1: you should probably go into more detail about the interned kids being encouraged to establish Wikimedia identities (and who in doing so indicated their interned status)... sure there are questions of free choice and sure this "exploitation" may not have been "part of the plan", but it's become a reality. (all necessary caveats being made...)

personally, I would love to see Wikipedia blocked to all editors except prisoners interned in the US for a month. It would be interesting to measure the improvements. ^^

[Rogol Domedonfors]

Sorry, but I'm not seen any evidence of exploitation here. I would assume that participation was voluntary, and can see no reason to regard it as any more sinister than any other attempt to encourage people with mental health problems to find a constructive outlet for their talents. I can speak from personal experience in this regard (long-term issues with depression) when I state that it certainly can sometimes be therapeutic to involve oneself with charitable work, or in similar schemes for the public good. Not only does this encourage social interaction in people often reluctant to seek it out, but will often improve self-esteem too. As to whether editing Wikipedia is actually of any great benefit to society as a whole, that is another matter, but presenting this as some sort of scam to exploit the mentally ill seems rather far-fetched.

In the absence of any clear scientific, published, peer-reviewed evidence that participation in Wikipedia is on balance beneficial to people with some specific form of metnal illness, calling it a "therapy" is about as valid in the medical sense as other practices we now regard as barbaric, such as chaining patients to the wall for the public to laugh at, wrapping them in cold wet sheets or cutting out parts of their brains. It's exploitation because these people are working for someone else's benefit when they are not in a position to give informed consent for themselves, and those in a position of responsibility have no reason to believe that there is any benefit to the patients. I'm glad to hear that when you had a mental health issue you found something of benefit to you. I hope that the patients on this scheme find something to help them too. I very much doubt that this is it, and, as I say, there is no reason to believe that.

[Kingsindian]

As far as I can see, it is just an experiment or pilot project. It says:

The Daycare Center coordinator is an open-minded psychiatrist leading a team of dedicated and compassionate professionals who are on the lookout for new experiences and creative challenges for their patients. I have gone through the fundamentals of my proposal with the coordinator and he is eager to hear more and provide support and guidance towards a successful outcome.

It also says:

The concept has already been discussed with other therapy settings: the first metrics and material will be communicated to two hospitals in Athens who are eager to learn more and experiment with the preliminary components of the toolkit.

I don't know anything about psychiatry, but if one wanted to try something out, this seems to be an appropriate way to go. The medical professionals in charge of the facilities seem to be on board with it.

[AndyTheGrump]

It's exploitation because these people are working for someone else's benefit when they are not in a position to give informed consent for themselves.

Source please.

[Rogol Domedonfors]

It's exploitation because these people are working for someone else's benefit when they are not in a position to give informed consent for themselves.

Source please.

They are working for the benefit of the Foundation, as I already explained. If working on Wikipedia were known to be valid therapeutic process, then that would have been mentioned in the grant application. In the absence of evidence-based scientific assessment of the process, the consent of the atients cannot be informed. If it is supposed to be an ethically conducted experiment then there are all sorts of procedures to go through which are conspicuous by their absence, at least in any description I can see. It is likely that the medical professionals involved do not understand what editing Wikipedia is like and are relying on the enthusiastic and far from impartial descriptions of a bunch of enthusiasts who are getting money from the Foundation for this little exercise. So, yes, my assessment of the evidence that I can see is that this is an improperly conducted experiment on people who are not in a position to give informed consent nd that the only parties sure to benefit are the Foundation and its enthusiasts. As far as demanding a "source" goes, this isn't a Wikipedia article, this is me telling you what I think on the basis of the evience available to me. If you think the evidence shows something different, then we disagree. If you have more or better evidence about what is going on here, by all means reveal it. If you think we should never come to a conclusion because there might always be more evidence to gather, then that's a recipe for inefectuality.

[...] I think you left out the most important details of what FF wrote up on WS1 [...]

Very likely, I don't have access to that discussion since the forum was shut down. If you do, then by all means post further details. This sordid episode deserves further attention.

[Bezdomni]

The original investigative work done on this question is at archive.is; at first I couldn't find it in all the sundried Acts, but we did dig this back up from the google sands. Thanks for the reminder, Rogol.

[Rogol Domedonfors]

The original investigative work done on this question is at archive.is; at first I couldn't find it in all the sundried Acts, but we did dig this back up from the google sands. Thanks for the reminder, Rogol.

Excellent: the direct link seems to be https://archive.is/RRbEP . Thanks: there is a lot more there than I remembered.