Wikimedia Medicine

[Anthonyhcole]

May I direct this project's attention to Wikimedia Medicine? link

It is a proposed "Thematic organisation" per: link

The draft bylaws are here: link

It is being discussed at the project's talk page link and Iridescent's talk page link

I invite your thoughts; comments informed by the recent experience at Wikimedia UK would be especially welcome.

(Can someone please explain to me how to turn a word into a hotlink in this editor?)

[tarantino]

May I direct this project's attention to Wikimedia Medicine? link

It is a proposed "Thematic organisation" per: link

The draft bylaws are here: link

It is being discussed at the project's talk page link and Iridescent's talk page link

I invite your thoughts; comments informed by the recent experience at Wikimedia UK would be especially welcome.

(Can someone please explain to me how to turn a word into a hotlink in this editor?)

What's the deal with Iridescent? Why would people still treat him as some elder wikipedia statesman after he ignored his arbcom appointment without an explanation?

[Volunteer Marek]

May I direct this project's attention to Wikimedia Medicine? link

It is a proposed "Thematic organisation" per: link

The draft bylaws are here: link

It is being discussed at the project's talk page link and Iridescent's talk page link

I invite your thoughts; comments informed by the recent experience at Wikimedia UK would be especially welcome.

(Can someone please explain to me how to turn a word into a hotlink in this editor?)

What's the deal with Iridescent? Why would people still treat him as some elder wikipedia statesman after he ignored his arbcom appointment without an explanation?

It's like being a celebrity/star - you're a "elder wikipedia statesman" as long as people believe you are. Same for "valued content contributor", "fair and even handed administrator", "long time insider" etc. Like with a lot of stuff on wikipedia though, the subjective evaluations of the community's members rarely are correlated with any kind of objective measure of the phenomenon.

[HRIP7]

(Can someone please explain to me how to turn a word into a hotlink in this editor?)

There are two ways. Highlight the word, and then click the hyperlink button or the URL button. With the hyperlink button, the URL precedes the word and is separated from it by a comma. With the url button, the URL follows after an equals sign in the leading code. The result needs to look like this in the edit window:

Code: Select all

[hyperlink]http://wikipediocracy.com/,Word[/hyperlink] 

Code: Select all

[url=http://wikipediocracy.com/]Word[/url]

They display as follows:

Word
Word

[Anthonyhcole]

Thank you.

[lilburne]

I've not looked at it but my view is that this, like the wikitravel thing, is something that a couple of years in will explode in their faces. This is a project guaranteed to draw in the cranks, from both the pro and anti science sides. So over time one can expect plenty of ArbCom traffic at least. There is a lot of money and politics involved inthis subject even if you are a small player, so one can certainly expect various organisations, and campaign groups to seek to cultivate editors, and if X reaches out and makes a private deal with long standing editor Y no one at WP would be any the wiser. We pick up on the idiots that publicly either advertise their 'services', advertise for editors, or who have a traceable link to the COI. Private deals amongst anonymous editors aren't going to be picked up.

Also I don't think that a bunch of aspie teenagers with access to the Lancet should be involved anywhere in medical issues.

[EricBarbour]

Also I don't think that a bunch of aspie teenagers with access to the Lancet should be involved anywhere in medical issues.

News flash: the cranks and the aspies have already been writing the medical articles.....MrADHD (T-C-L), anyone?

This one's a real laffy-laff time. I thought it was anyway. Arbcom is too damn clueless to know better, so the joke's ultimately on them....

:::::If you're insinuating that I'm responsible for the Arbcom and Checkuser leaks, you're down the wrong path; I can assure you I'd find something more interesting to leak were I the leaker, and any number of people can confirm that I never even had access to the Checkuser list in question. I'm not sunning myself with YellowMonkey and LaraLove on the Island of Lost Users; my "disappearance" is for entirely uninteresting real-life reasons. (My occasional bursts of no or minimal activity have happened as long as I've been on Wikipedia; you can see a neatly arranged activity-chart [toolserver.org/~soxred93/count/index.php?name=iridescent&lang=en&wiki=wikipedia here] should you care.) The only, very weak, link between my recent inactivity and the assorted on-wiki crap in July is that the prospect of endless conversations like this one any time I do anything is a disincentive to waste what little spare time I have on a visit to interminable arguments about spaced em-dashes and the definition of original research.&nbsp;–&nbsp;[[User:Iridescent|<font color="#660066">iridescent</font>]] 17:18, 29 September 2011 (UTC)

[DanMurphy]

Encourage health care providers to use Wikimedia projects and to adopt the values of free culture and open access.

Terrible idea. Scientific knowledge is not achieved nor spread by crowd-sourcing. Medical care is complicated and stuff; it is not for the crowd.

Or simply "health information for all in the language of their choice"

This is very vague.

Create and expand medical content on Wikimedia projects and to increase its overall quality in all languages.

Quality is good. It should have an oversight board from top Med Schools, and a paid coordinator position who works with the board to fix medical articles. This board should be given complete control over medical articles. Unless such control is granted (which it won't be) this will be a waste of time when it comes to quality control.

[Retrospect]

Hey, I've got a riddle.

What do you call someone who's relied on Wikipedia for medical and pharmacy advice?



Dead.


Sorry, I know that isn't ruddy funny.

[Anthonyhcole]

This is a project guaranteed to draw in the cranks, from both the pro and anti science sides.

That's right.

So over time one can expect plenty of ArbCom traffic at least.

ArbCom is an en.WP entity and has no role in chapters or thematic organisations.

There is a lot of money and politics involved in this subject even if you are a small player, so one can certainly expect various organisations, and campaign groups to seek to cultivate editors, and if X reaches out and makes a private deal with long standing editor Y no one at WP would be any the wiser. We pick up on the idiots that publicly either advertise their 'services', advertise for editors, or who have a traceable link to the COI. Private deals amongst anonymous editors aren't going to be picked up.

Editing and content policies are decided by individual Wikipedias (en, de, etc.). WM:MED will be encouraging, teaching and helping experts to edit Wikipedia medical articles (and supporting the translation of good articles) but it won't be controlling editorial policy on any of the Wikipedias. There will certainly be attempts to influence the policies and priorities of WM:MED by commercial and other conflicted interests, though.

Also I don't think that a bunch of aspie teenagers with access to the Lancet should be involved anywhere in medical issues.

We're presently discussing who should be permitted to join on the WM:MED talk page here.

Dan, the mission statement is still being discussed here; the present proposed version is

to make clear, reliable, comprehensive, up-to-date educational resources and information in the biomedical and related social sciences freely available to all.

It should have an oversight board from top Med Schools, and a paid coordinator position who works with the board to fix medical articles. This board should be given complete control over medical articles. Unless such control is granted (which it won't be) this will be a waste of time when it comes to quality control.

I understand your concerns. A couple of thoughts: I believe en.WP:MEDRS should be policy and should be stricter (no unsourced content of any kind), and all en.WP med GA's and above should be reviewed by appointed expert reviewers and fully protected. I'm hopeful and moderately optimistic that these changes may come to pass. That is a matter for en.WP.

However, that said, I do a bit of Recent changes (medicine) patrolling and I can tell you that the vast majority of en.WP med articles are benign and stable. When a good med article appears on en.WP it usually floats to the top of Google fairly soon, and usually remains stable. So good content contributed by experts is useful even today. So, though en.Wikipedia's med policies need sharpening, en.WP articles define most medical topics for many, and I want to work with what we have to improve the quality and coverage.

I have no special attachment to Wikipedia. My purpose is to see to it that the top Google result for any medical term is clear, reliable and comprehensive. For now, that necessarily involves working with Wikipedia.

tarantino, I asked Iridescent and many others to watch, offer advice and/or participate in the formation of this new organisation because of their demonstrated intelligence. It's a matter of apparent IQ, not manners, ideology, area of interest, faction or anything else. This organisation may be important, it may do significant good or harm, or handled wrong this may simply be a terrible missed opportunity, and it's design should therefore be at least watched and criticised by intelligent people. (I see no problem with the existing membership; but at this point, where the nature of the organisation is being decided, the more good eyes the better.)

[thekohser]

...I can tell you that the vast majority of en.WP med articles are benign and stable.

Good luck to the patients who come across those few that are not benign and stable!

Do you guys need a skilled vandal to alter a medical article to provide horrifyingly fatal guidance, and have that stick for a few weeks or months, before you'll finally see the folly of what you're doing? Or, will you actually need evidence that somebody died from following the guidance?

Just trying to figure out, up front, what level of demonstration it will take for you guys to come to your senses.

[Kelly Martin]

Just trying to figure out, up front, what level of demonstration it will take for you guys to come to your senses.

I have yet to see convincing evidence that Wikipedians can reliably be convince to come to their senses.

[Anthonyhcole]

Good luck to the patients who come across those few that are not benign and stable!

Indeed.

Do you guys need a skilled vandal to alter a medical article to provide horrifyingly fatal guidance, and have that stick for a few weeks or months, before you'll finally see the folly of what you're doing? Or, will you actually need evidence that somebody died from following the guidance? Just trying to figure out, up front, what level of demonstration it will take for you guys to come to your senses.

I'm very conscious of the real possibility that nonsense on Wikipedia has killed or harmed more than one person. Can I recommend you check out the creative medical writing at the science reference desk?

[HRIP7]

Good luck to the patients who come across those few that are not benign and stable!

Indeed.

Do you guys need a skilled vandal to alter a medical article to provide horrifyingly fatal guidance, and have that stick for a few weeks or months, before you'll finally see the folly of what you're doing? Or, will you actually need evidence that somebody died from following the guidance? Just trying to figure out, up front, what level of demonstration it will take for you guys to come to your senses.

I'm very conscious of the real possibility that nonsense on Wikipedia has killed or harmed more than one person. Can I recommend you check out the creative medical writing at the science reference desk?

This is the old conundrum: Given that Wikipedia is the no. 1 Google hit for many medical (and other) topics, do you

1. Ignore any poor article quality, hoping that eventually there will be an outcry of disgust, and Wikipedia will be widely seen as untrustworthy, and disappear off the top rankings?

2. Try to improve the most critical articles to minimise the harm, knowing full well that thereby you are playing into Wikipedia's hands, cementing its no. 5 Alexa ranking, and throwing good money after bad?

3. Create a more reliably written fork that takes Wikipedia's place?

1 and 3 aren't happening any time soon, so 2 is the only option. Whether Wikimedia Medicine will get off the ground, and if so, whether it will help with that, or simply make things worse, remains to be seen.

[thekohser]

3. Create a more reliably written fork that takes Wikipedia's place?

It's not a "fork" per se, but I remember helping this organization get its start on a wiki, providing such sage advice that they require e-mail registration before allowing editors to modify pages (their site was overrun with spam bots).

It looks like they're still chugging along.

[Retrospect]

1. Ignore any poor article quality, hoping that eventually there will be an outcry of disgust, and Wikipedia will be widely seen as untrustworthy, and disappear off the top rankings?

But top rankings don't depend on whether or not an article is shit. Guess what's the top Google hit for "Duns Scotus", above the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy? It's those motherfuckers at Google who need to be sorted out. What they need to do is stop crawling Wikipedia and only crawl a fork they've made where every article has been vetted. They could afford to set that up!

[HRIP7]

http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wi ... 22302.html

Dear all,

I wanted to update you on behalf of the Affiliations Committee that we are
now considering the application of a proposed thematic organisation active
in the field of Medicine.

You can see the proposal at:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Medicine

We would like to invite you to participate in the discussions, express your
interest to join the organisation and inform your home communities about
this proposal.

We will be monitoring the talk page at
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimedia_Medicine to see if there is
any new information that might influence the recognition process.
If you have any related information you would like to share with the
committee privately, please write to <affcom at lists.wikimedia.org>.

----
A bit of background:
Wikimedia thematic organisations are a new type of movement organisation,
that are similar to chapters in supporting the Wikimedia mission through
their activities in the real world, but instead of focusing on a given
country, they focus on a given topic or theme.
For more information please see:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedi ... anizations.

It is the plan of the Affiliations Committee to send out announcements of
new thematic organisation applications roughly in the middle of the
recognition process to allow the wider community to express any concerns
they might have and to be able to join the organisation when it is founded.
This is done in the hope that it will help new organisations reach critical
mass earlier and that the wider community is informed about emerging
entities in the movement.
For more information on AffCom, see:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Affiliations_Committee

Best regards,
Bence
(Chair, Affiliations Committee)

[Anthonyhcole]

Thanks for pointing that out. I'd really appreciate a note (here or anywhere) if you or others here come across any other mentions of WM:MED. And any criticisms or suggestions from this board are very welcome.

[HRIP7]

Wnt is unhappy with this discussion.

[HRIP7]

Consumer Reports (formerly Consumers Union) was involved in the Public Policy Initiative, having one of their people on the advisory board. It is worth noting that a staff member of theirs suggested that two of their people would be happy to serve on the board of Wikimedia Medicine.

One could see how both projects might have shared interests. Consumer Reports could in theory be a useful counterweight to corporate interests. Has Consumer Reports participated in other Wikipedia-related boards to date? And if so, is this a development to be welcomed?

For reference see e.g. this write-up (with associated video) of Consumer Reports in the Wall Street Journal.

[thekohser]

Wnt is unhappy with this discussion.

I would be very, very wary that you are setting up an organization which will end up directly under Gregory Kohs' control.

Thus, my signature line here.

[lilburne]

Wnt is unhappy with this discussion.

Go Wnt, Go Wnt.

[HRIP7]

It does not look like Wikimedia Medicine will be approved in the short term:

Wikimedia organisations are part of a network and are expected to be able to integrate into that, flouting Committee recommendations and long established, working processes, guides, requirements is not a sign that the organisation is able to play well with others (and we feel this without for a second doubting that all participants have achieved great things inside Wikimedia, and that a thematic organisation if thought through properly could be very beneficial to the whole movement) – which is a secondary cause of doubt inducing us to be cautious in considering the current application.

(The above, in more detail, have been numerous times made known to James and other members of the core team, without being listened to.) --Bence (talk) 15:42, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

Bence is on the Affiliations Committee that would have to approve Wikimedia Medicine.

[iii]

It does not look like Wikimedia Medicine will be approved in the short term:

Impenetrable nonsense

Bence is on the Affiliations Committee that would have to approve Wikimedia Medicine.

Could someone offer a translation of Bence's argument for why the "Affiliations Committee" is opposed to WM:MED?

[EricBarbour]

It does not look like Wikimedia Medicine will be approved in the short term:

Impenetrable nonsense

Bence is on the Affiliations Committee that would have to approve Wikimedia Medicine.

Could someone offer a translation of Bence's argument for why the "Affiliations Committee" is opposed to WM:MED?

This is how great bureaucracies die -- committees and subcommittees and tiny fiefdoms, fighting over trivia.

[Kelly Martin]

It is fairly obvious that Bence's issue with WikiMed is that WikiMed has not stroked his ego sufficiently or given him sufficient obesiance along the way. It's fairly obvious that this is someone who, having acquired some authority in a bureaucratic role, milks that power for all its worth to force other people to perform arbitrary actions of no relevance or use, solely because he can.

[HRIP7]

It seems there is now a Wiki Med Foundation, Inc.

A week ago, as I found out now, a new association has been found in
New York: "Wiki Med Foundation, Inc." (!). We have the Wikimedia
Foundation, Inc., we have some other Wikimedias, we have MediaWiki...
how is the ordinary man on the street supposed to have the slightest
chance to understand the Wikimedia movement? He even confuses
"Wikimedia" with "Wikileaks"...

Meta page: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wiki_Med

[DanMurphy]

Yes, and Wnt is still unhappy about it.

I don't think that group, on average, deserves to be seen as "activists", "fourth estate", and certainly not as "free speech" (remember their Commons decency crusade). Ultimately their root is in MyWikiBiz, and I see their purpose as commercial. They have gone after a number of high-ranking people in Wikimedia chapters, and are starting to substitute their own: for example, if you want to join the Meta:Wiki Med thematic organization, membership matters are handled by Anthonyhcole, one of the first people to support Gregory Kohs for a free merchandise giveaway after the idea was suggested on Wikipediocracy, and one of Fae's opponents, who has made a point that all members must disclose confirmed identity (to him, now).

[lilburne]

I dunno what the problem with that boys is. No one is going to let the Lab Experiment write the report, its not as if he's Doctor Rat.