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In the news

Wikipedia could become trusted medical resource; neologism controversy; brief news

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By Tilman Bayer, Jorgenev and Tom Morris

Editorial: Wikipedia could become a trusted medical resource

An editorial in BMJ, a highly ranked medical journal, titled "WikiProject Medicine", argued that its Wikipedia articles "could become a trusted resource if it is assisted not shunned". Written by Lyndal Trevena, associate professor for public health at the University of Sydney, the article is a reaction to a viewpoint article by members of WikiProject Medicine that was published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research (Signpost coverage: Medical Wikipedians issue 'Call to Action' to their peers).

After noting Wikipedia's popularity as a source for medical information, the author discusses Wikipedia's article quality assessment system:

Trevena acknowledges the success of Wikipedia's open editing model, mentioning "commitment by trusted administrators and editors" as a key factor in maintaining quality, but warned against COI editing problems in the medical sector:

She continues by noting the usefulness of Wikipedia's health information for developing countries, but points to the challenge of improving non-English coverage: "129 articles are published on hypertension in English but only six in Bahasa Indonesian. Chinese contributions are non-existent, which is a pity given the burden of disease from hypertension in that nation." (Last year, Google.org started a – now concluded – pilot project to address this issue by software-assisted translations; see Signpost coverage: "Major Google–Wikipedia translation project: Health Speaks".)

The article concludes by discussing the already frequent use of Wikipedia by doctors, and states that for evidence-based medicine, "the simplicity and speed of the Wikipedia format is appealing. Clinicians have continually stated that they want simple summaries of evidence rather than lengthy detailed technical items that require access to complex and sometimes expensive databases. If we really want to see the dissemination of evidence based information and facilitate putting evidence into practice, perhaps we need to start writing articles for Wikipedia."

The abstract is available online, and interested readers may purchase one-day access to the full text (which is less than one and a half pages long) for $30.00 in the US, £24.00 in the UK and €32.40 in other European countries.

Explosion of editing related to the santorum neologism noted

Edits per month to the noted article. A very clear spike is visible starting last month.

In keeping with its tradition of being highly critical of Wikipedia, the British technology news and opinion website The Register writes "The world's Wikifiddlers are obsessed with santorum. Though they can't agree on what that is." The article discusses the heated controversy that has recently sprung up around the article Campaign for "santorum" neologism (current title, but it may soon be moved). Last month, the issue had generated 130 postings on the Wikien-l mailing list alone. In 2003, pundit Dan Savage (known for his relationship and sex advice column Savage Love), in response to former US senator Rick Santorum's conservative statements on homosexuality, proposed to his readers that they invent a new derogatory meaning for the word "santorum". As recently noted by several US media sources, said meaning continues to rank highly in Google search results for the politician's last name, at a time when he is aspiring to become the Republican candidate for the 2012 presidential elections. The debate on Wikipedia centered around whether the Wikipedia article must be considered a de facto part of the campaign by perpetuating this Google ranking, or merely an NPOV description.

In brief

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I had assumed that the CD Baby article would simply discuss shady ways to circumvent our various checks and balances (meatpuppetry comes to mind), but I was happy to see that it was actually a very solid, factual, logical article. The fact that it explicitly advises musicians to wait until they have some serious news coverage made me really happy. --Cryptic C62 · Talk 17:19, 21 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The BMJ editorial has been discussed at the WikiProject Medicine talk page, where Wikipedians noted several small inaccuracies. Regards, HaeB (talk) 21:00, 21 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I think the specific feature available only to editors who register for it, which the BMJ refers to, is the user interface gadget "Display an assessment of an article's quality as part of the page header for each article", documented at User:Pyrospirit/metadata.-gadfium 21:13, 21 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The Register

C'mon, this is dismissive - "In keeping with its tradition of being highly critical of Wikipedia ...". Would you ever precede mention of a favorable article with "In keeping with its tradition of being highly promotional of Wikipedia ..." ? -- Seth Finkelstein (talk) 02:55, 22 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Cade Metz is, however, rather infamously critical of Wikipedia. But I agree that the current phrasing is poor. /ƒETCHCOMMS/ 17:02, 22 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Of course. And other people are infamously promotional of Wikipedia. The point is not that the article was critical. Instead, the phrasing seems to deride the criticism simply because it came from a critic. I contend that is unjustified here, especially since high-status Wikipedians have made similar criticisms of this situation -- Seth Finkelstein (talk) 23:50, 22 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I think our readers are smart enough to understand that the WMF blog will have a pro wikipedia bais. In terms of commenting on media reaction background is sometimes useful and we can't yet expect everyone to know that the register has a pretty consistent negative and sensationalist take on wikipedia.©Geni 03:15, 24 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I wasn't thinking of the WMF blog. There's a whole politics of Wikipedia promotion, and I do not see the same zeal to note it in prefatory comments. -- Seth Finkelstein (talk) 03:20, 24 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
There really isn't a media source I can think of off hand that takes an inverse if the register's line. Some of the indian media perhaps but they tend not to do the same sensationalism. it's the shear consistency and sensationalism of the register's POV that makes it unusal.©Geni 03:24, 24 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
One doesn't need exact inverse. Consider "In another puff-piece on CEO's ..." or "In another flogging of net-hype ..." or "In another regurgitation of a press-release for clicks ...". Those genres are quite common. An implicit argument is being made here, and the dismissiveness is unjustified in this case. -- Seth Finkelstein (talk) 03:37, 24 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Have you forgotten what you wrote in your opening comment already?©Geni 04:01, 24 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I too often re-iterate my points, it's a weakness. -- Seth Finkelstein (talk) 04:09, 24 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Actually I was unaware that Reg was habitually critical of WP until relatively recently, having stopped reading it round about when I left the telecomms industry. Most outlets are looking for news, good or bad, they mainly want a story (at least as far as WP is concerned). Being informed of a major bias like this is useful. Rich Farmbrough, 11:37, 24 June 2011 (UTC).[reply]


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