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

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:

“

Impressively, of the more than 25 000 medical articles published, all but 304 have been assessed, according to the WikiProject article quality grading system, by one of the 206 group members. [...] Unfortunately, only around 70 articles have been graded as suitable for a “feature article or listing,” [...] Most articles are graded as either incomplete or a “stub,” providing “little meaningful content.” With the exception of a small star given to “feature articles” the grade is publicised only to readers who register for that specific feature [apparently referring to the fact that some assessments are only available on talk pages]. Improving this quality grading process could be a key step towards improving the overall quality of the information.

”

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:

“

[Wikimedia] will have to tackle the tension between promoting a free speaking virtual community of authors that publishes exclusively under pseudonyms and the need to declare conflicts of interest and allow greater transparency for readers. It is currently difficult to detect commercial and other conflicts of interest, although such conflicts are likely in articles where particular treatments are over-represented compared with current clinical practice guidelines.

”

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

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

NARA Wikipedian-in-Residence: The Atlantic described "How Wikipedians-in-Residence Are Opening Up Cultural Institutions", focusing on the example of User:Dominic's stay at the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) (covered earlier in The Signpost, in a Washington Post interview, by Yahoo! News and in other media).
The death of expertise continues. Sven Birkets published an article on the Los Angeles Review of Books website titled "The Room and the elephant" which responds to Maria Bustillos' piece "Wikipedia and the death of the expert" (covered in The Signpost on May 23).
Wales praises Russian president: As reported by Russia Beyond the Headlines, Jimmy Wales has praised Russian president Dmitry Medvedev as "the only world leader who actually understands the Internet", referring to his proposals to reform the country's copyright laws (cf. Signpost coverage: "Russian president pushes for Creative Commons licencing", "Russian president meets with Internet community representatives, including Wikimedia"). Wales contrasted this with French president Nicolas Sarkozy's push for stricter regulation of the Internet, evident at last month's E-G8 Forum in Paris (cf. Signpost coverage: Jimmy Wales attends eG8 summit). He made the remarks on a one-day visit to Russia last week, covered by RIA Novosti, too, which quoted him as saying: "Of course, I never realized how important Wikipedia might be to freedom of speech but, you know, we've taken over the years a very firm stand against censorship of Wikipedia and I am very proud of that."
Wales on online civility: In a talk about the need for civility in online discourse (held at Georgetown University last week and covered by several online sources [1] [2] [3]), Jimmy Wales outlined how Wikipedia deals successfully with vandalism and trolling. Wales co-presented together with Andrea Weckerle, the founder and president of CiviliNation, a US nonprofit which describes itself as "taking a stand for civil digital discourse", where Wales serves as one of three directors.
US college professors soften on Wikipedia: According to U.S. News & World Report, "Wikipedia (is) Gradually Accepted in College Classrooms" as "many professors' aversions to the site have softened in the decade since its inception in 2001."
Wikipedia files: Chicago public radio station WBEZ continued their "Wikipedia files" series – video interviews in which celebrities comment on the Wikipedia article about them – with actress Eve Myles.
Get a Wikipedia article for your band: A blog posting on CD Baby advised musicians on "How to Create a Wikipedia Page for Your Band/Music", listing five tips including "Don’t Write it Yourself".
Get a Wikipedia link to your website: A blog about "domain name investing" advised website owners how to "Get Targeted Traffic From Wikipedia": "If you review Wikipedia pages associated with the topic of your website, you can add external links to the bottom of Wikipedia pages".

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20 June 2011 (all comments)

News and notes

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Discuss this story

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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. /ƒETCH COMMS / 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]

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]