From: David Goodman <dgoodmanny(a)gmail.com>
Date: Monday, 25 October, 2010, 6:57
Whether or not we want it to be,
whether or not it ought to be,
Wikipedia is being relied on. Our foundational principles
do not
control the outside world. What we have produced is
being used as the
nearest approach to a reliable source most people are
willing to look
for--and in many cases actually is the closest thing to a
reliable
sources they can reasonably be expected to find. Not that
we're
particularly good, just that there is nothing as widely
available that
is better.
This gives us responsibility. Whether or not we are ready
for it, it
gives us responsibility. We're no longer playing a computer
game for
our own satisfaction. We are now responsible for covering
controversial subjects in an even-handed fashion, giving
various views
the appropriate emphasis, and providing enough information
that people
can judge them. We need to cover things with real
consequences, and
get them right. Since people come to us for medical or
legal
information, we need to provide
accurate information, while
explaining the limits of what we
provide. This is not a mechanical
process. It is editing in the true sense of the word:
it takes
judgement, it takes takes research-- things we have
been claiming are
against our basic principles. And indeed
they weren't not needed for
a play-project. We may wish we were still playing.
But we've grown up
and must take the responsibility that adults have, of
working and
standing behind our work.
We have an obligation to provide all answers, and indicate
which are
the accepted answers among them. We can not provide
information from
scientific studies and news anecdotes and say they have
equal weight.
If we report things people say that are not really true or
that are
outright lies, we must explain their status.
There are some matters in the world where there are views
that almost
every rational person who understands the problem considers
far
fringe, and yet a very significant minority or even
majority of people
in the world believe them to be true or at least possible.
There are
matters in the world which a very significant minority or
even a
majority think should not be judged by logic and science,
and the only
evidence they want is the experiences of those who agree
with them.
We need to explain those views, but we also need to
explain their
basis.
Here are some sources from the en:WP:V talk page* that lend weight to that argument:
1.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19390105
"Seeking health information online: does Wikipedia matter?" —
"Based on its search engine ranking and page view statistics, the English
Wikipedia is a prominent source of online health information compared to
the other online health information providers studied."
2.
http://medicine.plosjournals.org/perlserv/?request=get-document&doi=10.…
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/jun/21/2
"How do US journalists cover treatments, tests, products, and procedures?
an evaluation of 500 stories"
"Of 170 stories that cited an expert or a scientific study, 85 (50%) cited
at least one with a financial tie to the manufacturer of the drug, a tie
that was disclosed in only 33 of the 85 stories."
3.
http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp0805753
"Communicating Medical News — Pitfalls of Health Care Journalism"
"Journalists sometimes feel the need to play carnival barkers, hyping a
story to draw attention to it. This leads them to frame a story as new or
different — depicting study results as counterintuitive or a break from the
past — if they want it to be featured prominently or even accepted by an
editor at all."
4.
http://annals.org/content/150/9/613.abstract
"Press Releases by Academic Medical Centers: Not So Academic?"
"Conclusion: Press releases from academic medical centers often promote
research that has uncertain relevance to human health and do not provide
key facts or acknowledge important limitations."
* Sources were contributed by User:QuackGuru