[Foundation-l] Emergency Medicine Wikibook: seeking programmers and doctors, nurses, paramedics

[Daniel Mayer]

--- Paris Lovett <paris at pazzah.com> wrote:
> I'm writing to let everybody know more about the proposed Emergency Medicine
> Wikibook. 

Emergency Medicine Wikibook - great idea. But you don't need permission to
start such a thing, just go to http://en.wikibooks.org and get to work! :) 

> I've met with board members and it seems at the present time that
> our main challenge is finding interested programmers to create templates and
> a special registration screen. 

Registration system? I'm sorry but that is not the way we do things around
here. We had one project called Nupedia that had a registration system and it
was nearly a complete failure. Its only saving grace was that its looming
downfall led to the creation to Wikipedia (whose initial purpose was to breathe
life back into Nupedia - but that never happened and Wikipedia quickly became
its own thing). 

> The open-source Wikibook model is a strong
> fit with the rapidly changing and incredibly broad field of Emergency
> Medicine. Traditional textbooks simply can't cover all the little things
> which walk into an Emergency Room, everything from broken toes, to heart
> attacks and strokes, to stabbings and shootings. 

This is all great and wonderful, but instead of having controls on what people
do up front, why not have control on what is included in a published/static
copy? The live Wikibook would be the place where development of the Wikibook
takes place and a separate website is where approved parts of that would be
used by emergency medicine professionals. 

-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)


		
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