[WikiEN-l] Health advice from the web

[Ben Kovitz]

Charles Matthews wrote:

> Ben Kovitz wrote:
>> "The site's other major flaw is its incompleteness. Wikipedia was  
>> able
>> to answer only 40 per cent of the drug questions Clauson asked of it.
>> By contrast, the traditionally edited Medscape Drug Reference  
>> answered
>> 82 per cent of questions. 'If there is missing safety information
>> about a drug, that can be really detrimental,' Clauson points out."
>>
>
> The good news is that the template {{missing}} exists. The bad news is
> that it appears hardly to be used (backlinks for  
> [[Template:Missing]]).
> Could we do more to make clear to the public that there is such a
> template to add? They have caught on quite well to {{fact}}.

Hmm, I didn't even know about {{missing}}.

One way to popularize it:  just use it a lot.  When people see the tag  
a lot, eventually they start thinking to use it, too.  Using it also  
the most direct way to teach others how to use it.

A difficulty:  Missing stuff is not there.  It doesn't call attention  
to itself.  A factual claim that sounds unlikely sets off an alarm in  
your head.  But missing information doesn't call attention to itself,  
so it's much less likely to get tagged.

One way to get around this would be a project to add a Safety  
Information section to lots and lots of articles about drugs.  A  
narrowly focused campaign to consistently add a certain type of  
information to all articles within a certain category will likely  
produce better results than a broad campaign to make fuller use of the  
{{missing}} tag.

Generally speaking, though, do ordinary readers (non-editors) pay  
attention to tags?  I know it's 2009, and I know tags will never go  
away, but most tags still strike me as both anti-wiki and page  
clutter.  If a page has a problem, fix it.  For example, if a factual  
claim is unsupported b.s., don't insert {{fact}}, just delete it on  
the spot.  If you want input from others before editing the main page,  
post on the discussion page.

And then again, it does seem like a mass posting of {{missing | safety  
information}} tags on drug pages would quickly set a lot of editors to  
digging up the missing information.  It would get the attention of  
editors faster than starting a Project.  Despite my objections, that  
might be the most effective way to go.

Ben