I'm not sure I fully agree with this. It would depend on the question. The internet allows people to check and re-check what they've been told. In that sense, our article on digitalis should strive to represent the average knowledge of the medical community, not just be a source of entertainment for example.
If our article on breast cancer could be improved in some way, that is a good thing.
In a message dated 9/5/2008 2:51:44 P.M. Pacific Daylight Time, thomas.dalton@gmail.com writes:
a question about your wife's breast cancer would be directed at a doctor,
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2008/9/5 WJhonson@aol.com:
I'm not sure I fully agree with this. It would depend on the question. The internet allows people to check and re-check what they've been told. In that sense, our article on digitalis should strive to represent the average knowledge of the medical community, not just be a source of entertainment for example. If our article on breast cancer could be improved in some way, that is a good thing.
If there are specific questions actual readers have when they go to a topic, that's a very good thing to know, because it suggests the article would increase in usefulness by mentioning it, e.g. give an example or two of how to use something rather than just abstract descriptions. Wikipedia can be improved by knowing this.
- d.
2008/9/5 WJhonson@aol.com:
I'm not sure I fully agree with this. It would depend on the question. The internet allows people to check and re-check what they've been told. In that sense, our article on digitalis should strive to represent the average knowledge of the medical community, not just be a source of entertainment for example.
If our article on breast cancer could be improved in some way, that is a good thing.
I'll clarify a key point about what I said: Questions about *your wife's* breast cancer should be directed to a doctor. Questions about breast cancer *in general* could well be answered on Wikipedia and if they're not already in the article the reference desk would be happy to help (be careful how you phrase the question though or it might be interpreted as a request for medical advice and deleted). If you want to re-check what a doctor has told you about your specific case, you go to a different doctor.
More generally, the issue of how encyclopaedic facts apply to a given case is not, itself, encyclopaedic. The application of facts is a matter for professionals, we just concern ourselves with the facts themselves (the reference desks will sometimes help out with the application, but generally the desks exist to help people find out encyclopaedic facts, although sometimes facts too obscure to be included in the encyclopaedia proper [yet, at least]).