On Wednesday 19 March 2003 09:26 am, wikien-l-request@wikipedia.org wrote:

Jesse and all,

This is just the question whether Wikipedia is meant to be a reliable reference source.

If not, it should be clearly stated that _no_ information is meant to be taken seriously. If yes, we must be prepared to be responsible for what we write here. We cannot be sure that someone wouldn't take some misguided action reading some joke put in by a vandal (even accessible for a short time to readers). Wikipedia could be available in print and all reliable printed sources give such disclaimers. Not only to be on the safe side legally but to be responsible to their readers.

Let's see to it that Wikipedia is not a health hazard.

Regards, Kpjas.

I agree - Wikipedia is in constant development by volunteers and has many rough edges. Therefore a blanket disclaimer linked from the the same place as our copyright notice is, is needed for all articles. This would also be needed for a sifter version too - otherwise our editors or the Foundation can be held liable if somebody uses an article to their detriment (even if that detriment is getting an F on a test or blowing up your lab).

Using Wikipedia is like installing pre-beta software on your computer. So we should communicate this fact to people and also mention that because we are a wiki /they/ are also responsible for the accuracy of articles they read (if they find a mistake then they should fix it right away and not become indigent about it).

So this problem isn't unique to medical articles.

-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)

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