On one hand, it would be pretty stupid for a person to rely on WP for drug interaction information, but it also might be wise for us to institute some kind of disclaimer at the top of pages related to drugs (over-the-counter as well as prescription).
Matt
Date: Tue, 25 Nov 2008 10:16:46 +0000 From: "David Gerard" Subject: [WikiEN-l] How's our coverage of medications? To: "English Wikipedia" wikien-l@lists.wikimedia.org
2008/11/25 Matt Jacobs sxeptomaniac@gmail.com:
On one hand, it would be pretty stupid for a person to rely on WP for drug interaction information, but it also might be wise for us to institute some kind of disclaimer at the top of pages related to drugs (over-the-counter as well as prescription).
I believe this one has been debated before and was considered to be covered in the nest of disclaimers linked from the general disclaimer.
- d.
On Tue, Nov 25, 2008 at 5:46 PM, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
I believe this one has been debated before and was considered to be covered in the nest of disclaimers linked from the general disclaimer.
- d.
There's really two arguments here, a legal argument and a moral one. Legally, the talmudic list of general disclaimers (which no sane person reads) probably covers us, but is that enough? Should we stop there?
The moral argument says that we should make sure that people don't rely on only our information when it comes to serious decisions with serious consequences. I don't think it would be a bad thing at all if at the dosage section of an article on drugs we say "Consult your physician before taking medication" or on the article on nitroglycerin, have a small little disclaimer in the "Manufacturing" section saying "It is extremely dangerous to try this yourself if you are not a trained chemist".
--Oskar
2008/11/25 Oskar Sigvardsson oskarsigvardsson@gmail.com:
There's really two arguments here, a legal argument and a moral one. Legally, the talmudic list of general disclaimers (which no sane person reads) probably covers us, but is that enough? Should we stop there?
Yes because of the second half of the legal argument. If we start putting up individual disclaimers that means it can be argued that we know our general disclaimers are not up to the task. Result; the article we fail to put a specialist disclaimer on becomes a massive liability.
Jeneral Disclaimer: Do not believe everything you read, and only half of what you see. All rights wronged. The sky is falling. All wrongs reversed. May your doings return. Firestone's Law of Forecasting: Chicken Little only has to be right once. The problem with being a lemming in the stock market is that if you will be putting your money into commodities too late, and when the price of the stock you sold goes up to something fair, you will hav sold it.
On Tue, Nov 25, 2008 at 4:56 PM, Oskar Sigvardsson oskarsigvardsson@gmail.com wrote:
On Tue, Nov 25, 2008 at 5:46 PM, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
I believe this one has been debated before and was considered to be covered in the nest of disclaimers linked from the general disclaimer.
- d.
There's really two arguments here, a legal argument and a moral one. Legally, the talmudic list of general disclaimers (which no sane person reads) probably covers us, but is that enough? Should we stop there?
The moral argument says that we should make sure that people don't rely on only our information when it comes to serious decisions with serious consequences. I don't think it would be a bad thing at all if at the dosage section of an article on drugs we say "Consult your physician before taking medication" or on the article on nitroglycerin, have a small little disclaimer in the "Manufacturing" section saying "It is extremely dangerous to try this yourself if you are not a trained chemist".
Trouble is, if you do that for some articles and not others, you leave yourself (or Wikipedia in general) open to claims that we failed to "protect" people on the articles where such "in-article" disclaimers haven't been added, or were removed (by well-intentioned editors, or even by vandals).
Such "in-article" disclaimers, if they were ever used, would have to be carefully monitored. It is much simpler to write and maintain a general "boilerplate" disclaimer that applies to all articles, even if no-one reads it.
Carcharoth
2008/11/25 Carcharoth carcharothwp@googlemail.com:
Such "in-article" disclaimers, if they were ever used, would have to be carefully monitored. It is much simpler to write and maintain a general "boilerplate" disclaimer that applies to all articles, even if no-one reads it.
The essential problem is: we can't absolve the reader of the responsibility to think about what they read. Readers who think they should be absoved of this responsibility are the core of the "Wikipedia is unreliable!" argument. We can only do our best to be as good as we can - thinking for those who won't or can't is a bit much to ask.
- d.
On 11/25/08, Oskar Sigvardsson oskarsigvardsson@gmail.com wrote:
I don't think it would be a bad thing at all if at the dosage section of an article on drugs we say "Consult your physician before taking medication"
Funny thing, my meds say that right on the label (but damned if I pay it any mind).
—C.W.
Label on Coffee: Caution. Hot.
No shit, SherLock. What was your first clue? Reminds of the Simpson's episode where Homer puts a sign on everything.
That edit tab at the top of your page isn't a joke. Children of ten years get the same thing. Consider what that means.
On Tue, Nov 25, 2008 at 11:56 AM, Oskar Sigvardsson oskarsigvardsson@gmail.com wrote: [snip]
The moral argument says that we should make sure that people don't rely on only our information when it comes to serious decisions with serious consequences. I don't think it would be a bad thing at all if at the dosage section of an article on drugs we say "Consult your physician before taking medication" or on the article on nitroglycerin, have a small little disclaimer in the "Manufacturing" section saying "It is extremely dangerous to try this yourself if you are not a trained chemist".
The problem is that for almost any question of fact you can construct a scenario where having wrong information may be seriously harmful. For example, I've pulled formulas from articles on mathematics and electrical-engineering related subjects which could create significant fire hazards if they were wrong and I applied them uncritically, to things like a nuclear physicist creating another Chernobyl incident if he believes our figures on the neutron cross section of various materials, to someone losing a high dollar value bet based on some information we have on pokemon.
Even if you ignore the sillier possibilities we're still talking about a considerable chunk of the project which could present a risk of harm to people if they fail to apply appropriate scepticism and were the information incorrect or incomplete.
Once the warnings are more than something rare and highly targeted people will just suffer banner blindness and not even see them. Messages few people notice will not improve our moral position (and I agree in terms of pure-legal CYA we're already as covered as much as reasonable).
It's pretty easy to demonstrate that notices are almost totally ineffective. We could anon-notice "*Wikipedia is untrustworthy, do not take risks based on information included or potentially excluded from this page!*", and many people would simply ignore it.
Allow me to suggest these steps:
(1) Better public education about how Wikipedia works so the general public gives it the appropriate grain of salt. The "Ten things you didn't know about wikipedia" as a anon-notice was that kind of effort. We should do more things like that. (This could also include WMF organized press events, like a "Wikipedia Reliability day")
(2) For things like prescription drugs where there exists external notable and basically reliable materials on safety we should adopt a standard highly visable infobox field that link people to these resources.
(3) Adopt revision flagging so we have a tool to make efforts like (2) effective: Getting good information in is ineffective when ~2% of page views (millions of people) are to vandalized versions which may omit the good information.
None of these would require more disclaimers that people will just ignore, and I think they stand a better chance of improving people's safety when they use Wikipedia.
2008/11/25 Gregory Maxwell gmaxwell@gmail.com:
(2) For things like prescription drugs where there exists external notable and basically reliable materials on safety we should adopt a standard highly visable infobox field that link people to these resources.
I like that one. Links to standard information sheets, that sort of thing?
(3) Adopt revision flagging so we have a tool to make efforts like (2) effective: Getting good information in is ineffective when ~2% of page views (millions of people) are to vandalized versions which may omit the good information.
So what will it take for us to get this switched on for en:wp?
- d.
On 11/25/08, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
So what will it take for us to get this switched on for en:wp?
An order from Jimbo, sadly enough. I just hope that another round of negative publicity is not a prerequisite for this.
It would probably be less dramatic to have Brion just turn it on for a trial period and see what people think.
—C.W.
2008/11/25 Charlotte Webb charlottethewebb@gmail.com:
On 11/25/08, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
So what will it take for us to get this switched on for en:wp?
An order from Jimbo, sadly enough. I just hope that another round of negative publicity is not a prerequisite for this.
It would probably be less dramatic to have Brion just turn it on for a trial period and see what people think.
I hope Jimbo doesn't do it against community wishes (I'm not sure the sysadmins would go along with it anyway), that would just cause a massive drama. I think it's become clear that a consensus isn't going to happen (I really don't understand people's objections, though), so perhaps a referendum is called for?
2008/11/25 David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com:
So what will it take for us to get this switched on for en:wp?
Proof that having the sighted revision as the standard view (which you have to for it to be meaningfully useful) doesn't result in a drop in editing rate.
Proof that en would be able to keep up with the required rate of sighting (We have a hard time marking new pages as patrolled at the moment)
If you want to use drug articles as the foundation for your argument proof that it would provide any protection against subtle vandalism.
Proof that having the sighted revision as the standard view (which you have to for it to be meaningfully useful) doesn't result in a drop in editing rate.
Proof that en would be able to keep up with the required rate of sighting (We have a hard time marking new pages as patrolled at the moment)
If you want to use drug articles as the foundation for your argument proof that it would provide any protection against subtle vandalism.
There is only one way to prove any of that, though, and that's giving it a go. If we only make the flagged rev the default version for articles that are currently (semi-)protected keeping up with the sighting would be easy - that's the version of the proposal that should be completely uncontroversial.
2008/11/25 Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com:
There is only one way to prove any of that, though, and that's giving it a go.
Not so. I assume we keep the not English wikipedias around for a reason.
2008/11/25 geni geniice@gmail.com:
2008/11/25 Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com:
There is only one way to prove any of that, though, and that's giving it a go.
Not so. I assume we keep the not English wikipedias around for a reason.
Um, yeah, so that non-English speakers can read Wikipedia. It's not really fair for us to expect them to do all our dirty work, is it? There are so many different possible configurations of the software (and differences between the different language projects to start with) that I'm not sure we'll get meaningful conclusions from anyone else's implementation.
2008/11/25 Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com:
Proof that having the sighted revision as the standard view (which you have to for it to be meaningfully useful) doesn't result in a drop in editing rate. Proof that en would be able to keep up with the required rate of sighting (We have a hard time marking new pages as patrolled at the moment)
There is only one way to prove any of that, though, and that's giving it a go.
We should be able to get numbers for both of those from de:wp.
- d.
On Tue, Nov 25, 2008 at 4:01 PM, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote: [snip]
I think the very best thing we can do in terms of serving the public is to have as clear, accurate and referenced information as we can, in a well-written article, i.e. what we do anyway.
Except we only do that *most of the time*. Millions of people per month come to Wikipedia and instead see pages in some greater or lesser degree of damage. There are few products where an acceptable failure rate of multiple percent is acceptable, certainly not in anything which is possibly life-critical.
It may not be in our power to fix that problem satisfactorily, but I'd have no problem convincing an objective outsider that we're hardly even trying.
Don't make the error of assuming that the contributors all care about serving the public as many do not. What then when our public duty is "unwiki"?
On Tue, Nov 25, 2008 at 4:09 PM, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
2008/11/25 Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com:
There is only one way to prove any of that, though, and that's giving it a go.
Not so. I assume we keep the not English wikipedias around for a reason.
DE has it, and it's still ticking away. Go look at the discussions on EnWp: the counter is "De is not En". Quite true. Proof really isn't possible, and that really is what some people are *demanding*.
On Tue, Nov 25, 2008 at 4:06 PM, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
There is only one way to prove any of that, though, and that's giving it a go. If we only make the flagged rev the default version for articles that are currently (semi-)protected keeping up with the sighting would be easy - that's the version of the proposal that should be completely uncontroversial.
You would think— But thats only true if the resistance is driven by a risk analysis, it's not true for resistance driven by either a hard philosophical objection (The "unwiki" position taken by many in the discussions) or due to an attempt to thwart change in general. In either of these cases you could demonstrate that it works great and those opinions would not change. Moreover, the possibility that a test may be successful and dispel fears is a reason to oppose testing for opponents whom care about things other than success.
In any case, what you're saying has been proposed multiple times and in multiple forms. It has failed to obtain consensus. So much for completely uncontroversial.
On Tue, Nov 25, 2008 at 3:55 PM, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
2008/11/25 David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com:
So what will it take for us to get this switched on for en:wp?
Proof that having the sighted revision as the standard view (which you have to for it to be meaningfully useful) doesn't result in a drop in editing rate.
Proof that en would be able to keep up with the required rate of sighting (We have a hard time marking new pages as patrolled at the moment)
Well there is only one way to get *proof*, so we have a Catch-22. Sure, persuasive evidence... we can get that, as far as I can tell, we've always had it: If things were so fragile that twiddling a knob will irreparably ruin it over night we would have been screwed long ago.... but you're pretty much right on in saying that people are demanding *proof*. But we can't have proof without doing it.
This is also true for any other change. Unexpected stuff happens. I'd argue that for much of what we do or could do the unexpected results are more numerous and significant than the expected ones. So the argument you expressed is basically saying that we can't change anything ever.
(I'm careful to not call it yours— because I do not believe that you're a proponent of it, but it's an argument I've seen other people make on English Wikipedia in all seriousness)
I wonder what aspects of EnWP culture contribute to the audacious solipsism of believing that its members can "no-consensus" away forces as universal as change.
Not that I'm in favour of some non-consensus massive change: I'd prefer reasonable stepping stones (like mostly replacing protection with default-view flagging) to help build knowledge and confidence and to allow an *informed* consensus to form. But that too is resisted, after all— it's admittedly a possible stepping stone. This unwillingness to *test* and explore possibilities with uncertain outcomes is why I tend to characterize EnWP's behaviour as a foolish attempt to avoid change, rather than the result of a reasonable decision making process. What can not change will die.
On Tue, Nov 25, 2008 at 4:06 PM, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
There is only one way to prove any of that, though, and that's giving it a go. If we only make the flagged rev the default version for articles that are currently (semi-)protected keeping up with the sighting would be easy - that's the version of the proposal that should be completely uncontroversial.
You would think— But thats only true if the resistance is driven by a risk analysis, it's not true for resistance driven by either a hard philosophical objection (The "unwiki" position taken by many in the discussions) or due to an attempt to thwart change in general. In either of these cases you could demonstrate that it works great and those opinions would not change. Moreover, the possibility that a test may be successful and dispel fears is a reason to oppose testing for opponents whom care about things other than success.
But flagged revisions for currently protected pages is more wiki than protected pages...
2008/11/25 Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com:
But flagged revisions for currently protected pages is more wiki than protected pages...
Given the historic grow rate of semi protect from replacement for full protection in some cases to turning up all over the place the fundamental assumption of that argument (that it would only be used where semi protect would be used) can probably be rejected along with the argument itself.
2008/11/25 geni geniice@gmail.com:
2008/11/25 Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com:
But flagged revisions for currently protected pages is more wiki than protected pages...
Given the historic grow rate of semi protect from replacement for full protection in some cases to turning up all over the place the fundamental assumption of that argument (that it would only be used where semi protect would be used) can probably be rejected along with the argument itself.
So your real problem is that you don't trust the community to follow policy? That's a far more fundamental problem and not one I feel like getting into now...
On Tue, Nov 25, 2008 at 6:25 PM, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
2008/11/25 geni geniice@gmail.com:
2008/11/25 Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com:
But flagged revisions for currently protected pages is more wiki than protected pages...
Given the historic grow rate of semi protect from replacement for full protection in some cases to turning up all over the place the fundamental assumption of that argument (that it would only be used where semi protect would be used) can probably be rejected along with the argument itself.
So your real problem is that you don't trust the community to follow policy? That's a far more fundamental problem and not one I feel like getting into now...
The community does not trust the community.
Warnings...
This kind of subject whets the appetite. In front of me is the package for a frozen pizza.
"COOKING INSTRUCTIONS: Cook before eating."
Doesn't this invoke images of the one-in-a-million nincompoop who would otherwise chomp down on a hard frozen pizza? Doesn't it make you want to run to the Darwin Awards?
Currently, the planet holds an estimated 6.72 billion people. If we pass out 6.72 billion frozen pizzas stripped of the words "cook before eating" and one in a million chomps down on an icy pizza and die of e. coli as a result--let us consider that our gene pool might be ever so slightly improved. And other species with an equal inherent right to exist on this planet might have a smidgen more ecosystem for themselves.
Extra warnings that self-medicating based upon information in an open edit website just might not be absolutely accurate? Just what is our moral duty here?
At the San Diego Zoo last week I watched pandas. The world needs more room for pandas.
-Durova
You are preaching to the choir here. I have audibly espoused the concept that perhaps OSHA is not doing the country a service (the USA, for those of you in OTHER countries) due to the fact without OSHA protecting them, more idiots would die and clean the gene pool of idiots. Mind you, I was half joking............ but only about half.
Durova wrote:
Warnings...
This kind of subject whets the appetite. In front of me is the package for a frozen pizza.
"COOKING INSTRUCTIONS: Cook before eating."
Doesn't this invoke images of the one-in-a-million nincompoop who would otherwise chomp down on a hard frozen pizza? Doesn't it make you want to run to the Darwin Awards?
Currently, the planet holds an estimated 6.72 billion people. If we pass out 6.72 billion frozen pizzas stripped of the words "cook before eating" and one in a million chomps down on an icy pizza and die of e. coli as a result--let us consider that our gene pool might be ever so slightly improved. And other species with an equal inherent right to exist on this planet might have a smidgen more ecosystem for themselves.
Extra warnings that self-medicating based upon information in an open edit website just might not be absolutely accurate? Just what is our moral duty here?
At the San Diego Zoo last week I watched pandas. The world needs more room for pandas.
-Durova
Oh and on the Wikipedia related portion of your email: We are not a how-to site and no disclaimers other than the blanket disclaimer are required or indicated.
One puppy's opinion.
Durova wrote:
<snip>
Extra warnings that self-medicating based upon information in an open edit website just might not be absolutely accurate? Just what is our moral duty here?
</snip>
On 11/25/08, Durova nadezhda.durova@gmail.com wrote:
Currently, the planet holds an estimated 6.72 billion people. If we pass out 6.72 billion frozen pizzas stripped of the words "cook before eating" and one in a million chomps down on an icy pizza and die of e. coli as a result--let us consider that our gene pool might be ever so slightly improved.
This would probably backfire due to the lack of correlation between immune system and intellect. The raw-pizza-eater would, with our luck, just contaminate other people and cause them to die instead (despite having the sense not to eat uncooked foods).
At the San Diego Zoo last week I watched pandas. The world needs more room for pandas.
Pandas with e. coli may have difficulty transmitting it to other pandas, or so I've read...
—C.W.
On Tue, Nov 25, 2008 at 6:14 PM, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
You would think— But thats only true if the resistance is driven by a risk analysis, it's not true for resistance driven by either a hard philosophical objection (The "unwiki" position taken by many in the discussions) or due to an attempt to thwart change in general. In either of these cases you could demonstrate that it works great and those opinions would not change. Moreover, the possibility that a test may be successful and dispel fears is a reason to oppose testing for opponents whom care about things other than success.
But flagged revisions for currently protected pages is more wiki than protected pages...
But it's a gateway drug to flagging for everything: If we demonstrate that people don't stop editing those articles, and that the flagged version isn't constantly super stale... then only "unwiki" remains as a major counter argument. Can it drive consensus alone?
Not only that, but "making protection 'softer' would encourage people to use it more — flagging may be more wiki, but not enough to offset the enormous increases which are sure to happen" (look at semi: It's used orders of magnitude more than full protection ever was)
These are both solid arguments (for a position I don't support...).
2008/11/25 Gregory Maxwell gmaxwell@gmail.com:
DE has it, and it's still ticking away.
De's default is that you don't see the sighted version. So their current results are fairly useless.
Well there is only one way to get *proof*, so we have a Catch-22. Sure, persuasive evidence... we can get that, as far as I can tell, we've always had it: If things were so fragile that twiddling a knob will irreparably ruin it over night we would have been screwed long ago.... but you're pretty much right on in saying that people are demanding *proof*. But we can't have proof without doing it.
This is also true for any other change. Unexpected stuff happens. I'd argue that for much of what we do or could do the unexpected results are more numerous and significant than the expected ones. So the argument you expressed is basically saying that we can't change anything ever.
Nope. Everything I listed is a known potential problem I'm not asking you address the possibilities of unknown problems. Doesn't help of course that since IP page creation stayed off (we probably need to turn it back on unless you want to get used to saying second largest encyclopedia) without a proper review people have little trust in claims that something is experimental.
I wonder what aspects of EnWP culture contribute to the audacious solipsism of believing that its members can "no-consensus" away forces as universal as change.
Schoolwatch would be the first group to use it effectively.
2008/11/25 geni geniice@gmail.com:
2008/11/25 Gregory Maxwell gmaxwell@gmail.com:
DE has it, and it's still ticking away.
De's default is that you don't see the sighted version. So their current results are fairly useless.
...it is? I made a small change to a dewp article the other week (fixing a URL) and then had to ferret around on IRC for a dewp user to help me "make it live". Seems like exactly the expected behaviour...
We have a megaphone at our disposal, the question is how to use it effectively. Warnings are pointless - we put all sorts of warnings on the medications we dispense, but I attend probably two to three lectures a year on how ineffective these warnings are. People don't read them - we're lucky if they read and understand the directions. Some states require spoken counseling on instructions and side effects because so few people read warnings and other information when they receive medication. Warnings on Wikipedia drug articles are unlikely to be all that effective, and if you start putting specific disclaimers on these you will need to start doing it on hundreds of other categories of articles as well.
We do have the {{drugbox}} infobox template, it contains all sorts of handy links. But it is very clearly directed at medical professionals - most people won't have a clue what the various bits of information mean, or what to look for when following the links. I think it would make sense to redesign the template to be more accessible to the regular reader (including such information as a link to a gallery of dosage form images, common side effects with percentages, class in lay terms [i.e. antidepressant instead of SSRI], maximum safe dosage for a child and an adult, pregnancy category [again, in lay terms instead of the letter], etc.).
I'm not sure that keeping the dosage information has much beneficial impact - on the one hand you discourage self-medicating, but on the other you don't tell people what the maximum dosage is, and that information might be crucial if they are in fact self-medicating.
Nathan
2008/11/25 Nathan nawrich@gmail.com:
We have a megaphone at our disposal, the question is how to use it effectively. Warnings are pointless - we put all sorts of warnings on the medications we dispense, but I attend probably two to three lectures a year on how ineffective these warnings are. People don't read them - we're lucky if they read and understand the directions. Some states require spoken counseling on instructions and side effects because so few people read warnings and other information when they receive medication. Warnings on Wikipedia drug articles are unlikely to be all that effective, and if you start putting specific disclaimers on these you will need to start doing it on hundreds of other categories of articles as well.
I think the very best thing we can do in terms of serving the public is to have as clear, accurate and referenced information as we can, in a well-written article, i.e. what we do anyway.
- d.
2008/11/25 Nathan nawrich@gmail.com:
I'm not sure that keeping the dosage information has much beneficial impact
- on the one hand you discourage self-medicating, but on the other you don't
tell people what the maximum dosage is, and that information might be crucial if they are in fact self-medicating.
It's useful for scale, I think. When seeing "20mg of X three times daily", what a lot of people want to know is - how much *is* this? Is it a low dose, or a high dose? If you take it all in the morning, is it a dangerous thing, or is the harmful dose two orders of magnitude more?
The trick is treading the line between this sort of contextual information and giving detailed advice.
2008/11/25 Nathan nawrich@gmail.com:
I'm not sure that keeping the dosage information has much beneficial impact - on the one hand you discourage self-medicating, but on the other you don't tell people what the maximum dosage is, and that information might be crucial if they are in fact self-medicating.
In [all senses of the word] practice, doctors treating the public will prescribe wildly varying dosages. We would do better to state the range of dosages referred to in peer-reviewed medical journals rather than trying to establish what is or isn't "ideal" based on what any practitioners say, or what the fine print of the adverts say, or what the Rx receipts you peel off your car in the parking lot of Wal-Mart say, or what any other data released on the commercial end says.
If this standard proves too difficult or if the stuff is available over-the-counter (i.e. self-prescribed), I would feel most comfortable to list the LD50 and be done with it.
If this sounds crass don't worry, I have reasons for which I avoid editing articles related to medicine (somebody will say "such as ignorance" I know—they can go to hell in advance).
—C.W.
2008/11/26 Charlotte Webb charlottethewebb@gmail.com:
If this standard proves too difficult or if the stuff is available over-the-counter (i.e. self-prescribed), I would feel most comfortable to list the LD50 and be done with it.
Because providing information on how to kill yourself is really going to help our public image (although I don't oppose including LD50 values). This is an area where we really can't win.
On 11/26/08, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
Because providing information on how to kill yourself is really going to help our public image (although I don't oppose including LD50 values). This is an area where we really can't win.
This could equally be seen as "how *not* to kill yourself" (depending on whether the glass is half-empty or half-full) and as a faint hope of NPOV.
—C.W.
Manufacturing section?...that's {{howto}} or [wikiversity], isn't it? If innocuous things like How to Clean a Fish Tank aren't here...
----- Original Message ----- From: "Oskar Sigvardsson" oskarsigvardsson@gmail.com To: "English Wikipedia" wikien-l@lists.wikimedia.org Sent: Tuesday, November 25, 2008 9:56 AM Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] How's our coverage of medications?
On Tue, Nov 25, 2008 at 5:46 PM, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
I believe this one has been debated before and was considered to be covered in the nest of disclaimers linked from the general disclaimer.
- d.
There's really two arguments here, a legal argument and a moral one. Legally, the talmudic list of general disclaimers (which no sane person reads) probably covers us, but is that enough? Should we stop there?
The moral argument says that we should make sure that people don't rely on only our information when it comes to serious decisions with serious consequences. I don't think it would be a bad thing at all if at the dosage section of an article on drugs we say "Consult your physician before taking medication" or on the article on nitroglycerin, have a small little disclaimer in the "Manufacturing" section saying "It is extremely dangerous to try this yourself if you are not a trained chemist".
--Oskar
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2009/11/29 Jay Litwyn brewhaha@edmc.net:
Manufacturing section?...that's {{howto}} or [wikiversity], isn't it? If innocuous things like How to Clean a Fish Tank aren't here...
The history of the various methods of manufacturing certain chemicals is rather interesting. It is fairly easy to include such information in an encyclopedic form and not as a how to. For example "TNT can be prepared by refluxing toluene with concentrated sulphuric and nitric acid". The fact that disassembling the glassware risks setting the resulting mess of TNT and DNT off and killing you is a side detail.
On Sun, Nov 29, 2009 at 8:06 AM, Jay Litwyn brewhaha@edmc.net wrote:
Manufacturing section?...that's {{howto}} or [wikiversity], isn't it? If innocuous things like How to Clean a Fish Tank aren't here...
Not necessarily. Manufacturing processes can be incredibly significant; consider the [[Haber process]] for producing ammonia, or the [[Bessemer process]] for producing steel. Neither one comes anywhere *close* to being how-to content. ("Step 1: Buy a steel mill"?)
If you don't like the flavour of this article now, then hit the refresh button in ten seconds. Nah...assess quality of the article on the talk page...maybe that rating should go on the article, too. There's a tool for doing that. It pulls the rating, if available, out of the talk page and shows it with the article.
----- Original Message ----- From: "Matt Jacobs" sxeptomaniac@gmail.com To: wikien-l@lists.wikimedia.org Sent: Tuesday, November 25, 2008 9:40 AM Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] How's our coverage of medications?
On one hand, it would be pretty stupid for a person to rely on WP for drug interaction information, but it also might be wise for us to institute some kind of disclaimer at the top of pages related to drugs (over-the-counter as well as prescription).
Matt
Date: Tue, 25 Nov 2008 10:16:46 +0000 From: "David Gerard" Subject: [WikiEN-l] How's our coverage of medications? To: "English Wikipedia" wikien-l@lists.wikimedia.org
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