[Foundation-l] Misplaced Reliance, was Re: Paid editing, was Re: Ban and...

[Andreas Kolbe]

> > Those who advocate this, though well meaning, go way
> beyond our scope.
> > This is a matter for professional journals, not an
> unauthoritative
> > reader-edited encyclopedia >>
> > 
> 
> Yes, giving our readers the actual tools with which they
> can make informed 
> decisions is beyond our scope.  We should only be
> seeking to enforce dogma, 
> not to create thinkers.


I am really puzzled by the resistance to naming funding sources in 
Wikipedia. 

Multiple studies have lambasted media reports that fail to disclose 
financial ties between the researchers they quote, and the manufacturers 
who make the product they tested. The "gold standard" for media reports,
according to multiple sources, is that such ties should be mentioned as a 
matter of course.

All reputable medical journals make disclosure of conflicts of interest a 
condition for manuscript acceptance, and publish this conflict-of-interest 
information, as a matter of course.

Yet in Wikipedia, I am told that applying these same standards would be
"smearing" the study authors, that it would be too complicated to do, or 
that our editors are not the right people to do it. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Identifying_reliable_sources_(medicine)#Funding_of_cited_research

I don't understand what is so difficult or complicated about saying, 
"According to a 2009 study funded by the manufacturer, drug X is 
effective in ..."

Truly puzzled. 

Andreas