[WikiEN-l] Talking to Jimmy Wales about discussion

[Thomas Dalton]

2008/9/5  <WJhonson at 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]).