[Foundation-l] Greetings, Wikimedians

[poore5 at adelphia.net]

--- James Hare <messedrocker at gmail.com> wrote: 
> Thank you, Angela, for responding to my question.
> 
> Call it what you wish, but really it's more of a medical assistant with more
> specific information, such as how to handle it and how to identify it. As
> for the unwikiness, that's really for liability purposes -- imagine if an
> article was vandalized to say cyanide cures cancer. The idea of the draft
> versions is to facilitate article improvement while keeping the "secure"
> version free of vandalism. I really wish we wouldn't have to, but vandalism
> on a medical wiki could be life threatening.
> 
> Maybe years after the advent of this wiki, when vandalism is reverted within
> a second, we can allow open-editing of the main space page. However, it
> would take years for the wiki to have such a level of activity.
> 
> And Nathan, thank you for responding to my proposal, too.
> 
> Yes, it would be indeed mandatory to use completely verifiable sources.
> WebMD, for example, would be a great reference. The difference between a
> medical wiki and Wikipedia is particularly the details -- Wikipedia would
> serve to go into specific details (and we could link to them as a
> supplement), while this wiki simply serves to say what the disease is, how
> to determine it, and how to treat it. What we could also do on this medical
> wiki that wouldn't probably do well on Wikipedia is start a dichotomous key.
> There are many things we could do, and they would be more welcome on a wiki
> dedicated to such a topic.
> 
> Thank you for your interest in the topic.
> 
> Messedrocker
> 
> On 6/17/06, Angela <beesley at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > > I am Messedrocker -- you may know me from Wikipedia or Wikinews. I would
> > > like to introduce myself to the mailing list, and simultaneously tell
> > you
> > > about my proposed project:
> > > http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Medical_dictionary_wiki -- please read
> > the
> > > whole thing before you criticise. I hope it's not bad form for my first
> > post
> > > to be a shameless spamvertisement, but that's what Meta told me to do.
> >
> > Firstly, you might be interested in the (not very active) medical wiki
> > mailing list at
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedical-l
> >
> > Secondly, with the exception of the unwiki suggestion that all pages
> > should be protected from editing, wouldn't your project duplicate
> > Wiktionary? There's already a category for medical terms at
> > http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Category:Medicine
> >
> > Angela.

Maybe this project would be useful. But I disagree with protecting the articles unless it is deemed "finished" and the projects want to have a "stable" version. The other reason is not good and will increase the risk of liability. No one should be taking medical advice from on line medical articles. We must be careful that Wikimedia project(s) do not send mixed signals on this point.  

On English speaking projects, the biggest need is for medical articles to be adapted for low literacy readers. I know that most medical articles are well above the reading level of the average US citizen. I’m certain that similar problems exist with other English speaking countries too. 

Sydney Poore aka FloNight