Andreas, you seem to have pre-determined that Wikipedia's medical
articles
are all terrible and riddled with errors.
And I think you are being needlessly defensive. I have an open mind as to what the results might be. What I am sure of is that neither you nor I nor the Foundation really know how reliable they are. Why not make an effort
to
find out?
Anybody interested can do it. Now. Anybody interested can improve it. Now. Why it does not happen? It happened for other domains as well.
In my experience there is only one single measure to improve quality: point out the single error which cam be corrected. If you can propose a system, either human or automatic, to do this, feel free.
What imo is the bigger problem: many medical articles are written in a language a mortal cannot understand any more.
Realistically, they're amongst the most likely to receive professional editing and review - Wikiproject Medicine does a much better job than people are willing to credit them.
Yes, and many editors there are sorely concerned about the quality of medical information Wikipedia provides to the public.
This is the core value of wikipedia since its beginnings: provide a big enough gap to fill.
Incidentally, there was a discussion of the JAOA study in The Atlantic today:
http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/05/can-wikipedia-ever-be-a-de...
A member of WikiProject Medicine is quoted in it, as is the study's
author.
—o0o—
So both sides acknowledge: There are errors in Wikipedia’s health
articles.
And that’s a problem, because people use them.
Internet literacy includes learning beeing sceptical on what you read i guess .... Wikipedia is not Jesus and never will be, in no domain :)
Rupert