User:Ian Furst/welcome



Imagine a world in which every single person is given free access to the sum of all medical knowledge. My name is NARRATOR and that's what we're doing Wikiproject Medicine. We identify the most important medical topics, create articles that reflect the most accurate and widely accepted information and then translated into as many other languages as possible.

We hope you'll help so here are some guidelines for your first edits;

Once you've created a user name and password, you will receive a message on your Talk page about a place called the Tea House. The tea house is staffed by volunteers to help new editors. If you have any general questions, this is a good place to go for quick answers.

The medical editors hang out at the Wikiproject Medicine page. Wikipedia has many communities of editors, known as WikiProjects, who share common areas of interests. The medicine wikiproject looks after most healthcare issues. Drop by the project page, see what we’re up to and leave us a note on the talk page so we know you’re here. There’s always someone to help although the response may be slower than at the tea house.

On Wikipedia we favour consensus over “rightness”. You may see a piece of information that you’re positive is wrong, change it with a high quality reference only to have your edit reversed. This is the Wikipedia method. Please don’t let it discourage you. When this happens, leave a note on the talk page of the article to build a consensus with the other editors. If you aren't able to reach an agreement, come to the Wikiproject Medicine talk page for opinions from neutral parties.

References are everything. Our goal is to have every statement of fact backed by at least one high quality reference. Even thought it's common to use primary research studies in scientific reviews, they frequently offer conflicting views so we don't allow them at Wikiproject Medicine except in exceptional circumstances. Instead, references should be a meta-analysis, textbook reference, Cochrane study or high quality review from a pubmed indexed journal. This rule is also the greatest source of conflict between editors. If you need help determining which evidence to use go to the talk page or to the Wikiproject Medicine talk page.

All of our articles follow a certain structure and manual of style. You’ll find the medical manual of style under the term MEDMOS and the manual of style for all Wikipedia articles under MOS. To learn how to easily insert references and other helpful links, visit the site MEDHOW.

Be bold. Don’t be afraid to make edits. Because many of the medical articles have been around for years, you’ll find plenty of missing or mistaken information. Start with small edits, get accustomed to the give and take of building consensus, the rules that govern high quality references and our manual of style. We hope you enjoy volunteering for Wikiproject Medicine.