User:Ocaasi/mednotes


 * every change is saved a public; radical transparency; constant revisions even on featured articles; radical openness; all bugs are shallow; more good than bad
 * search for content WP:
 * unbiased, comprehensive, accurate, well-sourced, uptodate, accessible, well illustrated, well-linked
 * test, explore, improve, check, source, challenge; build; ask
 * really no barrier to editing; doesn’t mean there are no safeguards
 * secondary sources determine due weight; describe viewpoints with neutrality
 * new, early stage primary studies are often not encyclopedia; can wait until analysis and further review; when in doubt, exclude primary studies; want systematic reviews and professional society clinical practice guideline; even randomized controlled, blinded studies are still primary; case reports are just better than anectdote; in vitro/animal/stage 1 often don’t translate to clinical evidence; popular press is effectively a primary source for medical claims
 * no expertise on wikipedia; mercilessly edited by others
 * Wikipedia has an immune system (not going to belabor that analogy because my background is political theory
 * 2 medicines - evidence based, and the sociocultural practice of everything else; medicine v. alternative medicine v. esoteric healing/energy medicine
 * to edit is to beach the fourth wall, to make yourself a creator rather than just a consumer of content, to reveal the seeming vulnerability of wikipedia, and to test it’s defenses and community
 * what motivates wikipedia editors: autonomy, core mission, topical interest, audience, perfectionism, challenge, self-expression, responsibility, addiction, recognition
 * edit summaries; sign comments Ocaasit &#124; c 19:04, 5 January 2013 (UTC); watchlist; noticeboards and wikiproject talk pages; teahouse; help desk; irc help; markup (on its way out); just click [edit]
 * reverts happen; talk about it
 * don’t address the reader directly; not a PHD level report nor a first aid guide; nor a textbook
 * good editing requires discretion about what and how to summarize, but that is different from original research/analysis/synthesis
 * medical disclaimer contrasts with dramatic popularity
 * greatest experiment in knowledge curation and sharing in human history and it’s become commonplace already. a decade to go from curiosity to reflex
 * part of a movement; connectivity, crowdsourcing, open access, and transparency
 * where does Wikipedia get its reliability? can you trust it? when should you use it?
 * simply the quickest way to look something up from anywhere; often comprehensive, detailed, balanced, illustrated... but might also be out of date, inaccurate, vandalized, biased, just wrong
 * uptodate is more a general overview, like Wikipedia, but more like a how-to guide; Cochrane answers specific questions with great expertise but doesn’t *cover nearly all topics; Wikipedia does not provide drug doses (as policy);
 * any given edit can be wrong or recently vandalized. errors exist.  this is true of any printed content.  comparing wikipedia and encyclopedia britannica *there were relatively equal numbers of errors and both had regular minor errors.  the difference is that Wikipedia gets update quicker and when a change is made it is changed not only in a local printed version but in everyone’s version.
 * how should I be using Wikipedia? what’s an appropriate use of Wikipedia? use it to refresh memory, to receive a broad introduction,
 * Wikipedia might update significantly faster than FDA
 * Hillary Clinton’s cerebral venus thrombosis; swine flu; fungal meningitis; prophyphol after michael jackson; bed bugs; not to mention deaths, political revolutions; disasters--all had dramatically greater page views during that time and that is almost always met with comparable attention of editors--*Wikipedia’s immune system in action to make sure that content is most reliable when it is most needed
 * http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Medicine/Archive_21#Vandalism_check_at_Oxazepam
 * Why not expertise? Compare citizendium.  Why open access?  Percentage of positive anonymous contributions vs. vandalism.  Why no registration required? Easier to identify vandalism as the majority of it comes from anonymous editors.  Why not lock featured articles?  Always can be improved; most eyes on page minimizes harm.  The principle of radical openness works, because more good people do more good work than bad people do bad work.  Also, technology enhances oversight efficiency.
 * More like rockclimbing with high quality equipment than tight-rope walking
 * Self policing, self-correcting, self-improving