> From: David Goodman <dgoodma...@gmail.com> > Date: Monday, 25 October, 2010, 6:57
> Whether or not we want it to be, > whether or not it ought to be, > Wikipedia is being relied on. Our foundational principles > do not > control the outside world. What we have produced is > being used as the > nearest approach to a reliable source most people are > willing to look > for--and in many cases actually is the closest thing to a > reliable > sources they can reasonably be expected to find. Not that > we're > particularly good, just that there is nothing as widely > available that > is better. > > This gives us responsibility. Whether or not we are ready > for it, it > gives us responsibility. We're no longer playing a computer > game for > our own satisfaction. We are now responsible for covering > controversial subjects in an even-handed fashion, giving > various views > the appropriate emphasis, and providing enough information > that people > can judge them. We need to cover things with real > consequences, and > get them right. Since people come to us for medical or > legal > information, we need to provide > accurate information, while > explaining the limits of what we > provide. This is not a mechanical > process. It is editing in the true sense of the word: > it takes > judgement, it takes takes research-- things we have > been claiming are > against our basic principles. And indeed > they weren't not needed for > a play-project. We may wish we were still playing. > But we've grown up > and must take the responsibility that adults have, of > working and > standing behind our work. > > We have an obligation to provide all answers, and indicate > which are > the accepted answers among them. We can not provide > information from > scientific studies and news anecdotes and say they have > equal weight. > If we report things people say that are not really true or > that are > outright lies, we must explain their status. > > There are some matters in the world where there are views > that almost > every rational person who understands the problem considers > far > fringe, and yet a very significant minority or even > majority of people > in the world believe them to be true or at least possible. > There are > matters in the world which a very significant minority or > even a > majority think should not be judged by logic and science, > and the only > evidence they want is the experiences of those who agree > with them. > We need to explain those views, but we also need to > explain their > basis. Here are some sources from the en:WP:V talk page* that lend weight to that argument: 1. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19390105 "Seeking health information online: does Wikipedia matter?" — "Based on its search engine ranking and page view statistics, the English Wikipedia is a prominent source of online health information compared to the other online health information providers studied." 2. http://medicine.plosjournals.org/perlserv/?request=get-document&doi=10.1371/journal.pmed.0050095 http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/jun/21/2 "How do US journalists cover treatments, tests, products, and procedures? an evaluation of 500 stories" "Of 170 stories that cited an expert or a scientific study, 85 (50%) cited at least one with a financial tie to the manufacturer of the drug, a tie that was disclosed in only 33 of the 85 stories." 3. http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp0805753 "Communicating Medical News — Pitfalls of Health Care Journalism" "Journalists sometimes feel the need to play carnival barkers, hyping a story to draw attention to it. This leads them to frame a story as new or different — depicting study results as counterintuitive or a break from the past — if they want it to be featured prominently or even accepted by an editor at all." 4. http://annals.org/content/150/9/613.abstract "Press Releases by Academic Medical Centers: Not So Academic?" "Conclusion: Press releases from academic medical centers often promote research that has uncertain relevance to human health and do not provide key facts or acknowledge important limitations." * Sources were contributed by User:QuackGuru _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
