3 ms·

For the 10 most costly medical conditions, Wikipedia is wrong 90% of the time [0], compared to the latest research. I would love to see the result of following

For the 10 most costly medical conditions, Wikipedia is wrong 90% of the time [0], compared to the latest research. I would love to see the result of following the money on those edits; who is making those edits, etc. And politics / anti-war stuff is, I'm sure, much much worse. [0] https://www.healthitoutcomes.com/doc/wikipedia-is-wrong-of-the-time-0001 https://www.healthitoutcomes.com/doc/wikipedia-is-wrong-of-t...

jl6 5y ago
I couldn’t see a link in that article to the study. I would be interested to know if they graded how wrong Wikipedia was. The criteria for wrongness is described as “contained information that contradicted the latest medical research on the condition.”. But Wikipedia articles are huge, containing many pieces of information. What if an article contains just one outdated piece of information amongst hundreds of others, and the material points are substantially correct?
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
chris_wot 5y ago
It's difficult, they removed James Heilman from medical articles because he was adding verified prices to medicines. And he's a ER doc. Edit: note a followup article to the one you posted is here: https://www.healthitoutcomes.com/doc/was-study-of-wikipedia-errors-wrong-0001 https://www.healthitoutcomes.com/doc/was-study-of-wikipedia-...
- dustintrex 5y ago
  Last I checked Doc James remains very active on WP. There was some flap in the Board of Trustees around 2015, but he was reelected there as well in 2017.
- mandmandam 5y ago
  Thanks for pointing that out; seems legit. Apparently, a more reasonable 'accuracy rating' of factual medical statements on Wikipedia is about 55-100% - https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2014/jun/01/is-wikipedia-reliable-for-medical-advice https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2014/jun/01/is-wiki...
jes 5y ago
This may interest you: http://intactwiki.org/wiki/Jake_H._Waskett http://intactwiki.org/wiki/Jake_H._Waskett Searching his name on Google Scholar retrieves references to the published articles of Dr. Brian Morris, with Waskett listed as a co-author many times. Yet Waskett is said to have no particular training, experience or credentials as an academic or medical researcher. One is left wondering what scholarly contributions Waskett made to that research.
jraby3 5y ago
That article shows no proof and links to a site that no longer exists.
- LargoLasskhyfv 5y ago
  [Ding] https://web.archive.org/web/20140531074444/http://www.ihealthbeat.org/articles/2014/5/28/study-finds-90-of-healthrelated-wikipedia-articles-contain-errors https://web.archive.org/web/20140531074444/http://www.ihealt... [Dong] https://web.archive.org/web/20140521005122/http://www.jaoa.org/content/114/5/368.full https://web.archive.org/web/20140521005122/http://www.jaoa.o...

jl6 5y ago

I couldn’t see a link in that article to the study. I would be interested to know if they graded how wrong Wikipedia was. The criteria for wrongness is described as “contained information that contradicted the latest medical research on the condition.”. But Wikipedia articles are huge, containing many pieces of information. What if an article contains just one outdated piece of information amongst hundreds of others, and the material points are substantially correct?

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

chris_wot 5y ago

It's difficult, they removed James Heilman from medical articles because he was adding verified prices to medicines. And he's a ER doc. Edit: note a followup article to the one you posted is here: https://www.healthitoutcomes.com/doc/was-study-of-wikipedia-errors-wrong-0001 https://www.healthitoutcomes.com/doc/was-study-of-wikipedia-...

dustintrex 5y ago
Last I checked Doc James remains very active on WP. There was some flap in the Board of Trustees around 2015, but he was reelected there as well in 2017.
mandmandam 5y ago
Thanks for pointing that out; seems legit. Apparently, a more reasonable 'accuracy rating' of factual medical statements on Wikipedia is about 55-100% - https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2014/jun/01/is-wikipedia-reliable-for-medical-advice https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2014/jun/01/is-wiki...

jes 5y ago

This may interest you: http://intactwiki.org/wiki/Jake_H._Waskett http://intactwiki.org/wiki/Jake_H._Waskett Searching his name on Google Scholar retrieves references to the published articles of Dr. Brian Morris, with Waskett listed as a co-author many times. Yet Waskett is said to have no particular training, experience or credentials as an academic or medical researcher. One is left wondering what scholarly contributions Waskett made to that research.

jraby3 5y ago

That article shows no proof and links to a site that no longer exists.

LargoLasskhyfv 5y ago
[Ding] https://web.archive.org/web/20140531074444/http://www.ihealthbeat.org/articles/2014/5/28/study-finds-90-of-healthrelated-wikipedia-articles-contain-errors https://web.archive.org/web/20140531074444/http://www.ihealt... [Dong] https://web.archive.org/web/20140521005122/http://www.jaoa.org/content/114/5/368.full https://web.archive.org/web/20140521005122/http://www.jaoa.o...