[Foundation-l] Greetings, Wikimedians

Sun Jun 18 10:09:54 UTC 2006

On Sun, June 18, 2006 05:55, Kelly Martin wrote:
> That seems like a fundamentally bad idea from the get-go.  Wikimedia
> is probably not the best entity to sponsor the creation of the
> emergency medical hologram.

Can I give an even simpler warning/worry?

At the moment we have students complaining that they were marked down in
essays for getting things wrong, and their response is "But it must be
true - I found it on Wikipedia!"

What happens when someone reads something on WikiMed - the medical
information that anyone can edit - (or whatever it gets called) and finds
that what they read wasn't accurate and someone is injured, maimed, or
even dies? Don't say it won't ever happen, in some countries people sue
because their coffee is too hot. It will. There are plenty of medical info
sites out there, but they don't permit drive-by editors. Us doing so would
be a very dangerous step away from behaving in a legally and medically
responsible way, imho.

Which is a pity, as otherwise I liked the idea as being a way to find the
info without being 'attacked' by so many adverts!

Alison Wheeler