Why to work in Wikipedia: I’ve been mentioned in Nature Medicine March 2, 2007
Posted by Bertalan Meskó in About me, Medical journalism, Web 2.0, Wikipedia.trackback
After more than a year of hard work in Wikipedia, now I got a great feedback. Some weeks ago, Brandon Keim, a well-known, freelance science and culture writer and news intern at Nature Medicine asked me to give him an interview about my experiences in Wikipedia and to talk about the future of online encyclopedias. By the way, Brandon is a lead blogger at Bodyhack, Wired.com’s biotech/health blog. To read the whole article, a subscription is needed, but I show you the parts mentioning me:
Bertalan Mesko is a fourth-year medical student at Hungary’s University of Debrecen. He’s not yet qualified to practice medicine and, at 22, is barely old enough to buy beer in some parts of the world.
On Wikipedia, however, Mesko is a prominent medical voice. Since last May he’s added to and edited topics for the online encyclopedia’s coverage of health and medicine…
Last July Mesko, who hopes to become a clinical geneticist, created Wikipedia’s medical genetics project, which already has more than 1,100 entries. For his work reorganizing the medical articles, the Wikipedia community rewarded him with a Barnstar of Diligence. In October he successfully applied to become a site administrator… “That’s why I love Wikipedia: you’re rated just by your work,” Mesko says.
Then he asks: despite the fact that my expertise has never yet been challenged, should a fourth-year medical student like me be trusted to produce information that can influence life and death decisions?
He talks about Ask Dr. Wiki, Citizendum and Digital Universe. We know well that Digital Universe makes it possible for laymen to edit articles but those must be peer-reviewed by experts before publishing them. Citizendum only lets experts to work on the articles. So he writes:
Mesko says that, rather than submitting to this sort of peer review, Wikipedia’s health and medicine articles could be improved by adding citations to journal articles.
Once Citizendium and other specialized wikis add to their articles, Wikipedia users can, in keeping with the model that makes Wikipedia so powerful, benefit from their work, Mesko says. “We can copy all of them.”
I mean the licence will be GFDL so even if their experts improve the articles, those must keep the licence and it means that we can copy them back.
I’m really happy to get this opportunity and spread the words of Wikipedia. I hope that this article will drive people towards this online encyclopedia and many more medical experts will contribute to our articles.
Reference:
- Brandon Keim: WikiMedia; News@Nature 13, 231-233 (01 Mar 2007); or Nature Medicine; Published online: 28 February 2007; | doi:10.1038/nm0307-231
My photo in the article is the courtesy of Katalin Horváth at haon.hu. I’m really thankful for their kindness to give me that image!
That’s great Berci. I didn’t realize that you were the brains behind the medical genetics of Wikipedia. Hopefully this won’t be your last appearance in Nature.
Thank you, Tim!
I hope so…
I must mention ApersOn, a wiki editor, who has made an incredible job in that project.
Bored As Usual
[...] While surfing aimlessly today I came across this site: [...]
Hi there Mesco!
just another wiki-student… I must have been delusional… Now I was reading Nature and see you mentioned, I had to come here and congratulate you: that wonderful news!
I’d watch out if I were you, before you get your own article on Pedia…
keep up the good work, and don’t forget to find some spare time to hit the books!
grtz Steven F
Hey Steven!
Good to see you here.
You tell me to find time to hit the books? You shouldn’t work so much on Wikinews…
And an article about me on Pedia? Yes, maybe in 2035…
Thank you for dropping by!
Berci
Congratulations Berci!
Thank you!
For those who don’t know that, giulio maintains the best and (to be honest) only doctorblog in Hungary.
Hi Berci…
You really deserved it. Congratulation’s to you and goodluck!
btw, thanks for dropping comment in my blog..
Thank you, Bevs!
[...] Why to work in Wikipedia: I’ve been mentioned in Nature Medicine [...]
[...] to write this medical-genetic blog and it really changed my life. I’ve been mentioned in Nature Medicine, Medscape, Cell; in several blog carnivals and blogposts. I’ve made a lot of friends [...]
[...] Why to work in Wikipedia: I’ve been mentioned in Nature Medicine [...]
That shouldn’t come as a surprise. Everyone else was surely expecting that. You deserve it like no other else do. Congratulations and more power! You’re amazing!
Thank you so much again!
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