Trouble with Wikipedia October 24, 2009

I’ve written numerous entries about how Wikipedia should be or not be used in medicine. Jacqueline at Laikas MedLiblog published a fantastic report in which she analyzed the pros and cons; how students, patients or doctors use Wikipedia and what kind of changes should be made in order to make it a better encyclopaedia.

Wikipedia is an admirable initiative. It is a large online collaborative, multilingual encyclopedia written by contributors around the world.

But the key question is whether you can rely on Wikipedia as the sole source for medical, scientific or even popular information.

I had a nice discussion with David Bradley and Frank Gaillard on Facebook focusing on this issue.