Talk:Wiki Project Med/Archives/2014

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London Wikimania Presentation

Hey all. Hoping to present at Wikimania in London regarding the work we are doing. If people here are interested in attending / helping out please sign up here [1] Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 09:18, 26 January 2014 (UTC)

HIFA2015

en:Healthcare Information For All by 2015 has invited Wiki Project Med Foundation to be a supporting organization.[2] I am in favor of us doing this. There is no financial obligation. More of an acknowledgement of us supporting this goal and helping to work towards it.

Discussion

Summmary

As there is support application submitted. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 02:46, 21 January 2014 (UTC)

Translation from simplified English

Today I created a simplified / shortened version of all the articles involved in the w:en:WP:TTF as can be seen in the simplified column here [3]. They are basically a simplified version of the leads of the articles in question.

Some of the issues we were facing was that in the smaller languages of Wikipedia 1) there is often a limited vocabulary 2) readership may not want the same level of detail 3) less availability of volunteer translators 4) communities in these languages have a lessor ability to maintain content.

It is also superior from a public health perspective to translate a large number of small articles giving a general overview of many conditions than a few in-depth articles. It is also easier / better for us to fix up the leads of many English article, than the entirety of a few. If people fix up a lead of a specific article of general medical importance and wish to nominate it for translation please leave me a note on my talk page. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 00:09, 9 February 2014 (UTC)

Wiki-Med in Israel

Contributors to Hebrew Wikipedia organized a health class using the education program extension to great success in developing medical articles in that language.

Perhaps participants in this project should try to collaborate with this group in the future. Blue Rasberry (talk) 17:04, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

Thanks yes. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 02:41, 28 February 2014 (UTC)

Official membership

Right now we do not have official membership. Wondering if anyone is interested in creating a more official method of keeping track of membership? Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 02:41, 28 February 2014 (UTC)

Evaluation

I haven't read much of it yet, but Programs:Evaluation portal/Library/Overview might have some ideas about how to self-evaluate your program to see where you can improve. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:19, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

Which program? You mean WPMEDF generally or the Translation Task Force (TTF) specifically? 24.66.53.18 11:08, 18 February 2014 (UTC)
This group is a collective of independent volunteers who complete tasks together but are not managed centrally. If any evaluation happened it would be of any given individual volunteer's action. For the Wikipedia Library, the Wikimedia Foundation funds someone to do certain things in partnership with others, so evaluation makes more sense for that program because there is at least one lead organizer who is accountable for funding. It is difficult to recognize what could be evaluated here or what utility that would have. What did you have in mind? Blue Rasberry (talk) 11:54, 18 February 2014 (UTC)
I was thinking primarily about the TTF. I'm more interested in how well the group is supporting the translators (and other editors), and whether improvements could be made. Is anyone tracking numbers of editors, hours spent working, or the number of articles improved? Is the rate of translation going up or down? Is translation work being frustrated by any obstacles (like endless changes to the en.wp article)?
On a more general level, are new people being welcomed? Are editors being noticed or honored for their contributions? (I know that Doc James has some of this in the works.) Are group values (like MEDRS) being shared in practical but friendly and supportive ways with new editors? What's being done to promote a a sense of belonging to and achieving through the group rather than isolated, individual actions? (Lane, I think you'd find McMillan and Chavis's "Sense of Community: A Definition and Theory" from 1986 to be very interesting.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:03, 17 March 2014 (UTC)
All excellent points. We are tracking progress here [4] but have not put progress into graphs. Thus not sure if rate of translation is changing.
Translation is based on a single version of the English Wikipedia article and is done is a work doc. Thus ongoing changes since a specific date are not reflected in the base document.
We are just for the first time looking at editor numbers for medicine. Agree we need to do more to recognize those within our community who are doing amazing work. TWB has some good systems in place to motivate people. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 01:12, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

I'd like to ask of you to take a look at a Wikimedia IEG grant a few of us over at Wikiproject Medicine as well as here are behind. You may likely have heard of the translation of medical articles that is being done (if not please take a look at w:Wikipedia:WikiProject Medicine/Translation Task Force). The goal of the grant is to get the translation and integration process to run smoothly, and to assess which articles are the most important to translate. We've come far at w:Wikipedia:WikiProject Medicine/Translation task force/RTT, but to get further we feel there is need for some form of organization, preferably by someone who can devote significant time to the task.

I'm very hopeful that I can provide real benefit with this grant, as there are so many articles on Wikipedia that could help people all over the world.
It's even more important when you take into account drives such as Wikipedia Zero, and readers who might not have access to any medical information at all can benefit.

Please take a look at the grant page: Medicine Translation Project Community Organizing, and add a comment or give your ideas on how we can best benefit the other Wikipedias.
Thanks, -- CFCF (talk) 21:19, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

Paper advertisements

At London Wikimania 2014 the organizers are offering to make paper advertisements for people who request them. Wiki Project Med should propose something, right? I am not sure how these could be distributed but it would be nice to have a digital proof made for anyone to print themselves. Blue Rasberry (talk) 16:56, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

Translation tools

Meta:Babel#Translate wiki pages to another wiki has an announcement about a new tool that might benefit some of the translators here. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:54, 1 May 2014 (UTC)

Monthly/Bi monthly newsletter

Wondering if there was anyone interested in leading this? While I know a bunch of us are working on projects it would be good to have a way of disseminating the work to others. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 13:39, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

A newsletter under WPMED is currently being devised here: en:Wikipedia:The_Revival and will, ideally, be released at the end of the month. A fuller discussion is here: User_talk:Ocaasi#WP_Med_Newsletter_proposal. I have proposed moving it to the English-language WP as this is where the majority of our activities and user-base is, and because only a few users are aware of what is happening at a meta-level, so there are less users available to maintain it. --LT910001 (talk) 03:33, 25 May 2014 (UTC)
Okay. We still want to be able to deleiver it to users in other languages though. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 06:54, 25 May 2014 (UTC)

Constitution

I'd like some things about WPMEDF addressed, which have arisen during our discussion at:

  1. Is WPMEDF an umbrella organisation for the local WPMED communities?
WPMEDF does not have an authority over any local WPMED communities. It is a mechanism avaliable more for collaboration.
  1. Have the local communities consented to this?
  2. Is WPMEDF a coherent organisation or a group of one or two individuals who use this title when conducting their activities?
  3. How are activities taking in the name of WPMEDF arranged and what say do the members have in this?
  4. What is the role of members in WPMEDF and what role do they play in decision-making?
  5. Is there any transparency in decision-making?
  6. What funds are involved in the operation of WPMEDF, where do these arise from, and how are they distributed?

Our activities are almost entirely conducted in English-language, English-language publications are discussed, this page is only fully-translated in English, most of the board members come from the English language WP, and translation efforts translate from the ENWP to other sites, and I don't know of translation efforts in other directions.

  1. What relationship does WPMEDF have to the English-language WPMED?
  2. Are there examples where the flow of information from the english-language to other languages is not unidirectional?

I support the mission of WPMEDF but I do think there are some questions which need to be formally addressed. --LT910001 (talk) 02:07, 28 May 2014 (UTC)

Sure great questions:
  1. Is WPMEDF an umbrella organisation for the local WPMED communities?
    WPMEDF does not have any authority over any local WPMED communities. It is a plateform available to improve collaboration between languages and from which to do real life outreach. It is also a place where chapters can turn for further help / feedback on medicine related projects.
    Have the local communities consented to this?
    We currently have ~100 members from 20 plus languages. As this organization does not have authority over local communities explicit consent prior to its existence is not really needed IMO. All communities were however contacted before the organization was formed.
    Is WPMEDF a coherent organisation or a group of one or two individuals who use this title when conducting their activities?
    We are running about a dozen projects. There are a few very active participants and a larger number of less active ones. A similar pattern to that of Wikipedia itself.
    How are activities taking in the name of WPMEDF arranged and what say do the members have in this?
    Activities are discussed here on these pages. All are free to discuss them. Like in other places of Wikimedia people often take on projects per WP:BRD and discussion / consensus takes place if issues arise
    What is the role of members in WPMEDF and what role do they play in decision-making?
    Members are welcomed to become involved with any of the discussions taking place here. Our membership person on the board has become busy with other activities and thus we are needing to find a new one to finalize the membership process. Membership will eventually vote on the board of directors.
    Is there any transparency in decision-making?
    Much decision making takes place here so yes.
    What funds are involved in the operation of WPMEDF, where do these arise from, and how are they distributed?
    The costs of the organization have included some form fees. I have donated these. We have a lawyer donating his time. There are no funding. In some of the collaborations, the collaborating organization has covered the travel expenses of the Wikipedians involved.
    Our activities are almost entirely conducted in English-language
    Not entirely true. We of course are involved in translating content into 50 plus languages. I have been recently to Iran to meet with local Wikipedians as well as Italy where I spoke at a Cochrane collaboration conference, meet with local Wikipedians and presenting at the launch of a new Italian digital library. One interesting thing I learned is that all Cochrane reviews are published in English.
    What relationship does WPMEDF have to the English-language WPMED?
    Beyond many of the members being active on English WPMED there is no formal relationship.
    Are there examples where the flow of information from the english-language to other languages is not unidirectional?
    Have recently gained access to Prescrire, an excellent source of systematic reviews from France, published originally in French and than translated into English. But as per the Cochrane example medicine is a very English dominated language.Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 09:28, 28 May 2014 (UTC)

Comment: re: ...as per the Cochrane example medicine is a very English dominated language. In medical research, and in science generally, English is very much the lingua franca that facilitates international (interlanguage) communication. Whether that can be characterized as "domination" is another matter. It certainly raises many practical issues (and native writers of English almost inevitably tend to have a head start in getting their work published). The need for dissemination of research knowledge into different languages through impartial, non-industry sources is a relevant concern. Unsurprisingly, Cochrane has its own translation projects [5].

As regards flow of information across different Wikipedias, of course the situation here is rather different, given that we don't initially publish all our work in any one language. It also seems to me that the situation is somewhat complicated by the fact that different languages have different sets of WP guidelines. For instance, the English-language Wikipedia has a particularly stringent set of sourcing guidelines (en:wp:medrs), which could complicate use of content translated from a GA or FA in another language.
MistyMorn (talk) 13:13, 13 June 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia being used as a substitute for medical advice

I read in the newspaper recently (sorry, I forgot when) that people are using Wikipedia as a substitute for medical advice. Can we have a disclaimer on top of all medicine related articles that goes something like this, "This article is not a substitute for medical advice"?—Khabboos (talk) 16:53, 24 June 2014 (UTC)

Hello Khabboos! The medical disclaimer issue is an important issue unrelated to what this group does, which is to avoid bureaucracy and focus on developing health content. You can see the results of a previous discussion on this topic at en:Wikipedia:WikiProject Medicine/RFC on medical disclaimer.
The disclaimer you suggest would be posted if there is community consensus to post it. That consensus does not exist and this is a controversial issue with many perspectives. This board is probably not the place to pursue this issue as people here focus on the development of health content. I have no ideas for where you could go to talk about this - perhaps en:WP:PUMP. Blue Rasberry (talk) 17:23, 24 June 2014 (UTC)
Different language projects actually have different takes on this. Although most don't seem to carry disclaimers directly on medical article pages, a few do. Some that do carry more or less prominent individual page warnings containing a link to a medical disclaimer page are:
  • Chinese (zh, roughly translated, "Wikipedia is for reference only and cannot be considered professional advice. For any health problems, consult a health care professional.")
  • Dutch (nl, "Be aware of the medical information disclaimer. Consult with a health physician.")
  • German (de, "Please note the information on health topics!")
  • Italian (it, "The information provided is not medical advice and may not be accurate. The information contained herein is for illustrative purposes only and is not a substitute for medical advice: Read the health warning.")
  • Latvian (lv, "Warning: Wikipedia cannot replace a doctor!")
and
  • Esperanto (eo, "Please note the warning regarding articles about medical issues!")
MistyMorn (talk) 18:18, 25 June 2014 (UTC)
Sorry for only mentioning English Wikipedia but, yes, as MistyMorn says, this is an international multilingual, multiple project issue. I am not aware of the nature of discussions on this issue outside of English language, but they have happened. I expect that more discussion has happened in English than anywhere else, just because I do not recall anyone describing a precedent for settling this in another language. Blue Rasberry (talk) 14:11, 26 June 2014 (UTC)

Wikimania 2014

I'm coming on the last day (Sunday). I know James will be there. Anyone else going? JFW (talk) 11:24, 13 June 2014 (UTC)

:-) Would try to make any MED meet-up MistyMorn (talk) 13:19, 13 June 2014 (UTC)
I'm going for all the conference. Vinicius Siqueira (talk) 16:35, 13 June 2014 (UTC)
I will be there throughout, and am keen to organize some event for medics outside the main programme, with Cancer Research UK, where I am Wikipedian in residence. But I need to be fixing this shortly. Wiki CRUK John (talk) 15:17, 20 June 2014 (UTC)
  • That's certainly playing to CRUK's strengths, although will mainly or only work for English-language editors. Or will it? I suppose the same issues exist in most languages. We could have an afternoon event, running into an early evening social. I'm going to start a sub-page to collect views on what, when, and where. I will post it on the English project talk, and would be very grateful if people could post it to other language equivalents. Of course this is for all medical editors not just members of this thorg or local projects. Link soon. Wiki CRUK John (talk) 11:24, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

Vector graphics from Cancer Research UK

Hi, I have been working with Johnbod, over the last month or so, to release 391 vector graphics relating to cancer. I am hoping that a couple of volunteers active in Wikiproject Med might promote these, and ensure they are nicely used and categorized? I have given a basic category but these need a little specialist attention. The ones uploaded today have "CRUK <nnn>" at the end of the file name.

I have uploaded a lot of other images, but it is unusual to get professional vector diagrams released, these are highly useful for print publications and rescale nicely for use in Wikipedia articles.

Thanks -- (talk) 12:26, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

Board training

The Boards training workshop August 2014 in London might interest some of you, although the timing may be difficult. Training for Board members is often very valuable. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:52, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

Thematic organization recognition process

Hello, Wiki Project Med members and supporters!

Thank you for applying for recognition as a thematic organization! My name is Kirill Lokshin, and I will be your primary Affiliations Committee liaison as you move through the recognition process. Greg Varnum, whom some of you probably know, will be assisting me as the secondary liaison. Please do not hesitate to reach out to either of us at any time if you have any questions, comments, or concerns.

To begin the recognition process, I have a few standard questions for you to answer. I suspect that you already have answers for some or all of these written up somewhere, so please feel free to point me to the correct locations rather than copying material here.

  1. Who are the people behind Wiki Project Med? How many members do you have, how are they geographically distributed, and which Wikimedia projects are they active in? How many people do you expect will eventually want to join? Are any prominent (on a local or international level) Wikimedians involved?
  2. What thematic area and context do you cover or plan to cover? What Wikimedia projects do you actively work or plan to work with?
  3. Please give a short summary of your history from the founding of the group to the present. What projects and activities has the group organized? Do you publish periodic reports of your activities?
  4. What kind of projects activities are you planning for the future? Where do you see Wiki Project Med in a year? In five years?
  5. How can the Affiliations Committee and the Wikimedia Foundation help Wiki Project Med?

I will be reviewing your legal structure and bylaws over the next few days and will post a separate set of observations regarding those. In the meantime, please feel free to contact me if you have any questions, or if there's some way that I can assist you. Kirill Lokshin [talk] 20:08, 30 August 2014 (UTC)

Many Thank User talk:Kirill Lokshin
  1. Who are the people behind Wiki Project Med? How many members do you have, how are they geographically distributed, and which Wikimedia projects are they active in? How many people do you expect will eventually want to join? Are any prominent (on a local or international level) Wikimedians involved?
    1. We have a list of more than 100 people from more than 20 countries interested here [6]
    2. Our board members are from 6 different countries. We are set to add two more board members which will add one more country to the list.
    3. We are mostly involved with Wikipedias and Commons. With respect to prominence of our members, many are, having been involved with Wikipedia/Wikimedia for years.
  2. What thematic area and context do you cover or plan to cover? What Wikimedia projects do you actively work or plan to work with?
    1. Health care. Mostly work on Wikipedias but also on Commons
  3. Please give a short summary of your history from the founding of the group to the present. What projects and activities has the group organized? Do you publish periodic reports of your activities?
    1. The idea was first announced at Wikimania in 2012. The organization was than incorporated in NY state and the by-laws were approved on Nov 2nd, 2013.
    2. The organization has been actively involved with outreach to multiple organizations before and since that time. This includes to the National Institute of Health (in collaboration with Wikimedia DC), outreach to the Italian Cochrane Collaboration (in collaboration with Wikimedia Italy), speaking at medical schools in India and Nepal (in collaboration with Wikimedians of Nepal and Wikimedia India), speaking at the NHS (in collaboration with Wikimedia UK), setting up a Wikipedia in Residence at the World Health Organization, supporting the hiring of a Wikipedia in Residence at Cancer Research UK and at the Cochrane Collaboration, speaking at a medical school in Tehran (in collaboration with the local Wikipedia community their) and others
    3. Our largest project is our translation task force which involves all the previous collaboration plus working closely with Translators Without Borders and Wikipedians in many dozens of languages. Recently to support this effort one of our members has received an IEG to develop greater inter language collaboration
    4. Other projects include developing a copy and paste detection bot for medical content in collaboration with Wikimedia Israel. We are also working on a number of research projects regarding Wikipedia and medicine including look at the quality of medical content
    5. We have not been as good at producing newsletters as we should be. One for the translation task force is here [7] and an older one is here [8]
    6. Our efforts have also generated a fair bit of press [9] and [10] which we do not keep track of as well as we could
  4. What kind of projects activities are you planning for the future? Where do you see Wiki Project Med in a year? In five years?
    1. Plans are to continue working on our current projects and increase collaboration with other Wikimedia chapters and like minded organizations. We are looking at a collaboration with UNESCO and the Khan academy among others. The goal is to have high quality health care content available to all in the language of their choice. This will likely take at least a lifetime but we concentrate on little steps that move us in the right direction.
  5. How can the Affiliations Committee and the Wikimedia Foundation help Wiki Project Med?
    1. Wiki Project Med Foundation and the WMF of course have already been collaborating. The foundation direct those interested in being involved with medicine to us and we inquire with the WMF when we need tech solutions we cannot figure out how to solve on our own. Additionally we have been involved in discussion on how to get Wikipedia disseminated more effectively in the developing world.
    2. The current support of User:CFCF with the IEG is much appreciated. Would love to see a small number of standard templates across all Wikipedias. Getting the cite journal and cite book templates to work is often a pain.
Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 07:04, 1 September 2014 (UTC)

New board member

I would like to propose User:Keilana as a board member. (for vote by the current board)

Support
Oppose
Abstain
Discussion

Have all of you logged into Meta recently, or are you handling this offwiki? WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:27, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

I have alerts set up but I clearly missed this one. We definitely need Keilana on (the) board! JFW (talk) 09:57, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

African language editions

Noting some good work has been done on ebola information on several African language editions, am hoping to aid to expand that effort, to bm.wikipedia.org for example, and assist in facilitating more on other health topics. Have raised the issue of the Bambara Wikipedia in conversation on another topic with a representative of the Mali Health Organizing Project (which evidently collaborates with the Dokotoro Project).--A12n (talk) 19:19, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

Kudos! Really relevant stuff with a big potential to make a difference. MistyMorn (talk) 11:45, 4 October 2014 (UTC)
Thanks! Note also this initiative by Guaka: W:User:Guaka/ebola.--A12n (talk) 13:27, 27 October 2014 (UTC)
Let me know if you need any help on the English side of things. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 14:39, 27 October 2014 (UTC)

Widernet liason?

I just stumbled upon Widernet, a group that is engaged in making a subset of the internet's content available on local servers where the net itself is not available or where bandwidth is very dear. Wikipedia content (all of it) is included. Many of these servers are going to isolated villages. Disk images are periodically updated at pragmatic intervals. They also have a med-focussed subset they are distributing on 32 Gb SD-cards. It might be useful to explore what is possible for closing the loop, to allow feedback from the field to reach WPMed editors in a structured way. Do we have someone who gets near Chapel Hill, NC occasionally? LeadSongDog (talk) 20:11, 24 October 2014 (UTC)

Thanks Lead. Will email them. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 16:49, 25 October 2014 (UTC)

Combined our logos

Logo for Wiki Project Med Foundation

Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 16:40, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

For reasons of legibility, you might want to make the artwork smaller relative to the words. Commonly, you want the width of the artwork to be no more than two-thirds the width of the words, but it depends (a lot) on the length of the words and the exact use (e.g., letterhead vs the corner of a webpage). Then you can make the overall image large enough to read it without the artwork taking over the page. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:53, 24 October 2014 (UTC)
Would love to see improvements. Not exactly sure what you mean though? Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 16:52, 25 October 2014 (UTC)
Look at the logo in the upper left corner of this page. The word "WIKIMEDIA" is wider than the circle—it sticks out on the sides. You should try the same thing with this logo. Make the circle smaller (or the words bigger; the end result is the same) to get a better balance. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:39, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

Translate tags

I find these really annoying and have no idea how they work. Anyone else? Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 17:38, 23 October 2014 (UTC)

I find them annoying, but I know how they work. Do you have questions? WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:48, 24 October 2014 (UTC)
I do not know what to think other than I do not understand them. At Wikimedia LGBT/Portal someone developed a complicated translation system which can be seen at the top of the page. I am more worried about not knowing best practices for translation than I am about trying to recruit translators; I feel like if project pages like this made it easier then people actually would step up and translate. Blue Rasberry (talk) 20:01, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

Formal affiliation with the Wikimedia Foundation

The Wikimedia Foundation provides various affiliation schemes through which community organizations can partner with the Wikimedia Foundation and its network of affiliated community groups. I just read that the affiliations committee signaled approval that Wiki Project Med be a Wikimedia user group. Blue Rasberry (talk) 16:03, 12 November 2014 (UTC)

Congratulations and welcome!

Congratulations on your recent recognition as a user group! We wanted to let you know about this tool for Wikimedia organizations (including user groups) that was just recently developed, in case you are interested in participating in the first phase of the project. We are collecting a first round of responses until 21 December: Organizational_effectiveness/Tool. We wanted to let you know about the tool, since as a newer group, we may not have reached out to you yet.

If your group is interested in participating, but has questions, we'd be happy to help you get started. Just contact me on my user page or send me a note at orgeffectiveness at wikimedia dot org. Cheers and welcome, Winifred Olliff (FDC Support Team) talk 19:13, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

The use of Wikipedia by doctors for their information needs

This is a proposal for a research project to study the relationship between Wikipedia and the information needs of doctors. The community's knowledge and feedback is more than appreciated! — The preceding unsigned comment was added by Richardpullicino (talk) 19:43, 30 March 2014 (UTC)