Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 16:25, 4 January 2014

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Should Misplaced Pages provide a more prominent disclaimer template in general, or for medical and health-related content?

Misplaced Pages is a prominent source of online health information, and its medical disclaimer is not linked directly on any article. Instead, it is reached by clicking on the small-print link to the general disclaimer, on the last line of all pages. Concerns that Misplaced Pages make readers aware of the "anyone can edit" nature of Misplaced Pages have been raised; background discussions are in Alanyst's sandbox and at the Medicine Project talk archive. 06:25, 28 December 2013 (UTC)

Context

A 2013 review found that Misplaced Pages is a common source of online heath information (PMID 24103318) and a 2013 study found that Misplaced Pages is the most commonly accessed website for clinical pharmacy articles. (PMID 24259640)

The 2013 review found that :

The only longitudinal study conducted between 2005 and 2009 observed an increase in prevalence of Misplaced Pages use from 2% to 16% among undergraduate medical and biomedical students. Another study reported higher use among younger medical students (480/593, 81%) compared to older consultants (215/389, 55%). Studies on the use of Misplaced Pages by pharmacists report rates of use ranging between 35% using this site for work-related questions in 2009 to 72% using it mainly for personal reasons in 2011. For consumers, Misplaced Pages was ranked first when using search engines to find information about rare diseases and to find information on generic drugs. Misplaced Pages ranked as the second most consulted website both by a group of patients with Crohn’s disease as well as by students searching for biomedical information. ... A recurrent finding about the information in Misplaced Pages was that it is in large part accurate, free, and easy to access. However, even though Misplaced Pages does not recommend including medication doses due to concerns about errors, it is often incomplete and can lack appropriate referencing of medical information, thereby possibly indirectly causing patient harm.

From Scott Martin: This 2013 piece in the Boston Globe, by a medical student, underlines the importance of making our readers aware that our medical content is not authoritative.

That's the promise of Misplaced Pages in health care — a freely accessible and user-friendly platform through which to explore virtually any subject in medicine. But there's another side to consider. During our pulmonology block last year, two of my classmates saw an error in the site's entry for hyperventilation. They fixed the mistake and, as a joke, added "Kenny's syndrome" as a name for a particular condition. To their surprise, the edit stayed for weeks, and they even found other websites citing my friend as an acid-base disorder. Hence, the opportunity for anyone to edit Misplaced Pages with minimal regulation has a terrifying capacity to influence the environment for clinicians-in-training. In the worst-case scenario, these inaccuracies could adversely impact the care that patients eventually receive.

— Nathaniel P. Morris, New operating system: Misplaced Pages’s role in medical education brings awesome promise — and a few risks, Boston Globe, 18 November 2013

The error corrected by the medical student in February 2013 was inserted by an IP two months earlier. The false "Kenny's syndrome" inserted in February 2013 was removed three months later.

Other papers have negatively reviewed the quality of Misplaced Pages's information (PMID 24276492), and according to DocJames, an Indian pharmacy journal article scraped text from Misplaced Pages without attribution, setting up the possibility of undetected mirrors, where Misplaced Pages articles then cite Misplaced Pages's own content.

Other disclaimers

Misplaced Pages allows some content disclaimers, like {{Current}} and {{Recent death}} at the top of articles.

Other language Wikipedias use medical disclaimers:

Disclaimer views

The current disclaimer is rarely viewed by readers. Per WhatamIdoing, en.Misplaced Pages's medical disclaimer gets fewer than 100 views per day, while similar items on the same line (Misplaced Pages:About and Contact Misplaced Pages ) get about 12,000 page views per day.

Some sample problems

Errors in Misplaced Pages's content may stand for months to years.

• Cancer drug, Erlotinib
• Drug info based on one Ambien case report that stood uncited, for two years in aphasia
• Uncited, inaccurate drug information at Hallucination that stood for over a year.
• Medical cannabis 27 December compared to the version that stood for years
• Long-term effects of cannabis as it stood for years
• Adrian J. Hunter list
• In October 2007, an IP added a fictitious condition ("glucojasinogen") to Diabetic neuropathy; the hoax was not removed until February 2012. According to Edward Ockham's blog, the false information was replayed in journal articles (see PMID 23112395, PMID 21589767 and African Journals Online), and is now indexed on Google Scholar.

Article assessment

See talk for assessment table

Of the 1,010 articles and lists rated as Top or High Importance by the Medicine WikiProject:

• 25% are Start or Stub class
• 65% are B or C class
• 8% are GA or FA
• 2% are other lists.

If all articles and lists (regardless of rating on the "Importance" scale) are included, quality ratings are lower.

Disclaimer proposals for medical content

Version A

This version highlights the "anyone can edit" aspect, which distinguishes Misplaced Pages from other online sources of health information, and encourages edits:

Version B

This version has wording similar to the disclaimer at the bottom of articles:

Version C

Proposed by NeilN to be added to the top of all article pages:

Oppose in general

• Oppose medical disclaimer proposed by Doc James
• Oppose extra banner linking to medical disclaimer proposed by Lesion

Views

All signed comments and talk not related to an endorsement of a view should be directed to this page's discussion page or the Discussion section at the end. Threaded discussion should not be added below; it should be posted on the talk page. Threaded replies to another user's !vote, endorsement, response, or comment should be posted to the talk page, and may be moved there.

SandyGeorgia: support version A

My support for a template in general, and Version A specifically, is based on my experience as a medical editor finding bad information in almost every medical article I touch, but more importantly, on the number of times I encounter people in real life who do not understand that Misplaced Pages articles are not necessarily "vetted" in any way by experts, and medical content on Misplaced Pages may be written by JoeBloe your next-door neighbor. In my experience, many consumers of health care information are not aware of the "anyone can edit" aspect of Misplaced Pages, and there are too few qualified medical editors trying to keep up with too much work.

Contrary to the claim that medical editors will be offended if we "template" their work, I would happily add a disclaimer to a featured article, written primarily by me—Tourette syndrome.

To those who say flagged revisions can address the problems, even several of our medical FAs are out of date; we don't always have a good version to flag.

To the argument that our "current" templates are only used in situations where recent events may make it hard for editors to keep up, I counter that the few experienced medical editors Misplaced Pages has cannot keep up with medical content, particularly since the advent of (poor) student edits as part of university courses.

To those who say that no real harm has ever come to anyone as a result of Misplaced Pages, why should we wait for an incident to happen (as in the Siegenthaler controversy that led to Misplaced Pages's BLP policy)? The best example of real harm and death that resulted from medical misinformation in the media and on the internet—one in which Misplaced Pages played a role—can be found at MMR vaccine controversy#Media role. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:17, 27 December 2013 (UTC)

Endorse

1. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:17, 27 December 2013 (UTC)
2. Having a mention in this RFC, it should not come as a surprise that I strongly support this option. — Scott • talk 14:07, 27 December 2013 (UTC)
3. Per SandyGeorgia. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 14:27, 27 December 2013 (UTC)
4. Regardless of how obvious it may seem to Wikipedians that anyone can edit Misplaced Pages, the fact remains that the general public does not know and understand this. I recently spoke to a senior nurse who has used Misplaced Pages, and she had no idea that anyone could change the information at any time. She was completely incredulous when I told her, and I don't even think it really sank in. --Andreas JN466 19:07, 28 December 2013 (UTC)
5. Johnbod (talk) 02:08, 29 December 2013 (UTC)
6. At wikipedia a single driven person can dominate and control an article or even vandalize it for a brief period. It is dangerous to allow this to happen in medical pages without an obvious disclaimer. Any argument that people know the nature of wikipedia ignores all the studies to the contrary, and a person who wants no disclaimer may have a suspect motive like wanting to manipulate people's health decisions in this way. IWannaPeterPumpkinEaterPeterParker (talk) 06:33, 29 December 2013 (UTC)

   Threaded discussion moved to talk. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:37, 29 December 2013 (UTC)

7. Absolutely. Why wait for something horrible to happen? Lankiveil 13:07, 29 December 2013 (UTC).
8. Of course. SandyGeorgia has this one nailed. Santa Claus of the Future (talk) 01:21, 30 December 2013 (UTC)
9. I like the Portuguese WP solution to this. The German/Norwegian solution (bottom posting) seems less targeted but also appropriate. I would be interested to see the results of a trial of A. – SJ + 10:48, 30 December 2013 (UTC)
10. Support, although I can't really see this helping much. Idiots would probably still trust Misplaced Pages's medical information even if we had a giant click-through interstitial page. Reaper Eternal (talk) 13:47, 30 December 2013 (UTC)
11. A very good idea for a number of reasons, including the fact that COI editors can add material that is promotional in nature. This is my first choice. My second choice would be the other disclaimer notice, version B. Changed my mind about Version B after reading the discussion. Coretheapple (talk) 15:07, 30 December 2013 (UTC)
12. Support, enthusiastically. I actually support any kind of medical disclaimer that our readers can easily see. The organization of the discussions on this page has become rather confusing, but I really do not care whether it is version A, B, or anything else that gets the message across. --Tryptofish (talk) 15:45, 30 December 2013 (UTC)
13. Still ruminating, but am happier with this present rathert than absent. I prefer them to highlight that in general, any page with medical information is no substitute for medical advice from a doctor that you actually see (which is done better on version B). I worry that worded any other way makes us look too self-effacing. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 01:34, 31 December 2013 (UTC)
14. We strive to provide a balanced and accurate portrayal of all subjects, but in the medical field especially we have a duty to our readers to remind them that they should consult reliable sources, not an tertiary source that has probably not been reviewed by medical professionals. LFaraone 07:34, 31 December 2013 (UTC)
15. Misplaced Pages as generally the top google search result needs to take responsibility for effect it has. Also comparison with BLP policy is spot on.--Staberinde (talk) 09:01, 31 December 2013 (UTC)
16. Strongly endorse the concept and this version of it. I don't doubt that something bad already has happened from people reading or misreading our "medical" articles, and we just didn't hear about it. First Light (talk) 15:45, 31 December 2013 (UTC)
17. I agree that A is the best version of the disclaimer because it emphasizes that anyone can edit Misplaced Pages. And we badly need some form of disclaimer. The opponents of disclaimers often fail to understand that it matters whether something is prominent; it's not good enough to say "well, there is a disclaimer link at the bottom of the page". Ken Arromdee (talk) 22:29, 31 December 2013 (UTC)
18. Of the three options, I prefer "A" for the same or very similar reasons articulated so well by SandyGeorgia and others in this endorsement list. I would argue for a second phase to this discussion in which refinements to the chosen option can be proposed. For example, Anyone can edit this article will imply to some readers that they've arrived at the Wild, Wild West of medical articles where any 'ol gunslinger can write any 'ol thing he (or she) pleases--and it will stick because the Sheriff left town a long time ago. It's not that bad! Of course, I have brilliant ideas that will make the "A" option perfect, but I'll save 'em for later. Mark D Worthen PsyD 15:17, 1 January 2014 (UTC)
19. This isn't a clear-cut decision for me, but of the options I think A is the least worst, and support it. It is preferable in my view to have a disclaimer than have the bogus information on Misplaced Pages adversely affect people. Alexbrn 09:43, 2 January 2014 (UTC)
20. Documentation of harm and continued possible problems in lieu of a disclaimer seem fairly clear to me that readers need to be explicitly informed about what Misplaced Pages is not intended for, in this case. I agree that this does not represent a mass templating of editors' work, but a clarification of the purpose of medical articles on Misplaced Pages. In addition, a reminder that improvements to the article can be made by anyone is helpful as it encourages future improvements. I, JethroBT 16:14, 2 January 2014 (UTC)
21. Support A. A document that could be changed at any time by anybody should never be considered authoritative in health care, and the readers including physicians should be made aware of this right away in reading an article.(Littleolive oil (talk) 18:28, 2 January 2014 (UTC))
22. Sandy's analysis is convincing. Highlighting the "anyone can edit" aspect may make people take the disclaimer more seriously, rather than just lumping it in with the standard disclaimers that everyone includes for legal reasons, often ex abundanti cautela. Neljack (talk) 01:44, 3 January 2014 (UTC)
23. I Support this, Wiki pedia needs more disclaimers because it is easy to change it and no one notices even if it is fixed. Thank you, MarioNovi (talk) 08:50, 3 January 2014 (UTC)

SandyGeorgia: oppose version B

A general disclaimer like Version B is not helpful: it does not highlight the "anyone can edit" nature of Misplaced Pages, which distinguishes Misplaced Pages content from other medical website content. Misplaced Pages readers need to be made aware-- not that Misplaced Pages has content errors like any other medical website-- but that Misplaced Pages articles are not necessarily written by or vetted by people with medical backgrounds, training or expertise.

Endorse

1. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:17, 27 December 2013 (UTC)
2. I am more opporsed to version B than I am to version A. If there is consensus that a disclaimer is to be used (as indeed on other language Wikipedias such as NL) I would want to support A and oppose B. JFW | T@lk 13:50, 27 December 2013 (UTC)
3. Per SandyGeorgia. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 14:25, 27 December 2013 (UTC)
4. --Andreas JN466 19:07, 28 December 2013 (UTC)
5. Johnbod (talk) 02:09, 29 December 2013 (UTC)
6. — Scott • talk 12:36, 29 December 2013 (UTC)
7. Ceoil (talk) 14:41, 30 December 2013 (UTC)
8. The general disclaimer is all we should need or permit, unless the WMF legal staff advises otherwise.. DES 23:20, 30 December 2013 (UTC)
9. I, JethroBT 16:17, 2 January 2014 (UTC)

SandyGeorgia: neutral on version C

NeilN proposed Version C after the start of this RFC (see Misplaced Pages talk:WikiProject Medicine/RFC on medical disclaimer#NeilN). If all disclaimers are added to the top of articles (rather than buried at the bottom within the general disclaimer) I do not oppose this option and consider it a worthy compromise, in that it gets the disclaimer up top where it is more likely to be seen by unsuspecting readers, and it provides for a disclaimer on all articles, not just medical.

Endorse

1. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:54, 30 December 2013 (UTC)
2. Highlighting the disclaimers, which are at present (as WhatamIdoing notes) practically invisible to most readers, seems fairly uncontroversial to me. I don't particularly buy the general argument about "clutter." I'm neutral, however, as I don't think this is necessarily the best option. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 06:56, 31 December 2013 (UTC)

Doc James: oppose medical disclaimer

I do not see a medical disclaimer as needed:

1. Many other sites have content worse than that of Misplaced Pages and do not contain a warning.
2. A disclaimer will clutter the top of the article (how will this mesh with the new text messaging option for getting access to Misplaced Pages content?).
3. The warning is already at the end of the article.
4. There are mistakes in other sites including the Lancet and the Mayo Clinic (which people expect to be accurate).
5. People do not expect Misplaced Pages to be accurate. I have asked many students if they use Misplaced Pages and all respond with hesitance as they have all heard from profs how bad it is.
6. If these notices drive away editors and have no effect on readership / usage then it could potentially result in overall harm.

Endorse

1. Would be happy to see a trial of A looking at if an invitation to edit increases high quality improvements. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 23:48, 23 December 2013 (UTC)
2. Reaffirm my opinion in the WT:MED discussion that all disclaimers should be avoided, but like James I can support a trial (ideally with metrics) of version A to see if it actually makes Misplaced Pages medical content better. I would oppose a trial on featured articles. JFW | T@lk 13:48, 27 December 2013 (UTC)
3. A point not noted is that if we put special disclaimers at the top of some articles, we risk inadvertently and incorrectly implying that articles without the extra disclaimer somehow carry less risk of inaccuracy, or that their content has no 'medical' implications. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 14:14, 27 December 2013 (UTC)
4. Agree with this position. No disclaimer is needed. --LT910001 (talk) 00:58, 28 December 2013 (UTC)
5. The fact that anyone can edit is advertised on every single page. Ramaksoud2000 08:11, 28 December 2013 (UTC)
6. Agree, no extra disclaimer notice is needed. ~~Ebe123~~ → report 19:03, 28 December 2013 (UTC)
7. Agreed. Well said. --BDD (talk) 00:51, 29 December 2013 (UTC)
8. Interesting point regarding the actual effect. There's two hypothesis with option A; a) the disclaimer will result in a better informed (layperson) user b) the disclaimer will discourage editors who are unfamiliar with the intent of the disclaimer. It might be worth a well designed RCT using non-live pages to test both. Ian Furst (talk) 01:30, 29 December 2013 (UTC)
9. Agree with all of the numbered statements above in the analysis by Doc James. Cheers, — Cirt (talk) 04:54, 29 December 2013 (UTC)
10. Also agree with all six points. Acer (talk) 17:22, 29 December 2013 (UTC)
11. The range of our articles where incorrect information could cause extremely negative consequences if acted upon is vast. Trying to tag them all gets us into a never ending game of "why didn't you warn us about this?".©Geni (talk) 08:36, 30 December 2013 (UTC)
12. Agree, especially with points 1,4,5. - Ypnypn (talk) 14:18, 30 December 2013 (UTC)
    • TenOfAllTrades makes a good point as well. -- Ypnypn (talk) 14:21, 30 December 2013 (UTC)
13. Agree. What should be done is move the current disclaimer link to the top and make it more prominent. --NeilN 14:36, 30 December 2013 (UTC)
14. Agreed. Resolute 17:09, 30 December 2013 (UTC)
15. Agree on all points. Kaldari (talk) 21:38, 30 December 2013 (UTC)
16. Agree. Mainly b/c there are lots of sources for medical information out there that range from the reliable to semi-reliable to completely unreliable. Few contain medical disclaimers. It's reasonable to assume that students and particularly med students shouldn't be using Misplaced Pages as a primary source for important medical information. NickCT (talk) 00:30, 1 January 2014 (UTC)
17. James' point 6 is the killer. We can't think for people in the general case, anyone who needs a medical disclaimer won't read it and it would only discourage editing - which is presently well-policed - David Gerard (talk) 23:32, 2 January 2014 (UTC)
18. I agree especially with point 6, as David Gerard describes above. If we had some sort of evidence that there's a genuine problem here of people trusting medical advice from Misplaced Pages I'd might change my mind, but right now I'm not seeing it. And it would be nice to have something other than anecdotal evidence backing up any claim that there's a problem here. For every anecdote there's an equal an opposite anecdote. JoshuaZ (talk) 00:26, 3 January 2014 (UTC)
19. Agree on all points. I'm opposed to making the existing notice more prominent unless we are legally obliged to do so. —Psychonaut (talk) 23:26, 3 January 2014 (UTC)
20. Agreed on all 6 points, and would add a point 7: We'll never get this on all medical articles all the time. If people notice most of the medical articles have this disclaimer and a few do not, this may actually serve counter to its purpose, and make them think those articles are special or vetted. We do not and should not splatter articles with disclaimers. Seraphimblade 04:36, 4 January 2014 (UTC)
21. I agree that a disclaimer is not warranted. Looie496 (talk) 04:58, 4 January 2014 (UTC)
22. Endorse as per TenOfAllTrades. Disclaimers like these two are not the right direction for the project.   — C M B J   11:17, 4 January 2014 (UTC)
23. Agreed. Also, I find the fact that Misplaced Pages:Medical disclaimer has low daily page views to be unconvincing, as the text of Misplaced Pages:General disclaimer, which has a higher pageview rate, is really sufficient to make the point that medical articles (or any other article, for that matter) are not guaranteed to be accurate. The comparisons made somewhere here to WP:About and WP:Contact us are also misleading, since those are linked from the sidebar as well as the bottom. If anything, perhaps a link to the disclaimers should be added to the sidebar's "navigation" or "interaction" sections (instead of any of these proposals). Anomie⚔ 14:00, 4 January 2014 (UTC)
24. I think I am with Doc J on this one. I'd be ok with a version in between, perhaps: milder than A and B, but more up to the point than D. Something like: "Anyone can edit this article: medical disclaimer". --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 15:15, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

User:Lesion: Oppose extra banner linking to medical disclaimer

1. Redundancy-- We already have a medical disclaimer linked on every page. Medicolegally and morally this is a non-issue.
2. No evidence of harm or benefit-- There is no evidence that either medical content on Misplaced Pages harms anyone or that adding a more obvious link to the medical disclaimer at the top of the article would prevent such harm or have any other benefit. In my experience, the public opinion of Misplaced Pages in general is low. I believe inclusion of such an eye-catching banner will only serve to trigger an irritated "Well duh..." from readers. Also, I do not believe any editor who might come here to get personal medical will be discouraged by such a banner. The work / benefit ratio for this venture is therefore questionable. Even if implemented by a bot, this will still require some work.
3. More clutter in the lead-- The lead of articles is already cluttered. I am surprised to see some die hard opponents of infoboxes campaign for more clutter.
4. How are we special?-- Other Misplaced Pages articles are prepared in a similar way to medical articles, yet they do not contain any extra disclaimer. How is it that medical articles are any different? I have difficulty with this.
5. Concerns about blanket application-- No clear details are given as to what method is used to decide which articles get this extra disclaimer. Regarding blanket application of the disclaimer on all articles, I do not understand the logic of wanting to use such disclaimers even on FA articles. This is basically saying that no matter what the actual content is, it should always contain an "extra" warning. We are saying that our internal peer review process counts for nothing, and no matter what we do the article will always be potentially harmful.
6. Re other language wikipedias-- The argument that other language wikipedias have medical disclaimer is not particularly valid since the medical content on those wikis is likely of a lower standard. I do not speak any other language fluently to better assess this, but perhaps we can make this assumption based purely on the average length of non english wikipedia medical articles.
7. Total lack of consensus for anything-- I also anticipate continued total lack of consensus as to the exact appearance, wording and placement of the disclaimer, which articles get it and the particulars of the proposed trial period. There is no method by which the baseline and effect of disclaimer are to be assessed in a trial period, how long the period will last, and how makes these determinations. This will all take much effort and time. Our editors might better spend their volunteer time improving the encyclopedia.
8. Undermines our goals-- Overall, we should aspire for professional status in our medical articles. A professional appearance is part of this. Already our finest work is of better quality than other sources of online medical information. Lesion (talk) 18:41, 27 December 2013 (UTC)

Endorse

1. Lesion (talk) 14:12, 27 December 2013 (UTC)
2. Especially points 1, 3 and 7. Hordaland (talk) 20:27, 27 December 2013 (UTC)
3. We already advertise that anyone can edit. This is not needed. Ramaksoud2000 08:13, 28 December 2013 (UTC)
4. Endorse completely, these encapsulate what I feel about this issue --LT910001 (talk) 09:58, 28 December 2013 (UTC)
5. WS (talk) 10:53, 28 December 2013 (UTC)
6. Self-declaring our work as inherently poor will not encourage others to improve it. I endorse all points. Graham Colm (talk) 10:58, 28 December 2013 (UTC)
7. Misplaced Pages:PERENNIAL#Content_warnings says it all for me. Narutolovehinata5 12:22, 28 December 2013 (UTC)
8. Endorse all points. Acer (talk) 18:28, 28 December 2013 (UTC)
9. Logical and rational explanation and analysis. Agree with Graham Colm. Endorse all points. — Cirt (talk) 04:55, 29 December 2013 (UTC)
10. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 12:41, 30 December 2013 (UTC)
11. Agree, especially points 4 and 5. -- Ypnypn (talk) 14:19, 30 December 2013 (UTC)
12. Yup. Resolute 17:10, 30 December 2013 (UTC)
13. Endorse all point, this argument accords with my personal opinions. ŞůṜīΣĻ¹98¹ 18:25, 30 December 2013 (UTC)
14. Agree on all points. Also, I oppose adding any more cruft above article content until we get rid of some of the existing cruft, like {{orphan}}. Kaldari (talk) 21:36, 30 December 2013 (UTC)
15. Agree. This proposal seems essentially identical to the one above. NickCT (talk) 00:32, 1 January 2014 (UTC)
16. Yep, per James as well - David Gerard (talk) 23:33, 2 January 2014 (UTC)

Sunrise: oppose version A

I do not intend to provide a general list of reasons to oppose disclaimers (which have already been provided), but rather to make two points about this particular disclaimer. These are the same ones that I brought up in the original discussion at WT:MED.

• As written, I think this template will become an enabler of POV pushing, because it contains a specific instruction to the reader which essentially makes a positive assertion that the article is not reliable (or at least it is easy to interpret in that way). Of course many templates can be used for POV pushing, but I think this would be one of the worse ones (when does an article or section have enough medical content to deserve a template? etc).
• I think that disclaimers on certain articles, like vaccination (or MMR vaccine controversy), are likely to do more harm than good - it will become an argument for anyone who wants to discredit the scientific consensus on these topics, and a prominent reason for a reader (who might otherwise have been educated by our article) to reject that consensus when it is presented in Misplaced Pages.

Endorse

1. In both cases, I think that a descriptive statement like "Misplaced Pages does not give medical advice" is less likely to be problematic. Sunrise (talk) 22:40, 27 December 2013 (UTC)
2. Agree with reasons given above by Sunrise on why this could be inherently problematic. — Cirt (talk) 04:56, 29 December 2013 (UTC)

Sunrise: support medical disclaimer

As with my above comment, I'm not providing a comprehensive list of reasons here, but just the reason I think is most important. I don't find it plausible that Misplaced Pages's medical information does not cause real-world harm when it is inaccurate, simply by probability. Even if e.g. only one in a thousand people will take Misplaced Pages's word as truth - which is likely an underestimate - that's still a lot when considering the number of pageviews that our medical articles get. A disclaimer template may or may not be the best approach to solving the problem, but it is a valid one.

Endorse

1. Personally I'm not very confident in this opinion, but I'm still posting it since I think at the least it's an argument that should be made. For the record, I support version B - I think there should be a few changes, e.g. adding a request for MEDRS-quality sources like version A has, but that discussion can come later. Sunrise (talk) 22:40, 27 December 2013 (UTC)
2. Even one person coming to harm because of poor-quality medical information that may be in an article is too many. If the disclaimer encourages one person to see a doctor rather than diagnosing themselves on Misplaced Pages, that is a victory. Lankiveil 13:09, 29 December 2013 (UTC).
3. Yes, on balance of things. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 20:41, 30 December 2013 (UTC)
4. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 06:54, 31 December 2013 (UTC)
5. Strong support - We definitely need to have this - with the possible exception of BLPs, these have the highest potential of causing real-world damage; and unlike BLPs, these tend to be much more disputed to the point that any non-medical person would have no way of recognizing the proper weight for the different opinions. A disclaimer like this has the effect of reducing this damage. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 09:27, 2 January 2014 (UTC)
6. --Andreas JN466 06:24, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

Ian Furst: support Version A, oppose Version B & C

Disclaimer B appears to be the standard medico-legal disclaimer. I believe it does nothing to better inform the layperson reading the article, about the limitations of Misplaced Pages nor does it protect Misplaced Pages (or it's editors) any better than the general disclaimer.

As for disclaimer A;

1. we know that people use the site for medical information, if not advice and we can't change that
2. there is the real potential for malicious changes that could mislead someone
3. the potential for harm is greater on medical articles than many other types of articles, especially if malicious editing is occurring unchecked.
4. consideration should be given to adding the rating system to the box so people have some measure of the reliability of the article.

Endorse

1. Ian Furst (talk) 22:12, 28 December 2013 (UTC)

   Endorse, with the exception of the fourth point. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:24, 28 December 2013 (UTC) Um, you changed your declaration after I supported, so I've had to strike my endorsement. I am not opposed to version C. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:20, 31 December 2013 (UTC)

2. Per Sandy. --Andreas JN466 02:03, 29 December 2013 (UTC)
3. Per Sandy. — Scott • talk 12:35, 29 December 2013 (UTC)
4. Per Sandy. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 14:41, 30 December 2013 (UTC)

Scott Martin: support version A

1. What other websites do or do not do is irrelevant. Whether other publications have mistakes is irrelevant. We need to take responsibility for our own content in a manner that makes sense for this project in terms of both general audience and specialized readers of all types.
2. Existing articles do not already have a warning. What they have is the word "Disclaimers", linking to Misplaced Pages:General disclaimer (still another click away from Misplaced Pages:Medical disclaimer), in the footer, in small type, very small type, in the middle of other equally small links. If it were not already difficult enough to even notice it in there, its position means that it is literally the last thing to read on the page. On a 1280x1084-pixel resolution display, the article cancer pain takes up thirteen whole screens, one and a half of which is purely references. The notion that a casual reader coming in from a Google search will read all the way through an article, past the references section, and then investigate the minute and unhelpful word "disclaimers" is... well, there are many ways that it could be described, but I'll go with at odds with reality. (Via WhatamIdoing on the talk page: the stats show that fewer than 100 users per day view the medical disclaimer, and about 2500 look at the general disclaimer. By comparison, both "About Misplaced Pages" and "Contact Misplaced Pages", which are on the same line as "Disclaimers" and in the same font size, get about 12,000 page views per day. Yet when put in the context of the entire English Misplaced Pages's current 287m views a day, these figures are revealed to be microscopic. The medical disclaimer may as well not even exist.)
3. Time and again, the evidence (such as the news article quoted in this RFC) shows that people uncritically accept Misplaced Pages's content. We need to stop burying our heads in the sand, sit up, and take ownership of that understanding, which means educating our readers about the nature of what they are reading. This requires weighing the risks: of what some people are describing as "clutter" (an entirely subjective description) versus of allowing our readers to operate in ignorance. When the risk is merely of a reader being wrong about some general fact, warning them of such would present an unnecessary impediment to reading, as such a warning would need to be present on virtually every article. When the risk, however, is of readers causing actual physical harm, or possibly worse, uncritically propagating dangerously incorrect information that could cause such harm, the benefit of educating our readers vastly outweighs the "clutter" of an informational box at the start of an article.
4. Version A is sufficiently educative, presenting both a link to our detailed medical disclaimer and our definition of high-quality medical sources. The latter is of value to readers as well as editors, as assessing source quality is a key skill in correctly using Misplaced Pages.

Endorse

1. — Scott • talk 13:33, 30 December 2013 (UTC)
2. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:31, 30 December 2013 (UTC)
3. Exactly; there is an onus of responsibility for what is written here, regardless of otherstuff. Ceoil (talk) 14:38, 30 December 2013 (UTC)
4. Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 14:40, 30 December 2013 (UTC)
5. Well put. I'm amazed at the extent the public trusts Misplaced Pages. Trusting Misplaced Pages for articles on shoe polish is one thing; you may get a bad shoe shine. But medical and health articles are another matter entirely. Coretheapple (talk) 17:51, 30 December 2013 (UTC)
6. --Andreas JN466 07:23, 31 December 2013 (UTC)
7. Entirely valid. I wish the points here were false, but if we want to change public perception some notice is required. LFaraone 07:36, 31 December 2013 (UTC)
8. --Staberinde (talk) 13:58, 31 December 2013 (UTC)
9. Absolutely. I am particularly shocked that someone who is a physician has opined in this RFC that errors in medical information here are no big deal because they occur in other publications. Lankiveil 04:48, 4 January 2014 (UTC).

Scott Martin: oppose version C

Whatever appears needs to have a statement in plain English that can be read instantly, not just a bunch of links. The further away the message gets, the less it will be read. The link to the medical disclaimer should also not be surrounded by other links.

Endorse

1. — Scott • talk 21:48, 30 December 2013 (UTC)
2. too obscure. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 01:29, 31 December 2013 (UTC)
3. --Andreas JN466 07:23, 31 December 2013 (UTC)
4. -- Mangoe (talk) 02:57, 2 January 2014 (UTC)
5. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 03:59, 2 January 2014 (UTC)

NeilN: Support Version C

This would make sure links to disclaimers are more prominent and visible, immune to vandalism and suchlike. It would also address articles not specifically linked to medicine, but where medical topics are covered (e.g., the biography of a scientist). Finally, as all articles would have this header, legal and risk issues are also addressed. If technically possible, I propose that the bolding of some links be under the control of editors. For example, Medical disclaimer could be bolded by placing some hidden markup text in the article.

Endorse

1. --NeilN 20:12, 30 December 2013 (UTC)

User:WereSpielChequers proposal

As various people above have pointed out we have a problem, and ethically we should do more to minimise the risk of people coming to harm by overly trusting this site. But we need more than a disclaimer, and there are some other changes which I think could be worthwhile and might get consensus - though some would need their own RFC to flesh out the detail. Despite being an arch inclusionist, proud to have been described by a deletionist who'd met me in real life as a "hemp clad, sandal wearing, patchouli smoking inclusionist" I'm prepared to introduce a high minimum standard for what we treat as an article in this area. I think we could use a BLPprod type process to set a new defacto minimum for Medical articles, but with one crucial difference, with libel it doesn't matter whether info is in mainspace or not, but with a medical article we can be much more relaxed about drafts that are clearly marked as "not yet a Misplaced Pages article".

I'm also aware that medical claims occur all over the place, I've seen plant and funghi articles with claims that things are efficacious against various named conditions, so I think we need a broader approach to medical claims that like BLP is applied universally.

It seems obvious to me that we should enable flagged revisions across the site or broaden pending changes, but I am realistic enough to know that the EN community is not yet ready to implement the system that works on DE. However we have precedent with BLP that the community can empower admins to be liberal with protection if the subject area merits it.

I would be OK with some sort of a disclaimer, and B looks right to me, though clearly is insufficient for many. Version A looks to me too much like the sort of template that we put on articles with known problems, there is also something about it that jars, especially if it were to be on an article that we believed correct. So I propose:

1. We implement a disclaimer with version B on medical articles of GA or FA standard and version A on C class and up to GA
2. We redefine medical articles that haven't been assessed as at least C class as not yet a Misplaced Pages article, with a disclaimer D along the lines of "This draft is not yet a Misplaced Pages article, you are welcome to help improve it but do not read it as if it was a Misplaced Pages article". Ideally we should be noindexing mainspace articles that are not yet patrolled, and these should not be patrolled until they reach C class.
3. We introduce a medical info policy similar to the BLP one about unsourced negative information on living people, with unsourced medical info in non medical articles in mainspace to be removed on sight.
4. Similar to BLP violations, repeated addition of unsourced medical information to be a legitimate reason for admins to apply protection to articles.
5. Similar to the removal of vandalism and BLP violations, removal of unsourced or improperly sourced medical claims should be exempt from the edit warring rule, providing you clearly communicate in your edit summary why the information has to go.

Endorse

1. ϢereSpielChequers 21:37, 30 December 2013 (UTC)
2. I still prefer the sterner template, but apart from that, I think these are excellent comments, especially a broader approach to medical claims. — Scott • talk 21:43, 30 December 2013 (UTC) I also strongly agree with point 5 which WSC just added! — Scott • talk 17:19, 31 December 2013 (UTC)
   • I need to add a caveat, following discussion on the talk page. While I do agree with these ideas, taken in the context of the development of this RFC, I believe they detract from the format by introducing an extra policy discussion. I ask WSC to withdraw this entire section and bring it up for discussion elsewhere, perhaps in its own RFC. — Scott • talk 18:55, 31 December 2013 (UTC)
3. Some good ideas here. --Andreas JN466 07:25, 31 December 2013 (UTC)
4. Regarding 1 & 2, medical GAs and FAs are unreliable - less so than other med articles because they're subject to more scrutiny, but still written by anonymous, unaccountable mostly non-experts quite capable of seriously misunderstanding a source. So, I'd prefer to see option A on all of our current medical content. If an article has been reviewed for accuracy by three named subject-matter experts and locked until the next expert-reviewed update, then option B would be an appropriate disclaimer. I support 3, 4 & 5 unequivocally, but this is not the forum for that discussion. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 14:43, 31 December 2013 (UTC) Added afterthought 22:00, 31 December 2013 (UTC)
5. This is a much better idea than a disclaimer - David Gerard (talk) 23:36, 2 January 2014 (UTC)

View by Jbmurray: support version B

I guess somebody has to argue in favour of version B, and that somebody is me. I like the fact that it echoes the medical disclaimer (to which it links) so simply and clearly. I don't buy the general argument about clutter. And I don't buy the argument about redundancy, given that the disclaimers we have at present are so easily overlooked. Moreover, there seems some contradiction to claim (as some are doing) both that a disclaimer is redundant, because we already have one, and that a disclaimer is not needed at all. Finally, there also seems to be a tension between the claim that Misplaced Pages is mostly right, and the claim that nobody in fact believes that it's mostly right.

Endorse

1. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 07:02, 31 December 2013 (UTC)

View by Sportfan5000

Sometimes when I go to a website they'll have a pop-up ad that you have to click to get through. I could see a one-time per visit/log-in pop-up box that gave a very short Medical disclaimer notice similar to option B. It would pertain only to medical articles as already discussed and would be used in the most minimal way possible so there was a reasonable chance that new readers would see the disclaimer, and judge for themselves what to think.

Endorse

1. Sportfan5000 (talk) 08:34, 1 January 2014 (UTC)

View by Alexbrn

As mentioned above, I support proposed version A on balance. In the longer-term I think this problem should also be addressed at source as well as at the point of consumption. When editing a BLP, prominent text appears above the edit box pointing at our BLP policies. I think when an editor edits a medical article, a similar kind of warning should appear pointing them at the relevant guidelines and policies applying to medical content.

Endorse

1. Alexbrn 12:10, 2 January 2014 (UTC)
2. Ian Furst (talk) 01:14, 4 January 2014 (UTC) good point on the BLP precedent.

View by olive

Support using A and B:

A and B are two different kinds of precautions. A refers to the fact that content may be changed at any time by anyone. B refers to the fact that Misplaced Pages cannot give medical advice, even if the article the advice is based on is a good one and information accurate. As long as we know medical students and physicians are using Misplaced Pages (heaven help us); we need precautions on both fronts. I would prefer two banners that may seem to be overkill rather than a medical, life-threatening mistake.(Littleolive oil (talk) 18:46, 2 January 2014 (UTC))

Endorse

1. (Littleolive oil (talk) 18:46, 2 January 2014 (UTC))

View by Od Mishehu

We definitely need a medical disclaimer, along the lines of A and B, at the top of any article or section about a medical topic.

Medical articles have a much higher potential for causing real-world harm than any other article, with the possible exception of BLPs. However, BLPs are much easier to deal with - a non-expert user can learn to recognize what a reliable source is, and make sure that all information in a BLP article is sourced by such sources. Medical information, on the other hand, is much more difficult for a non-medical person to deal with - a medical article could have been written by a non-mainstream doctor; it may be outdated; and so on. It's quite likely that our "best" medical articles were written primarily by a single doctor in the field (perhaps with non-professionals adding information, and the medical person possibly making sure that they're in line with his/her opinions); we wouldn't know.

We take special steps (such as being extra quick with the "Protect" button) for BLPs to prevent Wikipediua from being sued for damages; medical articles are also high risk - and possibly even higher - and the standard steps for BLPs are likely to be ineffective. A disclaimer will go a long way to deal with that.

Endorse

1. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 19:59, 2 January 2014 (UTC)
2. I'm not sure of legal liability or that Misplaced Pages being sued is the concern, but I generally agree that we should take medical content as seriously as we do BLPs. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:23, 2 January 2014 (UTC)

View by Collect

Version A is close - but the second line does not actually strengthen the disclaimer.

Do not rely on Misplaced Pages articles for medical advice

Is sufficient and accurate for the purpose. And about as non-weaselly as possible.

Endorse

1. Collect (talk) 13:42, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

View by User name

INSERT view here ...

Endorse

1. <Sign>

Discussion

"Clutter"

Regarding Lesion's point 3, "The lead of articles is already cluttered. I am surprised to see some die hard opponents of infoboxes campaign for more clutter," I am not a "die hard opponent of infoboxes", but I oppose them when their format furthers inaccurate information. Additionally, they are often full of uncited factoids that are better covered in the article (or should be covered in the article). As in problematic medical content, infoboxes can be a source of inaccurate information. When I oppose them, it's not because of "clutter"; it's because they further inaccurate information. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:44, 30 December 2013 (UTC)

I am an opponent of clutter, specifically templates, but especially the many templates which are more for maintenance than informing the reader. Template bombing is a serious problem on the pedia, and the profusion of unimportant templates detracts from those that matter, it also promotes the transition from the SoFixIt culture of our heyday to the SoTemplateItInTheHopeThatSomeoneElseWillFixIt culture that we have been reduced to. But if a template is genuinely important, and I can accept these as such, then we should make an exception for it. But ideally as a series of declining obtrusiveness, so the better the article the less in your face the template we use. ϢereSpielChequers 15:00, 31 December 2013 (UTC)

IMO the "clutter" aspect could be reduced (but not eliminated) with careful design. For example, someone in a previous discussion suggested putting the disclaimer inside {{Infobox disease}}, rather than in the middle of maintenance templates. Banner blindness is a significant problem, and thoughtful design might be able to reduce that, too. (All of that assumes that we decide to do this in the first place.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:06, 31 December 2013 (UTC)

Version D

See talk discussion

Version D was a late addition, with no prior discussion, that gained no support and plenty of opposition. Considering several requests on talk that it be withdrawn because if was complicating the RFC, with no response yet from the editor who posted it, I have commented it out. If someone objects, it can be reinstated (pls discuss on talk). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:07, 31 December 2013 (UTC)

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