Appeal to all Fellow Bluelighters! CORRECT WIKIPEDIA. Everyone can contribute.

[dopamimetic]

Misinformation is like the flu. We have no real cure for it, everyone gets infected sooner or later, some make billions of dollars by selling vaccines and such, uncounted people die annually because of the complications and as collateral damage and it’s highly contagious, mutating constantly to bypass the defences.

But there’s something we can do against. Everybody, every day. Spread true knowledge, enlighten people, make them see other’s mistakes and avoid to repeat them. Sow good and you’ll earn even much more!

Let us start with reading through all the drug-related wikipedia articles and remove the garbage that's all over there, creating incorrect (often intentionally spread) misinformation that contributes to the masses' preconceptions and in the end creates things like the MXE ban or ketamine rescheduling when there's no real basis for these things but some unfounded monetary interests and mass dynamics. I've started yesterday with that on wikipedia, realising that everybody can actually edit and contribute but (seemingly) nobody cares to do so ...

It requires a hard time and work to come up with good new articles of course, but it's quite easy to read through what's already there, correct the things, do some searching and leave comments!

We need to stand up to make a change. Now! Talk to peers, to doctors, to professionals, educate yourself and your fellows, whatever. Do something creative, invest your energy in positive things.

 

[JessFR]

You wanna improve wikipedia's articles on drugs, great, but before you do, I highly recommend you go read the wikipedia guildelines. There's a lot of them, but if you want your edits to stick around you'll wanna read them.

Wikipedia is not about being 'factually correct' per se, it's about representing what the accepted sources of information say. So if you have something want to correct, but can't find any source to actually back it up. Even if you actually are right and the sources are wrong, that won't meet wikipedia's standards.

Since wikipedia is not made up of experts, its policy is that it isn't in a position to say what is factually right or wrong, which is why it has to be based on citations from sources that are generally trusted. Check out the articles about wikipedia is and isn't and standards for sources and some of the writing styles (if you think how you'd write it would be substantially different to how most of it is written).

Wikipedia is free for anyone to edit, but it is not an anarchy, there's a huge amount of guidelines and procedures and processes for getting things to be encyclopedic. I bring this up because I've seen many people think wikipedia is like a social media service or that it's an anarchy free for all. Not saying you thought this, just that it's worth bringing up if people are going to be trying to improve it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Verifiability <-- policy on sourcing
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Verifiability,_not_truth <-- related reading

 

[dopamimetic]

There are quite some things on wikipedia that aren't based on trusted (scientifically, statistically backed-up, whatever) sources, or have no references at all. These things and claims are the most dangerous ones, because many actually think of wikipedia being more or less correct.

I don't call for anarchy, but for reality. We have google, pubmed and all that, so endless much information is just some clicks away, but you need how to search for it. Many people don't know the right terms or don't have the time to do so, they'll just look up on wikipedia and think, okay, so it is.

We had the information about an annually increasing amount of young people dying because of ketamine overdosages, getting suicidal on it and so on. When it is made clear before - in the same article - that recreational usage is always below the anaesthetic threshold of that substance and it's physically safe even in those critically ill. This stuff has been online since 2012 or so, based on a single bad article from this horrible magazine VICE and countless people actually have believed in this shit. That's ridiculous.

 

[JessFR]

Then it sounds like you're in a great position to do some good. if it's unsourced, it should be easy to correct it with something more accurate, especialy if you have a decent source.

You got any particular articles in mind to fix up?

 

[dopamimetic]

Wikipedia's core sourcing policy, used to define the threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia as "verifiability, not truth". "Verifiability" was used in this context to mean that material added to Wikipedia must have been published previously by a reliable source. Editors may not add their own views to articles simply because they believe them to be correct, and may not remove sources' views from articles simply because they disagree with them.

The phrase "the threshold for inclusion is verifiability, not truth" meant that verifiability is a necessary condition (a minimum requirement) for the inclusion of material, though it is not a sufficient condition (it may not be enough). Sources must also be appropriate, and must be used carefully, and must be balanced relative to other sources per Wikipedia's policy on due and undue weight.

Wikipedia's articles are intended as intelligent summaries and reflections of current published debate within the relevant fields, an overview of the relevant literature. The Verifiability policy is related to another core content policy, Neutral point of view, which holds that we include all significant views on a subject. Citing reliable sources for any material challenged or likely to be challenged gives readers the chance to check for themselves that the most appropriate sources have been used, and used well (see below).

That we have rules for the inclusion of material does not mean Wikipedians have no respect for truth and accuracy, just as a court's reliance on rules of evidence does not mean the court does not respect truth. Wikipedia values accuracy, but it requires verifiability. Unlike some encyclopedias, Wikipedia does not try to impose "the truth" on its readers, and does not ask that they trust something just because they read it in Wikipedia. We empower our readers. We don't ask for their blind trust.

It is not good enough for information to be true, and it is definitely not good enough for you to (perhaps wrongly) believe it to be true. Wikipedia values accuracy, but it requires verifiability. You are allowed and encouraged to add material that is verifiable and true; you are absolutely prohibited from adding any material that is un-verifiable, with zero exceptions—even if the un-verifiable material is True™

This brings it to the point.

 

[JessFR]

So, did you have any articles in mind that you wanted to see changed? I'm not sure where you'd plan to start.

 

[dopamimetic]

So, did you have any articles in mind that you wanted to see changed? I'm not sure where you'd plan to start.

Sorry, I've intended to respond to that question but I was somewhat distracted by that Sci-Hub thing that finally allows (gray-area, as always unfortunately) free access to all those locked-down scientific publications. Turned out this lovely little project has been founded by a girl from Kazakhstan in 2011. Stuff like that is what actually makes us advance towards the better

No, overall wikipedia is pretty much alright. Just that ketamine article was really, really disgusting. But there's plenty of excellent stuff about new substances, medicines, new findings on older things linked in the NSPD section and so on, that'd really be suitable for wikipedia. I'm looking on and when I find something, I'll post it here.

A starting point could be all the recreational-use related articles, e.g. that one for ketamine, just read through and check back if the things are real or exaggerated, based on non-verifiable (or disprovable) claims and such. Or if you know of some nice recent study that's not yet mentioned. The wikipedia editor is quite nice in that it automatically generates the reference links and all that for you!

And, of course, for all of you whose main language isn't English, look at the local pages and help them out. The English pages usually are much more complete and it takes long time before the informations get translated (at least in German, I'm just looking up the English ones really).