NIH Wikipedia Academy



WIRED reports that representatives of Wikipedia went to the National Institutes of Health to train the health science types there in the in's and out's of wikis. This has the potential for both good and bad impacts on the health knowledge of Americans. Yes, it's true that, as Wikipedia is the first-stop for information for many amateur researchers, training the NIH could get accurate information to web users in a very timely manner. However, it also implies even more top-down control of information, now even in the primary exemplar of the web's possibilities for bottom-up knowledge building. Will those dissenting from the official government "consensus" on health and nutrition have their opinions deleted from Wikipedia articles? overwhelmed?

Well, anyhow, the government hasn't succeeded in regulating blogs, yet, so you can always follow dissent in the blogosphere...

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