Hi everyone,
@axolotl posted recently to provide some updates about staff efforts, including updates to the Finasteride page on Wikipedia. I want to provide some more specific updates on the changes to the Finasteride page.
For me, Wikipedia is a beacon of truth, and a place I turn when I want to learn about a subject without any media bias. Over the years, many people have likely turned to the Finasteride page before taking the drug for a source of truth, and the content on Wikipedia has not always reflected the true nature of the long-term side effects we all suffer from. Over time, edits were made to the Wikipedia page which did expose the risks of taking Finasteride, but sadly these edits were always reversed which left many members of this community dejected.
When I joined the staff team late last year, one of the first things I put my hand up for was making lasting edits to this page. It was something that @axolotl and @awor had on their to do list for some time, but didn’t have the knowledge or bandwidth to execute. I didn’t have a clue either, but with the help of another member of this community (who wishes to remain anonymous), I was able to collaborate with them, learn, and eventually contribute. With this member’s help, and some collaboration with staff, we identified how to make edits to scientific pages on Wikipedia, found the right evidence and have now made changes which will hopefully stick. It was also advantageous the literature over the last few years has progressed significantly, and the evidence is very solid.
What does this mean?
One, it’s just a good win for our community. But secondly, and equally important, is the example it shows everyone of what can happen when members of the community step up and work together to collaborate and execute. If I had attempted this myself, I would have no doubt failed. All I did in this case was say I wanted to contribute, found the right people to work with, and did something. It wasn’t particularly hard, just took some teamwork and effort.
How can we all start contributing in this way?
There’s a lot more work to be done.
Everyone has ideas, which I personally think is a great asset. These ideas need to be grounded though, and we need to choose the right ones to work on. It’s cliche but Rome was not built in a day, and ideas like a documentary on PFS, while admirable, are not achievable right now. Better ideas are the video project, which staff have worked hard on, and some members have contributed to already. Or reaching out to your local member of Parliament/representative and sharing a well-crafted message about the dangers of Finasteride, using scientific reviews. Or reaching out to staff who manage our media projects, like @Jaime or myself, and seeing if there’s anything you can contribute to.
Let’s think about simple things we can work on with little resources, and work together to execute them. Let’s find experts to work with. Talk to us on staff and see if there’s projects you could contribute to with little effort. Get others involved. Be ambitious, but be realistic.
This thing sucks, but we’re going to be here a while, so let’s work consistently towards finding a treatment or a cure. That includes many functions, like media & awareness, marketing, programming work, scientific research contributions, etc. Everyone has a role to play.
There’s so many ways we can work on together, and the sooner we do that, the sooner we hopefully get out of this.
Take care.