Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Medicine/Assessment/A-Class

Accessibility criterion proposal

I'd like to propose a sixth criterion, something along the lines of:

• A6. The article meets the requirements of Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Accessibility, such as the use of alternative text and table captions.

Rationale

The A-Class FAQ states "The key thing is that Medicine A-Class should represent the project's very best work and the reviews should be approached with this in mind." If these articles really are our very best work, then they ought to be accessible to everyone, including the visually impaired. Meeting the standards set out in MOS:ACCESS is the minimum standard for that.

Whether it's useful or not to spell out a couple of examples (in the same way as A5 does), I'm open to suggestions. Thoughts? --RexxS (talk) 15:57, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

Sounds reasonable - accessibility is a key feature required for good medical writing..Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 19:48, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

The downsides that I anticipate are that it will increase the size of the "checklist" for reviewers, and that reviewers will have to feel confident themselves with accessibility issues. That suggests to me that we might want to help provide sample reviews and examples of good practice for potential reviewers - one more task to get done on the way to establishing A-Class for us. --RexxS (talk) 23:21, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

What I am thinking is this - We are working up one article (cervix) and I can see endometrial cancer is getting a buffing. What we should do maybe is elect a few reliable folks as coordinators and then run them through and see how we go, but try and clarify as much as possible first. I can probably coax SandyGeorgia out of retirement to get involved. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 02:51, 26 June 2014 (UTC)

The perfect candidate. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 16:08, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

I appreciate the thought, but no. Until/unless some of the horrific things about Wikipedia are addressed, I don't want to be sucked back in to any more work/contributions other than fixing the few articles I care about. (Because Tim Howard is in the news, I just stopped by to see what kind of damage has been done to the TS article.) I suppose the whole cannabis suite is still a mess, Venezuela is pure propaganda, and the higher-ups are still pushing the gender claims (eg, in the New York Times) while ignoring the serious issues. Best regards, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:03, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

Thanks anyway, Sandy. I'm still doing my limited best to keep some of the cannabis articles honest, but between that and the alt-med articles, there's enough work to keep an army of WPMED editors busy. I hope you enjoy a break and hopefully will feel able to get involved again sometime in the not-too-distant future. Regards, --RexxS (talk) 18:07, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

Thanks, RexxS ... I recognize the excellent effort made by all of you, but it's just not for me as of now. Best, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:16, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

Yeah I understand - take care......if I need extra medical reviewers I might ping you if this gets off the ground.....;-) Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 13:19, 3 July 2014 (UTC)