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Here’s another contribution to Wikipedia that may be of interest to both scientists and the general public.  According to the Seattle P-I, authors of the “gene wiki” have created 7,500 Wikipedia entries on different genes and are editing another 650 already existing entries.

The group’s plans appear in the Public Library of Science’s online journal, PLoS Biology, a free access online journal which I have mentioned before on brain research.

The authors of the gene wiki are from the Genomics Institute of the Novartis Research Foundation in San Diego, San Diego State University and Washington University in St. Louis.

The researchers could have chosen to publish in more authoritative sources, but note that the data model used by gene portals and model organism databases focuses on large contributions from a relatively small number of contributors.  They chose Wikipedia instead, because it uses a different model for collaboratively synthesizing knowledge and is very popular.  The site’s volunteer editors tend to quickly correct inaccuracies.

“We believe that this effort will encourage further contributions from scientists around the world and become a robust, cross-referenced tool for students, educators, and researchers everywhere.  With the entire community’s input, we envision this gene wiki evolving into a collection of collaboratively created, continually updated, community-reviewed review articles for every gene in the human genome,” the authors wrote.