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My Experience Volunteering For Wiki Project Med (Part 1)


Volunteering For Wiki Project Med


Proz Pro Bono supports many non-profit organizations around the world. One of them is the Wiki Project Med Foundation, which has the goal to make clear, reliable, comprehensive, up-to-date educational resources and information in the biomedical and related social sciences freely available to all people in the language of their choice, both online and off. So, it is designed for those who are facing any health issues and want to understand more about their medical condition beyond consulting a doctor. You can also watch Proz Pro Bono´s interview with James Heilman, the founder of Wiki Project Med, where he mentions that even though they are working on resources for all people, they are more interested in developing useful materials for those in low and middle-income countries.


Personally, I experienced some challenges that helped me learn a lot when volunteering for Wiki Project Med, and I would like to share some tips from my experience. My first suggestion is to create an account on Wikipedia to enter its Translation Task Force. In addition, when you start to translate and find any issues, you can contact Lucas Rosnau (Irosnau@gmail.com) who is a supportive, patient member of this organization. While translating, compare your translation with other Wikipedia articles to respect the style and format. Also, do not worry about the references because they are not very well translated. You could email Lucas to help you with that after you translate the article.


There are a few things to keep in mind when translating an article. The info box for your article might not be translated into your target language or has not been included. So, you can create an info box from scratch where you add all the information translated into the target language. Also, Wikipedia has many hyperlinked words that give access to other English articles. So, try to hyperlink the same words translated into your target language to get access to other articles in that language. Finally, when your article is published, you can hit the history tab, and you will notice that other Wikipedians have accepted your translation and are making minor improvements. Their bots also tidy up the info box and references.


I have noticed a few reasons why it is beneficial to volunteer for Wiki Project Med. First, I gained some experience translating articles about diseases. I also learned some information about these health issues and created my own medical glossary. Secondly, I used to have a bad image of Wikipedia because anyone can edit the information, and you do not know where the information is from. But, as a volunteer, I understood that the articles on Wikipedia are monitored by moderators who approve new articles only when they have strong references like scientific papers, which makes Wikipedia and Wiki Project Med more valuable and trustworthy. Finally, it was comfortable to translate all the articles because they did not have a deadline to reach, so they were easygoing, self-paced projects.


If you want to participate in Wiki Project Med, you just have to know a language other than English and translate articles in an easy and understandable language. If you are a Proz Pro Bono volunteer, you can visit and read the Wiki Project Med Guidelines to start volunteering. You can also read the guideline How to Start Working On Wiki Project Med, where you will find many other recommendations. This foundation has translated more than 20,000 articles, works with 150 languages, and has been viewed 3 and half billion times, which means that you could help a lot of people who speak a language other than English.

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