Great news! About six months ago, we began a project to update, expand, and revamp MEpedia. Due to a generous grant, we were able to create a project scope, hire respected experts in accessibility and MediaWiki development, and make several important changes to MEpedia!
MEpedia is a vital resource
MEpedia is one of the most utilized resources for researchers, clinicians, and people living with ME/CFS, with over 36 million page views. However, the software running MEpedia, MediaWiki, was out of date. We hired an expert to upgrade our software to a version of MediaWiki that will be supported until 2025. We also hired an accessibility expert to suggest fixes and made changes to our site layout based on their recommendations. Finally, we fixed some bugs, and updated the site’s graphics to be more consistent.
Now our MEpedia content has a safe and stable long-term home!
What we’ve accomplished so far
Over the past six months, we:
- Upgraded MediaWiki in stages
- Moved to a new hosting platform
- Enacted version control, so that we can see and keep track of what changes are made to MEpedia code over time
- Integrated MEpedia with Slack so that our staff and volunteers can monitor changes to MEpedia and enact changes immediately
- Engaged an accessibility expert to audit the new MEpedia and enacted vital changes including updating our color contrast standards, and making MEpedia friendlier for screen readers, keyboard navigation, browser zoom, and text spacing
- Designed new graphics for MEpedia including logos, banners, and body system-based portal images
What’s Next
Our next major goal is to reach new people with information about ME/CFS, Long COVID, and other infection-associated chronic illnesses.
MEpedia is an important source of information on ME/CFS, and its value is growing every day!
In order to provide researchers, clinicians, and people with infection-associated chronic illnesses with up-to-date resources, we will also expand the Long COVID content covered on MEpedia by:
- Adding new Long COVID topic pages
- Updating existing pages that need Long COVID content
Finally, we will be translating some of our most popular pages into several other languages. We’ve identified these high-priority pages and determined which languages will be prioritized based on the current users of MEpedia, and which languages are most spoken worldwide.
This monumental project provides a service to researchers, clinicians, and people who live with infection-associated chronic illnesses! If you value projects like this, I hope you will continue to support #MEAction.
1 thought on “Check out the Updated, Expanded, Revamped MEpedia!”
Once again many thanks for posting this news on your website and not just on social media.
To give one example, those who don’t have a twitter account can see a single tweet, if someone sends them a link, but they can’t see a full thread.
News items posted here are very helpful if I want to spread the word to my friends, my family, or even doctors and researchers. I can send them a link to this website without worrying about which social media accounts they have.
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