Talk:Elbow bump

First comment

omg, zac, this is my favorite wikipage EVER!!!! you are hilarious!!! =D —Preceding unsigned comment added by 134.173.192.50 (talk • contribs) 19:58, 6 October 2008

very funny Incripshin (talk) 01:44, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

Universal Popularity

Maybe a cite is needed for the "universal popularity" bit in the intro. "Universal popularity" would require that it is known and popular with every person in the universe. I suspect there is a non-zero number of persons who either have not heard of the elbow bump, or with whom it is not "popular". 216.36.188.184 (talk) 20:06, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

Where from?

Magenta and Riff Raff do that quite a bit in The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Surely everyone has seen that one?  :) Afalbrig (talk) 03:49, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Dunno about that; the first time I saw this was in Young Frankenstein, which was the year before. (The scene is here (1.38 to 3.30, esp 3.08-3.12). Moonraker12 (talk) 10:25, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

Picture

Looks like a pair of whities wanted to get their photo on Wikipedia. How embarrassing. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 60.241.195.167 (talk) 09:52, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

Agreed: I've diminished it and moved it down; but it's skating close to self-promotion. Moonraker12 (talk) 13:13, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

Alternative roots...?

Personally, the elbow bump started within my ring of friends long before the bird flu scare. In middle school, we weren't allowed to carry our backpacks around, which meant hefting a stack of books plus binders from class to class. We started bumping elbows because we didn't have free hands with which to high five. It had nothing to do with health issues. Anyone else have something like this? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 97.81.69.106 (talk) 07:54, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

Picture

To uphold encyclopedic standards in the age of the Covid-19 pandemic I suggest we replace the previous picture with something more somber less flippant. CapnZapp (talk) 13:25, 3 March 2020 (UTC)

• That action was contrary to policies such as WP:CENSOR and WP:EUPHEMISM and so has been reverted. The article can use lots of pictures because the details and body language of the action are difficult to describe in words while pictures communicate this much more effectively. A variety of examples are useful as the style may vary, depending on the people and the circumstances. Andrew🐉(talk) 16:32, 3 March 2020 (UTC)

  No, you didn't revert me, you rearranged the pictures in a way that tells me you actually agree with me. And oh, please tone down your usage of shortcuts in the future: I'm no easily intimidated newbie, and WP:CENSOR and WP:EUPHEMISM doesn't mean what you seem to think they mean. CapnZapp (talk) 21:31, 3 March 2020 (UTC)

Responsible usage

I'm going to remove every instance where our article suggests the elbow bump as an alternative to handshakes.

The only responsible advice is to stay at least six feet away from others if you go out at all. Wikipedia don't offer medical advice, but that doesn't mean we can't use responsible language.

My edit might seem draconian, so I invite everyone to edit things back in, assuming we don't come across as recommending the practice or offer it as an alternative. Do not simply revert my edit; weigh the encyclopedic value of every individual passage you edit back in.

CapnZapp (talk) 14:38, 25 March 2020 (UTC)

I have restored the original wording to the lead. The lead is supposed to describe and summarize what the article is about. This article is about the elbow bump. It is not about social distancing, as important as that may be. -- MelanieN (talk) 15:03, 25 March 2020 (UTC)

In the other paragraph you modified, the one about the 2020 pandemic, I have modified it to hopefully include both points - avoiding handshaking and social distancing. -- MelanieN (talk) 15:27, 25 March 2020 (UTC)

I strongly object to the phrasing "health officials supported its use as an alternative to hand-shaking to reduce the spread of germs". It simply is unacceptable and irresponsible to use this The Hill reference. What we should do is instead find a reference that says that no form of touching reduces spread enough. If you then don't want a follow up (saying what is) I can't formally object to that. Regards CapnZapp (talk) 15:37, 25 March 2020 (UTC)

Look, I understand where you are coming from. But we can’t twist this article about the elbow bump into an article about social distancing. Wikipedia is not a soapbox; it is not an advice column; it is not for promoting ideas, no matter how important they may be, in articles about other subjects. I have added a sentence about social distancing as something that overtook the “no physical contact” advice during the 2020 epidemic. I think that’s about as far as we can go. -- MelanieN (talk) 15:45, 25 March 2020 (UTC)

OK, now we have a problem. I see that you put the lead back into the version you want. Please read WP:BRD. It says that you can be bold in editing Wikipedia (as you were), but that someone may revert you and then you should discuss. Discuss is what we are doing, at least I hope that's what we are doing. But while we are discussing, the article is supposed to stay in its longstanding version until there is consensus to change it. You and I must not get into an edit war, reverting each other and restoring our own version. Edit warring is very much against Wikipedia's rules. While we are discussing, and either reaching agreement or else hoping for some more people to show up and join the discussion, normally the article would remain in the version it has been in for years - implying consensus for that version. The brand-new material just added today does not take precedence. -- MelanieN (talk) 16:21, 25 March 2020 (UTC)

P.S. Another problem with your edit: it violates our guidelines about what is supposed to be in the lead section. According to WP:LEAD, "The lead serves as an introduction to the article and a summary of its most important contents. ... The lead should stand on its own as a concise overview of the article's topic. It should identify the topic, establish context, explain why the topic is notable, and summarize the most important points, including any prominent controversies. ... As in the body of the article itself, the emphasis given to material in the lead should roughly reflect its importance to the topic, according to reliable, published sources." Your version of the lead does not do this. Rather than summarizing the main points of the article, it erases all the main points, replacing them with something tangentially related to the subject which is mentioned in only a single sentence in the article. I believe you should self-revert your addition. -- MelanieN (talk) 16:33, 25 March 2020 (UTC)

User:MelanieN, I've re-read your every post here, and not once do you address the core motivation behind my change. We should choose not to use the The Hill reference or any other reference that suggests health officials currently support elbow bumps as an alternative to hand-shaking. Let's discuss that first and I'm sure we can then rebuild a proper lead to your satisfaction :) CapnZapp (talk) 21:53, 25 March 2020 (UTC)

CapnZapp, but the authorities DID suggest elbow bumps as an alternative to hand shaking. They have suggested it during numerous previous outbreaks in addition to this one. You might want to suppress or censor that now, but it's a fact, and Wikipedia is not into the business of censoring facts. We could, I suppose, add a sentence to the lead similar to the one I added to the section in the text, saying the authorities later tightened their advice from "no physical contact" to "social distancing". But the elbow bump's only claim to fame is the fact that it has been recommended in lieu of a handshake to avoid the spread of germs. Without that, there is no coverage, there is no notability, there is no article. How about if we restore the original lead and add a sentence as I suggest - are you OK with that? Because we have to do something; we can't simply remove the entire content of the article from the lead! -- MelanieN (talk) 22:59, 25 March 2020 (UTC)

MelanieN is correct. The article must follow reliable sources (WP:V) and the lead should give an overview and summary of the article (WP:LEAD). Whether you or I agree with the people discussed in the sources is entirely irrelevant. —Granger (talk · contribs) 23:30, 25 March 2020 (UTC)

Of course, if there are reliable sources indicating that authorities have specifically discouraged the elbow bump in favor of physical distancing or some other measure, then we can and should add that in addition to (not instead of) the information about how authorities have recommended elbow bumps. —Granger (talk · contribs) 23:33, 25 March 2020 (UTC)

"the authorities DID suggest elbow bumps". We do not need to include every reference just because it exists. We get to choose. Why choose a reference that's harmful irresponsible and likely obsolete in this age and day? I'm not saying there's something technically wrong with the The Hill reference, I'm saying we should exercise our discretion and choose to not include it, especially as prominently as was done prior to my initial edit. Please do not make this into a technical issue - we can have a nice fulfilling lead without prominently suggesting elbow bumps are recommended when in fact events have overtaken that advice weeks ago! And for the love of god - please do not make this out to be about "censorship" or get defensive. All the references to prior epidemics can stay; all I want is for the article not to give off the impression you should do elbow bumps today, and that falls well within our discretion as editors to decide on. Thank you. CapnZapp (talk) 07:51, 26 March 2020 (UTC)

Good news! I found a source for authorities discouraging the elbow bump. Now that we have a reliable source, I've added this information to the article. Please don't remove the information about how elbow bumps have been recommended before, which is also directly relevant and reliably sourced. —Granger (talk · contribs) 12:35, 26 March 2020 (UTC)

Excellent. CapnZapp (talk) 17:46, 26 March 2020 (UTC)

Btw, regarding: Please don't remove the information about how elbow bumps have been recommended before Why would I do that when my sole concern was and is not recommending it now? CapnZapp (talk) 17:46, 26 March 2020 (UTC)

Referencing style

@Matthiaspaul: Today you replaced WP:Inline citation with WP:Parenthetical referencing list-style editing in this article. You should not have done this without discussion. Per Wikipedia:Citing sources, "Each article should use one citation method or style throughout. If an article already has citations, preserve consistency by using that method or seek consensus on the talk page before changing it." I request that you change it back to inline citation, which is the format that has been used at this article for more than 10 years. You can try to get consensus for parenthetical list style referencing here, if you wish, but I for one strongly prefer inline citations where the reference is there at the citation and would like that style restored. -- MelanieN (talk) 18:47, 25 March 2020 (UTC)

Hi Melanie. I changed it because the article did not use a consistent citation style at all (it was using references with CS1 templates, with other templates like webarchive and without templates at all, in three different date formats and in long, short and numerical formats). It also mixed notes and references. It used the long deprecated 2-column references section parameter. In a word, a complete mess - very difficult to sift through on source code level and thus actively hindering further article development. WP:CITEVAR and WP:BRD do allow for these kind of changes for consistency, easier maintenance and improved functionality.

Regarding your argument inline vs. parenthetical referencing, I'm quite sure that I didn't change to parenthetical format (aka "Harvard style"), because I find that format to be mostly dysfunctional, inconvenient to use for readers (disturbing "(name year)" tags instead of the small [n] tags in normal view, citation information scattered around in multiple places, two clicks necessary to reach the full citation, no backlinks), difficult to maintain for editors because of difficult to find dangling links. However, I replaced some of the (to me) mostly meaningless reference names ("university", "mexico", "bump") to names in the "name_year" format (at first glance this looks similar to Harvard style, but only on source code level). If you take issue with this, it can be changed back, but it is actually quite standard across the project. What I did as well is move the actual citation definitions into the references section - IIRC this variant is called list style, however, it retains the look&feel and the full functionality of inline style (like unobtrusive [n] tags, being able to switch back and forth between any of the invocations and the reference). Having the actual definitions grouped in the references section has significant advantages:

• it completely removes the clutter (caused by the disturbingly long citations interspersed with text) from the source code of an article text, which often makes it almost impossible to wordsmith the text on source code level - often a reason for why article development stalls or articles even deteriorate over time. Making the source code easier to read will ensure that editors can focus on improving contents and language, thereby help improving the quality of the article.
• having the references all grouped in a single dedicated references section (which, besides, makes also sense from an organizational point of view) allows editors to focus on improving references as well, and edit and maintain them all in parallel. Inconsistencies are easy to spot and correct, and it is much easier to further improve references, which is often an iterative process requiring many subsequent edits.
• a third plus, although a smaller one, is in articles already invoking citations more than once (as in this article). It is obvious where to find the definition of a reference whereas in inline style it could be located anywhere in the article and needs to be searched for.

I find these advantages quite convincing, as they make the article easier to maintain and thus - over time - lead to a higher quality of the article.

I see only one disadvantage, in very new articles, which have not yet settled on some basic structure and contents, citations may be deleted frequently. In this case, it is necessary to edit two location of the article rather than only one to remove it from an article. However, this is, in my opinion, a mild inconvenience, and very easy to fix in one of the subsequent edits by the same or another editor, and it also does not apply to this article.

I hope you can find these arguments convincing. Otherwise, what do you suggest as a compromise? (In either case, stay healthy...)

--Matthiaspaul (talk) 20:23, 25 March 2020 (UTC)

Sorry, I meant list style, not parenthetical style. I have always hated list style (although parenthetical is even worse), because I usually edit one section at a time. With the references being off somewhere else in a list it's impossible to even see what the references are while you are editing. "having the references all grouped in a single dedicated references section" is a pain. How do you handle it? Edit the entire article in one edit every time, so that you can add a reference to the list and cite it in the section in the same edit? Or add it to the list in one edit and then try to remember what you named it when you edit the section? Or vice versa? If you remove or replace a source, you would have to do it in both places or leave an orphan. "it retains the look&feel and the full functionality of inline style" Only when reading, not when editing. The only advantage I can see is that it makes it easy to locate a reference that is cited more than once. Otherwise, separating the reference from the text it is supporting just makes it hard to compare or verify the content.

I very much doubt we can get a compromise. Do we need one? The guidelines I cited clearly state that an article which has been using a particular reference style for years should not be arbitrarily changed to a different style. -- MelanieN (talk) 21:04, 25 March 2020 (UTC)

P.S. In the 10+ years I have been editing I have never before seen someone simply change the format of the references in an long-existing article like this. I should add that in my experience this list format is very unusual here. Of the hundreds of articles that I edit or follow - current events, biographies, articles about places - I can't think of a single one that uses this format. -- MelanieN (talk) 21:10, 25 March 2020 (UTC)

(edit-conflict) The guideline clearly states "when an article is already consistent", and the article did not use a consistent citation format, so I changed it to become consistent. Grouping the references in the references section is quite common, although inline citations are even more common (which is natural, as most people don't care about the maintenance of citations and just drop them in whereever they are - which is still better than not providing any citations at all, but not necessarily good). I think, it also depends on the type of article; in articles still quickly evolving with lots of major changes inline style might have a slight edge, in more static topics with lots of citations, list style has major advantages.

I see your point regarding editing in two locations when adding or removing a reference, although in my judgement, this is only a mild inconvenience because adding or removing a reference happens seldom compared to dedicated work on the prose or the references. However, it is obvious, that we work in different ways.

"How do you handle it?" Many professional writers make a clear distinction between writing and formatting, or between contents and presentation. Somewhat similar, working on prose and working on the references are different things to me. If I work on references, I usually do it for all citations in an article at the same time, and I could not do it efficiently if the citations are scattered across the whole article and cannot easily be compared side by side. Also, when I work on the text, full blown inline citations often make it difficult to even "see" the prose.

As a compromise, I have changed the article to a middle ground (inline except for multiple invocations in list style), although I would prefer pure list style.

To me, the references still leave a lot to be desired (missing info: volume, issue, archive links, sometimes publisher and page) and need much further work, however, the source code is now again too messy to work with efficiently, so I'll leave it to others to further improve the citations.

--Matthiaspaul (talk) 13:00, 26 March 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for the changes. I will look to see if some of the references need data added. Although I will not be adding an archive link, since I think they should only be used for dead links - a subject on which opinions vary. Somewhat similar, working on prose and working on the references are different things to me. That's part of our difference. I always work on the prose and the reference at the same time, usually adding them both to the article in the same edit. I guess by "work on" you mean copy editing etc., while a great deal of my article work is adding content. OK, well, I am satisfied with this "compromise" approach for now. -- MelanieN (talk) 21:19, 26 March 2020 (UTC)

I added the "access date" for numerous references and archived three dead links. Took me four tries to figure out how to archive a reference that was in the list! -- MelanieN (talk) 22:44, 26 March 2020 (UTC)

This is down to a recently introduced bug, which will hopefully soon be fixed:

https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T245376

Normally, all references in the references section are shown in preview. Then, it is very easy to work on the references (including creating archives). Right now, you'd have to either preview the whole article instead of just the References section, or mark the links in the source code in order to open them in a new tab for archiving (or copy&paste them into the archiver's web interface).

Until this gets fixed there's kind of a workaround, though: You could temporarily remove the first "{" in front of the {{reflist}} invocation in edit preview to "disable" the template. Then, the embedded list of references will be shown again in preview. You'd just have to remember to restore the "{" before saving...

--Matthiaspaul (talk) 03:14, 28 March 2020 (UTC)

ELBOW BUMP IS NOT SAFE NOR HYGIENIC!

It's very strange that some public authorities advocate elbow bump as a safe substitute for handshaking. Dr. David Whitworth, a biochemist from Aberystwyth University in Wales says: «Elbow bump: This has been hailed as the alternative for the handshake. There's less surface areas for contact, you're often covered by long sleeves and, importantly, it's physically impossible to touch your own face with your elbow. But Dr Whitworth was sceptical. "It's not somewhere we usually touch things with, so that's a plus," he said. "But we are being encouraged to sneeze into the inside of our elbows if we can't get a tissue in time. There is also an issue of whether transmissible diseases can survive longer on clothes or flesh, which will affect the relative merits of fists vs elbows."»

The same says Dr. Tedros Ghebreyesus head of WHO: «When greeting people, best to avoid elbow bumps because they put you within 1 meter of the other person. I like to put my hand on my heart when I greet people these days.» —AnnaBruta (talk) 11:58, 29 July 2020 (UTC)

References