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The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by Cwmhiraeth (talk) 05:54, 4 June 2017 (UTC)

DYK toolbox

Toilet plume

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  • ... that there is evidence that, once contaminated by norovirus, toilets may continue to produce contaminated toilet plumes over multiple successive flushes?
Source: "Environmental contamination has been shown to be a major source of [norovirus] infection on ships.... This may be due in part to the ability of toilets to continue generating contaminated toilet plume during multiple flushes after original contamination." [1]

5x expanded by John P. Sadowski (NIOSH) (talk). Self-nominated at 05:16, 20 April 2017 (UTC).


  • Length and date fine. A wee bit of good faith will go a long way on the offline source. QPQ done, no close paraphrasing upon inspection, no picture used (thank goodness!). Good to go, pull the chain! (sorry for the crap jokes). The C of E God Save the Queen! (talk) 10:59, 26 April 2017 (UTC)
  • Comment We have a source that says "although as of 2013 their transmission by toilet plume had not been directly studied". So well foilet plumes may transmit norovirus one can equally say "they may" not. This is just a hypothesis without clear evidence yet to support it. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 17:14, 26 April 2017 (UTC)
@Tachs: The hook lays no claims that norovirus can be spread via toilet plumes, however with Doc James comment unresolved, this hook is unlikely to get promoted. Would you consider proposing a different hook? Most people will never have heard of toilet plumes, so there is plenty of scope for hooks without mentioning pathogens which may or may not be present. I had a chuckle over the sentence "Disease transmission through droplet nuclei ... is not a concern for many pathogens", wondering what topics most pathogens discuss these days! Cwmhiraeth (talk) 08:15, 6 May 2017 (UTC)
@Cwmhiraeth: Hi mate, guess you pinged me on this by mistake. This was reviewed by The C of E and I have pinged him for his attention. jojo@nthony (talk) 08:21, 6 May 2017 (UTC)
Sorry, John P. Sadowski (NIOSH) edits under two names, the other being @Antony–22:, and I got confused. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 08:39, 6 May 2017 (UTC)
Sorry for the delay on this. I'd actually specifically pinged Doc James for his feedback here. @Doc James, Cwmhiraeth, and The C of E: The following hook should be more balanced; does it meet your approval? John P. Sadowski (NIOSH) (talk) 01:02, 8 May 2017 (UTC)
ALT1: ... that while there is indirect evidence that pathogens could be spread by a toilet plume, no direct experimental studies have demonstrated actual disease transmission from toilet aerosols?
How about "... that while there is indirect evidence that disease could be spread by a toilet plume, this remains unconfirmed?" Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 14:09, 8 May 2017 (UTC)
Sorry, been without internet for a few days. I approve Doc James' hook as it is sourced inline and fairly hooky. rest of the review stands. The C of E God Save the Queen! (talk) 06:30, 9 May 2017 (UTC)
Or "... that while there is indirect evidence of disease being spread by a toilet plume, this remains unconfirmed?" Not sure if that flows better. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 01:38, 10 May 2017 (UTC)
Or ALT4: "... that there is indirect, but unconfirmed, evidence of certain diseases being spread by toilet plume?" The research makes it clear that not all diseases are prone to be spread this way. John P. Sadowski (NIOSH) (talk) 03:16, 10 May 2017 (UTC)
Lots good to me Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 23:59, 10 May 2017 (UTC)
Reopened

I question the sourcing on this article, one citation has an abstract that directly contradicts what this article says it contains, for example. Please read comments on article talk page. Also, will someone please tell me what primary brain tumors in children have to do with norovirus contaminated toilet plumes on ships! --2601:648:8503:4467:BD8D:A6B0:350B:3F11 (talk) 17:10, 15 May 2017 (UTC)

  • "Epidemiological studies of norovirus in passenger airplanes[3] and ships,[4]"
  • 4. Allen, E. D.; Byrd, S. E.; Darling, C. F.; Tomita, T.; Wilczynski, M. A. (1 June 1993). "The clinical and radiological evaluation of primary brain tumors in children, Part I: Clinical evaluation.". Journal of the National Medical Association. 85 (6): 445–451. ISSN 0027-9684. PMC 2571872 Freely accessible. PMID 8366534.

On the first point, Ref. 1 says (emphasis added): "Environmental contamination has been shown to be a major source of AGE infection on ships... This may be due in part to the ability of toilets to continue generating contaminated toilet plume during multiple flushes after original contamination as well as the apparent resistance of norovirus and perhaps other viruses to cleaning and disinfection." That sentence directly cites Ref. 2, whose abstract says "In order consistently to achieve good hygiene, it was necessary to wipe the surface clean using a cloth soaked in detergent before applying the combined hypochlorite/detergent. When detergent cleaning alone or combined hypochlorite/detergent treatment failed to eliminate NV contamination from the surface and the cleaning cloth was then used to wipe another surface, the virus was transferred to that surface and to the hands of the person handling the cloth." So it's difficult to clean up norovirus contamination.

On the second point... good catch, somehow the wrong paper got cited. I've replaced it with the correct one. John P. Sadowski (NIOSH) (talk) 19:35, 15 May 2017 (UTC)

Let me try to understand what you're doing; the first source is what the article is based upon, but the other sources like 3, 4, 5 have been added because they are used by the first source? --2600:387:6:803:0:0:0:AC (talk) 20:32, 15 May 2017 (UTC)
Yes, because for health information primary sources should not be used except in the context of secondary sources such as reviews. References 2−4, 6, and 8 are all cited by the review in reference 1. Reference 5 is a different review. Reference 7 is only used to describe the physics of droplets and the types of experiment typically used to study toilet aerosols, and not health information directly. References 9 and 10 are popular articles used only in the history section. John P. Sadowski (NIOSH) (talk) 20:53, 15 May 2017 (UTC)
If I wrote something and got information from a source that was not stand alone, I would include both sources in the citation. I think this would lead to others not raising questions about synthesis or OR. (Even though i get the impression no one reads the sources. I once added 3 incorrect sources, citation about hops, to an article on a monkey, and caught and corrected it myself five years later on Wikipedia, no on else had noticed. Another editor even named the sources and added one to something he put in the article.) --2601:648:8503:4467:BD8D:A6B0:350B:3F11 (talk) 23:11, 15 May 2017 (UTC)

Also: if the "direct, but unconfirmed" bit sounds overly vague, we can use something closer to ALT1, which had more explanation. For example:

This sounds better. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:387:6:803::ac (talk) 20:32, 15 May 2017‎ (UTC)

@The C of E, Doc James, Cwmhiraeth, and Gatoclass: Is ALT5 acceptible? John P. Sadowski (NIOSH) (talk) 01:22, 17 May 2017 (UTC)
Overly complicated IMO. ALT4 is thus better. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 03:23, 17 May 2017 (UTC)
I also like ALT4 better. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 05:06, 17 May 2017 (UTC)
Although both a bit "so what," ALT4's language is probably better for the main page. I think the citations would be better if it were more clear that they come from within the first source, but I don't see how to do that within Wikipedia, so, as far as I am concerned, my concerns were addressed. --2601:648:8503:4467:BCAE:2D17:1DA3:5D49 (talk) 06:25, 17 May 2017 (UTC)
I'd lean towards ALT5, because I think the specificity is important to get across the nuances we've been discussing here. Ultimately, the purpose of DYK is not just to maximize the number of click-throughs; many people see the hook on the Main Page and don't click on it, and those people should get an accurate description of the topic as well. If more people favor ALT4 I'm fine with that as well. I don't think there's much point in arguing over two hooks that are both factually accurate, and I'm happy to have the (re)promoter pick one or the other. John P. Sadowski (NIOSH) (talk) 02:42, 18 May 2017 (UTC)
I'm not real invested in the hook, so whatever is picked. Thanks for looking at the issues I raised. --2600:387:6:80D:0:0:0:59 (talk) 00:59, 19 May 2017 (UTC)
Could someone please review ALT5 and/or pick one of ALT4 or ALT5 to promote? Thanks. 21:36, 28 May 2017 (UTC) John P. Sadowski (NIOSH) (talk) 22:20, 28 May 2017 (UTC)
  • IMO ALT4 is far more accessible to a broad audience, whether or not they click on the hook. Yoninah (talk) 22:59, 3 June 2017 (UTC)
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