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Welcome

Welcome!

Hello, Bob K31416, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are some pages that you might find helpful:

I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your messages on discussion pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically insert your username and the date. If you need help, check out Wikipedia:Questions, ask me on my talk page, or ask your question on this page and then place {{helpme}} before the question. Again, welcome! JFW | T@lk 22:40, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

I see you have an interest in AF! The article is in reasonable shape but better sources are always welcome. You are free to join the medical wikiProject. JFW | T@lk 11:30, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Hi JFW.

Thanks for your welcome and useful comments. I'm new here and I'll be slowly getting up to speed in the Wikiculture. I'm not even sure if this is the proper way to respond to your message! Bob K31416 (talk) 21:32, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

You've done just fine. I haven't worked on the AF article for some time, but it still needs some work. It is an enormous and continuously expanding topic, so we need to be selective in the level of detail. If things become unmanageable there is always the possibility to create subarticles (e.g. treatment of atrial fibrillation), but I'd prefer to avoid that at this stage.
I am convinced that it won't take much extra work to push the AF article to good article quality. It would be quite helpful if you reviewed the article closely, and listed on Talk:Atrial fibrillation what the current problems are. This way, other contributors may be able to assist in the process of getting this article up to sterling quality.
Some background reading: WP:MEDMOS is the "manual of style" for articles on medical conditions. WP:MEDRS is the same for sources. JFW | T@lk 08:56, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

AF

There was no misunderstanding - I support your edit but I felt that the prognostic information should remain in the prognosis/treatment sections. JFW | T@lk 09:11, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

I support your edit too. Bob K31416 (talk) 17:44, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia rules and procedures

{{help me}} A sudden, significant, undiscussed action was taken today by another editor on an article that I have been editing. The article Potability of backcountry water was combined with another article Wilderness diarrhea under the name Wilderness diarrhea. The part that was the original article was put in a section named Controversy.

I disagree with this undiscussed action but am unable to undo it because of subsequent edits. What is the procedure for returning the Potability article back to its original state?

(Sorry TenPoundHammer but you lost your credibility with your first two unhelpful responses to my request for help. Why waste your time here? Go "help" someone else.)

Bob K31416 (talk) 00:05, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Furthermore, Bob K31416, please read Wikipedia:Civility. Your comment directed to TenPoundHammer was rude, and there is no excuse for it. We are all volunteers on this project, and give the best answers we can to questions. Some of the time we get it right; most of the time we don't give the answer a user is looking for. Please bear that in mind, and in the future, do not direct impolite words to any editors. Thanks, PeterSymonds (talk) 00:17, 4 July 2008 (UTC)
Peter Symonds, Thanks for the correction. Bob K31416 (talk) 00:31, 4 July 2008 (UTC)
TenPoundHammer, Sorry about that. Thank you for your suggestions.
Genisock2, Thank you for your suggestion. Bob K31416 (talk) 00:53, 4 July 2008 (UTC)


Hall effect

Sorry for answering so late, but I was far from the Internet for about ten days. OK, I'll try to write about the topic, but I'll show it to you first, since my English is far from perfect... --Ernobius (talk) 16:23, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

Wilderness Diarrhea

Bob:

Please see Wilderness Diarrhea talk pageCalamitybrook (talk) 22:22, 2 August 2008 (UTC


Bob: I'm glad you're willing to look at my proposal. When I say there is "no final version" I mean merely that Wikipedia articles are available for editing by anyone at any time, as you know.

I hope it's evident from the proposed changes that what I'm aiming for is to keep all of the current article's content and ideas and most of its present structure, thereby respecting and retaining work of various previous editors.

As you can see, the proposal is considerably shorter than the current version. This is achieved by mostly by de-emphasizing "controversy" and doing away with that section, while dealing with the ideas there in a few sentences.

I've also attempted to shorten many sentences without changing their meaning. Some other points are mentioned at the top of my page, right before the proposal's lead graf.

What do you think? Calamitybrook (talk) 15:07, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

The above was moved, at my suggestion, by Calamitybrook to Talk:Wilderness diarrhea, section "Is this article turning into the style of a newspaper?" subsection "Please see proposal" and the discussion continued there. --Bob K31416 (talk) 12:43, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

Sourcing

Bob- If you have the time, you might want to look into the Wikipedia item on verifiabiilty. Here's link: [[1]]

Calamitybrook (talk) 03:56, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for the link. I suspect you have a particular point you would like to make or discuss? --Bob K31416 (talk) 12:25, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

WD

Calamitybrook WP:CANVASSed an enormous number of potentially interested (but not, alas, very informed) people to oppose the merge. The reasons for opposing the merge, which can be found at Talk:Traveler's diarrhea are:

  • the belief that diarrhea caused by fecal coliform bacteria, various viruses, and giardia acquired while hiking in your own country is materially different from diarrhea caused by the exactly same organisms through exactly the same routes of transmission if acquired while hiking or otherwise traveling in another country, and
  • the assertion that the WD article, much of which is either cut-and-paste out of TD or suffers from needless bloat, is clearly so long that it needs its own space.

I strongly suspect that we're mostly dealing with Americans (including myself) in this discussion, because it would never occur to, say, a German that getting diarrhea while hiking on the Austrian side of the Alps was materially different from getting diarrhea while hiking on the German side of the same mountain.

The "discussion" at TD is neither enlightening nor pleasant. Yesterday, we had an editor that insisted that Zell's 1992 paper was not the same as Zell's 1992 paper. I expect no useful progress to be made on that article this month.

It seems useful to refine WD, both for its own sake and also with an eye to a possible future merge. The details of the scientific studies are not appropriate: This is an encyclopedia, not a research thesis. I suspect that much of it could be (and probably should be) reduced to very short summaries, perhaps as brief as "According to surveys of hikers, the incidence of diarrhea varies from 3% to 60%.[ref][ref]" or "Most cases of diarrhea among hikers are due to fecal-oral transmission; giardia is relatively rare.[ref]" or whatever seems reasonable. Epidemiology in a medicine-related article is usually one or two paragraphs, not four or five subsections.

I'd like to keep interesting information (e.g., about prevention), but pare back the "scientific abstracts" aspect (particularly under "Causes"). WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:23, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your recent note. I like it. I also meant to add earlier that we really need all of the epidemiology information to get centralized into a single section. Are you familiar with the suggested order at WP:MEDMOS#Sections? It's a good template, I think. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:38, 11 October 2008 (UTC)
The 'pmid' ref names are autogenerated at Dave's template filler. If you want to change them to something more human-readable, then I have no objections. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:03, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

Watchlist

Has WAD fallen off your watchlist primarily when you're the last person to edit it? If so, then it's probably temporary. Most people's preferences are set so that the watchlist doesn't show any article if you were the last person to edit it. Otherwise, you might check each time you make an edit to make sure that "Watch this page" is still ticked (underneath the edit summary field). WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:16, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

WAD

Here is an interesting article that is only remotely related to WAD article, and which I won't propose using: [[2]]. It cites Crouse-J. An interesting side-light: it says hikers who did NOT filter water were slightly less likely to become ill than those who did, although it concerns a highly peculiar situation.

Here is another article that cites the C-J paper among other sources. [[3]].

I gather its ultra-terse treatment of the subject could be favored for the WAD article:

"Limited information is available concerning the risk factors for illness in the backcountry and about the health outcomes of visitors who use parks in backcountry areas. Several studies indicate that as many as 3.8%--56% of long-distance hikers and backpackers experience gastrointestinal illness during their time in the backcountry (56--61). Given the increasing popularity of backcountry use, this burden of illness could have significant medical and economic implications. Although the advice to universally filter and disinfect backcountry drinking water to prevent disease has been debated (62), the health consequences of ignoring that standard water treatment advice have been documented in WBDOSS, although they have not been well-defined through research studies."

This could serve for the entire section of WAD epidemiology, although certainly not my preference, and one notes the above article's focus is not WAD.

Obviously, both these items qualify as yet more examples of credible literature (the endless list) that discuss WAD without reference to TD. Calamitybrook (talk) 20:00, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

I enjoyed reading the AT Norovirus article showing how they try to find the cause of an outbreak. An engaging medical mystery. Thanks. --Bob K31416 (talk) 05:15, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

CHADS

You bother to mention the age range of the study, but then delete entirely from article information on the type and size of the study used to generate the CHADS score. Are you implying that it is not relevant whether it was an observational study, a trial, a cohort study, and that it is also irrelevant whether it was a study from 10 patients vs 100 vs 1000 vs 10000? CHADS2 is a prediction rule derived under umbrella of evidence-based medicine. Deleting this information detracts from the article, and to repeatedly delete it and even fail to accommodate it elsewhere is against spirit of Wikipedia and interests of a good article. Please be accurate and be respectful. Laportechicago (talk) 16:28, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Click on show to view the contents of this section
Thank you for your message. I don't feel that the situation is as confrontational as the tone of your message suggests. I think that we can work this out and I'm definitely interested in your ideas on the subject.
There seems to be 3 items of info for this discussion:
1) the ages of the subjects in the study (65-95) - I felt that this info was significant because it raises the question of how applicable the results of the study are to people under the age of 65.
2) the number of participants in the study (1733) - This seems like a reasonable number of subjects and would not affect the credibility of the study. If it was a small number like the 10 or 100 numbers that you mentioned, and this was the only study available for the info, then the reader should be warned of the small size of the study if it was decided that it should be included in an article. But 1733 subjects isn't such a case.
3) the participants were on Medicare - although you didn't mention this in your above message as one of the deleted items, I would be interested in your ideas about how this info is useful for the article.
I certainly welcome your discussion! --Bob K31416 (talk) 00:14, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Regarding: 1: I agree; this regards the design of the study and potential application of the prediction rule 2: Let the reader decide for himself or herself; the statistical strength suggested by the narrow confidence intervals around the stroke risks notwithstanding, the size of the study is a critical factor; one clinician should not make assumptions about what other clinicians and other readers consider to be significant sample sizes; 3: Fact that study was conducted from Medicare claims shows (1) how the study was conducted (i.e. it was retrospective cohort study from Medicare records, not prospective cohort study), and (2) potential design limitations since it was limited to Medicare patients (i.e. selection bias).

To my surprise, I see that you re-deleted the information,not even waiting for my response. That information was in the article for several months before you deleted it (3 times now). You do not dispute the accuracy of the information. And yet you delete the information, making the grand presumption that you know the design information that is relevant and not-relevant for all readers.

First, I think you are wrong for technical reasons. Second, it is wrong for you to delete correct information several times from an article without even attempting to put it elsewhere. The first point can be the subject of informative discussion, but the second point is egregious and crosses lines.

If my response above does not satisfy you, and you cannot find it within yourself to tolerate or accept the inclusion of the study design information, then I suggest that we revert each others changes 3 times over next 24 hours so that we can trigger arbitration, which I think would be the appropriate at this time. I question your technical judgment, and I certainly question your presumptuous, non-constructive behavior. Please make articles more informative, not less informative, and please be respectful. Laportechicago (talk) 00:45, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for your response.
  1. I'm glad we are in agreement re ages of subjects in the study.
  2. Re "Let the reader decide for himself or herself" - This argument can be used for including any information in any article no matter how little usefulness it has, so it isn't a helpful argument.
  3. Re "the statistical strength suggested by the narrow confidence intervals around the stroke risks" - Thanks for pointing that out.
  4. Re "Fact that study was conducted from Medicare claims shows (1) how the study was conducted (i.e. it was retrospective cohort study from Medicare records, not prospective cohort study), and (2) potential design limitations since it was limited to Medicare patients (i.e. selection bias)."
- Re 1st point, Could you elaborate on your ideas regarding the significance of the distinction between retrospective and prospective for the article? If the distinction is significant for the article, we could specifically identify it instead of referring to Medicare, since the inference from mentioning Medicare may not be obvious.
- Re 2nd point, what do you see as the potential design limitations or bias problems re use of Medicare patients?
5. Re "To my surprise, I see that you re-deleted the information, not even waiting for my response." - That didn't happen. I haven't done any editing on the article since our discussion began.
6. Re "First, I think you are wrong for technical reasons." - Please explain this. What items and technical reasons are you referring to?
7. Re "the size of the study is a critical factor; one clinician should not make assumptions about what other clinicians and other readers consider to be significant sample sizes;" - As I mentioned before, I feel that the size of the study is only of significance if it is small enough to bring into question the credibility of the study. I guess we can't can't come to an agreement on this particular point and maybe we might get other knowledgeable editors' opinions on this particular point with a Request for Comment from the section that includes medical projects.
--Bob K31416 (talk) 03:56, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

1. Right.

2. It's not my point that the reader should decide relevance of sample size. My point is that the reader should see the sample size SOMEWHERE in the article and then decide whether it satisfies himself/herself. Clinicians (correctly) judge studies partly on their size and certainly on their design. You argued that we should automatically assume that the study had significant sample size and had a suitable design, but that is not going to satisfy a good number of clinicians and readers. Indeed, you will note that every clinical trial paper abstract includes the size of the trial or study; and it's not an accident. The CONSORT guidelines are even more explicit and demanding about sample size data being clearly reported.

3. Retrospective study from Medicare claims means that they are data-mining from billing records, so there are inevitible infirmities in the data (For example, if something happened to patient X but it wasn't billed to Medicare for whatever reason, patient's outcome might have been missed). There's possibilities that such infirmities might be biased towards one outcome. If it was a prospective study, then patient would have been identified and registered beforehand, almost certainly through their physician, allowing much tighter and stricter follow-up on their outcomes and much less guessing and missing data about what happened to the patient.

4. The use of Medicare patients was very likely chosen because the billing records/claims are far more accessible to researchers then those from private insurers, and also because medicare is far more common amongst the retired (the patients most at risk from AFIB and stroke risk). In fact, I suspect that's why the selection criteria started at age 65, and did not include any patients in their 50s. Without delving into stereotypes, the Medicare population compared to private insurance population of the same age tends to be more indigent and have more co-morbidities, less monitoring and less intensive treatment for the strokes, and would therefore have worse outcomes than if the entire US population in that age group was included. This potentially biases the risk estimates for stroke. Is it hugely significant? No. Is it irrelevant? No. It needs to be mentioned in article and simply deleting this fact is not the thing to do. For that matter, the study should at least state that the patients were at American hospitals.

4.a: See above. 4.b: My mistake and I apologize. 4.c: I believe it is technically wrong to say that study design and study size information is not relevant to clinical judgement and use of the CHADS2 score. I don't think it is a matter of opinion; I think it is actually wrong. I would be hard-pressed to find a clinician who would consider that information irrelevant if they were presented with a new clinical prediction rule. Just reciting confidence intervals is not going to impress any clinician with half a brain; they will want to know: (1) when was it conducted, (2) where was it conducted/with what patients, (3) what was the design and sample size and primary outcomes. 4.d: Right. My suggestion is that there should be a section on the study design, if it is really bothersome to include study design info in the introductory page. But deleting it is not responsible thing to do.

Please invite an epidemiologist or a clinician to arbitrate if you would like.

Laportechicago (talk) 05:19, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

For some guidance on this issue I looked at the "ACC/AHA/ESC 2006 Guidelines for the Management of Patients With Atrial Fibrillation" and in their discussion of CHADS2 they mentioned 1733 Medicare participants so I won't object to the inclusion of those details in the article. Furthermore, I'll be carefully looking at your input above and the aforementioned Guidelines for ideas re development of the article.
Thanks for the discussion! --Bob K31416 (talk) 11:39, 30 October 2008 (UTC)
P.S. What level of detail to put into a particular Wikipedia article can be a controversial issue, as we have just experienced, and depends on the subject field of the article. Please note that it probably isn't a catastrophe which way is decided and that as long as there are easily accessible references, e.g. online as in the link to the relevant reference cited in this article, more details are always available to the interested reader. --Bob K31416 (talk) 12:59, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

1. I didn't know about its mention in the joint guidelines on AFIB but I am not surprised that its mention included a few words on its design and size.

2. The medicine-related articles on Wikipedia are accessed by users with a wide range of sophistication in medicine, broadly including patients at one end, and clinicians at the other end. My experience is that good Wikipedia articles satisfy both groups by including simple concise introduction, some explanation sections for the 1st group, and then some more technical sections farther down for the 2nd group. A typical exam is the wikipedia article for drugs. Take tamoxifen, for example. There is some simple information combined with very technical information like study results (the main subject of our discussion). Taking away from technical info is "robbing peter to pay paul"--- one group of users is robbed at the expense of another, which is unnecessary. The question of level-of-detail is best addressed by re-arranging and re-organizing the article (ex. new sections, technical sections, etc), rather than deleting, which is a negative/devolutionary/detraction approach. Deleting is for (1) incorrect info, (2) biased info, (3) frivolous info.

3. I have no objections and really no authority to say where the study design information should be. I think a new section would be appropriate. I also think your idea of moving it to stroke risk section makes sense, too. But I think a Study Design section with 2-3 sentences on how, when, where study was conducted would be satisfactory.

4. I refer you to CONSORT guidelines to demonstrate the current practice in reporting randomized trials in medical journals. (would not apply to cohort studies per se but the point is the same).

Laportechicago (talk) 22:25, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Hi. Here's a discussion of your points using your numbering system.
1. You can find the afib guidelines here and the CHADS2 material that we were discussing is on p e287. Once you bring up the article you can find it easily by doing a search for 1733.
2. Re "My experience is that good Wikipedia articles satisfy both groups by including simple concise introduction, some explanation sections for the 1st group, and then some more technical sections farther down for the 2nd group." - If I recall correctly, that's what Wikipedia guidelines suggest.
3. Re "I have no objections and really no authority to say where the study design information should be." - You have as much authority as any other Wikipedia editor.
Re "I also think your idea of moving it to stroke risk section makes sense, too." - I'll make that change for now and it can always be changed again if needed to work with your ideas.
4. Like you seem to be saying, the CONSORT guidelines aren't exactly appropriate for the Wikipedia but if you can extract some ideas from them, that sounds like something to discuss.

--Bob K31416 (talk) 00:41, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Outside comment

I'd like to interrupt this conversation with a potentially important reminder: Wikipedia is not written for clinicians. Clinicians should not be either so careless or so lazy as make decisions based on an encyclopedic summary of anything; clinicians should read the entire source themselves. The Wikipedia:Medical disclaimer does not only apply to patients.

I'd like to invite both of you to read WP:MEDMOS#Audience before you get much further along in this conversation, and, in the broader picture, to consider joining WikiProject Medicine, where there are a lot of experienced editors that can help you navigate the complexities of writing an encyclopedia for the general reader instead of for fellow professionals. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:27, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for your comment. I'll take a look at what you suggested. Also, I thought I saw somewhere in Wikipedia info that it was suggested to start an article relatively simple and then progress to relatively more complex aspects of a subject. This was info related to articles in general. Could you help out and recall where this info might be? --Bob K31416 (talk) 04:51, 31 October 2008 (UTC)
Are you looking for Wikipedia:Make technical articles accessible? WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:33, 31 October 2008 (UTC)
Thank you! That's the one. Could you comment on this excerpt from it, "Put the most accessible parts of the article up front. It's perfectly fine for later sections to be highly technical, if necessary. " --Bob K31416 (talk) 17:40, 31 October 2008 (UTC)
I'm fond of that section, which I usually interpret as making at least the first sentence of any major section something that the average teenager could understand, instead of the introduction being understandable and the rest jargon-filled. (To clarify: I do want the introduction to be understandable, but not just the introduction, and if the introduction needs to use technical terms to avoid long-winded explanations, then I'm willing to be somewhat flexible.
Of course, if you're in the middle of a major overhaul of an article, then it's difficult to do this with every edit. I often see editors write the article first, and then go back and edit it specifically to add simpler sentences (see here for one example). WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:19, 1 November 2008 (UTC)
Ahhh, but my main interest is what you think about the second sentence of the excerpt. --Bob K31416 (talk) 01:33, 1 November 2008 (UTC)
I interpret necessary as meaning essentially unavoidable. There are topics that can't be adequately explained without using technical terms. I do not interpret it as an excuse to violate WP:NOT PAPER by writing a jargon-filled article (or half an article) that is intelligible only to fellow experts just because I can, or to bury the reader in small details just because I happen to find them interesting (and I usually do find them interesting -- just not appropriate for an encyclopedia, and I can get my own website for that). Just my two cents; other people may have other views. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:04, 1 November 2008 (UTC)
Re " I do not interpret it as an excuse to violate WP:NOT PAPER by writing a jargon-filled article (or half an article) that is intelligible only to fellow experts just because I can, or to bury the reader in small details just because I happen to find them interesting (and I usually do find them interesting" - I agree!
And thanks for another useful link to look at (WP:What Wikipedia is not). At that link there is the guidance again, "Introductory language in the lead and initial sections of the article should be written in plain terms and concepts that can be understood by any literate reader of Wikipedia without any knowledge in the given field before advancing to more detailed explanations of the topic."
It seems that we shouldn't ignore either the first part of this sentence nor the last part which suggests that more detailed explanations of the topic are entirely proper when they follow information that is accessible to a wider range of readers.
For highly technical subjects, a Wikipedia article might eventually have clearer highly technical explanations than the books and journal articles that are references for it. I think this is one of the values of Wikipedia and we shouldn't lose this.
--Bob K31416 (talk) 23:53, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

Hey

(I copied and italicised my 3 messages below from THEN WHO WAS PHONE? (talk) in order to have an unfragmented record of the discussion for reference.) --Bob K31416 (talk) 15:33, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

Hi, I just thought I'd pay you a social visit and ask what the connection was between GFDL and DFT/TF editing that you mentioned in our discussion. I don't know much about GFDL. I just glanced at its wiki. Regards, --Bob K31416 (talk) 03:24, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

It has nothing to do with TF theory ;), just anyone copying content from one article to a new one needs to explicitly note where it came from (in the edit summary) so to conform with the the GFDL Wikipedia is operating under. Tenuous recognition, but recognition none the less. I probably overemphasized that point on the talk page.
You sure work on a varied and interesting array of topics heh. Happy editing, THEN WHO WAS PHONE? (talk) 03:49, 13 November 2008 (UTC)
Thanks! So I guess I'll say something in the edit summary like "Created article by copying section from Density functional theory".
Sorry to be a pill, but could you point out where I can find this requirement in Wikipedia? Just for my edification. Is it in some paragraph in the GFDL wiki that I missed?
It seems like everything in Wikipedia is covered by GFDL and Wikipedia is one work as far as GFDL is concerned so that copying something from one wiki to another wiki, where both are in Wikipedia is just moving it within the same work and doesn't need mentioning. Again, I'm just flying by the seat of my pants and I don't really know this stuff well, so I wouldn't be surprised if I got it wrong.
But in any case it would be a good edit summary to say where it came from and that's what I plan to do. I'm just curious about this GFDL stuff for my general knowledge and I'm trying to get straight what I don't understand. --Bob K31416 (talk) 04:08, 13 November 2008 (UTC)
The aspect in question is 4.I of WP:GFDL. The history is being preserved by noting where it came from, so that the people who wrote it down first could be determined. If someone/some organization took the content of the new article and put it on their own site, or used in whatever verbatim manner, GFDL requires the original content creators be acknowledged (by the original edit history). I think that sums it up, but I'm certainly no expert. THEN WHO WAS PHONE? (talk)
Thanks for the info. Best regards, --Bob K31416 (talk) 14:43, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

Cost effectiveness

No, it was just a comment on Calamity's sloppy conflation of efficacy and cost-effectiveness.

My only real goal on this issue is to prevent the various views from getting an undue amount of attention in the article. I'd be happy with any one or two sentences that give a top-level summary of the situation: disinfection of water helps, but it's not the only issue, and experts disagree about whether it's really important, probably because there are lots of relevant factors (such as who's pooping in your watershed). WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:57, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

rho & n

(I copied and italicised my two messages below from THEN WHO WAS PHONE? (talk) in order to have an unfragmented record of the discussion for reference.) --Bob K31416 (talk) 15:20, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

Hi. I noticed that the LDA article uses ρ for electron density whereas DFT and TF use n. In order to be consistent with variable definitions in the related articles, my first thought was to suggest changing the ρ to n in the LDA article, since that would require the least amount of work. However, then I noticed that in the Gas in a box article that n was used for quantum numbers not electron density. So even though it is more work, maybe the change should be n to ρ in the DFT and TF articles? I'm not really sure about all this or whether it's worth bothering about. Do you have any thoughts on the matter? --Bob K31416 (talk) 15:10, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

I'm terribly biased to one of the usages, so I don't really want to give a solid opinion lol.
Bureaucratically speaking, if a common symbol is to be used n would have the upper hand as it was first introduced in to DFT in June 2004, whereas rho was introduced in to electronic density in June 2005 and TDFFT in 2007. I have a feeling rho maybe more natural to people who are reading about DFT for the first time, given its widespread usage for charge density and density. I don't pay enough attention to remember to what extent each is used in the literature, although Parr and Yang's use of rho may count for something. Gas in a box is a bit of a pain as the usage of n in that setting would be near universal, I think. But I'm sure people interested in that are grown up enough to cope with the usage in DFT too heh. Consistent usage is appealing and I don't think anyone would make a fuss either way (even me). The ease of doing a search and replace rho → n is also a compelling argument for whoever is going to take the time to make any changes. THEN WHO WAS PHONE? (talk) 15:52, 18 November 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for your response and thanks for having a good natured attitude. I really mean it. I don't think I'll mess with the density variable consistency any more for now.
Best regards, --Bob K31416 (talk) 23:34, 18 November 2008 (UTC)
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