User talk:Doc James/Archive 1

Welcome!

Hello, Doc James, 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:

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If you are interested in contributing more to medical related articles you may want to join WikiProject Medicine (signup here).

Again, welcome!  JFW | T@lk 18:37, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Obesity

Thanks for your comments on Talk:Obesity and your message on my talkpage. I must say I had some difficulty following some of your comments (probably due to the formatting), but I'm sure that will sort itself out.

The reason you cannot presently edit obesity is quite simple: it is semi-protected. This will stop random people continuously vandalising the article with messages like "My teacher Mrs Jones is the fattest pesron in the wurld LOL 1!" Unfortunately, these edits vastly outstrip the number of constructive edits received from anonymous and brand-new accounts. Your account will be autoconfirmed after a few days and a number of constructive edits elsewhere on Wikipedia. Once this is the case, you are free to edit the article.

My view is that the obesity article is presently the right size and should not be expanded much more. Rather, existing content needs to be improved and supported with high-quality references (outline on reliable medical sources). If there is sufficient reason, it may be necessary to split off subarticles (e.g. medical consequences of obesity), but only if truly necessary. JFW | T@lk 18:37, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Hi,

you seem to be familiar with medical literature. If you use Pubmed, you can copy-past the PMID number at the bottom of the abstract entry into diberri's tool to automatically generate properly formatted references.

Let me know if you need any help.

cheers, --Steven Fruitsmaak (Reply) 18:24, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Obesity again

Thanks for your expansion of obesity. I need to point out a few things before you carry on. Firstly, please familiarise yourself with the manual of style. For instance, in the header "Sedentary Lifestyle" the word "lifestyle" should be lowercase.

More importantly, please make no further edits to the article until you have looked at WP:CITE and we way references are formatted. Before you started, most references were formatted with the {{cite journal}} template, which standardises the references and gives rapid access to online versions of journal articles through PubMed and DOI. Stevenfruitsmaak (above) has provided a link to a tool that rapidly generates template code. It is easy to use. Simply adding bare URLs or unformatted text is not really acceptable. I will try to tidy up as much as I can. JFW | T@lk 19:22, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

I have now fixed all the references. You are free to have a look at the page history to see what changes have been made.

I specifically dropped the citations to mortality studies from the introduction. Ideally, Wikipedia articles should be sourced to review articles and other secondary sources. The Lancet review by James and Haslam does a fine job at discussing shortened life expectancy in obesity, so I simply used that as a reference. Have a look at WP:MEDRS, the medical sources guideline.

Let me know if you need a hand with anything. JFW | T@lk 09:12, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

Secondary sources are really more ideal than primary ones. For a full explanation you'd be better off looking at WP:MEDRS. Reviews (especially systematic reviews) do a better job at distinguishing between important and less important primary research.

I would really discourage plainly removing information like the citation to Quetelet's studies in the 19th century. This is an encyclopedia and not a scientific publication, and while in the New England Journal of Medicine such a citation would be out of place, it is definitely acceptable here and should probably be retained. JFW | T@lk 16:09, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

Where systematic reviews are not available, WP:MEDRS has a list of other suitable sources. There are definitely exceptions to all those rules.

I'm not sure what you mean by "subsection". If you mean a separate article, then we'd better discuss this on Talk:Obesity so other contributors will be able to weigh in. Tonight I will try to change the bulleted list of complications into a table (prettier and easier to navigate). I have no objections against dedicated sections for mortality and on the "obesity paradox", provided adequate sources are available to populate such sections. JFW | T@lk 16:52, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

Your recent edits

Hi there. In case you didn't know, when you add content to talk pages and Wikipedia pages that have open discussion, you should sign your posts by typing four tildes ( ~~~~ ) at the end of your comment. If you can't type the tilde character, you should click on the signature button located above the edit window. This will automatically insert a signature with your name and the time you posted the comment. This information is useful because other editors will be able to tell who said what, and when. Thank you! --SineBot (talk) 17:40, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

Images

There is no Wikipedia policy on images from clinical practice. There are two separate issues: copyright and patient consent. There's an ongoing discussion about the level of care needed when publishing images of patients or their results. I personally think that completely anonymised data (i.e. an X-ray with the personal data removed) is impossible to trace, and all you will need is an idea whether the owner of the image agrees for it to be released under the WP:GFDL. This is probably your employer. In my mind, very few hospitals will object to their staff using anonymised patients' imaging for illustrative purposes in publications, and that would normally extend to Wikipedia. That's the copyright side of things. Then there's patient consent. I would personally obtain written consent from a patient if they were identifiable from the image. Some users have been more careful, and have signed written consent from their patients on file even if the image in question is untraceable (i.e. endoscopy stills).

Thanks ever so much for your continued work on obesity. You'll find me trying to expand it, and I may end up reshuffling and rephrasing some things that you've added. Bear with me. I'm an old hand and I think we share the conviction that the article can be improved to very high quality. JFW | T@lk 18:56, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

With regards to images from WHO and NIH publications - if they are truly public domain then there are no restrictions at all. But the situation may be more complex: see Wikipedia:Image use policy for details. JFW | T@lk 19:04, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm certain Mr Uptodate will object if you post his images on Wikipedia. However, a version redrawn by yourself might get Jeff Drazen annoyed. Suggest you ask Wikipedia:Media copyright questions - responses are gratifyingly quick. JFW | T@lk 01:56, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Spelling and grammar

Could I encourage you to pay some attention to your spelling and grammar. On obesity I have had to correct quite a few spelling mistakes and grammatical errors. JFW | T@lk 02:46, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Mozilla Firefox has an inbuilt spellchecker, but it doesn't do grammar. On Wikipedia, bots (automated scripts) occasionally correct frequently made errors, but that process is slow. JFW | T@lk 02:52, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

It is always "weight loss" and never "weight lose". I've had to correct this error a couple of times now. JFW | T@lk 18:16, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Image at juggling

Hello, and welcome to Wikipedia! I never managed to do more than flash five (once), but I was pretty good at three-ball "penguin" once upon a time. I'm glad that you've showed up at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Medicine and hope that you'll stick around. I think WPMED is one of the most interesting groups on Wikipedia -- a lot of experienced editors (I see a couple of them have already found your talk page!) and everyone interested in a high-quality product. Thanks again for your contributions! WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:22, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

As a side note, free images you upload will be moved to Wikimedia Commons, whereas fair use images belong on Wikipedia. See Wikipedia:Wikimedia Commons. --Steven Fruitsmaak (Reply) 13:10, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Use of primary research

I removed the reference to a primary research study with a good reason, so unless that reason is addressed I don't think I can agree to reinsert it. WP:MEDRS, our sources guideline for medical articles, discourages primary research study barring very specific exceptions. All important reasons are listed there, so I will not rehash them. In this particular example, there might be various reasons why the study results might not be generalisable for the point you wanted to make (e.g. ethnic differences in metabolism leading to brisk weight response to aerobic exercise). JFW | T@lk 22:17, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Removing content

I have already explained why I removed the Singapore recruits content. You are using it to offer an example, yet we cannot know if that is a representative example. Has that study been cited in secondary sources? How about citing the secondary source? You must again familiarise yourself with WP:MEDRS, because that is the crux; it is not an empty issue. There are (as I indicated on Talk:Obesity) various reasons why the study might not be generalisable, which limits its use as an example.

I'm sorry for not explaining why I removed Fiddler on the Roof. I'm sure large amounts of examples can be found, and this doesn't seem to be a very good one - what does an American writer know about the ideal of beauty in early 20th century Russia? Or is it used as a plot device? Either way, it would be much better to have a secondary source that makes a scientific inventory of perceptions of obesity in various cultures. I cannot imagine these studies have not been conducted - we already have a fairly good one in the form of Powdermaker's chapter in "Food and Culture".

Removing content is not forbidden. I am personally an advocate of the BOLD, revert, discuss cycle. Content is added. If it sticks, great. If it doesn't, there is a talkpage. Again apologies for not clarifying the Fiddler on the Roof reference. JFW | T@lk 05:26, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Concerning primary sources: I have personally taken to citing both the primary source and the secondary source that confirms its relevance (as can be seen on my recent edits to hypopituitarism, where I cite both Simmonds' original paper and the Schneider review to confirm its status as first report). This removes concerns about distortion while ensuring that the sources are relevant.

There is little precedent for using UpToDate as a secondary source. You could try raising this on WT:MEDRS. JFW | T@lk 13:57, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Re:Obesity Pictures

Hi James

In response to your request, my height and weight at the time the pictures were taken was 322lb/146kg and Height was 5ft 10in, so my BMI at the time was 46.2. I'd be happy to do newer pictures that would probably be better, but I've lost about 50lb since the pics were taken. Just let me know what would be prefferable =] - FatM1ke (talk) 03:24, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Mike, would you be able to find pictures of slighly higher quality? The image you uploaded has fairly poor lighting, if you don't mind me saying. JFW | T@lk 12:51, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

Not at that weight, though I am still obese now (5ft 11, 270lb, BMI 37.7). The fact that I lost weight reasonably easily probably leads to it been idiopathic / spontaneous obesity, though I have been obese since very early childhood and was unable to lose weight until after puberty was over, so I'm not 100% sure. The GPs I've had since then haven't really shown much care to it due to the fact I've always been in a reasonably healthy state for that period of time, and for quite some time during my childhood attempted to lose weight. I will get back to you with some better pictures shortly - FatM1ke (talk) 14:10, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

Had some spare time then, and uploaded some pictures that you are able to use for your article image: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:ObeseManFrontView.jpg - http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:ObeseManSideView.jpg . Hope these have appropriate lighting, clothing and background. Respond back if changes need to be made. - FatM1ke (talk) 14:42, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

Spelling, again, and sources

James, could I please ask you again to proofread your contributions and do the utmost to improve your spelling? I have again had to remove a number of instances of "weight lose" from the article.

I have also noticed that you sometimes use the same source several times, e.g. the Robert Pool book. This is fine, but it saves hassle if you use WP:REFNAME. I have fixed this now. JFW | T@lk 12:51, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

Barnstar

I, Steven Fruitsmaak, hereby present you with The Exceptional Newcomer Award, which may be awarded to newcomers who display exceptional enthusiasm, skill, and boldness beyond their experience. Keep up the good work! 23:35, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

Totally agree with the Fruity One that you are deserving of a barnstar for your hard work, especially your commitment to adequate sourcing and updating the long-neglected obesity article. JFW | T@lk 07:49, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

Socioeconomic factors

Well done for tidying up that section. Have you any idea how to get rid of the bullet points? It is not exactly an enumeration. PS don't forget to provide edit summaries; we all forget sometimes. JFW | T@lk 17:03, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

Page move

Just letting you know that I have undone your move of obesity to adult obesity. Page moves of important pages should never happen without a formal request for a page move, and consensus on the appropriate name. While the concept "adult obesity" is more specific, I think the word "obesity" without a modifier is used more commonly in discussions about adult obesity (see any published article in the professional literature). If you are still keen to have the page moved please follow the instructions on WP:RM. JFW | T@lk 21:42, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

Multiple instances of same reference

You are using Caballero multiple times. Once the reference has been created once, you can name it <ref name=Caballero>{{cite journal ... }}</ref> and then continue to call it by simply adding <ref name=Caballero/>. See WP:FN for details. JFW | T@lk 23:05, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

NY Times article

James, just drop the NY Times article. It doesn't mention anywhere the concepts of "chubby culture" or "fat admirer". You should also not use WP:UNDO without an edit summary unless it is blatant vandalism you are removing. JFW | T@lk 17:38, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

OK, despite using search on the NY Times article I missed the reference to the fat admirer. It is a very old source though. Agree we should discuss this on Talk:Obesity. JFW | T@lk 17:46, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

Got Lancet?

There's still a fair bit of stuff that could do with better sources. I've dug up a reprint of Haslam & James' 2005 Lancet review which has a fair bit on the medical consequences of obesity. Have you got access to it? I think it is useful. JFW | T@lk 17:10, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

Help with Low-Carb Diet

Hi,

JFW nominated you as someone who might be able to help me out.

I have made some efforts to clean up the low-carbohydrate diet article but more work needs to be done. Because I do not have a medical or nutritional background I am hitting a bit of a wall. Aside from my obviously limited understanding of the physiological and metabolic details, I simply have limited access to texts for use as references and so the referencing in the article is fairly poor. That is, apart from describing the theories put forth by low-carb advocates the article also needs to be able to describe the uncontested aspects of human physiology that are relevant to the subject. Although I can locate texts online which discuss many of the issues the discussions are usually buried in the midst of broader discussions. Often the only succinct discussions of the relevant issues that I can find are from physicians that are know low-carb proponents. Unfortunately that tends to make anything they write on the subject considered biased.

Anyway, if this is a topic that interests you and you feel you might have time to help clean up the article a little, either by suggesting references or by directly improving the text, please feel free.

Thanks.

--Mcorazao (talk) 03:40, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

P.S. One other area I am curious if you have advice on. I have tried to find a way to summarize the research. The problem is that the interpretations of the research seem to run the gamut. I find widely varying interpretations even on the same study. So what I ended up doing is creating a very vaguely stated research section with a link to an article that gives a broad sampling of the available research. Seems like a sloppy way to approach this but I feel like if I try to boil this down further I have to interject my own interpretations which, of course, is wrong. --Mcorazao (talk) 03:40, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

Still reading the book and it is a great read. My take of the literature is that none of the diets come out any better then the others in trials. Obesity is an exceedingly important topic which seems to have an easy solution which turn out to be not so easy. When it comes to diets and the low carb diet in particular everything seems to have been tried. Diets fail and disappears for a while and then comes back again. I think Atkins is the third time low card has been popular.

Thanks so much for your feedback.

Curious: Regarding the equal efficacy of the diets, are you referring simply to weight loss or to all of the metabolic aspects that have been analyzed? One of the aspects I find interesting is the research that points to improved lipids which -- it seems to me -- is fairly (but not entirely) consistent in the recent studies. Aside from this the isolated studies showing possible relationships with diabetes, cancer, and some neurological problems seems interesting (admittedly the research in those areas is sparse and, so, more anecdotal than conclusive). What is your take on all of that (i.e. what is reasonable to say in the article)?

Thanks.

--Mcorazao (talk) 16:03, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

Another great source is uptodate. They have an indepth article on diets. If you need access send me your email and I can give you a free month subscription.

http://www.uptodate.com/online/content/topic.do?topicKey=obesity/4904#12 Doc James (talk) 06:43, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

I don't have access. Thanks. --Mcorazao (talk) 16:03, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

RE: Adiposopathy

Sure, give me a link to the AfD page when you've made it please.

And yeah, I'll take a look at obesity tomorrow as that takes a bit more effort but I'll happily edit your photos now if you upload them to Commons and tell me what you want me to do with them.

Kind regards —Cyclonenim (talk · contribs) 22:54, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Wasn't quite right but I've sorted it now. Where are the images that you want editing? —Cyclonenim (talk · contribs) 23:02, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Haha fair enough, do feel free to contact me when you need them editing. Can I ask what medical specialty you're in? —Cyclonenim (talk · contribs) 23:06, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Oh very nice, it's a shame you weren't here when we needed help getting subarachnoid hemorrhage to FA! I'm just a layperson as of yet (I hope to study medicine after an initial degree in perhaps neuroscience) so I don't know what I'd do without the doctors here checking my facts that I get from PubMed.

Thanks, but I really don't deserve any credit. I stole lots of the code off other users (that's the beauty of GFDL licenses!). There's loads of stuff around if you want to try and make yourself one? —Cyclonenim (talk · contribs) 23:15, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Edit summaries

Nice work so far on Obesity. I see you've made 34 edits today but I have very little idea what they were unless I study each one in detail, which is a little hard work. May I remind you of our edit summary feature? This aids other edits to know of what you've done without having to compare the differences between different articles! Just helps a little bit for others :) Thanks! —Cyclonenim (talk · contribs) 22:25, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

No worries, we all get a little lazy sometimes, it just becomes habit to add them eventually. —Cyclonenim (talk · contribs) 22:35, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

That'd be great if you could, I've emailed you with my email address. How much does a full account there cost? —Cyclonenim (talk · contribs) 22:55, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

Catching up

Whoa, you haven't been sitting still on obesity! Are you sure we need to discuss "adiposopathy" at all? It seems a novel concept that lacks a broad consensus.

The time may soon be ripe to submit obesity to a peer review, with the intention of getting it promoted to good article status in a little while. After all your hard work recently that would be a small recognition, and certainly I've personally been hoping for some time. Let me know your thoughts. Having recently pushed quite a few articles through GA (including hypopituitarism and familial hypercholesterolemia) I'm fairly well acquianted with the process and its drawbacks. JFW | T@lk 01:01, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Archives

Thanks again for the UpToDate guest pass, it's already proving fairly useful for finding references! I noticed you've added archives, did you know that you can get a bot to automatically archive your talk page? All you have to do is add this to the top of your talk page:

(please edit your talk page to view the code below properly otherwise it just shows on one line, and don't copy the nowiki tag)

{{User:MiszaBot/config |maxarchivesize = 50K |counter = 3 |algo = old(1d) |archive = User talk:Cyclonenim/Archive %(counter)d }}

You can change the maximum archive size and 'algo' (which decides how old the posts have to be before archived), leave the counter at 1 and it'll automatically changed. You can also change the name of the archive if you think you need to.

Kind regards, —Cyclonenim (talk · contribs) 10:51, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

RE: BMI calculator

I suspect it's not directly possible on Wikipedia itself but someone may be able to make an external tool on the Toolserver if you ask them politely. I'm not entirely sure how to do this though. You'd probably have to give them input on how to calculate BMI though. —Cyclonenim (talk · contribs) 15:57, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

RE: Picture editing

Sure thing, not a problem. Give me a bell when you've uploaded them and placed the links on your page. —Cyclonenim (talk · contribs) 11:24, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Hi, I've edited most of the pictures. I'll probably send them to you via email, then you can upload them here or where ever you want them. I'm unsure of where to place the arrow on the compression fracture image, I can't figure out where the fracture is! —Cyclonenim (talk · contribs) 10:13, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Copyedit - please hold fire

James, I've just been doing some copyediting. Unfortunately I have to interrupt the work now (holding at "management"), and I was wondering if you could hold fire for a little while until I've finished (hopefully tonight). Once that is done, we can submit a formal peer review request. JFW | T@lk 06:28, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

I'm really unsure if Emedicine should be used as a direct source. How about citing the sources mentioned in Emedicine?

Also, please review your use of citation templates. Just sticking a pipe character somewhere is not sufficient. There is plenty of useful information on {{cite journal}} and {{cite web}} that should enable you to do this without me having to do much cleaning up afterwards. JFW | T@lk 20:51, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

MedRevise.co.uk

Hey, I thought you might be interested in this, since you are medically active! With a colleague I have set up a Medical Revision website, called MedRevise.co.uk. It is not trying to compete with Wikipedia, but trying to be something else useful, different and fun. If you are interested, please read our philosophy and just have a little look at our site. I would appreciate your feedback, and some contributions if you have the time. Thanks a lot! Christianpunk (talk) 17:39, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

ADHD

Hi, Jmh, you are making a lot of useful changes to ADHD, but it is rather a lot to keep up with, and it has been a site with some controversy in the past, hence other editors may want to process through and think about some of the changes you are making. Some may even disagree on some or want to discuss them, but your pace is rather overwhelming and makes this rather difficult to do. Perhaps you could slow down a little?--Vannin (talk) 05:10, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

Mmm, what an unusual request by the above editor. I think if your edits are well intended and referenced, I see no reason why you would need to work slower. I've been known to rewrite articles at high speed as well; everything can be changed back later if necessary.

Regarding your request for semi-protection, the edit history doesn't show persistent disruptive vandalism from multiple IPs that isn't quickly reverted. Moreover, with you working there, it is unlikely that anything will be damaged unnoticed . Seriously, I don't think the level of vandalism is unusual. However, I will add it to my watchlist ;-). --Steven Fruitsmaak (Reply) 19:21, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Not so unusual when you look at other controversial topics. It is easy enough to write on a topic, do all the references and get a paper published, sure, who hasn't? but this is different. This is a collaborative process where there can be a lot of varied viewpoints. Thus there needs to be discussion of changes. In some articles there is a request to make only one change at a time and to discuss it on talk pages first. --Vannin (talk) 14:39, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Peer review: Sleep medicine

Hello. Thank you for your comments at peer review. I've written a (longish) response, ending thus:

Do you think I should (...) change the title to Sleep medicine in the US?

Alternatively, and likely better, I could pull the training and certification info out into its own article and add a Sleep research section to the present article.

If you'll be so kind as to consider these questions and answer, please do so at the peer review. Thanks! --Hordaland (talk) 20:07, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

(This comment also added to peer review page.) Thanks for that European Accreditation Guidelines link! That is mostly about accreditation for sleep centers (centres!) but includes a long list of national sleep (research) societies. I hope most of them have websites -- I'm off on the chase! --Hordaland (talk) 20:32, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

shakespeare

so i tried to help - you put a cite tag on the shakespeare reference, and so I went and looked it up for you. Your response- to remove the whole thing. Now how is that being friendly? I didn't write the history section so there is no need to bite me on this one -if you didn't want it in your article on adhd then why ask for more info? I was simply trying to help you (and obviously wasting my time). Where is the aggression coming from? You might as well just scrap the whole history section if that is your thinking as you wont find shakespeare in your particular set of references. --Vannin (talk) 21:26, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

like I said - i was trying to help. You put the cite tag on. I tracked down the reference for you. So why bite me? I didn't write the original - I'm not trying to do OR, prove a point or anything - just help.--Vannin (talk) 23:10, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Obesity

Hi Doc, replied to your notes on my talk. Peace, delldot ∇. 15:48, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

Spelling

I noticed that a lot of your messages on the TALK pages have many misspellings, as mine did in the past. This was probably in my case due to a motor skills disorder; I see the words spelled correctly in my mind but end up with transposition of letters when typing. I felt that looking like I was uneducated hurt my credibility, but it also took forever to go back through everything I had typed manually. The good news is that upon recommendation of another Wikipedian, I found a pretty good solution with an add-on program called ieSpell. (Freeware http://www.iespell.com/) Of course, like any spell checker, it usually doesn't catch a misspelling which forms a different word, but it helps me a lot, and the time to look back over stuff is far less cumbersome than before. I am passing along this information to you, along with my recommendation. Vaoverland (talk) 01:17, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

edit summary

Hi JMH. Can you go back to putting in edit summaries. It is rather difficult to find a particular edit without them. Thanks.--Vannin (talk) 20:25, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Speedy deletion of Leading preventable causes of death

A tag has been placed on Leading preventable causes of death requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. This has been done under section G12 of the criteria for speedy deletion, because the article appears to be a blatant copyright infringement [of http://www.csdp.org/research/1238.pdf]. For legal reasons, we cannot accept copyrighted text or images borrowed from other web sites or printed material, and as a consequence, your addition will most likely be deleted. You may use external websites as a source of information, but not as a source of sentences. This part is crucial: say it in your own words.

If the external website belongs to you, and you want to allow Wikipedia to use the text — which means allowing other people to modify it — then you must include on the external site the statement "I, (name), am the author of this article, (article name), and I release its content under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 and later." You might want to look at Wikipedia's policies and guidelines for more details, or ask a question here.

If you think that this notice was placed here in error, you may contest the deletion by adding {{hangon}} to the top of the page that has been nominated for deletion (just below the existing speedy deletion or "db" tag), coupled with adding a note on the talk page explaining your position, but be aware that once tagged for speedy deletion, if the article meets the criterion it may be deleted without delay. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag yourself, but don't hesitate to add information to the article that would would render it more in conformance with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. —G716 <^T·_C> 04:02, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

Getting help

I'm kind of disappointed that WPMED didn't hear about this problem at ADHD before it reached the RFC/U level. I don't usually hang out on major disorder pages like that, but there are a lot of us at WPMED and a note about the intractable problems would almost certainly have gotten some help for you. I'll post a note for you at WT:MED in a minute; please feel free to add your understanding of the overall situation at the article. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:30, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

this doesn't have to be adversarial

I don't want to see you get "banned or repremanded" at your RFC. Four contributors simply want you follow wiki protocols. You are new, we are forgiving. If you are willing to do this, state as much on your RFC and we will begin from there. A lot of progress could be made quickly and you may find that I am not as unreasonable as you make me out to be. Sincerely, --scuro (talk) 05:39, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

It would help a lot if both of you, Doc James and scuro, would address the contribution, not the contributor. It would help almost as much if just one of you would do so. It takes two to play tit-for-tat. --Una Smith (talk) 18:13, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

Regardless of how tempting it might be to take Scuro's comment as insincere, don't take it that way. Assume good faith used to be a policy until it was found to be unenforceable; failure to do it, though, is still often part of a reason for sanctions against editors. "Assume" means "act as if," it doesn't mean "Be stupid." You have a "newbie card" you can play, i.e., say "oops! won't do that again," about anything which on reflection wasn't truly optimal, and Scuro was right about forgiveness. Usually it's that way. Best way to deal with the RfC is to admit anything you can admit, remain silent about what you cannot admit, but answer questions directly and simply when you can, avoiding defensiveness, and do not counterattack. Let others deal with the misbehavior of someone attacking you. It's actually a basic wiki principle, to not defend yourself. Defensiveness attracts sharks. Aggression attracts sharks also. Defending others attracts sympathy and support. --Abd (talk) 19:54, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

UBC

Hi JMH, please stopping posting everywhere that I have insulted UBC. You will not be able to provide a diff because I am absolutely certain that there is none, as they gave me my PhD, so I really wouldn't have done that. --Vannin (talk) 01:44, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

Doc, I looked about a bit and did not find anything from Vannin that resembled what you have claimed. If he's right, and if you did claim or imply that he "insulted UBC," please apologize promptly and strike it where you did that. Otherwise, provide the diff (I don't have it in front of me and Vannin did not provide a diff.) Indeed, for any comment you have made where you later have come to recognize it was inappropriate, you can apologize and strike it. (Where a comment has elicited response, it's considered improper to delete it, use strikeout to show a retraction, i.e., place strikeout tags around it, as with <s>you stupid idiot</s>, which will display like this, you stupid idiot.) I.e., if you have made a mess, clean it up. --Abd (talk) 17:21, 22 November 2008 (UTC

Thank-you for your apology. The striking out of the insults makes a big difference to me and I appreciate it.--Vannin (talk) 18:05, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

Good work, Doc. (And, Vannin, thanks for your very helpful response.) Now, following up on what some others have suggested: use edit summaries. Always. No exceptions. Don't just accept the default summary for a page section, add some identifying comment to it. For example, I noticed that you struck the statement about "druged," which was good. But it was hard to find, partly because there was no comment. (And I didn't think to look right at the latest edits.) That would have been a crackerjack place to put an apology. "Strike out-of-line comment, sorry, Scuro." Look, I've made errors in describing what Scuro has done, at least one, and when he pointed out, that was my quick response: strikeout, and "Sorry!" Even though I was tempted to stick to my guns, perhaps on a kneejerk theory that, hey, I'm careful and I don't make mistakes! But nevertheless, I checked, and I was wrong, I'd missed something. That's part of WP:AGF. When somebody you prefer to see disappear tells you you've done something wrong, you start with an assumption that the arrogant jerk might actually be correct, and check it out, at least try the idea on for size. Saves a lot of trouble! (Listening to "enemies" is also one of the fastest way to learn about oneself. Your enemies will often tell you things that your friends won't mention! It's too bad that Scuro can't do it! I've been tossing pearls, so to speak, his way for a long time, opportunities for him, but he's dead set against hearing any of it, the first thing he sees with a suggestion I make is "enemy". That's his right, but it's also his loss. (Yes, this could be considered patronizing, as well. However, I'm possibly twice his age, I'd guess, and I have twenty years of on-line experience, starting before the Web. I've earned some stripes, so to speak. He may look back at some of this years from now and have a different opinion. I can hope.)

You can set your editing options to require an edit summary, you will be warned if you don't add one beyond the default. Do it. --Abd (talk) 22:40, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

we could talk

Would you like to move this forward a little more quickly? When you said that you would follow wiki guidelines and act more civil, that gave me hope that this could work out well for everyone. Really if this is true the only thing I would like to see is a commitment, and that the issue of process be dealt with. ie what should happen on the talk page when we disagree? I know you would like to talk about content. I am fine with that. I do agree with you that a good mediator would help a lot. If we have a basic idea of how it would go then we can present this. It may save a lot of time. --scuro (talk) 06:09, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

I know the NESS articles, I think what they are doing is good. Most of the citations you find have value and some of them have changed my viewpoint on controversy. Citations is not an area where I see we are farthest apart. I know that you want us to examine both controversy and citations. I have no problem with that. My interest is the process of editing and consensus building and how that would work. It sounds like you are willing to look at this also. We all want some ground rules, and I think we all want a mediator to take control of the proceedings. Are we on the same page so far?--scuro (talk) 14:57, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

A few items

Doc James: I think you have a lot to offer, and I would like to see your contributions to the Wikipedia project become more valuable and credible. In that spirit, I have a few thoughts on my mind to share with you:

• 1. Your spelling - Even in Talk, a small thing, but I feel this goes to at least a subconcious impression upon the reader. I have minor level of a disability (Motor skills disorder) which causes problems with transposition of letters, although I can actually spell very well. So, without some extra effort, what I initially type looks like I am either uneducated or consider my time so valuable that I don't want to spend any of it considering the ease of the reader. My time is valuable as I am sure yours is. A major solution/tool for me is the ieSpell program, suggested by a fellow Wikipedian a while back. I have found it cheap, easy and able to catch most of my errors. Of course, like most spell checkers, it won't catch a typing error which results in another legitimate word or a misuse (IE weather vs. whether), but it has helped me a lot. [1]. You have to decide whether this is worth some more effort on your part. But, I try very hard to not let you or others see my initial typing without cleaning it up. This is not a big deal, just something I was thinking about.
• 2. With regards to the ADHD article, I am a lot more upset about the conduct issues than the content ones right now. If the latter is important to you, you would be more credible to me at least if you correct the former. Each of us is individually responsible for following WP behavior rules. In one of your comments posted on my Talk page, you said "I am happy to change my behavior but only if the first two issues are dealt with." Respectfully, I have to reply to you: "No sir, your behavior (which was being discussed) needs to change, period, not conditionally." Now, with that said, the inappropriate behavior of others also needs to change. I for one, am very tired of wasting my energy on your snowball fight. To all: Folks, Please go play somewhere else, if that is your priority.
• 3. FYI, I am not close to any of the participants in the ADHD issues. I have worked with Kat quiet some time ago, but that's it.
• 4. Abd Abd shared his own situation, and just so you can relate to me better, I also have ADHD with hyperactivity, finally diagnosed in 1995 at the age of 44. (they told me I was at 93 percentile). I also have much milder manifestations of Motor skills disorder and Auditory Processing Disorder. I am under regular psychiatric care, and have found counseling and some stimulant meds to each be valuable tools for me. I also have worked extensively with school age children, and I believe that ADHD is incorrectly diagnosed for many kids, from what I can see.
• 5. Talk box. I had mentioned this to Scuro, and many others over past few years. It is not a "selective favor", just something I mention and offer when I think of it. So, if you like my TALK box (see my Talk page), I can easily make one for you and put it on Your talk page. It really help me keep my new messages moving to where they belong on my talk page. (It was a gift to me from a fellow Wikipedian. I am just offering to share that gesture of friendship and convenience with you). It is real easy for me to do.

Best wishes, Mark Vaoverland (talk) 09:02, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

Sometimes missed, apparently is that ADHD is a developmental disorder; some ADHD traits are normal in children up to a certain age. I'm concerned about the routine use of drugs to deal with what may be normal behavior, behavior that may actually be necessary at that point in development. Quite simply, we don't know enough to engage in a massive uncontrolled experiment with children. Later on, with adolescents, where ADHD can be diagnosed more clearly in terms of developmental delay, and where there is a lot of evidence for strong benefit with some kids, maybe. However, the most important aspect of dealing with ADHD at that age -- or any age -- may be education, both of the patient and of those who deal with the patient. Children with ADHD can be extremely high achievers if they are provided what they need in terms of educational environment. As adults, some people with ADHD become captains of industry. Others experience failure after failure. The difference is often the support they get. Hallowell covers all this pretty well. One of the problems with ready prescription in a medical model is that the rest is neglected, and the child is sometimes stigmatized, there is something "wrong" with him or her. In reality, ADHD is legitimately a disorder, because it handicaps certain normal behaviors, but it's also a difference, a difference that allows ADHD people to do things that are difficult if not impossible for others. If I'm correct, this aspect of ADHD is pretty largely suppressed from the articles. Naturally, there is a problem: reliable source. But usable sources do exist, if we don't insist on them being "peer-reviewed." That's a standard appropriate for science or medicine articles, as to scientific or medical fact. But notable speculation, inference, and all that, is, well, notable. This is where the activity of someone like Scuro has sometimes been harmful, if allowed to suppress sourced fact relating to opinions and theories that aren't yet proven or disproven.

Another possible way to look at ADHD is that, in it, the rapid learning that is normal for children continues into and beyond adolescence. This has negative consequences! -- but also positive ones.

In any case, Doc James, as you noted, there is hope for Wikipedia. It can be frustrating and slow, but slow and steady wins the race. Scuro has had an impact on the articles because he sticks around and doesn't give up. Now that you know a bit more about how Wikipedia works, I think you'll be able to deal with him. I also think he is sincere. If you look at discussion on my Talk page today, you'll see some more history.

He's highly sensitive to criticism. That's not a useful trait in a Wikipedian, he should probably read MEATBALL:DefendEachOther, a highly recommended essay, worth noting. WP:NPA recommends ignoring personal attacks. I get attacked quite often, my user pages are vandalized, etc. Scuro was pretty outrageous in some of his edits to my Talk page. I don't think I've ever made a complaint based on incivility toward me (though I asked for Talk page protection). Toward others, maybe. Mostly, I try to resolve conflicts without going to the more involved processes. A successful technique has been to identify an editor trusted by the editor I'm seeing a problem with, then ask that editor to intervene. This editor, then, is trusted by the problem editor, and will often successfully mediate. Sometimes I'm fortunate enough to find an editor that I know is experienced and likely to suggest good solutions. Other times, I'll suggest to a friend of the editor that I'd really rather not file an RfC or an AN/I report and perhaps they can help their friend? That actually worked with User:Allemandtando, a very difficult editor, for a while, until he just couldn't restrain himself -- and really didn't care -- and essentially demanded that I "put up or shut up," so I looked a little closer, figured out what was happening, and filed an SSP report, and he was immediately history. I've never actually filed an RfC, and have taken something to AN/I very rarely. AN/I is quirky and unpredictable, even administrators have trouble getting help there, which is a real problem.

I'm obviously not the best person to give Scuro advice; I intervened here, which included giving him advice, not for his benefit, but for yours and for the community. I wanted you to recognize that I was "on your side," though not in the sense of approving your mistakes. I can see that you appreciate that. Dr. Sobo was very nearly blocked because he responded with incivility. I suggested to him, as I did to you, that he strike out incivility of his own when he regrets it. He used that to insult Scuro again, putting the strike-out as part of the edit. Bad idea. I was accused of encouraging him to do this by the peanut gallery, but, of course, I didn't. It's easy to get too involved in the articles, I can understand. Scuro is wrong about one thing. The edits aren't the issue, the issue is the community, i.e., the editors, and the process by which editors find consensus, which is crucial to Wikipedia. However, usually, discussing the editors rather than the edits is unnecessarily disruptive, "Principles, not Personalities." In program language, "No crosstalk." At least not negative crosstalk! "Usually." There are exceptions, unfortunately, necessary ones, and clearly Scuro understands this; obviously, for he talks plenty about how others have insulted him and he names them and writes about what they have done that is offensive. Often, in fact, without being specific and providing evidence, and, sometimes, he's radically misinterpreted what was said. I think you ran into that one. And you were also uncivil at times.

However, as I wrote to Sobo, "Don't try this at home." Not without much more experience. I doubt my own activity in this regard, there may be better ways. Tempted? Get help from someone with experience. If I'm not watching the activity, either post a message to my Talk page or send me an email through the "Email this user" link from my Talk page. It's actually more reliable to post to my Talk. I get about 600 spams per day and sometimes don't get around to checking my mail for a day or two, and I can miss stuff. If it is on my Talk page, I'll almost always see it within 24 hours. And, remember, almost never is a Wikipedia situation a true emergency. If it is, go to AN/I, that's what it's for. But be careful. Lots of very abrupt and not very helpful admins and editors hang out there, along with some admins who will overlook inexperience and seek to understand the core issue. Don't get involved in debates there. If debate is required, it's not really for AN/I. One thing to remember. Admins are supposed to have no advantage over other users with respect to content issues, they are not supposed to use their buttons to promote a personal POV, but only to enforce behavioral guidelines. They will also be able to enforce consensus as they read it, but in the presence of objection, they cannot continue to do this alone. They can protect articles, but, in theory, not to their preferred version, rather, usually, to stop vandalism or serious edit warring. I've asked for article protection, and, when the involved user wasn't immediately blocked, the article has been protected. That pretty much forces editors to seek consensus in Talk, and then there are procedures for asking an admin to incorporate the edit. There are a host of ways to deal with problem editors that won't get you in hot water. Keep it simple.

As to others watching this conversation, if you have a problem with Doc James, let me know. I'll look at it and slap him with a wikitrout if necessary. He'll duck, we'll all laugh, and the problem either will cease, or, if you are quite unlucky, I'll drag you before a noticeboard! Very unlikely, your behavior would have to be quite bad, I'm going to be pretty favorable, at least initially, to someone who asks for my involvement, as Doc James did. If I'd just looked at his editing in the recent period, as a number of editors did, I might have said "You guys can fight it out, I'm not going to dive into the middle of this catfight," I've got a life and better things to do. --Abd (talk) 20:09, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

By the way, forgot to say it. Thanks, Mark! --Abd (talk) 20:11, 23 November 2008 (UTC)