User talk:Postpostmod/Archive 1

Impartial tone

Hi. Yes, I think you've identified the right spot for it.

The point I most had in mind when I mentioned the need for "more detail" in my edit summary is that scare quotes, using the term loosely, are useful and neutral in certain cases, such as flagging jargon and certain implicitly attributed terminology. Basically the uses covered in Scare quote#Neutral distancing. In many of these cases, "scare" quote marks are far more efficient than fully explicating the context of the term, information that may be relatively immaterial and/or distracting.

I noticed your edit just as I was working on an upgrade of RKO Pictures, where I noticed that I used scare quotes three times in the span of a couple of subsections. You might be interested in taking a look. I've retained two of the instances, which are along the lines of what I've described above. They go around the linked terms, familiar to film professionals and aficionados but no so much outside the field, "pay or play" and "message picture". The third use, where they essentially stood in for so-called/purported, I eliminated, prompted by the point you raised. Here's the edit: [1].

I'll keep an eye on NPOV, and will be happy to lend a hand in supporting and refining whatever you add there.—DCGeist (talk) 21:00, 10 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Strike out

I saw your question at MastCell's page. Strikeout text formatting is described at WP:Strikeout. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:41, 4 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

On that subject, my talk page has ballooned substantially, due largely to a recent case of logorrhea on my part. Since it might be hard to see on the page, I just wanted to let you know that I responded to your question, up in the section where we were discussing it. Cheers. :) MastCell ^Talk 18:31, 7 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Finally

I have (finally) made an effort to restart our conversation on my talk page. Because it's been so long, I'm not sure I actually addressed the points that you were interested in exploring - so please feel free to re-focus me if I went off on a tangent. Cheers. MastCell ^Talk 21:16, 6 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Believe it or not, I've finally responded again to your latest comment. Once every 3 months or so... anyhow, just a heads-up. Cheers. :) MastCell ^Talk 05:35, 9 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia_talk:Identifying_reliable_sources

Sorry, I had to undo your edit: you deleted big pieces of talk, probably unintentionally. Please reinsert your actual speech. Lovok Sovok (talk) 19:55, 23 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

fixed, thanked sender, Nov. 2010 Postpostmod (talk) 18:45, 8 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Re: Orangemarlin

I don't know what's wrong with your browser, but you just deleted a lot of content from User talk:Orangemarlin. I've restored it. Judging from the above comments, this appears to be a continuing problem. Please get it fixed. Viriditas (talk) 14:00, 8 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Fixed, thanked sender. Postpostmod (talk) 18:46, 8 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Lyme

Thanks for your recent comment there. :-)Anythingyouwant (talk) 21:41, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

My pleasure. Thanks for keeping the topic alive. Best wishes, Postpostmod (talk) 22:31, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

W2W: "Report"

I don't believe it's ever been discussed, and I think it should be. We always have to be concerned about resisting example creep. I'm mildly opposed to its inclusion, as I don't feel it's implicitly factive to the same degree as "pointed out" or "exposed", but if there's a consensus in favor of adding it, fair enough. Why don't you start a thread on the Talk page and we'll see if anyone else weighs in.—DCGeist (talk) 19:20, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

[responded on DCGeist's talk page]

Thank you for your Bb discussion!

Dear Postpostmod, I was moved to join Wikipedia specifically to thank you for your contribution to the discussion of Lyme borreliosis. As you have surmised, there are many individuals, who despite being able to manage the scientific literature to some degree, are nonetheless discouraged and at moments confused regarding legitimate conclusions. What a thicket of thorn birds! At any rate, I am a social scientist, not a biological scientist...but have come to the same conclusions regarding, shall we say, the "political sociology" of the debate and that has helped me to weigh the costs and benefits of my own treatment. (I am one of those people with an atypical presentation and a late diagnosis.) I must say, it is immensly refreshing to read your posts in the discussion section, as they are informed by unfailingly good sense, a wisdom that can only be achieved by independent thinking and by uncommon and scintillating expertise. By golly, T. S. Kuhn had it right. It is all such an enormously satisfying illustration of his thesis. And utterly terrifying should one happen to be one of those patients who falls through the probability cracks. Knowing that someone very, very sharp shares my impression and has taken so much time from what must be a busy professional schedule to speak up for those of us who are struggling in personal and not merely intellectual ways with this disease--it is more meaningful than you might at first imagine. Please do keep up your work on all fronts and know that it is making a difference. Truth does win out in the end. This is my first post, hope I'm doing it right...Tmigratorius (talk) 19:03, 1 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your kind words. Because I live in an endemic area, I know a lot of people caught in this trap. Best wishes for recovering your health, Postpostmod (talk) 15:13, 2 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Communication

Hey Postpostmod, yes I am just a little north of you. Fortunately, endemicity studies performed by entemologists are well outside of the zone of controversy.

I have suggestions for improving the page but hestitate to butt into the official discussion page at this juncture. I'd like to mention that a major peer-reviewed journal devoted a special issue to work on a vaccine last month. I suspect you know this.

There are now several peer-reviewed, English-language pieces coming out of Sao Paulo which provide clinical details on the vector-borne Bb-like illness that has recently been documented in parts of rural Brazil. This is of interest, perhaps, because Brazilian scientists believe that relapse is a prominent feature of the disease and rather than make premature pronouncements on the mechanisms of relapse, they are continuing research on the question of whether persistent infection or an autoimmune cascade seems to be manifesting. It would not surprise me if Brazilian scientists were to significantly advance our understanding of spirochetal microbiology and illness.

I suppose if it were me, I'd emphasize the fact that there are many English-language, peer-reviewed journals that publish Bb-related research conducted by European scientists and doctors. The Swedes have done some excellent epidemiological work. Citing the European literature at greater length would highlight the fact that Bb is a goldmine for a variety of scientific disciplines and they provide some models for what could be possible were the Americans to mature beyond the Hatfield-McCoy style of clinical/scientific debate that has characterized the history of this disease. (I often wonder if many American patients are manifesting with symptoms that are better-described in the European literature but that's just a personal hunch. In the U.S., one always hears about "arthritis," particularly of the knee, but in more accessible sources at least, very rarely do we hear about radiculopathy or the opthamalogical manifestations--on which the Germans are particularly well-versed.)

I don't think the paragraph on the harrassment of Steere, although brief, is justified here. It certainly doesn't warrant a separate section immediately following ecological research (also a growing field). I'd argue its placement violates the NPOV rule by caricaturing the politics of patient advocacy. (And a more careful social history, IMO, would note that Polly Murray's early advocacy was chapter one of the story and as such, it is a rather instructive example of what you might call "citizen science"--a cultural practice that may allign or oppose itself to medical authority and that might prove reliable--or not.) These are perhaps peripheral points. My argument is that the page should have either a more balanced and nuanced social history based on multiple published sources, or the harrassment section should be deleted.

And so on. I am going to enable the email feature. May I invite you to shoot me an email? Thanks again for your penetrating expertise and generous spirit. Tmigratorius (talk) 18:11, 2 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Another Can of Worms: The Question of Antibiotically-Produced Seronegativity

Tmigratorius always loves a good worm.

Help, it's a Friday afternoon in August and I need a microbiologist. Okay, in the meantime, does the notion of seronegativity bear on the larger testing issue? (I have read the articles and at least some of the comments that you suggested (e.g., Stricker et. al.) and believe I am following your line of reasoning up to this point--like I said elsewhere, we've got a cliffhanger here.)

The medical text Infections of the Central Nervous System, Scheld et. al., 2004 (Lippincott Williams and Wilkins), has, I think, a decent account of borreliosis. Among its sections is one on "Seronegative LD." Page 678 states, "Seronegative late Lyme neuroborreliosis may develop following inadequate antibiotic treatment that abrogates the specific antibody response without clearing CNS infection." The authors go on to state that this circumstance is rare. (We might interject, rare according to whose case definition, and thereby re-enter a discussion of circularity of reasoning... but I'll hope that gets picked up elsewhere.)

I have seen discussion of seronegativity elsewhere but not in the most salient, peer-reviewed sources. If true, the consequences could be very significant. The statement above suggests a scenario wherein one is undertreated for borrelia infection. Many additional scenarios would have the same result--that is, if I understand what is being claimed. We do know that some patients do not present with the early symptoms, for example. It is possible for disease to progress in the absence of a diagnosis. As the so-called "indolent" infection progresses, one can, along the way, be diagnosed (correctly or not is beside the point here) with, say, sinusitis or a UTI and receive a standard course of antibiotics. (These conditions might regularly recur--and they have been observed, by clinicians, to do so in the context of borreliosis.) The antibiotics prescribed could quite easily be among those with limited efficacy in the treatment of LD. So, the underlying Bb infection would continue. Stated more simply, a patient could remain undiagnosed and untreated for months or years and in the meantime, receive a course of antibiotics for an apparently unrelated condition--in any given year, most of us, in fact, will receive antibiotics for one thing or another. Then what? Would this not create a situation wherein antibody production against Bb is "abrogated" as some parts of the literature have it? And one would thereby test on both ELISA and Western blot as seronegative? If so, over period of time might we expect this condition to obtain?

I suppose a systematic study of this question would need to distinguish between antibiotic naive subjects and those previously treated--not just for LD, but for any bacterial infection, no? My failure to know the answers to these questions might be a result of my, ahem, patchy understanding of the immune system. Postpostmod, I don't want you to waste your time doing Immunity 101 but if a response doesn't require too much of your time, it would be deeply appreciated and passed on to those for whom answers have real-world implications. We are legion, I fear. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tmigratorius (talk • contribs) 22:04, 5 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Tmigratorius, thanks for sharing your interesting and intelligent observations. Speaking of worms, I turned my compost pile today - wow. A robin's dream. All organic, free range, and local, too.

I dug out the German serology papers, and I see you’re right, they are helpful sources for the testing problem. Haven’t re-read the Swedish, or collected the Brazilian ones yet. I think you're wise not to jump into the fray (though I did like your "have at it" comment.) Remember to sign your comments with four tildes: ~~~~. It's actually worth spending a good amount of time learning about Wikipedia's pillars, policies, and guidelines, as well as formatting tricks and the history of the specific article and talk page one intends to edit. If you create your own "sandbox" page you can experiment with formatting to your heart's content, and test-drive your edits. It's annoying to the experienced editors when they have to spend time explaining stuff to new editors, that could have been researched beforehand (and we don't want to annoy the influential members of WP:MED ;-). There's also the issue of how the rules are used in actual practice: for instance, WP:NPOV is a pillar, which is non-negotiable; however, it's tricky to apply to medical articles. Actually it's tricky to apply to any article; we all just humbly have to get to know our own biases, and then consciously correct for them when editing. I think this is especially tough for people whose occupation doesn't engender humility. ;-)

I’m glad to discuss the other issues you mentioned, but I’ve been debating whether it’s better to do it here or by email. When I write anything for the public, which would include anything on any part of Wikipedia, I tend to be so meticulous that it takes a long time to write and edit. Explaining the unpopular side of a controversial medical subject to an unreceptive audience is about as demanding as my professional writing. Also, it could be argued that Wikipedia isn’t really a place for discussion of subjects; discussions should be about what to say about subjects. My discussions with MastCell are motivated toward demonstrating that the criticisms which have been made of the US mainstream guidelines on Lyme disease are well founded, rather than crank “fringe views”. My point is that, because the criticisms are well founded, they deserve respectful treatment rather than the disrespect they’re accorded in the present version of the article. So although it may superficially look like I’m digressing into non-article-related scientific discussion, it’s actually aimed toward bringing the article up to Wikipedia’s standards.

You can see that my influential correspondents haven’t been enthusiastic about my observations, to date. However, it’s impossible to make any lasting improvements to the article without their cooperation. I don’t want to irritate them unnecessarily, by indulging in detailed scientific conversation that is not immediately directed toward improving an article, even on my talk page.

On the other hand, I don’t want to be like those doctors who refuse to talk about LD’s difficult issues simply because it would be time-consuming and politically inexpedient for them. So go ahead and activate the email feature of your account, and I’ll write to you that way. It will be faster for me than if I have to bring it up to “publication standard”. I'll have to trust that the lack of transparency won't reinforce the weird but widely-repeated canard that objections to the mainstream view of LD are artifacts of some conspiratorial, centrally coordinated “belief system”, rather than a well-reasoned response to the available evidence that any reasonably astute observer and reader can appreciate.

MastCell, if you happen to read this and think it would be better if I addressed all of Tm's comments in public on my talk page, please let me know, and I’ll gladly defer to your more experienced judgment of appropriate Wikipedia behavior.

Best regards, Postpostmod (talk) 20:46, 6 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Postpostmod, it's great to hear from you. It is my understanding that a good turn of the compost pile can be most gratifying. A robin's delight, indeed.

Yes, I absolutely must familarize myself with the Wikipedia rules and regs before engaging in substantive discussion on the article's talk page. Thanks for the sandbox tip. Please do email me; as far as I can tell the feature is fully enabled on my account.

I understand precisely what your aim is regarding the discussion with MastCell. Critiques of the methodology used in some of the most influential research articles--those that are cited to back up current guidelines, for example--are very compelling. They do demand attention and respect. And the microbological literature on mechanisms of persistence is deeply persuasive, it seems to me. The literature on testing is fuzzy for the layperson, at least--yet, in the real world, so much hinges on this question. This fact is implicit in everything you've written thus far. And it isn't possible to examine the entire debate without raising, as you do, the epistmological and sociological issues--how else could we explain the repeated claims that, "there is no evidence to support..." etc., etc.? Evidence is, by now, plentiful in these critical areas and broad statements that simply ignore the existence of this literature ought not to be allowed to stand unchallenged. At the very least, it needs to be acknowledged that the jury is still out on a number of points. If the data are equivocal when taken together, then yes, that fact ought to be fairly represented in Wikipedia.

MastCell is a sharp thinker, a worthy debate partner of the highest caliber. I very much hope he will return because the article talk page is, in itself, an instance of the rubber meeting the road. "Truth," whatever it may be, is, in the real world, a process of negotiation. Isn't that what makes Wikipedia so relevant and so thrilling?

I suppose my implicit aim in raising the issue of antibiotic-produced seronegativity on your talk page is to introoduce the possibility that a few sentences might be added to the article with respect to the (accurate) statement that testing "is controversial." As the article stands now, there are some contradictory statements that relate to testing and while they might on the surface appear to be editorial snags that stem from too many cooks in the kitchen, they can't be cleaned up with a simple editorial tightening. (Otherwise, I'd just do the job myself.) The ambiguities produced by the scientific debate are at issue.

So anyway, I would love to discuss the testing issue further Postpostmod. Please do email me. I certainly don't mean to suggest that there ARE too many cooks in the kitchen--in fact, for the moment, I'd like to serve as a sort of sous chef. I can't be a debating partner because all my reading has brought me to same page you are on, and my scientific training is clearly not at MastCell's level. However, my interest, curiosity and attention shall be avid. Perhaps it is appropriate for me to serve, in future, as a reasonably well-informed lay reader of the article and to make suggestions from that perspective. And.....what's up with this new test introduced by Abbott that is designed to test for a multiplicity of tick-borne infections? Why exactly is it being proposed as a tool for research but not diagnosis? Is that to avoid the tangle we are now in with regard to the standard two-tier approach, i.e., the reality that diagnosticians inappropriately use those tests rather than relying on clinical judgement? Or is it in a sort of testing phase that will precede its broader use as a standard diagnostic tool?

Again, thank you so much for your very generous contributions to Wikipedia and your willingness to assist in the education of a concerned layperson. Best, Tmigratorius (talk) 17:18, 14 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, and one more thing, should MastCell return. I do agree absolutely, as I am sure Postpostmod does, that there is an abundance of lyme-related quackery on the Internet--and outide of the Internet too. It is alarming. But this fact ought not to be used to stifle debate--that would be like saying we must shut Wikipedia down because it operates via the Internet and the Internet is used to sell snake oil. We need a fairly refined, rather than crude categorization of interlocutors. It is not IDSA versus the quacks. And it is not simply the scientists versus the clinicians--although the epistemological issues such a dichotomy raises are critical to the discussion. And it is not doctors versus patients. There are many overlapping debates and right here, right now, we can agree that we are focusing on those areas of debate that are discussed in sources linked to legitimate research and, wherever possible, to the peer-review process. Postpostmod, BTW, refers above to the "reasonably astute observor and reader." This is precisely the role I wish to play here. Tmigratorius (talk) 17:44, 14 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]