User talk:Vrtlsclpl

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Hello, Vrtlsclpl, and Welcome to Wikipedia!

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Ways to improve Cederbaum's Maximum Flow Theorem

Hello, Vrtlsclpl,

Thanks for creating Cederbaum's Maximum Flow Theorem! I edit here too, under the username EggRoll97 and it's nice to meet you :-)

I wanted to let you know that I have tagged the page as having some issues to fix, as a part of our page curation process and note that:-

I've finished reviewing your article, and I believe it may have helped if you had put your article through the Articles for Creation process instead of directly submitting it as an article. If you require any assistance with that, I'd be happy to help you on my talk page.

The tags can be removed by you or another editor once the issues they mention are addressed. If you have questions, leave a comment here and prepend it with {{Re|EggRoll97}}. And, don't forget to sign your reply with ~~~~ . For broader editing help, please visit the Teahouse.

Delivered via the Page Curation tool, on behalf of the reviewer.

EggRoll97 ^(talk) 16:25, 9 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Orphaned article

I have brought the article titled Cederbaum's maximum flow theorem into compliance with some standard Wikipedia conventions (including lower case in the article title and other things). Currently no other articles link to this new article. If you know of others that should link to it, could you add the links? Michael Hardy (talk) 00:58, 10 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Notice

This is a standard message to notify contributors about an administrative ruling in effect. It does not imply that there are any issues with your contributions to date.

You have shown interest in coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Due to past disruption in this topic area, the community has enacted a more stringent set of rules. Any administrator may impose sanctions - such as editing restrictions, bans, or blocks - on editors who do not strictly follow Wikipedia's policies, or the page-specific restrictions, when making edits related to the topic.

For additional information, please see the guidance on these sanctions. If you have any questions, or any doubts regarding what edits are appropriate, you are welcome to discuss them with me or any other editor.

Alexbrn (talk) 16:45, 5 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Vrtlsclpl, I am concerned that your edits during the last two weeks amount to pushing very hard for an unencyclopedic, anti-policy approach to ivermectin's potential as a COVID-19 treatment. It might be a good idea for you to spend some time editing articles completely unrelated to Ivermectin for a while, until you have more experience. I don't expect you to be happy when you read my advice – and free advice is sometimes worth what you paid for it – but I ask you to stop trying to convince editors to support ivermectin as a COVID-19 treatment. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:12, 16 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

WhatamIdoing, I certainly take your concerns very seriously. If you review the discussion at Ivermectin I think you will notice that my views are widely shared and that my interactions have been respectful with all editors. But to address your point, my only goal in editing of this article is to make sure the article is supported by the sources. Again, please rest assured that my goal is in the improvement of Wikipedia. I have no personal, professional or financial stake in the editing I am doing on Wikipedia. I have no conflicts of interests or commercial associations that might impact my judgement. Hopefully, the preceding will be reassuring to you.--Vrtlsclpl (talk) 23:46, 16 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not concerned about a conflict of interest. I'm concerned that you don't understand Wikipedia's core content policies. For example, we are not supposed to take "I saw this NIH statement recommending against it on Day X" and "I noticed this statement was removed on Day Y" and add that up to say that "The NIH no longer recommends against it". We are not supposed to play fast and loose with regulatory terms like approval, just like an IP attorney would never mix up "filed a trademark application" with "patent has been issued", and a musician would never say "already went platinum" when the status is "the song's been written, and we're going to record it soon".

I think that if you stepped away from ivermectin, maybe even editing in an subject area that you're more familiar with, you'd learn more about how Wikipedia works, and then it would be easier for you to approach subjects like this in a way that complies with Wikipedia's policies.

I know that all of this can be frustrating. We want to know everything right now, and when we think we've found something, then Wikipedia rejects it. We sometimes say that Wikipedia is a lagging indicator: content, especially medical content, appears here not when it seems convincing to a couple of editors, but when there is a consensus in the field. We'll know that there's a consensus about ivermectin in the medical field when the NIH stops saying "not enough evidence to recommend either for or against" and starts saying "available evidence says this does/doesn't work". Until that point, the Wikipedia articles need to stay out of it.

Also: Your views are widely shared on the interwebs, which doesn't matter one way or the other, and shared by some editors with even less experience than you, which is irrelevant. Wikipedia's decisions are not made by majority vote. These articles need to conform to the core content policies even if that's unpopular with editors. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:27, 17 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

WhatamIdoing, your message is clarifying. I have tried to address is at Ivermectin. --Vrtlsclpl (talk) 22:08, 17 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, if this is your attempt to address it, then you have completely failed to understand anything I've told you. Let me try this in plain language:

You must not insert any claim in any article whatsoever that says that the NIH has changed/modified/removed any piece of information on their website/guidelines/docmentation of any sort, unless you simultaneously link to, or otherwise cite, directly in the article, one or more Wikipedia:Reliable sources that contains words remarkably similar to "The NIH removed this piece of information from their website".

Is that clear? If you have any doubt whatsoever about what the requirements are, please do ping me. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:58, 18 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

WhatanIdoing, let me clarify again. In the USNIH recommendations for COVID-19, there really is only one relevant sentence. From page 17 of the recommendations, the recommendations come down to one of four possibilities:

The Panel recommends using [blank] for the treatment of COVID-19 (rating).
There are insufficient data for the Panel to recommend either for or against the use of [blank] for the treatment of COVID-19 (no rating).
The Panel recommends against the use of [blank] for the treatment of COVID-19, except in a clinical trial (rating).
The Panel recommends against the use of [blank] for the treatment of COVID-19 (rating).

I have stated that "...the NIH has removed the recommendation against the use of Ivermectin ..." because the prior recommendation (page 95) was option 3 and the updated recommendation was option 2. Literally, the NIH no longer recommends against the use of this medication. The practical consequence of the change to the recommendations is clearly stated by the trusted advisors to the NIH [1].

Since you have taken the time to work through some of these issues I will be a little more open and acknowledge that this is a tough call for Wikipedia. Not because the legal/regulatory decisions are ambiguous. The decisions of the US regulatory agencies are fairly simple - the USFDA decision is approve/disapprove. The USNIH decision is one of the four recommendation levels as above. And the trusted advisors have removed any doubt about the status in their press release. However, the elephant in the room is: If this is actually a new treatment option for COVID-19 why am I hearing about it from some editor at Wikipedia? Unfortunately, I can't answer that question. I can only ask that you and other editors trust their own two eyes.--Vrtlsclpl (talk) 18:28, 18 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Vrtlsclpl, can I offer a thought here? I haven't examined the source, and I offer no opinions on what the article should say. But the problem here is that you, as a Wikipedia editor, are not allowed to examine the current version of a source, compare it with a prior version, and write about the differences you observe between the two. Even if your analysis is 100% correct, and even if the comparison is easy for you to do, you are not allowed to do that comparison as it constitutes original research. You can not use the current version of a source to support differences from what a previous version said. For a Wikipedia article to write about what has changed between two different versions of a source, an independent third party must have made the comparison and written about it in a reliable source, and you would need to cite that source. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 19:05, 18 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Boing! said Zebedee is exactly right. The first problem is not whether your statement is true. I believe that it's true. The problem is that if you want to write about a change, then you need a reliable source that says they changed it, and you have repeatedly added this claim without providing any source to back up the claim. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:14, 18 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Boing! said Zebedee, WhatamIdoing - Agreed ... mostly. At some level every single source material on Wikipedia requires "interpretation" or "analysis". But I won't split hairs. Interpretation and analysis of regulatory documents for a potential new COVID-19 treatment is relatively consequential. In any case, I'll make two points:

The case for inclusion of Ivermectin is plainly stated by the trusted advisors of the NIH on their website. You don't need me to compare the status of Ivermectin and monoclonal antibodies and convalescent plasma.
Wikipedia cannot ignore this therapy simply because the regulatory documentation is complex. If Wikipedia does not have the expertise to interpret this type of documentation it is not an option just to not cover the topic. In the case of not covering Ivermectin, Wikipedia is projecting the message that Ivermectin is inferior to the monoclonal antibody therapies. If Wikipedia does not feel comfortable evaluating the regulatory status of Ivermectin based on the available sources, Wikipedia needs to reconsider whether it should be publishing lists of acceptable medications at all.

In any case, the second point is moot. The drug obviously has the equivalent endorsement of the NIH and the FDA - equivalent to that for monoclonal antibodies and convalescent plasma. --Vrtlsclpl (talk) 23:57, 18 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Ivermectin

Hi Vrtlsclpl, I see you have had your additions to Treatment and management of COVID-19 relating to Ivermectin challenged by other Wikipedia editors, and I don't think you have understood the reasons for the objections. I therefore ask that you please do not make any edits relating to Ivermectin to any Covid-19 articles without first gaining a consensus supporting your exact wording on the relevant article talk page. I ask this in my capacity as an uninvolved administrator, and under the powers granted to me by the community's imposition of a General Sanctions regime to all Covid-19 articles. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 17:16, 18 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, Boing! said Zebedee; I was just coming here to call attention to the number of editors who have tried to address this, as discussed at WT:MED. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:58, 18 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Topic ban on COVID19 and related treatments

Vrtlsclpl, per WP:GS/COVID19, you are hereby banned from editing related to COVID-19, SARS-CoV-2, and related treatments, broadly construed. This includes articles, talk pages, sandboxes, etc. with the exception of requests related to the topic ban itself.

After seeing and closing this RfC, I reviewed your recent edits. It's clear to me you cannot continue to edit in this topic area constructively. Moreover, let me remind you of Wikipedia's no legal threats policy.

This topic ban will be in place until 12:00 UTC on 19 February 2021. EvergreenFir (talk) 07:23, 19 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

To summarize "No legal threat": Any statements in conversations with editors hat vows a legal case (except for copyright, defamation, and conflict of interest) due to a dispute in content will not be tolerated, and can be brought to the attention of administrators. Gerald WL 09:21, 19 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

WP:GS/COVID19 block

To enforce community-authorised general sanctions, and for sockpuppetry used to circumvent topic ban from COVID-19, as described at WP:GS/COVID19,

you have been blocked from editing for an indefinite time period. You are welcome to make useful contributions once the block expires; however, please note that the repetition of similar behavior may result in a longer block. If you think there are good reasons why you should be unblocked, you may appeal this block by adding the following text below this notice: {{unblock|reason=Your reason here ~~~~}}. However, you should read the guide to appealing blocks first. EvergreenFir (talk) 18:58, 19 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Reminder to administrators: Community sanctions are enacted by community consensus. In order to overturn this block, you must either receive the approval of the blocking administrator or consensus at a community noticeboard (you may need to copy and paste their statement to a community noticeboard).

See this block of sock by Boing! said Zebedee EvergreenFir (talk) 19:00, 19 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]