Wikipedia:Peer review/Electronic fluency devices/archive1

Electronic fluency devices

This peer review discussion has been closed.
I've listed this article for peer review because…

On December 22 I wrote on the discussion page a list of a dozen mistakes in the article. Three weeks later only one of these mistakes, a typo, has been corrected. I'm not allowed to correct the article because I made some of the medical devices used in the studies referenced in the article. Ironically, that's one of the mistakes, a study using one of my medical devices is credited to a different medical device. Hmm, if the article mistakenly says that all the referenced studies are of other medical devices, does that make me an unbiased editor and allows me to edit the article? :-) Seriously, some of the mistakes I pointed out are minor, but some are howlers. E.g., a statement is referenced to "some anecdotal reports" when peer-reviewed studies found the opposite of the statement to be true. Another line states that "most studies have noted that DAF is more powerful than FAF in reducing stuttering" when the referenced source actually said the opposite.

Thanks, TDKehoe (talk) 21:19, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

From what I understand, WP:COI applies mainly in situations where i) a user is promoting themselves, ii) getting compensation for an edit, or iii) are otherwise involved in some manner with the article's subjects, so I can see why you would be leery about making any adjustments to the article.

That said, if it is a simple matter of factual accuracy (ie. the source says one thing and the article says another) then I don't think there should be any issues in correcting those yourself. After all, you did not put those sources into the article (or at least I assume you didn't), so correcting the mistakes that you do see shouldn't be an issue, since that's a matter of WP:V. If there are any larger or more problematic issues then factual errors then it would probably be best to leave a note on the relevant WikiProject's talk page (if there is one), or to contact the primary editors directly via their talk pages with your concerns. I'm a little hesitant to jump in myself with the corrections you've recommended since I am 100% unfamiliar with the subject matter and I do not want to risk making a factual error worse; a user more familiar with the subject matter would be best. MelicansMatkin (talk, contributions) 22:29, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for your feedback, Melican. While I cannot imagine anybody objecting to TDkehoe correcting minor errors including typos etc, I really don't think that suggesting that he correct what he considers errors of factual accuracy is very wise. I do know something about the subject and have access to the original articles, and vast majority of his suggestions in my view fail verifiability and original research policies, complicated of course by the conflict of interest (see the talkpage for details). Now, it is always possible that I am wrong; I would suggest that if Tdkehoe wants to pursue other proposed edits that he use dispute resolution using WP:30 or WP:RFC Because of past problems, he has been advised not to edit the page, and I think that advice was wise, except for the most obvious edits.--Slp1 (talk) 23:16, 28 January 2010 (UTC)