Wikipedia talk:Identifying reliable sources (medicine)/Archive 25

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Sourcing for claims of longevity

There's an RFC about the sourcing for longevity biographies at Talk:List_of_oldest_living_people#RfC:_How_should_we_word_the_lede.3F. One of the issues is that the criteria expressed is to limit it to "international body that specifically deals in longevity research" as anything else is not reliable (or are reliable but not reliable enough, I'm not sure). To me, this feels like a similar situation as this issue. If there's any insights about the medical scientific basis for longevity research (I think that's the term), it would be helpful. Also, to me, this language would explicitly exclude the Japanese health ministry (or any government ministry) along with journals that aren't expressly dealing with longevity. I don't know much about them or medical journals in terms of reliability but I'd presume geriatrics would cover this topic as well so is that too restrictive? -- Ricky81682 (talk) 22:11, 20 January 2016 (UTC)

What does MEDRS cover?

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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In the lead should we use "biomedical and health information" or "biomedical information"?

Biomedical and health

• Support MEDRS's goal is that "information is accurate and reflects current knowledge". Biomedical covers health, and this clarifies for the reader. CFCF 💌 📧 22:42, 2 November 2015 (UTC)
• Support Health content is a subsection of biomedical content. Using biomedical and health simply simplifies and clarifies our text without changing its meaning. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 22:48, 2 November 2015 (UTC)
• support biomedical content includes health content, without question--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 22:53, 2 November 2015 (UTC)
• Support. The way I see it, Wikipedia sets particularly high standards for content that can affect the well-being of our readers. We do not want poorly sourced content that might lead a reader into being harmed. Content that bears on our readers' health clearly falls within the proper area of this concern. Obviously, this encompasses biomedical topics, but I do not want editors to try to use a loophole to argue that some sort of fringe "health" subject gets to be held to a lower standard. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:10, 2 November 2015 (UTC)
• Oppose "Biomedical" is reasonably defined through the link, while "health" is undefined and open to the broadest of interpretations - practically anything can be viewed as health-related. This is unsuitably imprecise for official guidance, let alone for a summary of same. --Tsavage (talk) 23:13, 2 November 2015 (UTC)
• OpposeConditional support If the addition is linked as biomedical and health to avoid ambiguity and gaming. Health is an over broad term and is subject to ambiguity and gaming. I am also concerned with the removal of the phrase "treatment information" in the edit that has been being cited in this discussion [1]. That term seems to clearly constrain the areas this guideline was intended to deal with removing it seems to greatly expand the scope from 'biomedical... treatment information' to 'biomedical and health... information. Which seems far outside the intended scope. Jbh^Talk 23:28, 2 November 2015 (UTC) Modified !vote Jbh^Talk 23:50, 2 November 2015 (UTC) Struck concern about removal of "treatment efficacy". It was pointed out this is another issue under discussion and not related to this change. Jbh^Talk 13:28, 3 November 2015 (UTC)
• Oppose As said above, this is over broad and allows it to be applied to areas it should not. This would allow application to almost any human activity. This addition would not be clear and concise, both requirements of WP:GUIDELINE. I will also point out that those that say its a long standing version or meaning are incorrect. This diff [2] shows "and health was not part of the page from 2011 until CFCF added it in 2015.[3] AlbinoFerret 23:33, 2 November 2015 (UTC)
• Support Agree with CFCF. Cloudjpk (talk) 23:52, 2 November 2015 (UTC)
• Support agree with nominator. We have always understood MEDRS to apply to health-related information. "Biomedical and health" makes this easier to understand for lay readers. --Tom (LT) (talk) 01:32, 3 November 2015 (UTC)
• Support this is the intent. Zad68 03:20, 3 November 2015 (UTC)
• Oppose as over-broad; see WhatamIdoing's excellent analysis in the discussion section. -- Notecardforfree (talk) 03:34, 3 November 2015 (UTC)
• Support per DocJames, Tryptofish & others. BMK (talk) 06:59, 3 November 2015 (UTC)
• Oppose. This attempted expansion of MEDRS has already been used to suppress citations to the National Advisory Council on Violence Against Women and the American Psychiatric Association's DSM-5[4], the Los Angeles Times[5], and the scientific journal Psychological Reports (because the paper was published in 2004 -- before the MEDRS 5-year limit)[6]. And that's just one editor on one page. --Guy Macon (talk) 07:26, 3 November 2015 (UTC)
• Oppose "health" is not clearly defined, and those proposing this idea seem to be pushing a non-neutral point of view. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 12:13, 3 November 2015 (UTC)
• Support health is medicine. needs to be broad to avoid lawyering around the edges. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 12:55, 3 November 2015 (UTC)
• Oppose because "health" is too broad and too ambiguous and MEDRS was not intended to be that broad. See discussion. Minor4th 18:58, 3 November 2015 (UTC)
• Oppose - as in the discussion below "health" encompasses a range of topics covered poorly or not at all by peer reviewed medical literature. Health is neither synonymous with nor a subset of 'biomedical topics', though there is certainly overlap. Dialectric (talk) 19:56, 3 November 2015 (UTC)
• Support. There is a huge overlap between (bio)medical/health and this wording covers all. JFW | T@lk 20:32, 3 November 2015 (UTC)
• Support Obvious. Those opposing this seem to be anti-GMO WP:ACTIVISTs. jps (talk)
• Oppose expansion of MEDRS beyond "biomedical". petrarchan47คุก 04:07, 4 November 2015 (UTC)
• Oppose if health is automagically biomedical, then there is no need for this wording. If on the other hand there are aspects of health that isn't biomedical, and which is treated better within other sciences, as several editors have pointed out, then this wording is too encompassing. There are moral and philosophical aspects of health that is/are better treated within sociology, philosophy etc. The need for airbags is a health issue, but the implications and discussions of this aspect encompasses several other sciences, and thus shouldn't be limited to medrs sourcing, but instead rely on WP:RS and the best available sources in general. --Kim D. Petersen 09:14, 4 November 2015 (UTC)
• Oppose I am not sure that I know the difference between health information, biomedical information, and medical information. I prefer using either "medical" or "health" which are simple words then clarifying the limits elsewhere. Blue Rasberry (talk) 17:52, 4 November 2015 (UTC)

Support My preferred choice is not listed, which would be to say "health" only. Still, of the options presented, this is the one I support. This conversation is hardly about the term "biomedical" at all anyway, and this is about whether to use the term "health". Yes, use "health". "Biomedical" is the term I oppose, but that is not even being discussed here. Blue Rasberry (talk) 20:06, 6 November 2015 (UTC)

• Oppose of course "health" sounds good but, supporters, think about it, dont gloss over this, face it: it is not clearly defined. WhatamIdoing's examples above of driving the car w/wo seatbelt illustrates the point exactly: biomed is narrower, health could be the universe and back.--Wuerzele (talk) 04:47, 5 November 2015 (UTC)
• Support per DocJames, Tryptofish & others. RDBrown (talk) 05:45, 5 November 2015 (UTC)
• Support. We should use only the very best sources where human health is concermed. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 05:54, 5 November 2015 (UTC)
• Support Biomedical includes claims of effects on health, and clarifying that health claims must be supported by reliable medical sources will help prevent edit warring over fringe health issues. Adrian^[232] (talk) 19:59, 6 November 2015 (UTC)
• Oppose As many other editors have wisely stated, the terms "health" and "health-related" are far too broad to be confined to MEDRS. Inclusion of such ambiguous terminology may be Wikipedia:Opening up a can of worms, IMHO. Keep things simple......Charlotte135 (talk) 22:59, 6 November 2015 (UTC)
• Oppose. For five reasons: 1) Biomedical is more clear term whereas "health" is too ambiguous 2) adding "health" would be open to WP:GAME, 3) WP:MEDRS does not need expansion, 4) the attempted expansion actually has already been used to suppress citations in some articles, and and last but not least, 5) MEDRS could be applied to pretty much everything, like editor RexxS already stated that MEDRS should actually apply to articles such as "bicycles"[7]. Also, I think Kim D. Petersen made a good point above. Jayaguru-Shishya (talk) 16:52, 8 November 2015 (UTC)
• Oppose "Biomedical and Health" greatly and dangerously expands MEDRS's application and actually leads to less clarity. MEDRS should not be applied to organic food, for instance, but it should be applied if we make a biomedical claim about organic food. Sources that talk about facts regarding pesticides, like chemical composition, are already well covered by RS and if we allowed editors to reject these because they don't pass MEDRS's barometer, we're opening up an enormous can of worms, which incidentally should also not have MEDRS policing claims about them, unless we talk about the nutritional benefit of eating canned worms, a biomedical claim, and then MEDRS applies. LesVegas (talk) 19:08, 10 November 2015 (UTC)
• Support. The lay reader does not know what the term "Biomedical" means. "Biomedical and Health" clarifies the meaning. QuackGuru (talk) 19:15, 10 November 2015 (UTC)
• Support in theory, with narrowing. Just "health" by itself is too vague, and would arguably subject things like Chinese medicine and ayurvedic medicine to MEDRS, which seems dubious. But the vast majority of disputes I've seen about MEDRS are attempts to "corral" WP:FRINGE and "lifestyle" (e.g. electronic cigarettes articles, even when they contain actual biomedical information (as at electronic cigarette aerosol), as being outside the scope of MEDRS, on the faulty basis that they somehow not "really" bio-medical but just vaguely "health" related. This is basically nonsense and WP:WIKILAWYERing at its worst, for PoV-pushing purposes.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  13:45, 12 November 2015 (UTC)

 SMcCandlish, the Ayurveda article has been subject to WP:MEDRS; there has been a lot of dubious editing and edit warring at that article. In fact, the article is currently locked down when it comes to new and/or unregistered editors. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 14:27, 12 November 2015 (UTC)

I don't mean to second-guess consensus on that; I was not part of those discussions. My point is that the very presence of the word "health[y]" on a page should not magically trigger MEDRS. Actual heath claims that can be subject to scientific examination should need to be at issue in order for MEDRS to apply, but if they are present, then MEDRS definitely should apply. "This helps balance your chi and chakras for a healthier life" is not a claim that can be subject to such testing. "Heals tumors and promotes tooth enamel restoration" is. There'll be a lot of grey area between these, and I think we should err on the side of MEDRS out of basic ethical responsibility to the public. We all know full well that many people are apt to believe uncritically, through sheer hope, any claim made about possible health benefits of something, no matter how dubious it is.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  15:47, 12 November 2015 (UTC)

• support -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 19:07, 18 November 2015 (UTC)
• Support. To me this describes the sense of this clause more clearly, in a way that should head off wikilawyering on topics that should be covered by MEDRS but where tendentious editors wish to evade its coverage. —David Eppstein (talk) 23:32, 21 November 2015 (UTC)
• Support: Rewriting the scope to include health will make explicit this guideline's appropriateness for articles on health topics. In my opinion, the potential for the ambiguity of the term "health" to be misused is less than the potential harm that can be caused by people not believing high quality medical sources are needed for articles concerning human health. Songleaves (talk) 04:57, 22 November 2015 (UTC)
• Oppose: Oppose. The purpose of MEDRS, which includes the three letters MED for Medicine or Medical, is to make sure that readers who mistakenly rely on Wikipedia for medical advice are not mislead, and Wikipedia is not subject to a medical malpractice lawsuit. That was made clear since the initial version of 10 November 2006 here and has stood firm since then. I have witnessed how this standard is being misapplied and needlessly expanded by those with a particular narrow agenda to CENSOR good content and sources regarding political, philosophical, legal, administrative, cultural or controversial material, by eliminating sources that formerly had been acceptable for coverage and restricting only to high quality sources related to medicine. That is unacceptable for an encyclopedia. Wikipedia is not a medical journal and should not have an increasing scope of articles subjected to such a standard. --David Tornheim (talk) 21:45, 26 December 2015 (UTC)
• Support. Most of my concern if health was not included is gaming. I've seen editors try to argue a topic is not health related (e.g., e-cigs, GMOs, etc.) when the very spirit of this guideline has always been health. Including the term health would prevent that kind of wikilawyering. If the "worst-case" scenario happens described by opposers that some topics get placed under MEDRS that are more tangential, then we're just going to have a push for more reliable sources. There's not really a downside to including the health term at all. Kingofaces43 (talk) 19:17, 28 December 2015 (UTC)
• Oppose: I fail to see how the inclusion of a completely redundant term in this proposal could add anything useful. The additional wording ("health") has an extraordinarily large scope, covering a range of related topics that are not subject to MEDRS such as public health policies and public healthcare funding. It is likely to cause unnecessary confusion to the reader and so I strongly oppose the use of such a vague and overly broad description. -RoseL2P (talk) 13:49, 29 December 2015 (UTC)
• Support the whole point of MEDRS is to keep sourcing standards high for WP content about health; the internet is full of poor quality content about health and MEDRS helps us keep that crap out of the encyclopedia. Jytdog (talk) 17:55, 29 December 2015 (UTC)
• Support Support per Doc James, Tryptofish, Jytdog, etc. Alexbrn (talk) 19:25, 29 December 2015 (UTC)
• Oppose I see the reasons for wanting to include "health" here as being dishonorable and dishonest, an attempt to sort of "game the system" to be able to require higher level sourcing for some claims about sociology related to things like violence, as i've seen from some past discussions on this topic, and therefore i say leave it as "biomedical" alone because we want actual physical health-related content to be included but not necessarily sociological dynamics that may surround health but not be central to the intent of MEDRS. SageRad (talk) 20:13, 29 December 2015 (UTC)
• Oppose - much too broad. Perhaps if it was better defined to a specific area, it would garner more support but "health" is too far reaching. For example, a healthy diet is good for you - uhm, we don't need to cite MEDRS. Atsme^📞📧 21:54, 29 December 2015 (UTC)
• Oppose - too broad. TimidGuy (talk) 11:43, 30 December 2015 (UTC)
• Support – I am somewhat conflicted on this RFC because I see both sides abuse the scope of MEDRS. However I think the more problematic abuse arrises from applying a too narrow definition. For example, alternative medicine is often considered outside the scope of biomedicine but within the scope of health and medicine. Despite the medical disclaimer, readers do sometimes consult Wikipedia in making health decisions and therefore it is prudent that any health related content be held to a higher sourcing standard. Hence I think it is reasonable to add health in defining the scope of MEDRS to remove any doubt that health related subjects such as alternative medicine are covered. Boghog (talk) 13:54, 30 December 2015 (UTC)
• Support; this all seems like wiki-lawyering to exclude health. --Jules (Mrjulesd) 02:18, 31 December 2015 (UTC)
• Support as clarification of what the longstanding of what MEDRS has typically covered. Yobol (talk) 02:39, 31 December 2015 (UTC)

Biomedical

• Support. Note that this wording has been in the the guideline for at least the last five years. Expanding this to include health will allow editors with a POV to push to reject high-quality sources that they disagree with. For example, car crashes and motorcycle have a huge impact on health and information about how often they occur is generally considered to be public health information. The US government department of transportation publishes statistics on how many crashes and injuries cars and motorcycles have per mile traveled. If we expand this guideline to apply to health, a motorcycle fan could use it to suppress the statistics about motorcycle crashes because they were not published in a peer-reviewed rigorous scientific journal in the last five years. WP:MEDRS is not broken, and it doesn't need to be fixed. --Guy Macon (talk) 23:03, 2 November 2015 (UTC)
• Oppose We want to have a simpler wording and adding health simplifies it. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 23:15, 2 November 2015 (UTC)
• Support Biomedical is clear. Adding health is open to gaming and/or disruptive POINT making. Jbh^Talk 23:22, 2 November 2015 (UTC)
• Oppose. Well, if we really need to have opposes... I'll say this: I think that a good case can be made for "health" by itself, and omitting "biomedical" (not that I'm actually proposing that, which I am not). "Health" defines the subject matter where we do not want poorly-sourced information to cause harm to our readers. If a reader is misled about something biomedical, that might not be any more harmful than if it were something about physics or math (assuming that it is basic biomedical science, and not implying that misinforming readers about any matter of fact is a good thing). Just as we have a serious responsibility not to mess up biographies of living persons, we have a serious responsibility not to mislead readers on matters of their health. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:26, 2 November 2015 (UTC)
• Oppose I agree with Tryptofish, but to expand: Wikipedia doesn't only cater to private individuals. Writers of health policy, lawmakers, public health professionals and the like also use us as a source of information, and we owe it to Wikipedia to make sure our information is the best we can get. MEDRS aims to make sure just that, because it is far to easy to cherry-pick poor sources when it comes to health.CFCF 💌 📧 23:31, 2 November 2015 (UTC)
• Support A more refined option and less open to being applied to just about anything related to human activity. This follows the clear and concise requirements of WP:GUIDELINE. AlbinoFerret 23:34, 2 November 2015 (UTC)
• oppose --Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 23:37, 2 November 2015 (UTC)
• Oppose Agree with Doc James and CFCF Cloudjpk (talk) 23:54, 2 November 2015 (UTC)
• Support WP:IRS and WP:SCIRS are sufficient guidelines to prefer high quality sources to low quality sources. The purpose of having MEDRS in addition is to guard against dangerously misleading information that could influence readers' personal health decisions. Going beyond that is WP:CREEP. Rhoark (talk) 01:05, 3 November 2015 (UTC)
• Support: I agree with many people above. Biomedical is clear, and adding health is unnecessary and indeed more confusing, in contrast to people stating that this makes the guideline clearer. See for instance this article, which I gave above in response to an explicit challenge by CFCF, in the journal Conflict and Health. Is anyone really contending that the intent of WP:MEDRS was to cover this sort of stuff? Secondly, the sentence is ambiguous, "biomedical and health" can be interpreted as both "biomedical" AND "health" (logical and), or as "either biomedical or health" (logical or) - it is clear that many people are actually reading the sentence like the latter. Why people want to use a misleading and ambiguous formulation is beyond me. Btw, I do not see why there are two sections, it is really confusing. Clearly, there are two options, and people who support both cancel out. Kingsindian ♝♚ 03:35, 3 November 2015 (UTC)
• Oppose - Simpler. BMK (talk) 06:41, 3 November 2015 (UTC)
• Support keeping it the way it is now will cause less disruptive editing to Wikipedia. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 12:15, 3 November 2015 (UTC)
• Oppose - avoid wikilawyering at edges. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 12:56, 3 November 2015 (UTC)
• Support per the observations that "Expanding this to include health will allow editors with a POV to push to reject high-quality sources that they disagree with" and "Adding health is open to gaming and/or disruptive POINT making." I have no doubt at all that this change would result in refusing information that is included in some of the articles that I work on, information that is important to the articles and informs our readers. Gandydancer (talk) 14:41, 3 November 2015 (UTC)
• Support as per several others above. Biomedical is clear to me. SageRad (talk) 14:50, 3 November 2015 (UTC)
• Support for reasons I stated in the discussion. "Health" is too broad and subject to misuse and confusion. Minor4th 18:57, 3 November 2015 (UTC)
• Oppose. "Biomedical" alone implies only the investigational aspects of medicine, and does not appear to include clinical healthcare, health promotion, and the social aspects of medicine. I would not associate the word "biomedical" with clinical practice, but more with its laboratory aspects. JFW | T@lk 20:37, 3 November 2015 (UTC)
• Oppose. Above is beter. Supporters appear to be mainly anti-GMO WP:ACTIVISTs. jps (talk) 02:50, 4 November 2015 (UTC)
• Support "Biomedical" works perfectly; MEDRS does not need expansion. petrarchan47คุก 04:02, 4 November 2015 (UTC)
• Support biomedical works, albeit not without caveats - but these can be sorted out within the context of individual articles and topics. --Kim D. Petersen 09:15, 4 November 2015 (UTC)
• Oppose "Biomedical" is not a clear term and I would prefer to avoid it. Blue Rasberry (talk) 17:52, 4 November 2015 (UTC)
• Support even though i too would prefer a simpler term -as User:Doc James said- and dislike the insider "biomedical" which i agree may not be clear per User:Bluerasberry, and pointed out by User:Jfdwolff, but then lets define it more precisely. Adding health to biomedical does neither make anything clearer, nor simpler. Agree with Gandydancer's and User:Jbhunley's observations of gaming and pointiness, Minor4th, Guy Macon and AlbinoFerret's concern that MEDRS may be applied to just about anything related to human activity, Rhoark's creep argument, Petrarchan47 that MEDRS does not need expansion, Graeme Bartlett that its less disruptive, and Kingsindian's remark about the odd duplication of vote making things more diffuse than needed...--Wuerzele (talk) 03:20, 5 November 2015 (UTC)
• Oppose. Leaving out other aspects of human health is irresponsible. Close this loophole. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 05:59, 5 November 2015 (UTC)
• Oppose. Language isn't clear enough. Leaving out claims on health effects could be confusing to newcomers or others not familiar with MEDRS. Adrian^[232] (talk) 20:07, 6 November 2015 (UTC)
• Support - making the topic area more precise and medical information is specifically what is provided in the medical journals this directs one to. It seems a reasonable objection that health is too broad and it also seems pointless to direct folks to JAMA for material that isn't there. Markbassett (talk) 22:05, 6 November 2015 (UTC)
• Support. Biomedical is quite specifically defined with clear parameters and appears to have been in the the MEDRS guideline for at least the last 5 years. Why change it now? Including such a broad and ambiguous word as "health" makes no sense but has the potential to create much unnecessary confusion.Charlotte135 (talk) 11:02, 7 November 2015 (UTC)
• Support. Those aspects of health that are covered by "biomedical" are included; any other aspects aren't. Maproom (talk) 08:43, 8 November 2015 (UTC)
• Support. For five reasons: 1) Biomedical is more clear term whereas "health" is too ambiguous 2) adding "health" would be open to WP:GAME, 3) WP:MEDRS does not need expansion, 4) the attempted expansion actually has already been used to suppress citations in some articles, and and last but not least, 5) MEDRS could be applied to pretty much everything, like editor RexxS already stated that MEDRS should actually apply to articles such as "bicycles"[8] Jayaguru-Shishya (talk) 16:50, 8 November 2015 (UTC)
• Support Health is far too broad a term, could easily be misapplied, and would create edit wars and WP:GAMEs galore. I have already seen editors try applying MEDRS to even things like organic food (for non-biomedical claims) and they should always get shot down. WP:RS works fantastically for non-biomedical claims, including health-related ones and MEDRS for biomedical claims. Doc James wrote that "'health' simplifies the wording": no, it doesn't. It confuses it greatly, and extends MEDRS to policing claims from everything from apples to zoos. Biomedical claims about apples, yes, MEDRS already covers these well. Children getting ill from petting animals at zoos? Yes, that could possibly be a biomedical claim also covered by MEDRS. But, just like zoo animals, MEDRS also needs to be caged and editors shouldn't be able to release it to run amok. LesVegas (talk) 19:01, 10 November 2015 (UTC)
• Oppose. The wording "Biomedical" is too ambiguous and confusing. QuackGuru (talk) 19:15, 10 November 2015 (UTC)
• Support as less vague and less all-encompassing than "health". Also, I support me finally having a couple of weeks to write a first draft of WP:MEDDUE, so that people will quit abusing MEDRS as a way to get WP:DUE weight into articles, and in the meantime, I support adding a clear, unambiguous section to MEDRS that states that many subjects are multidisciplinary (e.g., rates of seat belt use, crime, and poverty) and that the community does not support a "medicine über alles" approach to multidisciplinary subjects. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:32, 17 November 2015 (UTC)
• oppose per Tryptofish. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 19:09, 18 November 2015 (UTC)
• Support Covers the intended scope of MEDRS, and is quite clearly defined as a term, whereas health is so broad, it would require its own MEDRS-specific definition to be meaningful. Combining "biomedical and health" further confuses the situation, considering that the general argument for health is that it is essentially synonymous and does not expand the scope - how can we have an "and" if they are the same thing? "Biomedical" is the reasonably clear and straightforward choice. --Tsavage (talk) 21:33, 26 December 2015 (UTC)
• Oppose. The spirit of this guideline has always been related to health claims in general. Including only biomedical is ambiguous and opens up the guideline for more gaming than biomedical and health would. Kingofaces43 (talk) 19:19, 28 December 2015 (UTC)
• Support: I fail to see how the inclusion of a completely redundant term in the first of the two proposals could add anything useful. Besides, the proposed additional wording ("health") has an extraordinarily large scope, covering a range of related topics that are not subject to MEDRS such as public health policies and public healthcare funding. It is also likely to cause unnecessary confusion to the reader and so I am inclined to support the second proposal especially for its brevity -RoseL2P (talk) 13:49, 29 December 2015 (UTC)
• Oppose the whole point of MEDRS is to keep sourcing standards high for WP content about health; the internet is full of poor quality content about health and MEDRS helps us keep that crap out of the encyclopedia. Jytdog (talk) 17:55, 29 December 2015 (UTC)
• Support - per Guy Macon. Atsme^📞📧 21:53, 29 December 2015 (UTC)
• Oppose per my comments in the previous section directly above. Boghog (talk) 22:56, 30 December 2015 (UTC)
• Oppose; this all seems like wiki-lawyering to exclude health. --Jules (Mrjulesd) 02:19, 31 December 2015 (UTC)
• Oppose; as a change against longstanding consensus on what MEDRS covers. Yobol (talk) 02:39, 31 December 2015 (UTC)

Discussion

For the longest time MEDRS has governed which sources we use on health related topics. The recent discussion called into question this by trying to redefine "biomedical" to not include matters of public health or epidemiology. This is becoming a gradually larger problem and something that needs to be addressed. Being exposed to the term continuously I take it for granted that biomedical includes basically anything that is associated with medicine, including epidemiology and health. If we do not adhere to this definition we are excluding psychiatry (as a science not based upon the application of biological models) as well as epidemiology, which would allow for claims such as:
Banana's help prevent cancer
     or
Working your abs at the end of your workout is best for burning abdominal fat

References

(Proper sources by WP:RS standards).

One should also note that MEDRS has never aimed only to cover treatment, and that is actually absurd as I hope my above comments show. CFCF 💌 📧 23:15, 2 November 2015 (UTC)

Adding more language is not likely to stem a rising tide, if that's indeed the situation, it will just increase the number of additional disputes made possible by new words to play with. Going straight to the examples, "medical claims" would seem to work better - is there a reason why it is not used more prominently in MEDRS? It addresses both bananas and abs, while not offering as obvious a scope-broadening potential as "health," "health-related," "health claims." --Tsavage (talk) 23:35, 2 November 2015 (UTC)

Medical claims and health claims are synonymous. Thus MEDRS already covers this scope. This is just clarifying it. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 23:37, 2 November 2015 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I would opt instead to use health claims, but I see where you are coming from. CFCF 💌 📧 23:39, 2 November 2015 (UTC)

I would have no objection to the wording proposed if its intention/meaning were constrained by linking it biomedical and health vice biomedical and health. Jbh^Talk 23:43, 2 November 2015 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I have no opposition to, in fact strong support for, MEDRS applying to epidemiology and psychiatry. Where my concern is is how for the unmodified term 'health' can be stretched. To use an example we are both familiar with under the proposed wording MEDRS would apply to the illustration and representation of 'health' issues ie to pictures used to represent mental disorders. Based on your arguments in that case you would resist MEDRS requirements there. It is the potential for ambiguity in situations like that and other knock on issues which give me pause. Jbh^Talk 23:38, 2 November 2015 (UTC)

Re:CFCF, let us clarify that MEDRS has been in place since mid-2008 rather than time immemorial, and that it has never been accepted as policy. As such, it suggests, rather than governs, which sourcing should be used.Dialectric (talk) 23:41, 2 November 2015 (UTC)

Comment: As I've pointed out more than once now, "health" and/or "medical" was in place of "biomedical" at various parts of the guideline. The guideline had been stable in that respect. This was changed in August, as seen with this and this edit. So I don't view re-adding "health" as some big change; "health" and "biomedical" is how it was. And reverting the guideline to the WP:STATUSQUO version while editors debate if "health" should have been removed is more appropriate. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 23:42, 2 November 2015 (UTC)

This RfC isn't about those other sections it is about changing the lead. It is an established fact that the lead has been stable at "biomedical" for many years. You are free to edit6 those other sections to your liking and follow the normal consensus policy if anyone disagrees. --Guy Macon (talk) 09:14, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

Having it in the lead is probably the best way to ensure proper visibility. The point is that readers will not go through the entire guideline, and if we can point to the lede instead of wasting time pointing to sections and subsections it will be beneficial for everyone. The scope isn't changing, only how clear it is. CFCF 💌 📧 09:19, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

Guy Macon, that you keep missing the fact that those two diff-links show changes to the lead, and that "health" had been in the guideline for years, makes me think you are purposely acting blind. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 10:09, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

Discussion question

• I have a question, and it's not simply a rhetorical one, for the editors who oppose "health". Can you tell me an example of a topic that would be described as "health", where it would be OK with you if information were sourced in such a way as to risk misleading our readers? --Tryptofish (talk) 23:49, 2 November 2015 (UTC)

The problem, as I see it, is there is no way of determining what is a health claim. How are things handled when, for instance, someone claims cell phone tower or power line siting is a health issue? It is possible to say there are no health effects fro cell tower radiation but it is harder to say there is no 'health effect' from these things because you can argue that they cause fear and anxiety which has a determent to health therefore a 'heath effect'. It is that kind of absurdity, second order knock on claims, I am worried about. Jbh^Talk 00:00, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

Thanks, that's helpful. The way I see it, there is no need for MEDRS to apply automatically to pages about power lines (obviously). But, as soon as an editor wants to add content about whether or not there are health effects associated with power lines, then that content should, as a guideline, be sourced according to MEDRS. That's because we don't want a statement about those putative health effects to be sourced to some-nutcase-blog-about-fringe-theories, in case it might mislead a reader into not getting the health care that the reader needs. It might seem absurd at first to say what I just said about a topic like power lines, that is far-removed from medical topics, but I would argue that it is not at all absurd when one looks at it from the perspective that our readers, from the general public, look to us for information that they can trust, and that information can affect choices that they make about their own health. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:10, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

Tryptofish, I share the concern about not being able to find the boundaries. People have really widely different understandings of "health".

But I want to add that your question is really odd. When is it ever "OK with you if information were sourced in such a way as to risk misleading our readers", anywhere on Wikipedia, in any subject? We don't accept misleading material on articles about television shows, horse racing, algebra, insects, or anything else. Why would we accept that for non-biomedical health-related information?

This guideline describes a set of ideal sources for <whatever the scope is>, and it strongly encourages editors to use those. That's great. You know I'm a fan of MEDRS, and have been from the beginning. But there needs to be a match between "the ideal sources" and "the stuff being supported by the sources". We have basically declared that the ideal source for <whatever the scope is> is a review article published in a reputable medical (NB: not nursing! not physics! not chemistry! not history! not statistics! not economics! not gender studies! not sociology! not law! not education! only medical!) journal during the last five years, or (if you really have to) a medical school textbook.

Problem: There are "health" things that are actually not ideally sourced to medical journals and medical school textbooks. These examples come from all sorts of domains, but let me give you some very everyday examples:

• Patients respond differently to providers based on the providers' race and gender. A woman may prefer giving birth unassisted to allowing a male midwife to help her. This is a big "health" issue, but telling a man that he's not allowed to look under her dress is not a "biomedical" issue. According to MEDRS, you should not cite a gender studies or religious studies article about this. The "ideal" source—and therefore the only acceptable POV—is the one that the medical providers themselves publish about their encounters with patients, in a medical journal.
• Providers treat blue-collar patients differently than white-collar ones. This is a big "health" issue, but it's not "biomedical". Providers give less pain medication to blue collar workers because of their bias, not because of their biology. According to MEDRS, you shouldn't cite a sociology book for information about this sociological phenomenon. According to MEDRS, the "ideal" is for you to only include information that you can cite to a reputable medical journal. Criticism of medicine by non-medical sources must be rejected.
• Patients have a different POV than providers. Patients care about prognosis and everyday life more than providers. But don't let Wikipedia include how cancer patients are affected emotionally by pink ribbon culture unless it's been published in a medical journal! MEDRS's "ideal" source for the health-related information about how alienated some patients feel when 60-year-old breast cancer patients are given children's toys—or how alienated other cancer patients feel when breast cancer patients get special treats just because it's Breast Cancer Awareness Month—is still a medical journal, not a book written by patients or researched by sociologists.
• Trans people often do not consider themselves to have a medical condition at all (especially if they are not seeking specific treatments). When they do, it's often therapy for distress over the way that society treats them, e.g., by misgendering them on their official documents. But according to MEDRS, the "ideal" source is to ignore almost every source written by trans people, in favor of only sources published by medical journals. The only POV you can find in "ideal sources" is the one that says it's a psychiatric condition with as-yet unknown differences in neurology and that needs to be treated (very expensively) by a bunch of doctors. The one in which a trans person says that society just frankly shouldn't care that much about shoving people into boxes labeled "boy" or "girl" isn't one that you'll find much in medical journals. But the "ideal" source about how to report gender on drivers' licenses and passports is still a medical journal, if MEDRS applies there.
• The WHO defines "health" as requiring "a complete state of physical, mental and social well-being". If you are unemployed and worried about whether you will be able to pay your bills this month, or if your neighbors dislike you, or if you are racially disadvantaged, or if a loved one died recently, then the WHO says you are not healthy. But does anyone really think that "a review article from a medical journal" is the "ideal" source for articles on unemployment, rudeness, discrimination, or normal grief?

I could go on, but you've probably read the examples given elsewhere on this page, too, so I'll stop. The problem, then, is this: We're recommending an "ideal" source. This is good. Sources are only "ideal" is they're appropriate to the content. Therefore, the scope of MEDRS must be whatever the "ideal source" is actually "ideal" for. MEDRS's "ideal source" is truly ideal for biomedical information. The recommended ideal source type is not so ideal for socio-medical information, especially if you're trying to include non-medical POVs, and it's lousy for non-medical information (e.g., annual sales figures—which MEDRS itself says to use plain RS for, rather than MEDRS' "ideal").

If you want to think this through, then you might look at the section #For each, above. Then think about the sections and the content we might want to include across the wide variety of health-focused articles. Is there anything that (a) you would probably include in an FA-class article about a medical condition, a treatment, or medicine as a profession, but (b) the best sources for that content is not solely review articles from a medical journal or textbooks used in medical schools?

If your "ideal" source is anything else, then that type of information is probably outside the scope of MEDRS. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:21, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

First, I have to express amazement at the amount of TL;DR on this talk page in the short period of time since I was last logged in. I normally don't watchlist this page, and I'll probably take it off my watchlist again pretty soon. Wow! OK, that said, now I want to reply to WhatamIdoing's very thoughtful comment. What you pointed out to me, as well as what I think I see in the talk section immediately below this one, is making me suspect that editors (including me) are sort of talking past one another, because we sincerely misunderstand each other, with some editors assuming things that other editors do not assume, and that that is getting in the way of consensus. I realize that I have been assuming something that I should not assume, that it is self-evident (which it isn't) when something on a page such as power lines (that is, a page topic that is not obviously health-related) is or is not related to how readers might make decisions about their own health. I'll take each of your examples, to try to explain that:

1. About gender and birth issues: You are right that the topic of how women might feel about the birth process with respect to gender and autonomy is something that is, simultaneously, related to health and also something where there is, very properly, gender studies sourcing that should also be cited. It comes down to what the source is cited for. If a gender studies or religious source says things like: there are societal arguments for doing childbirth in certain ways and not in others, or there is evidence that certain childbirth practices result in women not getting the health care that they need, etc., then I'm fine with using those sources for that. But if a gender studies or religious source says that children or mothers are healthier or less healthy after certain childbirth procedures, then no, I want a MEDRS source for that.
2. Economic discrimination in health care is another encyclopedic topic where non-MEDRS sources are valid to cite. It is valid to cite them for evidence of such discrimination, and criticism of such discrimination. But it is necessary to cite MEDRS sources if you want to talk about what dose of an analgesic is suitable for a given amount of pain.
3. How cancer patients feel about how they are treated is health-related, but there is encyclopedic content about each of the issues that you described that can properly be discussed in terms of non-MEDRS sources. You don't need a MEDRS source to cite how a patients' group is protesting treating older patients like they are children. But you do need a MEDRS source to cite which health care treatments are or are not effective against breast cancer.
4. How transgender people feel about how they are treated by the medical establishment should be sourced to sources that reliably reflect how those people feel. How the medical establishment currently defines and describes transgender should be sourced to MEDRS sources.
5. One of your WHO examples is when a loved one has died recently, so, in the interest of brevity, I'll use that as an example. Stuff like a person losing their employment because the employer does not provide adequate paid leave following such a loss (or after having a child, for that matter) should be cited to non-MEDRS sources. But the clinical diagnosis and treatment of what that person is going through belongs with MEDRS.

What I'm trying to illustrate there is that it matters what specific kind of content is being sourced. Simply because a topic is related to health (as the WHO example illustrates very well) does not mean that MEDRS applies to anything and everything within that topic. On the other hand, when the content pertains to what kind of health care will be good or bad for the person then MEDRS sources are, as a guideline, the preferred sources. We need to come up with wording that communicates this distinction better than the wording that we use now. There should be some sort of shorthand test, along the lines of "does it have the potential to influence how our readers make choices about their own health?"

Please note that this distinction is not about "health" versus "biomedical". It won't go away if we just say "biomedical" and leave out "health". And I recognize that there always have been, and probably always will be, times when the mainstream medical establishment lags what is really right, but Wikipedia cannot go beyond what the preponderance of reliable sources tell us. I can see how some editors would be concerned about, for example, reliable sources from trans people about how they feel being set aside in favor of MEDRS sources. That is a misuse of MEDRS. But I have to say, what I see around the Wiki is mostly the other side of that problem. The overwhelming amount of the time, it isn't some big bad cabal from WP:MED being mean to nice editors. It's POV-pushers who want to use non-MEDRS sources to say that [cannabis, e-cigarettes, homeopathy] is great for you, or that [GMO foods, conventional psychiatry] is the work of the devil, and they have a great website source to back it up, and are pissed as hell at those mean medical editors who insist on MEDRS. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:45, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

I think we agree entirely. The problem isn't what to call it; the problem is where to draw the line. You and I seem to draw it in the same place, but I believe that not everyone agrees with us. Once we have a good shared understanding of where the line is, then we can sort out what words to use for it. IMO "biomedical" is less wrong than "health", but it is not exactly right, either. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:21, 6 November 2015 (UTC)

MEDRS allows for a number of sources that aren't included in the first "ideal" definition. The fact is that if you're going to make health claims it is very easy to cherry-pick sources and WP:RS fall extremely short. If we were to use the standard professional definition of biomedical like you do, there would be no problem. But as you can clearly see in this discussion editors aren't. All of those examples are notable, but they really won't fall under the definition "biomedical and health information" which is about health claims. Also any high quality socio-medical doesn't need to be from a medical journal as you should be aware, but it should be a high quality review. CFCF 💌 📧 06:43, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

• MEDRS defines the ideal, and that ideal helps us understand the scope of the guideline.
• It's very easy to cherry-pick sources for almost all subjects. History is no different from health in that regard.
• I'm willing to write the standard professional definition of "biomedical" directly into the guideline, if that would address your concerns adequately. I would strongly prefer that to writing "MEDRS applies to all health information".
• "High-quality source" is not synonymous with "high-quality review". Some academic fields actually prefer a publication format called a "book".  ;-)  WhatamIdoing (talk) 07:27, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

History is very different from health. Per a comment by RexxS:

The only reason why we need MEDRS to spell out those principles is that there is too much money involved in pushing poor quality medical products and procedures and too many SPAs trying to gain recognition for their own pet area in the largest encyclopedia ever created. Without the bulwark provided by insisting on only the highest possible quality of sources, our encyclopedia would be swamped by snake-oil salespersons and big pharma. The first thing that any SPA wants is to stop MEDRS from applying to their edits. We should not be trying to make life easier for them.

Book or review doesn't matter really, as long as the book is written as a review of the literature. Books are published extensively in medicine as well, but a dissertation doesn't hold more weight than a primary source, because that's what it is.CFCF 💌 📧 07:34, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

History doesn't have a bunch of POV pushers trying to gain recognition for their pet thing? Maybe you should spend a month at the articles related to the Palestinian–Israeli conflict.

Your focus on "as long as the book is written as a review of the literature" is still showing your bias towards your own field's preferences. Literature reviews don't have the same status in non-STEM fields. Some fields actually expect their members to already know what was previously published; lit reviews are what you create for students and other newbies, rather than the pinnacle of reliability. A high-quality history source is a source that is considered high-quality by historians, not by scientists. WhatamIdoing (talk) 07:55, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

No, not in the same way. There are far from the same monetary interests that produce shoddy primary sources, and not the same amount of paid advocates. The Palestinian–Israeli conflict is a modern conflict and is also under extended protection I may remind you, most of the dispute isn't exactly summed up as history.

And you completely misunderstand the point about being written as a review of the literature. History is not rebuilt every time it is written, but books depend on other books and constantly back-reference. While different standards exist, a book with only original research is not going to carry any weight. CFCF 💌 📧 08:09, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

Discussion break 01

• Comment- This RfC and the others above are not going to solve the underlying problem of the guideline being misused by some editors trying to exclude content they disagree with by an overly broad application of MEDRS and other editors trying to include inadequately sourced content that really should be sourced with the higher MEDRS standard. Those are issues of POV and non-neutrality. For reasonable editors, who are actually neutral on the content of articles they are editing, this is not going to be a problem. There are many topics that include medical, sociological, legal and cultural implications - and there's no reason we shouldn't be able to use the best quality sources from any or all of those disciplines where they apply. As I have seen above from CFCF primarily, the argument is being made that if a topic has any potential implication on human health, then the sourcing must meet the higher MEDRS standards - so, "health" information would include information about power lines, bicycles, plumbing and war and must be sourced to MEDRS because they all have an impact on human health. I do not believe that MEDRS was ever meant to be that broad. Minor4th 02:52, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

I concur with Minor4th's excellent analysis. -- Notecardforfree (talk) 03:35, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

Yes if you wish to claim that power lines cause cancer you need a good source. This keeps us from turning into a promoter of conspiracy theories. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 03:18, 4 November 2015 (UTC)

That's obvious, and no one is disputing that. We need good sources for everything - we're talking about the bounds of MEDRS though, and it's much more restrictive than our general sourcing policy. But let's turn back to the topic of Domestic violence -- I think we can all agree that we would need MEDRS sources for medical content about PTSD caused by repeated exposure to DV. But can we also agree that the success rates of court-mandated participation in batterer's intervention programs might be properly sourced with a peer reviewed law journal or academic journal in sociology? There are some here who would argue that only medical review articles can be used as sources for such information, and in that manner MEDRS is being selectively cited to exclude content that is reliably sourced to something other than a medical review article less than 5 years old. Minor4th 03:47, 4 November 2015 (UTC)

Noone here is arguing that you need a medical soruce for "success rates of court-mandated participation in batterer's intervention programs". MEDRS is needed when you're making health claims, such as that women's health is more impacted by DV because that is a claim made in epidemiology. Epidemiology doesn't cover legal claims. CFCF 💌 📧 22:51, 4 November 2015 (UTC)

Are you sure about that, CFCF? What if the batterer's intervention program uses cognitive behavioral therapy? Wouldn't CBT be "health" and "clinical psychology", and even "medicine"? WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:30, 6 November 2015 (UTC)

That comment is not succinct, and misses to point out that what brought this discussion to the fray were attempts to use old out-of-date articles for epidemiology in Domestic violence against men. Adhering to a higher standard for evidence will never result in any biased point of view, except the majority-accepted evidence-based point of view. This is Wikipedia's express goal!
It is far too simple to cherry-pick poor low quality sources to use them to promote fringe ideas. CFCF 💌 📧 06:34, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

Regrettably, "majority-accepted" and "evidence-based" are not always the same POV in medicine. Anyone who's been told not to drink even so much as a small cup of water for 8 or more hours before surgery has been treated with the "majority-accepted" but "evidence-ignored" POV. There are more examples of this—and that's assuming that the medical POV is the appropriate POV in the first place, which is disputable for some subjects.

Also, while it's true that the relatively famous Archer source is 15 years old, there are more recent ones that say the same thing. They really have a DUE problem at that article, not an evidence problem. WhatamIdoing (talk) 07:11, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

When there is a well represented second opinion in the literature we of course present it with due weight. Then again if the only sources promoting that drinking water is okay are newspapers then it shouldn't be on Wikipedia. If on the other hand the American Surgical Association writes a paper about it then we need to constrast this with the guidelines. This is actually a strength of MEDRS, and it isn't a problem. CFCF 💌 📧 07:24, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

CFCF, some perspectives have been marginalized within the academy and are not necessarily represented in mainstream literature (see, e.g., the example about trans people above). This exclusion contributes to the perpetuation of Confirmation biases; this is why we should not continue to marginalize these perspectives through our citation standards at Wikipedia. -- Notecardforfree (talk) 07:34, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

Notecardforfree - Wikipedia isn't here to WP:Rightgreatwrongs, and the point is to represent the mainstream literature. There are issues with science, but we aren't here to correct them, if that is your cause may I suggest writing a review article for a peer-reviewed paper? CFCF 💌 📧 07:46, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

Not exactly. The point is to represent the mainstream POV as being the mainstream POV and significant minority POVs as being minority POVs. This is WP:YESPOV. We don't have a WP:MAINSTREAMONLYPOV or WP:SCIENCEONLYPOV policy. WhatamIdoing (talk) 07:58, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

Yes, actually because the mainstream literature includes any significant minority positions, and MEDRS goes so far as to explain:

Although significant-minority views are welcome in Wikipedia, such views must be presented in the context of their acceptance by experts in the field. Additionally, the views of tiny minorities need not be reported.

If something is so unaccepted that it isn't present in the mainstream literature even as an opposing view it should probably not be included. This is expanded upon elsewhere in MEDRS. CFCF 💌 📧 08:04, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

CFCF, the quotation selected above highlights one key equivocation in your larger argument. You can be an "expert", even if you don't publish review articles. In fact, there are many expert perspectives outside the universe of review articles. -- Notecardforfree (talk) 08:20, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

Very true. You can also be an "expert" and never publish in a medical journal. WhatamIdoing (talk) 08:22, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

Absolutely, and I have never expressed anything else. I don't really see the point here?

WP:RS clearly states:

Wikipedia articles should be based on reliable, published sources, making sure that all majority and significant minority views that have appeared in those sources are covered (see Wikipedia:Neutral point of view). If no reliable sources can be found on a topic, Wikipedia should not have an article on it.

Reliable sourcse for medical or health claims are different, but the same idea applies here. Newspapers don't cut it, and a vast multitude of other sources don't. For example see the comments I made above about bananas fighting cancer. CFCF 💌 📧 08:29, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

References

• In the above comments, WhatamIdoing hit the nail on the head. I encourage everyone to read the comment, even if it it a bit longer than most. --Guy Macon (talk) 06:38, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

I second that suggestion. WhatamIdoing is on-point here. -- Notecardforfree (talk) 06:47, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

Third. And I note that after some refactoring WhatamIdoing's comments are now in a different section - I believe it's the section immediately above this one. Minor4th 19:03, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

No, because MEDRS hasn't applied to that from the start. MEDRS has always included health information, but doesn't require those things off sources anyway. In fact it's a miss understood comment. CFCF 💌 📧 06:52, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

CFCF, Is it possible a broadly defined MEDRS can be misapplied and used to block sources? AlbinoFerret 07:08, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

No, it can't. MEDRS allows for a large number of different sources, with the exception of primary research literature and newspapers etc. CFCF 💌 📧 07:29, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

MEDRS has already been used to in an attempt to suppress citations to the National Advisory Council on Violence Against Women and the American Psychiatric Association's DSM-5[9], the Los Angeles Times[10], and the scientific journal Psychological Reports (because the paper was published in 2004 -- before the MEDRS 5-year limit)[11]. And that's just one editor on one page. I could give you dozens of other examples. --Guy Macon (talk) 07:37, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

That isn't called suppressing citations, that is called sticking to high quality sources. Of course we aren't going to use the LA-times for the article on Domestic violence, and as for the others, when there are more up-to-date and higher quality sources of course we use them. This is the express purpose of MEDRS!CFCF 💌 📧 08:14, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

Guy Macon, you have a misunderstanding of the guideline; you are applying the five-year standard as though it is gospel. Like I stated in this WP:ANI thread, MEDRS is not hindering these types of articles. "For example, WP:MEDDATE states, 'These instructions are appropriate for actively researched areas with many primary sources and several reviews and may need to be relaxed in areas where little progress is being made or where few reviews are published.' It is also clear that newer is not necessarily better. If the older source is better, then we go with that, as medical editors commonly do at the Circumcision article." Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 10:20, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

I agree that MEDRS isn't intended to cover that kind of health information. But it's still health information, and if we now say "Oh, by the way, MEDRS applies to all health information, not just the biomedical subset of health information", then we actually would be saying that MEDRS applies to "that kind" of health information. If we don't intend for MEDRS to define the ideal source for 100% of non-biomedical health information, then we really shouldn't say that MEDRS applies to (non-biomedical) health information. WhatamIdoing (talk) 07:13, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

But MEDRS applies to health claims, and pretty much all of the above examples if they have health implications to a patient, individual or community. WhatamIdoing don't let perfect be the enemy of good, and I am very supportive of more accurate language about what ideal sources are for a number of different topics, but this can be done once the major issue cools down. We want high quality sources for all of your examples, and no they aren't going to be meta-analysis, but neither should they be RS-newspaper articles. CFCF 💌 📧 07:19, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

Can you point to any harm to Wikipedia that has come in the five years that the lead paragraph of the article didn't have the change you are proposing? It seems to me that the person proposing a major change to a major Wikipedia guideline needs to demonstrate the the change is needed. --Guy Macon (talk) 07:32, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

No, but as Flyer22 Reborn accurately points out in an above comment what you're saying isn't true. First of all the lede has included a different definition of just "medical", as well as up until August of this year the entire guideline had health and medicine in it at several points. This was all removed in one go by one editor without talk-page interaction. This is seriously problematic, and for example having MEDRS not apply to epidemiology in Domestic violence is harm, quite significantly so. CFCF 💌 📧 07:37, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

Now you are just making things up. Flyer22 Reborn listed no changes to the lead. Here is what has been in the lead for years:

• Version from 1 October 2015: "any biomedical information in articles"[12]
• Version from 2 September 2015 (as edited by CFCF!): "any biomedical information in articles"[13]
• Version from 7 July 2015: "the biomedical information in all types of articles"[14]
• Version from 13 January 2015: "the biomedical information in all types of articles"[15]
• Version from 4 January 2014: "the biomedical information in all types of articles"[16]
• Version from 26 January 2013: "the biomedical information in all types of articles"[17]
• Version from 24 January 2012: "the biomedical information in articles"[18]
• Version from 1 January 2011: "the biomedical information in articles"[19]

Changes to other parts of the guideline do not equal a consensus to change the lead. Do your homework, list when those other changes were made, and the community will consider them. This RfC is about the lead paragraph. --Guy Macon (talk) 07:55, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

What is as edited by CFCF! supposed to mean, that I missed the change in July because it seemed self-evident that biomedical included health? We aren't talking about the exact wording of the lede, but that MEDRS has had health within its scope for the longest time.CFCF 💌 📧 07:59, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

I suspect that you "missed the change in July" because it happened in August.  ;-) You may recall reading recently the reason I posted for the change: Editors were quite reasonably (mis)understanding MEDRS as covering "any content that relates to (or could reasonably be perceived as relating to) human health", which is IMO far too broad. We didn't write the guideline to cover that broad a territory.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 08:28, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

Guy Macon, if I listed no changes made to the lead, then what do you call this and this edit? Those are changes to the lead. "Health" was there in the guideline for years, no matter how you much deny it or ignore it. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 09:58, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

Exactly, it is a very new addition that health is so underrepresented in the guideline. There are numerous diffs of editors removing health, and I think the reason it all went so under the radar was because "biomedical" was interpreted as including the vast majority of health topics. CFCF 💌 📧 10:26, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

---

In both of the edits you just linked to. the lead paragraph (which, I will remind you, is the paragraph that CFCF changed in the middle of the discussion, the paragraph CFCF edit warred over and was reported to ANI twice over, and the paragraph that this RfC is about changing) were exactly identical before and after your edit.

In the first case the lead paragraph was...

"Wikipedia's articles are not intended to provide medical advice, but are important and widely used as a source of health information.[1] Therefore, it is vital that any biomedical information in articles be based on reliable, third-party, published secondary sources and accurately reflect current knowledge"

...before and after your edit, and in the second case the lead paragraph was...

"Wikipedia's articles, while not intended to provide medical advice, are nonetheless an important and widely used source of health information.[1] Therefore, it is vital that the biomedical information in all types of articles be based on reliable, third-party, published secondary sources and accurately reflect current medical knowledge."

...before and after your edit. The lead paragraph (the specific paragraph we are talking about changing) has been essentially the same for five years. You and CFCF are proposing a major change to the lead paragraph. That is an easily-verified fact. --Guy Macon (talk) 19:32, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

But not as easy as it is to falsify - it just isn't true. It was changed to the present version in August this year [20]. It is not at all as stable as you suggest. CFCF 💌 📧 22:09, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

Guy Macon, so now you are only focusing on the first lead paragraph, not the other parts of the lead that were changed in August? As for what you stated in this edit summary, I have not been advocating to add "health" to the lead; I haven't even yet voted on whether or not "health" should be re-added; this is because I do have concerns that it might be used too broadly. "Health" is still in the lead paragraph, though. By the way, since this guideline is not an article in the strict sense, I don't like calling its introduction a lead. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 02:23, 4 November 2015 (UTC)

Guy Macon you have not explained which article you are referring to. It seems fully accurate that we don't cite the LA-times when it comes to Domestic violence, and over 10 year old sources in a topic with significant research should be replaced! That isn't an expansion of the scope, and is fully according to the intention of MEDRS! CFCF 💌 📧 07:39, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Why shouldn't we use a newspaper or magazine article to support claims about trans people wanting to change laws about how their genders are reported on official documents? Does that kind of information really need the endorsement of an official academic journal?

Also, sometimes a news source provides a clean summary of a complex health-related subject, like this one on the non-biological, non-evidence-based, conventional medical practice of denying food and water to patients who are scheduled for surgery the next morning. It's accurate, understandable, concise, and accessible. Why not use it (appropriately), e.g., to say that "NPO after midnight" became popular in the 1960s but never had an evidence behind it? WhatamIdoing (talk) 07:45, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

Please, that is never what I said, and not the implication of covering health. These types of statements were never subject to MEDRS when it previously included health and medicine throughout. For the example on surgery we shouldn't use it because the New York times is not a credible source for this type of information, as any health professional will tell you. Sure, that source can be used to give the background history that it was promoted during the 1960's, but you are going to need a better source to claim there was no evidence. And actually there was quite a bit of evidence, albeit flawed, but it isn't a baseless claim like the NY-times makes it out to be. You can actually see that if you go to the review they link, which is the one we should use for any such claims. CFCF 💌 📧 07:55, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

It might interest you to know that over the last few years, the guideline has slowly shifted from using the word health about 25 times to using the word health, well, about 25 times. The main change has been an increase in the use of the word bio-, from about 20 to about 25. Medical dwarfs them both, with about 60 and 80 uses over the same time period (the guideline has gotten longer, which accounts for most of the increases). WhatamIdoing (talk) 08:19, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

What matters isn't only how many times it's mentioned, but where also matters. The guideline was previously very clear throughout (albeit did use the word biomedical in the lede) that health effects was what mattered, not purely "bio"-medical topics. CFCF 💌 📧 08:23, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

"Health effects" is not a synonym for "health information". You are proposing that "health information", not "health effects", be added to the lead. WhatamIdoing (talk) 08:42, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

WhatamIdoing - I don't make that clear distinction, and I'm under the impression several others here consider them synonymous. But to be clear, would you be more supportive of health effects or health claims instead of what is currently proposed? CFCF 💌 📧 09:10, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

Yes.

I can elaborate on the difference between an effect and a fact (or "information"), but I think you'll figure it out if you think about it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:35, 6 November 2015 (UTC)

Discussion break 02

• Keeping in mind that MEDRS applies to sources, not articles, could someone explain how Tawny Kitaen beating on Chuck Finley as documented at http://web.csulb.edu/~mfiebert/latimes.htm and http://www.cbc.ca/sports/baseball/wife-accepts-chuck-finley-plea-bargain-1.330984 is allowed on our Tawny Kitaen page but is (supposedly) forbidden by MEDRS on our domestic violence page, as CFCF claims?[21] (I am not interested in whether it would be a good addition to that article, just whether MEDRS forbids its inclusion unless a recent peer-reviewed medical journal starts covering celebrity divorces.) --Guy Macon (talk) 08:57, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

This is not the best photograph to show what a helicopter is nor what the Sydney Opera House looks like.

Without looking into the situation WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS. If it is as you make it out to be, no of course it shouldn't be allowed. Wikipedia unfortunately suffers because we don't have infinite time to patrol every page, if you see misuse of sources for medical claims on that page, go ahead and rectify it. CFCF 💌 📧 09:07, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

P.S. MEDRS allows for sources other than peer-reviewed medical journals, this has been mentioned repeatedly. I'm not seeing any real health claims here. Also getting rid of those celebrities from the article on Domestic violence probably has nothing to do with MEDRS, but is an issue of WP:DUE WEIGHT. CFCF 💌 📧 09:13, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

So are you retracting your claim that the LA Times cannot be used as a source for domestic violence because MEDRS forbids it?[22] (Again, I don't care about any other reasons for excluding it). Or are you saying that because of MEDRS the LA Times cannot be used as a source for Tawny Kitaen committing domestic violence against Chuck Finley on the Tawny Kitaen page as well as on the domestic violence page? --Guy Macon (talk) 09:26, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

As I said, I haven't looked into the situation. My claim is that the LA-times is not a decent source for health information. You seem to be mistaken that it is MEDRS that was invoked to get rid of this, it just isn't due weight for an encyclopedic article on domestic violence.CFCF 💌 📧 09:29, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

I guess the "deleted la times citation per wp:medrs" in the edit comment[23] fooled me into thinking that that particular editor deleted the LA Times citation per WP:MEDRS. --Guy Macon (talk) 10:00, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

That diff is a health claim, and not a specific claim about those celebrities, and as such MEDRS applies there. Furthermore the editor is claiming a case of WP:Verifiability-violation, where the source doesn't support the statement. To me it seems pretty odd that we would use an article about a celebrity couple and their problems to support "broad consensus", especially as it is a 13-year old snippet? CFCF 💌 📧 10:10, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

That's the problem, all right. You think that "there is broad consensus that women are more often subjected to severe forms of abuse and are more likely to be injured by an abusive partner" is a health claim subject to WP:MEDRS while pretty much everyone else thinks that it is a sociological claim subject to WP:RS. The question is whether you are going to be allowed to modify the lead paragraph of MEDRS so that it agrees with you. --Guy Macon (talk) 20:53, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

The above RfC has made it extremely clear that epidemiology is covered under medrs, and its actually ridiculous that you are pushing for a 13 year old unrelated snippet article for an article which covers public health.CFCF 💌 📧 07:50, 4 November 2015 (UTC)

Guy Macon - MEDRS doesn't apply to sources in that sense, but to sources of specific statements. What is a horrible source for one statement may be a fully adequate source for another. I think the example from Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Images is a damn good analogy:
To clarify, when I first glanced over the diff you linked I thought it mentioned the celebrity pair in the article on domestic violence (WP:UNDUE), I now see that it was actually used to support a medical/health claim, and the user who deleted it is fully correct in citing MEDRS. CFCF 💌 📧 10:41, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

Guy Macon I also see you saying the changes have "already" been used to remove proper sources, but your diffs are from 2014! You're not making a very strong case here. CFCF 💌 📧 10:47, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

Please list the exact attributes of what kind of example you are willing to accept without resorting to WP:IDHT, and I will list multiple examples that meet your specific conditions for what you are willing to accept. --Guy Macon (talk) 20:53, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

Who put the breaks in the page? They break up the discussion in odd places. AlbinoFerret 09:50, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

I don't know, but I tried removing them and WhatamIdoing restored them because they decrease the amount of edit-conflicts. CFCF 💌 📧 10:10, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

I added some, but not all of them. Breaking up discussions in odd places has the unintentional side effect of not emphasizing certain points. My usual practice is to split a long discussion approximately in the middle, usually just above someone {{outdent}}ing. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:41, 6 November 2015 (UTC)

• @CFCF: Throughout this discussion I notice you are saying other editors comments are "misunderstandings" or what is "health" or how it would be applied etc. What you seem to be missing is if the editors discussing the issue here can misunderstand what your change means then the body of Wikipedia editors as a group are even more likely to "misunderstand" the new wording. Your response to counter-arguments are in fact showing the weakness of this proposal. You should consider addressing the matters raised rather than dismissing them. Jbh^Talk 13:53, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

Addressing which matters exactly? Several of the arguments against the proposal are reductio in absurdum where editors are trying to defuse the argument by taking it to its extreme. MEDRS is intended to help with health and medical claims, and I have responded to any such claims with the fact that it applies. If you're touching upon the example just above here I think I made it very clear (despite the best efforts of certain parties to misrepresent, not misunderstand, the situation). CFCF 💌 📧 14:28, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

Please WP:AGF. Your accusing other editors of things like deliberately misrepresenting the situation are becoming disruptive, and they do not strengthen your argument. Quite the opposite, actually. --Guy Macon (talk) 20:53, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

This entire discussion is a result of pushing poor sources on Domestic violence against men. It is not assuming bad faith when there is clear evidence of bad faith. Editors came here with the express wish to decrease the scope and power of MEDRS in order to promote old, fringe, or otherwise poor sources on controversial topics. Our policies, including WP:AGF are WP:not a suicide pact. CFCF 💌 📧 21:43, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

That is not the issue or the article that brought this discussion here. What brought this here was the 2000 Archer review - that would meet MEDRS in any event when used in context. We have now moved on to a discussion about how broadly MEDRS can be interpreted to exclude otherwise reliable sources for content related to "health information" (since you have edit-warred that ambiguity into the actual policy. Minor4th 22:58, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

Yes, that is the exact issue. That review is old and does not meet MEDRS when used in a field that has seen several more recent and more inclusive reviews. MEDRS makes sure that what we include is the best and most up-to-date sources, and the reason this source is excluded is beceause it isn't considered reliable. This is in accordance with the first few sentences in WP:RS:

Wikipedia articles should be based on reliable, published sources, making sure that all majority and significant minority views that have appeared in those sources are covered (see Wikipedia:Neutral point of view). If no reliable sources can be found on a topic, Wikipedia should not have an article on it.

Domestic violence is a field which has moved massively the past 15 years, and using a very old review will skew the article considerably. This isn't a freak occurance either, editors push for old sources that are more conductive to their point of view all the time, finding something in a field that was published 15-30 years ago and claiming that it is the only authorative voice on the subject.

As for edit-warring there is actually no ambiguity, just misinterpretation of what biomedical means in a professional context. The edits were strongly supported, as you can see from the vote, and were also a restoration closer to the pre-August version where health was specifically mentioned in the lede. This has been linked multiple times arleady, but not once has this been responded to. This discussion is going in circles, and only one side is actually meeting arguements, the other is simply repeating them. CFCF 💌 📧 15:18, 4 November 2015 (UTC)

And the issues related to the Archer study have long been resolved, since the same information was found to be published in more current sources. The problem was - MEDRS was being used to exclude studies that found any kind of gender symmetry based on MEDRS, while older and more out-of-date and primary sources had been used throughout the article for studies that found no gender symmetry or that didn't discuss the issue at all. When MEDRS is being applies inconsistently like that, it has the appearance that MEDRS is being used to promote a certain POV and to exclude other POVs. And besides, MEDRS doesn't say that content has to be excluded if it is not ideally sourced - it is a guideline about how to improve medical content.

Given the breadth of this discussion and the differing opinions, I think it's clear that the addition of "health" is not a clear improvement or a simple clarification of what has always been understood. Minor4th 22:06, 5 November 2015 (UTC)

Minor4th, WP:MEDRS is not why I rejected the Archer text. I've been clear about that on this talk page. And the #Newer sources? section above is clear that there are quality sources that do not agree that "women [are] slightly more likely than men to use one or more act of physical aggression and to use such acts more frequently"; what secondary sources, reviews or otherwise, exactly support Archer on that claim? Archer's study includes content that is supported by secondary sources, but it's not like most of his domestic violence studies and claims are supported without debate. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 22:41, 5 November 2015 (UTC)

Furthermore, there is broad agreement among scholars that males engage in physical aggression far more than females do, and that this is the case across the animal kingdom. Of course...there are other types of aggression. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 22:49, 5 November 2015 (UTC)

I think we're getting a bit off topic for this discussion but maybe it's helpful to use a real example. As you know, there are quality sources that say men and women commit roughly equal levels of physical abuse (just tallying number of incidents); there are quality sources that discuss domestic violence as a women's issue and don't even address domestic violence against men; there are quality sources that say that men commit domestic violence much more than women do; and all of the studies that discuss the issue as far as I'm aware say that women are much more impacted by domestic violence than men for a variety of reasons (more severe injury, levels of fear, economic reasons, etc), irrespective of whether the number of incidents by men and women are roughly equal or not. Sorry to do this but I have to run to a meeting so I will have to finish this comment when I return. Minor4th 23:25, 5 November 2015 (UTC)

Editor Whatamidoing looked for newer sources to Archer's 2000 review and found that PMID 18624096 and PMID 18936281 were the only 2 reviews that cover the same basic territory as the 2000 Archer source. They're both from 2008. They both agree largely with findings from Archer's review. They all comply with MEDRS. I think that Whatamidoing summed things up particularly succinctly by stating "It is possible that the Archer source is getting used so widely because there really isn't anything better." Minor4th is correct also in their logical and coherent summation above.Charlotte135 (talk) 23:56, 5 November 2015 (UTC)

Note: Given the different interpretations, and/or selective quoting, of what was stated or shown in some sections on this talk page with regard to the current biomedical/health/WP:MEDRS dispute, I advise editors to read such sections instead of going solely on what one editor states about them, whether it's all of what WhatamIdoing stated in the Newer sources? section above or something else. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 02:38, 7 November 2015 (UTC)

Responses to votes

Because we have a discussion section it seems advisable to keep responses out of the vote section. I have moved the following: CFCF 💌 📧 10:15, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

• Response to Doc James' vote: No, you've got it backwards. Socio-medical information is health information, too, but it's not biomedical information. There's nothing "biomedical" about a woman refusing consent for an intimate exam by a male provider, but there's a lot of "health" in that decision. "Biomedical" is smaller than "health". WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:21, 3 November 2015 (UTC)
• Response to Ozzie10aaaa's vote: Perhaps you should rethink that "without question", seeing as how you have managed to reverse what is contained within what. Health content is far larger than and includes biomedical content, not the other way around. --Guy Macon (talk) 09:03, 3 November 2015 (UTC)
• Response to Casliber's vote: I am puzzled by your comment. You say "health is medicine". Are you saying that they are synonymous? Or that heath is a subset of medicine? Is exercising medicine? Or that medicine is a subset of health, in which case, why isn't just putting medicine enough to avoid wikilawyering? Wikilawyering can work both ways - arguing that a narrow category doesn't apply, or arguing that a broad category applies. Since WP:MEDRS is a guideline which restricts sources (in principle), the latter event is more pernicious - arguing that a source doesn't fulfill WP:MEDRS simply excludes it from discussion. The former can still be handled with WP:DUE, WP:NPOV etc. Kingsindian ♝♚ 14:04, 3 November 2015 (UTC)
• Response to Tsavage's vote: Biomedical currently redirects to Medical research, wouldn't Biomedicine or even better, Medicine make more sense? Surely the intention is that MEDRS should apply not only to biomedical research, but the application of that research to clinical practice. Also isn't health reasonably well defined? The ICF and ICD definitions of health are very precise. Boghog (talk) 17:32, 29 December 2015 (UTC)

Please stop refactoring comments. Minor4th 22:32, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

• Use good grammar, please, and employ the subjunctive mood. It should read "any biomedical information be based...accurately reflect..." or be changed as necessary for the replacement wording. 76.181.192.61 (talk) 04:10, 4 November 2015 (UTC)

Additional proposal

Comment: I believe that there is an excluded middle which would potentially be covered by "medical information", as opposed to "biomedical information". If there are no objections, I will add this as a third option. - Ryk72 ^'c.s.n.s.' 02:13, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

Your comment was lost, I have moved it here to increase the likelyhood of being seen. I think introducing a third option is only likely to muddy the waters without really improving the discussion. It may be better to wait and see how the RfC pans out before we do this. If we have an unclear result we can opt to add this question. CFCF 💌 📧 10:22, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

Ryk72, I believe that you're correct: "medical" includes socio-medical issues, like people refusing providers for reasons of race, sex, etc. It is also open to some (but not as much) of the vagueness and expansiveness that plagues "health information". We have a significant problem with different people having different conceptions of what's "medical".

But I don't think that adding any more options is going to be useful. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:47, 6 November 2015 (UTC)

Hi WhatamIdoing, Firstly thanks for taking the time to respond & provide your thoughts. The example provided is illustrative; as I would not have included this in my understanding of "medical", but appreciate that other editors may (and do). I would have included it in my understanding of "health", and would also suggest that it is not the type of information that should be covered by WP:MEDRS. - Ryk72 ^'c.s.n.s.' 03:10, 6 November 2015 (UTC)

Logical inconsistency in this RfC discussion

1. A good deal of the argument for including the word "health" maintains that it is has been in the guideline all along, is synonymous with "medical," is already included in "biomedical," and so forth - in short, that it is only a routine clarifying update that doesn't substantially change anything or add anything that wasn't already there.

2. At the same time, the reason for including "health" in the summary is argued as a way to address a perceived growing problem where editors are abusing the current term by arguing against its scope - therefore, it would seem "health" is expected to have a significant, substantial effect on how MEDRS is argued, by increasing, at the least, the perception of, its scope.

3. A good deal of the argument against adding "health" to the summary is that it will change how MEDRS is argued, and will, in fact and/or in perception, broaden its scope.

It seems that 1 and 2 are inconsistent with each other - what is proposed as a small, routine wording update cannot reasonably be expected to have a wide effect. Meanwhile, 2 and 3 seem entirely consistent, in saying that "health" is expected to have a significant, wide effect on how MEDRS is argued.

Given that common sense tells us that "health" is likely to be interpreted in an extremely broad way - for example, ask random people in the the street (potential Wikipedia editors, all), "How does 'health' relate to all the things in your day-to-day routine?" - and that using it is likely to have a significant effect on how the guideline is interpreted, we should be looking for more precise wording than "health," wording that is less likely to provide fuel for wikilawyering, and less likely to increase general confusion over the scope of MEDRS. --Tsavage (talk) 13:51, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

Complains that MEDRS is too vague and confusing are nothing new. You're right, broadening its scope to all things "health"-related would only exacerbate this (unaddressed) problem. petrarchan47คุก 04:14, 4 November 2015 (UTC)

But this is where you are completely wrong, it's about clarifying scope, not expanding it. This avoids long-winded discussion of whether MEDRS should apply to lots of health topics it clearly does apply to, for example health effects of GMO-products! CFCF 💌 📧 15:06, 4 November 2015 (UTC)

Agree with Tsavage and Petrarchan47 completely. the issue is that the wikiproject medicine has instrumentalized MEDRS to thwart article expansion arguing illegitimate addition of sources, particularly in areas that are orphan subjects, or not traditional medicine, including toxicology and environmental health, which most docs know little about, and which are more at home in public health.

I am an academic mainstream physician with a masters in epi. I know for sure, that many in the project arent physicians, but PhD's, these may be good at microbiology or virology, but dont know about the med business, patient care. some are MD's and most of them have little if any clue about environmental health and know public health in passing. some are med students acting as professors. many are arrogantly dismissive of scope and results, intolerant of the need to be flexible, to adequately inform. MEDRS is the mantra of wikiproject medicine. the primary source whip is cracked at those who dare to think outside the wikiproject medicine clique's box or question the boss. in this authoritarian manner articles are straightjacketed made worse than they need to be. worst is the double standard of allowing primary sources when it fits the project's POV.

I'd draw the line where it was: Medicine in the narrowest, traditional term. Not biotechnology, not health, not public health. yes, reviews are often better. But reviews in some topics may not be written up for years, for example, so exceptions of GOOD sources from peer reviewed journals should be allowed. I am against MEDRS to grow like kudzu covering all of wikipedia, because in my experience it has been used negatively.--Wuerzele (talk) 21:42, 4 November 2015 (UTC)

Wuerzele - The issues you outline are with MEDRS, and several of them are legitimate. The problem is that MEDRS is the best we've got, and I am the first to admit it isn't perfect, and could do with a bunch of improvement, but the one thing it doesn't need is a weakening of scope. MEDRS expressly allowed for other sources than the "ideal" when it comes to situations where review don't exist, and we are all here open to expanding the guideline with more express examples of when this happens. The problem we had here was editors who added questionable content to Domestic violence against men and then came here trying to promote the use of poor sources on anything they deemed not to be specifically "biomedical", which by their definition did not include epidemiology. I see it as a far larger problem than "students acting as professors" that advocates for a cause push their cause by using poor sources. What we count here isn't the title, but the weight of the argument, especially well sourced arguments. The benefit a professor will have on Wikipedia isn't his/her title, but the mere fact that he/she will know so much more and will have a much easier time expressing this in text. CFCF 💌 📧 22:45, 4 November 2015 (UTC)

Why did a simple argument over sources regarding domestic violence against men become a multi-RfC event? petrarchan47คุก 22:56, 4 November 2015 (UTC)

It didn't. That's a straw man. The underlying issues in the DV articles have long since been resolved, but CFCF has refused to acknowledge that and keeps bringing it up as if it's an ongoing controversy. The community and this RfC have quite clearly moved on to clarifying the scope of MEDRS in its community-wide application. Minor4th 23:04, 4 November 2015 (UTC)

Because the guideline was attacked for using the term biomedical when it prior to August had used both "medical" and "health-related" in its place. Biomedical while very clear for many was being defined in such a way that it did not include epidemiology. This discussion has brought with it a fair share of advocates who would have nothing rather than a complete break-down of MEDRS. CFCF 💌 📧 23:00, 4 November 2015 (UTC)

That is not true. The lead paragraph (the one you changed. the one you edit warred over and the one you posted this RfC about) did not have "medical" or "health-related" in the place of "biomedical" prior to August. Please stop saying that it did. Repeating the same easily-checked falsehood over and over isn't fooling anyone. --Guy Macon (talk) 23:42, 4 November 2015 (UTC)

"...fair share of advocates who would have nothing rather than a complete break-down of MEDRS" - CFCF, would you show me an example of exactly what you are referring to in this statement? petrarchan47คุก 08:10, 5 November 2015 (UTC)

• Personally I would love to see what solution the community could come up with if the top 3 or so commenters on this issue would take a step back rather than flooding these threads with the same stuff over and over and over again. It is far from necessary for only a couple of people from each side to reply to almost every comment from the other side. It cuts off opportunities for new perspectives and created a TL;DR thread which will resolve nothing because few people want to plow through all of the text. I guarantee that everyone is well aware of the primary 'participants' views on this issue - the purpose of an RfC is to get other editors' opinions. Just say'n. Jbh^Talk 00:01, 5 November 2015 (UTC)

• 1 and 2 are not logically inconsistent when analyzed correctly. 1 is a minor clarification of the always intended, and actually applicable scope. The effect predicted in 2 is on misperceptive expectations that MEDRS's scope was intended to be ridiculously narrow and WP:GAMEable. As an analogy, in most Western legal systems, it's unlawful to make threats of bodily harm. Not all of these laws state outright that they apply to oral as well as written threats, and many people are not aware that they apply to oral threats, or such threats would not happen very often. If it were proposed that a particular statute were clarified so as to leave no doubt that it also covered orally made threats, this would in fact be a minor clarifying change, no matter how many people flipped out and thought that it was a new, censorious legal land-grab intended to criminalize previously legal (in their mistaken view) behavior. That said, while I agree with the general thrust of this proposal, the unqualified word "health" by itself may be too vague and overbroad; we do not want MEDRS to pertain to traditional medicine systems, though perhaps claims about their efficacy should be.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  13:55, 12 November 2015 (UTC)

SMcCandlish ☺ I agree with your analysis, insofar as the term "health" might be clearly included in "biomedical" or other existing guideline material, in the way that "oral threats" may be included in "threats of bodily harm" (and so adding "health" is simply doing some housekeeping on routine wording). However, the inconsistency I see is in the arguments that suggest that adding "health" changes nothing, because it was already there (1), while other arguments suggest that adding health will have a significant effect (2, 3). If a "minor clarification" has major effects, then, from a practical standpoint, it is (also) a major clarification. The inconsistency only vanishes if you narrowly define "minor" to refer to the semantics of a definition, to the exclusion of actual effect. In the legal example, trial outcomes would presumably be unaffected by the change, so in a statutory sense it would be a minor alteration, but if making "oral threats" explicit resulted in a slew of newly founded charges, there, too, it would not be minor in effect. In any case, in Wikipedia, we in theory rely on reasonable interpretation, case by case, and on the implied as much as the explicitly stated, and particularly in that context, "health" seems entirely too broad and vague for this purpose. --Tsavage (talk) 00:22, 18 November 2015 (UTC)

To expand on the above, attempting to make changes based upon "health" being in the first paragraph has already happened, even though "health" was never in the first paragraph. This entire conversation started when an editor attempted to use MEDRS to remove a reliable source (Scientific American) and its associated claim concerning the rates of male on female vs. female on male domestic violence. The editor argued that domestic violence is a public health issue and thus MEDRS applies, When told that MEDRS applies to biomedical claims, not public health claims, he started a campaign to change MEDRS so that it supports his source removal. So adding "health" is clearly not a minor clarification but rather a major change that would apply WP:MEDRS to thousands of articles that are now under WP:RS. Also, "health" can never be included in "biomedical", because "biomedical" is already included in "heath". "Health" is a much larger topic that includes "biomedical" as a sunset. --Guy Macon (talk) 01:03, 18 November 2015 (UTC)

As it is currently worded, the Nutshell summary should properly be: "Ideal sources for biomedical and health material ..." because we can't have supplementary guidelines, intended to focus and clarify core policies for specific subject areas, defining themselves in terms so broad, we can't provide a simple explanation as to what they mean. With "health," MEDRS prominently describes its scope with a term that cannot be usefully linked to its own article, because the very first paragraph of that article immediately introduces a total lack of clarity as to what it is supposed to mean in this context. --Tsavage (talk) 02:21, 18 November 2015 (UTC)

Guy Macon's "01:03, 18 November 2015 (UTC)" summary is inaccurate (for example, I'm the editor who attempted to remove the Scientific American source, and WP:MEDRS was only one of the reasons; further, that text/source will be removed soon per the WP:RfC at that talk page), but I've already been over this matter with him more than once on this talk page; so has CFCF (the editor he is referring to in that post). For example, "health" has always been in the first paragraph, and elsewhere in the lead...and lower in the guideline, and was well-supported by medical editors. Guy Macon took issue with the second sentence of the first paragraph ("For this reason it is vital that any biomedical information") being changed to include "biomedical and health," as if that changes how the guideline was already being used. Furthermore, editors on this talk page clearly disagree about what "biomedical" applies to. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 09:07, 18 November 2015 (UTC)

And all of this biomedical debating currently at this talk page started after this dispute, and the section above where I pinged Guy Macon and others. No matter how one defines "biomedical," WP:MEDRS encourages better sources than Scientific American, as is clear at Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources (medicine)#Popular press. I'd left the Scientific American source in the Domestic violence article for a year to give editors a chance to update it with a better source; I only let it stay because WP:MEDRS is clear that Scientific American can be a decent source. But after the year was up, and I thought about (and further saw) how the content was presented without WP:Due weight, and was presented inaccurately, I removed it. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 09:26, 18 November 2015 (UTC)

I think my legal analogy stands fine. A well-publicized and pseudo-controversial clarification of a vague threats-of-bodily-harm law to make it clearer that, yes, it does apply (as it always really did) to orally delivered threats would have the contextually major effect of reducing the incidence of jackasses threatening to beat the tar out of people, but it would remain actually a minor change to the law, with very little impact on society at large. See my three sentences beginning "1 and 2 are not logically inconsistent when analyzed correctly" again in this light, please. The cognitive dissonance is happening because of a commingling of entirely different concepts of "major/minor" and to what they refer. By way of another analogy, if I take a step to the right (with my hands on my hips), this is a very minor action. If another entity happens to be an ant that I stepped on, the consequences were major in the context of that entity, but this does not affect the fact that it was a minor, non-controversial action on my part with little effect on the world (except perhaps in the view of that ect of Jains who walk around staring carefully at the ground and sweeping it lest they step on an insect, I suppose).

The point being, we do not need to wring our hands over how "major" the effect will be if it's an effect that was always within the intent for which this guideline's consensus enacted it. It's simply about time that it was applied correctly, and unless written really poorly, it should have no negative effect, only the positive one of further restraining WP:FRINGE, WP:OR and WP:NOT#ADVOCACY problems affecting many articles due to PoV-pushing in these directions by parties who think that MEDRS is or should be easily WP:GAMEable by playing verbal shell-games with terms like "health" and "wellness". Fewer disputes like the ongoing one at ArbCom about electronic cigarettes (involving a lot of party-overlap with this discussion) would arise. Tsavage has a valid observation about the vagueness of the article Health, which dovetails with my concerns about applying the term here without clearly defining it and/or limiting the scope of the intended meaning. The obvious solution to that is, well, to clearly define it and/or limit the scope of the intended meaning.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  12:13, 19 November 2015 (UTC)

SMcCandlish ☺: My intention in challenging your challenge of my comment criticizing this proposal isn't to start a further sub-argument, it is simply to not have my original statement discounted as a valid proposition, in order for you to "agree with the general thrust of this proposal." My argument isn't against clarification, per se, it is against "unless written really poorly," which this proposal seems to me to advocate.

You say, "The cognitive dissonance is happening because of a commingling of entirely different concepts of "major/minor" and to what they refer," which is the main point of my original comment, and is acknowledged in my reply to you: "If a "minor clarification" has major effects, then, from a practical standpoint, it is (also) a major clarification." Your legal and side-stepping analogies both suffer from the problem we have both identified: context matters. If you were knowingly side-stepping onto ant-infested ground, claiming that, "I only just took one little step," would seem disingenuous at best as a denial that you were out to kill ants.

(As for oral threats, you've given the hypothetical result a positive spin - "contextually major effect of reducing the incidence of jackasses threatening to beat the tar out of people" - while not acknowledging the equally plausible-sounding scenario where, being alerted to these "new" grounds, there is a rise in cases where other jackasses file oral threat charges that are really unwarranted by any reasonable consideration, further clogging up the judicial system, and ratcheting up overall stress and noise. There are things best left unsaid.)

My example, with highlighting subhead, was an attempt to provide a different framing of the underlying problem as I and some other editors see it, that the proposed step amounts to a significant (major) practical change. When editors argue simultaneously that it is only a minor change, but that it is a change necessary to correct the perceived scope of MEDRS, there is an apparent logical inconsistency that should be resolved so that all RfC input is about the same thing.

I don't think we are in disagreement, I find that "health" is obviously problematically broad (first of all, as my health link example indicates, it can't be usefully defined for this purpose), and I also wonder why "biomedical" is used in place of what the linked article says, in the first sentence, "is in general simply known as medical research," which is the actual title of the article, and seems much clearer to me (I have a pretty clear idea of what medical research is, I don't really of what biomedical refers to exactly...oh, it means "medical research") - aren't guidelines supposed to be straightforward and accessible to the general editor, as our content is supposed to be to the general reader?

The real major problem, IMHO, is that we seem to trying to fix actual problems with ever more specific rules, and this just cannot work in the anonymous Wikipedia editing environment. IMO, we should be concentrating on improving editor oversight processes, rather than trying to hardwire in more specificity to core policies that rely on general principles and common sense interpretation. --Tsavage (talk) 13:58, 19 November 2015 (UTC)

OK, I see where you're coming from better. Not sure I particularly disagree with much of that, but would insert some things. It's not mandatory that we link to articles on topics to say something in a guideline. Whenever we do, there's always a risk that the article content will change out from under us and be seen as altering the nature or applicability of the guideline (or policy or whatever). It's better to use links in examples, or as supplementary within the prose while writing the prose clearly and solidly enough that it still means what it means if you print it out on paper or if the linked article turns into crap. That naturally requires the kind of straightforward, accessible, common-sense codification of principles you're talking about. But when an area has real-world ethical consequences, we do in fact tend to insert specific anti-gaming, anti-misinterpretation wording that's quite detailed and tends to form definitions, scope clarifications, and line-item rules. WP:BLP largely consists of this, and it works fine, embedded within a more general-principles outline. The two approaches are not really mutually exclusive, it just takes work and care to integrate the one into the other.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  14:10, 19 November 2015 (UTC)

Tsavage, the lead for Biomedical research is, well, wrong. Or at least sloppy. There is plenty of medical research that doesn't have any "bio" in it. Look at these clinical trials: [24][25][26] Those are all "medical research", but they're all socio-medical, not bio-medical. "Biomedical" is the biological side of medicine ("bio" + "medical"). WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:39, 21 November 2015 (UTC)

A different question

To some extent, what I'm about to say is a different variation on the idea of a logical flaw in the RfC than what is in the talk section just above. It looks pretty obvious to me that this RfC is already destined to end in "no consensus". And the discussion between me and WhatamIdoing in #Discussion question, above, got me thinking that the real problem is not going to be solved by whether we do, or don't, add the word "health" to the guideline. The issue is that there needs to be a better delineation of where MEDRS does, and does not, apply. The disagreements between editors arise when one editor believes that a particular bit of content does not fall within the scope of MEDRS, and another editor believes that it does. No amount of wordsmithing between "health" and "biomedical" is going to fix that. Please see #Discussion question for examples of content topics where one part of the topic probably should be sourced according to MEDRS and another part of the topic probably should not. In that section above, I suggested that MEDRS applies where the content is going to influence how our readers make decisions about their health, but it doesn't have to apply more widely than that. Instead of battling over the issues that editors are battling over in this RfC, I'd much rather that editors brainstorm on how, exactly, MEDRS should express where it applies, and where it does not. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:49, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

Tryp, see the RfC above this one and the withdrawn one above that one. Maybe it's time for some actual alternative proposals so participants can get a better sense of how the guideline can be used (and misused) based on the specificity or ambiguity of the language in the guideline. I agree that the enclusion or exclusion of "health" will not resolve anything because we dont have a common understanding of what "health information" comprises. Same issue with the prior RfC because different editirs had different understandings of the word "epidemiology" and its scope. I have tried to suggest some common ground for understanding but it has gone nowhere. Maybe you will have more success. Minor4th 22:41, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

I don't have a definitive answer. But I can see two general ways to approach it. I just looked again at the wording now on the page, and I see how it links to Wikipedia:Biomedical information – and that page actually makes exactly the kind of distinction that I think we need. So, in one possible approach, the problem resides in editors incorrectly applying Wikipedia:Biomedical information, and there needs to be some codification here that MEDRS does not deviate from that other page. The other possible approach is to better define where it says: "For this reason it is vital that any biomedical information is based on...", by indicating more specifically and narrowly what that blue link actually links to. An example of the latter would be something along the lines of: "For this reason it is vital that any biomedical information that could affect how readers make health care decisions is based on...". --Tryptofish (talk) 22:59, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

There is actually a problem with that definition in that some editors have suggested that it doesn't include a number of epidemiological concerns where the lay-reader is not likely to make a health choice based upon the information, even when other professional groups may. The issue might be that we are trying to hard to be concise with a one-size-fit-all definition (I don't agree).

For a constructive approach it may be better to instead include part of that essay as a subheader of MEDRS, titled "Topics covered" (or something to that effect). CFCF 💌 📧 23:10, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

Perhaps that could work. For example, this page could have a section titled something like "What is and is not biomedical information". That would be based upon the two corresponding sections of the essay page. And then "biomedical information" in the lead would be blue-linked to that page section. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:32, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

This common-sense approach does seem to be supported by the first paragraph of WP:MEDRS and it is also how i understood the rationale and spirit of the guideline:

Wikipedia's articles are not medical advice, but are a widely used source of health information. For this reason it is vital that any biomedical information is based on reliable, third-party, published secondary sources and that it accurately reflects current knowledge.

I think that health-related biomedical content in articles is special because it is indeed used by readers to make decisions about their health, both for prevention as well as diagnosis and treatment. Therefore, anything relating to etiology of disease or health, anything relating to direct explanation of human physiology, and anything relating to epidemiology of disease or health falls under this category. I would hope that all other content is also sourced as well as possible, but the stricter requirements for such content makes sense in this light. SageRad (talk) 18:37, 4 November 2015 (UTC)

Thanks! Yes, that's right, I think. Looking at Wikipedia:Biomedical information#What is biomedical information?, the following specific examples are listed as topics that potentially should be sourced according to MEDRS: attributes of a disease or condition, attributes of a treatment or drug, medical decisions, health effects, population data, and biomedical research. And, from Wikipedia:Biomedical information#What is not biomedical information?, these are listed as potentially not subject to MEDRS: commercial or business information, economics, beliefs, history, society and culture, legal issues, notable cases, popular culture, etymology and definitions, training, regulatory status, and medical ethics. Currently, the lead here links to that, and I think it does a reasonably good job of delineating the boundaries. On the other hand, it's just an essay, and there is no reason why the two lists cannot be revised here. Maybe an improved version of those two lists could be made into a new section of this page, MEDRS, and maybe that would be a way of clarifying the issues where editors keep disagreeing. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:52, 4 November 2015 (UTC)

The problem here appears to be that I, SageRad. and Tryptofish all appear to want to apply MEDRS to health-related biomedical content -- otherwise known as "content used by readers to make decisions about their health" while CFCF and Flyer22 Reborn want MEDRS to also apply to things like the rate of male-female vs. female-male domestic violence. The latter is an important scientific, statistical and sociological topic, and it can be argued to be "population data", but nobody is going to use the information to make decisions about their health. On the other hand, as Tryptofish has correctly pointed out several times, the number of editors who want to expand MEDRS so that it can be used to exclude sources that meet our WP:RS standard is small and the number of editors who want to weaken MEDRS so that they can sell their snake oil, fat burning pills and penis/breast enlarging products is quite large and very persistent. Of the two alternatives we are discussing here, I strongly prefer the wording of the lead paragraph that has served us well for at least five years, but I also think that we can come up with something that is better than either. Alas, to do that we need to somehow stop the discussion from being derailed by those who want MEDRS to apply to anything health-related (as interpreted by whoever is trying to apply MEDRS). :( --Guy Macon (talk) 19:19, 4 November 2015 (UTC)

You've probably oversimplified who I agree and who I disagree with, and I really would rather we move away from grouping editors into opposing camps. Instead, I would rather we focus more on what I just asked about above: what are the topics that should be listed as within MEDRS, and what are the topics that should be listed as not within MEDRS? --Tryptofish (talk) 19:30, 4 November 2015 (UTC)

Good comment, Guy Macon. Thank you for boiling it down. I would like to be clear that defining WP:MEDRS to apply to biomedical claims relating to human health does require MEDRS sourcing for the claims that you call snake oil, like fat-burning pills and the like. Those would have to produce good, solid secondary sources to support any claim as to their efficacy. It would simply exclude topics like the sociology of domestic abuse, which is what i think we want. I think we're all seeing that agenda pushing like trying to exclude knowledge about domestic abuse patterns in society is not good, and neither is snake oil pushing like advocating fat-burning pills that don't really work. I think the simple interpretation of MEDRS based on its true spirit is the solution. I think that this is all spelled out, albeit in subdued language, in the third paragraph:

This guideline supports the general sourcing policy with specific attention to what is appropriate for medical content in any article, including those on alternative medicine. Sourcing for all other types of content – including non-medical information in medicine-articles – is covered by the general guideline on identifying reliable sources.

"Alternative medicine" could be construed to include any possible snake oil, and "non-medical information in medicine-articles" could be construed to mean that content which a stubborn few try to exclude from articles by demanding MEDRS sourcing for sociological claims. SageRad (talk) 00:07, 5 November 2015 (UTC)

I agree with Tryptofish about Guy Macon representing people in inaccurate ways. He's done that all over this talk page as far as CFCF and I are concerned, and he refuses to stop, despite telling me to stop supposedly misrepresenting him. And he continues to act like CFCF and I are the only ones who feel that WP:MEDRS applies to epidemiology or, more specifically, to rates of male-female vs. female-male domestic violence, despite various other editors on this talk page agreeing with me and CFCF. Arguing that reports on the physical and/or psychological harm of domestic violence are not biomedical, whether about the rates of those aspects or not, and/or that this does not fall within WP:MEDRS, makes not a bit of sense to me. I made my feelings well known in the #Clarifying "biomedical" section above. And in the #Does MEDRS apply to Epidemiology? section above, I commented, "[...] I will go ahead and state, though, that of course WP:MEDRS applies to epidemiology. This is also covered in the 'Included' aspect of the WP:Biomedical information essay, under the listing Population data. That stated, this doesn't mean that we need to be overly strict with regard to WP:MEDRS-compliant sourcing for epidemiological material. Some epidemiological material requires a higher level of sourcing than other epidemiological material. And WP:MEDDATE is clear that we can make exceptions in areas 'where little progress is being made or where few reviews are published'." Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 02:08, 5 November 2015 (UTC)

I don't understand why editors are acting like WP:MEDRS is so strict. Like I told Guy Macon, "[Y]ou have a misunderstanding of the guideline; you are applying the five-year standard as though it is gospel. [...] [WP:MEDDATE] is also clear that newer is not necessarily better. If the older source is better, then we go with that, as medical editors commonly do at the Circumcision article." Furthermore, reviews are not the only sources that WP:MEDRS recommends. For example, a good book source is fine. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 02:25, 5 November 2015 (UTC)

And I again point out that even though I have not been advocating that "health" be added to the guideline, this link shows that not only was it already in the introduction of the guideline, it was also lower in the guideline; CFCF adding it to the guideline does not make its appearance there a new aspect of the guideline, no matter how many times Guy Macon or others state or indicate that it is. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 02:44, 5 November 2015 (UTC)

That is not true. The lead (first) paragraph was the paragraph that CFCF changed. The lead (first) paragraph was the paragraph that CFCF posted this RfC to get permission to change after multiple editors opposed his change to the lead (first) paragraph. Your diff shows zero changes to the lead (first) paragraph. "CFCF adding it to the [lead (first) paragraph of the] guideline does not make its appearance there a new aspect of the guideline" is a blatant falsehood. people are tired of you saying something that isn't true, and people are tired of me correcting your false claim. Just stop. Anything other than "any biomedical information in articles" in the lead (first) paragraph is a major change, and is not supported by any previous version that anyone has found. Please stop doing this. --Guy Macon (talk) 16:01, 5 November 2015 (UTC)

It is true. This is why I questioned if you are acting blind. I already told you, "so now you are only focusing on the first lead paragraph, not the other parts of the lead that were changed in August? As for what you stated in this edit summary, I have not been advocating to add 'health' to the lead; I haven't even yet voted on whether or not 'health' should be re-added; this is because I do have concerns that it might be used too broadly. 'Health' is still in the lead paragraph, though." Do you think you can confuse editors here by focusing only on the first paragraph of the introduction and acting like "health" was never in that introduction, that it was only there because CFCF added it? You can't. So stop it. Stating that "people are tired of [me] saying something that isn't true, and people are tired of [you] correcting [my] false claim." is clearly something you have backwards. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 20:46, 5 November 2015 (UTC)

More stated here. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 21:10, 5 November 2015 (UTC)

Flyer22 Reborn, I did not say (either) that Guy Macon is representing people in inaccurate ways. This entire back-and-forth has gotten off track from what I started this discussion section about: what are the topics that should be listed as within MEDRS, and what are the topics that should be listed as not within MEDRS? --Tryptofish (talk) 20:34, 5 November 2015 (UTC)

My wording was off and I considered tweaking that, but I was clearly referring to your comment that "You've probably oversimplified who I agree and who I disagree with, and I really would rather we move away from grouping editors into opposing camps." He does that over and over again, with different editors, and he's very much misrepresented me and CFCF. I'm tired of it. Just as much as he claims to be tired of me supposedly misrepresenting him. Thing is...I barely focus on him, but he repeatedly focuses on me, even though I have not been as active in these discussions as certain others. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 20:46, 5 November 2015 (UTC)

Thinking about this some more, I notice how some editors used snake oil as an example. I actually think that everyone here agrees that we should not use non-MEDRS sources to claim that snake oil is a cure-all. Wikipedia is pretty good at dealing with users who come here to peddle obviously bogus products. The problem, instead, comes when editors have genuinely conflicting opinions about a topic. Editors do not have the same consensus about, for example, GMO foods that we have about, for example, phrenology. I'm also starting to notice that a lot of the needless drama here arises because editors define topics differently. Epidemiology is a good example of that. I think that editors would actually all agree that the epidemiology of which human populations have an elevated risk of type-two diabetes is something that properly falls within MEDRS – and that the epidemiology of people whose employers do not provide them with adequate health insurance is not something for MEDRS. Right? Those things ought to be no-brainers. So when editors argue about whether or not epidemiology is subject to MEDRS, the answer ends up depending on how a given editor defines it, how narrowly or broadly that editor applies the term. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:48, 5 November 2015 (UTC)

Agreed. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 21:10, 5 November 2015 (UTC)

Agreed +1 Minor4th 21:50, 5 November 2015 (UTC)

I think you have hit the nail on the head as to why there is disagreement. The trick is finding language that satisfies both groups. AlbinoFerret 01:39, 6 November 2015 (UTC)

Yep. MEDRS does nott apply to, e.g., the epidemiology of the black plague in medi[a]eval Europe. It absolutely does apply to claims of efficacy of aromatherapy, even if someone defines that as a spiritual/religious practice. Despite some "don't you dare misrepresent me" fist-shaking, this section has come a long way toward identifying the way forward. And it's clearly does not include treating a figurative use ("the epidemiology of lack of insurance") as a MEDRS topic, which is not a medical claim of fact (though often is poor, misleading, and PoV-pushing violence; see, e.g., widespread condemnation both on and off WP of describing the rise in obesity and diabetes levels in affluent countries like the US and UAE as "epidemics"). The solution clearly does include, per WP:FRINGE and per WP:NPOV and WP:NOR generally, claims about negative health effects of GMO products and vaccines; the sheer popularity of those topics and the number of (mostly educated, middle-class) people who believe utter nonsense about them simply because it's been repeated enough times gives us a serious responsibility to not repeat it again (other than as a attributed quotations followed by a reliably sourced refutation).  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  20:12, 19 November 2015 (UTC)

Tryptofish, I'm thinking about the question: Will people use this to make decisions about their health? I don't think it's broad enough. As pointed out above, we also want to capture policy makers making decisions about other people's health. And we probably also want to cover things that aren't at all decision-related, but are hard science. Nobody is really going to make a "health decision" related to physiology or the number of atoms in a given drug molecule, but we still want to get it right. Following MEDRS and/or SCIRS (whichever is more relevant to the immediate subject) for hard science increases the likelihood that we'll get it right. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:43, 6 November 2015 (UTC)

Thanks very much everyone! Yes, WhatamIdoing, how to figure out that question is the real task at hand, and it's surprisingly difficult. I've been thinking hard about it, and not getting very far. As you say, "decisions about their health" comes close, but does not quite suffice. I hope that many editors here will think about it and try to come up with new ideas. --Tryptofish (talk) 17:04, 6 November 2015 (UTC)

Agreed with WhatamIdoing. As for it being difficult to approach this in guideline language, how about just starting with the wording WaId used and adapting it with some other concerns raised. We could work on tweaking something like this: "The scope of this guideline includes information that some readers are likely to use to make health decisions, including claims of medical efficacy [add several other obvious things]. It also includes scientific data about medical topics, including biochemistry [add several more]. Socio-political claims about such data are subject to MEDRS when they are presented in Wikipedia's voice or presented as the consensus viewpoint in sources." The second sentence there would, for example, have thwarted that entire time-wasting and blood-pressure-increasing extended flamewar about whether electronic cigarette aerosol is (of course) a MEDRS topic. The third sentence would allow any article to exclude fringe nonsense as long as it's well sourced in MEDRS terms, and prevent the exclusion of real medical data from an article dominated by fringey quotations masquerading as fact.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  20:12, 19 November 2015 (UTC)

Can you give some examples of "socio-political claims about the data"? Would things like "most patients dislike hospital gowns" or "there is much more government funding for breast cancer research than for prostate cancer" be "socio-political claims"? WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:42, 21 November 2015 (UTC)

This is insanity!

• Comment Look folks, when I first responded to the RFC it was too big to assimilate in any reasonable time. Now I find myself called a second time and on my screen it now is fifteen pages of spaghetti! Never mind my poor decaying attention span; doesn't that suggest, sight unseen, that there is something very, very badly wrong with the whole discussion? Skimming the text in ricochet mode it seems to me that there are several sane voices being drowned out, but trying to sort out a topic for a vote in this mess just won't work! I propose closing the RFC forthwith, but keeping it up for reference or for masochism, while we start another RFC or topic, as preferred, in which we put up just alternative proposals for vote or acclaim. Each alternative to have an appended justification not more than say 300 words (200? pick a number, but whatever it is must fit easily onto one page...)
  

Any discussion NOT to be in the same section.
Example:

• Proposal 1 that every article adheres at a minimum to Wikipedia's citation rules, irrespective of the topic or context, subject to reasonable challenges as always; that in technical matters in particular disciplines, higher or more specialised standards of citation may be required in particular contexts -- for example, in an article concerning mosquitoes, a section on medical or epidemiological aspects of malaria might contain claims that need citations according to MEDRS standards, but it does not follow that every citation in such a section falls under MEDRS direction, let alone the whole article.
  
• Proposal 2 that every article adheres at a minimum to Wikipedia's MEDRS citation rules throughout in case there should....
  

etc. What we need here is a bit of sense, sense of what readers need, what editors need if they are to meet those needs, and what will make WP look like the kind of encyclopaedia that people can trust to contain what is needed and to exclude what cannot be trusted, without insulting readers' intelligence, whether they happen to be professionals or schoolchildren. JonRichfield (talk) 08:04, 4 November 2015 (UTC)

I agree. A hundred pages of discussion ensures that only people who obsessively track this page are up to date with all nuances. This is no way to have a discussion. By the way "I told you so", that this discussion is going to be an enormous waste of time. Unfortunately I failed to take my own advice. Kingsindian ♝♚ 08:45, 4 November 2015 (UTC)

I agree as well. I especially like John R's refreshing common sense, in particular his final statement. petrarchan47คุก 09:10, 4 November 2015 (UTC)

If all of this has been a waste of time, then it's only because editors didn't stick to clarifying what biomedical is supposed to cover; clarification is why I started the #Clarifying "biomedical" section above, after all. The above WP:RfCs are not what I had in mind. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 13:18, 4 November 2015 (UTC)

CFCF's WP:RfC placed under another WP:RfC (#Does MEDRS apply to Epidemiology?) is the WP:RfC that stays most on track, since it's essentially asking if epidemiology falls under "biomedical." Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 13:24, 4 November 2015 (UTC)

← Thanks; I agree that this is insane, and there is not really any hope of reasonable voices being heard in this setting (which, frankly, is the case with most RfCs; they're intended to solicit outside input, but they usually just devolve into another platform for the original combatants to hold forth). The oddest thing, for me, is listening to people expound their ideas about why WP:MEDRS exists. I'm repeatedly hearing that MEDRS exists to keep people from making poor health decisions on the basis of bad information (the implication being that, since our domestic-violence coverage doesn't directly influence people's medical decisions, there's no need to apply MEDRS).

Well, not really. I mean, yes, one of the most important justifications for the sourcing standards set forth in MEDRS is to prevent the real-life harm that could result from providing inaccurate or misleading medical information. But the purpose of MEDRS is broader than that (I feel justified to speak here, as one of the people closely involved in this guideline's creation). The overarching purpose of MEDRS is to ensure that our coverage of medical and health-related issues is the best it can possibly be. The guideline is a summary of standards that ensure article quality and accuracy, derived from the collective experience of editors who have written tons of high-quality medical and health-related content. MastCell ^Talk 17:59, 4 November 2015 (UTC)

• This particular inmate at the asylum would like to make a suggestion. At #A different question, above, there is an idea about a different approach, and more eyes there could be helpful. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:26, 4 November 2015 (UTC)
• I don't know about you, but I'm hearing reasonable voices and even reasonable ideas from a couple of less-than-reasonable voices. Tryptofish's question in particular is producing some useful comments right now. Now if you'd just let me banish everyone from the page for a month or two, we could get back to work...  ;-)
  Also, I think I'm going to have to start drafting WP:MEDDUE. I'd hoped to put it off until I'd finally finished dealing with the long-overdue merger of INDY and 3PARTY, but perhaps it can't wait any longer. Most of our serious disputes are due to people using MEDRS as a substitute for DUE ("Don't exclude Archer because his POV is a very small minority; instead, exclude him because it 'fails' MEDDATE!"). WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:10, 6 November 2015 (UTC)

That sounds good to me WhatamIdoing and jolly good luck to you! I assume that the outcome will include dealing with doubts about when a guideline applies to only part of an article. I get the impression that some voices urge that the presence of any passing remark on matters that could be of medical concern in an article, implies that the whole article is subject to MEDRS or related guidelines. There already have been remarks about epidemiology of bicycles, and I would point out that many biological articles such as mosquito or spider include sections of medical relevance, whereas the rest of the content of the article could only be degraded by such irrelevant constraints. In short, common sense should trump doctrinaire authoritarianism. May the force .... and all that! JonRichfield (talk) 06:46, 8 November 2015 (UTC)

• MEDRS is used on health-related topics. User:Kelapstick disagrees. Why? QuackGuru (talk) 20:37, 29 December 2015 (UTC)
  • QuackGuru, I have no opinion on the matter. There was an edit war ongoing, I protected the page and changed the wording to what I consider the status quo prior to the edit warring, which happened to coincide with the status quo before the RfC. This is permitted by our protection policy. This matter is further elaborated on my talk page, and I don't wish to repeat myself. I was brought to the page per a request at RFPP, and I am not going to take part in this discussion any more. --kelapstick^(bainuu) 20:42, 29 December 2015 (UTC)

• Per this post, which tracks with diffs [27] that "biomedical" never included "and health" in the lede, shows the reasoning for the RFC. The change was edit warred in, and some of it still remains. kelapstick did not abuse anything, but returned part of the page to its pre RFC stable version. WP is not governed by might of numbers in a revert war, but by discussion and consensus. Waiting for the close of the RFC before changeing the proposed wording is a sound administrative decision. AlbinoFerret 21:00, 29 December 2015 (UTC)

Involved close

CFCF is involved, and it is inappropriate for him to close this RFC and attempt to archive it, on a holiday of all days. I have requested an uninvolved admin close at WP:ANRFC AlbinoFerret 23:00, 25 December 2015 (UTC)

I would agree. It's really necessary to have an uninvolved close of any contentious RfC. I also see edit warring going on about the "and health" phrase -- that phrase must feel like a volleyball at this point. SageRad (talk) 09:03, 31 December 2015 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Inadequate close

Please be aware that this close favors a minority opinion (adding a tally soon), and relies on an incorrect assumption that "people of the scope: by noting the far broader scope of "health", including everything from seatbelt usage to public health policies". There is long-standing consensus that these are topics included under MEDRS under the definition of biomedical (as defined on the article biomedical and linked WP:biomedical, and information to these communities is adequate. If the information is termed inadequate the discussion should be opened for more input, not closed. CFCF 💌 📧 11:46, 2 January 2016 (UTC)

You protest every consensus read you disagree with. That's pretty sad. LesVegas (talk) 15:13, 5 January 2016 (UTC)

@CFCF first you did an involved close. Then you protest when it doesnt match your expected results. The results of the close is a perfect example of why its best to wait for an uninvolved closer. RFC's are not a vote and any closer will tell you that. I am a NAC and fully understand the close, it isnt a matter of just tallying up the votes but finding the direction of the discussion and discounting irrelevant, IJLI, and per someone comments. AlbinoFerret 15:25, 5 January 2016 (UTC)

That does not mean that the close is not to be disputed. CFCF 💌 📧 16:06, 5 January 2016 (UTC)

As a completely uninvolved administrator my opinion is that there is nothing at all wrong with User:Nyttend's closure. Any RFC this size is going to have at least one person who does not like the result, nonetheless we need to accept the outcome and move on. We can't please everybody. HighInBC 16:18, 5 January 2016 (UTC)

The rational for the close is poor, with logical inconsistencies—negating the fact that a substantial majority of the editors supported inclusion. This is not to be ignored, and when it comes to an RfC with over 50 independent votes I find it very questionable that a single editor finds it in their right to ignore the majority opinion, regardless if that editor is an administrator. CFCF 💌 📧 16:23, 5 January 2016 (UTC) 

Like I said above, its not just tallying up the votes but strength of argument. I also agree with HighInBC, the odds on pleasing everyone in a large RFC is slim to none. What we have is a uninvolved admin close and while you can protest it, that doesnt take away what the close says on consensus. AlbinoFerret 16:31, 5 January 2016 (UTC)

@CFCF:, the advice on what to do if you disagree with a closure is here: Wikipedia:Closing_discussions#Challenging_other_closures. Basically you should take it up with the closer and if you don't find satisfaction there you can seek a wider review at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard. Nothing will come of complaining about the close here. HighInBC 16:36, 5 January 2016 (UTC)

• According to the close MEDRS no longer applies to articles related to health. User:Nyttend, why do you think MEDRS does not apply to health-related information? The close limited the scope of MEDRS. QuackGuru (talk) 16:48, 7 January 2016 (UTC)

Actually, the RfC only pertained the lede content. MEDRS still covers health content as that has always been the spirit of the guideline when one reads the guideline it in it's entirety regardless of the RfC outcome. If people want to wikilawyer that MEDRS doesn't cover health content simply because the term is not used in the lede, that argument won't have traction if someone is trying to use non-MEDRS sources.

Though a jargony term that the addition of health was meant to clarify, biomedical means that it covers health information anyways. That's why I'm not concerned about the close. Nothing has really changed in terms of application of MEDRS due to the RfC. The only thing "lost" was an opportunity to tighten up wording to prevent more wikilawyering that a specific health topic isn't covered by MEDRS. We're just back to where we were before the RfC. Kingofaces43 (talk) 19:00, 7 January 2016 (UTC)

There is still one use of "health" in the lead: "Wikipedia's articles are not medical advice, but are a widely used source of health information." That was there before this and this edit removed "medical" and "health" elsewhere in the guideline and subsequently led to this big dispute regarding the terms "biomedical and "health." Just by the biomedical link, what the WP:MEDRS guideline and the WP:Biomedical essay state, any WP:Wikilawyering by editors trying to forgo quality sourcing for cases where WP:MEDRS should apply will not work. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 22:18, 7 January 2016 (UTC)

It is certainly my intention to get good sourcing into articles, even as we resist overmedicalization of every health-related aspect of reality. If we actually see people screwing up articles because of the word health only appears about 25 times in this guideline rather that 26, then please post here, and we'll see if we can find a way to fix it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:02, 19 January 2016 (UTC)

• I decided to look back here after some time, and I've seen the close. I don't really care about the RfC issue that much, one way or the other, because the subsequent discussion demonstrated that the real issues do not rest upon the word "health". But one aspect of the close that strikes me as procedurally incorrect is the downplaying of "per" comments. (OK, I'm biased, because quite a few of them were per me!) I think that it has long been accepted by the community that such comments simply mean that the editor agrees with the rationale stated by someone else above. It does not mean that the !vote was a lazy or inadequately considered one. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:39, 20 January 2016 (UTC)

• Interesting you say that. I had a whole convo with Nyttend on this issue. You can read it here: [28]. --Jules (Mrjulesd) 22:44, 20 January 2016 (UTC)

• I read it, thanks, and you were right and the closer was wrong. Oh well, it's only a website, and we rely on imperfect human judgment. That particular judgment was clearly imperfect. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:51, 20 January 2016 (UTC)

RfC: How to Implement the Country of Origin Closing

Previously, we had an RfC which asked,

Should we change MEDRS, which currently reads:

Do not reject a high-quality type of study due to personal objections to the study's inclusion criteria, references, funding sources, or conclusions.

to

Do not reject a high-quality type of study due to personal objections to the study's inclusion criteria, references, funding sources, country of origin, or conclusions.

and the result of that RfC was, Yes. The full result can be read here. In that close, the closer, Elvey made these points:

• 1. That, yes, a change is needed
  2. There was consensus that "country of origin", per se, is not a valid reason to reject a source
  3. Rejecting a source based on "country of origin" was no more valid than rejecting based on "funding sources"
  4. That it should not be read as a PC ban where we cannot mention country of origin in discussions (see this discussion on closer Elvey's talk page for a further clarification as to what that means.)
  5. That it should not be read as changing the longstanding policy that sources from publications known to routinely publish and fail to retract material proven unreliable may be excluded.

Implementing the plain language resulting from that RfC has, however, created more edit warring. There have been concerns that unreliable sources will make their way onto Wikipedia, but those concerns were already heard in the original RfC. Still, adding language to ensure that unreliable sources do not find their way onto Wikipedia may be necessary. Or it may not. This RfC seeks to resolve that by asking, based on the closer's 5 points, what version does it best? Of the versions that address all five points, these are proposed:

• 1. Do not reject a high-quality type of study due to personal objections to the study's inclusion criteria, references, funding sources, country of origin, or conclusions.
  2. Do not reject a high-quality type of study due to personal objections to the study's inclusion criteria, references, funding sources, country of origin, or conclusions. However, sources from publications known to routinely publish and fail to retract material proven unreliable may be excluded.

Both of these options meet all five points, but I also ask the community for additional options that meet the five criteria outlined above and found in the original close. Please vote #1, #2 or an altogether different option below. LesVegas (talk) 18:49, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

The RfC that this RfC is concerned with implementing, was posted at AN for review, and that review was closed today. See close at the AN here, and importantly, the notes on overturning it in the archive here - the explanation is at the bottom. Please note the close not only overturns the original close, but also re-closes it, with the answer "no" with regard to adding "country of origin". I suggest that LesVegas withdrawn this RfC about implementing the close, since it now has no basis. I am noting this here for the closer, in case LesVegas elects not to withdraw this RfC. (LesVegas, in case you don't know how to do it, to withdraw the RfC you simply delete the tag above, If you like you can also archive this, placing {{archive top|result=underlying RfC has been overturned}} just under the section header and {{archive bottom}} at the bottom under the last comment) Jytdog (talk) 20:22, 14 February 2016 (UTC)

Responses

• My vote would be to change nothing; it's okay as is. We can only write guidance so far, at some point editorial judgement takes over. Alexbrn (talk) 19:04, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

Point number 1, clearly stated in Elvey's close, isn't addressed with the option of doing nothing. The RfC resulted in saying a change in wording was needed. Do you have any other suggestions that follow the parameters above?LesVegas (talk) 20:50, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

No, this is my view now based on what we've learned. Alexbrn (talk) 20:53, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

• Oppose change — as the opinion of the substantial majority 11 out of 15 editors (73 %) in the first RfC there is no need to change the guideline, we don't fix what ain't broke based on hypothetical concerns. CFCF 💌 📧 19:58, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

Your numbers are incorrect, but as has been explained many times before, RfC's are not merely a tally of votes. 99 percent of Wikipedians cannot vote yes to something that, for instance, violates policy and expect those votes to be valid if a closer says otherwise. The resulting close from that RfC was that a change was warranted. Since a change was warranted, do you have any suggestions for such a change? LesVegas (talk) 20:50, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

Those numbers are correct, and there have been serious concerns about Elvey's eligibility to close that RfC. I wouldn't cite it if I were you—simply for the fact that it is incomprehensible: for example in your quote what is a pc ban? Googling the term gives one relevant hit — this page... CFCF 💌 📧 21:25, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

@Elvey, LesVegas, and CFCF: Based on these comments, Elvey (talk · contribs) clearly is not neutral concerning sourcing questions therefore this editor's RFC closure was inappropriate and should be disregarded. Boghog (talk) 21:44, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

That close was never contested at the Administrative Noticeboard, which is proper procedure. We should contest closes using proper procedure, not ignore those we disagree with. LesVegas (talk) 22:07, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

Let's not kid ourselves, we had an independent second RfC that was inconclusive, and this seems so far to support no change. RfCs can overturn other RfCs, and there is no need to bring back the old one now that we have this.
The only reason it wasn't reported to AN was because the explanation was so unintelligible that no-one understood what it meant. CFCF 💌 📧 22:11, 11 January 2016 (UTC) 

Let's not kid ourselves, the explanation was clarified by Elvey many times. Regardless, not turning it into AN because you didn't understand it isn't a valid reason to ignore the result Especially when you ignore and contest the result of every RfC that doesn't go your way Oh and, yes, RfC's can overturn results of previous RfC's. But don't kid yourself again, that one resulted in "no consensus" amongst multiple false choice options. This RfC seeks to limit the options to ones that actually implement the original RfC close. LesVegas (talk) 22:48, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

Even if the previous RfC has been closed properly, WP:CCC. CFCF 💌 📧 23:46, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

• This is a poorly written and non-neutral RfC, which fails to mention the problems with the close being discussed. The result from the second RfC on the topic (closed here) has also been omitted; it found the most support for the following two options:
  • 3. Do not reject a high-quality study-type because of objections to: inclusion criteria, references, funding sources, country of origin or conclusions except when they explicitly impact the quality of the source.
  • 4. Where reliable sources have identified systematic problems in the medical literature associated with specific regions or countries it may impact the quality of the source.

At this point I would support including some version of both of these, or no change at all. Given the history, I'd also want to consider whether an AE request under the CAM DS would be appropriate, since that was the ultimate origin of this dispute. Sunrise (talk) 20:04, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

The second RfC listed several false choices, most of which invalidated the close of the first RfC, but were being offered as options to implement that RfC. The result of that RfC, by the way, was "no consensus". The closer offered the suggestion that we might narrow our options to the ones you listed above. But in order to truly implement the original RfC's close, I have limited the options to ones that actually preserve, rather than dismantle that RfC close. Ignoring an RfC close is tantamount to ignoring consensus. Dismantling an RfC close by implementing false options is tantamount to editing against consensus. That said, what are your opinions of the two options I listed? Or do you have another option that falls within the parameters (and therefore the original RfC close) which I listed? I genuinely hope some good can come out of this RfC. LesVegas (talk) 22:30, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

And what makes implementing the poorly closed RfC a necessity? We have this RfC to follow, and another RfC that went against the first one. CFCF 💌 📧 23:46, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

A no consensus close is neither for or against anything. Its basically a statement to do over. AlbinoFerret 23:58, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

• Support Option 2 While the plain language in option #1 is valid according to the RfC close, I do not believe, based on continued edit warring that we should use it. Concerns that unreliable sources might get shoe-horned in would be alleviated by restating policy here that we shouldn't allow sources that are known to publish and fail to retract material proven to be unreliable and that these should be excluded. And since this was the very language used in the first RfC close, it's reasonable to use it in our guideline. I understand that it is listed elsewhere in MEDRS, but it is perhaps necessary to repeat it here to prevent abuse, or alleviate fears of abuse. The language implements the RfC close while addressing concerns of editors. All reasonable editors should agree with this, and only the most die-hard, partisan editors would oppose it. LesVegas (talk) 22:30, 11 January 2016 (UTC)
• Oppose change. The previous RfC did not say simply do a do over. There were specific instructions if another RfC was started. See Opinion in discussion appears evenly divided between Support for either 1, or 3, or 5 with No Consensus. In addition it is #3 which is the most contested. A new RfC which would rephrase the material as something like a choice between some version of #1 and some version of #5 would likely lead to an outcome. according to User:Fountains-of-Paris.[29]. See Wikipedia_talk:Identifying_reliable_sources_(medicine)#RFC:_Questions_about_RFC_closure_-_Country_of_origin. This new proposal is against the previous RfC because it does not include option 5. See Wikipedia_talk:Identifying_reliable_sources_(medicine)#RfC_Appropriate_version_for_the_new_clause. QuackGuru (talk) 22:46, 11 January 2016 (UTC)
• This RfC seems to be based on false pretenses. Another RfC was just closed two days ago with the suggestion that we explore a binary choice between two wordings. Now this RfC is opened, without a mention of the prior one (which, again, closed two fricking days ago), and it presents two wordings which are totally at odds with the close of the recent RfC. I think this is outright dishonest and manipulative, I have no interest in participating further in any RfC's started under such pretenses, and I'm not willing to respect any conclusions drawn from this falsely presented RfC. Frankly, the filing party (LesVegas) should probably be prohibited from participating further here due to this abuse of our processes. MastCell ^Talk 01:34, 12 January 2016 (UTC)
  • According to consensus you must respect consensus even if a page is vandalized. So for this year I have seen at least 3 socks going crazy on a specific topic but I must AGF. I have seen a lengthy article get deleted for no reason without an AFD discussion. This is the way things are according to the consensus by the WMF. The WMF claims they support the values of the community. What values? QuackGuru (talk) 02:19, 12 January 2016 (UTC)
• I remain unchanged in my opinion expressed in the prequel to this RfC, where I said "On the face of it, the OP appears to want to get his low quality pro-acupuncture sources into our Acupuncture article by claiming they are high quality. I don't think the community is quite that silly." I will be following the lead set by MastCell above. -Roxy the dog™ woof 02:36, 12 January 2016 (UTC)
• Wow, the closer has a whopping 384 edits. Ever, meaning during the entire last two months of the account's existence. And on the basis of this incredibly inexperienced editor, we have yet another (fourth?) RFC on this disputed point.
  At this point, I want to direct LesVegas' attention to m:Founding principles. Look at item #3: everything is ultimately bound by the wiki process. And the "wiki process", since that's probably an unfamiliar concept to editors who started editing since 2008 or so, means this: If you can't get your change to 'stick', then you lose. Not "you didn't file a complaint at AN by some non-existent deadline, so you're stuck with Elvey's confusing closing statement forever", not "But the newbie closer said to...", not "the page on RFCs that I wrongly thought was a policy says I get to...". None of that's real. What's real is this: you, User:LesVegas, the editor who has been pushing for the inclusion of proven-to-be-biased Chinese acupuncture sources in our anti-acupuncture articles, personally don't have a snowball's chance in hell of getting this phrase to 'stick' in this guideline. You should stop that stick and back away from the carcass; the horse is dead and it doesn't help to keep beating it. You've lost this one; all that's left for you is to choose whether you're going to show us WP:How to lose or give someone an opportunity to request a WP:TBAN on grounds of WP:IDHT and WP:STICK. Now's the time for you to make your choice. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:32, 19 January 2016 (UTC)
• We have another attempt to validate the original close, apparently without notifying this talk page: WP:AN#RFC review request: Request for Comment: Country of Origin. Sunrise (talk) 01:23, 21 January 2016 (UTC)
• Comment: The original, recent Country of Origin RfC appears to have a clearly stated and solidly policy-based close in favor of simply including "country of origin" in the list of examples, i.e. "...the study's inclusion criteria, references, funding sources, country of origin, or conclusions."

• If we are going to supplement core PAGs with specifics for certain subject areas, like MED, then we should be careful to be even-handed in that specificity.
• Here, "Do not reject a high-quality type of study due to personal objections to..." is the object, followed by examples, which are presumably to make extra clear what personal objections are (and hopefully do not suggest that other personal objections are grounds for rejection).
• Since we are supplying a list of examples, "country of origin" seems no less broad and in and of itself neutral, as, for example, funding sources. Why should we not further clarify in this way - why would some examples be suitable, and not others?

Or why do we not simply state: "Do not reject a high-quality type of study due to any type of personal objection." Or have I missed something fundamental to the issue: are personal objections, as apart from source- and PAG-based objections, in some cases valid grounds for rejecting sources? --Tsavage (talk) 02:55, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

Tsavage—The point is that it's being used to shoehorn low quality sources into articles about Acupuncture. So basically the RfC-creator is trying to undermine core elements of MEDRS through a red herring argument and hypothetical concerns. The result would have very little effect on implementation because the issues with the Chinese literature are not "personal" but rather systematic, but this is about introducing unnecessary bloat that is unsupported by the majority of editors on this page. I find keeping these examples is useful, because what is "personal" for one person may not always be the same for another. CFCF 💌 📧 07:46, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

CFCF: I understand the situation and the various intentions (real/perceived) - as I explained above, as far as WP:V and reliable sources, it is the means I object to. We can't end-run the core policies, which, effectively, is what this seems to be suggesting.

• We can carefully clarify with alternative wording and with common sense examples, but we can't hardwire in new rules that supersede the core rules.
• If indeed "the majority of editors on this page" interpret PAGs in a certain way, and that way is acceptable within PAGs, then there should be no problem obtaining consensus where it's needed - this is our normal process, not creating new rules to bolster (real/perceived) sides.

Creating special means, like perhaps a specially tweaked examples list that only includes some examples, and excludes other equivalent examples, in order to encourage particular interpretations of rules as the basis for argument, would not serve neutrality or the general Wikipedia spirit, and would require the highest level of consensus, to alter the widest consensus represented by core policy. Any relatively small group of editors within a particular area of interest can't effectively change core PAGs (like WP:NPOV), because they believe a certain way must be upheld for the greater good.

If "The result would have very little effect on implementation", then what is the policy-based objection to the change?

Applying "unnecessary bloat" to adding a three-word phrase to a four-member list, even if taken somewhat figuratively, does not make sense to me. When a list of examples is in danger of bloat, then the use of such a list in that application should be examined, rather than trying to exclude additional examples that are possibly of equal or greater usefulness than the existing ones.

Furthermore, from what I can see, the arguments in the original RfC in support of excluding "country of origin" seen to be referring mainly to the APPEARANCE OF THOSE WORDS in the guideline, and not to the actual contextual meaning. It's very blunt instrument - meanwhile, I'm just reading literally what's there. If there are two alternate ways to write Wikipedia guidelines, one that is clear and policy-based, another that is...different, please point me to that explanation. --Tsavage (talk) 14:52, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

Each addition that does not help explain the guideline better decreases the number of readers who read the whole page through. This guideline (as most on Wikipedia) needs a general trim, with bloat being an enormous problem—too much time is wasted explaining and having to paraphrase because noone takes the time to read what just rambles on and on.

The major issue with this suggestion is how the RfC-creators intent is to deceitfully present non-existent problems—expressly in order to change the guideline to make it harder to get rid of certain claims with poor evidence. For all its worth I would support a total rewrite of the clause to "Do not reject a high-quality type of study due to personal objections.", but that needs to part of a separate and larger discussion where we bring up the potential issues that could cause. CFCF 💌 📧 16:02, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

How exactly is the closure "solidly policy-based"? In what way is taking into account the country of origin in determining the whether a source is reliable contrary to WP:V or WP:RS? The RfC stated This proposal is to address only the addition of high-quality sources into the guideline. It is well documented that the country of origin is a legitimate consideration in determining whether the source is high quality. Hence the argument in favor of changing MEDRS as proposed in the original RfC is circular and makes no sense. Boghog (talk) 17:12, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

Boghog: The unambiguous question presented two versions of a sentence, the existing, and the proposed, with the suggestion to add an item to a list. That is all I have addressed. The additional sentence that you quote, is irrelevant after that, insofar as finding consensus for a version. That said, I took it to mean what it seems to say, "This is about high-quality sources." How that relates to the guideline sentence in question is up to the interpretation of that guideline sentence. But again, in a clearly stated binary response question like this, that additional comment doesn't alter the core proposition.

After that, argument becomes tortured if we don't stick to obvious common sense (these are supposed to be easily understood rules, not arcane fine print formulations): we can't reject things based broadly on country of origin, unless we have written in something extraordinary and direct like, "For this absolutely evil and corrupt empire out of which nothing good ever comes, until further notice, use of all product originating from within is verboten." We don't have that. So, by WP:V and WP:RS, we have to go case by case, we can't out-of-hand reject things based on country of origin or anything else like that.

That's what I read in the close: There was consensus however that "country of origin", per se, is not a valid reason to reject a source (and no more valid than "funding sources") hence for the change. The rest of the close clarified the situation, notably (to me, at least), where it pointed out the difference between "country of origin" and "sourced findings regarding sources affiliated with a country of origin" - conflating the two seems distinctly unhelpful.

Throw in "personal objections" and the whole thing becomes...even more confusing. Assuming (which we must, for sanity's sake) that that means "opinion unsupported by fact/sources," we can't reject anything based solely on personal opinion, this is made abundantly clear in the core policies, WP:V and WP:NOR, so why are we bringing it up again here, in this odd way? And why a list of these particular examples, since every possible thing is by definition included in this list? And why not include one more example? --Tsavage (talk) 20:37, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

@Tsavage: The original close cited WP:RS and WP:V. This guideline and policy respectively discuss the personal opinions of sources and use these as a criteria to judge whether a source is reliable (see for example WP:QUESTIONABLE, WP:RSOPINION, and WP:NOTRELIABLE). These guidelines and policies are silent on the personal opinions of Wikipedia editors in judging the reliability of sources. WP:NOR is not relevant in this context because this policy concerns content that is included in articles, not excluded. The relevant policy that was not cited in the in close and was barely mentioned in the RfC discussion is WP:NPOV because excluding sources may lead to an unbalanced presentation. However it is also important to note that this policy advises to avoid stating seriously contested assertions as facts. Per WP:ONUS, we may reject sources if there is consensus to do so. Boghog (talk) 07:28, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

@Boghog:: Your new argument appears to suggest the dangerous idea that purely personal opinion can be used to do anything, via consensus. Insofar as POLICY formally represents the widest consensus, there is quite a bit of latitude in what the opinion or votes of editors can establish at POLICY level. Following from that, consensus policy says (WP:CON): Consensus is ascertained by the quality of the arguments given on the various sides of an issue, as viewed through the lens of Wikipedia policy. Further, at that policy in WP:CONLIMITED: Consensus among a limited group of editors, at one place and time, cannot override community consensus on a wider scale.

So we are bound in this case (as in all cases) by policy, and can only change policy, and create new policies and guidelines, by achieving the widest consensus, such as through the process outlined in the procedural policy, WP:PAG > WP:PGLIFE.

Here, your argument rests on the assertion: These guidelines and policies are silent on the personal opinions of Wikipedia editors in judging the reliability of sources.

The PAGs you cite, WP:V and WP:RS, are in fact not silent on personal opinion, they (as is usual) rely on other relevant policies and their guidelines, including consensus policy as mentioned, which requires adhering to policy.

For example: When we include content that is supported by Study X, which appears reliable but is questionable based on, say, its funding sources (or, country of origin, or other), for proper neutral balance (WP:NPOV > WP:DUE) we need to also report on its questionable nature, and in order to do that, WE NEED SOURCES. If, based on that discussion and local consensus, we decide instead to exclude the study entirely, rather than cover it with its balancing background, that is still a source-based editing decision, not a different type of case, and never a matter simply of personal opinion.

In other words, included and excluded content are both content, content rules always apply.

That also negates your assertion that WP:NOR is not relevant in this context because this policy concerns content that is included in articles, not excluded. Including the questionable background of a study without supporting sources would indeed be prohibited as original research, which equally applies to exclusion.

You cap your argument with: Per WP:ONUS, we may reject sources if there is consensus to do so. Indeed, "verifiability does not guarantee inclusion", and that guidance is explicitly bound by policy: WP:CON, WP:NPOV, WP:EDIT (at WP:PRESERVE), and WP:V itself (via WP:NOTABILITY). Relevant here is more policy, WP:NOT, which includes instances where it may seem that personal opinion is allowed, particularly in WP:SOAP, judging things like advocacy, self-promotion and advertising, however, that guidance continues to rely on sources (checking independence, notability of, etc), also on evaluating writing style - we still can't reject sourced material just because we want to (with five million articles, this of course in practice does occur, and stick, and at times apparently reasonably, but it is nonetheless against policy).

Bottom line: By policy, "personal objections" can't be used without sources to argue content, and any guidance that discusses personal objections should make that abundantly clear, and not introduce any suggestion that some personal views are somehow valid or given even a little extra weight, absent of sources...which brings us back to WP:V > WP:RS, we need sources for everything.

(There is a lot of crude wikilawyering in disputes I've seen in the last year, crude because they usually just misinterpret or misrepresent policy. Instead, this discussion, however seemingly rule-based, actually appears to be a solid exercise in reexamining and reaffirming the core policies we are built on and rely on. To me, at least, our policies are simple, logical, and intuitive, and even easy to apply (primary vs secondary can be a little tricky) - it's how I've always understood to edit, for years before actually looking much at the written PAG details quite recently, and makes sense of the WP:5Ps, WP:IAR, and the high-level notice at WP:PAG: "There is no need to read any policy or guideline pages to start editing." That's what motivates me to argue against messing with clarity. Thanks for the opportunity to argue core policies, it's a good learning experience! I look forward to your response. :) --Tsavage (talk) 13:04, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

As I already mentioned above, WP:NPOV is the more relevant policy and you seem to agree as you also refer to it. Citing WP:V and WP:RS as the original close did is both imprecise and confusing. Furthermore WP:NPOV was hardly mentioned in the original RfC discussion. I still do not agree that considering country of origin violates WP:V. Quite to the contrary, WP:V demands that we take country of origin into account if there are reliable sources that support that concern. This position is also compatible with WP:NPOV. The motivation for the original RfC was an attempt to circumvent reliable sources that have demonstrated a clear country of origin bias concerning the efficacy of acupuncture. Boghog (talk) 06:34, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

Involving more policies doesn't change the situation:

1. considering country of origin violates WP:V when it is based only on personal opinion: we need sources.

2. Opinion also runs counter to WP:NOR, but WP:V is primary, for practical purposes: not, "Stop with the opinions" (OR), instead, "Got evidence?" (V) (and how many policies have to be defied before it becomes an issue?)

3. Suggesting that a particular type of opinion (e.g. country of origin) supports an attempt to circumvent reliable sources, also suggests that opinion can be used, against WP:V.

4. Therefore, deliberately excluding mention of a type of opinion, in the absence of some other compelling reason (bloat?), opposes the basic purpose of WP:V, to require sources, not opinion.

The RfC is undeniably minimal and clear: add this example of personal objection, or not. None of this gets in the way of arguing against country of origin based on evidence. Does it? --Tsavage (talk) 15:18, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

This isn't going in the guideline, and I think that is very evident. Now drop it and stop repeating your flawed arguments. CFCF 💌 📧 17:04, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

You can't go against an RfC close. It's currently being asked to be reviewed on the AN noticeboard so we'll see what happens there. I'm open to anything happening and will respect due process. I just hope you will too. LesVegas (talk) 17:25, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

CFCF: Hahaha, well, I've only been repeating my same argument against whatever folks are replying to it with - now that you've apparently exhausted yourself (or run out arguments), you're advising me to essentially just shut up. Nice! (If a better argument was presented to counter my view, I WOULD yield, absolutely.) --Tsavage (talk) 18:05, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

Ironically the purpose of the RfC was to circumvent WP:V. The RfC discussion and closing would have been clearer although still flawed if it had cited WP:NPOV instead of WP:V. Finally no one here is arguing that we should ignore reliable sources when deciding on the reliability of other sources. Quite to the contrary, per WP:V, we must. Boghog (talk) 17:49, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

Boghog: Ironically (well, maybe it's not ironic), a well-formed RfC, at least, a very clear one, seems to generate as much off-point argument as the many poorly formed ones do. --Tsavage (talk) 18:05, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

• Return to country-free wording, or at minumum add explanatory text.: I have not been involved in this issue. I looked over the original close, the intent was good but it was clearly closed against the majority and the result was a mess. Current discussions have become a clusterfuck trying to follow that poor close. That close is currently under review and might be overturned. Regardless of the outcome on that, policy is that Consensus Can Change. I suggest that the closer here can and should render a close that there clearly isn't a current consensus for any form of "country" language, that policy should keep the pre-debate version that didn't mention country. That is my primary and preferred outcome. If this is going to get a close which retains "country" language then I support adding explanatory text. The close on the original RFC was clear that systematic problem that is normally identified with an affiliated country is a valid basis to deem a source unreliable. It also say sources from publications known to routinely publish and fail to retract material proven unreliable may be excluded, which was clearly raised in the context of a "systematic problem that is normally identified with an affiliated country". Any policy text which fails to incorporate that closing-logic is a problem. The closer can take this as flexible least-bad-option support for adding whichever is the strongest supported explanatory text.

Once it is established that Reliable Sources say there is a systemic problem of unreliable sources affiliated with country X in field Y, an editor should not be harassed for using brief generalized language the twentieth time they are forced to repeat it. Alsee (talk) 16:42, 22 January 2016 (UTC)

User:Alsee, there was another RfC. See Wikipedia_talk:Identifying_reliable_sources_(medicine)#Questions_about_RFC_closure_-_Country_of_origin. The explanatory text was Another alternate clarification
Where reliable sources have identified systematic problems in the medical literature associated with specific regions or countries it may impact the quality of the source. (Without including <ref></ref> tags.). QuackGuru (talk) 17:49, 22 January 2016 (UTC)

Alsee: Your bold statement doesn't address the fact that this is about "personal objections", which cannot alone be used to reject anything, in the absence of sources. Therefore, any suggestion that the specific choice of examples is directly relevant - that is, usable - when referring to this guideline in discussion, also suggests that "personal objections" may be valid arguments in cases where there is no example, such as for country of origin.

If we remove "personal," from the equation, then the guidance is suggesting that inclusion criteria, references, funding sources, and conclusions can categorically never be used to question or reject a study (if it's a high-quality type).

The problem lies with the entire sentence. If, by including country of origin, it can be used to argue against exclusion of a source based on country of origin, when there is well-sourced reason for exclusion on that basis, then the guideline goes against WP:V > WP:RS. If this is not the case, why include some examples but not others? --Tsavage (talk) 19:18, 22 January 2016 (UTC)

Thanks Tsavage, Alsee, and others. After wasting huge numbers of innocent electrons and lots of editors' time, it has become very clear that all the proposed defensible changes to the guidelines have no practical significance, serving merely to cause bloat. The subject should be dropped and the effort put into improving the actual encyclopedia. Richard Keatinge (talk) 12:01, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

You're welcome. Unfortunately, while your "leave well enough alone" view is eminently understandable, what I see indicated by the amount of argument here is that a problematically-worded guideline should be fixed. It's a fundamental issue when supplemental guidance collides with already well-worded core policies and their direct guidelines (in this case, WP:V and WP:RS). And for better or for worse, this is ultimately about overturning an imo well-closed RfC. --Tsavage (talk) 23:04, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

Whatever you think of the result of the RfC it was not well-closed, you can pretend all you want — it detracts from your credibility. CFCF 💌 📧 23:43, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

If you believed it wasn't well-closed you should have had no problem filing a review. Edit warring can't undo a RfC close. The losing side in a RfC usually believes it's not well closed, but the difference here is that he losing side usually doesn't edit war and game their preferred wording into articles because most editors usually know better. I applaud Albino Ferret for doing what you should have long ago, taking it to the AN board. LesVegas (talk) 03:15, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

@CFCF: Well-closed in the sense that the closer did what s/he had to do: cut through the extraneous arguments - the RfC was not about China or LasVegas or whatever else, it was about adding a three-word item to a list - and made a policy-based close. "Personal objections" aren't grounds for rejection, so if we list examples, any example is valid and could be included. Specifically opposing certain examples suggests going against WP:V in favor of giving some sort of weight to some types of personal objection. It was a technical close, which the rest of the decision made clear. No? (And I didn't know I had any credibility to squander. Hahahaha, is that at all like a credit line, or more like cash?! :) --Tsavage (talk) 13:17, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

No, it was a supervote, ignoring arguments, majority opinion, and boiling down complex questions into a nonsensicle and facile answer of: "Yes".
That any example could be included does not mean it should be — both because it in this case was intended to confuse readers, making it harder to get rid of what is poor quality evidence following systematic issues with Chinese literature on Acupuncture; and also because adding every possible scenario where there may be issues is bloat.
You are thinking of creditability.
CFCF 💌 📧 13:50, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

The thing about arguing from a fixed position is, it never ends! Supervote is an interesting concept: I think it was 9:4, all with substantial reasoning, plus some non-voting comments, so I'd say that, considering consensus is based first on policy not majority, there was more than enough to indicate more than one side. And the RfC question was the opposite of complex. If the feeling was that the example could be misused, then that applies to all other examples as well, and the whole thing needs fixing, not ignoring, which is what I have argued throughout. If bloat was the issue, then that should have been fully argued - and it would still come back to which examples to include, and why? And no, I was thinking of credibility, a play on words, a mildly sarcastic joke, and obviously not a good one if it has to be explained. --Tsavage (talk) 14:11, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

• Support Option #1 as it appears redundant, as if a source is unreliable, it won't be frequently publishing inaccurate information which it fails to retract in the first place. Rubbish computer (HALP!: I dropped the bass?) 16:20, 24 January 2016 (UTC)
• Support Option #1 per Rubbish computer, but Option #2 is file as well. --David Tornheim (talk) 07:28, 12 February 2016 (UTC)
• Support option #2 (and I like the idea of making the extra verbiage a footnote), but it was a questionable close as others have noted. We should not do anything on the basis of the NAC of someone with less that 400 edits (assuming it's not someone's sockpuppet to begin with; is it even plausible that someone with so few edits even knows what a non-admin closure is?). If we accept on our own that a consensus was actually reached, that's another matter. I think option #2 makes the point much better, and there are too many concerns that option #1 is specifically intended as a WP:FRINGE loophole. I can certainly picture it being WP:GAMEd that way. Even if we end up consistently rejecting the argument that this source on aromatherapy from Madgascar, and that one on chi from Hong Kong are not actually reliable sources of medical information, they're still arguments we'd have to wade through, for no real reason. The principal purpose of WP guidelines is to forestall pointless disputes so we can get back to productive work here, so it's entirely reasonable to include an explanatory extra sentence about sources that do not correct or refrain from publishing poorly supported claims, especially when it comes to this topic.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  22:52, 26 February 2016 (UTC)

On country of origin

As a previously uninvolved administrator I have reviewed these discussions. Please read my conclusions and edit at WP:AN#A_decision_of_sorts_from_a_previously_uninvolved_administrator and move on to trying to determine whether consensus can be obtained in specific cases, then use that as the driver for whether there are any country-related areas that can by consensus be used to reject a study as in effect not reliable based on that origin. Jamesday (talk) 02:18, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

I do not know how this text could be regarded as consensus. There is still an ongoing RfC. Most editors oppose any change. See Wikipedia_talk:Identifying_reliable_sources_(medicine)#RfC:_How_to_Implement_the_Country_of_Origin_Closing. I strongly disagree with the change. QuackGuru (talk) 02:24, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

At first glance, I think it's a step forward. The important thing is that it explicitly supersedes the original closure (see also my comments at AN). Sunrise (talk) 03:10, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

Not a fan of this addition. It spends an entire paragraph with regards to one small (and overblown) dispute being pursued by POV pushers here, creating an unnecessary bloating of the guideline. It's suggestion creates even more red tape (as if this place needs more) and doesn't really clarify in a succinct way a path forward in a dispute, in my view. Appreciate the effort, but this is does not seem to be a positive improvement for this guideline. Yobol (talk) 03:32, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

• This is quite possibly the worst possible outcome. While the text itself is clarifying and allows for less misunderstanding than other additions, it is worse when compared to adding nothing. It is a prime example of WP:Bloat, massively detracting from readability which is the main argument against adding irrelevant clauses. Would you care you reconsider the addition, or at least to explain why you disregarded one of the largest arguments against addition—Jamesday? CFCF 💌 📧 06:52, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

@QuackGuru: Getting it right is far more important than getting it succinctly. Bloat is a weak argument. If bloat is the primary objection, this can easily be addressed by moving it to a footnote. Boghog (talk) 18:55, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

Adding incoherent text to MEDRS is ridiculous. QuackGuru (talk) 18:59, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

@QuackGuru: Labelling coherent text as incoherent is ridiculous. Boghog (talk) 19:03, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

The text serves no purpose. QuackGuru (talk) 19:04, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

The text serves the purpose of putting a contentious issue to rest. Boghog (talk) 19:17, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

@Boghog—I can accept having this text as a footnote, but I don't think including it reflects consensus (as such I can't support it). Certain aspects are overly detailed, and we all know that there won't be any "meta-page", but at least it can't be used to override quality sourcing guidelines on TCM. CFCF 💌 📧 19:06, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

• Seems to me, when it goes from RfC overturning, to edit warring ([30], [31], [32], [33]) over a clear and straightforward restatement of basic content policy, by a requested and uninvolved administrator, to address explicit and underlying aspects of a currently contentious issue, in a supplemental guideline whose only existence is to do exactly that, there may be a larger problem with how this MEDRS guideline is being viewed and used. --Tsavage (talk) 19:38, 29 January 2016 (UTC)Updated with more reversions --Tsavage (talk) 03:00, 30 January 2016 (UTC)

If it were that clear and straightforward, this would not be the issue that it is. CFCF, I agree that it doesn't actually reflect consensus, and more importantly I don't think James intended it to (e.g. it's not a formal closure). I was too optimistic about editors being willing to step back for a while, but my idea was that it could work as a starting point for future editing. I'd have preferred it to be left in and then edited gradually over time, but now that it's (currently) out, leaving it this way works as well. Then again, by tomorrow it may have been edit warred back in... Sunrise (talk) 10:02, 30 January 2016 (UTC)

Thanks Sunrise. This issue has consumed far too much time. Not only have we failed to produce a consensus change, we have comprehensively failed to establish any utility for any change at all. The original idea was floated in order to disallow the use of certain RS that do refer to the poor quality of certain sources from certain countries of origin. Fortunately no text has been proposed that would achieve this inadmissible end, and the entire series of proposals has no prospect of achieving anything useful. All the actual proposals have no substantial use and are bloat only. This entire issue needs to be closed as soon as possible. Richard Keatinge (talk) 11:33, 30 January 2016 (UTC)

Sunrise: Or, it is that clear and straightforward, and it is the issue that it is. That would indicate a problem apart from the literal guideline question. --Tsavage (talk) 20:03, 30 January 2016 (UTC)