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Wikipedia's effects on science

This research presentation might interest some of you: youtu.be/VR5JwqyVGSk?t=1614 (Yes, you're going to have to copy that. The "URL shortener" is on the blacklist, and I don't know any other way to get the relevant timestamp in the URL.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:26, 21 September 2017 (UTC)

Or this link [1] Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 18:28, 21 September 2017 (UTC)
Most of this is about scientists reading Wikipedia articles but not citing it.
Two quick details that will interest editors:
  • Journals with below-median impact factors are more likely to plagiarize Wikipedia's text (but it's still very uncommon).
  • Citing a scientific paper in Wikipedia does not seem to change the rate at which it's cited in the literature. (So REFSPAM is a waste of time.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:50, 21 September 2017 (UTC)
    • Citing a scientific paper (or any other source, particularly if it's online) on Wikipedia does have a measurable effect on the number of readers of whatever's being cited, even if people don't go on to cite it elsewhere. (Whether this is through people directly following links from the reference section, or through links on Wikipedia being used by PageRank to push the source higher up search results, I leave as an exercise for someone who actually gets paid to investigate these things.) The spammers can rest easy in their beds. ‑ Iridescent 20:44, 21 September 2017 (UTC)
    • Refspam is unfortunately not a waste of time for some folks trying to get a job, to get tenure, or to stroke their ego (Look--I'm cited in Wikipedia. I'm somebody!). See, for instance, people taking this seriously in Are Wikipedia Citations Important Evidence of the Impact of Scholarly Articles and Books?. --Mark viking (talk) 20:54, 21 September 2017 (UTC)
      • Two things: First, that's what this research project found, so if you think they're they're wrong, then User:DarTar can put you in touch with the researcher, and you can figure out what the data says. Second, when you reply to a discussion with mixed list formatting, it's <whatever the other guy wrote> followed by <your choice of additional punctuation>. The beginning of your line needs to exactly match whatever comes before it. Following ::* with :::* is always wrong. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:33, 22 September 2017 (UTC)
        Did I say something to offend you? If so, it was not intended and please accept my apologies. I never said the study or your assertions were wrong. I think both studies probably have some truth to them. Even if WP citations don't alter literature citation rates, some people consider WP citations themselves as an adjunct to literature citations and a useful proxy for the educational or societal impact of an academic's research for the purposes of hiring, tenure, etc. Thanks for trying to fix my formatting typo, but what I intended was ::*:, as my reply was not semantically part of a bulleted list. --Mark viking (talk) 22:41, 22 September 2017 (UTC)
  • I am just catching up on this and am very dismayed. The community has been trying to figure out what was going on with the account adding this content since October 2015:
  • October 2015 discussion at WT:CHEM, the only time Carolineneil used a talk page.
  • December 2015 (trying to figure out what is going on)
  • June 2017 (trying to figure out what is going on)
  • September 2017 (where we indefinitely blocked them and people also expressed disdain for the experimental design and noted the poor quality of the content that was created)

There is a discussion going on at WT:NOT now about setting up a NOTLABORATORY policy. There is also a discussion at VPM here.

These people abused their editing privileges and wasted a bunch of volunteer time, while we tried to figure out what was going on with the content they were creating. The scientists and whoever they had doing the grunt work never talked to us. People at the WMF apparently knew about this, and didn't say anything to us. Ugly shitting on the editing community and on this project all around. Jytdog (talk) 18:55, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

Thank you for the links. I confess to not understanding the extent of the problem before reading those. Abusing AfC editors without consent is unethical, in addition to being a big waste of time. Some of the stats articles submitted were of poor quality. I'd say this deserves letters to the Pittsburgh and MIT IRBs. Maybe WMF, too. --Mark viking (talk) 19:57, 5 October 2017 (UTC)
How is following the directions in the Article Wizard, to create missing articles on highly technical scientific subjects, "Abusing AfC editors"?
I see a lot of emotion here (and a lot of semi-automated messages on that talk page), and I understand that the articles weren't perfect (some far from it, but what should we expect from brand-new editors?), but I don't see anything that looks like abusing AfC. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:36, 5 October 2017 (UTC)
Well open your eyes. Here I will paste what I put at VPM -- there was:
a) the tremendous waste of the editing community's time trying to figure out what was going on, and its time dealing with the articles (many of which were poor, and were uploaded multiple times)
b) the blowing off of the editing community by the people running the experiment. I checked the edit count for Carolineneil, and they used a talk page exactly once back in November 2015, here at WT:CHEM, and they wrote These articles aren't class assignments. They're part of a project, with Dario Taraborelli at Wikimedia, to bring more advanced scientific content to Wikipedia. There were extensive discussions with Dario before the creation of these articles. -- User: Carolineneil. That is the definition of NOTHERE not to mention arrogant as hell. If they would have taken a different approach, a bunch of the time of the editing community would not have been wasted, and their contribs would have been more productive. (the whole section that snippet is from, is here)
c) that per this note from User:Dario (WMF) which includes As a general rule, the Foundation is not in a position to "approve" or "decline" individual research proposals, unless there are security or legal reasons to escalate them. Editorial decisions about content, in particular, are not an area the Foundation has any say about. The authors reached out at the time of the proposal to ask about best practices to follow in setting up the proposal and two WMF staffers (User:Halfak (WMF) and I) advised them on discussing and documenting it in the appropriate spaces.... -- the WMF was indeed aware of this. What Dario wrote in that note is pretty different from Carolineneil wrote, but .. whatever. Whatever was said in those "extensive discussions" didn't translate to any kind of respect for the editing community's time and work, nor any effort to get prior consensus, and Dario didn't communicate the information to the editing community either.
What happened is frankly stupid and completely avoidable (and in my view, another expression of WMF staffers' apparent lack of understanding of the work the editing community does maintaining content and of the importance of consensus here). I am hopeful that the effort to establish WP:NOTLABORATORY will succeed, but we also need to communicate clearly to WMF what it should do with this kinds of requests, and what they should do with information they have about people's intentions. (It kills me that the people doing the experiment tried to reach out to what they thought was someone "here" but it took two years, three ANIs, and the paper being published for the editing community to finally understand on its own what had been happening. I don't know what "appropriate spaces" Dario advised them to post in , but we didn't know about it. Jytdog (talk) 22:10, 5 October 2017 (UTC)
Did we need to know about it?
Really. Please think about that for a minute. Someone who actually knows something about chemistry wrote some articles. Sure, some of them had problems. Some of them were things that we'd have merged to larger topics (maybe because 99.99% of know less about chemistry than the person writing the article). But still: an actual content expert wrote non-promotional articles about chemistry. We don't see that very often. So why didn't we welcome them with open arms? Why was our instinct "What kind of scam this?!" instead of "Finally, some chemist figured out where the 'Edit' button is on Wikipedia?"
IMO we wasted a lot of time "trying to figure out what was going on" solely because that's what some editors personally choose to do with their WP:VOLUNTEER time. I can't find it in me to blame a subject-matter expert for our cynicism and suspicion. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:38, 5 October 2017 (UTC)
The three ANI threads were generated because everyday editors were not aware of the experiment and weird shit was happening, and the person implementing it wasn't given enough training to understand that dealing with other editors isn't optional. Issues get raised because weird shit is happening, not vice versa. I am done responding to you on this. Jytdog (talk) 22:50, 5 October 2017 (UTC)
The real tragedy is that much potentially useful content was written by subject experts and lost because the subject experts had almost no skills in Wikipedia editing. I find it astonishing that Dario Taraborelli didn't direct them to WikiProject Chemistry, or to any experienced Wikipedia editor who could spend some time teaching them how to use talk pages and explaining that editing Wikipedia is a holistic process requiring more than just subject expertise. What a shame. --RexxS (talk) 22:58, 5 October 2017 (UTC)
I agree with you: It's a shame that we were given content on missing chemistry subjects, and we're rejecting it, deleting it, and even demonizing subject-matter experts who tried to fill the gaps in the encyclopedia. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:28, 6 October 2017 (UTC)
It wasn't just chemistry; there was a parallel set of articles developed on econometrics that they abandoned part-way through. Sadly, I don't see any alternative to rejecting and deleting contributions and criticising contributors when they simply fail to take any steps to familiarise themselves with the context in which they intend to do their research. It's like folks going into a foreign country to do some work and expecting the culture and conventions to fit their preconceptions, then wondering why they end up being deported. --RexxS (talk) 18:50, 6 October 2017 (UTC)
Yes, we did need to know about it. Two reasons: (1) Articles were posted under false pretenses using a fake account. Academic projects don't get a free pass for violating TOS. (2) AfC is a collaborative process. AfC editors donate their time to help out new editors learn WP editing and get up to speed. That teaching process is two-way. This project subverted that by using AfC editors as some sort of fire and forget, Mehanical Turk QC process to give a "mainspace"rubber stamp to their articles. No wants to put effort into reviewing and teaching, only to be completely ignored. It was clear abuse of AfC editors under false pretenses. --Mark viking (talk) 23:03, 5 October 2017 (UTC)
I don't think that I can agree that writing an article about advanced chemistry and posting it under your real names is posting "under false pretenses using a fake account". They should have used separate accounts because of our WP:NOSHARE policy (which almost nobody knows about except us highly experienced editors), but "User:Carolineneil" can't be considered a fake name when the people operating it are actually named Caroline and Neil. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:12, 6 October 2017 (UTC)

Break

Hey folks, I'm Halfak (WMF), but I'm wearing my volunteer hat right now because supporting other researchers like Carolineneil is not something I do in a staff capacity. I had to use my email archive to jog my memory of what happened here. I was hardly involved. Based on those emails, it seems Dario was even less involved. These researchers were acting entirely independently of the WMF Research Team and contrary to the advice I'd supplied in my volunteer time.
At any given moment in time, I'm advising 5-10 research projects taking place around Wikipedia/Wikidata/etc. I did talk to Caroline and Neil about their study. I requested them to publicly describe their project and goals. They produced m:Research:Impact of Wikipedia on Academic Science and then did not respond to any of the concerns raised on the talk page. I repeatedly requested that they respond to these concerns via email and to follow the advice of editors at AFC who were strongly advising them to slow down. Once they stopped emailing me requesting that I solve their problems for them, I lost track of the project. I'm surprised to now find that they had been continuing their activities and not responding to warnings. I think that blocking the researchers was the right call and I regret that had not happened sooner. At the time, I suppose it seemed to me that Wikipedia's quality control system was tracking their activities and supplying the right warnings (which usually lead to a block if the behavior doesn't stop) so I saw no cause to raise a parallel alarm. Honestly I expect that researchers will generally stop before they cause such an obvious problem.
Process-wise, I have no authority over independent researchers, but I have been pushing for a more formalized process for approving research projects on-wiki. Usually I meet resistance from people who feel that the proposed processes are too restrictive and those who think they aren't enough (like Jytdog). Regretfully, these two groups don't work out their differences and I don't have the time or energy to fight both sides. See Wikipedia:Research, Wikipedia:Subject Recruitment Approvals Group, and Wikipedia:Research recruitment for examples of my past efforts on English Wikipedia (usually researchers are most disruptive in their recruitment strategies -- everyone wants to ask the top editors why they edit for some reason). Because these process proposals have failed, I've largely just been trying to advise researchers when they show up. Happily, many Wikipedians know me for doing this work, so researchers often get routed to me. Roughly here's what I suggest researchers do: (1) talk to me and let me shoot down things that obviously won't work, (2) create a project description page on meta (using m:Research:New project -- note the focus on ethics, policies, and data privacy), and then (3) reach out to the communities that will be affected (e.g. AfC would have been a good one here) and don't proceed without either consensus or indifference WRT the proposed activities. In my experience, this almost always proceeds just fine. So I've given up on formal review processed for studies. But, Jytdog, if you wanted to pick that effort back up, I'd support you! In the meantime, I'm always looking for help reviewing and raising potential issues WRT researchers' proposed projects. I'd be very happy to have a hand with that.
In the end, I agree with WhatamIdoing. These researchers were not doing anything that was obviously harmful to the encyclopedia. Their primary mistake is not engaging with editors in the process of their work. I regret that this was the case, but it doesn't seem like much damage was done here. After all, if more damage were being done, I'm sure they would have been blocked sooner. --EpochFail (talk • contribs) 23:07, 5 October 2017 (UTC)
User:EpochFail Thanks for your reply and for providing all that background! I've watchlisted those. I do view volunteer hours wasted as a bad thing; those hours are gone and are not coming back. The frustrating thing here is that there is no place where User:Carolineneil connected what she (if it was a woman and one person) connected their account to the project posted at meta. Even if you had given notice of the proposed project at WT:CHEM, they couldn't have connected what the account was doing to the "experiment". Not good. At minimum the relevant project should be notified of what is happening so they can object. I don't know if that is processed-to-death Jytdog (talk) 23:39, 5 October 2017 (UTC)
I cannot view the hours spent reviewing new articles on academic subjects as "wasted". WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:12, 6 October 2017 (UTC)
I know that you cannot see the problem here. Jytdog (talk) 17:30, 6 October 2017 (UTC)

I am with WAID but I am also becoming increasingly disillusioned with ref spam, in no small part because of the reproducibility crisis in biomedical sciences. One can learn a lot by reading self serving primary sources and tracking down good secondary to replace the primary sources, but this is more often than not a futile effort that rapidly leads to editor burnout. What I feel is lacking is a pithy explanation that will immediately be understood by researchers and does not rely on references to arcane Wikipedia policy. WP:WHYMEDRS is a good start, but IMHO, it is too general. We need something specifically targeted towards researchers that is really pithy that starts with something like:

Boghog (talk) 19:18, 6 October 2017 (UTC)

WP:EXPERT talks about this. I just revised the lead to sharpen that. And I am so sticking that at the top of MEDRS now.Jytdog (talk) 20:15, 6 October 2017 (UTC)

Ethics guidelines

If experimenting on Wikipedia (not just using data from Wikipedia) is currently allowed, should we have ethics guidelines? Something along the lines of:

  • In order not to violate community rules or norms, become an editor and learn the culture of the community before starting.
  • Consult with and gain the consent of the community before beginning. Wikimedia employees are analogous to civil servants; consulting with them is not equivalent to consulting with the community.
  • Methodology that interferes with the main goals of the encyclopedia is unlikely to get consent. Please avoid interfering with the work of others, including by wasting volunteer time.
  • Here is a catalogue of past mistakes to avoid.

...with plenty of links to how-tos. This study could have been done without three ANIs, to mutual benefit. HLHJ (talk) 23:05, 9 October 2017 (UTC)

Sounds good User:HLHJ Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 06:37, 15 October 2017 (UTC)
So it turns out that we already have such guidelines: Wikipedia:Ethically researching Wikipedia. I've added to the "Best Practices" section at the end (it seems as if it should maybe be at the beginning, or separate). I've also made User:HLHJ/Draft Wikipedia research experiences, which currently attempts to summarize this Carolineneil section (and copied a lot of material directly from it). If anyone wants to edit, comment, andor add other examples, good or bad, they'd be very welcome. HLHJ (talk) 04:34, 22 October 2017 (UTC)
There's a discussion at User:Robert McClenon/NOTLAB of a policy on research on Wikipedia. Clearly this is of interest to some people here. HLHJ (talk) 06:07, 22 October 2017 (UTC)

Cardiologists

Would you call Salvator Cupcea a Category:Cardiologists? Rathfelder (talk) 11:09, 22 October 2017 (UTC)

[2]no.... (he did have a contribution ref #41, but IMO does not warrant inclusion in the category )--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 13:39, 22 October 2017 (UTC)

Women in Red November contest open to all


Announcing Women in Red's November 2017 prize-winning world contest

Contest details: create biographical articles for women of any country or occupation in the world: November 2017 WiR Contest

Read more about how Women in Red is overcoming the gender gap: WikiProject Women in Red

(To subscribe: Women in Red/English language mailing list and Women in Red/international list. Unsubscribe: Women in Red/Opt-out list)

--Ipigott (talk) 15:27, 22 October 2017 (UTC)

good info, thanks--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 17:28, 22 October 2017 (UTC)

Death of Savita Halappanavar

A wall of text was recently posted at WP:FTN (later moved to the article's talk page) about a potential issue. Sources report a belief in the form "she died of sepsis after being denied an abortion". The link between both is of course controversial. Disclaimer: a lot of text to read on the article's talk page, can be a time sink. More eyes welcome, —PaleoNeonate – 17:23, 22 October 2017 (UTC)

The above is out-dated and both the talk page and WP:FTN have been re-written.
Boundarylayer (talk) 19:19, 22 October 2017 (UTC)
I've commented at Talk:Death of Savita Halappanavar #No WP:RSMEDs argue that "denial of abortion" played any part in her death. More views welcome. --RexxS (talk) 22:27, 22 October 2017 (UTC)

I want to add a sentence about the invention of scFv , CAR-T cells, and anticancer CAR-T cells on the late 80's.

Dear all,

I tried to mention on the "Cancer immunotherapy" page the inventors and cite their early 1989 paper for the development of CAT-T cells, scFv, and Anticancer CAR-T cells.

User Jytdog removed my add arguing promotional abuse policy.

He says that showing these persons worked on field X on date Y doesn't means they were the first to do it. Thats ok, but I can not do nothing to prove they were the first. All the CAR-T community recognize them as the inventors and there is no earlyer publication about it.

I don't know how should we proceed.

First paper who presents an anticancer CAR-T cell http://www.pnas.org/content/86/24/10024.full.pdf Patent http://www.google.com/patents/US7741465 Antincancer CAR-T https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2149517/Mjenik (talk) 07:23, 22 October 2017 (UTC)

would agree w/ Jytdog--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 12:09, 22 October 2017 (UTC)
I've suggested a possible compromise at Talk:Cancer immunotherapy #Promotional content about. There will naturally be a measure of opinion on whether it is WP:DUE in Cancer immunotherapy #History, and I'm insufficiently expert to be certain, so anyone willing to comment there would be very welcome. --RexxS (talk) 17:33, 22 October 2017 (UTC)
Welcome to Wikipedia, User:Mjenik. You may be interested in Wikipedia:Ten Simple Rules for Editing Wikipedia, which was written for scientists to explain some of the weirdness here. One of the quirks about sourcing a Wikipedia article is that, unlike most journals, we actually don't want to "credit" the first authors/papers by citing those papers directly. A recent review article is always considered "better" than the original paper. So, for example, if you go through the list of articles that cite this article and find a review article such as PMID 24667957, and if that review article (which I haven't read) happens to say that this was the first paper, then you're set, and it's just a matter of swapping out the citation. But if there aren't any sources (including textbooks; it doesn't have to be just peer-reviewed journal articles) that actually say something like "the first", then it's harder. I believe that some editors have actually resorted to begging their scientific friends to please write down the things that "all the community recognize" in their next papers, just to get past the occasional dispute like this. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:00, 22 October 2017 (UTC)
Thank you User:WhatamIdoing User:Ozzie10aaaa and User:RexxS, I added two secondary sources to the discussion Talk:Cancer immunotherapy #Promotional content about. Carl June [1] and Steven Rosenberg [2].Mjenik (talk) 12:51, 23 October 2017 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25510272
  2. ^ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25838374

Circumcision prevalence map

This map, used on the circumcision page, gives prevalence categories of 0-20%, 20-80%, and 80-100%. That middle 20-80% is kinda useless and conceals the fact, for example, its prevalence in the US, at 75%, is far higher than in Canada at 30%. Could someone good at maps update it so there are shadings for 20-40%, 40-60%, and 60-80%? This would make the map more useful, and less misleading.

https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Global_Map_of_Male_Circumcision_Prevalence_by_Country.svg

--Beneficii (talk) 02:56, 23 October 2017 (UTC)

Agree the middle is less useful and would be better updated. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 18:48, 23 October 2017 (UTC)

Community Wishlist update video

The presentation at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cm02V1ytJ0Y may interest some of you. Start at 2:00 minutes if you'd like to know about some of the new features in X! tools (like how to find out more about who's editing a page or which admins work in a given area), 11:45 if you're interested in the Popular Pages bot, 17:55 to learn about the Beta Feature for syntax highlighting, and 22:30 for information about Global Preferences.

The m:Community Wishlist project will start in a week or two, so now is the time to find your list of tools that you wish you could have. Note that there are no "anti-canvassing" rules in this process: The team assumes that talking to your friends is going to result in a better proposal, so feel free to spread the word. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:48, 23 October 2017 (UTC)

Perfect. Thanks for the heads up. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 19:03, 23 October 2017 (UTC)

Bohring-Optiz syndrome page

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bohring%E2%80%93Opitz_syndrome It looks like someone has inserted an ad for their non profit and it's been so long since I actively edited, I thought I should just point this out and let someone with more recent experience handle it. LegoTech·(t)·(c) 02:23, 24 October 2017 (UTC)

User:Legotech thanks and removed the spam. More help watching rare diseases always welcome. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 04:13, 24 October 2017 (UTC)
Links like these are sometimes wanted as ==External links== for rare diseases (see WP:MEDMOS#External links). WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:42, 24 October 2017 (UTC)
Generally exclude them myself.
I generally try to convince charities to work to improve content here rather than add links to their charity.
Would be great if they would donate stuff like images. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 19:43, 24 October 2017 (UTC)

Thoughts about tone

I read this interesting story recently: Rathi, Akshat. "The journey of a "doctor" who joined the cult of alternative medicine and then broke out of it". Quartz. Retrieved 2017-10-14.

This part stood out to me as having particular relevance to Wikipedia editors:

She found the evidence she needed to jump most easily in Trick or Treatment. “What Ernst and Singh were able to do so beautifully was provide information that felt nonjudgmental,” Hermes says. “I didn’t feel like I was being put down for having used naturopathy or having been a naturopath.”

“Everything I had read prior to Trick or Treatment about naturopathy from a critic’s perspective was written in such a way that it was impossible for me to digest the information,” she says. “As soon as I read the word ‘quack’ or ‘pseudoscience’ I couldn’t get anything from the article.”

The book’s matter-of-fact approach to debunking naturopathy influenced Hermes’s thinking on naturopathy.

I know that some editors here are motivated by the idea of debunking pseudoscience and other forms of stupid. I'm with you. But I think our zealousness for the cause of evidence and science sometimes makes us less effective at actually educating readers. We sometimes stray away from an encyclopedic, matter-of-fact approach to subjects, and instead start preaching to the choir – because, as Hermes says, only the choir is going to listen once we've passed a certain point. The article stops being about educating readers, and starts being about signalling to other true believers that we, too, are right-thinking science believers who deeply despise whatever nonsense is being passed around this week. Any source is good enough, as long as it lets me label this nonsense with certain words or phrases that lets the other right-thinking believers in Science know that I'm one of them. No source can possibly be good enough to justify mentioning this traditional remedy, because I don't want anyone to even know that it exists (which is kind of scary, when you think about how many healthcare workers rely on Wikipedia for finding out what their patients have been doing).

Ernst and Singh's book never uses the word pseudoscience, and uses the word pseudoscientific only twice:

  • "Sometimes the explanations in alternative medicine contain pseudo-scientific jargon, such as a London-based healing clinic which uses phrases such as 'the client's electromagnetic circuitry' and 'defragmentate the body'. This jargon may be impressive to a non-specialist, but it is scientifically meaningless."
  • "On closer inspection, those with a scientific background can easily see their pseudo-scientific nature (i.e. the jargon is gobbledygook)."

Their use of "quacks" is more frequent (but still less than once per 20 pages), but they tend to attribute it to others rather than claiming it as their own opinion: "The split between straights and mixers soon became bitter, with straights accusing mixers of betraying the chiropractic movement, and mixers accusing straights of being quacks" or "This chapter will look at the evidence and reveal whether homeopathy is a medical marvel or whether the critics are correct when they label it a quack medicine."

We know that these authors are both expert sources on the subject of alternative medicine, and both firmly opposed to nonsense, but they found a way to communicate that information without relying on words that prevented their audience from dismissing their information as merely the work of biased haters. Their approach seems to have worked spectacularly well.

Keeping the goal of educating readers in mind – that's why Wikipedia exists – I'm thinking that scientifically minded people are not necessarily the most important part of our audience, and that people who are favorably disposed towards these subjects might be. If we want to educate them, rather than annoy them (and maybe trigger the backfire effect), maybe we need to think about emulating Ernst and Singh by adopting a less judgmental tone. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:55, 14 October 2017 (UTC)

yes WAID good point--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 23:01, 14 October 2017 (UTC)
Yes, but without any examples I think it's a non-problem here - so far as I recall, Wikipedia never straight out asserts something is "quackery" but might mention that's how it has been viewed (and even this causes a shit storm with the woo defenders). I like the way E&S can be forthright saying e.g. that detox "is a scam". More of that plain speaking would be good here. Ernst is of course generally loathed by the alt-med types he debunks - just read his site comments to see that - but as Upton Sinclair said, "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!" Alexbrn (talk) 03:12, 15 October 2017 (UTC)
Quackery is linked in more than 600 articles. Pseudoscience is linked in more than 1,700 articles, including, since you asked for an example the third sentence of Acupuncture. To give you an idea of an alternative approach, Singh and Ernst describe acupuncture in that book as "A potentially valuable technique" before very gently leading the reader, over about 40 pages, to the conclusion that acupuncture, though based on a "deeply flawed" idea of chi and meridians, is best described as a strong placebo, although it might have some small benefit for a few people with pain and nausea. I'm thinking: If Ernst and Singh decline to use the word pseudoscience to describe acupuncture, do you really think that we really need to be using that word in the third sentence? Or, more generally, to use those words in more than two thousand articles?
As for your favorite Sinclair quotation, I don't think that any of the regulars here has a salary that depends upon believing in pseudoscience or quackery. It's also my experience that Sinclair knew something about holding his audience's attention long enough to convince them of the rightness of his views, which appears to be (a) what Ernst and Singh managed to do and (b) what we're frequently failing to do on this point.
Consider what Hermes said: when she looked for evidence-based sources about naturopathy, she was unable to get past the insulting language of "pseudoscience" and "quackery" to see what the sources said. That would have applied to the Wikipedia article on her former profession, too, since it begins: Naturopathy or naturopathic medicine is a form of pseudoscientific, alternative medicine.... She would have stopped reading right there, at the first sentence, and written Wikipedia off as a biased, worthless source. We know that she's not the only person sympathetic to ineffective treatments who feels this way. Is that the outcome that we want? WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:24, 15 October 2017 (UTC)
Trick or Treatment is an amazing book. Interesting bit was that Singh was sued for libel over it. This is why Wikipedia could never survive in the UK, Canada, or Australia. The US still has stronger freedom of speech than many other countries. Agree homeopathy is alt med first and pseudoscience second so that can go a little later. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 06:24, 15 October 2017 (UTC)
(I believe Singh was actually sued for what he wrote in a Guardian column shortly after publication of Trick or Treatment. See British Chiropractic Association v Singh. Agree that it's an awesome book, though. Adrian J. Hunter(talk•contribs) 06:53, 15 October 2017 (UTC) )
Following this discussion with interest, and I just put a hold on Trick or Treatment at my library. Thanks.JenOttawa (talk) 23:22, 15 October 2017 (UTC)
  • WP:NPOV requires us to be up-front about the pseudoscientific aspect of pseudoscientific topics, so suggesting we downplay that as a kind of missionary tactic to win converts round stands policy on its head. That said, there is prominent and over-prominent: our homeopathy and acupuncture articles get it right IMO; but cramming "pseudoscientific" into the first few words of an article over-eggs it. Alexbrn (talk) 18:21, 15 October 2017 (UTC)
    • Not downplay, just I am not sure the most key fact about every pseudoscientific idea is that it is pseudoscience. Sometimes it should go later in the lead rather than the first sentence.
    • For example on homeopathy we say it is pseudoscience in the second sentence. I think that is the correct weight. We of course also have the pseudoscience box which is good.Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 13:00, 16 October 2017 (UTC)
  • I would just like to answer to the following: (a) what Ernst and Singh managed to do and (b) what we're frequently failing to do on this point: my impression is that no matter how decorated and gentle we would say it, some proponents or COI editors would still regularly try to remove or question the information since Wikipedia is not a printed book they can't alter... another aspect is that a lead should be short yet still reflect the article content (including such important points), since articles are not large books. —PaleoNeonate – 20:07, 15 October 2017 (UTC)
    • Sure, but do we have to use these specific words to do that? Couldn't we sometimes accurately communicate the important facts with a more dispassionate tone, like "The theoretical basis is a dream the founder had after eating a bowl of chili in 1967" or "Despite the claims of the manufacturer, independent research indicates that it is an expensive placebo" rather than "This is pseudoscience"? WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:14, 15 October 2017 (UTC)
      • Rathi is an extraordinary person. Most people are ordinary.
      • Generally it comes down to drawing bright lines on alt med/pseudoscience out there in the trenches of actual editing. We don't have the luxury that somebody like Ernst has, who just gets to write things on a blank page and publish them. Because WP is open, everything is contested, all the time and there are people pushing and PUSHING and PUSHING woo. So pushback happens, and bright lines are drawn. Jytdog (talk) 23:49, 15 October 2017 (UTC)
        • Yup, and this is enshrined in core policy explicitly: "The pseudoscientific view should be clearly described as such." That really doesn't leave any wriggle-room. Alexbrn (talk) 04:47, 16 October 2017 (UTC)
          • I think that policy is being over-interpreted. Maybe we should change the policy to say that we shouldn't say "pseudoscience" when we mean "bad science", for example, even if some blog writers (and we're often relying on them for the more obscure subjects) confuse the two concepts. Maybe we should change the policy to say "If you're writing about Time Machine, then label it as pseudoscience, because that's DUE weight, but if a majority of critics use other language, then use the language that most critics use." Or even, "You can 'clearly describe' something as pseudoscience without using that exact word, and you can 'clearly describe' something as pseudoscience without using that word anywhere in the lead, and, in fact, you should do that whenever the main point of the article is 'he made a billion dollars by marketing a product' instead of 'here's a scientific-sounding concept'." WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:17, 16 October 2017 (UTC)

Fad diet

Related point: We should probably think about Fad diet as another potentially problematic set of 'fighting words'. I see that Low-carb diet is listed as an example on that page. Classifying that as a "fad diet" with no proven benefits would doubtless surprise the many healthcare providers who routinely recommend it to Type 1 diabetics, for whom a low-carb (or even somewhat-lower-carb) diet results is widely agreed to provide significant improvements in control, and as an option that benefits most Type 2 diabetics. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:28, 16 October 2017 (UTC)

Perhaps a contextualized entry ("low carb diet is often a fad diet, except in the case of diabetes" yadda yadda) might help? Akin to Arago hotspot's list although that one does not deal with medicine. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 15:40, 16 October 2017 (UTC)
Yes indeed. What WAID neglected to mention was that in the Low-carbohydrate diet we say "Used for weight loss, low-carbohydrate diets are classified as fad diets" [my bold] and the "with no proven benefit" is pure invention. Alexbrn (talk) 16:39, 16 October 2017 (UTC)
I think that "no proven benefits" is a fair summary of the lead sentence for Fad diet, which defines it as any diet that makes "promises of weight loss or other health advantages such as longer life without backing by solid science". If we've got proven benefits (whether weight loss or other health advantages), then it's not a "fad diet" according to the definition given in the lead of the article. The Fad diet article lists low-carb diets as a fad diet without any qualification, despite the linked article indicating that both weight loss [for anyone who follows it, although not necessarily more weight loss than other people get on other calorie-cutting diets] and scientifically proven health advantages [for some people, e.g., Type 1 diabetics] are reasonably expected outcomes for people who follow the diet.
I'm thinking that the Fad diet article needs some attention, and perhaps a more workable definition that "A fad diet is any diet that promises weight loss" and then contradicts itself by listings diets that actually do result in weight loss (i.e., by cutting calories). I'm also thinking that for all of the other diet-related articles, we might want to be a little slower to slap a derogatory label on it. It's important to explain specific problems (e.g., the candy bar diet is obviously unhealthful, even if you lose weight on it; low-carb diets can cause higher total cholesterol). WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:44, 17 October 2017 (UTC)
One of the many issues with fad diets is that they don't result in sustained weight loss or sustained health. People like Marion Nestle are very consistent in discussing this. If you haven't read it ISBN 9781605985954 is very good too. Jytdog (talk) 03:59, 17 October 2017 (UTC)
It's my impression that no temporary dietary change, regardless of whether that diet is the latest celebrity fad, or a "healthy balanced diet", or the diet recommended for patients who have undergone bariatric surgery, produces sustained weight loss. Bariatric surgery is renowned for long-term weight success, but that's due to surgery plus lifelong, highly restrictive dietary changes and exercise, not a one-time permanent cure. People who get the surgery and skip the diet and exercise don't lose much weight, and many more follow the care plan, lose the weight, and then gain it right back when they stop the diet. The fact that weight regain happens when you stop following a weight loss diet doesn't make it a fad diet. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:37, 18 October 2017 (UTC)
I read this sad story only today BBC news. Quackery? Snake-oil? Bad science? Pseudoscience? Fraud even?-Roxy the dog. bark 16:09, 16 October 2017 (UTC)
Oh man. spinal cord injury at a chiropractic clinic. Jytdog (talk) 18:46, 16 October 2017 (UTC)
Roxy, I don't think that it could be classified until more information is known. Also, malpractice ought to be on your list. I assume, for example, that identifying dangerous situations such as compression fractures is considered normal standard of care for chiropractors. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:56, 17 October 2017 (UTC)
@Roxy the dog: ... which brings us back full circle to Edzard Ernst, who has commented on the incident: "In my view, nobody should have this treatment and certainly not elderly people" (he's quoted in the Daily Mail so I won't link it). Chiropractic is known quackery, based on pseudoscientific concepts, and is known to carry certain risks. Alexbrn (talk) 09:28, 17 October 2017 (UTC)
diet content is one of the places where we get the most fierce advocacy, both devotees and people shilling them. all of these are just geldmacherei and almost none have real evidence. the healthy diet that mainstream nutritionists and medical bodies describe is not that complicated and these various diets are only decent to the extent they fall in line with the healthy diet anyway. Jytdog (talk) 18:46, 16 October 2017 (UTC)
I don't think that slapping a "fad diet" label on all of these articles is really helping that situation, though. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:56, 17 October 2017 (UTC)
We should be nice and clear about categorizing fad diets as such, and explain in more detail why they're dodgy; it's not an either/or. The NHS provide a lot of useful lay-oriented source material for this e.g.[3] (Add: and on reviewing this I see we weren't being clear that the Dukan Diet is a fad diet: now fixed!) Alexbrn (talk) 08:03, 17 October 2017 (UTC)
I've been thinking about this, and I think we've seriously over-medicalized the fad diet/crash diet. According to the lead (re-written a year or two by some WPMEDders to totally change its meaning), a fad diet is any diet not proven by science to cause permanent weight loss or other health benefits. Now, presumably deliberate weight gain (e.g., body builders who want to bulk up) is being classified as a "health benefit", even though it isn't really, but I still think that definition is missing the whole point. AFAICT from mainstream media, fad diets exist so that you (well, not 80% of you, because most of you here are male) can find out on Monday that your ex-boyfriend will be bringing his new girlfriend to a party on Saturday, and you can temporarily lose just enough weight to fit into your little black dress or feel more confident. It really has nothing to do with long-term weight loss; it is all about temporary loss. In that sense, it really doesn't matter if the weight loss is purely water (especially if your dress doesn't fit because of Premenstrual water retention) or that it'll all be gained back next week. The point is a short-term perceived benefit through a starvation diet. Nobody actually expects to spend the rest of her life on the cabbage soup diet. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:01, 24 October 2017 (UTC)
A temporary diet, that is? Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 16:14, 24 October 2017 (UTC)
As temporary as any other fad, I think. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:45, 24 October 2017 (UTC)
WAID, I see you've made Crash diet into a redirect to Fad diet, which is probably for the best. However, no, fad dieting is definitely not "as temporary" as other fads. The specific brand of magic being touted changes often, but the line of magicians stretches to the horizon, each bearing the answer everyone's been waiting for all these years. With entire industries (fashion, diet foods, diet books, private gymns, personal trainers, rapid workout machines, social media, etc.) all busy bringing their persuasive efforts to monetize the yo-yo cycle, that line isn't going away any time soon. "Buy my products: you'll lose weight/feel better/look better/impress your lover(s) ... Oh, the weight's back? You must have developed tolerance, try this one instead.... Aww, you've gained even more? You should read about the ice-cream diet..." The con never ends.LeadSongDog come howl! 20:17, 24 October 2017 (UTC)
Sure, the list of fads never ends, no matter whether you're talking about diets, toys, gadgets, clothes, or anything else. But switching from one fad (diet/toy/gadget) to the next fad (diet/toy/gadget) to the next fad (diet/toy/gadget) is the opposite of one thing that you stick to for life. Each of the fad diets is expected to be temporary.
I've put some representative definitions of fad diet up at Talk:Fad diet. Most of them talk use language like "short-term quick fixes" or "very restrictive diet with few foods or an unusual combination of foods for a short period of time" or "Fad diets are really low calorie diets". I didn't find any that said things like "any diet with bad science behind it is a fad diet". WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:18, 25 October 2017 (UTC)

I have reverted a few edits and I noticed others did as well. I put a message up on the talk page. Worth keeping an eye in case they do not notice these reverts and notifications. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Naphunlimited JenOttawa (talk) 13:04, 25 October 2017 (UTC)

they also created User:Naphunlimited/sandbox/Effective_Functions_Of_The_Respiratory_System--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 13:11, 25 October 2017 (UTC)
That page is a straight copvio of the site they are spamming. I've nominated it for speedy deletion. Just needs an admin to come along. --RexxS (talk) 18:45, 25 October 2017 (UTC)
Earlier I added the domain+user at WT:WPSPAM. The Coibot report doesn't show previous users spamming the same link (and all previous instances were reverted); more experienced people managing the blacklists will determine if it should be added. —PaleoNeonate – 20:36, 25 October 2017 (UTC)
User:JenOttawa Thanks for bringing this here. If they continue let me known and I will block. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 02:57, 26 October 2017 (UTC)

infobox medical condition (new) October 2017

I am not digging this new template. It draws the addition of unsourced edits and in my view is just more work. We already summarize everything in the lead, and now we have to summarize in a second place and maintain that as well.

What is the advantage of this new infobox, with all this detail? Jytdog (talk) 16:42, 22 October 2017 (UTC)

I have not found the effort to be much greater than keeping unsourced details out of the lead or body of the article.
It is point form human understandable details. IMO it is better than what we had their before. The change has been discussed over many years (you can find this in the archives).
An additional effort will be to move the items to Wikidata eventually so that such point for info can more easily be created in other languages. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 16:51, 22 October 2017 (UTC)
Am aware of prior discussion and i should not have asked so generally about the advantages. In my experience these are a pain in the butt, actually living with them now. I am interested to hear how others are experiencing them with regard to maintenance. Jytdog (talk) 17:14, 22 October 2017 (UTC)
In what way? Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 18:21, 22 October 2017 (UTC)
The fields become new areas of contestation like at Schizophrenia and Naegleriasis. We end up taking up our time dealing with arguments over this completely redundant summary. There is so much work to do already. Jytdog (talk) 19:18, 22 October 2017 (UTC)
I am pushing to keep these properly referenced. I plan to get around to updating Naegleriasis eventually. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 18:54, 23 October 2017 (UTC)
The only conversation about the infobox at Talk:Schizophrenia suggests that part of the problem is that one parameter says "similar conditions" but links to "differential diagnosis". Substance abuse is a perfectly reasonable differential diagnosis, but "I accidentally took too many of my properly prescribed drugs and ended up with an unlucky reaction that looks like schizophrenia" (to name one innocent example covered by substance-induced psychosis) is not the same thing as "my brain doesn't have typical wiring".
IMO we need to decide whether we mean "medical conditions that are actually related to this one" or "medical conditions with similar symptoms, even if there's no connection at all between the diseases", and then fix the label to match whatever we decided. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:11, 23 October 2017 (UTC)
It used to say "differential diagnosis". Someone than requested it be simplified to "similar conditions" so I simplified it. Happy to re open this discussion if people have other wording they think would be better. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 19:30, 23 October 2017 (UTC)
First, if you aren't sure what Jytdog is talking about, then see Special:WhatLinksHere/Template:Infobox medical condition (new).
In my experience, there's very little need to summarize in a "second place", because the ones that I encounter don't seem to use the Wikidata option at all (e.g., Arthritis, Autism, Cretinism, Down syndrome, Leukemia, Major depressive disorder...). WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:19, 22 October 2017 (UTC)
What do you mean by "use the Wikidata option at all"? Wikidata does not contain this information. Wikipedia contains the information. The plan is to use WP to add to WD not the other way around. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 18:20, 22 October 2017 (UTC)
I assume that Jytdog's complaint (i.e., "now we have to summarize in a second place and maintain that as well") is related to the presence of the [Edit on Wikidata] button rather than the presence of, e.g., |specialty=rheumatology in the wikitext for the Arthritis article. Perhaps I'm wrong. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:14, 22 October 2017 (UTC)
We have no plans to use Wikidata to any greater extent within this template. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 18:55, 23 October 2017 (UTC)
User:WhatamIdoing your assumption is incorrect. My concern is plainly said - namely the redundancy. The real work is building and maintaining high quality, well-sourced content in the body of the article (there is SO MUCH work to do there). There is then subsequent work to summarize the body in the LEAD. Now we have additional subsidiary work to summarize in a second place, in a different more pixelated way, and now we get new arguments about that summary, as well as people coming by and just dumping shit in there (probably because infoboxes in so many articles contain unsourced "claims"). I am not seeing the value for the time that this new infobox takes to maintain much less populate in the first place. Jytdog (talk) 19:33, 23 October 2017 (UTC)
  • See a summary of previous discussion at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Medicine/Archive_97#Previous_discussion_of_medical_infoboxes. In my opinion, setting good rules for the infoboxes is one of WikiProject Medicine's more significant and controversial challenges. I think there are powerful arguments in support and in opposition to changes. I feel that both support and opposition should make compromises. It is difficult for me to say who should compromise what. Jytdog started this conversation thread, so I will confirm their concern and criticism that the use of Wikidata in infoboxes does impair quality control, increase risk of vandalism, disrupt the established review process, create a power vacuum where uncertain players can gain control of article content, and make an uncertain future for traditional Wikipedia editing. The most certain opinion that I can add to the situation is that I feel that the conversation is becoming complex and that eventually I think we need a list of pros / cons / costs / benefits and some drawn boundaries about what can change experimentally, permanently, or not at all. It is difficult to enter this conversation in a haphazard way. Choosing to change, choosing to not change, or avoiding the choice seem like all the possible options and none of those seem entirely attractive to me. Blue Rasberry (talk) 17:20, 23 October 2017 (UTC)
Before I will support any further usage of WD within WP I require the ability to watchlist ****ONLY**** the items used within WP. For all the pro WD folks this ****DOES NOT MEAN**** the ability to watchlist the entire property (yes yes I know this already exists but it overruns my watchlist with stuff I do not care about and thus is useless to me). I have been requesting this for years and I continue to wait.
I however do not think this is the concern that Jyt is raising. I think his issue is simple having a brief summary to add to all the other stuff we need to keep an eye on. The new box has been rolled out to more than 500 articles, all of which I keep an eye on and issues have only occurred in a couple. That I would say is a low level of issues. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 18:59, 23 October 2017 (UTC)
yes you got it on the issues. Jytdog (talk) 19:37, 23 October 2017 (UTC)
i have come to feel like flyer's concerns were correct, when we discussed this back in april here. am not calling to go backwards but am not happy with what we decided either... Jytdog (talk) 20:05, 23 October 2017 (UTC)
User:Flyer22 Reborn your thoughts remain the same? Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 04:15, 24 October 2017 (UTC)
Yeah, even though I have gotten used to the type of thing currently seen at the Cancer article. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 02:28, 25 October 2017 (UTC)
WikiProject Medicine/Archive 103
The goal of the prior move was to move the identifiers and the external links to the end of the article. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 22:09, 26 October 2017 (UTC)

Almost funny, Universal blood

I'm not sure if I'm understanding this correctly:

  • "Experienced on rabbits, Gernez recommends to use a spray on toddlers. Volunteers for a strongest human specie depend on parents, corporations and institutions."

This can't possibly be true. Barbara (WVS) ✐ ✉ 13:50, 27 October 2017 (UTC)

Ya, that seems like something that needs a root and branch rewriting if we want to keep it at all, as it is it seems to mish-mash some slightly different concepts. And none of the sources seem MEDRS compliant. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 15:01, 27 October 2017 (UTC)
Yep, that entire article is problematic. The parts that are reality-based are mostly too poorly described to be comprehensible; the parts referring to Andre Gernez are just...wrong. See also André Gernez, incidentally, which presents some cancer-curing nonsense along with misunderstood/misrepresented/missing sources and should be drastically edited. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 15:21, 27 October 2017 (UTC)
I'm not understanding the article at all. Is there any science hiding in the confusing text, or is this some clearly pseudoscientific nonsense? Natureium (talk) 15:24, 27 October 2017 (UTC)
There is a bit of science there ("universal blood donors" and "the problem of making blood that can be transfused to anyone without the problems of immunological incompatibility") but it's buried deep. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 15:33, 27 October 2017 (UTC)
(edit conflict) Redirected to Blood type#Universal donors and universal recipients which explains the concept of "O negative" without all the woo. There's theoretically a viable article to be written about the concept of synthetic blood, or converting existing blood to O negative so it can be used more widely, but this gibberish wasn't it. ‑ Iridescent 15:35, 27 October 2017 (UTC)
(ec) There's a couple of different flavors of "universal blood" that the article tries (more or less badly) to describe. One involves various strategies to modify normal human blood to prevent it from provoking an immune response when given to an ABO-type mismatched recipient. This so-called "universal" blood is normal blood that has been processed to either remove or render inaccessible the A and B surface antigens. (Another approach is to generate blood cells from scratch, entirely in vitro, by growing and differentiating stem cells in the lab.) There's a bit of overlap with the scope of blood substitute.
The other, quackier flavor is the first paragraph, which is a total mess. I think what they're trying to suggest is that using a suitable magic spray (applied during infancy) one can train one's immune system to tolerate non-ABO-matched blood (and improve rates of organ transplant success, and reduce allergies, and so forth); the recipient of this treatment will have "universal blood" that is compatible with everything. Ahem. As near as I can tell, this is based on a misunderstanding, mispresentation, or wildly unwarranted speculation rooted in the fact that infants often tolerate non-ABO-matched transplant organs with little rejection. (Loosely speaking, the immature immune system hasn't nailed down the self/non-self distinction very firmly.)
I'd say the first category of stuff is broadly worth covering. We need to be watchful for overoptimisitc, promotional biotech assertions about how these blood products are revolutionary and just around the corner, though. The second category is just junk. There is plenty that's worth writing about how the early immune system adapts to foreign tissue, or how adult immune responses might be modulated by early exposure to antigens—but there's nothing here that will help accomplish that. In both cases, it's possible that all the material would be better presented in the context of another existing article. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 16:07, 27 October 2017 (UTC)
Redirect looks look. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 00:28, 28 October 2017 (UTC)

Sedentary lifestyle article

Any thoughts on this edit by 3trist (talk · contribs)? Maybe 3trist is a WP:Student editor? Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 01:59, 27 October 2017 (UTC)

Large amounts of the added content are off topic. It has the look of cut&paste from a term paper or may be plagiarized. I reverted the edit and asked 3trist to visit the Talk page to make a case for adding it to the article . --Zefr (talk) 03:44, 27 October 2017 (UTC)
Assuming that it wasn't copy-pasted from elsewhere, it appeared essay-like with too much repetition. It otherwise was pretty good. There were some brand names mentioned which might have appeared promotional, but it was then followed by no conclusive evidence mentions, etc. If it's not plagiarism and is to be restored, it should probably be shortened. —PaleoNeonate – 16:07, 27 October 2017 (UTC)
I agree with the sentiments above, but I'd like us to address this question: "Is the version of the article after 3trist's edit an improvement on what was before?" Because, barring a copyvio, we usually benefit more by cleaning up and copyediting these sort of contributions than simply rejecting them. Having something to work with is surely better than having nothing, particularly in an article that has had no substantial content added (and kept) since 5 May 2012. --RexxS (talk) 22:40, 27 October 2017 (UTC)
Post script: Zefr has very helpfully engaged with 3trist at Talk:Sedentary lifestyle #New section on the sedentary work environment. Kudos to 3trist for going to the talk page, and for Zefr for being so helpful. This is how we'll create our next generation of medical editors. Hopefully some more of us will keep an eye on the article. --RexxS (talk) 22:58, 27 October 2017 (UTC)
There is no copyvio, according to an admin, but the edit by 3trist was an excerpt from a class assignment, as described in the Talk discussion. I requested a trimmed-down version that is more on-topic for "lifestyle" as opposed to workplace behavior which was 80% of the edit. There are few solid MEDRS sources for this topic. --Zefr (talk) 23:08, 27 October 2017 (UTC)
Thank you guys for having a look. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 02:40, 28 October 2017 (UTC)

Reference no longer accessible

The journal reference cited in the article is no longer accessible at the link provided. Is there a way to update this to indicate that?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pink_lady_(medicine)

Wesnotcrusher (talk) 02:59, 28 October 2017 (UTC)

[5]apparently done though the source indicates 2003...--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 10:25, 28 October 2017 (UTC)

Synonyms

Pathological fracture of humerus

Is "low-trauma fracture" always a synonym for pathologic fracture? Could a redirect between these two terms be accurate? Are there any medical dictionaries that MEDRS might be able to recommend? --122.108.141.214 (talk) 01:21, 15 October 2017 (UTC)

I don't think it's the same thing. You might be interested in PMID 21698358 or PMID 28161747 (lists non-osteoporosis causes, including drugs, which do not appear to be considered pathologic fractures). This 2005 piece provides a definition: "Low-trauma fracture was defined as a fracture resulting from a fall from a standing position or lower." The definition suggests that it can't be considered a synonym of pathologic fractures, as there's always going to be the odd case of bad luck/landing badly. Toddlers sometimes break their collar bones by rolling out of bed, and that's likely to count as "from a standing position or lower" and unlikely to be associated with any disease process.
I'm not absolutely certain how a stress fracture fits into this system, but it can suddenly go from a minor hairline problem to a complete break – and if that happens in one of the bones that you use for standing, then falling down would not be an unreasonable outcome. Which reminds me of a view of hip fractures that I heard decades ago from an EMT: when you find an elderly woman on the ground, and her hip is broken, it's hard to tell whether she fell down and broke her hip, or if her hip broke, so she fell down.
PMID 22095911 is also interesting: obesity has long been considered to protect against osteoporosis (the assumed cause of pathologic fractures unless another process is known), but it may be more accurate to say that obese women break their upper arms rather than their wrists. The cause(s) seemed to be unknown, but I assume that "because when you have that much weight land on your 80-year-old humerus, it might crack even if the bone seemed just fine until then" is among the causes being considered. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:11, 15 October 2017 (UTC)
Thank you for your detailed response. I've also come across "fragility fractures" in my readings, apparently discussing similar concepts which does redirect to pathological fractures, so I wasn't sure. The last thing I want to do is to create a synonym where none exists. I'll have to have a read - maybe low-trauma fractures should be mentioned at Bone fracture. --122.108.141.214 (talk) 07:07, 15 October 2017 (UTC)
[6]right it is... there are variations on the redirects as well[7]--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 11:11, 16 October 2017 (UTC)
I think that a pathological fracture could also occur with higher trauma. Axl ¤ [Talk] 15:08, 18 October 2017 (UTC)


Medical Source - Pizzo

Hello, a source called Pizzo [1] is used 10 times in Water fluoridation and its usage has been discussed on the talk page Talk:Water_fluoridation#NPOV_issues_in_controversy_section. I would like to read the source to verify if the source speaks to safety of fluoridation. The abstract does not speak to safety, and thus I want to verify the full article to comply with WP:NOABSTRACT. Maybe someone could also please assist with the formatting of this wikimedicine section formatting so the source link is shown inline in this section, intead of at the end of this project page (since I don't know how to to that). Thanks! Jtbobwaysf (talk) 06:56, 28 October 2017 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject_Resource_Exchange/Resource_Request--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 10:20, 28 October 2017 (UTC)
The DOI links to the source, but it is not free. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 16:07, 28 October 2017 (UTC)
@Jtbobwaysf: The resource exchange is good starting point to get full text. However, please don't attempt to put external links inline in an article. References are customarily displayed in the reference section, and there is general antipathy to external urls in the body of any article, even more so for a featured article. --RexxS (talk) 17:39, 28 October 2017 (UTC)
@RexxS: I will post at the resource exchange when I have some time, thanks for that suggestion. The link I was referring to appears to have been added by another editor, I was referring to adding {reflist-talk} at the end of this discussion section on this page (not the article in question). I had just forgot how to do this this reflist talk, but anyhow it is solved now, or maybe the system added it automatically. Jtbobwaysf (talk) 03:02, 30 October 2017 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ Pizzo G, Piscopo MR, Pizzo I, Giuliana G. Community water fluoridation and caries prevention: a critical review. Clin Oral Investig. 2007;11(3):189–93. doi:10.1007/s00784-007-0111-6. PMID 17333303.

Graphs to depict harm from substances

RfC here Talk:Substance_abuse#Comparison_of_risks Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 01:25, 30 October 2017 (UTC)



Self-induced abortion and Medical abortion articles

Eyes are needed at Self-induced abortion (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) and Medical abortion (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views). Socking and poor sourcing has been going at these articles. See, for example, MalluMalleus (talk · contribs). LPSingh (talk · contribs) is now involved, and Jim1138 has been handling all of this by his lonesome. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 23:07, 25 October 2017 (UTC)

And here we have ModiBhakt786 (talk · contribs) calling LPSingh a sock when ModiBhakt786 is also clearly a sock. Just a big mess. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 23:14, 25 October 2017 (UTC)

The articles now seem to have been restored to an earlier state, which is a mixed blessing. I think that LPSingh (talk · contribs · logs) has made the mistake of trying to do too much in too short a time, but seems genuinely interested in improving the topics (even if I wouldn't necessarily agree with her emphasis at each point). I've left a note on her talk page and hopefully she'll take it more slowly and use the talk page to discuss more. Obviously the more editors who can find time to engage on those articles, the more chance they will be updated and improved. --RexxS (talk) 00:48, 26 October 2017 (UTC)
Thanks for having a look, RexxS, and getting involved. I don't usually edit the abortion articles, although I can help with some things regarding these matters. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 02:41, 26 October 2017 (UTC)
@RexxS and Flyer22 Reborn: Interesting: Reddit - Indian religious group files statutory complaint against Wikipedia for promoting genocide on poor Indians Found on Talk:Self-induced abortion#Self-induced Abortion and the horrors of failed attempts at self-induction Singora, as far as I can see never edited a medical article. Whereas LPSingh has only edited abortion and related articles Jim1138 (talk) 05:00, 26 October 2017 (UTC)
Reddit post was deleted. Jim1138 (talk) 05:06, 27 October 2017 (UTC)
IP blocked as a sock
  • Firstly, On 23.Oct 2017, the Dean of Seth GS Medical College Mumbai has confirmed that they have no student as Lakshmi Singh and neither do they support the activities of this editor. A copy of this email was sent to WMF Legal / Eileen Hershenov (General Counsel, Wikimedia Foundation Inc.)
  • Secondly, the reddit thread was deleted because it contained the email IDs and physical addresses of certain people (notionally doxxing). The entire complaint can be read here. FYI, self induced abortions are illegal in India and it is a cognisable criminal offence.
  • Thirdly, "impersonation" is a contravention of WMF's Terms of Use. 101.60.182.85 (talk) 07:04, 27 October 2017 (UTC)
Ah legal threats against me. They could have at least pinged me or emailed me directly about it. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 00:32, 28 October 2017 (UTC)
By the way does India seriously have a law against advertising birth control "The law prohibits advertising of drugs and remedies... for preventing conception in women"?
Looks legit[8] Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 00:48, 28 October 2017 (UTC)
Hi Doc James (talk · contribs). The problem is that genuine editors who point out serious content issues and impersonation (a ToU violation) on Wikipdia get blocked by corrupt Wikipedia admins like Drmies (talk · contribs) for doing so diff. I wonder why Drmies did not ping you or inform the MEDRES board with this information that (LPSingh) is impersonating as 'Lakshmi Singh ' a student of Seth GS Medical College, Mumbai (India). In India abortion is treated as induced miscarriage (a criminal offence punishable with upto 7 years imprisonment) unless done to save the life of the woman and carried out under the treatment of a registered medical practitioner. Since a formal complaint to Govt of India has already been made in this matter consequent to the action of your administrator Drmies Grievance portal of India : Complaint no.DHLTH/E/2017/06808 it remains to be seen if Wikipedia takes corrective steps. 101.63.148.5 (talk) 02:32, 28 October 2017 (UTC)
Someone makes legal threats and they get blocked. Drmies block is policy. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 02:38, 28 October 2017 (UTC)
Someone reporting a specific violation of WMF ToU and that somebody else apparently intends to sue WMF over it is not making a legal threat. The issue here is whether Drmies pinged you with this report where you are specifically named as potentially involved. BTW what steps are you taking to independently verify if LPSingh is a student of Seth GS Medical College as she claims ?
Additionally, the reporter is a Checkuser verified sockpuppet of indeffed user Singora. .101.63.148.5 (talk) 03:18, 28 October 2017 (UTC)
You're talking complete bollocks. There's no violation of ToU. Who is user:LPSingh impersonating? Nobody. No editor is required to use their real name, but at least LPSingh isn't an anonymous coward like you. Have the courage to log in with your registered username, if it isn't already blocked. Your characterisation of Drmies is a clear personal attack and your IP probably need to be blocked to prevent further attacks. Nobody should be digging into other editor's personal lives, so nobody will be taking any steps to verify any personal information. It's not germane to the user's edits and your attempt to pry and doxx is certainly worthy of a block. --RexxS (talk) 03:37, 28 October 2017 (UTC)
The User:LPSingh has claimed on the account's user page to be "Lakshmi Singh" a student of Seth GS Medixcal College, Mumbai (India). Yet her edits were those of a seasoned shill for big time pharma promoting a certain abortion regimen. The Dean of Seth GS Medical Colleg Mumbai has already confirmed (incl. to WMF Legal) that they have no such student as Lakshmi Singh, and that even if LPSingh turns out to be their student (under an alias) they do not approve of his/her actions since it is illegal and criminal under Indian law. Why is the name of Seth GS college (the #1 medical college of Mumbai) being invoked to sanctify these promotions for self-induced abortion in India at the instance of a Dutch NGO financed by HIVOS ? Seth GS Medical College has already complained to WMF Legal's Eileen H. about this episode / impersonation. Furthermore, if dangerous medical information (by a supposedly educational US registered charitable Foundation) is being published by unverifed, non-peer reviewed, anonymous people it is all the more reason for the Indian Govt. to block this website.
For the benefit of uninvolved editors of this project, I am summarising the Indian law on this. If User:LPSingh is actually a student of Seth GS Medical College (India), then she will very likely be expelled for her editing here. Or, as is more likely, LPSingh turns out to be a Conflicted editor impersonating (which under India law includes fictional / imaginary characters) as a qualified medical professional/abortion specialist/student of OB.Gyn etc, she is additionally punishable under section 66-D of the Information Technology Act for cheating by impersonating by using computer resource. Lastly, the tiny standard 'disclaimer' at the foot of each article means doodly squat under Indian law. 101.63.148.5 (talk) 03:51, 28 October 2017 (UTC)
Let me see if I can get this past your inability to comprehend English: It doesn't matter who User:LPSingh claims to be. I claim to be a 65 million year-old dinosaur who survived the K-T extinction. So what? Her edits were nothing like a seasoned pharma shill – and believe me, I've seen plenty of those. Anybody looking at her edits will see that they are far more like those of a student attempting to write an essay on a topic in which they are interested. It doesn't matter what the Dean of some Indian college allegedly disapproves of; their opinion has less weight here even than yours. You're wrong on another point: the Indian government is not going to block Wikipedia on the say-so of the paranoid imaginings of some deranged stalker.
If any uninvolved editors ever read this – which I doubt – they should understand that this is Wikipedia, not Mumbai, and Indian law has no jurisdiction here. Naturally, nobody here actually gives a shit about your warped opinion of the standard disclaimer. Hope that's clear enough this time, even for you. --RexxS (talk) 17:04, 29 October 2017 (UTC)
Let me know if any further socks appear. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 15:10, 29 October 2017 (UTC)
More issues Barrmann Some of the edits are okayish. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 20:48, 30 October 2017 (UTC)

Does anyone have institutional access to textbooks on the McGraw-Hill Medical website?

Resolved

I need these three textbook chapters: [9][10][11]. Seppi333 (Insert 2¢) 00:01, 30 October 2017 (UTC)

 Done Emailed! The online formatting is a bit weird, so let me know if everything came out alright. Ajpolino (talk) 00:16, 30 October 2017 (UTC)
@Ajpolino: Thanks! I know downloading each chapter section is a bit tedious, so I really appreciate it. Would you be able to resend them though? I don't appear to have received the email. Just in case it went to the wrong address, my email is commented out in the source after this sentence. Seppi333 (Insert 2¢) 00:24, 30 October 2017 (UTC)
Edit: Nevermind, I literally just received it. That took a while to go through. Seppi333 (Insert 2¢) 00:25, 30 October 2017 (UTC)
@Ajpolino: I noticed that the "Reinforcement and Addictive Disorders" chapter contains a LOT of updates even though it wasn't marked as "Updated" in the book's table of contents page. Since I've cited the second edition of this textbook at least once in many of the neuroscience, psychology, and pharmacology articles that I've edited on Wikipedia (e.g., Special:Search/insource:"Molecular Neuropharmacology: A Foundation for Clinical Neuroscience" – 85 of the 88 page results in the article and template namespaces contain citations to the 2nd edition that I added), I think I should probably update the text with the newer edition. I think roughly half of those articles contain multiple citations to different parts the previous edition. So, would you be willing to send me the 9 other chapters of this textbook which I've cited from the 2nd edition? I know downloading and uploading each chapter is time-consuming, so if you're busy I can ask at WP:RX; however, if you can get those for me, I would really appreciate it!
The 9 other chapters I would need to update those articles are: Chapter 1, Chapter 4, Chapter 5, Chapter 7, Chapter 8, Chapter 10, Chapter 13, Chapter 14, and Chapter 15. I haven't cited the remaining chapters of the textbook on Wikipedia, so I won't need those. Seppi333 (Insert 2¢) 00:20, 31 October 2017 (UTC)
@Seppi333: Of course, will be able to get to it in a few hours! Ajpolino (talk) 00:27, 31 October 2017 (UTC)
Thanks!!! Seppi333 (Insert 2¢) 00:35, 31 October 2017 (UTC)

Issue with sources

Talk:Daniel Freeman (psychologist) Peoples thoughts? Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 17:46, 30 October 2017 (UTC)


I've toned down the the claim and tagged it as needing a secondary source. --RexxS (talk) 13:27, 31 October 2017 (UTC)

Video raster stereography trimmed much already. Others thoughts? No reviews on pubmed at least not under the name of the article. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 04:52, 30 October 2017 (UTC)

perhaps best to delete...IMO--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 11:14, 30 October 2017 (UTC)
It seems to be called "raster stereography" in some sources, and it is mentioned in books such as Healthcare, Informa; Karwowski, Waldemar (2006-03-15). International Encyclopedia of Ergonomics and Human Factors, Second Edition - 3 Volume Set. CRC Press. ISBN 9780849375477. and Hefti, Fritz (2007-05-02). Pediatric Orthopedics in Practice. Springer Science & Business Media. ISBN 9783540699644..
I'm not sure how much there is to say about it, but I am not sure that we could find a suitable merge target. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:16, 30 October 2017 (UTC)
Proposed merger to Structured-light 3D scanner. It's just one of many applications.LeadSongDog come howl! 17:02, 30 October 2017 (UTC)
Have merged. Also zero reviews for the other term[12] Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 20:43, 30 October 2017 (UTC)
The existence of recent review articles is not a requirement for tools to be notable. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:44, 31 October 2017 (UTC)

Queen's University Student Editing: Update

Dr. Murray posted here about a month ago about the student editing initiative at Queen's University. Starting tomorrow (Oct 31st) the students will be adding their suggested content to the talk pages of the articles.

I will flag all 16 articles on this talk page once the content is posted, and if anyone is interested in commenting or contributing, your expertise would be greatly appreciated.

Summary: 16 student groups will have a list of suggested changes to 16 Wikipedia articles. They will not be editing the actual article until November 15th, but are being instructed to follow the talk page and participate in the discussion. Note: The students will practice inserting citations using the PMID tool (in their sandboxes) before editing the talk page.

If you have any suggestions on other ways that I can ensure this process is smooth and productive, I appreciate all feedback.

Thank you! Jenny. JenOttawa (talk) 14:53, 30 October 2017 (UTC)

@JenOttawa: thanks for the heads-up. As this page gets archived quite quickly, could you remind us of a link to the course dashboard, please? A list of the 16 student groups' usernames would be very helpful as well, if you have that information. I would be happy to have any of the students contact me on my talk page if they run into difficulties that they can't figure out. Cheers --RexxS (talk) 15:50, 30 October 2017 (UTC)
Hi @RexxS: thanks for touching base and for offering to help. Here is the link to the course page. I have given them an example of what to write on the talk pages there as well. Link
One student from each group will be editing the talk pages, so at this time I am not certain which group representative (6 or 7 students/group) will be actually performing the talk page edit. They each have their own Wikipedia accounts. I will know more after tomorrow's in-class session.
Thanks again!
JenOttawa (talk) 15:57, 30 October 2017 (UTC)
Thanks, Jen. The dashboard at Wiki Edu is very useful; the only comment I'd make is that the instructions don't seem to discriminate between the article's talk page and the student's talk page. I'm pretty sure the instruction "Monitor your talk page over the next week for community responses, before preparing your assignment to hand in. Please respond to any feedback on your talk page ..." ought to read "Monitor the article's talk page over the next week for community responses, before preparing your assignment to hand in. Please respond to any feedback on the article's talk page ...". Perhaps they might be directed to monitor both talk pages, as you can't be sure where other editors will leave feedback. Your examples at User:JenOttawa/Assignment 3 Template for Talk Page are spot-on and ought to go a long way towards avoiding the students' work being reverted. Cheers --RexxS (talk) 18:21, 30 October 2017 (UTC)
Excellent suggestions @RexxS:, thank you for taking the time to read through the course page!JenOttawa (talk) 23:57, 30 October 2017 (UTC)
I should add, Dr. Murray did the majority of the work setting up the course, before I take credit for all the work on the dashboard. I hope that this initiative moves us forward towards our common goal: improving the content and quality of the medical-related Wikipedia pages. If we can encourage more medical experts to contribute to Wikipedia, that would be great as well!JenOttawa (talk) 01:57, 31 October 2017 (UTC)
By way of making it easier to "monitor your talk page": Do the students know that they can add an e-mail address to their accounts, put the pages on their watchlists, and set their prefs to send them an e-mail message when the page is changed? The prefs setting is almost at the end of the main/first Special:Preferences page. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:46, 31 October 2017 (UTC)
Good point. I have demonstrated this to a couple of the groups but will mention this again today. Thanks @WhatamIdoing:. JenOttawa (talk) 18:43, 31 October 2017 (UTC)

Suicide terminology: "committed"?

Your opinion regarding the proper style of language to use when discussing suicide would be appreciated at the Manual of Style guideline. Mathglot (talk) 02:06, 31 October 2017 (UTC)


more opinions(gave mine)--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 22:17, 31 October 2017 (UTC)

RCT looking at the reliability of WP published

[13] Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 15:56, 31 October 2017 (UTC)

Nice. Going to follow up with a second dose-response study measuring the educational value for x hours of editing? LeadSongDog come howl! 16:45, 31 October 2017 (UTC)
well done--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 16:47, 31 October 2017 (UTC)
Thanks for sharing this. Great work! JenOttawa (talk) 18:42, 31 October 2017 (UTC)
User:LeadSongDog seeing that this trial took 6 years... Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 23:30, 31 October 2017 (UTC)
lol, trial took 2 years. 4 years was convincing my institution that this wasn't unethical!! -- Samir 03:16, 1 November 2017 (UTC)

Draft:Kate Tietje or Modern Alternative Mama

—PaleoNeonate – 23:30, 31 October 2017 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Notabilitydoesn't seem to be met ..IMO--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 20:06, 1 November 2017 (UTC)

Nervoheel

Nervoheel is marketed as a natural mood enhancer that can support the body in coping with stress. —PaleoNeonate – 03:39, 2 November 2017 (UTC)

Note: An in-article reference to it was found here: Strychnos_ignatii#cite_note-3. —PaleoNeonate – 03:43, 2 November 2017 (UTC)
Failed draft. Will hopefully stay at draft. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 10:21, 2 November 2017 (UTC)

Australia has stopped paying for a bunch of alt med

Per here Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 11:01, 2 November 2017 (UTC)

good decision--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 21:54, 2 November 2017 (UTC)

Draft:Dr. Nandini Sharma

A new homeopath bio draft. —PaleoNeonate – 03:37, 2 November 2017 (UTC)

this[14] does not reference the text...IMO--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 21:58, 2 November 2017 (UTC)

Predatory publishing might be symbiosis

I wonder how many of these end up in peoples lists of publications on WP? Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 21:51, 2 November 2017 (UTC)

agree[16]--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 10:43, 3 November 2017 (UTC)

Sugar Bear Hair Vitamins

Unusual, this one does not promote the product. However I didn't easily find more sources about it (possibly a non-notable product)? —PaleoNeonate – 21:52, 2 November 2017 (UTC)

Spam.I stand corrected Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 05:11, 3 November 2017 (UTC)
Actually James, it's anti-spam! The drafter is outlining what is wrong with the website promoting the product. Sadly, it's original research, but we ought to encourage Scamslayer – there's obvious potential there. --RexxS (talk) 20:11, 3 November 2017 (UTC)
Opps yes. It is poorly / unreferenced is the issue. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 03:42, 4 November 2017 (UTC)

Ghazala Mulla

Integrative and alternative medicine, new bio, I'm unable to find sources in large papers; maybe others know better. —PaleoNeonate – 23:14, 3 November 2017 (UTC)

Not much beyond a couple of mentions as a speaker at altmed conferences; most sourcing is self-published. I've sent it to AfD: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Ghazala Mulla. --RexxS (talk) 23:59, 3 November 2017 (UTC)
Thanks, —PaleoNeonate – 04:07, 4 November 2017 (UTC)

Merge

Fibrocystic

This are basically the same from what I understand. We should likely merge. Others thoughts? Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 05:11, 3 November 2017 (UTC)


  • support a merge, they are in fact quite similar...IMO--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 11:12, 3 November 2017 (UTC)
  • Comment I know it's not a diagnostic tool, and has fallen out-of-date on certain conditions; but the ICD-10 does give differing codes for each condition. I would argue that WHO, at least, views them as distinct/separate conditions. Obviously MEDRS applies; so if the literature treats them the same... Little pob (talk) 13:46, 3 November 2017 (UTC)
I will research the issue more Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 03:43, 4 November 2017 (UTC)
Appears to be sufficiently different to keep seperate.[17] In need of more clarification. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 07:13, 4 November 2017 (UTC)

Oncothermia

Please see WP:FTN#Oncothermia. Thanks, —PaleoNeonate – 16:07, 5 November 2017 (UTC)

It's just a bare complaint about the quality of the journals being cited. I haven't looked, and the IP doesn't specify, so I don't know whether it indicates real problems, or merely a mistaken belief that a niche journal will have the same WP:Impact factor as a general journal. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:08, 5 November 2017 (UTC)
I noticed that some OMICS sources were already removed, those may have been the ones. —PaleoNeonate – 18:57, 5 November 2017 (UTC)
I've blanked and turned it back into a redirect to hyperthermia therapy (which could also use a bit of love and attention). The entire contents of oncothermia were copy-pasted by anons from the website of a company called Oncotherm, almost certainly with a promotional intent and totally undisclosed conflict of interest. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 01:55, 6 November 2017 (UTC)
Thanks, —PaleoNeonate – 02:41, 6 November 2017 (UTC)

2017 best article prize (WikiJournal of Medicine)

There are 8 weeks left to submit an article to the WikiJournal of Medicine for it to be eligible for the 2017 prize. For more information, see this advertisment from January or visit this author information page.

T.Shafee(Evo&Evo)talk 04:23, 7 November 2017 (UTC)

great opportunity!--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 11:06, 7 November 2017 (UTC)

Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing

A few years back when noticing the first article I wondered if it wasn't fringe promotion. Today it was added to the pseudoscience category which reminded me of it. More eyes welcome, —PaleoNeonate – 16:50, 5 November 2017 (UTC)

Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) for PTSD/U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs...interesting(added "see also" section)--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 21:02, 6 November 2017 (UTC)
It's now CSD tagged, but since it's PTSD related: Draft:Wordcommando (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) —PaleoNeonate – 04:54, 7 November 2017 (UTC)
At this point in the history of the treatment, the criticisms emphasized in the recent editing in both articles are fringy. This is a relatively recent change in how EMDR is viewed, and I wouldn't be surprised if the perceptions swung again after more research is published. While I've not kept up with all the discussions and editing, I believe all the substantial criticisms were published outside MEDRS date requirements, so those criticisms should be treated as minority viewpoints. --Ronz (talk) 17:21, 7 November 2017 (UTC)
yes true, sometimes perceptions swing again--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 17:49, 7 November 2017 (UTC)
Surely the categorisation as pseudoscience is inconsistent with endorsement by WHO, NICE, SAMHSA, and the other organisations listed at EMDR#Position_statements? Also the guidance at Category:Pseudoscience: "Generally speaking, if an article belongs in this category, the article's lead will contain a well-sourced statement that the subject is considered pseudoscience." Adrian J. Hunter(talk•contribs) 23:40, 7 November 2017 (UTC)
Exactly. I've removed it from the category and removed much of the changes to both articles as POV and MEDRS violations. --Ronz (talk) 00:53, 8 November 2017 (UTC)

Galactooligosaccharide

spammy dietary supplement article that could use love. i will try to get to it in due course but perhaps someone can get there earlier. Jytdog (talk) 19:30, 7 November 2017 (UTC)

books?--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 00:51, 9 November 2017 (UTC)

Hysterical strength

This gives me a headache and I wouldn't even know where to begin to make things right. The editing history of the most recent editor makes for interesting reading and gives a clue to why the article exists in its present form. Best Regards, Barbara (WVS) ✐ ✉ 01:28, 9 November 2017 (UTC)

Ya, that seems to give too much weight to non-MEDRS sources. Granted, it is a topic that is more likely to get attention in the popular press rather than the medical one. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 17:13, 9 November 2017 (UTC)
I also noticed this but because of the WP:SKEPTIC untagging, I have retagged it for monitoring, but can't work on that article at current time myself. —PaleoNeonate – 07:31, 10 November 2017 (UTC)
Should it simple be merged with "strength" as a subsection? Trim all the primary sources / pop press. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 08:08, 10 November 2017 (UTC)

Community wish list is open

For applications Here Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 08:33, 10 November 2017 (UTC)


give opinion(gave mine[18])--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 11:01, 11 November 2017 (UTC)

Ref spamming

Accounts spamming this author ("Kyle BD"). Ref does not support the text it is added to.

Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 08:16, 11 November 2017 (UTC)

8 papers...--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 02:30, 12 November 2017 (UTC)

Addiction suppression

This article was created today.

Is anyone willing to go through this article and do a WP:MEDRS+WP:V check? Whatever is left following a reference check should be merged into Addiction#Research. I'd be fine with doing the merger, but I don't really feel like checking the references for MEDRS and WP:V at the moment. Seppi333 (Insert 2¢) 21:45, 31 October 2017 (UTC)

Edit: Nevermind, it's been nominated for deletion due to copyright infringement. Seppi333 (Insert 2¢) 23:32, 31 October 2017 (UTC)
This ref does not even mention the topic in question.[19] Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 01:35, 1 November 2017 (UTC)
The source it is copied from is under an open license.
But the references do not say the things they are attached too. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 01:39, 1 November 2017 (UTC)
@Doc James: If the articles used images that were CC-BY-SA-4.0 from the source, that would be okay. But, the text of a CC-BY-SA-4.0-copyrighted source can't be published under CC-BY-SA-3.0 if it's reproduced verbatim because CC-BY-SA-4.0 requires that the republication be licensed under CC-BY-SA-4.0. That's required by the share-alike (SA) portion of the license: "ShareAlike — If you remix, transform, or build upon the material, you must distribute your contributions under the same license as the original.". All Wikipedia articles are published under CC-BY-SA-3.0, so, despite the fact that the 3.0 and 4.0 licenses having almost the same licensing terms, the non-compliance with the SA clause in that license technically is copyright infringement. That's why it was nominated for deletion for copyright infringement. Seppi333 (Insert 2¢) 01:48, 1 November 2017 (UTC)
We are moving to CC BY SA 4.0 soon. The article should be deleted because it is poorly referenced not because of copyright issues. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 01:51, 1 November 2017 (UTC)
Fair enough. I haven't looked at the references, but it'd probably be deleted faster for copyvio than for lack of notability as an independent article. Seppi333 (Insert 2¢) 01:56, 1 November 2017 (UTC)
It is bad regardless. This route will keep it deleted longer as when WP goes CC BY SA 4.0 than the copyright reason will follow away. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 02:00, 1 November 2017 (UTC)

Wikipedia:FAQ/Copyright #Can I add something to Wikipedia that I got from somewhere else? The table shows CC-BY-SA 4.0 as not compatible with CC-BY-SA 3.0. However the associated footnote states "According to the WMF legal team, CC BY-SA 4.0 is not backwards compatible with CC BY-SA 3.0. Therefore, mixing text licenses under 3.0 and 4.0 would be problematic, however media files uploaded under this license are fine." The licence is backwards compatible for images, but not for text??? How much are we paying these people? --RexxS (talk) 21:46, 1 November 2017 (UTC)

The reason it's fine for images but not text is that images can be published under a 4.0 license on Wikimedia Commons as well as on Wikipedia, but, as per the the WMF's terms of use, all text on WP is licensed under 3.0 by default. Also, the 4.0 license is forwards compatible with the 3.0 license, but not backwards compatible; so, text published under 3.0 can be published under 4.0, but not vice versa. See https://creativecommons.org/share-your-work/licensing-considerations/compatible-licenses for further information about this. Seppi333 (Insert 2¢) 01:43, 2 November 2017 (UTC)
So the situation is that images published under a CC-BY-SA 4.0 licence on another website (e.g. Commons) are ok to include in a Wikipedia article, but text that's published under a CC-BY-SA 4.0 licence on another website is not ok to include in a Wikipedia article. Got it. Is it just me that thinks that there a teeny little bit of contradiction there? --RexxS (talk) 03:22, 2 November 2017 (UTC)
Yup that is why I would not delete it based on copyright. That copyright rule is silly. There are better reasons to delete. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 10:24, 2 November 2017 (UTC)

French Wikipedia

Analysis of their medical content finds a less than 2% error rate.[21] Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 14:09, 12 November 2017 (UTC)

very skilled--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 14:20, 12 November 2017 (UTC)
It did only analyse five articles, but nevertheless quite impressive. I note that he cites James' articles, Quantifying Readership, Editors, and the Significance of Natural Language (2015), and A Key Tool for Global Public Health Promotion (2011). --RexxS (talk) 19:19, 12 November 2017 (UTC)

Queen's University Student Editing: Active Talk Page Suggestions

Students have begun to post their content on the talk pages of their articles. Thanks to those that have already noticed and commented. If you are interested in checking it out or have any suggestions related to the content that they are suggesting, please take a look. If you did not see the previous post, please see it here (above) for an overview of the approach we are taking. Talk Pages:

Thanks again to all of you for your patience, feedback, and suggestions. JenOttawa (talk) 13:54, 7 November 2017 (UTC)

their doing great at Talk:Encephalitis--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 17:52, 7 November 2017 (UTC)
I did two and marked them. Jytdog (talk) 03:39, 8 November 2017 (UTC)
Thanks for updating this @Jytdog:, it was a good idea. I commented on the Neural Tube Defect article. If anyone has a few extra minutes, I would appreciate another set of eyes on my comments :) JenOttawa (talk) 14:55, 13 November 2017 (UTC)

Thanks to everyone who has commented so far - the suggestions are really helpful! We are meeting in class on November 15th and will have the students start making their edits then. We are planning to have them do small amounts every few days over a 2 week period, so as not to overwhelm the community with edits. The students have done a lot of work finding new sources and planning changes, and we are really appreciative of the effort from the community to help us with content, lay language and formatting. Please send any questions or issue to my talk page or to JenOttawa. HeatherMurray Queen's (talk) 22:25, 11 November 2017 (UTC)

Noted other responders. Jytdog (talk) 00:16, 12 November 2017 (UTC)

Medscape reference in Munchausen syndrome

This might interest you, HeatherMurray Queen's and JenOttawa, so I've placed it here, rather than in a new section. While commenting about Munchausen syndrome, I realised that the entire diagnosis section is sourced to a single webpage that deals with Munchausen syndrome by proxy (a different condition). I've made a request at Talk:Munchausen syndrome #Medscape reference for anybody who can suggest some sources that relate to the actual condition that the article is about. Can anyone here help? --RexxS (talk) 22:38, 11 November 2017 (UTC)

Thanks @RexxS:, I will notify the student group. Great observation! JenOttawa (talk) 14:53, 13 November 2017 (UTC)
DSM5, where the term is "Factitious disorder imposed on self" Page 325 Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 00:27, 14 November 2017 (UTC)

Taser safety issues

I haven't read through the vast majority of this article, but just from looking at the lead and "Other medical issues" section, it appears to need a rewrite in the relevant parts containing medical statements. The lead itself contains a several significant uncited and seemingly promotional medical claims that aren't repeated with a citation in the body (e.g., the entire first paragraph and the first sentence of the 2nd paragraph of the current lead (this is a permalink)). Seppi333 (Insert 2¢) 02:02, 14 November 2017 (UTC)

[22]review may help article--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 11:30, 14 November 2017 (UTC)

Portal:Medicine/Selected Article

I don't know how commonly the medical portal is viewed by readers, but we really need to revise/update the summaries of most of the portal's selected articles; one of those is randomly selected and transcluded onto the portal page each time the portal is viewed or the portal page is refreshed. E.g., special:diff/675993011/810283684 and special:diff/412149141/810284578 are examples of very noticeable problems in two of our "selected article" summaries. Seppi333 (Insert 2¢) 10:01, 14 November 2017 (UTC)

FWIW, we should probably only include featured medical articles on the portal page. All the existing selected article summaries could be deleted and replaced with the "Today's Featured Article" (TFA) excerpt/summary for each featured medical article that appeared on the main page. The TFA summaries could be copy/pasted directly into the selected article sub-pages since the formatting/style of a TFA summary is exactly the same as a portal's "selected article" summary. Seppi333 (Insert 2¢) 10:10, 14 November 2017 (UTC)
On the question of popularity: "Not popular" looks like a reasonable interpretation. It's averaging 127 page views per day. For comparison, article #1000 at Wikipedia:WikiProject Medicine/Popular pages gets more than ten times that number of page views each day. Overall, I think that portals have outlived their usefulness.
On the question of what to include: FAs and GAs is probably reasonable and a fairly typical cutoff. We could probably expand/update the list of DYKs as well. Also, it's not just WPMED's articles; it should include things from other healthcare fields, such as dentistry and pharmacology. So updates should check those as well. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:20, 14 November 2017 (UTC)
I don't think portals have ever had any usefulness on Wikipedia. The basic problem is that there is no mechanism to motivate people to look at them. The only important portal is the main page, because it is the default for so many people. Looie496 (talk) 18:35, 14 November 2017 (UTC)

Sophrology

Thoughts? Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 13:46, 12 November 2017 (UTC)

Doesn't seem to make claims, so can't be cleaned up using MEDRS. However, it only uses sources from one side of the topic, so it needs more critical sources to be added. I've made a small start. --RexxS (talk) 19:14, 12 November 2017 (UTC)
Suggested some possible sources on talkpage, but it might be considered for a merge to hypnotherapy, which has lots of (mostly poor) sources: one of several problems.LeadSongDog come howl! 17:43, 15 November 2017 (UTC)

Proposed deletion of Exonucleophagy

The article Exonucleophagy has been proposed for deletion because of the following concern:

Non-notable; term does not exist in English; no attestations in English outside wikis and other user-provided content; one Croatian journal ref has it double-quoted as a neologism in the article.

While all constructive contributions to Wikipedia are appreciated, pages may be deleted for any of several reasons.

You may prevent the proposed deletion by removing the {{proposed deletion/dated}} notice, but please explain why in your edit summary or on the article's talk page.

Please consider improving the page to address the issues raised. Removing {{proposed deletion/dated}} will stop the proposed deletion process, but other deletion processes exist. In particular, the speedy deletion process can result in deletion without discussion, and articles for deletion allows discussion to reach consensus for deletion. Mathglot (talk) 23:51, 16 October 2017 (UTC)

I redirected to a target article where the term is used. But the term is not in wide use, so deletion would not a a great loss. --Mark viking (talk) 00:10, 17 October 2017 (UTC)
Redirect seems fine. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 09:51, 17 October 2017 (UTC)
Thanks for the redirect, but I'm currently looking at the history of that article, and I'm not sure I'm satisfied with the redirect, as there seems to be a very tenuous connection of that non-word to the article, plus the term was introduced by some of the same editors in both cases, with sources that I'm not sure hold up. I will update later, if need be. Mathglot (talk) 20:51, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

Renal fibrosis / Renal interstitial fibrosis / Kidney interstitial fibrosis / Tubulointerstitial fibrosis

Links for context: PMC article & Pubmed article & indoxyl sulfate. Do we have an article on this topic for these pages to redirect to? Seppi333 (Insert 2¢) 04:28, 16 November 2017 (UTC)

Circumcision and PTSD, more eyes pls

Some issues at Posttraumatic stress disorder

See

Key ref being spammed around that has apparently kicked this off, is an oddly old primary source: Ramos, S; Boyle (2001). "Ritual and Medical Circumcision among Filipino Boys". In Denniston, George C; Hodges, Frederick Mansfield; Milos, Marilyn Fayre (eds.). Understanding circumcision : a multidisciplinary approach to a multi-dimensional problem. New York: Springer. ISBN 978-1-4419-3375-1.

other articles where it is being spammed include


Non-MEDRS ref being spammed into WP and other non-MEDRS refs piled on top; some likely socking, some advocacy... Jytdog (talk) 15:10, 16 November 2017 (UTC)

I've tried to explain patiently (and failed) how very, very poor or irrelevant the sources being suggested are, but it's going to be difficult to be civil in the circumstances. --RexxS (talk) 17:37, 16 November 2017 (UTC)

Scientific images from WSC2017

Please take a look in here about newly uploaded scientific images on commons during Wiki Science Competitions 2017.--Alexmar983 (talk) 12:16, 17 November 2017 (UTC)

thank you for posting--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 15:50, 17 November 2017 (UTC)

I have proposed some changes to the article on antimicrobial resistance

Antibiotic resistance

Opinions are needed on the following matter: I have proposed some changes to the article on antimicrobial resistance. A big change would be to move the entire section on "bacteria" (under "organisms") to a spin-off article called "antibiotic-resistant bacteria" (or different title). Please help me by heading to the talk page and taking part in the discussion! See here: Talk:Antimicrobial resistance#Moving the section about bacteria .28organisms.29 to spin-off article.3F On the same talk page I have also asked about a better image for the lead (Talk:Antimicrobial resistance#Done some work on the lead - better image.3F) and also how to deal with the overlap cause by the article on abuse (Talk:Antimicrobial resistance#Trim.2Fstreamline section on antibiotic misuse.3F). Anyone with an interest on AMR please have your say! EMsmile (talk) 11:43, 17 November 2017 (UTC)



Head transplants

Have been in the new a lot recently; not convinced we need two article (and my merge of Segio Canavero to Head transplant was reverted). And not convinced of the worth of the content we now have. More eyes welcome. Alexbrn (talk) 21:20, 18 November 2017 (UTC)

yeah so much hype. i completely worked over the head transplant article after Barbara cited it in a joke column in the wikinews thing a while back. Have not looked at the canavero article but will do. Jytdog (talk) 21:25, 18 November 2017 (UTC)

Odonto-stomatology and the alt. spelling Odontostomatology are redlinks. Dunno what these are; just saw them in a journal name, Journal of Forensic Odonto-Stomatology.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ<  19:44, 18 November 2017 (UTC)

[23]--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 22:47, 18 November 2017 (UTC)
I've redirected them to what seems to be the everyday name. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:55, 19 November 2017 (UTC)

Aversion therapy

Can someone review the aversion therapy article? It cites a lot of small and pretty dated studies, e.g. on smoking. The (critical) Cochrane review on aversive smoking isn't cited however etc. 86.127.42.70 (talk) 23:12, 15 November 2017 (UTC)

Also, the page completely fails to mention that aversion therapy was the most used "treatment" for homosexuality; see PMC4265253 for instance. All in all, the page is a curious combination of the 1984 version of Wikipedia and a strange amnesia. 86.127.42.70 (talk) 23:32, 15 November 2017 (UTC)

Feel free to be bold and improve :-) Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 00:45, 16 November 2017 (UTC)
After looking at the talk page of that article, it almost certainly exceeds the amount of time I have (to argue with people on the internets, that is.) 86.127.42.70 (talk) 20:49, 19 November 2017 (UTC)

Munchausen syndrome -> Factitious disorder imposed on self

Since Doc James' move of Munchausen syndrome to Factitious disorder imposed on self was reverted with edit summary revert per BRD, back to common name, I've made a move request at Talk:Munchausen syndrome #Requested move 18 November 2017. This is going to be opposed by a number of folks ignorant of our agreed conventions on titles of medical articles ("the scientific or recognised medical name that is most commonly used in recent, high-quality, English-language medical sources, rather than a lay term", so more informed eyes are needed on the move request. --RexxS (talk) 23:43, 19 November 2017 (UTC)

2017 Hypertension guidelines

The results of the SPRINT hypertension study have been incorporated into guidelines, see http://www.onlinejacc.org/content/early/2017/11/04/j.jacc.2017.11.006 I have done a little work at Management of hypertension#2017 guidelines based on Systolic Blood Pressure Intervention Trial (SPRINT) but much more could be done. User:Fred Bauder Talk 16:33, 19 November 2017 (UTC)

created[24]--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 11:54, 20 November 2017 (UTC)
Did some aswell. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 17:54, 21 November 2017 (UTC)

Science contest judges

Being requested here[25] Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 17:54, 21 November 2017 (UTC)

Monosodium glutamate and headaches

Monosodium glutamate

Input welcome at Talk:Monosodium glutamate#Fix the safety quote. Thanks, —PaleoNeonate – 01:52, 22 November 2017 (UTC)



opinions please[26]--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 13:09, 23 November 2017 (UTC)

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