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Scope of article Iatrogenesis

I'm seeking some opinions regarding WP:OOS in the article Iatrogenesis. I posted on the talk page, but I figured I'd gather some opinions here as well.

Is there a consensus that that page refers exclusively to side effects and harm established within solely medicine?

I am interested in expanding it to include more examples of iatrogenesis within the context of psychiatry and more generally, the intersection of psychiatry and psychotherapy. The example I gave on the talk page was incorrect treatment of OCD often leads to increased obsessions and compulsions, or that mismanaged psychiatric boundaries can lead to transference which harms the patient. Additional concepts may include the use of physical restraints, etc.

So, TLDR: Do these concepts belong with Iatrogenesis, or are they more suited to Psychotherapy (adverse effects) or perhaps somewhere adjacent to Psychiatry (ethics)? How broad is too broad for this subject matter? Very interested in any thoughts on this. ← 𝐋𝐞𝐟𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐝𝐥𝐢𝐨𝐧 17:32, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

Psychiatry is generally accepted as a branch of medicine, so treatments used by psychiatrists sound like something appropriate to include.
I think the general problem with the scope is not "should we include psychiatry?" but "how far down the chain of causality do we follow?" For example, primary care practitioners often recommend walking, but if you go for a walk in wet shoes and get a blister, you hardly want to say that the blister is an iatrogenic injury. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:52, 12 March 2024 (UTC)
Thanks for the chuckle re: blister. I wonder if wet shoes is more of a user error, but I can see how theoretically one could reach and blame your PCP for your sore feet...
So, I think we are in agreement that psychiatry is included -- is psychotherapy? And specifically, is psychotherapy not practiced by physicians (but by other licensed professionals) included? I am looking at something like this (a review of this) and though not 100%, there are recommendations to cease trials of Debriefing#Crisis intervention due to increased symptoms (and additionally more broadly to reevaluate the operational definition of "harm" but I digress...)
Now, I don't think psychiatrists are the ones running these groups, so hence my question about the scope of the article. ← 𝐋𝐞𝐟𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐝𝐥𝐢𝐨𝐧 00:25, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
I looked at the crisis intervention stuff recently; apparently, part of the dispute is over whether you're doing True™ Crisis Intervention or, you know, just some sort of intervention during a crisis. I remember seeing a claim that the True™ version puts all the survivors in the same room on the same day of the event and says things like "BTW, some of you might not sleep well tonight, and that's normal for humans who have gone through as much stress as y'all did today" and the problematic versions involved private therapy sessions.
I'm inclined to include it. The main challenge will likely be keeping the article balanced. We need a short summary, and we are at risk of creating a spambait section (I'm just going to add one more detail about this one... well, three sentences... well, today, I'll just make a paragraph for the one that I'm most interested in... Oooh, if that one gets a whole paragraph, then mine gets at least that much...). WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:34, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
I think it is fine to keep the article broad, as long as the subtopics are otherwise appropriate for Wikipedia inclusion (e.g. have references). Jaredroach (talk) 15:52, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
There is no broad consensus (as far as I can see) about what exactly makes CISD potentially problematic, but my conjecture based on available evidence is that taking people who are quite fine after a potentially traumatizing event and telling them they should be upset, mixing them with people who are upset, and then making them participate in a group about it... can make them upset. A potentially traumatic event only becomes trauma if the person is traumatized, otherwise it is just part of the person's past. The magnitude of this effect is the thing that is most debated. I don't think the article needs to go into the hypothetical theory behind every mention of a potentially harmful therapy (PHT). I think the inclusion of, as you said, 1-3 sentences to explain PHTs which have a strong suspicion of harm is well deserved without becoming into some sort of literature review. Mentions of harmful effects people might not expect would invite the reader to think critically about accepting these universal measures. ← 𝐋𝐞𝐟𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐝𝐥𝐢𝐨𝐧 00:03, 14 March 2024 (UTC)
That might fall afoul of Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Medicine-related articles#Common pitfalls. We are not trying to emphasize or de-emphasize any verifiable facts so that readers will make the "right" choice in the real world. Write this article so that it will mention the basic points that will help a student who was assigned an essay on it, maybe for an introductory-level ethics class or a social studies class, or for someone who stumbled across the word on social media and wants to figure out what it means. Don't write it for someone who is trying to decide whether to undertake a given course of therapy. (They almost certainly won't be reading that page anyway.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:44, 14 March 2024 (UTC)
Ah, thank you for pointing that out. I am still learning the nuances of the style guide so I appreciate your guidance. I'll do some more thinking on concise and neutral phrasing and do my best to avoid those pitfalls you linked. ← 𝙻𝙴𝙵𝚃𝙷𝙰𝙽𝙳𝙴𝙳𝙻𝙸𝙾𝙽 19:54, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

Medical devices and implants

We have an article layout template for medical devices and implants that is common with drugs, however, it creates difficulties. There is only one GA article on a medical device Dental implant and no FA articles. See the quote from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Drug-eluting_stent/GA1 by User:NikosGouliaros:

So, starting from the big picture: Drug eluting stent follows, to some extent, the Manual of Style on medicine-related articles as regards the article layout; there, medical devices are grouped with drugs and treatments, and I'd argue this isn't very helpful, as this layout is clearly made for medications. Crucially, it lacks a section on the description of the device, and the different types it comes in. One can compare similar GAs: The only Good Articles on a medical device are Dental implant, which has a "composition" section right after "uses"; and Injector pen, with a "design" section in the same place. Another instance of a somewhat similarly themed Good Article is Brachytherapy, which has a section on "types". (No Featured Articles with helpful thematic similarities are found). So, I think this article is definitely missing a section dedicated to describing the device (I expand on some potential ways of describing it later on), and its different subtypes. More specifically, this section could also mention: (1) the materials it is made of (with a word on the role of polymers in drug delivery, and perhaps mentioning the corresponding stent types, including polymer-free stents, and bioresorbable stents); (2) perhaps the word "struts", including some of the info currently in Research directions; (3) the actual pharmaceutical compounds they emit; (4) the fact that some DES (the majority) are balloon-expandable, but a few ones, including the very first one in 1986, are self-expanding, (5) the distinction between coronary and peripheral stents.

Do you have any suggestion on a different article layout for a medical device? Maxim Masiutin (talk) 14:41, 11 March 2024 (UTC)

This is the most important part of WP:MEDMOS#Content sections:
The following lists of suggested sections are intended to help structure a new article or an existing article that requires a substantial rewrite. Changing an established article simply to fit these guidelines might not be welcomed by other editors. The given order of sections may be varied, particularly if that helps an article progressively develop concepts and avoid repetition.
Do what's right by the article. Do not mindlessly conform to the suggested sections just because they've been suggested. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:42, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
My humble two cents is that the manual of style on content sections in medical articles could benefit from a special section on medical devices, as currently they don't seem to fit nicely in the Drugs, treatments and devices category. NikosGouliaros (talk) 20:34, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

Neuroplastic effects of pollution

Dustfreeworld is repeatedly making the same edit at

to restore a lot of unsourced/improperly-sourced BMI, with the apparent reasoning that "WP:MEDRS does not override WP:PRESERVE". More eyes welcome. Bon courage (talk) 03:28, 11 March 2024 (UTC)

Yes, I’ve restored over 13000 bytes of content and 12 sources (now reverted by you again) that you removed with a few clicks, all of which added by other good-faith editors over the years. My edit summaries:
  • Restore long-standing well-sourced content . Pls note that WP:MEDRS does not override WP:PRESERVE. Pls tag instead of removing outright. Also, MEDRS never said that primary sources can never be used. Further, substantial removal of 12 sources & 12K bytes at one time makes it difficult for other users to review your edit. Also note that section blanking maybe considered vandalism (although you’ve added other content to the section you’ve blanked afterwards). Thanks.
  • I don’t think all the 13000 bytes content you removed violates WP:V. All of them satisfied WP:V, which states that: “ All content must be verifiable… is satisfied by providing an inline citation to a reliable source that directly supports[b] the contribution.” Thanks.
--Dustfreeworld (talk) 03:57, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
Could you explain how this restored material (completely unsourced) benefits the Project?

These facts, coupled with air pollution's link to neurofibrillary tangles and the observed subcortical vascular changes observed in dogs, imply that the negative neuroplastic effects of pollution could result in increased risk for Alzheimer's disease, and could also implicate pollution as a cause of early-onset Alzheimer's disease through multiple mechanisms. The general effect of pollution is increased levels of inflammation. As a result, pollution can significantly contribute to various neurological disorders that are caused by inflammatory processes.

For WP:BMI, remember that a "reliable source" should be WP:MEDRS. Incidentally, baking bad faith accusations into edit summaries (e.g. about "Indiscriminate wholesale removal") is the sort of stunt that is likely to get you sanctioned. Bon courage (talk) 04:06, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
Correction to the second edit summary above with apologies:
I don’t think all the 13000 bytes content you removed violates WP:V. Almost All of them satisfied WP:V, which states that: “ All content must be verifiable… is satisfied by providing an inline citation to a reliable source that directly supports[b] the contribution.” Thanks.
That said, I don’t think threatening of sanctions is our way to have a constructive and reasonable discussion. --Dustfreeworld (talk) 04:18, 11 March 2024 (UTC);09:11, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
Yeah, well don't go on an ill-informed edit-warring spree with mistaken, bad-faith edit summaries and zero Talk page engagement then. The community will remove disruptive editors for the good of the Project. Bon courage (talk) 04:25, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
BTW, by disruptively removing 12 sources added by different editors over the years at one time with zero Talk page engagement and claiming that all of them are unreliable, there maybe issues of arrogance and competence. Yep, “ The community will remove disruptive editors for the good of the Project.” --Dustfreeworld (talk) 04:41, 11 March 2024 (UTC); 05:19, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
Removing bad content is not "disruptive". Restoring bad content with incompetent WP:WL, false statements, bad faith, and edit-warring, is. You seem to be on some sort of wiki-crusade to muck up articles by righting some perceived wrong against editors who've had their bad content removed, to the extent it almost looks like trolling. If you think there is any good content at Neuroplastic effects of pollution that had been erroneously removed, please specify what it is. (In fact, I have to ask, how much of this article is even about neuroplasticity; it mostly seems about neurological conditions?) Bon courage (talk) 04:51, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
I concur with you that “it mostly seems about neurological conditions?” I noticed that you’ve tagged the page with notability issue. I’ve edited the page to address to your concern. Thanks. --Dustfreeworld (talk) 09:08, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
I’ve self-reverted as I just noticed that Prod may not be appropriate, as the page history of the original page needs to be preserved and so that page can’t be deleted. --Dustfreeworld (talk) 09:36, 11 March 2024 (UTC)

Bloodstains: a topic apparently of interest only to forensic scientists and archeologists

Our article on bloodstains, titled blood residue, is all about forensics and has nothing on cleaning them up (archeology gets a mention). I'm pretty sure readers are more likely to be dealing with menstruation or a bloody nose than murder, so this seems a bit unbalanced; can anyone improve the coverage? Thanks! HLHJ (talk) 23:12, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

Referencing contest

Here's the list of winners for last year's contest. Only edits to articles tagged by this group during the calendar year 2023 were counted. The numbers are "net", so if you add one and remove another, your number is zero. Re-used references count the same as new references.

Results from WikiProject Medicine reference campaign 2023
Most likely to add good sources
  1. Whywhenwhohow
  2. WhatamIdoing
  3. JenOttawa
Most likely to remove bad sources
  1. Bon courage
  2. Ajpolino
  3. ජපස
Most words added
  1. Whywhenwhohow
  2. Bon courage
  3. JenOttawa
Most balanced sourcing
  1. CheckDO, a student editor who added and removed sources in exactly equal amounts

Overall, the 25 editors who signed up for this:

  • created 63 articles,
  • made 8,650 edits to 2,130 articles, which were viewed 252,000,000 times by readers,
  • added an estimated 555,000 words to Wikipedia,
  • added 2,590 citations (net), and
  • added 684 images to Commons (not necessarily related to WPMED's areas of interest).

Thank you all for your edits. If you'd like to do this again some time, please let me know. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:59, 10 March 2024 (UTC)

Hmm... I’m not sure if it’s a good idea to have a contest implying that the more sources removed the better ... Perhaps it’s better to have a contest to compare the number of citation needed tags added by editors, (e.g.), if technically possible. --Dustfreeworld (talk) 05:15, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
It's "bad sources", not "sources", in the above table. Overall, the removal of bad sources and content, and the addition of good sources and content is what we're WP:HERE for, right?! If anything, the above table suggests a nicely functional WPMED community in that respect. Bon courage (talk) 05:23, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
It’s a machine count of number of sources removed, not double-checked for legitimacy by a human. The reasons that the removals weren’t reverted can be that those are really bad sources. But, it can also be caused by the fact that people don’t want to be “threatened of sanctions” and facing false bad-faith accusations from certain long-term editors. --Dustfreeworld (talk) 05:33, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
And I do hope that people can learn the editing style of some of our reputable editors. --Dustfreeworld (talk) 05:39, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
The point is, different editors contribute in different ways, and I can assure you SandyGeorgia has no problem with removing crappily-sourced medical content from articles. Bon courage (talk) 05:47, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
Yep. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:50, 12 March 2024 (UTC)
I can assure you too that I have no problem with removing crappily-sourced whatever content from articles. --Dustfreeworld (talk) 19:16, 12 March 2024 (UTC)
I have faith in the community and the operation of consensus. Any editor egregiously adding bad sources or egregiously deleting good ones, perhaps especially in medical topics, will run into community resistance. Rigorous application of medical sourcing standards has been recognized (e.g. in PMID:35022700) as a key means by which Wikipedia maintains quality levels in its medical content and fends off misinformation. Bon courage (talk) 05:45, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
I have faith in the community and the operation of consensus *too*. “Any editor egregiously adding bad sources ... perhaps especially in medical topics, will run into community resistance.” I agree. And please kindly note that almost all the content and sources you removed had been there for *almost a deccade*. --Dustfreeworld (talk) 06:02, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
It's very common for stale crap to hang around, especially in backwater articles. Bad content doesn't earn any kind of "tenure" because it hasn't been noticed by a diligent editor for a long time! Bon courage (talk) 06:06, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
I honestly don’t even think you take the time to read some of the things you remove… not saying your editing in bad faith but might be unintentionally removing content unjustly in order to earn a star. A different source for the same information might be all that is needed. 2001:1970:4AE5:A300:5447:C8DA:5C49:E5A8 (talk) 06:18, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
Oh I can assure you it is all intentional. If other editors want to add content (with good sources, naturally) of course they can. Your "star" comment is stupid. Bon courage (talk) 06:23, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
Dustfree is correct that the machine counts net number of sources added or removed. I'm comfortable specifying "good" and "bad" in this case because I am very familiar with the work done by the particular editors in the list. There were no surprises in the "removal" list. I teased Bon courage about his average edit size for years; up until the last year or two, it was a negative number. Apparently he's mellowed a bit, or perhaps he's reverting more page-blanking vandalism than he used to. Removing bad sources is a necessary part of our work. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:31, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
Maybe I'm a naive fool, but I do think our content might be getting better (and so less in need of drastic surgery). Bon courage (talk) 17:42, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
In 2023, I observed a disturbing trend on Wikipedia: a surge in what I would describe as "cruel" edits. These edits were characterized by the removal of a significant number of sources, which I yesterday discovered was part of a contest to see who could delete the most sources. This revelation provided some context for the seemingly harsh editing practices I had noticed.
I am opposed to this contest for several reasons. Primarily, it seems to foster a culture of ruthlessness, as participants are incentivized to remove as many sources as possible. This approach is problematic because it can lead to the deletion of valuable information and discourage nuanced editing practices.
When a claim is based on dubious sources, there are several more constructive approaches we could take:
  1. We could seek out better, more reliable sources to substantiate the claim.
  2. We could revise the arguments to make them more accurate or reflective of the available evidence.
  3. If the claim is a widely accepted fringe theory, we could present it as such, citing reputable sources that confirm its prevalence.
  4. As a last resort, we could delete the claim if it cannot be substantiated or corrected.
However, my concern is that the contest seems to encourage the fourth option—deletion—above all others. This approach can lead to a loss of potentially valuable information and discourage more nuanced editing practices. It's important to remember that Wikipedia is a collaborative platform, and its strength lies in the collective knowledge and diverse perspectives of its contributors. By encouraging a more thoughtful and inclusive editing process, we can ensure that Wikipedia remains a reliable and comprehensive source of information, and avoid potential grounds for conflicts raised by the "cruel" deletions. Maxim Masiutin (talk) 10:46, 11 March 2024 (UTC)

When a claim is based on dubious sources, there are several more constructive approaches we could take:

  • We could seek out better, more reliable sources to substantiate the claim.
  • We could revise the arguments to make them more accurate or reflective of the available evidence.
  • If the claim is a widely accepted fringe theory, we could present it as such, citing reputable sources that confirm its prevalence.
  • As a last resort, we could delete the claim if it cannot be substantiated or corrected.
Agree. --Dustfreeworld (talk) 19:03, 12 March 2024 (UTC)
Am am "FOR" the "Most likely to add good sources" contest, and vigorously oppose ("AGAINST") the "Most likely to remove bad sources" contents, for the reasons that I explained in my previous comment. Maxim Masiutin (talk) 10:48, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
  • Several of the people, including people in the first three categories, didn't sign up until the end of the year (so their contributions couldn't have been affected by a contest they didn't join until the last minute), and nobody knew how I would categorize the "winners" or how many of them there would be until I posted it (so if they were secretly aiming towards a particular metric, then it was based on nothing more than a guess about whether the metric would be relevant).
  • I agree with your list of ways to improve Wikipedia. However, depending on the subjects you deal with, that "last resort" comes up pretty often. Editors are fairly often removing "This cures cancer[1][2][3][4]" or replacing it with "This has been proven to be ineffective for treating cancer[1]". Our software counts that work as "minus three sources".
WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:44, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
I agree that “Removing bad sources is a necessary part of our work.” But I don’t agree how it’s done or interpreted by some users. --Dustfreeworld (talk) 18:56, 12 March 2024 (UTC)
I would love to continue to participate. I’m no longer a student editor. How do I update my editor status? CheckDO (talk) 02:59, 18 March 2024 (UTC)

Mentioning (table) in sections about nutrition

I've created a new topic with the same title in another WikiProject here. My post is about nutrition, which some editors here may be interested in, so I thought it's a good idea to mention it here too. Everyone is welcome to join the discussion! Bendegúz Ács (talk) 21:37, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

thanks for post--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 11:44, 18 March 2024 (UTC)

druginfo.nlm.nih.gov is dead

HowardBGolden has alerted us that the Drug Information Portal no longer exists, and has proposed updating our links to point to PubChem, where the info has been sent. I spot-checked some of the 986 links we have from mainspace, and they are all in External Links sections, and the Chembox or Drugbox already has a |Pubchem= entry. WP:EL seems to advise against having an External Links that duplicates a link elsewhere. Does WPMED have a strong desire to retain that separate PubChem link (updated former DrugInfo link)? Or should part of the cleanup task to be simply removing the EL if the infobox has it (and updating infoboxes that don't)? DMacks (talk) 15:24, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

Yes. Remove the links from the "External Links" and put them into the Infobox as a link to PubChem (creating an Infobox if there is not, or perhaps in some cases where an Infobox is not warranted, retain the PubChem link as an external link) if not already there. Jaredroach (talk) 15:48, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
Agreed. Remove the EL if the {{infobox drug}} has it (and update the infobox if it doesn't). By my count, there are only 49 entries that have the link and do not have the infobox. Looking through this list, there doesn't appear to be any that should have {{infobox drug}}. For these, the external link should be updated and left as an external link. Boghog (talk) 16:52, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
Some of those were chembox instead of drugbox, which also has the pubchem field. I manually handled them. A few of that subset have multiple links (different salts or other forms). I only handled the ones that were the parent compound (== chembox). DMacks (talk) 17:17, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
Thanks for doing all that work. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:38, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
TODO: insource:/cite web \| url = https:\/\/druginfo.nlm.nih.gov/ /pubchem=\d/ should have the * {{cite web |...druginfo...}} removed. That's a discrete bot/AWB task that nukes 324 redundant links. I'll do it later tonight, just need to remind myself the incantation:) DMacks (talk) 20:00, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
Weird bug trying to do it myself, so Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/Tasks#Remove external-links entry for druginfo (dead site). DMacks (talk) 21:22, 18 March 2024 (UTC)
Tangent: Please don't use {{cite web}} in the ==External links== section per WP:ELCITE. This particular rule is not especially well-known, and as always Wikipedia:If a rule prevents you from improving or maintaining Wikipedia, ignore it. but it is best not to have ELs looking like sources. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:38, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
This rule never made any sense to me. But OK, one can template and move to the further reading section. Boghog (talk) 17:48, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

Request for new article: Combined homocystinuria and methylmalonic acid iris

I have professional experience and knowledge of the metabolic disorder combined homocystinuria and methylmalonic acidemia (resulting from a disorder of intracellular cobalamin processing), and I’d be interested in working on an article about it, but I’m new to serious Wikipedia editing, and need some help with formatting, writing code for different sections, etc. would anyone be interested in creating a basic article that I can build on? Wheelman85 (talk) 05:11, 1 March 2024 (UTC)

I'm assuming you are referring to "Methylmalonic acidemia with homocystinuria"?[1] If yes then I would be happy to help create the article with you. It is currently a redirect but I can make it into an article. CursedWithTheAbilityToDoTheMath (talk) 05:18, 1 March 2024 (UTC)
That would be great! What’s the best way for us to discuss next steps? Wheelman85 (talk) 03:13, 19 March 2024 (UTC)
I can make the article outline and then you can add information from there. Make sure you're rephrasing stuff properly and using citations. To cite things i personally use citer. I'll make the article now, it should only take me about 15 minutes to get it started. Any further conversation about it should be done on its talkpage. Let me know if you have any questions. CursedWithTheAbilityToDoTheMath (talk) 03:49, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

Citations

There have been discussions here about using citations in the lead for medical articles. There have also been discussions about adding citations to all/most sentences. Was any consensus reached? Pinging some folks involved in previous discussions @WhatamIdoing, SandyGeorgia, Boghog, Ozzie10aaaa, Zefr, and Doc James: --Whywhenwhohow (talk) 05:10, 10 March 2024 (UTC)

I don't recall any definitive consensus had been reached. The Wikipedia:Citations in medical articles essay perhaps comes closest. It summarizes the issues and argues that citations should be included in the lead and nearly every sentence should be cited. Boghog (talk) 06:58, 10 March 2024 (UTC)
Generally, all articles are required to cite direct quotations and contentious matter about living persons wherever they are found, including in the lead.
For medicine-related content, I suggest that it's a good idea to add inline citations to the lead if it includes
  • detailed statistics (e.g., "34% of cases" or "annual incidence of 12.8 per 100,000") or
  • politicized content (e.g., "A woman who has a miscarriage or abortion has the same lifetime risk of breast cancer as if she had not gotten pregnant" or "Creatures that produce sperm are conventionally called male regardless of any other factors").
WhatamIdoing (talk) 07:40, 10 March 2024 (UTC)
I agree with WhatamIdoing's stance at 07:40, 10 March 2024. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:49, 12 March 2024 (UTC)
Agree. --Dustfreeworld (talk) 19:09, 12 March 2024 (UTC)
The section "Citations in the lead" of the essay is not an imperative norm and does not aim to define such norm, it just tells that the references in the lead a permitted, but not required: "editors of medical articles generally make an exception to the Wikipedia", i.e. some editors prefer to make an exception to the rule of not using references in the lead, while other editor chose not to make an exception and follow the rule. The refereces to "34% of cases" or "annual incidence of 12.8 per 100,000" can be found in the body by searching these terms, such as 34% or 100,000 - references after characters like % do not look good and hamper readability. Maxim Masiutin (talk) 18:08, 10 March 2024 (UTC)
According to the Wikipedia:Verifiability policy, all content must be verifable. The policy doesn't make any exceptions as I see. Although MOS:LEADCITE guideline suggests that the lead may not have some citations for simple material, but policies takes priority over guidenances. In any case medical content is complex and should have inline citations even according the MOS:LEADCITE. D6194c-1cc (talk) 08:06, 10 March 2024 (UTC)
If the lede accurately summarizes the article body, and the body is WP:Verified, then WP:V is automatically satisfied for the lede too. Many WP:FAs have no (or few) lede citations (e.g. Influenza). In practice, it's often necessary to cite ledes for 'contentious' topics otherwise there will be a parade of drive-by editors adding cn tags or complaining the article is 'unsourced'. Bon courage (talk) 09:41, 10 March 2024 (UTC)
Something that hasn't been clear to some editors (because we have collectively decided to take a lie-to-children approach when we are teaching newbies the rules) is that verifiable means that if you search you will be able to find a reliable source that matches the information in the Wikipedia article. The word for "has a little blue clicky number at the end" is WP:Glossary#cited, not WP:Glossary#verifiable. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:28, 10 March 2024 (UTC)
My argument is that citations in the lead are not used intentionally as the lead duplicates statements made in the body where the claims are properly backed up by references, see MOS:LEADCITE which does not have an exception for medical articles.
Please see examples of Featured Articles (FA) that do not have citations (references) in the lead: lung cancer, dementia with Lewy bodies. Maxim Masiutin (talk) 17:44, 10 March 2024 (UTC)
I have restored the citations you removed from the lead of Dementia with Lewy bodies (that agree with WhatamIdoing's position at 10:40 10 March); those citations have been there since at least the featured version of 2020 (and probably well before that), so please review WP:FAOWN before removing those citations again. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:52, 16 March 2024 (UTC)
There is no need to reach a consensus because the rules are clear. Somebody may bring arguments that there are conflicting rules, however, this argument does not stand because of the "Lex specialis derogat legi generali" principle. In essence, this maxim asserts that when there is a conflict between a specific rule that applies to a particular situation (lead section that reiterates claims already sourced in the body) and a general rule that covers a broader scope (reliable sources), the specific rule (on lead) takes precedence. It recognizes that tailored regulations addressing unique cases should prevail over more general norms.
Another principle is "Lex posterior derogat (legi) priori," which translates to "A later law repeals an earlier (law)". This principle asserts that when a later rule (on references in citations arises) after a conflicting earlier rule (general norms on citations), the later rule prevails over the earlier one to the extent of the conflict. Essentially, it means that the most recent rule precedence over any conflicting provisions in earlier laws or regulations. When the rule to omit citations in the lead was published, the earlier rule on citation was already in place.
Another principle is the Wikipedia's cornerstone principle of use common sense, which means that the editors are encouraged to use some common sense and discretion. However, if an editor found that the lead has a claim that is not repeated in the body or is not properly referenced in the body, then, and only then an editor should raise a concern and specify which claim exactly from the lead is not duplicated in the body, so that the editors may add that claim to the body (this case might only happen as a result of an accidental deletion). Maxim Masiutin (talk) 17:59, 10 March 2024 (UTC)
There is a rule "The necessity for citations in a lead should be determined on a case-by-case basis by editorial consensus" - here, the consensus should be reached, in case of a conflict, per article, not per topic such as medicine. If an editor thinks that the citations should be in the lead for ketotifen but not for lung cancer, dementia with Lewy bodies or other FA articles, please let us discuss. Maxim Masiutin (talk) 18:12, 10 March 2024 (UTC)
Overall, my main concern from your comments is that you seem to be under the mistaken impression that Wikipedia has a rule of not using references in the lead. Instead, we have a rule that says (in the section you linked to) the presence of citations in the lead is neither required in every article nor prohibited in any article.
Generally speaking, we leave this choice up to the editors who are writing the article. Several editors in this group have strongly encouraged citations in the lead, but there is no general rule, and a WP:WikiProject (=a group of editors that wants to work together) doesn't get to impose their preference on the rest of the community anyway. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:35, 10 March 2024 (UTC)
I understand that there is a choice given, and some editors recommend using citations in the essay, still, the choice remains. If somebody wants to works significantly on an article and wishes to put citations (that were deliberately not put), I'm not against it, as I am always in favor of cooperation. But I don't like people who do not contribute to an article but simply require to put references into the lead, especially in a form of a banner that makes article ugly: so one editor makes an article ugly without a contribution expecting other to do what he wants whereas there is a choice: one editor should not impose ones will in a form of an ugly banner - this is not a cooperative way to edit encyclopedia. Such discussion on the need to have citation for a particular article could be done on a talk page with proper arguments related to this specific article, not general arguments for all medicine-related article. As long as the choice exists and the common sense is the main rule of wikipedia, we should discuss, not enforce one variant over another when the choice is allowed. Maxim Masiutin (talk) 18:46, 10 March 2024 (UTC)
I initially put the references to all claims, including to the claims in the lead of a medical article, but when I later starteed to write leads without references, those leads were much easier to read. And since the reader is the main user, not the editors that may put [citation needed] without looking into the body - the reader's benefit should prevail, according to the common sense. The editors may always talk on the talk page about the citations, rather than putting [citation needed] to the lead or banners which make readability of the lead even worse. Maxim Masiutin (talk) 18:49, 10 March 2024 (UTC)
There was a discussion in the thread on what has priority: some consider that Wikipedia:Verifiability has priority over MOS:LEADCITE for medical content. But my argument was a rebuttal of this statement: I explained why I think that MOS:LEADCITE has priority over Wikipedia:Verifiability even for medical content. Maxim Masiutin (talk) 18:53, 10 March 2024 (UTC)
There's no point in having discussions about priority. The two rules do not conflict.
  • All content must be verifiable (=you can find a source if you look for it).
  • Specified content must be cited (e.g., direct quotatio0ns).
  • A given fact can be cited one (e.g., do not duplicate citations into the lead) or more than once (e.g., choose to duplicate citations into the lead) per article.
There's no conflict here. The only conflict I see is that the editor who won last year's contest for most citations added to medical-related articles has suggested that there be citations in Ketotifen, and you don't want them there. Fine – you're both entitled to your own opinions – but don't bother with this legalistic wrangling about how our WP:NOTSTATUTE system is supposed to operate like the laws in your home country. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:03, 10 March 2024 (UTC)
It was D6194c-1cc who started law interpretation: he give his opinion and I give mine on law interpretation. I am not against if somebody adds good citations for ketotifen lead. But I initially decided to chose an option to not add citations, and what are my feelings if I need to do something just because someone added a banner? If you are interested about my country, there is a proverb that roughly translates "the initiative is punishable by execution" which means don't offer if you are unwilling to to that yourself - that's how I see adding banners to the lead. Maxim Masiutin (talk) 19:20, 10 March 2024 (UTC)
I get that. Sometimes when people tag articles, you really just want to tell them WP:SOFIXIT. The open-source community's version is "patches welcome" – if you think that's worth someone's time, then do it yourself. However, it's also important to remember that sometimes tagging is a prelude to solving the problem (e.g., to make it easier to create the list of articles you want to work on). WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:22, 10 March 2024 (UTC)
I really didn't know that we had a contest on adding citations. I respect very much the work on adding citations. I propose the following plan:
1) add all citations to the body where they are missing on all articles where such citations are missing, either explicitly when there were [citation needed] or just paragraph ended without a citation
2) think about adding citations to the lead
I am against jumping to 2 until 1 is complete :-) Maxim Masiutin (talk) 19:23, 10 March 2024 (UTC)
Last year, we just counted the net number of sources added. I could set it up again if people wanted to do it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:23, 10 March 2024 (UTC)
Well, Androgen backdoor pathway is a good example of why citations are required in the lead. I partially reviewed the article in Russian Wikipedia and found that it is original research that combines the backdoor pathway to DHT and C11-oxy C21 backdoor pathway to 11KDHT under the backdoor pathway title, which is used by the backdoor pathway to dihydrotestosterone in reliable sources. And the main definition is original synthesis because reliable sources don't describe those pathways separately from classical pathways and don't describe them under a common term. If the source is specified and accessible, then it is easy to check that the sources don't have explicit definition for the term and don't have any kind of separate section describing those pathways separately and comparing them. The author didn't provide quotation from the closed source (which was added after mentioning the rules), so I suspect that the closed source don't contain this information directly. Currently the article in both Russian and English Wikipedias violates the veriafiability policy:

All quotations, and any material whose verifiability has been challenged or is likely to be challenged, must include an inline citation to a reliable source that directly supports[b] the material

— Wikipedia:Verifiability
(see explanation in the b note) D6194c-1cc (talk) 05:50, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
Citations are not required in the lede, as has been explained. In any case, such a stylistic preference is the least of the problems at Androgen backdoor pathway which is poorly-sourced throughout. WP:TNT might be more the solution there! Bon courage (talk) 05:56, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
Here's an another example of why inline citations are important in the lead: kidney. I had to create a few articles before I fixed the issue. If the source is specified then the reader can check that it describes not what is written about in the article. If the source is not specified... then one would believe Wikipedia or not, relying on the his/her degree of trust to Wikpedia content. D6194c-1cc (talk) 06:13, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
@Bon courage - can you please be more specific, when you wrote that the Androgen backdoor pathway is poorly-sourced? Can you please explain and give exact locations or quote claims; on the talk page or using inline templates? Maxim Masiutin (talk) 10:29, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
I spot checked a lot of claims, and they were to primary research. Bon courage (talk) 10:30, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
Can you please mark the exact places with templates like "primary research inline", so I could source them properly or remove them. Thank you for your fact-checking. Maxim Masiutin (talk) 10:31, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
Well, it's not really a topic that interests me but I just checked again, taking at random the first three refs in the "Clinical significance" section, and they're all primary, for example. Bon courage (talk) 15:49, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
If a research article mentions a common fact and the article is about researching another fact, than it is primary on the fact it is researching and secondary on the fact that it mentions from other sources. For example, if an articles about ketotifen weight gain on mice mentions that ketotifen is an antihistamine, than it is primary on weight gain and secondary on the fact that ketotifen is an antihistamine. Maxim Masiutin (talk) 16:49, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
That is technically true, but the reason why 'secondary within primary' material is avoided (and why MEDRS is written as it is) is that the authors of primary research tend to offer a restricted/selective/biased/novel secondary take so as to lend credence to their own findings. Bon courage (talk) 16:52, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
As for these 3 citations, your observations are justified, thank you, I will replace them with better ones. Maxim Masiutin (talk) 16:53, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
I removed questionable citations and added better ones, as you've pointed out, thank you! Maxim Masiutin (talk) 17:10, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
As for particular citations in the lead, I am OK to put them if an uninvolved person has reasonable grounds to raise a concern; I cannot consider D6194c-1cc an uninvolved person because my position was always that he immediately started challenging me in Russian and English wikipedia after I started reviewing his GA nomination and raised preliminary objections - an ethical person would have avoiding interacting with a person who reviewed his work, to maintain lack of bias, but in this case I have reasonable grounds to claim that all statements of D6194c-1cc on "Androgen backdoor pathway" are biased. Maxim Masiutin (talk) 10:37, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
These statements were even in the abstract, so you don't even need the body text. Maxim Masiutin (talk) 10:31, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
What are the stetaments you talk about? Can you provide some quotes from abstracts and from articles themselves? D6194c-1cc (talk) 16:12, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
You know the procedure to challenge the GA status. Maxim Masiutin (talk) 16:45, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
Wait. What. This is a GA? How did that happen? Bon courage (talk) 16:55, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
As I see from comments, it was the first review by @Boghog: I'll ping him to let him know of his mistakes. Not so long ago I provided some evidence in Russian Wikipedia that GA nominations don't always mean good quality not only in Russian but also in English Wikipedia (I had found some problem articles). I suggested that an article quality depends on knowledge related to the topic, editor's experience and perseverance of both the nominator and reviewer. These arguments were made in a discussion of marking good articles with stars in navigation templates in Russian Wikipedia, which was made in a manner of DDOS attack (using Wikidata JS queries on every visited page). Editors don't know what they agree to when they vote because they don't understand technical details and see only desirable result. Fortunately, administrators turned on this feature only for registered users by default and it can be turned off in preferences (which I had immediately done after I examined all that mess with network requests). Wikipedia is a volunteer project, that's all I can say. D6194c-1cc (talk) 08:20, 12 March 2024 (UTC)
The article in question underwent extensive editing during the review mainly focused on making it more accessible, organization, and flow. I did not check the sources as carefully as I should have. I have now gone through all the sources and marked them as either |department=primary (40 out of 94 citations) or |department=secondary (review/book chapter/meta-analysis) (54 out of 94 citations) based on how PubMed classifies the articles and assuming book chapters are secondary. In the clinical significance section, 20/44 of the citations are still primary. @Maxim Masiutin: I would appreciate if you would, where ever possible, replace these primary with secondary sources. Thanks, Boghog (talk) 11:03, 12 March 2024 (UTC)
Thank you, I will do that. This article is a copy of a peer-reviewed paper where, as opposed to Wikipedia, we should have used primary sources. Being extensively reviewed by the very good scholars, using primary sources does not mean that the information is bad or not of "good quality", still, for Wikipedia, I acknowledge that we should use secondary sources. Maxim Masiutin (talk) 11:12, 12 March 2024 (UTC)
I like your idea very much with the "|department=". Do you have a semi-automated tool for that? Could you please mark the same way ketotifen, modafinil, CYP4F2 and HNMT if that does not require much manual work?? Thanks! Maxim Masiutin (talk) 11:21, 12 March 2024 (UTC)
I added |department= manually. The Bio.Entrez python module can return PubTypeList. Searching for example PMID 38465341 returns 'PubTypeList': ['Journal Article', 'Review']. So in principle I could interrogate PubTypeList in my current script to add |department=. Boghog (talk) 12:48, 12 March 2024 (UTC)
That would be great if you could improve your script that does consistent citation formatting to have an option, when needed, add the department. Would help alot. Maxim Masiutin (talk) 14:54, 12 March 2024 (UTC)
Quality means meeting with good article criteria, one of which is "verifiable with no original research". Original research can be hidden by sentences without sources, by usage of secondary sources that does not directly support information or by making own conclusions from primary sources (like extrapolation of information written in human context to other animals). D6194c-1cc (talk) 11:54, 12 March 2024 (UTC)
PMID 31626910 (primary; see title) and PMID 37850096 (secondary; see caption of figure 1) are at least two sources that link 11KDHT directly to backdoor androgen synthesis pathway. Hence it is not original research to describe the 11-KDHT as part of the backdoor pathway. Boghog (talk) 13:44, 12 March 2024 (UTC)
I continued discussion at the Talk:Androgen_backdoor_pathway#11-Oxygenated androgen backdoor biosynthesis and Talk:Androgen backdoor pathway#Primary_and_secondary_backdoor_pathways. D6194c-1cc (talk) 20:51, 12 March 2024 (UTC)
  • I completely agree with everything WAID said above. The lead should summarize content in the article body, and so every fact in the lead should have an easy-to-find citation in the body. I personally find this method (update the body first, the lead follows if needed) easier to maintain. Many prefer to duplicate citations in the lead that are also in the body – I have no quarrel with these people. Ajpolino (talk) 21:11, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
    We do unfortunately have a legacy of a WPM project that generally only wrote the lead, and heavily cited what they wrote because only the lead was going to be used for translation purposes and they wanted those other languages to have citations. This, and some personal preferences, has led to a belief that somehow medical article leads need to be heavily cited. Anyone who thinks difficult subjects need their leads full of little blue numbered rectangles should go look at Donald Trump, possibly the most contentious living human subject. -- Colin°Talk 17:10, 12 March 2024 (UTC)
    I'm not from the USA, so where can I find the source that supports "2017 to 2021." claim in the article? I tried to find it, but I failed. D6194c-1cc (talk) 21:05, 12 March 2024 (UTC)
    Check the dates in Inauguration of Donald Trump and Inauguration of Joe Biden. The elections happen in November in years divisible by four, and the presidents take office in January of the next year. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:37, 12 March 2024 (UTC)
    I asked for the corresponding information in the article. So as I understand, this information violates Wikipedia:Verifyability. I can add {{citation needed}} template, but future citation will be broken if someone will add an inline citation to the lead but not to previous information in the paragraph. Some of information in the lead will be just a summary of the content using multiple sources. In such cases, it will be hard to find corresponding information in the body of an article. D6194c-1cc (talk) 08:07, 14 March 2024 (UTC)
    @D6194c-1cc, I don't think it does. Before you reply, please read WP:Glossary#verifiable and WP:Glossary#uncited, and tell me which of those wiki-jargon words you think best describes those dates in that article. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:30, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

    All quotations, and any material whose verifiability has been challenged or is likely to be challenged, must include an inline citation to a reliable source that directly supports the material. Any material that needs an inline citation but does not have one may be removed.

    — WP:VERIFY
    Well, trivial facts, probably, won't be challenged (like the fact that we are mammals). But some facts that seem to be trivial are not. For example, I thought that the normal body temperature is 36.6 °C, but the MedlinePlus article says that it is 37 °C. D6194c-1cc (talk) 20:30, 18 March 2024 (UTC)
    And both you and MedlinePlus are wrong, because the Normal human body temperature depends on the individual, their health status (e.g., pregnant?), the time of day, location (outdoors on a freezing day?), and recent activities. There is no single number.
    But leaving your example aside, if someone can find a reliable source that says this, then it's verifiable. We know that we can find sources for Donald Trump's years in office; therefore it is verifiable. WP:V requires everything to be verifiable ("source-find-able"). It additionally and separately requires many things to be cited. See WP:MINREF for a quick summary of what's required to be cited. The years Donald Trump was in office are probably not on that list. The normal human body temperature might be, which is why you will find multiple little blue clicky numbers after related statements in Fever. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:08, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

NICE Guidelines as a reliable source

There's currently a discussion at Talk:Puberty blocker#Science based medicine and the earlier Talk:Puberty blocker#Systematic reviews section, suggesting we should not use NICE guidelines as a source on trans issues. -- Colin°Talk 15:29, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

I don't know if anyone's willing to help out with this subject area, but the immediate problem is that some editors are trying to use MEDRS to settle a Wikipedia:Due weight issue, and they're doing so by declaring that one of the few sources MEDRS declares (in WP:MEDSCI, by name) to be a reliable source of information on the scientific consensus.
It appears that the underlying problem is that the review articles in the medical literature do not really agree with WPATH's recommendations on this point. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:17, 20 March 2024 (UTC)
I just noticed and have some quick points:
  1. Nobody ever said the NICE report should be excluded (that first link is a conversation about "should we include that a FOI request was denied")
  2. It was a single systematic review critiqued by other medical organizations for neglecting existing research, not a guideline as presented. NICE has not published any guidelines on treatment of gender dysphoria.
  3. the review articles in the medical literature do not really agree with WPATH's recommendations - a review saying "the evidence is low quality according to the GRADE approach" does not automatically mean "therefore the recommendations based on the current evidence are wrong". Reviews are not the same thing as medical guidelines, the former assess specific aspects of literature, the latter make recommendations based on them taking into consideration all evidence and medical ethics. The existing medical guidelines acknowledge the lack of RCTs (prized by GRADE), but consider them unfeasible, unethical, and make their recommendations based on the existing observational studies.
Your Friendly Neighborhood Sociologist ⚧ Ⓐ (talk) 19:06, 20 March 2024 (UTC)

MGUS polyneuropathy

MGUS polyneuropathy is a rare neurological disease characterized by inflammation of the peripheral nervous system and monoclonal gammopathy of undetermined significance (MGUS). To me this seems like more of a symptom of Monoclonal gammopathy of undetermined significance rather than a separate disorder.

Monoclonal gammopathy of undetermined significance already mentions polyneuropathy stating "Some people may experience a rash or nerve problems, such as numbness or tingling".

I feel like it would be appropriate to redirect MGUS polyneuropathy to Monoclonal gammopathy of undetermined significance#Signs and symptoms but I would appreciate others input before I make any changes. CursedWithTheAbilityToDoTheMath (talk) 04:25, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

Sometimes symptoms deserve separate articles (e.g., Fever), but not always. From its name, though, am I right to guess that this particular thing only appears in MGUS? If so, then I'd personally be inclined to merge it.
Keilana (who wrote the article) has been off wiki the last few weeks, and so has CFCF (who speaks Swedish, and a Swedish source is cited). I'm not sure who else might be able to give you better advice. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:48, 12 March 2024 (UTC)
From my understanding MGUS polyneuropathy refers to the fact that 20% of those with MGUS experience polyneuropathy. It makes sense to have articles for symptoms but doesn't make sense to have an article for a symptom solely related to one condition. I used google translate for the sweedish source and while it does have quite a bit of information it doesn't list any sources. Thank you for your help. CursedWithTheAbilityToDoTheMath (talk) 05:15, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
@CursedWithTheAbilityToDoTheMath and WhatamIdoing: Hello hello, I've been busy and haven't had time to take a look at this. I will have to be honest, I don't remember writing it, and I suspect I was working through a list of rare disease entities since it was written when I was a bored premed. After a bit of a research dig, I do think it merits a separate article though possibly under a different name, or a merger into POEMS syndrome. [2] Keilana (talk) 22:30, 20 March 2024 (UTC)

Introducing User:Johnbod at ILAE

User:Johnbod at ILAE is an alternative account for User:Johnbod. I will be using this account for edits connected with epilepsy, as I will be working over roughly the next year with the Wikipedia:ILAE Wikipedia Project, which has been running since 2020, aiming to improve the coverage of epilepsy-related articles on Wikipedia and is overseen by the International League Against Epilepsy.

I will be working together with ILAE medical specialists to improve the articles. Please let me know any questions. Johnbod at ILAE (talk) 02:03, 21 March 2024 (UTC)

the International League Against Epilepsy is a very worthy cause--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 12:06, 21 March 2024 (UTC)

Ambulatory blood pressure vs. Ambulatory blood pressure monitoring

I came across the article ambulatory blood pressure today. The lead sentence specifically uses "Ambulatory blood pressure monitoring (ABPM)", the infobox title specifically uses "Ambulatory blood pressure monitoring", and at least three other articles that link to the article (Hypertension, Emotional responsivity, and Labile hypertension) use "ambulatory blood pressure monitoring" as piped texts, so I'm wondering if Ambulatory blood pressure monitoring would be a more common-name title for the article instead. Given I'm not a doctor, however, which is more commonly used in the actual field? 2603:8001:4542:28FB:28BF:B526:1BCE:5B4B (talk) 20:20, 23 March 2024 (UTC) (Send talk messages here)

They probably use the acronym.
I agree that the longer name would be better, but we'll need an admin to make that particular move. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:28, 23 March 2024 (UTC)
I think that it could be argued either way. Much of the article is on ambulatory blood pressure, as opposed to office blood pressure. So, tweak the lead to start with a focus on ambulatory blood pressure (consistent with the content of the article) and the title won't be jarring to readers. I've (boldly) made this change to lede, but don't mind that being reversed if a different decision is made. Klbrain (talk) 12:03, 24 March 2024 (UTC)

Feedback needed for Adrenal crisis

I would like to nominate Adrenal crisis as GA but would appreciate some input before doing so. I previously nominated it as a GA but failed. You can see the review here. I believe I have improved the areas that needed to be improved but would really appreciate some feedback. CursedWithTheAbilityToDoTheMath (talk) 01:28, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

the artilce seems very improved on 1a) concise/clear (well-written)[3] and 2b) realiable sources[4]...IMO--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 12:12, 27 March 2024 (UTC)
Thank you. I plan on going over it one more time and adding some info for the "Other animals" section to kick it up a notch then see about nominating it for a GA. CursedWithTheAbilityToDoTheMath (talk) 22:27, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

Andrew Huberman's lead

Hi. I've a question: Can we use current affairs/pop culture magazines to cite that a Stanford professor who presents his research in the form of a podcast is actually promoting poorly researched health claims or should we wait for peer-reviewed journal articles (WP:MEDRS for debunking his research? I have concerns that magazines like New York are biased, and a guest post in Slate is not enough to justify inclusion of this information in the lead. I'm looking for rationale, unbiased opinions on this. Cheers, Weilins (talk) 15:19, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

No peer-reviewed medical journal is likely to go anywhere near a wellness podcaster, and the conception of a systematic review or other 'true' MEDRS being even possible is fantastical. The Slate article[5] looks like apt expert commentary, and WP:PARITY applies since we're talking about FRINGE content (no Veronica, flu vaccines are not 'completely ineffective'). Hence, this matter is better discussed at WP:FTN where (as you were aware) it has already been raised. Bon courage (talk) 15:53, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

TikTok-A-Thon for Trans Healthcare

Hi all

I just finished writing TikTok-A-Thon for Trans Healthcare, I would really appreciate some help with it, also please add it to your watchlist, I know trans related pages get trolls, vandals etc.

Thanks very much

John Cummings (talk) 19:34, 1 April 2024 (UTC)

Notability of 2024 dengue outbreaks

Are the 2024 outbreaks of dengue notable enough to create a new article? --Imconfused3456 (talk) 20:09, 1 April 2024 (UTC)

To create its own article I don’t think it’s necessary, it is covered at Dengue fever outbreaks#2024. waddie96 ★ (talk) 22:09, 1 April 2024 (UTC)

Consensus to list named telehealth facilities

I removed a list of some telehealth facilities from the Medical abortion article. Would other folks please weigh in as to whether they should be restored or not. Thank you. The discussion is at Talk:Medical abortion#Recent reversion - claim of advertising. --Whywhenwhohow (talk) 06:32, 2 April 2024 (UTC)

The edits were at [6] and [7] --Whywhenwhohow (talk) 06:36, 2 April 2024 (UTC)

The Core Contest Returns!

Hi all—The Core Contest returns! Leaving this here:

The Core Contest—Wikipedia's most exciting contest—returns again this year from April 15 to May 31. The goal: to improve vital or other core articles, with a focus on those in the worst state of disrepair. There is £300 of prize money divided among editors who provide the "best additive encyclopedic value". Signups are open now. Cheers from the judges, Femke, Casliber, Aza24. – Aza24 (talk) 23:30, 31 March 2024 (UTC)

thanks for post--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 12:16, 2 April 2024 (UTC)

Fibroma of tendon sheath -- What is this condition?

I am writing for an American Hand Surgeon in practice for over 30 years : "The problem I have with this one is that this a diagnosis I have NEVER made. We need to understand if this is another name for something I do treat, if it's rare, etc. What's going on?" Ischyros7 (talk) 03:27, 4 April 2024 (UTC)

Fibroma of tendon sheath seem to be pretty rare and aren't very well described in literature so it makes sense that you haven't see one before. Wikipedia isn't really the best place to be asking medical type questions however I can direct you to some more clinical resources on the topic. Pathology Outlines does a pretty good job of summing up the more technical details of the condition.[8] Radiopeadia is more generalized and easier to understand but gives some key info on it as well.[9] CursedWithTheAbilityToDoTheMath (talk) 03:38, 4 April 2024 (UTC)
See my response here: Talk:Fibroma of tendon sheath. Jaredroach (talk) 16:51, 4 April 2024 (UTC)

How do we welcome new medical editors?

This section has run its course and is now sailing into improper waters. Complaints about user conduct and charge sheets are not appropriate here; such matters should be raised with the the user and/or at ANI. Bon courage (talk) 04:08, 13 April 2024 (UTC)

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

Should we welcome them with edit war that almost violates 3RR (correction and apologies: there were 3 reverts, but needs a fourth to constitute a violation, but I still think WP:BITE, WP:WikiBullying and WP:PRESERVE apply; and per WP:3RR, “ The rule is not an entitlement to revert a page a specific number of times”) and bite them with warnings and potential WikiBullying?

Perhaps someone needs to consider self-reverting. --Dustfreeworld (talk) 10:33, 8 January 2024 (UTC) edited 12:36, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

+1 to your points, behaviour and tone towards new contributors is very often needlessly harsh.
That said, at least notifying @Zefr of this post seems appropriate. MaligneRange (talk) 15:46, 8 January 2024 (UTC)
It's a Frontiers journal, and I suspect that "the script highlighted it as possibly bad" is all the thought that went into this. Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Perennial sources doesn't mention it, and Wikipedia:WikiProject Academic Journals/Journals cited by Wikipedia/Questionable1 says that it needs case-by-case consideration, not shoot-on-sight edit warring. The journal is indexed in MEDLINE and Index Medicus.[10] Scopus says it's a mid-tier journal.[11] It's therefore probably a reliable source, according to the criteria put forward in question #8 in the FAQ about how to do case-by-case evaluations. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:39, 8 January 2024 (UTC)
"Frontiers" is not the best journal around, but it's certainly not the worst either. There are plenty of Frontier articles that are reliable, and I've personally cited it before. Vontheri (talk) 19:08, 29 January 2024 (UTC)
While I am no fan of Wikipedia being used for class exercises I agree that interaction is poor and reflects negatively on Wikipedia and our hope to continue as a project with new editors.
Three things strike me. This revert claims in the edit summary that "'smart drug' term and other claims are not supported by a WP:MEDRS review". We don't need a MEDRS review to say that certain drugs are being labelled "smart drugs" by students or the press or whatever nor to say "its use is increasing, especially among students". The removed text said "The reasons for using the drug Modafinil are due to better concentration, neuro-improvement, stress reduction, time optimization, reduction of fatigue, reduction of daytime sleepiness and curiosity" and the source says "The most frequent reasons for using smart drugs were: better concentration, neuro enhancement, stress reduction, time optimization, increased wake time, increased free time, and curiosity". So there's a plagiarism issues here that we see almost inevitably from students who aren't being monitored or taught properly by their teacher. But the key is the text is sourced and not itself incorrect: these are reasons students give. It likely needs more carefully worded to not give any impression that Wikipedia agrees with those reasons or thinks they are scientifically confirmed. The linked article is indeed a medical review paper, so I'd very much expect a beginner to think it was just fine. Instead the editors is told it isn't a MEDRS review and on their user page pointed at Wikipedia:CITEWATCH. Quite how any beginner is supposed to make sense of a table for bots I don't know but in big bold letters at the start it says this page "does not answer whether it is appropriate to cite them". Personally I find this "You cited a predatory journal" reason-why-I'm-justified-in-edit-warring-with-you to be a bit of a clever-dick landmine issue for this project. It is nearly impossible for most editors to figure this stuff out, but get it wrong and you'll be threatened with a block (as here) for trying to restore your apparently MEDRS compliant text which keeps getting removed by some know-it-all vandal.
Secondly I find it offensive that the editor's imperfect prose has led to him to being told to go edit on Turkish Wikipedia. "Comments made by students on this talk page indicate your knowledge of English grammar is poor. There is a Wikipedia in Turkish. Please edit there, not here". This is repeated on the user's talk page. And in among all the ranting about predatory journals, the student is lectured on punctuation and citation sequencing, as though this is something that matters on your first article edit. This is the encyclopaedia that anyone can edit. Literacy (and numeracy) skills have been notably lacking in some well known WPMED members over the years and I don't recall anyone telling them to go edit somewhere else for those reasons.
Thirdly the student is told "It seems odd to me ..that graduate students are permitted to do their first encyclopedia editing on a medical topic (this requires expertise)" The main problem over the years with student editing has been (a) undergraduate students doing a 101 course who, well, know nothing about their subject, obviously, and are attempting to write effectively textbook level prose on said subject and (b) courses where the teacher has only just mastered putting three 's together to make bold text. I would love if Wikipedia got edits from graduates as this one, a "molecular biology master degree student". I wonder what kind of "expertise" is "required" to edit Wikipedia's biomedical articles? Would my first aid badge do? This elitism is killing the project.

-- Colin°Talk 14:33, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

Thank you so much for your wise comment, Colin. That really helps :) I agree that the interaction reflects negatively on Wikipedia and our hope to continue as a project with new editors. I think more than one user is affected. That probably affects the whole class. On the Neuroenhancement talk page new users are told that they don’t have “permission” from Wiki Education Foundation to edit. And many others who have edited the article have their edits reverted. I’ve just posted welcome messages on some of those new users’ talk pages. --Dustfreeworld (talk) 18:30, 8 January 2024 (UTC); 18:25, 10 January 2024 (UTC)
AIUI the Wiki Edu Foundation only supports classes in the US and maybe Canada, so they wouldn't be supporting a class in Turkey. Someone like Justinianus could tell us whether m:WMTR supports university classes, but in general, this is the encyclopedia anyone can edit, and that includes students just as much as anyone else. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:53, 8 January 2024 (UTC)
To clarify... This is indeed "the encyclopaedia anyone can edit" but the important word is "can". Not "made to" or "paid to". Once you go beyond voluntary participation, the usual contract with the community breaks down. We had a very very few wise lecturers years ago who understood this and ensured the students were aware of the toes they might step on, but they were exceptions. The fault with any of this is the teachers, not the students, and frustrations with unprepared students being made to edit Wikipedia should be laid at their door. We were all new once and I would guess that 99.999% of the world population think a "predatory journal" is one on big cats or sharks. -- Colin°Talk 21:00, 8 January 2024 (UTC)
@Colin: Not just students, *very experienced* users can be bitten or wikibullied as well, not to mention teachers who have less experience in editing Wikipedia (e.g. [12][13]). --Dustfreeworld (talk) 11:45, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
It may or may not be the teacher’s fault. I think almost all students we are talking about are studying in the university. I suppose they should know what is self-learning. The problem is, if we don’t even has a link to WP:MEDRS in our WP:G [14], how can they learn about it? Even the teachers can’t. I don’t think the students need to be “trained”. They need to learn by themselves. I do think our information is somewhat scattered / difficult to understand, etc. Further, more can be done by experienced editors to offer help to new users and equip them with the needed information (e.g. by posting a comprehensive welcome template instead of warnings).
Sometimes student edits seem especially problematic, likely because there are too much of them (in one topic) at one time, as compared with other individual new users. I don’t think the difficulties in understanding how Wikipedia works are specific to students. --Dustfreeworld (talk) 12:46, 26 January 2024 (UTC); 14:21, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
There might be a case for putting some work into the WP:MEDFAQ. If would-be medical editors read that it could at least convey the basics. Bon courage (talk) 09:11, 27 January 2024 (UTC)
Sounds good to me. --Dustfreeworld (talk) 17:25, 27 January 2024 (UTC)
Related discussions:
--Dustfreeworld (talk) 17:30, 27 January 2024 (UTC); 11:05, 14 February 2024 (UTC); --Dustfreeworld (talk) 21:19, 8 April 2024 (UTC)
And problem persists weeks after this discussion started, e.g.,
AND, problem persists *months* after this discussion started ...
--Dustfreeworld (talk) 22:00, 29 January 2024 (UTC); 08:36, 7 March 2024 (UTC)
This is not a noticeboard for discussing users, and in particular not for keeping a running tally. If you have a complaint about a user take it to WP:ANI. Bon courage (talk) 08:43, 7 March 2024 (UTC)
Please don’t follow me. That’s enough. Thanks. --Dustfreeworld (talk) 08:46, 7 March 2024 (UTC)
Lay off with the bad faith accusations. I've been watching this noticeboard for over a decade. Bon courage (talk) 08:52, 7 March 2024 (UTC)
IYKYK. You’ve followed me from WP:ANI to here. I don’t want to escalate. If I were to argue with you, I would have done so days ago. Please calm down (and better stay away from me). Thanks. --Dustfreeworld (talk) 09:00, 7 March 2024 (UTC)
You're spouting rubbish; I'm not even watching ANI at the moment. I'm not sure what kind of crusade you think you're on, but it's becoming disruptive. Bon courage (talk) 09:06, 7 March 2024 (UTC)
I repeat: I don’t want to escalate. Thanks. --Dustfreeworld (talk) 09:32, 7 March 2024 (UTC)
Maybe we should take this user to ANI, though it's not well-suited for thoughtful discussion about competing needs. We need to have a discussion about how a dedicated patroller can discourage overstated contributions (e.g., all fruit is anti-inflammatory, so it would only be WP:EXCEPTIONAL to claim that Papaya does not have anti-inflammatory qualities; however, that doesn't mean that we want the articles to claim that Papaya is unusual in this regard) without being rude to good-faith newbies ("None of that nonsense you entered is supported by science" – which is rude, and which doesn't explain why he reverted sentences like Credit for introducing papaya to Hawaii is often given to Don Francisco Marín, a Spanish explorer and horticulturist, who brought it from the Marquesas Islands in the early 1800s). We don't really want to discourage newcomers through wholesale reversion when only part of a contribution is unwanted. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:04, 7 March 2024 (UTC)
I've reminded Zefr that his actions continue to be discussed here. -- Colin°Talk 08:27, 8 March 2024 (UTC)

Maybe we should take this user to ANI

Maybe you are right (and I was wrong?) --Dustfreeworld (talk) 00:09, 12 April 2024 (UTC)
One help would be to, instead of using just a generic warning template by default, to individualize and de-formalize the wording. Adding links to the specific incident in question should be done, to avoid potential ambiguity. And we should civilly, respectfully, and nicely explain specifically what was wrong with the way the editor originally worded/cited it. (Why is Wikipedia often so lacking in civility, respect, and niceness, by the way..?)
I'm personally not in favor of Wikipedia editing being used as a school assignment, but given that it is, and regardless of if the editor in question is editing as part of school or as a "regular" editor, the same should apply as to how to deal with it and guide them. Remember that there are editors with good intentions who simply need guidance as to how Wikipedia should work (in which case a formal, and often vague, warning could be confusing to them at best, and offensive and scare them off at worst), but there are also editors who actually do have bad intentions for whom a formal warning would make sense.
You (Dustfreeworld) said "I don’t think the difficulties in understanding how Wikipedia works are specific to students". This is true that the difficulties are probably not specific, but what is specific to most students who are editing as part of a class assignment is the motivation and the reason for why they are editing Wikipedia to begin with. Most editors have intrinsic motivations as to why we edit. Most students have extrinsic motivations to edit Wikipedia. Extrinsic, rather than intrinsic motivation, almost always results in inferior results. Vontheri (talk) 00:28, 30 January 2024 (UTC)
...all else being equal, except that when you compare a graduate-level class against a random newbie, all else is not equal. A grad student after a grade is probably going to make a better contribution than someone who's finding television boring tonight.
I have been missing the old Wikipedia:Requests for comment/User conduct process recently. Some of the reverters may be aware that an individual editor or two disagrees with their approach, but there is no longer a good way to determine whether the community in general feels the same way. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:38, 30 January 2024 (UTC)
A grad student after a grade is probably going to make a better contribution than someone who's finding television boring tonight.
I'm not so sure about that. Those two categories of editors (grad student and bored person) tend to make very different kinds of edits. The former group is more likely to make long edits, and the latter group short edits, for example. And how many people actually begin editing Wikipedia because they happened to be bored one night and thought "Hey, maybe I could randomly start editing Wikipedia to pass the time!" I know that's certainly not at all how or why I began editing. I began editing because I saw an article about a topic I was quite familiar with that I felt was lacking important information, so I decided to start adding information, learning on my own the way things were supposed to be formatted and such. In other words: for reasons of intrinsic motivation.
I'm not quite sure what you mean by, "A grad student after a grade" in the sentence, "A grad student after a grade is probably going to make a better contribution than someone who's finding television boring tonight." Do you mean by "after a grade" as in after they completed the class assignment that involved editing Wikipedia? And then the assumption is that they will continue to make edits long-term after their class is over? I'm curious, does anyone have any data for what % of people who first edited Wikipedia as part of school assignments go on to continue to become regular editors? My guess is that it is not very many.
I remember once running across an article (it was a long time ago and I can't remember what the article was, sorry) and I thought, "This reminds me of the writing style of some of the poorly-written papers I've seen before written by university students in the class of a professor I know." (This professor is a graduate-level professor at a school that is... let's just say not very selective in its admissions. I've seen some atrociously horrible writing from some of her students before.) I soon found out that the article I had just read had, in fact, been written by a student as part of a class using Wikipedia editing as an assignment! Extrinsic motivation just simply tends to result in bad writing. (Not always, of course, but very often.) If we have Wikipedia articles that are written by students who don't actually care about Wikipedia but whose goal is to simply get a "passing grade," then we are going to have a lot of poor-quality articles.
I also have observed that there seems to be a near-universal assumption that if someone is editing due to a class assignment, then this necessarily means that they have never seriously edited Wikipedia before and don't already have any way of knowing how things are supposed to work. Imagine if you were currently a student in a class and found out you were going to be treated like you knew nothing about Wikipedia, when you already likely know even more than the professor knows about how it works. It would feel pretty condescending and frustrating, wouldn't it? Vontheri (talk) 18:16, 30 January 2024 (UTC)
I wonder whether our glorification of intrinsic motivation would stand up to scrutiny. I doubt that any of us would say that getting a paycheck makes us do a bad job in our day jobs, so why would extrinsic motivation be fine there and bad here? I'd say that bad writers are going to produce bad writing regardless of their motivation. We have to watch out for incompatible motivations (e.g., Wikipedia wants encyclopedic content; the spammer wants people to click an external link), but I don't think we need to be concerned about whether the student's short-term motivation is extrinsic (or perhaps really intrinsic at one remove: they're taking that class voluntarily, which shows some intrinsic motivation).
I'm not sure that your experience is entirely typical. My first edits (as an IP, originally) were just a case of https://xkcd.com/386/, except for typos. Editors who begin contributing because they have something to tell the world tend not to be retained as long as those of us who like fixing typos or doing other gnoming tasks. They post their content about the subject they care about, and then they're pretty much done. It may take them 10 edits or 1,000 to tell the world about their subject, but it won't take 100,000.
Wiki Education Foundation does not track student retention. However, several editors say that they have continued (sometimes in a new account), which is more than we can say about most non-student editors. I think I've "met" approximately as many retained student editors as I've met former vandals, although the pool of vandals is much bigger than the pool of student editors. For context, 70% of accounts never make even the first edit. Of the minority that make one, most of them make only one or two edits, and never edit again. In the last month, there were only about 25K Wikipedia:Extended confirmed editors who made even a single edit, and only about 10K who averaged one edit per day in the last month. Editors like you are the top 0.1% – the equivalent, in income terms, to an American resident who makes several million US dollars per year. There just haven't been enough students to produce very many like you. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:14, 31 January 2024 (UTC)
I don't think "throw random statistics" and "add some anecdotes from recollection" is really addressing the issues. These comparisons with other things are terrible. For example, there are several reasons I do a good job, but some of them include the degree I have, the years of experience I have and that I'm being asked to do something within my competency. And any boss looking for people to do a non-trivial task will be asking the same things: qualifications, experience, appropriateness. If someone asked to go be a dentist for a day, or an optician, or fix the wheel alignment on someone's car, I'd be rubbish no matter how much you paid me or no matter how much fun I might think those things are. So saying, WAID, that our arguments don't stand up to scrutiny because being paid doesn't make you a bad employee is a rubbish argument. I'd be the worst dentist ever, whether you paid me or not. It would never have crossed my mind to be a dentist for a day. Similarly, no newbie would ever set themselves the tasks these students are being compelled to do.
There may well be some student classes, following all the rules, who are being asked to do far more reasonable things, like some first aid, that they have actually had some appropriate training for. But that doesn't deny the existence of classes that are awful, and every time we look, the teachers are awful, have never seriously edited Wikipedia, and students are not being supervised. Nothing in that last sentence is changed by comparisons with newbies or employees.
The 70% stat isn't worth repeating, WAID. You yourself have said that a big chunk of that is auto-created en:wp accounts for users on other projects who merely glance at a page here while logged in. And there isn't really a hard dividing line between IP and account in terms of being able to edit most articles. There are times when a statistic has too many unknowns for it to be useful. This is one of them.
From what the teacher and the students have said about this class at AN/I, this has been a terrible experience for all of them. But these are graduate students. So they are bright, capable and they already know some useful stuff. They could have been great editors, but they were required to do something that was beyond their abilities, by someone who hasn't a clue. -- Colin°Talk 08:48, 31 January 2024 (UTC)
To a first approximation, all newbies are bad. We have no evidence behind, and not even any common sense support for, the idea that a newbie who is incentivized to do something plausibly relevant and correct (e.g., by getting graded) is going to be worse than a newbie who doesn't.
While all newbies are bad, we also know that student editors are less-bad than others. Students almost never vandalize articles, they almost never engage in block-worthy behaviors, and they are more likely to respond to complaints than non-student newbies. (NB: I am making a comparison of the relative chances of getting a response between class-based newbies and non-class-based newbies; I am not saying that an absolute majority of students respond to messages we post). In the medical area specifically, garbage from newbies is an ongoing problem. We have banned all newbies from editing articles like COVID-19 pandemic and Cancer to keep them from being stuffed with conspiracy theories, quackery, and whatever is lighting up social media this week. Students may re-write sex-specific articles to sound gender neutral, but they don't generally replace conventional medical treatments with advertisements for the Supplement o' the Week. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:01, 31 January 2024 (UTC)
@Colin, IMO that last sentence you wrote is a very big assumption that was based on your interpretation of what the instructor had said about how they felt. FYI, both the instructor and the graduates hasn’t posted at AN/I. The instructor has posted at the Education noticeboard, and I think that’s the remark that you based your assumption on.
The instructor said, “my students are afraid of editing Wikipedia and then during their editing experience some felt discouraged and quite exhausted due to some unfriendly approach or comments from some users.” I believe this is one of those comments the instructor is referring to:
which is “offensive, factually incorrect and misguided, particularly in their attitude that graduate students shouldn't be editing” and that comment was directed to the *whole class*, just after they introduced themselves.
I think “this has been a terrible experience for all of them” because *all of them have been wikibullied*. I believe there maybe some misread and misunderstanding here. I do believe all of us would agree that the WikiBullying should be halted and not going further. I hope the assumption/accusation can stop (better yet, be striked out) especially when the instructor’s RL identity was disclosed elsewhere at WP. Respectfully, --Dustfreeworld (talk) 18:19, 31 January 2024 (UTC)
That comment ("There is a Wikipedia in Turkish. Please edit there, not here") was one of the ones I had in mind when I said that I missed the old RFC/U process. It was eliminated years ago, but when it was active, it was a place to talk to users about whether they understood that a comment like that might come across as being racist. Someone could genuinely intend such a comment to be purely helpful and in support of both the person it is addressed to and the Turkish Wikipedia, but that's not the way I "hear" such a comment. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:37, 31 January 2024 (UTC)
You don't "know that student editors are less-bad than others". Sure, their class assignment is unlikely to ask them to remind readers that Trump won the 2020 election or that ivermectin cures Covid 19. But then, students in class are also not out smoking pot or driving while drunk. What evidence do you have that these classes make any different to that person's behaviour on Wikipedia at other times, likely with a different account or as an IP. That they are less likely to make drunken "amusing" edits. Or that someone in a psychology 101 class is less likely to believe right wing conspiracy theories or be anti-vax solely because they once were required to edit Wikipedia for a grade?
But their class assignment, largely unsupervised it seems, is likely to end up with them selecting non-recent primary-research papers and just reproducing the paper's text into our article in some random place. They aren't, AFAICS, being asked to seriously study the topic of the "sympathetic nervous system", select among the best recent secondary sources, and then summarise that to fill in the gaps or improve what is there. This is classic "find a factoid on PubMed and insert into Wikipedia".
Being self motivated and being externally motivated have different pros and cons. One isn't 100% bad. Sure, people can be self motivated to vandalise or push conspiracy theories, which are unlikely to be motivators in a decent class. But with the worse classes we see newbies make bigger and more challenging edits than typical newbies might otherwise, on topics that they really really don't yet understand. I can't see how that is anything but trouble. They either then plagiarise their one and only source, or attempt to write it in the words of someone who doesn't yet understand. That someone taking a class teaching the basics of stem cell biology, say, is then asked to Teach The World via Wikipedia about stem cell biology. -- Colin°Talk 10:36, 1 February 2024 (UTC)
What evidence do I have that students aren't running WP:BADHAND accounts? Exactly the same as the evidence that I have that for the regulars on this page, including you.
The evidence that we do have indicates that the students making their first edits are more likely to be productive (by every measure I've heard of: getting reverted, getting blocked, adding sources, editing on more than one day, etc.) than non-students making their first edits.
I don't think we should judge students by "the worst classes" any more than we should judge other newbies by the worst of other newbies. The worst classes require, at minimum, a bunch of reverting. The worst other editors require police reports.
I think that it's also a mistake to classify students as extrinsically motivated when they are voluntarily signing up for a class that edits Wikipedia. A person who chooses to take a class that is advertised as editing Wikipedia (and at least some of them are, including one grad school class whose whole reason for existence is to improve Wikipedia) is already intrinsically motivated. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:53, 1 February 2024 (UTC)
I didn't say they were consciously running BADHAND accounts. Consider your reasoning by any other circumstance. Their behaviour while editing Wikipedia using accounts registered to the class and potentially observably by teacher is going to be similar in many ways to student behaviour in the class room. On the other hand, outside of the classroom or lab, student behaviour is notoriously poor on many measures (though better on some others due to being brighter and better off than average). So when you say these students are model editors in many aspects, I'm rolling my eyes.
Students often get choices of modules to pick but once chosen it becomes as much an obligation as if there was no choice of module. If it counts for their grade that's extrinsic motivation. If the choice of what to do on Wikipedia isn't entirely up to the students, that's extrinsic motivation.
WAID I repeat that your "at least they don't require police reports" argument is really inappropriate and somewhat offensive. Please stop comparing students to vandals or, now, criminals. Would you be happy in real life if hostile workplace behaviour against you, or a moderate level crime against you was dismissed with an "just be glad you weren't...." severe crime? It isn't in any way a valid argument. It's a sort of dishonest politician argument. There's probably a Wikipedia article for it.
There exist bad classes. There exist students making copyvio edits of random papers they found. There exist students adding material to articles that is already there because they were told to add material, not to improve what was there. There exist students creating new articles for topics we already cover, because they were told to create new articles. There exist students to keep reverting back their edits because otherwise they fear they won't get their grade. There exist classes where the teacher has no skill or knowledge or experience of the subject, which isn't how good education works. There exist classes where the teacher assumed Wikipedia would fix the problems and correct mistakes. And there exist classes where students are asked to do something so beyond their abilities on articles that matter deeply to editors here, that those editors behave in a hostile and unacceptable way in return. And so on. Imaginations about what random newbies might do on a random night are entirely irrelevant. -- Colin°Talk 12:46, 3 February 2024 (UTC)
Yes, there exist bad classes. But: Even the bad classes aren't worse than other newbies.
The problem here is more like:
We have 10,000 newbies running around a festival. Most of them are okay, but some of them are causing problems that annoy staff, sometimes out of ignorance (ranging from "Hey, y'all, watch this!" to "I thought this was the line for the toilets") and sometimes out of malice (e.g., pickpockets and taggers).
All our attention is on one group of 10 guys wearing matching T-shirts. They're trying to do (what they believe is) the right thing, but they're really not figuring it out: they were blocking the path when others needed to get past, confused when people tried to talk to them, and generally caused small, temporary, reversible problems. The security team tries to tell them what to do, but it doesn't seem to help. Eventually the group, having had a miserable day, goes home. Meanwhile, the security team has had to eject 1,000 individuals from the event.
We go home, too, and we talk about how horrible it is those ten guys were for doing what they thought they were supposed to be doing. We talk about banning groups, even though there were lots of other groups doing well. We don't talk at all about the 1,000 individuals that were tossed out of the event.
Why is our attention focus on 1% of the problem? Is it because we find a group inherently more threatening?
More than 10% of accounts created last year were so bad that they get blocked after making their first edit. None of these students – in a "bad class" – were so bad that they got blocked. Why are we saying that these students are worse than the ones who got blocked? We had editors (not you, of course) proposing banning all classes because this one group of newbies caused some non-block-worthy problems, but we don't have editors proposing banning all newbies, even though a really sizeable minority of newbies cause block-worthy problems and almost all of them, especially if they make more than a couple of edits, cause non-block-worthy problems. Proposing to ban the category of newbies that causes fewer problems does not seem rational to me. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:04, 3 February 2024 (UTC)
[Sigh] Why this topic started by me: How do we welcome our new (medical) editors (including teachers/PG/UG, etc.) ?
Now becomes: How do we *criticise* our new editors? ... [Sigh] ... --Dustfreeworld (talk) 21:01, 3 February 2024 (UTC)
Well there's a false dichotomy, as though it is a choice between students or newbies. Both of them are newbies. And I wager, outside of their class assignment, which they generally edit with an account created for the purpose and assigned to the class, their editing behaviour, should they edit, is virtually indistinguishable from the behaviour of matched peers who happened to not get an assignment. So you've created two population groups that are actually just one population group: newbies.
Your measure, whether they get blocked, is fairly extreme, and doesn't measure any of the other bad stuff like copy vio or plagiarism. Nobody has ever suggested that teachers are asking students to vandalise or asking students to insert racial slurs or do anything remotely like that which cause your 10% of first edits are blocked scenario. So why is that in any way relevant.
WAID, I'm really unconvinced you comparing students to newbies or vandals or criminals is in any way helpful. In the UK, we don't let learner drivers on the motorways. Someone just beginning to remember to look in their mirrors before signalling before maneuvering to the next lane, is not going to interact well with the asshole in a BMW doing 90mph when they swerve out into their path unanticipated. If driving instructors took it into their heads that the motorway was a great place to learn (nice straight road, wide lanes, no traffic lights or roundabouts) we'd criticise these driving instructors for not appreciating how motorways work. That criticism would be valid. But what I'm hearing from you is that learner drivers under instruction never get arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol. They never get done for speeding at 100mph. Their car is never uninsured and they never drive without a (provisional) licence. Whereas thousands of "drivers" do all those things. So clearly we should focus on these problem "drivers" and totally ignore the problem "learners on motorways". Especially as the learner drivers have a big L painted or stuck on their car, so we are especially aware of them. If anyone tried that on you, you'd respond "So what, my criticism is still valid". In fact, some student classes are worse: the students are like learners whose first vehicle is actually an articulated lorry and it turns out their driving instructor can't drive but once watched Top Gear and "how hard can it be"? -- Colin°Talk 14:23, 5 February 2024 (UTC)
(Translation note for the above: motorway = freeway). I agree, plus student newbies are likely to get added overconfidence from being told they have been sufficiently trained, & being told, indeed instructed, to make edits, often pretty bold ones. Admittedly, the majority never seem to make any actual articlespace edits at all. Johnbod (talk) 15:33, 5 February 2024 (UTC)
I don’t think comparing “editing Wikipedia” with “driving on the motorways” is relevant.

We welcome new editors. We want more people to become part of *us*, especially people who are experts in their field. Classes that teach how to edit at Wikipedia is a good way to promote Wikipedia (both editing and browsing). I’ve read student editors wrote that they thought only certain elite group could edit Wikipedia, but when they found out (through their course) that they could edit too they found it really satisfying. I don’t think there are persistent wikibullying ([19] ..., etc.), WP:OWN/elitism/etc. on the motorways (BTW, according to the definition of *that regular user*, I think most of *us* in this thread should be OUT of this WP Project MEDICINE, I don’t know why we can still discuss / are still discussing here ;-) I don’t think they are promoting the motorways by teaching people how to drive.

I agree that edits from classes may cause problems for regulars here. I don’t think that has much to do with “who brings the new editors here”. As noted by me and others, it’s an issue mainly because there can be a large number of edits in a short time, usually in the same topic. Further, people immediately bristle when a cluster of students start editing because they’ve seen similar problems happened before (but I suspect those issues have long been exaggerated by some of our regular users, due to their own behavioural problems / mindset that I’ve mentioned), and this can lead to subsequent escalating conflicts.

IMO, most of the problems can be dealt with through better communication (and less incivility and WP:OWN/elitism mindset) between regulars and new users, better enforcement of disciplinary actions against obviously problematic senior users, and more support for classes.

As to support for classes, it seems to me that it all comes down to resources. As said by Rhododendrites at the Education noticeboard [20]: “... there is no staff support outside the US/CA ... the international education program has been extremely under-funded. Meanwhile, it seems like there are fewer resources for educators outside NA today than there were ~8 years ago. The education program extension has been deprecated after it was abandoned by the foundation, there were once a lot of resources over at the Outreach Wiki, but that's been rolled into meta:Education, which has almost no content. I hope that's temporary, …”

That said, with limited resource, I believe there are still much that we can do, e.g., informing new users about our rules as soon as they register (by a welcome template for instance), improving our (navigation of) guidelines and documentation, be nice and explain more patiently instead of posting a vague warning, etc.

It seems to me that most users involved in this discussion aren’t very interested in discussing all these. --Dustfreeworld (talk) 18:10, 5 February 2024 (UTC); 22:13, 5 February 2024 (UTC); 14:32, 6 February 2024 (UTC)

More on support for classes, posted by Ian (Wiki Ed): [21] --Dustfreeworld (talk) 18:34, 5 February 2024 (UTC)
@Vontheri,

One help would be to, instead of using just a generic warning template by default, to individualize and de-formalize the wording ... And we should civilly, respectfully, and nicely explain specifically what was wrong with the way the editor originally worded/cited it. (Why is Wikipedia often so lacking in civility, respect, and niceness, by the way..?)

... regardless of if the editor in question is editing as part of school or as a "regular" editor, the same should apply as to how to deal with it and guide them. Remember that there are editors with good intentions who simply need guidance as to how Wikipedia should work (in which case a formal, and often vague, warning could be confusing to them at best, and offensive and scare them off at worst), but there are also editors who actually do have bad intentions for whom a formal warning would make sense.

Agreed. --Dustfreeworld (talk) 21:25, 3 February 2024 (UTC)
I'm not comparing editing Wikipedia with driving on the motorway. I think most countries let beginners out onto the roads, rather than requiring them to take lessons on private ground. Many people, however, find a big empty car part in which to learn how to start and stop and turn the steering wheel around. And in my country, nobody would dream of practicing a three-point-turn on a motorway slipway, or parallel parking on the hard shoulder. Any instructor doing that would likely get some kind of ban and disallowed from teaching. Some classes use sandboxes (and some never seem to escape them). Other classes ask for small edits. But many it seems ask them to make big edits, usually adding new material rather than fixing what's there, and this can end up just repeating existing material or being a copyvio. And usually that material is something the student is on a topic the student is only just learning about. I don't think that is anything to do with the students themselves being newbies. It is the teacher's fault.
I think students could be asked to do assignments on Wikipedia that we would be happy with. But when they are not, mostly I think this is related to the teacher not understanding how Wikipedia works due to inexperience and over-confidence, and the "obey authority" roles between student and teacher that means the student has to do what they are asked, rather than voicing their discomfort or suggesting alternatives. There is also, as you note, a matter of scale. Years ago the medical project had a huge class (think over a thousand) taking psychology 101 being asked to make edits by a guy who had essentially watched Top Gear and though driving on the motorway was easy and fun thing for their students to do, and he could put his feet up and let everyone else mark his homework assignments. But even a few students all being asked to go find some latest medical research on pub med and add it to a Wikipedia article can create a monster.
I agree there are civility problems with the example that started this, and I've gone through them already. Wikipedia, for some reason, puts up with people who have civility issues that would have got them sacked from most office workspaces long ago, usually because they are highly productive editors doing thankless tasks. While it would be wonderful if some of the issues you see got addressed, Wikipedia has been going long enough for me to doubt they will. In other words, these classes will have to learn not to poke the bears.
Wrt what people are interested in. This is a volunteer project. (well, outside of class assignments and paid editing it is). If you are going to cajole editors into helping out with the education projects, a discussion like this probably isn't the place to do it. Colin°Talk 08:52, 6 February 2024 (UTC)
It’s not true that Wikipedia puts up with people who have civility issues because they are highly productive editors doing thankless tasks. We’ve seen many long-term editors blocked indefinitely, including former administrators and former bureaucrats, who were *really* “highly productive editors doing thankless tasks”. The issues didn’t got addressed probably because no one bothers to complain. Regulars won’t because it’s thankless, they aren’t the victims, they believe that does more harm than good to themselves, etc. Newbies won’t because they don’t know how to (or even don’t know that they can). --Dustfreeworld (talk) 10:46, 14 February 2024 (UTC)
Well I've seen many editors who Wikipedia puts up with (or at least, survived for a remarkable amount of time) because of the perceived value they gave despite their constant hostility to others. I do think you hit the nail on the head with "*really*" before the "highly productive editors". Not because Wikipedia failed them, but because Wikipedia became their life. In my experience, editors who spend their lives on Wikipedia or Commons, burning the midnight oil so you can't even work out what timezone they are in, uploading or categorising millions of photos or making hundreds of thousands of edits, end up being asked to leave. It's just not a sane or healthy thing to do. (Operating a bot account is another sure fire way). -- Colin°Talk 12:01, 14 February 2024 (UTC)
On a related note, I do think too much value is given to the quantity of edits someone has made. Quantity of edits tells nothing about quality of edits. I have observed editors who, in my opinion, are using Wikipedia like it's a game where number of edits = points scored. It's hard to imagine it being an indication of good mental health when you see someone making hundreds of edits a day at all hours of the clock nearly every day of the year.
Even if such an editor is doing productive tasks, if they are constantly acting in incivility, then perhaps the number of editors they scare away outweighs their productivity? Vontheri (talk) 07:26, 16 February 2024 (UTC)
@Vontheri, Totally agree. --Dustfreeworld (talk) 22:12, 22 February 2024 (UTC)

.. the number of editors they scare away outweighs their productivity ..

Yep. --Dustfreeworld (talk) 00:12, 12 April 2024 (UTC)
I believe it's somewhat situational. I'm a medical student who does some editing while studying things. In many cases, I find that pages are lacking expanded explanations or recent knowledge, and in this case it's better for me (or an undergraduate, or anyone else) to add content, provided it's well-sourced. But when there is an expert who knows more about the subject, I would immediately defer. Authority and expertise has its place, and ideally every bit of info on every medicine page would be written by specialist physicians. But there just aren't enough of them volunteering their time to expand Wikipedia, so that's not realistic. But we can make way when they do come around.
For what it's worth, I've had no trouble as a newer editor, even when I make relatively large changes or ones I think may be controversial (of course, I cite these changes as best I can). Just-a-can-of-beans (talk) 19:26, 12 January 2024 (UTC)
WikiProject Medicine was originally created by medical students. We've always got a handful of current and prospective medical students around, and they tend to be great contributors. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:58, 15 January 2024 (UTC)
But when there is an expert who knows more about the subject, I would immediately defer ← I wouldn't be too deferential. Wikipedia has had some experts (even Nobel Prize winners) who have very odd ideas and are terrible at editing Wikipedia. Expertise at identifying and summarizing sources in an encyclopedic manner needn't correspond to subject-matter expertise. Bon courage (talk) 09:07, 28 January 2024 (UTC)
I wouldn't let the few oddballs contaminate the basic principle. You know, if someone actually is a neurologist of many years experience, rather than a student who has only ever opened an introductory neurology textbook a few months ago. But a medical degree is not required nor is it a guarantee of wisdom over the entire topic domain. A cardiologist who last heard anything about epilepsy drugs in a 30 minute lecture in the early 1990s, for example. I wish we had more topic experts because to create a really great article (vs adding factoids or a couple of formulaic lead paragraphs) requires a lot of effort and source resources and a deep understanding of the topic. -- Colin°Talk 15:06, 28 January 2024 (UTC)
@Just-a-can-of-beans ideally every bit of info on every medicine page would be written by specialist physicians
I have to strongly disagree with that. One of the advantages of Wikipedia is that it allows people from diverse backgrounds and perspectives to contribute. If everything written about medicine were written by physicians then Wikipedia might as well just be a medical school textbook--or worse, articles written with the target audience being patients who are all assumed to read at a 5th grade level. There are countless ways to learn and be knowledge and wise about medicine (or any topic) besides formally holding a degree.
That said, I would certainly hope that someone editing an article has at least intermediate understanding of the topic, and at least near-advanced understanding of the topic if it's a medical-related article. (minor edits such as correcting typos are an exception, obviously.) But there are countless ways of gaining advanced knowledge about medicine besides attending medical school or practicing as a physician.
I've personally met M.D.s who didn't know what renin or pulse pressure were, another who didn't seem to understand how buccal administration works, as well as one who didn't know the difference between hypopnea and hypoxia, and another who didn't know that Cymbalta wasn't an SSRI, and, perhaps most shockingly, a very experienced M.D. with a high reputation who didn't even know the difference between phenotype and genotype. Those are just a few examples; I could go on forever... My point is that having a medical degree, or having any certain specific medical specialty, certainly does not infer infallibility, nor does it mean that someone who isn't a doctor isn't capable of knowing more about a given medical topic than someone who is a doctor. Doctors should certainly contribute to medical sections of Wikipedia, but so should lots of other sorts of people, and Wikipedia is stronger and more complete because of that diversity. Vontheri (talk) 19:39, 29 January 2024 (UTC)
@Colin I'm no fan of Wikipedia being used for class exercises, either. I think editing Wikipedia is something that should be done out of intrinsic motivation, and not for the purpose of getting some grade in some class. Articles written by students (warning: I'm hugely over-generalizing here) tend to be poorer-quality in more ways than one. Vontheri (talk) 19:10, 29 January 2024 (UTC)
Sorry for my late arrival to this discussion. For the last two falls (2022 and 2023) my Novembers have been taken up by fixing students edits from the University of Georgia Microbiology course (Wikipedia:Wiki Ed/University of Georgia/MIBO 3500 Introduction to Microbiology (Fall 2023)). My experience has not been great. To me it seems the students are just let loose: their mistakes go unchallenged by their course teachers and worse, their assigned articles are abandoned by the course after the students have completed their assignments. You would think the teachers would at least clean up after their students, but no. The students are only motivated by grades and will, well on at least one occasion, edit war to preserve their edits. Most students don't even know that "bacteria" is plural and that the species of bacteria and the diseases they cause are not the same thing. And this is a university level microbiology course! At the completion of the courses I am left feeling exploited by the university. (Rant over). Graham Beards (talk) 11:12, 6 February 2024 (UTC)
How do we welcome new editors? There's an essay (much of which I wrote): WP:Encourage the newcomers. It includes all the empirical evidence I could find on the question (if you find more, please add it). On account of said evidence, I think adding T209797 to Huggle might also be pretty effective. HLHJ (talk) 02:37, 10 March 2024 (UTC)
Thanks HLHJ. That’s a great essay. I’m especially amazed by the graphs, for example:
First message to new users (including vandals), by tool used. Reverts of new good-faith editors increased (from ~7% to ~20%) in 2007,[1] and new editor retention dropped sharply.[2]
I agree with you that adding the { { citation needed } } feature to Huggle may help. It will need other features like { { medref inline } } as welll. --Dustfreeworld (talk) 17:54, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
I think other tags are a good idea, too; I commented on T209797 to suggest a general tool for adding inline point & span tags. Anyone can add a comment or token; adding specific ideas about use cases might be quite useful.
I didn't actually make the graphs myself! It might be possible to remake that >decade-old graph live via Wikidata now. HLHJ (talk) 18:40, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
Yep the graph needs update. The trend seemed to indicate that “Other bots” were becoming the major problem (not Huggle) in 2011? --Dustfreeworld (talk) 18:49, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
I don't think Huggle is the problem; semi-automated editing countered an existential threat. Cluebot is, I think, also part of the solution; the third of those 2011 new users who were reverted by Cluebot were probably almost all vandals. Because the evidence says "inline-tagged new editors stay, reverted new editors leave", I think the problem is that it's now hard to inline-tag noob edits. This is not an intrinsic problem. It's hard to imagine a scenario where newcomers don't need semiautomated scrutiny. It's easy to imagine an interface where adding "cn" to a new edit is a single click.
The longstanding lack of semiautomated tagging capabilities is influencing our culture. Pre-2007, citation-needed tagging was very common. It was policy to tag only stuff you thought was unverifiable, and delete it only after giving others a chance to verify it (BLP excepted, it's still policy). Readers knew to distrust anything with a [[citation needed]] tag; it was part of pop culture.
Now, an increasing number of editors think they are expected to revert all probably-true but unsourced content (even on medieval Japanese furniture). It's rare to tag it first or talk to the contributing editor afterwards. I've been working on an explanatory template, contribs welcome.
The current interface marks new editors as pass/fail, and never as "imperfect, but means well and should improve". Whether a new editor will stay depends mostly on the fate of their first three or four edits. It's more a learning cliff than a learning curve. HLHJ (talk) 02:15, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ File:Desirable newcomer reverts over time.png
  2. ^ Meta:Research:The Rise and Decline

How not to deal with problem 'new' editors: a case study

So we've got an aggressive 'new' editor and likely sock-puppet spamming terrible sources (preprints and primaries) all authored by ERG Plini into multiple articles (e.g. Tyrosine, Red meat, Locus coeruleus). They get encouraged by Dustfreeworld with misinformation like this.[22] So no, unless this is the royal "we", we the community on Wikipedia do not think

  • WP:IAR is the "one most important" rule (and especially telling problem new editors this seems like egging them on to create further problems)
  • that WP:MEDRS "allows us to add the main conclusion of a primary study to the article"
  • that if we "find any statement that we don’t agree and doubt about its accuracy" we "usually" tag it, especially if it's misinformation
  • we should add poor/unreliable sources to article's External links

Discouraging good faith, viable new editors is a problem; encouraging the disruption of problem editors is as much a problem too. Bon courage (talk) 02:32, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

Thank you for replying to this never ending thread started by me.
I would like everyone to read carefully the context of the content dispute:
I have replied to your post there. Yep, I saw edit warring, warnings/threatening, WP:WikiBullying and WP:BITE phenomenons/behaviours very similar to those I mentioned above in my very first post.
On the other hand, we have some other users which have a very different approach when dealing with content that they don’t agree with, which I really appreciate. --Dustfreeworld (talk) 02:54, 26 March 2024 (UTC)
Looks like another user is deleting some of the new comments on that article’s talk page. Those who are still interested in this boring discussion may refer to this: [23] --Dustfreeworld (talk) 03:39, 26 March 2024 (UTC)
Now at: WP:ANI#"you are censoring me in a fascist way". Bon courage (talk) 03:47, 26 March 2024 (UTC)
Just for the record [[24]] --Dustfreeworld (talk) 21:08, 8 April 2024 (UTC)

How do we work with our newly-joined colleagues?

Do we work with them by ... WP:4RR … warnings ... following untrue claims (e.g.,[25] [26]) … and WP:Tendentious editing?” @Zefr

And,

--Dustfreeworld (talk) 23:14, 11 April 2024 (UTC); 19:26, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

:I don't think that this is the right place to collect information about disagreements with a single editor. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:58, 13 April 2024 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Close and archive

I agree with the closer that “Complaints about user conduct and charge sheets are not appropriate here”, as seen in a section of this discussion: How not to deal with problem 'new' editors: a case study, where there are obvious “complaints and charge sheets” with lots of untrue claims against me. I view the closing of this discussion as a correction to that. Those who are interested may visit the related links and the ANI thread. This long discussion is going to be archived. Thanks. --Dustfreeworld (talk) 12:37, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

Spam/UPE ring on medical articles

Hi all, I've just blocked a slew of accounts that I detected with checkuser making edits to medical/human biology articles that range from weird to outright promotional. The goal appears to be plug particular books and journal articles, though some of the edits are just nonsensical. The obvious rubbish seems to have been removed quickly but I hoped knowledgeable folks here would keep an eye out for the more subtle promotion. Some of the articles that came up repeatedly:

It shouldn't be too hard to follow the breadcrumbs from the blocked accounts there to other articles if anyone's interested. If you see any more accounts like this, please report them to AIV or ping me. @Kimen8: FYI, since you seem to have reverted quite a few of these. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 15:25, 4 April 2024 (UTC)

Thanks so much. I trust you saw the discussion on User talk:Arjayay § "Spamming the same undergrad book"? Kimen8 (talk) 18:19, 4 April 2024 (UTC)
If you have a bunch of new accounts adding information from the same textbook, it's possible that this is a Wikipedia club or an editing event at their school. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:25, 4 April 2024 (UTC)
Unlikely. The account that triggered the investigation and several others were spamming commercial websites as well. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 09:03, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

{{WPMED welcome}} improvement consensus needed before implementation

What do you think of my changes to {{WPMED welcome}} at Template:WPMED welcome/sandbox? I made it to maintain the original message's intent while streamlining some sections to be more concise and for better readability. Can I WP:BEBOLD and make the change? waddie96 ★ (talk) 15:55, 1 April 2024 (UTC)

The word count was reduced from 288 to 270. Do you think there is an opportunity to make it even shorter? I've read recommendations that e-mail messages not be longer than five sentences, if you want them to be read. That might be shorter than we can realistically manage, but it might be worth trying.
I don't normally use this template myself, so I would defer to those who are using it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:43, 1 April 2024 (UTC)
Yes, but I'd also like it to be even shorter, if possible no more than 200 words. If we remove the clauses on primary sources we save 28 more words (there's already a wiki-link to secondary sources, which in turn has a link to primary source in its second sentence). Draken Bowser (talk) 17:20, 1 April 2024 (UTC)
it looks good--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 18:08, 1 April 2024 (UTC)
I’ve managed to get it down to 216 words, and write it in prose instead of the layout that was bulleted. Let me know what you think? waddie96 ★ (talk) 22:02, 1 April 2024 (UTC)
Also: If anyone knows what the parser function would be to link to the posting users’ talk page at drop a note on my talk page waddie96 ★ (talk) 22:06, 1 April 2024 (UTC)
Nice work, I didn't even notice how much the bullet points bothered me until you sacked them. Would it be better to say "..we'd be thrilled.."? Draken Bowser (talk) 15:33, 2 April 2024 (UTC)
 Done: → "we’d be thrilled" waddie96 ★ (talk) 15:18, 3 April 2024 (UTC)
I appreciate that you have shortened it, but some of the new intro is overly effusive and wordy, with some unnecessarily puffy adjectives (like diverse, extensive, dedicated). It's good to welcome new editors even if one is not yet thrilled with their contribs, and I would be unlikelty to use such an effusive, wordy template. I suggest asking Colin to tighten the wording before implementing. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:25, 2 April 2024 (UTC)
I was thinking of making it in a more encyclopaedic tone, if that’s what you mean, with less puffery. But the initial welcome template seemed to want to bestow a sense of a personal greeting, hence I kept the puffy words. waddie96 ★ (talk) 15:14, 3 April 2024 (UTC)
@Colin: If you wouldn’t mind taking a look and I’d appreciate if you’d consider tightening the wording per SandyGeorgia. Thanks. waddie96 ★ (talk) 15:16, 3 April 2024 (UTC)
Yes ... thrilled, dedicated, diverse, extensive ... none are needed, all are overly effusive, and the page is generally short on the most helpful info ... it could point at MEDRS as well as WP:MEDMOS. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:39, 3 April 2024 (UTC)
Thanks for the ping. I don't go around dropping these templates and think they should probably reflect the personality/style of those using them. So I'd rather those who want to send them worded it. But I agree with Sandy that some of the adjectives aren't great. Not sure all of us are "dedicated", for example, or that "boasts a diverse range of expertise" is accurate. Anyone can edit. I'm not sure about trying to explain MEDRS in a few words, with jargon about primary and secondary sources is going to enlighten many rather than just confused. But I don't know what do to instead rather than just link to the guidelines (e.g., WP:WHYMEDRS is way too long and rambling and mostly just one long departed guy's opinions). -- Colin°Talk 09:06, 5 April 2024 (UTC)
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