Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Medicine/Archive 83
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Use of MEDRS at IQ article
At Talk:Intelligence_quotient#2012_study a couple of people are saying that IQ should be subject to WP:MEDRS. The article is not in the medicine project, Ibut I would appreciate your input to the discussion. Dmcq (talk) 20:19, 28 May 2016 (UTC)
- Thanks for the post Dmcq. I am the one who proposed this at the article talk page, when I moved content that was being contested, that was based on a primary source, to the Talk page here. So I am saying "yes" to this with regard to the WP:Biomedical information about the science (biology, neuroscience, psychology). History, society and culture, etc are of course not subject to MEDRS. But the core scientific discussion of this should be, yes. Jytdog (talk) 20:39, 28 May 2016 (UTC)
I think the MEDRS discussion is really a distraction here, because it looks like there's already a consensus to focus on high-quality sources along the same lines as MEDRS. That said, if the question is on what MEDRS requires, you can't declare an entire topic to be either MEDRS or not - that has to be determined on a case-by-case basis for each statement being cited. Things that require MEDRS sourcing would include anything that associates it with conditions (either directly or by implication), as well as information that might be relevant to interventions (given the existence of those associations). Statements about the underlying biology may or may not require MEDRS depending on whether they have any medical or health-related implications. On the other hand, information about things like the societal views surrounding the topic are excluded, as Jytdog pointed out.
Of course, none of that changes the fact that higher-quality sources trump lower-quality sources anyways, or that choosing to exclude the latter is a valid editorial decision. (But framing that exclusion as being an application of MEDRS probably isn't the best idea, because of the legitimate objection that not all the information is within MEDRS' scope.) Sunrise (talk) 22:30, 28 May 2016 (UTC)
- I don't dispute that MEDRS supports high quality sources. The problem I feel is that it is aimed at butt covering in case some idiot injures themselves rather than at covering the main points of view with due weight. Thus at that IQ article Jytdog removed a bit about a study of multiple types of intelligence because the source was a newspaper article based on a primary source. In any other place that would be a secondary source based on a reliable source. There was also a sentence following about a comment in another journal disagreeing with it. That is perfectly fine for most scientific articles but they'd just do the MEDRS thing which is designed to stop health problems due to wrong information. It is just inappropriate for the article. Dmcq (talk) 20:14, 29 May 2016 (UTC)
- Newspaper articles are almost always WP:INDY, but not usually secondary. See WP:Secondary does not mean independent and WP:PRIMARYNEWS.
- The more important point isn't whether the already-cited source is good enough. The more important question is whether, if you had read all of the reliable sources in the world about this subject, you would have included this (and maybe cited a fancier source in the process). "Not already cited to a stellar source" is not the same thing as "Cannot be cited to a stellar source". WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:00, 30 May 2016 (UTC)
- As I said in this case it was reporting on a primary source which was a peer reviewed paper. It wasn't a shill piece for a pharmaceutical company and it was a highly reputable paper. I take your point about weight and in fact the article already has 51 citations in other papers but seemingly what they want is some meta study or review paper, the other paper talking about it wasn't enough for them. The problem I have with MEDRS is I feel that Wikipedia should in most cases be like a good librarian, yes in the case of Mogadol you don't want to say anything dangerous, but if a person comes in asking for something about different components of intelligence in an IQ test because they read about it in the newspaper is it really very sensible to stretch for a pharmacopoeia and say no that information is not definite enough to be safe to say anything about? Dmcq (talk) 16:15, 31 May 2016 (UTC)
- One of the things you are not taking into account here is that if you search pubmed you get over 2000 papers. You cannot do them all - so on what basis are you going to select ones to "profile" in Wikipedia? One of the things that MEDRS does, is provide filters for which sources to use - it says take the most recent reviews from the most appropriate/best journals you can find. So now we can focus on say just the three of four most recent reviews from the best journals in those search results (with additional filters last 5 years and reviews), and summarize what they say, counting on the experts in the field who wrote the reviews to highlight which studies have been important. Jytdog (talk) 20:04, 31 May 2016 (UTC)
- We can do it exactly like any other topic in Wikipedia. Do you think there aren't enormous numbers of papers about calculus? Do you think the article only lists articles which reflect the latest thought like exterior differentiation, well actually that's 100 years old but not many readers will know about it. Instead it tries to be high level and deal with the sorts of things that people who know just a little might be interested in. And they have links to more detailed articles. And those have links to more detailed articles again and that is four levels down from the top. The sort of stuff that is at the top is what is popular, what people who write articles for the general interested public though I must admit popular mathematics may not be all that popular. And even then people complain about the articles being too technical. How is a person supposed to get in to a subject where popular articles and newspapers are ignored and only the latest research as described in peer reviewed reviews is allowed? Dmcq (talk) 20:44, 31 May 2016 (UTC)
- Wikipedia isn't about the cutting-edge of science — but about established knowledge. This is extra important when it comes to medicine — but I believe it is nearly as important when it comes to psychological topics such as IQ. Carl Fredik 💌 📧 20:49, 31 May 2016 (UTC)
- (edit conflict) I agree fully with Jytdog and MEDRS can also be seen as a tool that helps us limit what is otherwise an overwhelming task. By limiting what sources we allow we remove from the equation the need to review and balance different primary sources — and seeing as this field has a wealth of high-quality secondary sources there really ins't a need to cite a newspaper summary of a primary source. WP:SCIRS is an essay that might be applicable here — it closely mirrors much of MEDRS, with some minor differences. MEDRS and similar guidelines help us determine WP:DUE weight — if it is rare or fringe enough to not merit inclusion in secondary source it is likely not due. Carl Fredik 💌 📧 20:45, 31 May 2016 (UTC)
- I just pointed to a subject that has an enormous amount written on it and is very technical as an example of how people are quite happy in other subjects without MEDRS. I am happy for WP:SCIRS to be applied. It is quite different from WP:MEDRS. It allowed for instance articles like Faster-than-light neutrino anomaly before other studies of the result because it was reported to the public. This is what I'm talking about there. This was reported to the public but MEDRS would have us say nothing in Wikipedia and even later leave out popular understanding about it. What MEDRS instead says is that only people with access to medical journals behind paywalls can write anything and anything in popular publications is banned, it is not the encyclopaedia that can be edited by anyone. And I respect that for all the dangerous drugs and quack treatments in medicine. I'd like to know why you think IQ should be treated with kid gloves though more than say the articles about Arab-Israeli conflict and suchlike things when there are so many rubbish test your own IQ books around and it is mainly a social construct rather like a triathlon score? In fact isn't the triathlon far more dangerous? Dmcq (talk) 08:14, 1 June 2016 (UTC)
What MEDRS instead says is that only people with access to medical journals behind paywalls can write anything and anything in popular publications is banned
← that is a perverse & mistaken reading. The overall goal is better summarized in the opening para: " ... all biomedical information must be based on reliable, third-party published secondary sources, and must accurately reflect current knowledge". Can't see why anybody would want to disagree with that. Alexbrn (talk) 10:52, 1 June 2016 (UTC)- Well, one consequence of that approach – especially when "reliable, third-party published secondary sources" is interpreted to require academic secondary sources and to exclude lay-oriented secondary sources – is that it amounts to a requirement that certain articles must be incomplete, exactly at the time when we can reasonably expect readers to look for it here.
- Naturally, editors with different values will have different opinions about how much of a problem this is. The approach taken at SCIRS is to try to find a way to include some mention of the material in a relevant article. Perhaps that would be more appropriate in this case. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:13, 1 June 2016 (UTC)
- Yes but such an approach would also be mistaken, since MEDRS does not exclude lay-oriented secondary sources (quite the opposite) - which are sometimes the best. Alexbrn (talk) 16:20, 1 June 2016 (UTC)
- That is not how I read them, for instance see WP:MEDRS#Popular press compared to WP:SCIRS#Popular press. Yes they both warn about problems - but MEDRS in addition says says 'Findings are often touted in the popular press as soon as original, primary research is reported, before the scientific community has analyzed and commented on the results. Therefore, such sources should generally be entirely omitted' and 'For Wikipedia's purposes, articles in the popular press are generally considered independent, primary sources.' Direct reports by a reporter of an accident might be considered a primary source but that is simply not so in general. WP:SCIRS right at the stat says 'Although news reports are inappropriate as reliable sources for the technical aspects of scientific results or theories, they may be useful when discussing non-technical context or impact of science topics, particularly controversial ones' whereas WP:MEDRS says ' Primary sources should generally not be used for medical content – as such sources often include unreliable or preliminary information, for example early in vitro results which don't hold in later clinical trials.' SCIRS has a section WP:SCIRS#Respect primary sources. Compare that to WP:MEDRS 'Primary sources should generally not be used for medical content – as such sources often include unreliable or preliminary information, for example early in vitro results which don't hold in later clinical trials.' They are very different guidelines. Dmcq (talk) 15:14, 2 June 2016 (UTC)
- Then you need to re-read them and not nit-pick. They are very similar guidelines. Both warn about the problems of using popular press as sources, for the same reasons. SCIRS doesn't explicitly recommend omission, but implies it in its warning. SCIRS advises that news reports are inappropriate for technical aspects of scientific theories; and MEDRS tells us not to use news reports for biomedical claims. SCIRS has a section advising editors to respect primary sources such as reports of historic experiments, but advises that sources are to be cited appropriately; that's no different from MEDRS which does not prohibit primary sources for historical content. Compare MEDRS's
'Primary sources should generally not be used for medical content – as such sources often include unreliable or preliminary information'
with SCIRS's'Such evidence should include reviews of the literature including the work of several different research groups. Individual papers often disagree with each other'
. Of course the guidelines are very similar to each other because both require us to use the best quality reliable sources whenever they are available - and that means not using primary sources when reliable secondary sources can be found. --RexxS (talk) 16:02, 2 June 2016 (UTC)- Actually, it appears that SCIRS encourages the use of primary sources: "A primary source, such as a report of a pivotal experiment cited as evidence for a hypothesis, may be a valuable component of an article. A good article may appropriately cite primary, secondary, and tertiary sources."
- Also, is this really a "biomedical" claim? Where's the "medical" information in saying that century-old concept of a g factor in intelligence – an idea that has been criticized as being unfalsifiable and therefore unscientific – is really just a fancy name for memory, reasoning and verbal skills (things that, unlike g, have a known biological basis)? This appears to be the disputed diff. I'm not seeing medical information in there. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:17, 2 June 2016 (UTC)
- I disagree. SCIRS encourages using primary sources appropriately, as do all the sourcing guidelines, including MEDRS. The disputed claim was removed to the talk page for discussion because it was a poor source (Undid revision 722327526 by Code16 (talk) moving this to talk for discussion; sourcing is poor and unclear to me if this should be in the article at all - see talk), not because it failed MEDRS - although falling short of the standards set by MEDRS is usually a pretty clear sign of a poor source. This idea that any content which isn't incontrovertibly a biomedical claim is somehow released from any obligation to use the best available sources needs to be knocked on the head with extreme prejudice. --RexxS (talk) 22:04, 2 June 2016 (UTC)
- There is no requirement in any policy or sourcing guideline that obliges editors to use "the best available sources". The policies set a minimum standard, and that minimum standard is rather lower than "best".
- I'm perfectly willing to consider whether this source meets the minimum standard. But my point in asking whether there's anything "medical" in this "bio-psychometrics" statement is to figure out which of the specific minimum standards is most relevant. If there's no "medical", then MEDRS isn't the most relevant standard. Perhaps SCIRS is; perhaps plain old RS is. (Several, including BLP and HISTRS, obviously aren't relevant.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:48, 3 June 2016 (UTC)
- Of course one can use primary sources but every policy and guidelines says we should use independent secondary sources generally; sure there are situations were primary sources are actually best and you know as well as anyone that what those few situations are. We are not talking about them here. There are lots of things people can do in WP. When you have a situation where one editor is pushing to use low quality sources and a bunch of others are aiming high, what in God's name is the point of wikilawyering in favor of poor quality sources? Jytdog (talk) 09:18, 3 June 2016 (UTC)
- @WhatamIdoing: You seem to misunderstand that policies and guidelines are descriptive, not prescriptive on Wikipedia. Just because nobody has bothered to write down our requirement to use the best available sources is not a "get-out-of-jail card", giving anyone licence to source our content to the minimum standard. When you are challenged to use the best sources available, it is not a defence to say "The policies don't require it". You need to address the question: "What possible reason could I have for not using the best sources that can be found?" And the answer is usually "because they don't suit the POV I'm trying to push". Making do with second-best sources is merely enabling those who want Wikipedia articles to fit their own world-view, regardless of what the real science is. --RexxS (talk) 14:02, 3 June 2016 (UTC)
- Of course one can use primary sources but every policy and guidelines says we should use independent secondary sources generally; sure there are situations were primary sources are actually best and you know as well as anyone that what those few situations are. We are not talking about them here. There are lots of things people can do in WP. When you have a situation where one editor is pushing to use low quality sources and a bunch of others are aiming high, what in God's name is the point of wikilawyering in favor of poor quality sources? Jytdog (talk) 09:18, 3 June 2016 (UTC)
- I disagree. SCIRS encourages using primary sources appropriately, as do all the sourcing guidelines, including MEDRS. The disputed claim was removed to the talk page for discussion because it was a poor source (Undid revision 722327526 by Code16 (talk) moving this to talk for discussion; sourcing is poor and unclear to me if this should be in the article at all - see talk), not because it failed MEDRS - although falling short of the standards set by MEDRS is usually a pretty clear sign of a poor source. This idea that any content which isn't incontrovertibly a biomedical claim is somehow released from any obligation to use the best available sources needs to be knocked on the head with extreme prejudice. --RexxS (talk) 22:04, 2 June 2016 (UTC)
- Then you need to re-read them and not nit-pick. They are very similar guidelines. Both warn about the problems of using popular press as sources, for the same reasons. SCIRS doesn't explicitly recommend omission, but implies it in its warning. SCIRS advises that news reports are inappropriate for technical aspects of scientific theories; and MEDRS tells us not to use news reports for biomedical claims. SCIRS has a section advising editors to respect primary sources such as reports of historic experiments, but advises that sources are to be cited appropriately; that's no different from MEDRS which does not prohibit primary sources for historical content. Compare MEDRS's
- That is not how I read them, for instance see WP:MEDRS#Popular press compared to WP:SCIRS#Popular press. Yes they both warn about problems - but MEDRS in addition says says 'Findings are often touted in the popular press as soon as original, primary research is reported, before the scientific community has analyzed and commented on the results. Therefore, such sources should generally be entirely omitted' and 'For Wikipedia's purposes, articles in the popular press are generally considered independent, primary sources.' Direct reports by a reporter of an accident might be considered a primary source but that is simply not so in general. WP:SCIRS right at the stat says 'Although news reports are inappropriate as reliable sources for the technical aspects of scientific results or theories, they may be useful when discussing non-technical context or impact of science topics, particularly controversial ones' whereas WP:MEDRS says ' Primary sources should generally not be used for medical content – as such sources often include unreliable or preliminary information, for example early in vitro results which don't hold in later clinical trials.' SCIRS has a section WP:SCIRS#Respect primary sources. Compare that to WP:MEDRS 'Primary sources should generally not be used for medical content – as such sources often include unreliable or preliminary information, for example early in vitro results which don't hold in later clinical trials.' They are very different guidelines. Dmcq (talk) 15:14, 2 June 2016 (UTC)
- Yes but such an approach would also be mistaken, since MEDRS does not exclude lay-oriented secondary sources (quite the opposite) - which are sometimes the best. Alexbrn (talk) 16:20, 1 June 2016 (UTC)
- I just pointed to a subject that has an enormous amount written on it and is very technical as an example of how people are quite happy in other subjects without MEDRS. I am happy for WP:SCIRS to be applied. It is quite different from WP:MEDRS. It allowed for instance articles like Faster-than-light neutrino anomaly before other studies of the result because it was reported to the public. This is what I'm talking about there. This was reported to the public but MEDRS would have us say nothing in Wikipedia and even later leave out popular understanding about it. What MEDRS instead says is that only people with access to medical journals behind paywalls can write anything and anything in popular publications is banned, it is not the encyclopaedia that can be edited by anyone. And I respect that for all the dangerous drugs and quack treatments in medicine. I'd like to know why you think IQ should be treated with kid gloves though more than say the articles about Arab-Israeli conflict and suchlike things when there are so many rubbish test your own IQ books around and it is mainly a social construct rather like a triathlon score? In fact isn't the triathlon far more dangerous? Dmcq (talk) 08:14, 1 June 2016 (UTC)
- We can do it exactly like any other topic in Wikipedia. Do you think there aren't enormous numbers of papers about calculus? Do you think the article only lists articles which reflect the latest thought like exterior differentiation, well actually that's 100 years old but not many readers will know about it. Instead it tries to be high level and deal with the sorts of things that people who know just a little might be interested in. And they have links to more detailed articles. And those have links to more detailed articles again and that is four levels down from the top. The sort of stuff that is at the top is what is popular, what people who write articles for the general interested public though I must admit popular mathematics may not be all that popular. And even then people complain about the articles being too technical. How is a person supposed to get in to a subject where popular articles and newspapers are ignored and only the latest research as described in peer reviewed reviews is allowed? Dmcq (talk) 20:44, 31 May 2016 (UTC)
- One of the things you are not taking into account here is that if you search pubmed you get over 2000 papers. You cannot do them all - so on what basis are you going to select ones to "profile" in Wikipedia? One of the things that MEDRS does, is provide filters for which sources to use - it says take the most recent reviews from the most appropriate/best journals you can find. So now we can focus on say just the three of four most recent reviews from the best journals in those search results (with additional filters last 5 years and reviews), and summarize what they say, counting on the experts in the field who wrote the reviews to highlight which studies have been important. Jytdog (talk) 20:04, 31 May 2016 (UTC)
- As I said in this case it was reporting on a primary source which was a peer reviewed paper. It wasn't a shill piece for a pharmaceutical company and it was a highly reputable paper. I take your point about weight and in fact the article already has 51 citations in other papers but seemingly what they want is some meta study or review paper, the other paper talking about it wasn't enough for them. The problem I have with MEDRS is I feel that Wikipedia should in most cases be like a good librarian, yes in the case of Mogadol you don't want to say anything dangerous, but if a person comes in asking for something about different components of intelligence in an IQ test because they read about it in the newspaper is it really very sensible to stretch for a pharmacopoeia and say no that information is not definite enough to be safe to say anything about? Dmcq (talk) 16:15, 31 May 2016 (UTC)
- Just now seeing this section on the same day I am discussing a matter with an IP about sex differences in intelligence, I agree that WP:MEDRS-compliant sources should usually be used for IQ topics. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 01:34, 3 June 2016 (UTC)
- And I consider brain anatomy information (how the brain works, is affected, etc.,) a biomedical topic. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 01:36, 3 June 2016 (UTC)
- Human intelligence is a brain anatomy topic. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 01:39, 3 June 2016 (UTC)
- I believe that many experts would disagree with your belief. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:48, 3 June 2016 (UTC)
- Human intelligence is a brain anatomy topic. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 01:39, 3 June 2016 (UTC)
- And considering that the study of brain anatomy involves the topic of intelligence, as anyone who actually read sources on brain anatomy, especially ones about the human brain, would know, your belief on that is wrong. I usually cite sources for matters like these, but you can find them yourself easily enough. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 06:19, 5 June 2016 (UTC)
- I do wish those pushing for MEDRS would stop this business of saying anyone rejecting MEDRS is rejecting high quality sources. It is particularly illogical to say that MEDRS is the same as SCIRS but that a person saying SCIRS should be used is a POV pusher trying to put in less good sources. Is it about the same so there is no real argument or is it so different that it is okay to launch a personal attack when a person supports SCIRS? Dmcq (talk) 21:48, 3 June 2016 (UTC)
- Yes, I'm sure you're not keen to hear that the community would prefer to see you using high quality sources. Nobody posting here has told you that MEDRS is the same as SCIRS. 'Same' and 'similar' are not synonyms. Nor has anyone on this page associated high sourcing standards with POV-pushing. Are you trying to tell us that you think SCIRS encourages you to use less good sources? It doesn't. You like playing strawman much? --RexxS (talk) 00:37, 4 June 2016 (UTC)
- From what you when I said the guidelines are different: "Then you need to re-read them and not nit-pick. They are very similar guidelines." and various other bits trying to say they were practically equivalent. And just above " You need to address the question: "What possible reason could I have for not using the best sources that can be found?" And the answer is usually "because they don't suit the POV I'm trying to push". Making do with second-best sources is merely enabling those who want Wikipedia articles to fit their own world-view, regardless of what the real science is." So are you actually saying here that SCIRS is an appreciably different standard and exactly what are you implying by talking about PO)V pushing here? Your "Yes, I'm sure you're not keen to hear that the community would prefer to see you using high quality sources." because I support SCIRS on an article rather than MEDRS is a direct personal attack. I think you need to go away and reconsider your attitude before continuing and then address the issues rather then attacking the person Dmcq (talk) 10:35, 4 June 2016 (UTC)
- I'm not convinced that "the community" will agree that a heavily cited peer-reviewed paper is actually "a low quality source" for the statement in question. Reliability depends upon the statement being supported, and quality isn't some simple binary concept. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:20, 5 June 2016 (UTC)
- @Dmcq: When I told you that the guidelines are similar, I meant similar, not identical - nor vastly different. That's normal English usage for most of us. When you were trying to discredit the guideline you don't like by making a mountain out of the molehill of differences from a similar guideline, I pulled you up on it by affirming how similar they are. You then switched to the usual CPUSH defence of pretending that I said something that I didn't: that the guidelines were the same. That allows you to make a strawman argument, but it really is obvious. And don't bother trying to fit me up with the "personal attack" malarkey, I've seen all too many times before from CPUSHers. So I'll ask you again, what possible reason could you have for not using the best sources that can be found? --RexxS (talk) 22:56, 9 June 2016 (UTC)
- Well since you seem to think a personal attack is okay can I say I consider your arguments extremely stupid and beside the point and believe you indulge in personal attacks because you are incapable of anything better. Dmcq (talk) 23:39, 9 June 2016 (UTC)
- @Dmcq: When I told you that the guidelines are similar, I meant similar, not identical - nor vastly different. That's normal English usage for most of us. When you were trying to discredit the guideline you don't like by making a mountain out of the molehill of differences from a similar guideline, I pulled you up on it by affirming how similar they are. You then switched to the usual CPUSH defence of pretending that I said something that I didn't: that the guidelines were the same. That allows you to make a strawman argument, but it really is obvious. And don't bother trying to fit me up with the "personal attack" malarkey, I've seen all too many times before from CPUSHers. So I'll ask you again, what possible reason could you have for not using the best sources that can be found? --RexxS (talk) 22:56, 9 June 2016 (UTC)
- I'm not convinced that "the community" will agree that a heavily cited peer-reviewed paper is actually "a low quality source" for the statement in question. Reliability depends upon the statement being supported, and quality isn't some simple binary concept. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:20, 5 June 2016 (UTC)
- From what you when I said the guidelines are different: "Then you need to re-read them and not nit-pick. They are very similar guidelines." and various other bits trying to say they were practically equivalent. And just above " You need to address the question: "What possible reason could I have for not using the best sources that can be found?" And the answer is usually "because they don't suit the POV I'm trying to push". Making do with second-best sources is merely enabling those who want Wikipedia articles to fit their own world-view, regardless of what the real science is." So are you actually saying here that SCIRS is an appreciably different standard and exactly what are you implying by talking about PO)V pushing here? Your "Yes, I'm sure you're not keen to hear that the community would prefer to see you using high quality sources." because I support SCIRS on an article rather than MEDRS is a direct personal attack. I think you need to go away and reconsider your attitude before continuing and then address the issues rather then attacking the person Dmcq (talk) 10:35, 4 June 2016 (UTC)
- Yes, I'm sure you're not keen to hear that the community would prefer to see you using high quality sources. Nobody posting here has told you that MEDRS is the same as SCIRS. 'Same' and 'similar' are not synonyms. Nor has anyone on this page associated high sourcing standards with POV-pushing. Are you trying to tell us that you think SCIRS encourages you to use less good sources? It doesn't. You like playing strawman much? --RexxS (talk) 00:37, 4 June 2016 (UTC)
- I do wish those pushing for MEDRS would stop this business of saying anyone rejecting MEDRS is rejecting high quality sources. It is particularly illogical to say that MEDRS is the same as SCIRS but that a person saying SCIRS should be used is a POV pusher trying to put in less good sources. Is it about the same so there is no real argument or is it so different that it is okay to launch a personal attack when a person supports SCIRS? Dmcq (talk) 21:48, 3 June 2016 (UTC)
Best possible
This is a bit of a tangent, but I think that the regular folks here need to be thinking about this.
So in terms of credentials, we begin with what most of your old folks know: I've spent about the last eight years working on the sourcing guidelines. For those of you who don't know, here's a quick metric to consider: All of these pages predate my first edit, and yet I'm still one of the most frequent participants ever in discussions and changes to these pages. The current numbers appear to put me at #6 at WT:V (#14 on the policy), #2 at WT:RS (#7 on the guideline), #2 at WT:CITE (#5 on the guideline), #1 – the most prolific contributor ever – at WT:MEDRS (#3 on the guideline). As a consequence of spending more a thousand of hours on this subject, is highly probable that I am familiar with these guidelines and policies, including both what they say, what they have said in the past, and how well they do, or don't, reflect what a variety of community members think about them.
And with that set of "credentials", aka "you should pay attention to her, because she does actually know what she's talking about on this subject" out of the way, I want to tell you something important about this "best possible source" idea: The community does not support requiring the best possible source.
The community adores the best possible source. The community is pleased whenever you replace a mid-quality source with a top-quality source. But that same community refuses to require the best possible source. This can be seen if you follow enough discussions for enough years, but it can also be seen in the policies and guidelines themselves. For example, WP:BURDEN requires an editor to provide only a single source that that editor sincerely believes to be reliable (NB not "the best possible source", but merely reliable) for the statement. You should all recognize that picture. That picture, with that statement, which explicitly accepts "lightweight" sources for some purposes, has been in both RS and MEDRS for years.
There are many reasons for the community's rejection of "best possible" as a requirement instead of an aspirational hope, but the basic categories are easy enough to grasp:
- It's hard to agree what "best" means. For example, an editor once claimed that his five-year-old source was better than the existing five-year-old source because it was one month newer. (Apparent actual reason: his source had a different POV.)
- Requiring "the best" often results in NPOV violations. See, e.g., most disputes about overmedicalization of gender ("you can't include that POV; it's not from a medical journal!"), many geopolitical disputes ("That source is from Russia! Everyone agreed that Russian sources aren't 'the best'"), etc..
- Requiring "the best" destroys editors. Nobody wants to join an organization when their efforts to contribute are met with reversions instead of collaboration. If the source is barely "good enough", then your next move is to offer better ones, not to revert the other guy until he jumps through enough sources.
The bottom line is that while it's good to have "the best" sources, what's actually required is to have "good enough" sources. "Good enough" depends upon the exact words of the specific statement. And it's that last bit that I think some people have been overlooking in this dispute. The source isn't stellar, but it's probably "good enough" for the exact statement being made.
And, one of these days, I need to (probably quit my job and) finally write WP:MEDDUE. We need to stop claiming that MEDRS prohibits sources that do fully and reliably verify the sentences they're supporting. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:49, 5 June 2016 (UTC)
- I think you're making a fundamental mistake by viewing sources as being "good enough" to support a particular statement (as opposed to e.g. the "best" to support that statement). That's putting the cart before the horse, as we need to be writing the statements to reflect the sources, not searching for sources to substantiate the words we're writing. That's where some experts and most POV-pushers run into difficulties: they start from what they think the article should say and then struggle to find sources that support what they want to write against the efforts of established editors who want to write the text from the best sources. I'm sorry for the experts who come unstuck like that, but Essjay poisoned that route a long time ago. I, for one, am not prepared to compromise the fundamental principles of editing Wikipedia to make life easier for groups of editors who don't want to be bound by the same principles as I am.
- Contrary to what you're suggesting the community actually does support requiring the best possible sources. That's how Wikipedia has worked from day one. Somebody finds a decent source or two and uses them to write a article; later on somebody else finds a source that they think is better and re-writes the article to reflect the better source; that either sticks (and is accepted by the community) or someone reverts it - and if that becomes a dispute, the community (in the shape of other editors) eventually adjudicate. But whichever way it works out, the 'winning' version has been judged by the community to be using the best source(s) found so far for that context. When Wikipedia is working properly - for example with well-watched articles in fields where there are lots of good quality sources - then sources that are not as good as the best that can be found will be steadily replaced by better ones. And although you can claim that nobody has written down that the best sources are required, I can counter that by affirming that Wikipedia is not governed by written policies, but by the firm imperative to improve articles no matter what (WP:IAR). If you can find me a policy that says we should stick with "good enough" sources in preference to better ones that are clearly available, I'll concede the argument. But I'm willing to make a small wager that no such policy has ever been written, nor ever will be. --RexxS (talk) 23:26, 9 June 2016 (UTC)
- Perhaps we need to get a shared understanding of what the word requires means before we talk about this any further. When I say the community does not "require" the best possible source, I mean that the community "does not require" as in "does not 'demand as necessary or essential; have a compelling need for'[1] the best possible source rather than a merely "reliable" source.
- "Required" is not, so far as I understand the word, something that describes an optional choice: for example, all editors are required to comply with copyright law at all times, with zero permissible exceptions. "Requiring the best possible source" would mean that every single source that is "reliable" but is not "the best" must be rejected. For example, reputable mid-tier academic journals are "only reliable" sources rather than "the best possible" sources, so editors would be required to not use them (assuming that a source from a top-tier journal exists).
- Now, how do you define the word require, as in "the community either does (or doesn't) require the best possible sources"? Or, perhaps more efficiently, if you use my definition of this word, do you still believe that the community truly requires "the best possible source", or will you agree with me that the community only prefers excellent sources, but requires "reliable" ones, even if those "reliable" sources aren't actually the best possible sources? WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:30, 11 June 2016 (UTC)
- I thought perhaps you were treating "the community requires the best sources available" as if it were a conscious decision by an individual. But it's not. You know this is a wiki and articles are often improved without a "guiding hand" behind the improvements. The very nature of crowd-sourced editing leads to trends occurring, and I'm referring to the way that works on Wikipedia. When I say the community requires the best sources, I mean that, by and large, any reasonably well-trafficked article will see its sources improve toward those that consensus deems the best. It's not because an editor comes along and is compelled by rigid policy to replace "good enough" sources by "better ones"; it's because sooner or later somebody finds a better source and uses it in the article to replace the poorer ones. It doesn't work perfectly, and it's not guaranteed to be a monotonic progression towards perfection, but given enough time and enough edits, the sourcing in the average article will tend to improve towards using the best sources that can be found. And I maintain that that process is not optional. Let me ask you, given a reasonably well-trafficked article sourced to these "mid-tier" sources, and given that editors are aware of "better" sources, do you actually believe that there is no pressure to replace the former with the latter? That's how I understand the community requiring something - by what happens, not by what is written down <hyperbole>on some policy page by a tiny cabal of editors who have never actually edited an article in their entire Wiki-careers.</hyperbole> Are we any nearer a mutual understanding now? Cheers --RexxS (talk) 18:51, 11 June 2016 (UTC)
- I have been attempting to use plain English throughout, which is probably what threw you off. ;-)
- I hope and believe in, as if an article of faith, the inevitability of improvements to articles. But "someday, someone will probably improve the source" is not at all what I'm talking about. I mean instead that, if the best is required, then the less-than-best is prohibited – and not just when someone else already has a better source in hand and is willing to improve the article with it right now.
- And here's why this matters in practice: If "the best is truly required", then any editor can simply go blank anything that is supported by a merely "good enough" source (e.g., most of Barack Obama). Not "replace with something better", which is what you're talking about, but just "blank". Hey, "the best" is required, and newspapers aren't "the best", so goodbye to all that. But if instead the rule is that "'the best' is preferred, but 'good enough' is acceptable", then any editor is welcome to improve the less-than-best sources (and content), and to encourage other people to upgrade the sources (and content), but not to blank sources that aren't "the best" (unless, of course, those sources are so far removed from "the best" that they aren't even "good enough", which happens all the time). And it seems to me that this latter approach is how it works in practice, all over the project: "the best" is preferred, but "at least good enough" is what's required.
- (Your hyperbolic statement about the tiny cabal of editors is unfortunately accurate. Policies and guidelines are written by an incredibly tiny fraction of the community. [Wait, I meant to say, "WP:There is no cabal".]) WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:38, 12 June 2016 (UTC)
- Sure - I don't think we're too far apart in what we actually believe, but maybe we tend to look at thinks from a different perspective. I accept that you can make the argument in theory that "requiring the best sources" could lead to a CPUSHer arguing that they could blank content that doesn't cite the best sources, but I think we might agree that in practice they would get short shrift, and persisting in that would probably lead to them being sanctioned. That's how I see the community working to 'require' particular behaviour when editing. I think your perspective is that there's a "rule" that says "sources are required to be good enough", while I'm saying that the invisible hand of community consensus eventually enforces a stricter "non-rule" (should that be "!rule", I wonder?) which insists on the best sources. The only advantage of my position is that I don't have to put up with the shit of some wikilawyer trying to play off one guideline against another, like some naughty kid trying to do the same with two parents, in order to get his own way. Cheers --RexxS (talk) 09:51, 12 June 2016 (UTC)
- I thought perhaps you were treating "the community requires the best sources available" as if it were a conscious decision by an individual. But it's not. You know this is a wiki and articles are often improved without a "guiding hand" behind the improvements. The very nature of crowd-sourced editing leads to trends occurring, and I'm referring to the way that works on Wikipedia. When I say the community requires the best sources, I mean that, by and large, any reasonably well-trafficked article will see its sources improve toward those that consensus deems the best. It's not because an editor comes along and is compelled by rigid policy to replace "good enough" sources by "better ones"; it's because sooner or later somebody finds a better source and uses it in the article to replace the poorer ones. It doesn't work perfectly, and it's not guaranteed to be a monotonic progression towards perfection, but given enough time and enough edits, the sourcing in the average article will tend to improve towards using the best sources that can be found. And I maintain that that process is not optional. Let me ask you, given a reasonably well-trafficked article sourced to these "mid-tier" sources, and given that editors are aware of "better" sources, do you actually believe that there is no pressure to replace the former with the latter? That's how I understand the community requiring something - by what happens, not by what is written down <hyperbole>on some policy page by a tiny cabal of editors who have never actually edited an article in their entire Wiki-careers.</hyperbole> Are we any nearer a mutual understanding now? Cheers --RexxS (talk) 18:51, 11 June 2016 (UTC)
Comment: The concept of "intelligence quotient" originated within, and still belongs to, the field of psychology. Psychology not being a medical science, there is no justification to apply criteria developed by WP Medicine to articles belonging to other projects or branches of human knowledge. Even if some doctors pondered over human intelligence. — kashmiri TALK 06:43, 5 June 2016 (UTC)
- Kashmiri, psychology is a branch of the medicine field. User:Flyer22 Rebornc (talk) 07:29, 5 June 2016 (UTC)
- @Flyer22 Reborn: It is not. You are likely confusing psychology with psychiatry. — kashmiri TALK 08:09, 5 June 2016 (UTC)
- As Kashmiri says psychiatry is a branch of medicine but psychology is not. It has applications in medicine, that is different. Anyway my problem is with applying standards that look to be set up to protect people from quacks and their own selves to all sorts of things where is is no such worry. My feeling about it is that there should be two separate guidelines, one for finding medical sources and one on care in articles which have the potential for causing harm and we need to get things right to avoid being blamed for it and trust that having accurate information more than balances the harm of not censoring. Dmcq (talk) 08:36, 5 June 2016 (UTC)
- That sounds reasonable, although the standard would have to be developed from scratch - while WP:SECONDARY applies also to psychology-related articles, guidelines on admissible sources, similar to MEDRS, need to be drafted anew, taking into consideration that several branches of psychology have more affinity with humanities than with science, and as such are less standards-oriented than medicine, giving more acceptance to individually-held theories. — kashmiri TALK 10:10, 5 June 2016 (UTC)
- Kashmiri, psychology is a branch of the medicine field. User:Flyer22 Rebornc (talk) 07:29, 5 June 2016 (UTC)
- Kashmiri, I considered that you might point me to psychiatry. Kashmir and Dmcq, I understand the difference between psychology and psychiatry; I've studied those fields enough. And I know that psychology and psychiatry are often confused. The confusion, or rather equation, is common, even among health professionals. And that's for valid reasons, which I will get to in a moment. But I'll concede that branch perhaps wasn't the right word. My point about "psychology [being] a branch of the medicine field" was that the literature commonly considers psychology an aspect of the mental health field. Our own Mental health article currently states, "Mental health is a level of psychological well-being, or an absence of psychiatric illness." And the mental health field does fall under "medicine." Furthermore, I've come across many sources over the years that include psychological issues as part of the definition of psychiatry. For example, this 2012 Psychology: Themes and Variations source, from Cengage Learning, page 70, states, "To summarize, psychiatry is a branch of medicine concerned with the diagnosis and treatment of psychological problems and disorders." It also states, "Some people are confused about the difference between clinical psychology and psychiatry. The confusion is understandable, as both clinical psychologists and psychiatrists are involved in analyzing and treating psychological disorders. Although some overlap exists between the two professions, the training and educational requirements for the two are quite different." It then goes on to explain. Because of the overlap, I've met enough doctors who consider the matter "tomato tomato." If we look at more sources, we see that psychologists are commonly designated as part of the medical field. For example, this 2012 Learn Psychology source, from Jones & Bartlett Publishers, page 581, states, "A counseling psychologist is a mental health professional who helps people experience difficulty adjusting to life stressors to achieve greater well-being." It also states, "Clinical psychologists are mental health practitioners who research, evaluate, and treat psychological conditions." And when it comes to mental health topics, we do adhere to WP:MEDRS. If someone has a psychological disorder, WP:MEDRS sourcing is the way to go." That was my point. Our own Psychological disorder article is currently titled "Mental disorder," and it lists "mental illness", "psychiatric disorder" and "psychological disorder" as WP:Alternative names.
- As for human intelligence being a topic that should comply with WP:MEDRS sourcing, I don't see the issue. A lot of human intelligence aspects concern things that fall in the area of medicine, and using quality book sources on human intelligence is enough to adhere to WP:MEDRS. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 06:17, 6 June 2016 (UTC)
@Flyer22 Reborn: Thanks. (1) I am perfectly aware of the fact that some people and some publications confuse the two. (2) That does not give us green light to follow the suit. (3) "Mental health" does not always fall under medicine - the subject of mental health is studied in various disciplines, including medicine (psychiatry), psychology, sociology, anthropology (see Medical anthropology), economy, etc. (4) "If we look at more sources, we see that psychologists are commonly designated as part of the medical field." Disagree with "commonly", even if sometimes for some authors, psychologist = clinical psychologist; which of course is not true. Your quote says only that a counseling psychologist treats psychological conditions - note that "psychological conditions" does not mean "medical conditions".
In short, I still see no reason to equate psychology with just clinical psychology - cf. the subject box to the right of the lede. We can't force using MEDRS criteria on all those disciplines of psychology, and I doubt editors in the field will see any reason to accept it. Should be asked at WP:PSYCH, though. — kashmiri TALK 09:28, 6 June 2016 (UTC)
- A useful rule of thumb is to consider where people are educated, how long that education takes, and how the profession is regulated. On all these issues, psychology and psychiatry are different. Regarding the broader issue, the idea that medicine is a science is contested. For example, I note that there is no article on Christopher Boorse or his Biostatistical Theory (there should be), but there is one on Thomas Szasz. Trankuility (talk) 10:22, 6 June 2016 (UTC)
- Trying to equate psychology and psychiatry is a bit like like trying to equate sports and medicine. Yes there is sports medicine but that doesn't mean we have to use MEDRS on data about how to train for the shot putt 'biomedical information' though that may be. Or are people here really wanting to do things like that in some rule following way instead of examining what MEDRS is in aid of and what the principles of Wikipedia are? Dmcq (talk) 13:51, 6 June 2016 (UTC)
- I agree with Kashmiri that "Mental health does not always fall under medicine". The field of health is generally considered to be bigger than the field of medicine. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:12, 6 June 2016 (UTC)
- Kashmiri, when reliable scholarly sources, on some level, equate psychiatry with clinical psychology, should we really call it "confusion," though, given the overlap...especially when the sources are aware that the terms are distinguished by many? By that, I mean that there are enough sources noting that psychiatry and clinical psychology serve the same purpose for a number of topics, and there are doctors who see very little difference between psychiatry and clinical psychology. This is why I stated above, "Because of the overlap, I've met enough doctors who consider the matter 'tomato tomato'." This is especially true for therapy issues. For example, this 2015 You and Your Child's Psychotherapy: The Essential Guide for Parents and Caregivers source, from Oxford University Press, page 36, notes the differences between clinical and counseling psychologists, clinical social workers, mental health counselors, psychiatrists, and notes family therapists, marriage therapists, addiction counselors, and then goes on to state, "Therapists with any of these degrees will be able to provide therapy for your child -- in this there is very little difference between psychologists, social workers, psychiatrists, or mental health counselors." Some sources also argue that there is no real difference between a counseling psychologist and a clinical psychologist. This 2014 Psychology Applied to Modern Life: Adjustment in the 21st Century source, from Cengage Learning, page 493, states, "Two types of psychologists provide therapy, although the distinction between them is more theoretical than real." It then goes on to explain. When I've studied psychological topics, many of them being tied to psychiatry, I've repeatedly found that it's common for the authors of those sources to not clearly define psychology, or that that they have a definition of psychology that sounds very much like psychiatry. To that point, this 2013 Perspectives On Psychology source, from Psychology Press, page 1, states, "Most people have some idea what psychology is about, but they are often confused by the distinction between psychology and psychiatry. In fact, it is easier to define 'psychiatry' than 'psychology': psychiatry is concerned with the study and treatment of mental disorders. The definition of psychology has changed over the centuries, so it will be useful to adopt a historical approach."
- I didn't state that "mental health" always falls under medicine. Nor did I state that we should "equate psychology with just clinical psychology." But I was making the case that many aspects of psychology do fall under "medicine" and should typically require WP:MEDRS-compliant sourcing. This is why I gave the following example: "If someone has a psychological disorder, WP:MEDRS sourcing is the way to go." But what I actually meant was that if a topic is about a psychological disorder, WP:MEDRS sourcing is the way to go. If it's a WP:BLP matter -- where the article notes that the person has a psychological disorder -- regular reliable sourcing is fine. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 07:09, 7 June 2016 (UTC)
- I've never heard anyone call even extreme stupidity a psychological disorder or something to be treated with psychiatry, so what has that all got to do with IQ? Dmcq (talk) 08:41, 7 June 2016 (UTC)
- The topic of psychology came up. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 09:21, 7 June 2016 (UTC)
- article could use some referencing help,thank you--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 09:48, 22 June 2016 (UTC)
Good talk by one of our editors
At WikiCon USA 2015 Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 14:31, 9 June 2016 (UTC)
- I like the idea of a "safe area" for experts to come and engage. If what was said about suggestions left on article talk pages being ignored is a real problem, then we ought to see if we can do something about it. How about using a sub-page of WikiProject Medicine as a trial area? The 'project page' could contain information and a FAQ, and the 'talk page' could be the safe venue. We could see if suggestions made by experts there resulted in improved collaboration and engagement on medical articles. Maybe we could advertise it by a link from the WPMED talk page banner? What do others think? --RexxS (talk) 16:27, 9 June 2016 (UTC)
- People often need to post here to get talk page comments noticed. We have 32K articles. I know many are very poorly watched.
- Experts can of course post here for advice / suggestions / feedback. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 16:42, 9 June 2016 (UTC)
- Thanks for the note Doc James, and I agree this is a good place for drawing attention - it's about all I can do to watch here. I keep encouraging my colleagues to come and participate, but they aren't ready to dive in (or even venture a toe, it seems). — soupvector (talk) 03:35, 10 June 2016 (UTC)
- WikiProject X has a feature for listing new discussion sections on talk pages tagged by a WikiProject. WikiProject Medicine has a lot of tagged talk pages so I think this feature would be especially useful for WikiProject Medicine. Unfortunately... it's been broken for the past several months! But once it is working again, I would be happy to have WikiProject Medicine use it. Harej (talk) 20:20, 12 June 2016 (UTC)
- great talk Soupvector--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 09:51, 22 June 2016 (UTC)
- Thanks for the note Doc James, and I agree this is a good place for drawing attention - it's about all I can do to watch here. I keep encouraging my colleagues to come and participate, but they aren't ready to dive in (or even venture a toe, it seems). — soupvector (talk) 03:35, 10 June 2016 (UTC)
revision history/medical articles
the above tool appears to be down,[2] left message w/ village pump--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 12:11, 22 June 2016 (UTC)
Wikimania book swap
If you're going to Wikimania in Italy this week (and haven't left yet ;-), please look through your bookshelves and see whether there are any books that you would like to give to other attendees. This is a fun and easy way to share sources with other communities. See m:The Wikipedia Library/Esino for more information. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:38, 22 June 2016 (UTC)
Advice for patients that would benefit them? Yes or no?
Hi guys edit: lovely fellow Wikipedians :)
I am working on the Erythromelalgia page. I generally am a bit of a reference freak, and don't like anything that doesn't have a reference. But I have come across something that I need some input from.
In short, Erythromelalgia is a vascular disease that comes with episodes, triggered by heat and position of the body, which causes burning pain described as second degree burning pain, mainly in the feet and hands.
So I have read a lot of articles on pubmed. And also asked some question to some patients. And I have found they have a lot of good advice, that their doctors didn't give.
For example, taking a shower is a nightmare for these people (heat of water), and position standing up, causing all the blood to go to the feet and causing instant erythromelalgia attacks. I read something really smart when taking a shower, filling up the bathtub with cold water, and put their feet in there, while sitting taking a shower with 'normal' water. I thought it was pretty brilliant, considering these people otherwise couldn't take a shower ever, because of the heat from the water triggers an attack in the feet. And thought maybe doctors and patients could benefit from information like this.
But I don't want to wonder off too much on these patient advice things on medical pages like this, and wonder if I even should put it on there.
What do you guys think? and is there a page with guidelines I can have a look at? I remember there was something like that, but I can't find it anymore.
I already wrote patient advice somewhere on the page to not put ice directly onto the skin, since these cause ulcers and burning wounds, but that actually had a good pubmed reference with it.
EllenvanderVeen (talk) 21:34, 12 June 2016 (UTC)
- re "Hi guys," - next time, please invite the girls too. There are great women active on WP too (writing f*ing great things about women btw). ;-) -DePiep (talk) 22:06, 12 June 2016 (UTC)
- Oh my bad, you are right. As a girl myself I just use the term meaning both genders in general. Wasn't really thinking about it my bad <3 EllenvanderVeen (talk) 22:25, 12 June 2016 (UTC)
- ... is why used small print. to say ;-). Still, I recommend that link, written by Emily Temple-Wood. About a "super-awesome" or "freaking FANTASTIC surgeon" women. Inspiring. -DePiep (talk) 22:36, 12 June 2016 (UTC)
- Yeah I will look into it, I read a little, looks amazing :) EllenvanderVeen (talk) 13:09, 13 June 2016 (UTC)
- ... is why used small print. to say ;-). Still, I recommend that link, written by Emily Temple-Wood. About a "super-awesome" or "freaking FANTASTIC surgeon" women. Inspiring. -DePiep (talk) 22:36, 12 June 2016 (UTC)
- Oh my bad, you are right. As a girl myself I just use the term meaning both genders in general. Wasn't really thinking about it my bad <3 EllenvanderVeen (talk) 22:25, 12 June 2016 (UTC)
- Hi Ellen, I think this could be an excellent example of self-care and how patients adapt to the condition, if you've got an acceptable source for it. However, there's good ways to go about and not-so-good ways to go about it. You don't want to phrase it as "If you have this, then try this trick"; instead, you want to present this idea in a more impersonal, educational fashion: "People who have this condition make many adaptations to their normal daily activities. For example, taking a shower can trigger pain in the feet from the hot water, so some people first fill the bottom of the tub with cold water and immerse their feet in it, to prevent the hot water from touching the skin on their feet".
- I'm sure you'll come up with a clearer or shorter way to explain it, but if you've got a good source and you write it as an explanation of "how this affects activities of daily life for these people" instead of "cool trick you can try", then it's possible to include this. Concrete examples like this are very educational; they help our readers figure out how pervasive the effects of a chronic illness can be, and they even remind our doctors that there's more to disease management than just writing the next order. ;-) WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:33, 13 June 2016 (UTC)
- Yeah I know what you mean, I would try to make it as neutral as possible, I dislike websites that have these 'amazing' tips and tricks, that is not my goal. I thought it would benefit the patient for obvious reasons, but also for the doctor to be a better doctor for their patients. I didn't even realise about how readers can also think more about how a disease like this affect their lives, good one too. I do want to put it in a smaller subheadline. What would be a good neutral name for it? 'Patient self-care' any other ideas? ... EllenvanderVeen (talk) 13:09, 13 June 2016 (UTC)
- It depends upon where you place it. ===Self-care=== is a good sub-section heading under ==Treatment== or ==Management==, but you'd want a different heading if you put it under ==Prognosis== (i.e., that part of the prognosis is that you'll spend the rest of your life adapting everyday activities to accommodate this, such as this example). WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:41, 13 June 2016 (UTC)
- probable best as a subheading under treatment...IMO--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 09:54, 23 June 2016 (UTC)
- It depends upon where you place it. ===Self-care=== is a good sub-section heading under ==Treatment== or ==Management==, but you'd want a different heading if you put it under ==Prognosis== (i.e., that part of the prognosis is that you'll spend the rest of your life adapting everyday activities to accommodate this, such as this example). WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:41, 13 June 2016 (UTC)
- Yeah I know what you mean, I would try to make it as neutral as possible, I dislike websites that have these 'amazing' tips and tricks, that is not my goal. I thought it would benefit the patient for obvious reasons, but also for the doctor to be a better doctor for their patients. I didn't even realise about how readers can also think more about how a disease like this affect their lives, good one too. I do want to put it in a smaller subheadline. What would be a good neutral name for it? 'Patient self-care' any other ideas? ... EllenvanderVeen (talk) 13:09, 13 June 2016 (UTC)
2016 World and European Drug Reports released
We use their statistics in some articles so I figure some of you may be interested. Page XV in the appendix of the UNODC report has the updated usage stats.
Sizeofint (talk) 17:50, 23 June 2016 (UTC)
- Thanks for posting this. Seppi333 (Insert 2¢) 05:46, 24 June 2016 (UTC)
Public service announcement about formatting
If you have nothing better to do with your day than scroll through my contributions, then you are likely to see a lot of edit summaries about list formatting. Partly this is penance for having screwed up lists in articles when I was a newbie; partly this is because we have at least one blind admin and several blind editors that I'd like to keep happy and active.
Here's a few things that you might not have known:
- Don't put blank lines between items in a bulleted list.
- Or numbered lists.
- Or even
::talk page replies. (If you want some visual space, then add a blank line that begins with the correct number of colons. Or just write it all, and delete the blank lines just before you save.)
- It's just fine to have blank lines before and after the list. Just not in the middle of the list.
- If you need something that looks like multiple paragraphs in your list, but that doesn't screw up list formatting, then use
<br>to mark where the "paragraph" should split.
(See
how
it
works?) - Try not to mix up list styles. Something like
::*:at the start of a comment is not ideal. It usually would have been better if the third comment had stuck with:::. But so long as yours starts out matching the comment above yours (so if the previous one uses::*, then yours needs to be::**or::*:or::*#but definitely not::::or****), then it's okay. - That
:colon thing we use on talk pages is not a simple, harmless visual "indentation". If you want visual indentation (especially in an article), then use the {{Indent}} template instead. The thing we're (ab)using on talk pages to create threading is the second half of the wikitext code that creates HTML association lists. It was originally designed for writing glossary entries.- The first half of that HTML list style is a
; semi-colon. Please do not use that to make fake subheadings or bold-face text. Every time you run across that, remember that some of our readers and editors aren't going to "see" bold-face text. Instead, they're going to "hear" their screen reader interrupt itself to announce the existence of a "List of one item".
- The first half of that HTML list style is a
- Do your best, but don't get stressed. We all screw up, even when we know what's going on. A mistake in formatting is a solvable problem.
If this kind of stuff sounds like your cup of tea, then WP:LISTGAP has more information, and its talk page has editors who know a lot more about this subject than I do.
Happy editing, WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:38, 25 June 2016 (UTC)
- thank you WAID, very useful info about formatting--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 09:17, 25 June 2016 (UTC)
Anyone have access to this? I can't seem to get it via WP:RX. Seppi333 (Insert 2¢) 12:48, 24 June 2016 (UTC)
References
- @CFCF: Thanks
Seppi333 (Insert 2¢) 09:27, 25 June 2016 (UTC)
- @CFCF: Thanks
Someone with free time might want to look at Future life progression and Brian Weiss. KateWishing (talk) 12:11, 25 June 2016 (UTC)
- I pinged FTN. Jytdog (talk) 12:30, 25 June 2016 (UTC)
- I just took a look and ended up nominating it for deletion. —PermStrump(talk) 16:26, 25 June 2016 (UTC)
More voices needed
Please see Talk:Ménière's_disease#Cause and Talk:Ménière's_disease#Naganawa_S.2C_Nakashima_T_.282014.29. Thanks. Jytdog (talk) 11:43, 25 June 2016 (UTC)
give opinion(gave mine)--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 16:45, 26 June 2016 (UTC)
Just came across a discussion at Talk:Bengay following a prod, redirect, and brief afd. Given it's more than 100 years old and a very recognizable brand, it seems highly likely that it's notable. I figured regulars here would have a better idea of where to look for sources and/or if there's a sensible merge target. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 14:38, 26 June 2016 (UTC)
- The brand itself is a business subject, so you'd probably look in marketing magazines. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:07, 26 June 2016 (UTC)
- Well, sure, any brand is a business/marketing subject if talking about the brand itself. I'm asking here to find out here is if Bengay is notable in the context of medicine (it may very well not be), and/or if it makes sense to merge it somewhere instead. For example, heat rub or methyl salicylate may be sufficient, and the article should be merged to one or the other. On the other hand, maybe there's something novel about Bengue's formulation, usage, etc. beyond it being heavily marketed. These aren't clear to me from the articles themselves. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 16:28, 26 June 2016 (UTC)
- I merged most of the separate articles into Liniment and speedied a couple that were just spam. Jytdog (talk) 00:22, 27 June 2016 (UTC)
- Works for me. Thanks. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 13:37, 27 June 2016 (UTC)
Notice to participants at this page about adminship
Many participants here create a lot of content, have to evaluate whether or not a subject is notable, decide if content complies with BLP policy, and much more. Well, these are just some of the considerations at Wikipedia:Requests for adminship.
So, please consider taking a look at and watchlisting this page:
You could be very helpful in evaluating potential candidates, and maybe even finding out if you would be a suitable RfA candidate.
Many thanks and best wishes,
Anna Frodesiak (talk) 01:22, 28 June 2016 (UTC)
- good info,thanks--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 10:32, 28 June 2016 (UTC)
Looking for feedback on a tool on Visual Editor to add open license text from other sources
Hi all,
I'm designing a tool for Visual Editor to make it easy for people to add open license text from other sources, there are a huge number of open license sources compatible with Wikipedia including around 9000 journals. I can see a very large opportunity to easily create a high volume of good quality articles quickly. I have done a small project with open license text from UNESCO as a proof of concept, any thoughts, feedback or endorsements would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks. John Cummings (talk) 10:13, 28 June 2016 (UTC)
- give opinion(gave mine)--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 19:56, 28 June 2016 (UTC)
Trying to get more people to edit on Wikipedia Medicine Project
Hi lovely people, I have a lot of friends who study in the medical field at my University. I think some of them might be interested in participating in the Wikipedia Medicine Project. I would like to share something on my Facebook to ask for this. Does anyone know a nice page, or video that I could share that would motivate people to become a part of this? EllenvanderVeen (talk) 17:14, 27 June 2016 (UTC)
- you could use.... {{subst:WPMED welcome}} – Welcome message for new Wikipedians (with invitation to join us) – newish, with videoWikipedia:WikiProject Medicine#User-related --Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 20:45, 27 June 2016 (UTC)
- EllenvanderVeen — Where in the Netherlands are you? There are some Dutch Wikipedians such as Taketa — who is an MD, and we might even be planning some other things in the Netherlands soon, so we could even do a meet-up. Carl Fredrik 💌 📧 06:48, 28 June 2016 (UTC)
- Thx Ozzie10aaaa :) I have shared that video, it is perfect. Lets keep our fingers crossed :D hehe! CFCF I live in Utrecht. I am up for a nice WMP meeting :) EllenvanderVeen (talk) 15:29, 28 June 2016 (UTC)
- Tell them to come here and say hi to us Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 06:16, 29 June 2016 (UTC)
- Thx Ozzie10aaaa :) I have shared that video, it is perfect. Lets keep our fingers crossed :D hehe! CFCF I live in Utrecht. I am up for a nice WMP meeting :) EllenvanderVeen (talk) 15:29, 28 June 2016 (UTC)
Rare form of MDR E coli
"A 49-year-old Pennsylvania woman showed the presence of a rare kind of E. coli infection, the first known case of its kind in the United States."
- A dreaded superbug found for the first time in a U.S. woman—CNN (May 27, 2016)
—Wavelength (talk) 22:43, 22 June 2016 (UTC)
- interesting (could be added to Antimicrobial_resistance)--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 10:00, 23 June 2016 (UTC)
- Thank you. I added a statement at 19:10, 23 June 2016 (UTC).
- —Wavelength (talk) 20:36, 23 June 2016 (UTC)
- I saw some of this last month, and I found them frustrating. The typical story ran something like this: "This dreaded bacteria is resistant to everything, even colistin! We're all going to die! What happened to the patient? Oh, she survived. It was no big deal. We just gave her a different antibiotic." They never included the part of the journalist's interview that should have run, "Oh, really? I thought you said it was resistant to everything, not just to one antibiotic." WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:10, 23 June 2016 (UTC)
- added [3]--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 22:17, 23 June 2016 (UTC)
- The scary part was that the colistin resistance is thought to be plasmid-mediated and therefore easy to spread amongst bacterial communities. It's true that this particular bacteria wasn't totally drug resistant, but if it managed to transfer this colistin resistance to something already very resistant, then that would produce a scary bug indeed. That was the scary part from the Medscape article I read about it when this news emerged. TylerDurden8823 (talk) 05:32, 24 June 2016 (UTC)
- We have an article on mcr-1. Something was added to that article about this about a month ago. Seppi333 (Insert 2¢) 06:10, 24 June 2016 (UTC)
- In China certain last resort antibiotics are used on an industrial scale by farmers. Count Iblis (talk) 20:58, 25 June 2016 (UTC)
- We have an article on mcr-1. Something was added to that article about this about a month ago. Seppi333 (Insert 2¢) 06:10, 24 June 2016 (UTC)
- The scary part was that the colistin resistance is thought to be plasmid-mediated and therefore easy to spread amongst bacterial communities. It's true that this particular bacteria wasn't totally drug resistant, but if it managed to transfer this colistin resistance to something already very resistant, then that would produce a scary bug indeed. That was the scary part from the Medscape article I read about it when this news emerged. TylerDurden8823 (talk) 05:32, 24 June 2016 (UTC)
- Thanks Wavelength, WhatamIdoing, Ozzie10aaaa, TylerDurden8823, Seppi333 and Count Iblis for being on top of this. The press 'has' been a bit creative about this story but, in fact, the reality is that the gene is now encoded in an easily transferable plasmid and 'that' is what has arrived in the US. In this case, the update to the article was timely and restrained to facts. Interestingly, as serious as this event is, it has not attracted much de novo editing activity. I've done some in depth reading on the topic since this story appeared and the whole theme is quite serious. It will still be some time before increased numbers of people will be dying of bacterial infections that were previously preventable but the microbes and genes involved are not going to go away or reverse course.McortNGHH (talk) 07:40, 30 June 2016 (UTC)
- added [3]--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 22:17, 23 June 2016 (UTC)
- For all of us, the jump in mcr-1 page views is quite satisfying - sometimes, we do manage do inform. McortNGHH (talk) 07:48, 30 June 2016 (UTC)
- I saw some of this last month, and I found them frustrating. The typical story ran something like this: "This dreaded bacteria is resistant to everything, even colistin! We're all going to die! What happened to the patient? Oh, she survived. It was no big deal. We just gave her a different antibiotic." They never included the part of the journalist's interview that should have run, "Oh, really? I thought you said it was resistant to everything, not just to one antibiotic." WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:10, 23 June 2016 (UTC)
Notification of nomination for deletion of Flow-through test
This is to inform the members of this Wikiproject, within the scope of which this article falls, that this article has been nominated for deletion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Flow-through test. - Ahunt (talk) 12:03, 30 June 2016 (UTC)
give opinion(gave mine)--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 12:41, 30 June 2016 (UTC)
More eyes: Uterine microbiome etc and Human_microbiota#Uterus
Would folks please have a look at this new article and section.
User:Bfpage has been working on women's health/microbiota stuff and I have collided with her coming from gut flora etc. We have bad blood over how Bfpage treated Flyer22 and Bfpage recently filed a quickly-dismissed ANI against me and I don't want further drama, so somebody else can look at this and interact with her if they like. I am trying to steer clear of her.
I am struggling with Bfpage's :
- inclusion in citations of "postscript=;Access provided by the University of Pittsburgh" in every reference that she cites, which I view as WP:PROMO similar to the issue we had with the Blausen person.
- Specifically the overwrite of content I added yesterday at Human_microbiota#Uterus with new and in my view worse content here
- in general I think the content Bfpage is creating about microbiome stuff is not well done and somebody should review. See this discussion for example. She seems to have no understanding of how the content was completely unsupported by the sources she provided.
Here is my trail leading into the collision at Human microbiota.
- Gut flora ( before/after my workover is here
- Gut-brain axis (before/after my workover is here)
- Human microbiota (most of the before/after is here)
There is so much hype and misinformation out there about this microbiome stuff. Anyway I am going to walk away from the Human microbiota article now. Jytdog (talk) 01:23, 27 June 2016 (UTC)
- This edit note changing content I added is a stunner: "ce - are we really supposed to state 'what is not known' in an encyclopedia? I thought we were to present the information, besides other sources not included in the article suggest otherwise.". One of the main sources of bullshit in the world is claiming things are known or certain, when they are not. And yes, when the very first, intital studies profiling the uterine flora were just published in the last year or two - literally - there is a shitload that we don't know. Unbelievable. Anyway I think there is a big problem here, but I am not going to tackle it due to the bad history. Jytdog (talk) 01:31, 27 June 2016 (UTC)
- commented at Human_microbiota/talk--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 22:31, 27 June 2016 (UTC)
- Wow! Lots of drama written above...I'm glad its over. Let's build an encyclopedia. Barbara (WVS) (talk) 03:45, 1 July 2016 (UTC)
- commented at Human_microbiota/talk--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 22:31, 27 June 2016 (UTC)
Patient intelligence: not notable + COI and/or paid editing
I stumbled across the article Patient intelligence yesterday evening. Initially, I thought it just looked kinda WP:PROMOTION. Then I saw the note on the talk page about paid editing -- a person who claimed to be the article's creator wanted to hire someone to add references. I searched title+abstract on PubMed and PMC full-text. All but one article used this phrase to refer to a patients IQ, so it probably doesn't qualify as a notable topic. Seems like a good candidate for deletion, but I'm unfamiliar with the AfD process. Anyone here have time to walk me through it? —Shelley V. Adams ‹blame
credit› 01:47, 1 July 2016 (UTC)
- It looks like it was deleted as spam (WP:CSD G11), so you'll have to figure out AFD another day. However, for future reference, the sane steps are these:
- Go to the 'Gadgets' tab of Special:Preferences and turn on WP:Twinkle.
- Go to the article (or other page) that interests you, and choose "XFD" from the new TW ("Twinkle") menu (near the History tab).
- Fill in the form, click the button to submit it, and let Twinkle do the rest.
- (There is a little side box in WP:AFDHOWTO [=the scary-looking instruction section at WP:AFD] that includes this information.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:17, 1 July 2016 (UTC)
Category:Medical lawsuits
I have started Category:Medical lawsuits.—Wavelength (talk) 23:53, 30 June 2016 (UTC)
- looks good--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 09:18, 1 July 2016 (UTC)
Student use of Wikipedia
If you're interested in how students find and use information on free websites, including this one, you may want to listen to today's Metrics meeting. It's on YouTube, and the most relevant bits begin around the 9 minutes, 15 seconds mark, and run for about nine minutes.
There is also a demo of an upcoming Revision Slider, which is a new way of selecting diffs on a history page. You can enable it as a Beta Feature on the Beta Cluster; it will be on test wikis and then the German Wikipedia in a few weeks. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:18, 1 July 2016 (UTC)
- [4]very informative, thank you WAID--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 18:51, 1 July 2016 (UTC)
Links to pubmed
There is a current RfC with many functionaries appearing to hold the position that no linking to any site that contains an account that contains "personal information" (or that may potentially contains "personal information" in the future) is ever allowed. Pubmed with the addition of pubmed commons now fits this description. "Personal information" appears to be defined as any information about someone that is not already on Wikipedia disclosed by the person / account in question. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 06:42, 2 July 2016 (UTC)
important we need opinions,(gave mine)--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 11:37, 2 July 2016 (UTC)
- I think this is a very misleading description of the conversation at the RFC. The question at hand appears to be something like "Is it okay to post a URL to any website and say that it belongs to or was written by a particular anonymous/pseudonymous Wikipedia editor?"
- This does not involve whether it's okay to post a URL to a reliable source. The question is whether it's okay to take an editor who has chosen not to disclose his or her real-world identity (e.g., User:MastCell, Ozzie, SandyGeorgia, Seppi, Biosthmors, RexxS... it's a long list) and say "Oh, hey, you've never posted your name/identity/home phone number/employer on wiki, but let me tell the world that you wrote this article/work at this place/have a Facebook account!" WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:40, 2 July 2016 (UTC)
- That is not the question being asked User:WhatamIdoing and that is not what is being discussed. It appears some are answering a question they wish was asked rather than the one that was.
- User:Courcelles states ""Posting links to other accounts on other websites may be allowable on a case-by-case basis." sentence needs to be removed, because the number of cases this should ever happen are zero, no exceptions." It does not appear that there even needs to be attempts to link the account to a Wikipedian.
- The specific example that many appear to be opposing is doing this [5]
Here we have someone who is buying an article on Anthony LaPine. They have already bought an article on HipLink and this sock created it UserJuliecameo3 who is already blocked. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 04:36, 4 September 2015 (UTC)
- Basically WP:COIN was being informed that someone was trying to buy an article that was not yet created on "Anthony LaPine". Often latter someone will accept the job to create the article with their Elance account. They will than create a WP account to create the article. The initial link of course contains information about someone trying to buy the article. Our functionaries appear to be defining all information that does not exist on WP as "private information".
- Pubmed links also contain external accounts that contain information about people which they may not have already disclosed on WP.
- Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 15:06, 3 July 2016 (UTC)
- That may be the question that you intended to ask, but that is not the question that people are answering. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:39, 3 July 2016 (UTC)
should any editor have time, this high-importance article could use some help/edits, thank you--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 22:27, 3 July 2016 (UTC)
Article renaming discussion
You are invited to participate in a discussion at talk:Dietary element § Article should be Dietary mineral. Only four editors have been involved so far, and while they agree the article should be renamed, they disagree about the best new name. YBG (talk) 04:25, 4 July 2016 (UTC)
- more opinions(gave mine)--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 09:38, 4 July 2016 (UTC)
Comments are needed here please. I have deleted one particularly dangerous inaccuracy from the article and although the article is unlikely to be promoted, I still think it needs more comments from experts. Graham Beards (talk) 10:44, 4 July 2016 (UTC)
- [6]withdrawn--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 01:02, 5 July 2016 (UTC)
Credibility check please
Is this a credible source for research on the medicinal uses of curcumin? Sanivarapu, Raghavendra; Vallabhaneni, Vijayalakshmi; Verma, Vivek (2016). "The Potential of Curcumin in Treatment of Spinal Cord Injury". Neurology Research International. 2016: 1–11. doi:10.1155/2016/9468193. PMC 4889828. PMID 27298735. Thanks Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 15:48, 2 July 2016 (UTC)
- What statement is it used for? Carl Fredrik 💌 📧 15:58, 2 July 2016 (UTC)
- That would be PMID 27298735. The journal is published by Hindawi Publishing Corporation and the journal/article is not MEDLINE indexed; both red flags if it's used for any kind of non-mundane biomedical content I'd have thought. There seems to have been a spate of fringey curcumin/turmeric promotion of late. Alexbrn (talk) 16:00, 2 July 2016 (UTC)
- Full article here. This is a good example of hyperbole about primary sources being overstated as relevant to a clinical condition requiring MEDRS. When primary sources are summarized and put into a clinical context as these authors do, is the source now secondary? I argue it is not, remaining a collection of primary sources sprinkled generously with conjecture as these authors do. The authors also make outlandish hyperbole, such as "a spice known for its medicinal and anti-inflammatory properties is validated to harbor immense effects for a multitude of inflammatory-based diseases. Baloney. I would reject this source. --Zefr (talk) 16:17, 2 July 2016 (UTC)
- What concerns me is that this source is horrible, but it still tries to pretend that it is a systematic review and those among us that are more naive will not know that it is horrible. I've been thinking for a while that we should expand MEDRS with something along the lines of APPRAISE [7]. Carl Fredrik 💌 📧 16:20, 2 July 2016 (UTC)
- Hence a "MEDRS credibility checklist" for editors, as above under New WP:MED-page live! --Zefr (talk) 16:24, 2 July 2016 (UTC)
- Thanks for the quick feedback - unanimous verdict it's junk. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 16:26, 2 July 2016 (UTC)
- Has no impact factor [8] Therefore combine that with the extraordinary claims and would deem is not suitable. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 16:44, 2 July 2016 (UTC)
- Hello all at MEDRS. I normally don't participate in discussions here - mostly because I am not in the medical field. However, I wish to say that Carl Fredrik's idea for determining the veracity of a review article seems to be a good one. Hopefully I can find a counterpart for a couple other disciplines. In any case, I hope you adopt such a page at MEDRS. On the other hand, there seem to be enough experienced editors with a medical background here, so maybe it is not needed. ---Steve Quinn (talk) 00:13, 3 July 2016 (UTC)
- Steve Quinn — The problem as I see it is that non-medical editors come in two types: either they fear editing so much that they don't change anything, even when its obviously wrong — or they are so sure convinced of their own theories that they ignore everything and everyone that tells them otherwise. Having some simple guidance could get more editors to weigh in and to drive away the fanatics. Carl Fredrik 💌 📧 00:20, 3 July 2016 (UTC)
- Hello all at MEDRS. I normally don't participate in discussions here - mostly because I am not in the medical field. However, I wish to say that Carl Fredrik's idea for determining the veracity of a review article seems to be a good one. Hopefully I can find a counterpart for a couple other disciplines. In any case, I hope you adopt such a page at MEDRS. On the other hand, there seem to be enough experienced editors with a medical background here, so maybe it is not needed. ---Steve Quinn (talk) 00:13, 3 July 2016 (UTC)
- Has no impact factor [8] Therefore combine that with the extraordinary claims and would deem is not suitable. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 16:44, 2 July 2016 (UTC)
- Thanks for the quick feedback - unanimous verdict it's junk. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 16:26, 2 July 2016 (UTC)
- Hence a "MEDRS credibility checklist" for editors, as above under New WP:MED-page live! --Zefr (talk) 16:24, 2 July 2016 (UTC)
- What concerns me is that this source is horrible, but it still tries to pretend that it is a systematic review and those among us that are more naive will not know that it is horrible. I've been thinking for a while that we should expand MEDRS with something along the lines of APPRAISE [7]. Carl Fredrik 💌 📧 16:20, 2 July 2016 (UTC)
- Full article here. This is a good example of hyperbole about primary sources being overstated as relevant to a clinical condition requiring MEDRS. When primary sources are summarized and put into a clinical context as these authors do, is the source now secondary? I argue it is not, remaining a collection of primary sources sprinkled generously with conjecture as these authors do. The authors also make outlandish hyperbole, such as "a spice known for its medicinal and anti-inflammatory properties is validated to harbor immense effects for a multitude of inflammatory-based diseases. Baloney. I would reject this source. --Zefr (talk) 16:17, 2 July 2016 (UTC)
How about creating a "blacklist" of junk journals? Then interested, but not formally medically educated, contributors such as myself can check the credibility of a source before wasting time and effort on using a bad one. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 15:24, 3 July 2016 (UTC)
- The same complications that make it hard for you to figure it out also make it hard to create a blacklist or any firm rules.
- From the perspective of just trying to improve articles, your best bet is generally going to be looking at several reliable sources, to see whether they all say approximately the same thing. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:42, 3 July 2016 (UTC)
MEDRS blacklist
Draft of factors for detecting and screening out poor-quality sources for WP medical articles (from discussion above under New WP:MED-page live!; Decision tree for sourcing MEDRS credibility). No order of importance implied.
- determine the journal's impact factor to identify "junk"; there are several resources like this one. Scores under 5 are dubious (my subjective threshold needing better quantification, if available)
- studies in vitro or in animals; WP:MEDANIMAL (pharmacology articles excepted)
- case reports
- commercial websites implying medical product efficacy
- journals publishing alternative medicine, traditional medicine, naturopathy
- news reports (better to find the original source by searching PubMed and assuring the source is indexed in Medline, then double-check impact factor)
- speculations of future medical importance; WP:CRYSTAL
- synthesis of published reports by a WP editor; WP:SYNTH and WP:OR
- blogs or medical opinions by self-proclaimed "experts"
- words associated with health fraud, such as "miracle", "cure", "immense" or "incredible", such as in the abstract of this article rejected above
--Zefr (talk) 23:14, 4 July 2016 (UTC)
- An impact factor around one is relatively good for journals that specialize in unpopular areas of experimental research. There are reputable niche journals that have an IF of less than one. Here's an illustration that I think will demonstrate the problem. I've made a little list of the sexology journals with the highest impact factors that I was able to find:
- Journal of Sex Research – IF = 2.7
- Archives of Sexual Behavior – IF = 2.8
- Deviant Behavior (journal) – IF = 1.0
- Sexual Abuse (journal) – IF = 2.42
- The Journal of Sexual Medicine – IF = 3.1
- That list includes the most famous and reputable journals in the field, and not one of them meets an arbitrary impact factor of 5.0 or higher. Requiring an IF ≥5 means that we simply refuse to cite any sexology journals.
- Let's try another field. This time, we'll do it in reverse. There are only four hematology journals that have an IF above 5:
- Do we truly believe that no other journal in that field is "good enough" to support any medical statement at all? This rule excludes both the American and the British Journal of Hematology, the 60-year-old Vox Sanguinis, and a dozen other reputable, reliable sources. There's not a single journal dedicated specifically to transfusion medicine that meets this arbitrary number.
- This is a bad rule. We need to stop making up arbitrary cutoff numbers for impact factors and pretending that it is helpful. Step one in using an impact factor is not "do math that a six year old can manage", no matter what number we use for the cutoff. Step one is find out what the usual impact factor is, for journals of that type and in that field. Then we won't be applying general-medicine-reviews-only numbers to niche-subject-mostly-original-papers journals, or the other way around. Being smart about impact factors is not simple – and that is one of the reasons that I generally oppose telling inexperienced editors and POV pushers (on both sides) to consider impact factors at all – but being smart about it produces good sources.
- If we want a rule that is both relatively simple and potentially useful, then we might consider a recommendation to see whether the journal is sponsored by a reputable organization.
- (User:DGG, if you don't start WP:Impact factor soon, then I might – and we both know that it will be better if you write it.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 07:00, 5 July 2016 (UTC)
- OK, I get the idea. But experience with both wikipedia and the academic world shows that we cannot totally avoid over interpretation of impact factors. I'll just mention for the moment that almost every journal has published at least one good article, and almost no journal has avoided publishing at least one bad one. Peer-review is designed to screen out the unimportant and the implausible; it does not guarantee actual quality. Only the detailed analysis of the reception of a work by other scientists can truly show quality--which is why MEDRS properly emphasizes review journals, which are intended to do just that. DGG ( talk ) 08:01, 5 July 2016 (UTC)
- I've been meaning to start a draft
WP:Finding medical sources (or similar page)along the lines of The Wikipedia Library's Help:Find sources that could cover this. As WhatamIdoing rightly says, there is no simple solution when it comes to impact factor, and there are some other problems with Zefr's suggestions. I think we need to consider at least three sections:- How/where to search
- Explains why Google Scholar is a bad idea, etc. Where you should go to find unbiased sources, going through the citation section of an article can cause bias if you don't assess the article properly — something we don't normally ask of our contributors on WP.
- Different article types
- Contains information on how to judge whether a systematic review actually is a systematic review — or whether the question it poses is even answered by the review. etc. etc.
- Sources to avoid
- Would make up a big part of the page, and can list and truly explain everything from Impact factor to fringe journals and self-publishing.
- I will probably start doing this during this week or the next, if no one beats me to it. Carl Fredrik 💌 📧 10:44, 5 July 2016 (UTC)
- I've been meaning to start a draft
- OK, I get the idea. But experience with both wikipedia and the academic world shows that we cannot totally avoid over interpretation of impact factors. I'll just mention for the moment that almost every journal has published at least one good article, and almost no journal has avoided publishing at least one bad one. Peer-review is designed to screen out the unimportant and the implausible; it does not guarantee actual quality. Only the detailed analysis of the reception of a work by other scientists can truly show quality--which is why MEDRS properly emphasizes review journals, which are intended to do just that. DGG ( talk ) 08:01, 5 July 2016 (UTC)
DYK for Uterine microbiome
Everyone seems incredibly busy but I'm asking for a super-quick review from any interested editors for Uterine microbiome. Ironically it is not really a medical article since there is no clinical content but basically a listing of bacteria (mostly) and identifying potential pathogens. Thanks ahead of time, Best Regards,
ps - all references are review articles anyway
- I tried looking for the nomination, but couldn't find one. The lede is a little unclear, but if that was rewritten I would probably accept it rather quickly. Carl Fredrik 💌 📧 11:14, 5 July 2016 (UTC)