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Integration: Sources

http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=2384186 - CorticoSpinal 16:47, May 21, 2008

Requests for comment on Education, licensing, and regulation improvements

Education, licensing, and regulation 7

Chiropractors obtain a first professional degree in the field of chiropractic medicine. The U.S. and Canada require a minimum 90 semester hours of undergraduate education as a prerequisite for chiropractic school, and at least 4200 instructional hours (or the equivalent) of full‐time chiropractic education for matriculation through an accredited chiropractic program. The World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines suggest three major full-time educational paths culminating in either a DC, DCM, BSc, or MSc degree. Besides the full-time paths, they also suggest a conversion program for people with other health care education and limited training programs for regions where no legislation governs chiropractic.

The WHO guidelines suggest that health care professionals with advanced clinical degrees can meet the educational and clinical requirements to practice as a chiropractor in 2200 hours. In both cases (4200/2200 hours) this includes a minimum of 1000 hours of supervised clinical training. Upon graduation, there may be a requirement to pass national, state, or provincial board examinations before being licensed to practice in a particular jurisdiction. Depending on the location, continuing education may be required to renew these licenses.

In the U.S., chiropractic schools are accredited through the Council on Chiropractic Education (CCE). CCEs in the U.S., Canada, Australia and Europe have joined to form CCE-International (CCE-I) as a model of accreditation standards with the goal of having credentials portable internationally. Today, there are 18 accredited Doctor of Chiropractic programs in the U.S., 2 in Canada, and 4 in Europe. All but one of the chiropractic colleges in the U.S. are privately funded, but in several other countries they are in government-sponsored universities and colleges. Chiropractic education in the U.S. is divided into straight or mixer educational curriculums depending on the philosophy of the institution.

Regulatory colleges and chiropractic boards in the U.S., Canada, and Australia are responsible for protecting the public, standards of practice, disciplinary issues, quality assurance and maintenance of competency. There are an estimated 53,000 chiropractors in the U.S. (2006), 6526 in Canada (2006), 2500 in Australia (2000), and 1,500 in the UK (2004).

Comments on Education, licensing, and regulation 7

I started this thread. Please do not comment above of my comments. Interleaving comments can be confusing. There are other drafts. For example, there is draft 3: Talk:Chiropractic#Education.2C_Licensing.2C_Regulation_3. I consider draft 3 to be obsolete and irrelevant now. QuackGuru 18:29, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

I have made some important improvements with this draft. All of the unnecessary references should be deleted. If an editor thinks any ref is unnecessary then please consider removing it. QuackGuru 21:55, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

I am of the opinion that this version is slightly better than the other 6 above. Are there any dissenting opinions? ScienceApologist (talk) 23:21, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

My eyes continue to glaze over when reading this stuff. In some ways, 7 is better than 3 (it fixes some obvious bugs in the wording). In some ways it's worse. We should combine the virtues of both. In the spirit of doing that, here are some comments on 7 that would help improve it so that it's better than 3.

• The usual style is "U.S.", no? 7 sometimes says "US", sometimes "USA". It should be consistent.
• "prerequisite before applying to a chiropractic school" → "prerequisite for chiropractic school"
• "no less than a 4200 student/teacher contact hours" → "at least 4200 student/teacher contact hours"
• "in four years of full‐time education during school" → "of full‐time education" (the extra details aren't needed)
• "Internationally, to help standardize and ensure quality of chiropractic education, in 2005 the" Remove.
• "The WHO voluntary guidelines" → "The WHO guidelines" Guidelines are voluntary; no need to say it twice.
• "suggest for health professionals" → "suggest that health professionals"
• ", such as medical doctors," Remove; not needed.
• "that includes a minimum of 1000 hours of supervised clinical training". This 1000-hour requirement also applies to the 4200 number. It sounds odd to see it mentioned only with the 2200 number. The simplest fix would be to remove this phrase. A better fix would be to reword it to make it clear that the 1000 applies to both the 4200 and the 2200 number.
• "Upon finishing chiropractic education" → "Upon graduation"
• "Depending on the location (state or province)" → "Depending on the location"
• "(CE)" Remove; not used.
• "with the stated purpose of insuring the quality of chiropractic education" Remove this advertising fluff. We should say what the organizations do and not repeat their promotional material.
• "CCE standards has accrediting bodies worldwide." This sentence is not clear. CCE is U.S., right?
• "These councils have developed CCE - International in an effort to maintain chiropractic education standards globally." Here, 3 is much better than 7 as it is more specific about CCE-I's goals and actions. Use 3's wording: "The CCE-USA has joined with CCEs in Australia, Canada, and Europe forming CCE - International (CCE-I) as a model of accreditation standards with the goal of having credentials portable internationally."
• "All but one of the chiropractic colleges in the US are privately funded, but in several other countries they are in government-sponsored universities and colleges. Today, there are 18 accredited Doctor of Chiropractic programs in the USA, 2 in Canada, and 4 in Europe." Reverse the order of these two sentences.
• "The Federation of Chiropractic Licensing Boards (FCLB) is a member list of most regulatory bodies." This sentence is not clear. Perhaps remove it?
• "There are an estimated 53,000 - 70,000 chiropractors in the USA, 6000 in Canada, 2500 in Australia, 1,500 in the UK, and about 90,000 internationally." Don't use the 70,000 estimate; it's older and from a less-reliable source. The 2006 number for Canada was 6526; use the source in draft 3 for this. I don't see anywhere in the source http://www.ccea.com.au/images/PDF/Migration/Attachment%20E%20-%20Recognised%20Quals.pdf where there's an estimate of 2500 in Australia; remove that source and remove the "2500". The 90,000 estimate is dubious and should be removed; it relies an an estimate of 65,000 in the U.S.[1] which is worrisomely higher than the more-reliable BLS estimate.

Hope this helps. Sure wish we could get this section out the door; the continuing "dueling drafts" is worrisome. Eubulides (talk) 07:24, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the input Eubulides. Hopefully we can hammer out a version for education within the next week. DigitalC (talk) 03:02, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Again, one of the big differences I see between Education 3 and Education 7 is the treatment of the WHO guidelines. On that basis alone, I have to say that Education 3 is better. DigitalC (talk) 03:02, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

• For Outside editors, please see also Talk:Chiropractic#Education.2C_Licensing.2C_Regulation_3 DigitalC (talk) 02:45, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

There were comments inserted above my comments which was rude. QuackGuru 18:29, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

I am sorry that you considered it rude QuackGuru, however opening an RfC on draft #7 without mentioning that there are other drafts under consideration that outside editors might not be aware of (ie - responding to the RfC) was disruptive, and I was attempting to fix the situation. I do not see how it could be considered confusing in this instance, and you have been warned before about altering others comments. Now that you have mentioned that there are other drafts, I don't mind my comment being moved. However, although you may consider draft 3 to be "obselete and irrelevant now", that does not make it so. DigitalC (talk) 01:11, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

Is there any specific objections to draft #7. I think this is the only draft worthy of mainspace. QuackGuru 01:37, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

• The way that "In the U.S., Chiropractic education is divided into straight or mixer (progressive) educational curriculums depending on the philosophy of the institution." is included flows poorly. The paragraph talks about regulatation, the number of chiropractors, and then this non sequiter.
• Not enough detail is given to the WHO guidelines on education. Draft 3 is much better in this respect. DigitalC (talk) 03:12, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

The way that the straight or mixer (progressive) educational curriculums is included flows great. Please provide a specific suggestion on how to improve the flow if you disagree.

Too much detail is given to the WHO guidelines on education in draft #3. The long end run of WHO quotes are suggestions and not official world standards. Draft #7 fixes the problems with the WHO quotes. QuackGuru 06:31, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

• My specific suggestion would be to remove it entirely. It definitely does not flow great, as it is not related to the number or chiropractors worldwide, nor to regulation.
• Please stop with the strawman argument that they "are not official world standards". No one is claiming that they are standards. They are however official WHO guidelines. I have pointed this out previously, and this appears to be a case of WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT. DigitalC (talk) 06:52, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

The WHO guidelines are merely suggestions and not world standards. The suggestions should not be given so much weight as in draft #3 because they are not official standards and the quote are boring. Draft #7 fixed the WHO problem quotes. The educational curriculums is about education and thus related to Education, licensing, and regulation section. QuackGuru 07:06, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

Another occurence of WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT. No one is claiming that the WHO guidelines are 'world standards'. Please stop with this strawman argument, it is disruptive and tendentious editing. DigitalC (talk) 00:22, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

For those of us who have not been following the debate between drafts 3 and 7 (and I admit that I am one of them: let's face it, this stuff is really boring), can someone please briefly summarize the differences between them and why these differences matter? Eubulides (talk) 17:58, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

ScienceApologistwrote in part above: I am of the opinion that this version is slightly better than the other 6 above.

Eubulides wrote in part above: In the spirit of doing that, here are some comments on 7 that would help improve it so that it's better than 3.

Draft 7 is clearly better than draft 3. Draft 7 fixes the WHO problem quotes, draft 7 is fully referenced, and draft 7 has the educational curriculums. QuackGuru 16:46, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

The last I saw, Levine, me, and DigitalC agreed with 3 and Eubilides had issues with both 3 and 7 if his issues were fixed. Did you address those fixes in Eubilides' list above? Maybe if we put both versions here we can compare them again one to one. There might still be some tweaks we can do to both. -- Dēmatt (chat) 17:01, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

Levine2112 never saw the finished versions of draft 3 or 7. Eubilides had objections with draft 3 that were never fixed such as the WHO quotes. Draft 7 is NPOV while draft 3 has the WP:WEIGHT problems with the WHO quotes. Draft 7 is fully referenced while draft 3 has a lack of references. QuackGuru 17:08, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

I agree that draft 7 in some ways is better than draft 3, and would like to see these improvements merged into Chiropractic. But I'm afraid I haven't yet seen a concrete proposal as to how to do this. QuackGuru, how about if you propose specific changes to what's in Chiropractic now? This could be in the form of a bullet list. It's helpful if each change is isolated in the list. Obviously it's easy to generate a diff listing between the two drafts, and I'm not asking for that; I'm asking for a brief description of each particular change to Chiropractic and why it's needed. Eubulides (talk) 17:18, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

• The long WHO quotes should be removed from draft 3.
• Draft 3 is not fully referenced like draft 7.
• Draft 7 has more info on the chiropractic numbers worldwide.
• Draft 7 includes educational curriculums.
• Draft 7 explains: "In both cases (4200/2200 hours) this includes a minimum of 1000 hours of supervised clinical training."
• Draft 7 uses the same U.S. style.
• Draft 7 has already merged parts of draft 3 into draft 7 such as "The CCE-USA has joined with CCEs in Australia, Canada, and Europe forming CCE - International (CCE-I) as a model of accreditation standards with the goal of having credentials portable internationally."

The changes are needed in order to achieve NPOV. For example, the end run of WHO quotes are merely suggestions that are undueweight and not necessary. QuackGuru 17:48, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

• From QuackGuru - The long WHO quotes should be removed from draft 3.

Your argument that it is undue weight doesn't make sense. If we don't quote the WHO then all we do is reference the countries (like this and this) themselves that use those methods. If it's the formatting you don't like, well, that is just your preference and that is not enough. If there is a reason that the source is wrong, thent hat is another thing, but you haven't shown that. More later.. -- Dēmatt (chat) 18:45, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

It's boring to have such an extensive length of quotes. This sort of detail is not needed in Chiropractic. It might be useful for Chiropractic education. The section is supposed to be a summary and not a block of quotes or a reference to those countries that use the methods. QuackGuru 18:58, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

I disagree that it is boring, and really doesn't matter if it is. Besides, that is not a valid reason to delete valuable information. -- Dēmatt (chat) 19:12, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

This section is supposed to be summary of Chiropractic education. Why should we overly promote suggestions that are not official world standards yet. Wikipedia should not be used to promote suggestions to become official world standards. These WHO quotes are being given too much prominence. QuackGuru 19:24, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

• From QuackGuru - Draft 3 is not fully referenced like draft 7.

Which ones aren't referenced? -- Dēmatt (chat) 19:23, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

• From QuackGuru - Draft 7 has more info on the chiropractic numbers worldwide.

I have no problem with adding those numbers to 3, but I think Eubilides was concerned about the quality of one of the sources. more later... -- Dēmatt (chat) 19:34, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

I have a problem with adding those numbers to 3. We should start with draft 7 and move forward. Draft 3 is a step backwards from draft 7.

Writing "more later..." will not change the fact that draft 7 is far better than draft 3.

Once graduated, the chiropractor may... is not referenced. Starting with a lower quality draft 3 is odd. There is information that is not referenced and the references are not fully formatted. These problems are fixed by using draft 7. Draft 7 is better worded and includes interesting information such as educational curriculums.

I removed the source that Eubilides had a concern with and used a book to reference the remaining chiropractic numbers. Gordon Waddell (2004). The Back Pain Revolution. Churchill Livingstone. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |chapterurl= (help) If editors prefer, the remaining chiropractic numbers can be removed from draft 7.

Again, this section is supposed to be summary of Chiropractic education. Why should we overly promote suggestions that are not official world standards yet. Wikipedia should not be used to promote suggestions to become official world standards. The disputed blocks of WHO quotes are being given too much prominence.

Draft 7 is better than draft 3. Draft 3 is on the wrong end of NPOV and should be greeted with a revert for the reasons stated above. QuackGuru 19:58, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

• Repeatedly stating that draft 7 is better than draft 3 does not make it so. Draft 3 is not "promoting" the WHO guidelines any more than draft 7 is. What specific information do you feel is not referenced? DigitalC (talk) 00:18, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

I have explained specifically what is not referenced in my previous comment. Draft 3 is overly promoting the WHO standards while draft 7 is not. The WHO quotes are not law. The block of WHO quotes are merely suggestions. QuackGuru 00:27, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Again, please stop with the strawman arugment. No one is stating that the WHO guidelines are Law. Neither draft 3 nor draft 7 are PROMOTING the WHO guidelines. The WHO guidelines are not "merely suggestions", they ARE Official World Health Organization International Guidelines. However, a guideline is not a standard, a rule, or a law (and again, no one is claiming that it is) - it is just that, a guide. Please, for the sake of moving forward on this article, stop with the WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT] DigitalC (talk) 00:34, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

• QG stated - "I removed the source that Eubilides had a concern with and used a book to reference the remaining chiropractic numbers. Gordon Waddell (2004). The Back Pain Revolution." This source was removed from draft 3 because it was unreliable for this information. That is, the numbers in it disagree with more reliable sources (for example, see the number of chiropractors this source states are in the US). DigitalC (talk) 00:34, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Because the WHO quotes are suggestuions and not world standards we should not use them in an education section that is supposed to be a summary. The WHO guidelines are official for WHO but are not offical world standards. They are merely a guide or a suggestion to have world standards.

DigitalC stated in part: "This source was removed from draft 3 because it was unreliable for this information. That is, the numbers in it disagree with more reliable sources (for example, see the number of chiropractors this source states are in the US)." Please provide the differences and evidence that it was removed from draft 3. Please provide the evidence that the book is unreliable for the international chiropractic numbers. QuackGuru 00:47, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

• The source states that there are "about 70,000 Chiropractors" in the US. We know from more reliable sources (ie - US government Bureau of Labour and Statistics) that there are closer to 53,000 Chiropractors in the US. Why would we assume that this source gives accurate numbers for the others? Further, this also deserves a failed verification tag, as the source does not comment on the number of Chiropractors in Australia. I will add that shortly. DigitalC (talk) 01:15, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
• QuackGuru wrote "Because the WHO quotes are suggestuions and not world standards we should not use them in an education section that is supposed to be a summary." This doesn't seem to make sense. You use the same source in draft 7, yet fail to explain what the 3 educational paths are. A source is either valid (RS & V), or not - if it is, then quoting it seems fine, and if it isn't, it shouldn't be used at all. Are you objecting to the use of the WHO guidelines as a source? DigitalC (talk) 01:22, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Using the long end run of boring WHO quotes is overly promoting a guideline that are not world standards.

DigitalC wrote: "Back Pain Revolution, by Gordon Waddell (page 62). [2] states 70,000 in the US, 6000 in Canada, 1500 in the UK, and 90,000 internationally. For the record, this information has been in the article for ages. You cry foul when others object to information that has been in the article previously, but then turn around and do the same. Now do you understand that while we are discussing something on the talk page, we might as well get it right?"[3]

I thought the source was good enough for DigitalC. QuackGuru 06:35, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

• I disagree that quoting the WHO is promoting their guidelines, let alone overly promoting them. DigitalC (talk) 07:24, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
• Perhaps we should get more input on this issue. Should we be using sources that disagree with facts (not opinions) stated in more reliable sources? Both the pediatrics article QG referenced, and the Waddell book state 70,000 Chiropractors in the US (While the US BLS states ~53,000). One gives 5000 for Canada, one gives 6000, and the currently cited source uses 6500. One says 1300 for the UK, the other 1500. The pediatrics article says there are smaller numbers in ~50 other countries, while a more reliable source says ~90 countries. How do we deal with such variation in the sources?

(outdent) As for the "70,000", the Pediatrics article (Campbell et al. 2000, PMID 10742364) merely cites an older advocacy source (FACTS Bulletin VI, 1999) for the "70,000". The FACTS Bulletin is less reliable than the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and its numbers are also significantly older. I assume the Waddell book is similar (Google Books won't let me read Waddell); certainly it's older. I see no good reason to mention numbers from older, less-reliable sources. As for the "50" versus "90" countries, which two sources are we talking about? I'd rather not wade through all of the above discussion to tease this out. Eubulides (talk) 17:20, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

There are an estimated 53,000 chiropractors in the U.S., 6526 in Canada, 2500 in Australia,[4] 1,500 in the UK, and about 90,000 internationally. Here is the complete sentence. We are not talking about the 70,000 number. We are talking about a few other numbers: "2500 in Australia, 1,500 in the UK, and about 90,000 internationally." What numbers and what sources should we use to verify the other numbers. 2,500, 1,500, and 90,000 is sourced but are there better sources and numbers we should use instead or is the sentence adequate. QuackGuru 18:05, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

We've been here before - Eubulides wrote "The 90,000 estimate is dubious and should be removed; it relies an an estimate of 65,000 in the U.S.[5] which is worrisomely higher than the more-reliable BLS estimate." If Waddell gets the 70,000 wrong, why would we assume that he is reliable for the 90,000 figure? DigitalC (talk) 03:22, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

All things being equal, I still prefer version 3 over version 7 (for many of the weaknesses outlined above by various editors). -- Levine2112 ^discuss 23:03, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

In looking up you guy's quote, and reading the above, I searched for the word "suggestion," and didn't find it. Then I searched for the quote, and found this:

There are many slight variations on the following models: however, in general, there are three major educational paths involving full‐time education: • A four‐year full‐time programme within specifically designated colleges or universities, following 1‐4 years of suitable pre‐chiropractic training in basic sciences at university level; for an example, see Annex 2. • A five‐year bachelor integrated chiropractic degree programme offered within a public or private university, with student entrance based upon the applicant’s matriculation status and the university’s admission requirements and quota restrictions. • A two or three‐year pre‐professional Masters programme following the satisfactory completion of a specifically designed bachelor degree programme in chiropractic or a suitably adapted health science degree.

In the index that's under Models of chiropractic education

QG says "Why should we overly promote suggestions that are not official world standards yet......the WHO quotes are suggestuions and not world standards we should not use them in an education section that is supposed to be a summary." But that's what they are, a summary, no?

I agree with QG about the quotes, they should be summarized, it's better writing. And if these are not suggestions but a summary of what is, there is no need to quote because it's just a common account of things, not something in any way controversial. ——Martin^phi ☎ Ψ Φ—— 05:38, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

I agree with Martinphi and QuackGuru that the quotes should be summarized. Martinphi's arguments are good ones. Eubulides (talk) 09:23, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

I agree that we can shorten them, so I did (and of course removed the quotes). I think it still catches the drift without the extra verbiage, especially when adding the MSc and BSc. I think more people know what this means anyway.

• 1 - 4 years of pre-requisite training in basic sciences at university level followed by a 4 year full‐time program; DC.
• A 5 year bachelor degree; BSc (Chiro).
• A 2 - 3 year Masters following a bachelor; MSc (Chiro).

Hopefully, this helps settle this one? -- Dēmatt (chat) 17:56, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

This is better than what's in Chiropractic now, so let's go with it as an improvement. We can work on adding the other draft-7 improvements later. However, Wikipedia style guidelines suggest we should spell out the single-digit numbers. Eubulides (talk) 19:20, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

I disagree with the block text and the unecessary details. Draft 7 does not have the problems that draft 3 has. QuackGuru 18:02, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

Which details would you consider "unnecessary'? This is about as simple as we can state the different degrees that chiropractors are licensed with internationally. I think the point that was made above was that, since readers were likely unaware that chiropractors had any specific training, it was important to show it here. I agree with that assessment and consider that not including it would be similar to not including it in Medicine, which is pretty similar to length and discussion as ours. Only ours looks better, thanks to the bullets. -- Dēmatt (chat) 16:18, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

The blocked text is unecessary details. Draft #7 has better wording. For example, draft #7 explains: "In both cases (4200/2200 hours) this includes a minimum of 1000 hours of supervised clinical training." Draft #7 includes educational curriculums and has more info on the chiropractic numbers worldwide. For the chiropractic numbers worldwide, I used the best sources I could find. If better sources are found, we can use those instead. All the references in draft #7 are formatted.

Multiple editors have problems with draft 3. This includes: OrangeMarlin, Martinphi, Eubulides, and QuackGuru. ScienceApologist wrote in part: "I am of the opinion that this version is slightly better than the other 6 above." Clearly draft #7 is better. QuackGuru 16:55, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

All those things that you mention above were in draft 3 previously but were removed at one time or another because there were various flaws that were discussed and worked out together. You can find the discussions and subsequent fixes to the language starting here. ---- Dēmatt (chat) 17:44, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

I did change the 4200/2200 hour sentence as version 7 suggests as this does addrress both pathways to licensure. I also see that version 7 has 'morphed' to look quite a lot like version 3. I suppose that is a good sign that we are reaching consensus. I'm not sure that we need all those refernces thet version 7 has listed. -- Dēmatt (chat) 18:01, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

Some of those things I have mentioned are still problems with draft #3. Draft #7 has better information. For example, Draft #7 includes educational curriculums and has more info on the chiropractic numbers worldwide. For the chiropractic numbers worldwide, I used the best sources I could find. If better sources are found, we can use those instead. All the references in draft #7 are formatted.

The blocked text still in draft #3 is unnecessary and should be removed. Draft #7 fixes all the current problems in draft #3.

All of the unnecessary references can be deleted. Select the better refs and delete the extra references. Dēmatt, if you think any ref is unnecessary, please consider deleting it. QuackGuru 18:18, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

Comments on draft 7:

• (Done.) Wikilink first professional degree.
• (Done.) 3rd sentence "Matriculation..." Please clarify whether this applies in general or only to the U.S. and Canada. If only the U.S. and Canada, I suggest "The U.S. and Canada require a minimum 90 semester hours of undergraduate education as a prerequisite for chiropractic school, and at least 4200 student/teacher contact hours (or the equivalent) of full‐time education for matriculation through an accredited chiropractic program." (The word "includes" got lost in the rearrangement of the sentence, but can perhaps be considered to be redundant with "at least"). If it applies more widely than the U.S. and Canada, then I suggest simply switching the order of sentences 2 and 3, thus: "Matriculation through an accredited chiropractic program includes at least 4200 student/teacher contact hours (or the equivalent) of full‐time education. The U.S. and Canada require a minimum 90 semester hours of undergraduate education as a prerequisite for chiropractic school."
• Are these talking about two different things? "a conversion program for people with other health care education " and "also suggest that health professionals with advanced clinical degrees, such as medical doctors, "? Since medical doctors clearly have "other health care education", this is rather confusing.
• (Done.) "Upon graduation, the chiropractor may then be required to pass ..." I'm not sure whether it makes sense to refer to the person as a "chiropractor" before they pass the exams, therefore I suggest rewording this to "Upon graduation, there may be a requirement to pass ..." Optionally, the word "chiropractor" could be inserted as "before the chiropractor is licensed to practice"; IMO it's OK to refer to the person as a "chiropractor" at this later point in the sentence, at the moment they're being licensed.
• Paragraph 3 sounds overly U.S.-centric. Do we know whether chiropractic schools are accredited through CCE in countries other than the U.S.? If so, those countries can be included in the first sentence. In the second sentence, if several CCE's are joining together, I see no reason to single one of them out as the subject of the sentence. How about "CCEs in the U.S., Australia, Canada and Europe have joined to form CCE-International (CCE-I)..." I think it's OK to mention the U.S. first since it has a lot more chiropractors.
• "Today, there are..." Please specify the date, e.g. "As of 2008, there are..." (if that's supportable by the reliable sources).
• (Done.) "There are an estimated 53,000 chiropractors in the U.S.,[122] 6526 in Canada,[123] 2500 in Australia,[124] 1,500 in the UK, and about 90,000 internationally" If we don't delete the 90,000 figure as someone suggested, then this sentence needs to be reworded to clarify whether the 90,000 figure includes the other figures. Assuming it does, I suggest "There are estimated to be 90,000 chiropractors worldwide, including estimates of 53,000 in the U.S.,[122] 6526 in Canada,[123] 2500 in Australia,[124] and 1,500 in the UK."
• (Done.) Take the last sentence of the last paragraph, about "straight" and "mixer", and move it up to become the last sentence of the previous paragraph, where I think it has a little more of a logical connection with the other stuff in the paragraph. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 02:22, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

Coppertwig, here is a copy of the text from the book on page 62. There are now about 70,000 chiropractors in the US, 6000 in Canada, 1,500 in the UK and about 90,000 internationally (Chapman-Smith 2000, www.chiropracticreport.com) Source: Gordon Waddell (2004). The Back Pain Revolution. Churchill Livingstone. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |chapterurl= (help) The reference is a bit dated but it is the best reference I could find to verifiy the 1,500 in the UK, and 90,000 internationally numbers. QuackGuru 06:23, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

I made some changes based on the new suggestions. I would like to see other editors edit Education 7. QuackGuru 07:06, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

Version 3 *is* Version 7 with all the unnecessary refs deleted or statements fixed already. Remember, that is where you got the sentences in the first place; from previous versions. -- Dēmatt (chat) 02:21, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

It looks to me as if everyone but on editor agrees to put in draft 3 and revisit the subject after the rest of the article has been set right. It would be better for there to be a complete consensus, but this is consensus. With or without my change, it could be put in. This might help [6]. ——Martin^phi ☎ Ψ Φ—— 05:32, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

There seems to be some confusion here. Draft 3 was already put in. I disagree that Education should wait until "after the rest of the article has been set right". I see no reason to wait indefinitely before improving this part of the article. We shouldn't rush, of course; but there is no real reason to wait for many days (or weeks, or months, or years...) before improving Education. Eubulides (talk) 16:57, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

Yes, 3 is in but there have been two changes since; adding the 4200/2200 sentence and removing the quotation marks and shortening the WHO statement as all three of you suggested. QuackGuru's version 7 appears to be very similar, but removes the three paths for education as he claims it is a weight violation, but I disagree; considering it essential information and answers the question that readers want to know about chiropractors, "What kind of schooling do chiropractors go through?" I am not sure why he wouldn't want this information in there, especially when it is so nicely laid out by the WHO for an international audience. Anything else we would do would involve sourcing the different countries with this same curriculum - after all, they are all CCE approved programs. This is certainly the most efficient way to do it. Martin's version took them out as well. -- Dēmatt (chat) 18:41, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

The WHO suggestions are guidelines and not law. This section should be a summary of the main chiropractic education article. QuackGuru 19:08, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

The two changes since Draft 3 was installed are an improvement to 3. However, as per the usual Wikipedia guidelines, the numbers should be spelled out, and the bullet list should be replaced by inline text without bullets. Sorry, but I don't recall what the other differences between drafts 3 and 7 were; they might also be relevant. Eubulides (talk) 08:29, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

Please see WP:SUMMARY.

Rationale

This style of organizing articles is somewhat related to news style except it focuses on topics instead of articles. The idea is to summarize and distribute information across related articles in a way that can serve readers who want varying amounts of detail. Thus giving readers the ability to zoom to the level of detail they need and not exhausting those who need a primer on a whole topic.

This is more helpful to the reader than a very long article that just keeps growing, eventually reaching book-length. Summary style is accomplished by not overwhelming the reader with too much text up front by summarizing main points and going into more detail on particular points (sub-topics) in separate articles. What constitutes 'too long' is largely based on the topic, but generally 30KB of prose is the starting point where articles may be considered too long. Articles that go above this have a burden of proof that extra text is needed to efficiently cover its topic and that the extra reading time is justified.

Sections that are less important for understanding the topic will tend to be lower in the article (this is news style applied to sections). Often this is difficult to do for articles on history or that are otherwise chronologically based unless there is some type of analysis section. Organizing in this way is important due to the fact that many readers will not finish reading the article.

Levels of desired details

Wikipedia is not divided into a macropædia, micropædia, and concise versions as is the Encyclopædia Britannica — we must serve all three user types in the same encyclopedia. Summary style is based on the premise that information about a topic should not all be contained in a single article since different readers have different needs;

• many readers need just a quick summary of the topic's most important points (lead section),
• others need a moderate amount of info on the topic's more important points (a set of multi-paragraph sections), and
• some readers need a lot of detail on one or more aspects of the topic (links to full-sized separate articles).

The parent article should have general summary information and the more detailed summaries of each subtopic should be in daughter articles and in articles on specific subjects. This can be thought of as layering inverted pyramids where the reader is shown the tip of a pyramid (the lead section) for a topic and within that article any section may have a {{main|<subpage name>}} or similar link to a full article on the topic summarized in that section (see Yosemite National Park#History and History of the Yosemite area for an example using two featured articles). The summary in a section at the parent article will often be at least twice as long as the lead section in the daughter article. The daughter article in turn can also serve as a parent article for its specific part of the topic. And so on until a topic is very thoroughly covered. Thus by navigational choices several different types of readers get the amount of detail they want.

With regard to the three educational paths suggested from WHO, this section (Education, licensing, and regulation) should only be a summary of the main chiropractic education article. Draft #7 accomplishes this. QuackGuru 19:19, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

This seems to fit WP:Summary pretty well. The section on education is a very short paragraph (which reminds me that we need to link to the other main article for regulation). This is about as simple as we can state the different degrees that chiropractors are licensed with internationally. I think the point that was made above was that, since readers were likely unaware that chiropractors had any specific training, it was important to show it here. I agree with that assessment and consider that not including it would be similar to not including it in Medicine, which is pretty similar to length and discussion as ours. Only ours looks better, thanks to the bullets. -- Dēmatt (chat) 16:18, 16 June 2008 (UTC) -- Dēmatt (chat) 19:57, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

Medicine's education section is low quality; we should do better than that. Dentistry's and Nursing's treatments are better (and shorter). Eubulides (talk) 08:29, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

Seriously? Dentistry doesn't even have an education section, but has it all in the lead and not mentioned again which is not suggested according to WP:Lead; obviously the article has problems. Nursing doesn't even mention education. Are you suggesting that we scrap the section? -- Dēmatt (chat) 13:21, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

They're better primarily because they are shorter. For example, Nursing#Nursing as a profession mentions education only very briefly, in one sentence: "There are a number of educational paths to becoming a professional nurse, which vary greatly worldwide, but all involve extensive study of nursing theory and practice and training in clinical skills." I'm not saying this is perfect, only that it demonstrates a better sense of proportion. Eubulides (talk) 22:20, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

Tell you what, you dump Education and I'll dump Effectiveness and we'll save both of us another month of headaches! Nah, it would just get reverted :-D -- Dēmatt (chat) 02:35, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Coopertwig wrote: *Are these talking about two different things? "a conversion program for people with other health care education " and "also suggest that health professionals with advanced clinical degrees, such as medical doctors, "? Since medical doctors clearly have "other health care education", this is rather confusing.

Besides the full-time paths, they also suggest a conversion program for people with other health care education and limited training programs for regions where no legislation governs chiropractic.

The WHO guidelines also suggest that health professionals with advanced clinical degrees can meet the educational and clinical to practice as a chiropractor in 2200 hours. In both cases (4200/2200 hours) this includes a minimum of 1000 hours of supervised clinical training.*

The current sentences are above. The last two additional sentences (beginning with The WHO guidelines also suggest that health professionals*) may be too much detail for a summary of the main education article. The second and third sentence explains the amount of hours is recommended. I'm not sure how to make this more concise. I suggest removing the extra details (the last two additional sentences) from this article. QuackGuru 00:31, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Arbitrary section break 1

Draft 7 seems to fit very well per WP:Summary. The extra details about WHO guidelines are for the main education article. We have a link to the main article that resolves this issue. QuackGuru 20:07, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

A compromise would be to summarize the WHO recommendations in just a few words, but I think they would be difficult or impossible to summarize extremely briefly. Instead, I suggest mentioning one of the three paths as an example. The easiest to summarize in a few words is the 5-year one, I think. So I suggest: "The World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines suggest three major full-time educational paths, for example a five-year university degree; besides the full-time paths, they also suggest a conversion program for people with other health care education and limited training programs for regions where no legislation governs chiropractic." ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 00:50, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

I like this summary; it captures the idea in much fewer words than Draft 3 uses, and it's much more engaging (if anything can be engaging about education....). Eubulides (talk) 08:29, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

I'll change the numerals to text in Draft 3.

I think it is important that we keep the different degrees if we are going with CopperTwigs version. I would be satisfied with "The World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines suggest three major full-time educational paths culminating in either a DC, DCM, BSc, or MSc degree. Besides the full-time paths, they also suggest a conversion program for people with other health care education and limited training programs for regions where no legislation governs chiropractic."

-- Dēmatt (chat) 15:02, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, I also like this summary. Eubulides (talk) 22:20, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

Me three. QG had struck out the bulleted text, so I replaced it with this summary. I think Draft #3 is in especially good shape. Can we agree on this as the consensual version and then move onto the next topic at hand? Any dissenters on this proposal? If there are none, I would suggest implementing this text in full and then archiving all of the related discussion off this page in order to provide greater clarity for the other topics to be discussed. -- Levine2112 ^discuss 01:01, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Count me in. -- Dēmatt (chat) 02:39, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

(<outdent) I put my suggestion for reducing U.S.-centrism into draft 7. I also deleted "also", because apparently it's not talking about a different educational path from what was already mentioned in the previous paragraph. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 00:53, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

If you took out some of those extraneous references we'd be good to go I think. -- Dēmatt (chat) 21:55, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Education is currently the "hot topic". However, at this point I'm a little lost as to exactly where we stand, and how we're moving forward. I do like Dematt's suggestion which inclused the Degrees that Chiropractors obtain. DigitalC (talk) 01:08, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

I think we're pretty close. Then we can go to History. -- Dēmatt (chat) 21:55, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Dematt, would you please be specific about which references you think need to be removed? Are you advocating removing all the refs cited in draft 7 but not in draft 3? I think these are the refs listed in draft 7 but not draft 3: (re first professional degree). (re requirements in U.S. and Canada) (3 refs re particular jurisdiction) (3 refs re continuing education) Re portable internationally: I think perhaps CCEI – Worldwide Quality Assurance for Chiropractic Education is a better link than CCEI – History and Purpose of The Councils on Chiropractic Education International from draft 3. (Draft 3 version of this ref) (Draft 7 version)) (other portable internationally refs in draft 7) (number of accredited programs) (straight or mixer)

I think some of the refs as listed in draft 7 need reformatting or information to be added; I'll likely do that later today (and have done one already).

Re 90 semester hours and 4200 contact hours: We need both refs here, since one of the refs is for U.S. only. Both refs mention 4,200 hours, but only the U.S. ref semms to contain "90" or "semester hours", so I think we need to change the wording re prerequisites in Canada. (I'm not sure what to change it to.)

The number "6526" of chiros in Canada (2006 data) should be rounded off so as not to suggest overly precise information, or else attributed and the year given. I suggest "about 6500 in Canada". The date of the data should be taken into account. It would be accurate to say "the number of chiropractors has been estimated as ..." but is not accurate to say "the number of chiropractors is estimated to be" because the present tense implies that the current number has been estimated, whereas actually the refs are based on data from 2006 (U.S., Canada), 2000 (Australia) and 2004 (U.K.) I suggest "The number of chiropractors has been estimated (in 2006 or earlier) as 53,000 in the U.S., about 6500 in Canada, 2500 in Australia, and 1,500 in the UK."
(By the way, QuackGuru, thanks for inserting some of my suggestions into draft 7 a few days ago.) ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 14:29, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

It sounds like your on the right track. Eubulides and DigitalC and I have pretty much hashed through all the ones in version 3, so I'm pretty sure those are satisfactory to everyone. I think version 7 just has some extra ones that were left over or we decided that they weren't reliable. One is the ref that we took the 90,000 number from that we all agreed in 3 that it was not as reliable as the government numbers so we took it out. That was why we went with 53,000, but don't hold me to that. Maybe Eubulides or DigitalC remember better than I do. Also, I think Martin made some changes to 3 that he felt better reflected the WHO source, too. Other than that, I think some of the references are just left over from stuff QuackGuru took out but left the reference in. He might be able to tell better which ones those were. We might just have to go through each one, one at a time. -- Dēmatt (chat) 20:41, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

Wait -- I had been editing draft 7, not draft 3. I'm just going through comparing them and will have comments shortly. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 00:30, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

This could go on forever. Let's just put one or the other in and move on as Eubulides suggests. -- Dēmatt (chat) 00:39, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

Wait -- no -- just a few mintues. I'm almost finished a merged vesrion incoroporating version 3 and 7. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 00:44, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

Education, Licensing, Regulation 8

Chiropractors obtain a first professional degree in the field of chiropractic medicine. The U.S. and Canada require a minimum 90 semester hours of undergraduate education as a prerequisite for chiropractic school, and at least 4200 instructional hours (or the equivalent) of full‐time chiropractic education for matriculation through an accredited chiropractic program. The World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines suggest three major full-time educational paths culminating in either a DC, DCM, BSc, or MSc degree. Besides the full-time paths, they also suggest a conversion program for people with other health care education and limited training programs for regions where no legislation governs chiropractic.

The WHO guidelines suggest that health care professionals with advanced clinical degrees can meet the educational and clinical requirements to practice as a chiropractor in 2200 hours. In both cases (4200/2200 hours) this includes a minimum of 1000 hours of supervised clinical training. Upon graduation, there may be a requirement to pass national, state, or provincial board examinations before being licensed to practice in a particular jurisdiction. Depending on the location, continuing education may be required to renew these licenses.

In the U.S., chiropractic schools are accredited through the Council on Chiropractic Education (CCE). CCEs in the U.S., Canada, Australia and Europe have joined to form CCE-International (CCE-I) as a model of accreditation standards with the goal of having credentials portable internationally. Today, there are 18 accredited Doctor of Chiropractic programs in the U.S., 2 in Canada, and 4 in Europe and the UK. All but one of the chiropractic colleges in the U.S. are privately funded, but in several other countries they are in government-sponsored universities and colleges. Chiropractic education in the U.S. is divided into straight or mixer educational curricula depending on the philosophy of the institution.

Regulatory colleges and chiropractic boards in the U.S., Canada and Australia are responsible for protecting the public, standards of practice, disciplinary issues, quality assurance and maintenance of competency. There are an estimated 53,000 chiropractors in the U.S. (2006), 6526 in Canada (2006), 2500 in Australia (2000), and 1,500 in the UK (2004).

Comments on Education, Licensing, Regulation 8

This version draws on both Draft 3 and Draft 7. The references are as in draft 3. Many minor changes in wording that had been put in in draft 7 have been incorporated, making the wording almost the same as draft 7; the two drafts were very similar already anyway. In a few minutes I might post a list of differences between the various drafts. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 00:48, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

Well, everything looks pretty good. I still think it could use the more WHO info, but if everyone else is okay with it, I'll take it. I say put it in now so we can move on to history! -- Dēmatt (chat) 01:01, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

I just made one more change: putting the names of countries in alphabetical order in the last paragraph. I assume that's a non-controversial change.

Description of draft 8 in comparision to drafts 3 and 7:

• wikilinked and unhyphenated "first professional degree" as in draft 7
• Joined sentences 2 and 3 into one sentence as in draft 7
• It says "instructional hours" as in draft 3, rather than "student/teacher contact hours"
• The WHO sentence begins "Internationally," as in draft 3
• Deleted "also" from first sentence of 2nd paragraph as in draft 7
• Worded sentence "...there may be a requirement to pass..." as in draft 7
• Worded sentence re CCEs from various countries joining as in draft 7
• It says "Europe and the UK" as in draft 3 when mentioning numbers of schools; should this be changed to just "Europe"?
• I left off the last sentence of the 3rd paragraph (straight or mixer) as in draft 3.
• Changed "United States" to "U.S." The MOS is a little vague as to whether one or the other is preferred in general, I think; Eubulides seemed to be saying "U.S."
• First sentence of last paragraph, re responsibilities of regulatory colleges, is worded as in draft 3, excapt that I put the countries in alphabetical order.
• Sentence re numbers of chiros in various countries: I put in the version I had suggested in the comments to draft 7. In this sentence, the refs may not be the same as in draft 3; I put in the access date to one of them as in draft 3 (the Canadian one, I think). Other than that sentence, the references are as in draft 3.

Feel free to edit draft 8; please also describe your edits here in the comments section to bring attention to them.

Can we say we have consensus and can put in draft 8 and move on to History? ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 01:54, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

(The heading of the section should not be all capitalized, though; presumably it should remain "Education, licensing and regulation" as it is currently in the article.) ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 02:04, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

Looks good to me. I preferred the way it was with the WHO info bulleted, but that didn't seem to gain consensus. DigitalC (talk) 02:07, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

I object to this version. Here are a few reasons. The WHO sentence begins Internationally. What is the purpose of adding the word Internationally. The last sentence of the 3rd paragraph (straight or mixer) is missing. Regulatory colleges and chiropractic boards in Australia, Canada, Mexico, the U.S. and U.S. territories... I do not see a reason for the extra details about such U.S. territories and I disagree with the order of the countries too. More prominent countries should be first. I also disagree with this > (in 2006 or earlier). What is the reason for adding the date 2006. QuackGuru 06:54, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

← Because these drafts are on a forward-moving basis, is it OK if some of the older ones are archived? Would improve flow on talk, imo. Don't mean to detract from the conversation, just wondering :-) Xavexgoem (talk) 07:08, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

It's OK with me to remove "Internationally".

The straight or mixer sentence may be undue weight. I think the differences between straight and mixer should be mentioned somewhere in the article, probably in the Philosophy section, and don't need to be repeated elsewhere except perhaps briefly in the lead. I'm not convinced that the schools are actually clearly divided into all-straight schools and all-mixer schools: this web page says there's a spectrum of philosophies. Do we have any other refs claiming that the schools can be clearly categorized into two types? Do we have, for example, a list of schools which indicates their type? The ref given for the straight or mixer sentence does not contain the word "mixer", therefore the sentence needs to be deleted or modified per WP:V.

It's OK with me to archive old drafts. I was thinking of archiving Lead Rewrite 2 but don't know what the usual procedure is. Alternatively, I think it works to just wait for Mizsabot to archive them.

It's OK with me to leave out the mention of U.S. territories (assuming it's sort-of covered by mentioning the U.S.?) and it's OK with me to put the countries in order of the number of schools or in order of the number of chiropractors rather than alphabetical. I suggest that the same order of countries be used throughout the article. Here's a suggested order, based on the number of chiropractors as far as we know: U.S., Canada, Australia, Europe or U.K., Mexico. (though we don't know the number of chiropractors in Europe or Mexico; at least we have a number for U.K. so I put Europe before Mexico.)

The reason for the date 2006 is per WP:Manual of Style#Chronological items, subsection "Precise language". I'm sorry I forgot to explain why I changed "has been" in the estimate of chiropractors: the past tense should perhaps be used for the act of estimating, but use of "has been" for the existence of the chiropractors sounds to me as if it might imply that these chiropractors no longer exist. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 10:52, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

Mizsa is totally preferable - but if a section is edited for whatever reason, it'll just linger. Which is why I'm pushing for Just One Focus :-p Xavexgoem (talk) 11:14, 22 June 2008 (UTC) other options is to {{collapse top}} & {{collapse bottom}}

I'm thinking collapsing can help me navigate this page better. -- Dēmatt (chat) 03:25, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

Reply to Coppertwig: You write: "The straight or mixer sentence may be undue weight." Actually the significance of the difference and its history cannot be overestimated. It is extremely significant and explains much of the tension, conflict, and criticisms regarding the profession. Not much about chiropractic can be understood (and it will present many conundrums) if one does not understand this. Yes, there is a wide spectrum of philosophies, as is often expressed by stating that "there are just as many definitions of chiropractic as there are chiropractors," yet two basic schools still exist. The straights are the most narrowly (though not necessarily smallest in numbers) and most "purely" defined ("Vertebral Subluxation Correction: Nothing More, Nothing Less, Nothing Else"), while the widest diversions and variations are found among mixers (anyone who is not "straight"). (Keep in mind that probably most mixers still believe in subluxations, they just add other treatment methods to their toolbox and don't exclusively use adjustments.) There are schools and organizations who clearly identify themselves as "straight", either in their titles or in their guidelines and other position statements. The Federation of Straight Chiropractors and Organizations is the official umbrella organization for straights, with the Portland Project as an active part of its efforts ("the silent majority"). The Foundation for the Advancement of Chiropractic Education should also be mentioned. Sherman College of Straight Chiropractic uses "straight" in its name, while a number of others have always been clearly straight in their orientation, most notably all of the Life and Palmer colleges. Straight schools operate in a strange limbo which may confuse non-chiropractic onlookers, since they are forced by accreditation laws to teach differential diagnosis and therapeutics. Don't be fooled. They are still non-therapeutic (do not treat disease, only VS) in their approach and whatever they teach on those subjects is just for show to keep their accreditation. Life University (Marietta branch, and the largest chiro school in the world) lost its accreditation [7] [8] [9] over this issue a few years ago (2002) but got it back. The students were taught there was only one valid diagnosis (VS), and to ignore all medical diagnoses as irrelevant, and that got Life in trouble. The World Chiropractic Alliance and the International Chiropractors' Association (the world's oldest chiropractic professional organization) are very straight and still fight to preserve "real chiropractic". The schools of thought are very real and the straights, in spite of what may seem like small numbers (in their official organizations), wield a huge influence. -- Fyslee / talk 15:41, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

I agree that the straight mixer issue is a very big issue, though we can probably handle it without as much weight as we gave it in the previous version. The challenge will be to present them in such a way that does not take sides. I think for the education section which we are currently working with, it is not needed. The CCEs accredit all of them the same, regardless of philosophy. The source seems to imply that there are two different paths, straight and progressive, which is the only place I've ever seen them explained this way. Fyslee is also correct that straight and mixer are two different approaches that are independent of the school that they went to. You can be from Life College (from straight roots) and be a mixer and be from National (from mixer roots) and practice straight. In fact, I would venture to say that the large majority of Life graduates practice mixer, i.e. use all sorts of methods. -- Dēmatt (chat) 03:25, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

Sorry: I missed listing a few small differences.

• I've just changed draft 8 to fix the wikilink to first professional degree and to not capitalize "Chiropractic".
• draft 8 has "full-time chiropractic education" rather than just "full-time education".
• draft 8 has "The WHO says that health care professionals...". I like having the word "care" in there, but I actually prefer the draft 7 words "guidelines suggest", because I'm not sure that the WHO has the authority to state what people have to do to become able to practice in a given country.
• later in that sentence, the word "requirements" seems to be missing after "can meet the educational and clinical" in draft 7, apparently just a mistake.

There could be other things I missed. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 14:10, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

The date of 2006 or earlier is not precise. The or earlier part is not accurate. Each reference has the exact date of each chiropractic number. The current wording in mainspace is better. The correct present tense is probably best.

The straight and mixer ref uses the word progressive but the word (progressive) is not clear for the reader. I have included mixer so that the reader will understand. QuackGuru 16:07, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

• I agree with using the "2006 or earlier". Please use the talk page to come to consenus before making edits to the page.
• I believe the straight vs. mixer section could be discussed on the Chiropractic education article, in a section about US education. Worldwide, this split does not exist, and we should not be giving undue weight to the US education in this summary. This article has had a heavy US POV in the past, and I'd hate to see that start again. DigitalC (talk) 01:05, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

"I believe the straight vs. mixer section could be discussed on the Chiropractic education article". Good idea, then we could expound on these schools of thought without adding too much weight to this article. Though, realistically, straights and mixers probably could have their own articles just to explain what they are without having to constantly compare and contrast the differences every time we mention the word chiropractor. -- Dēmatt (chat) 03:31, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

I disagree with using the "2006 or earlier". The or earlier part is vague. Each reference has the date noted for the reader.

There are about 53,000 chiropractors in the U.S., larger than any other country. The interesting tidbit about straights and mixers education in the U.S. is suitable for this article. QuackGuru 06:11, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

I'm not convinced that chiropractic schools in the U.S. are clearly divided into two distinct types. If presented with prose attribution, the sentence can go in the chiropractic education article. If you find an additional source confirming it and giving it greater weight, perhaps it could go here. If the schools really are divided clearly into two types, it should be possible to find more sources confirming that; they don't have to be cited in the article. I did a couple of web searches and didn't find a confirming source, but found this which seems to me in its abstract to disagree: "Despite such tensions, chiropractors have maintained a unified profession with an uninterrupted commitment to clinical care." I agree with the addition of "progressive" in parentheses (if the sentence is included, which I oppose) and think it would be even better to put "progressive" without parentheses and "mixer" in parentheses. I think "progressive" is less confusing: to the reader new to this topic, "mixer" is merely chiropractic jargon, while "progressive" gives the reader some idea about what the difference is between the two types; besides being the vocabulary actually used in the source. (A reader seeing simply "straight" and "mixer" could be confused as to which is the earlier, vitalistic philosophy.)

I don't consider that website sufficiently reliable to make this claim, for the following reasons. It's simply a government website. Therefore that particular sentence might have been written by a single individual and not thoroughly verified by anyone else. The people maintaining that particular website are probably not specialists in knowledge about chiropractic. It could have been copied from some other website or from some pamphlet, and it could be out-of-date or inaccurate.

The sentence is essentially claiming that no school has a mix of teachers of different philosophies, and that no school has a philosophy intermediate between straight and mixer; I find this difficult to believe, and therefore it would require more verification than just one sentence on one website. While the statement is not highly exceptional, I find it somewhat exceptional, and therefore "Exceptional claims require exceptional sources" applies to some extent here in my opinion.

Although you've stated that it's suitable for this article, QuackGuru, I don't think you've stated any reason why you think it's suitable. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 11:05, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

(<<<outdent) Progressive is more confusing. We have a section called Schools of thought and practice styles that says mixers but does not use the word progressive. It would confuse the reader if we called mixers progressive chiropractors. The way it is currently in the article is fine, mixer then progressive in parentheses.

There are about 53,000 chiropractors in the U.S. We can give the chiropractic education in the U.S. its due weight since chiropractic numbers in the U.S. is larger than any other country. The straight teaching movement is very much alive.

"Palmer College of Chiropractic, General Information". Palmer College of Chiropractic is generally a straight chiropractic college.

Kevin A. Rose, Alan Adams (2000). "A Survey of the Use of Evidence-Based Health Care in Chiropractic College Clinics" (PDF). The Journal of Chiropractic Education. 14 (2): 71–7.

From the above source: Strengths and Limitations: One strength of this survey was that the respondents included a range of colleges worldwide. There was also a broad range of chiropractic ideologies represented, from Sherman College of Straight Chiropractic to Western States Chiropractic College.

[10] "Straight" means a total commitment to the teaching, research and practice of chiropractic focused on correcting vertebral subluxation. The word "straight" is in the college's name to identify it with this distinct mission.

[11] Sherman College has indeed become the vanguard of chiropractic - playing a highly visible and important leadership role in advancing straight chiropractic.

Here is a quick search for reference.[12] QuackGuru 17:50, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

• Re straight/mixer sentence: Thanks for the refs, QuackGuru. OK, so we have one college (Sherman) we can verify as being "straight". I suggest using the source you quoted, QuackGuru, and making the sentence say this: "The various chiropractic colleges fall within a broad range of ideologies." I hope this would also satisfy Fyslee. I would consider this to be verifiable, given the combination of sources we have; and it's not U.S.-centric. Other possible verbs include "lie within", "lie along", "stretch across", etc.; I would avoid "cover" since it would seem to imply that one college would cover the whole range.
• Re 2006 or earlier: "or earlier" has a precise mathematical meaning; it is not vague. Saying nothing would be even more vague; and the dates on the references are still there in any case for readers who wish to check. DigitalC likes including "2006 or earlier" and so do I so I think we should include it. 2006 is already 2 years ago so the information is already somewhat out of date; I think the reader should be warned, and it will also serve to remind editors to update the information. It would be too awkward to supply the year for each country separately: it would make the sentence too confusingly full of numbers, and would be hard to word since two of them (U.S., Canada) are 2006 data, while for the others we know the publication date but I'm not sure we know the date of the data. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 01:42, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

"The various chiropractic colleges fall within a broad range of ideologies." is vague. It does not specifically say mixers or straights or that the different ideologies (mixers or straights) in school education is mainly a U.S. phenomenon.

The "or earlier" is vague. It does not tell the reader how much earlier. The only way for the reader to know the date is by looking at each reference. 2006 or earlier is unnecessary. Precise language would be to use the exact date. The or earlier part is not precise. See Wikipedia:Manual of Style#Precise language. QuackGuru 02:11, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

If you want to make a more specific statement, you'll need sources for it. We don't have any sources describing colleges as "mixer". We don't have any sources stating that it's mainly a U.S. phenomenon. By the way, I may have forgotten to mention: I'm planning to remove the designations of the schools from List of chiropractic schools per WP:V; see discussion.

The section of MOS you link to advises against phrases such as "currently" which will go out of date, but does not appear to me to even come close to advising against "2006 or earlier", which will not go out of date; in fact, this seems rather similar to an example it gives, "since the start of 2005".☺ Coppertwig (talk) 02:30, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

Chiropractic education in the U.S. is divided into straight or mixer (progressive) educational curriculums depending on the philosophy of the institution.

The above sentence is verified.

The or earlier is vague because the reader will not know how many years earlier. It is too vague. Since the start of 2005 has an exact date of 2005. The or earlier part does not say how much earlier. QuackGuru 02:42, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

I'm sorry, QuackGuru: I made too strong a statement about needing more sources for a more specific statement. My objections to the sentence you mention are explained in my post of 11:05, 23 June 2008 (UTC); your comment does not address those objections. I suggest the following version: "The ideologies of the various chiropractic colleges range from "straight" to "progressive" (mixer)"

The MOS in its "precise language" section specifically suggests use of the phrase "as of". I therefore suggest: "As of 2006, the numbers of chiropractors had been estimated as ..." ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 10:49, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

There are two refs from 2006, one ref from 2004, and one ref from 2000. It can't be as of 2006 when we have a ref as of 2000. The tense have been seems like the chiropractors do not exist any more. The present tense is better. The word numbers is stating the obvious and is unnecessary. The reader will know that 53,000 etc. is the numbers of chiropractors.

Progressive can easily be confusing to the reader because we are using mixers throughout the article. Further, we have a section called Schools of thought and practice styles that says mixers but does not mention the word progressive. It would confuse the reader if we called mixers progressive chiropractors. The word progressive makes a judgement. It implies mixers are the progressive group. The way it is currently in the article is fine, mixer then progressive in parentheses.

The ideologies of the various chiropractic colleges in the U.S. is divided into straight or mixer (progressive) educational curriculums depending on the philosophy of the institution.

Maybe the above sentence could work using the current ref in the article. I think the question we need to ask ourselves is this. Is there various straight and mixer colleges outside of the U.S. I am not convinced there are currently both straight and mixer chiropractic colleges outside the U.S. To have a more worldview we can remove the in the U.S. part if there are straight and mixer chiropractic colleges outside the U.S. QuackGuru 16:59, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

We're mixing estimates from different years, no? So to be accurate we'd need to list a year for each estimate. An overall "as of 2006" would not be accurate, unless we added wording like a "some estimates are from previous years"; but at that point we might as well list a year for each estimate. Eubulides (talk) 23:38, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

Here are two more suggestions for the ideology sentence: "The ideologies of the various chiropractic colleges range from straight to mixer ("progressive")." or "According to the U.S. Network for Education Information, chiropractic education in the U.S. is divided into straight or mixer ("progressive") educational curricula depending on the philosophy of the institution."

Here's a suggestion for the numbers sentence: "The numbers of chiropractors have been estimated as 53,000 in the U.S. (2006), about 6500 in Canada (2006), 2500 in Australia (2000), and 1,500 in the UK (2004)." We can't just state that there are 53,000 chiropractors in the U.S.; we don't know how many there are at the present time. Perhaps you could suggest another alternate wording, QuackGuru. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 04:40, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

I think we can state that there are 53,000 chiropractors in the U.S. etc.; because we use the word estimated.

But if editors prefer we can add the dates (as done in the sentence below) which I think is unnecessary. The refs have the dates which is enough.

There are an estimated 53,000 chiropractors in the U.S. (2006), 6500 in Canada (2006), 2500 in Australia (2000), and 1,500 in the UK (2004).

I haven't seen an article with dates in parenthesis like this before with date after date but if this is what editors want then we can give it a try.

The references says U.S. Network for Education Information. I can't think of a reason to add the qualifier "According to the U.S. Network for Education Information", especially when we know its true. I can't think of any different ways of writing the sentence. The way it is currently in the article is fine with me. QuackGuru 05:24, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

OK, I think we might have a consensus version! Thanks for being willing to compromise, QuackGuru. I don't like the present tense for the estimated numbers of chiropractors, but with the years included I'm willing to accept it. I prefer the more concise "2006 or earlier" than mentioning all those individual years, but am willing to accept it. The reason for the prose attribution ("According to the U.S. Network...") is that we don't know that it's true; I'm not convinced of it; it seems to me that if they were that clearly divided, they would state which type they are on their website; only Sherman does as far as I know. We don't even have any way of finding out which type most of the colleges are. We can't verify that the colleges are actually divided in that way; we can only verify that the website of the USNEI says so. Although you don't see a reason to include the prose attribution, you haven't given any reason not to include it, either. I would prefer not to have that sentence at all, and if it's present I would prefer to use the "range of ideologies" version, but am willing to accept it with prose attribution. I edited draft 8 to have QuackGuru's last suggestion for the numbers of chiropractors sentence (except with "about" for Canada) and the prose-attribution version of the college philosophy section. I took out the word "Internationally"; QuackGuru had objected to it and I thought we had already taken it out. I suggest we put draft 8 in later today (UTC) and change the hot topic template to point to History. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 12:52, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

I'm almost okay. I am still concerned with the ("progressive") statement because it looks as though WP is making a judgement that mixers are more progressive than straights... Regardless of how we might feel about the different Scopes, a straight would have every right to question that they are less progressive.. hopefully, I don't have to explain that much. I have never seen progressive used anywhere else in any reliabel literature. If we must use this sentence it needs to be surrounded in quotes to make sure people attribute it to the correct source (as unreliable as it might be). I also think that it tends to make it look like there are two different education paths - one for mixers and one for straights. I might be convinced by other argumetns, though. We are close. -- Dēmatt (chat) 15:47, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

I agree with Dematt's concern about "progressive". The standard term used is "mixer", and using the far-less-popular term "progressive" introduces a POV that we should rightly be leery of. Let's just leave it out and call it "mixer". Eubulides (talk) 17:56, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

I disagree with making history the next hot topic. History (as well as the lead rewrite) are older topics and editors have been given plenty of time to review and discuss them. I strongly object to history becoming the next hot topic.

"Palmer College of Chiropractic, General Information". Palmer College of Chiropractic is generally a straight chiropractic college.

[13] Sherman College has indeed become the vanguard of chiropractic - playing a highly visible and important leadership role in advancing straight chiropractic.

We do know there are different colleges in the US and I gave examples. What is the purpose for adding Mexico to the sentence. There are still problems with some of the references in draft 8. I fixed the refs in draft 7 and further improved some of the refs in mainspace too. QuackGuru 16:39, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

We need some way of fixing the serious POV problems in Chiropractic#History. How could we do this otherwise than by discussing history? The current main proposal on the table is #History 2. It has incorporated some (but not all) suggestions from #History 3 and #History 4. It is far better than what is in Chiropractic now. Eubulides (talk) 17:56, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

How do we fix history. Simple. Add the improvements to the article. History 3 and 4 are not proposals and editors have had plenty of time to review history 2. The same goes for lead rewrite 3. It's time to edit the article. Editors can review it again in mainspace too. I see no good reason to delay the improvements. QuackGuru 18:06, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

(<<<outdent)According to the comments above it looks as if all we have to do is fix up the references. (I'm now agreeing to remove "progressive".) However, QuackGuru has indicated disagreement with the words "According to the U.S. Network for Education Information", and "Mexico", and "about" in the estimate of the number of Canadian chiropractors, by striking out those words in the draft. We can't state that the schools are divided into two types because we don't have reliable verification for it; at most we can state that a certain organization says they're divided into two types (unless we get better sourcing). We can't state that there are an estimated 6500 chiropractors in Canada because we don't have any source giving that number as an estimate. We can state that the number of chiropractors has been estimated (in 2006) as 6526 in Canada. We can't state that there are (an estimated) 6526 chiropractors in Canada because we can't assume that there are still precisely that number. I'm willing to accept as a compromise "There are an estimated 53,000 chiropractors in the U.S. (2006), 6526 in Canada (2006), ..." With the year given explicitly, putting a number that's not rounded off doesn't look as bad. I'll try to fix up the references. I'm not sure what exactly the justification is for deleting Mexico. Perhaps all we have is the listing of the regulatory board in a directory, but do we really have anything more than that about the Australian regulatory board? (or the U.S. one for that matter?) A listing in a directory isn't enough to establish notability for writing an article on the topic, but I think it may be enough to support a two-word mention. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 00:24, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

There are more than a few refs in draft 8 that are not formatted as good as draft 7 (or the current version in mainspace). I suggest you cut and paste draft 7 into draft 8 and edit from there for a quick fix for the refs.

I can't find the chiropractic numbers in Mexico. It is problably very small and not notable to include Mexico.

"First-professional studies". U.S. Network for Education Information. Here is the ref for the educational curriculums. I think the ref is good enough the verify the current information in mainspace and "According to the U.S. Network for Education Information" is unnecessary. QuackGuru 06:04, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

With the progressive issue handled, you've got my vote. Put it in! -- Dēmatt (chat) 03:34, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

The version in mainspace has all the refs formatted and has many of the suggestions added to mainspace from draft 8. I recommend putting the discussion of education in the archives if no further suggestions are made. QuackGuru 06:02, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

We still haven't really resolved the issue of whether to include the sentence about the philosophy of colleges. DigitalC points out that this puts too much weight on the U.S.; Dematt suggests putting it in an article on education and considers it unnecessary here; I'm not convinced it's verified with sufficient reliability; but Fyslee stresses the importance of the straight/mixer distinction and QuackGuru considers it an interesting tidbit. Other than that, I think any remaining differences are minor. I made changes in the article to fix up some of the references etc. and I think it's done. I've changed the "hot topics" template to point to History. If there are still some minor points to clear up here, discussion can continue here even if it's not a "hot topic". ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 14:36, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

Thanks to QuackGuru for catching and fixing a number of mistakes I made in an edit a couple of days ago. I think we have a more-or-less stable version of the Education section. I'm sorry that it includes some compromises that some people are not entirely happy with, but congratulations to everyone who participated for ending up with a single final version. It seems to me that there's a lot of respectful collaboration on this page even when people disagree. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 02:26, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

Egads! Structure!

I am having difficulty following this talk page, and I don't think I'm alone (at least I really hope not :-p). There appears to be about 10 disputes happening all at once, and I'm having trouble following them. I'm hoping this discussion can be centralized a bit more for the sake of our collective sanity. Might this be why there is difficulty moving forward? Xavexgoem (talk) 19:05, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

What would it mean for the discussion to be "centralized"? Would it mean someone would write a brief summary of open topics, and keep it up-to-date as new topics emerged? That sounds like a lot of work, but if someone (perhaps you?) would volunteer to write and maintain such a summary, I'm sure it'd be welcome here. Eubulides (talk) 20:40, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

I'm not entirely sure. Everyone is all over the talk page. It might help to collapse (with {{collapse}} templates) or remove/archive some of the stuff from talk. But I don't know what's still disputed and what's been dealt with (I see many of the drafts have been blanked), so I'd need a quick summary (which could be used to write the summary you suggested). But right now, I'm just aiming to keep everything more compacted :-) Xavexgoem (talk) 21:03, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

• We are currently automatically archiving all threads with no activity for 10 days (recently shortened from 14 days). We could shorten the interval to 7 days, I suppose, but at some point if we keep shortening that interval it will become too short.
• I'm afraid that pretty much everything in Talk:Chiropractic is part of a dispute that is currently live. It's a contentious article, alas.

Eubulides (talk) 21:37, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

OK. I was initially thinking of collapsing some of the older headers (particularly the blanked drafts). I should probably ask for QuackGuru's input on that, though (or leave it the way it is). I think reorganizing will help a lot here. Or is communication relatively OK? Xavexgoem (talk) 22:50, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

I don't know. I am a regular commenter here and I took two weeks off. I came back today to get caught up and it is pretty unorganized. Too many versions of suggested rewrites floating around. If everything could be re-arranged and each topic of discussion somehow grouped together that would be helpful. Is it unusual/disallowed to have sub-pages for discussing particular issues (i.e. Could we create a Talk:Chiropractic/History page where we can solely discuss the proposed rewrites of the History section?) -- Levine2112 ^discuss 23:00, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Certainly allowed, albeit a little unusual. Although it might be best to simply focus on one thing at a time for now :-) Xavexgoem (talk) 23:06, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

For examples of such pages, see Talk:Abortion/First paragraph and Wikipedia talk:Attribution/Role of truth (Wikipedia talk:, not Wikipedia:18:44, 15 June 2008 (UTC)) I think it's probably a good idea, at least for a few of the most active discussions. Perhaps ideally a draft would be on a subpage of its own: one advantage would be that the page history would be easier to follow. (OK, starting now I'll try to follow Eubulides' example in combining many comments in a single edit, though that also causes problems in trying to refer back to one of those comments.) A disadvantage of subpages, though, is that people might not notice them or might not take the time to go there to participate. We would need some sort of prominent template informing people of the existence of such subpages. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 00:53, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

That's my main concern: sub-pages tend to go unnoticed, and discussion tends to lag (although I'm positive this can be mitigated, but one step at a time...). I know that nearly the entire contents of this article are under dispute, but what do you (or anyone) think is the most important thing that needs discussion? I think we need a starting point :-) Xavexgoem (talk) 01:03, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

• The most important thing is the notice plastered at the top of Chiropractic: the article is currently not neutral, and this needs to be fixed, as WP:NPOV is a fundamental Wikipedia principle.
• Chiropractic #History is the section that has the most POV problems.
• #History 2 and #History 3 improvements are competing draft rewrites of Chiropractic #History, rewrites which attempt to fix the POV problems.

Eubulides (talk) 09:44, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

(undent). Well, again, part of our problem is that one person re-writes a section then, before we finish satisfying the concerns raised by other editors, two new sections are started that distract us from what we were working on. As a result we end up with fragmented discussion about three different sections and then, as no-one has been active on the initial discussion, someone mistakenly assumes consensus has been reached because everyone has moved on. He/she then re-inserts it into the main article without satisfying the concerns of NPOV, SYN and OR. When an editor then reverts because the section was added too soon, outside parties then join into an edit war - making it difficult to keep reach a version we can all agree on. Essentially, this is distracting and the cycle repeats. For instance, we really haven't finished the education and science sections and we are working into history and now, below (even while having this discussion) we open a thread about the lead. It would be nice if we all concentrated on one section at a time instead of spreading ourselves so thin. It would likely be a less stressful experience for all of us and likely get things done a lot faster in the long run. All we would have to do is agree that we will not move on until at least those of us that are here consistantly agree on the section and re-insert it together. -- Dēmatt (chat) 12:49, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

Idea: identify in a template at the top of this talk page one topic as the "hot topic" that everybody is supposed to focus on primarily, with a link to the section where it's being discussed. Discussion can also proceed on other topics, but for major changes to be inserted into the article, they must have consensus while the topic is a "hot topic" for at least 48 hours. People can add topics to the bottom of a list. Once a topic is done, we move to the next one on the list. People could be encouraged to do RfC's only for the current "hot topic", if possible, and any RfC's could also be listed in the "hot topic" template. If no consensus is achieved within 3 weeks we can demote a topic back to the bottom of the list for later consideration. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 18:44, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

Oooh... I like it :-D would make for a good template generally.

There's no consensus on where to start, though. Eubulides has said that the histories are the most POV. Any ideas (from anyone?). Focus will help... Granted, page protect won't be lasting long. Xavexgoem (talk) 22:28, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

I think we are closest on a consensus for Education. Specifically, version #3 has garnered the most acceptance. -- Levine2112 ^discuss 00:55, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

Version #3 has multiple problems, including the blocked text. These extra details are unnecessary and have been rejected. QuackGuru 03:25, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

I suggest the following order, based, according to my possibly imperfect analysis, on sections of the article for which there's been discussion within the past week, listed in the order they appear on this talk page:

• Current hot topic: Education
• Next hot topic: Cost-benefit/cost-effectiveness
• Scientific research
• History
• Lead

If others are willing to go along with this, I suggest that Education be designated the hot topic for at least 48 hours starting when a template announcing it is placed at the top of this talk page. If there appears to be consensus at the end of 48 hours, we can then edit the material in (or request {{editprotected}}). Meanwhile, people can be already discussing the other topics, perhaps especially the one that will be the next "hot topic". I suggest the following message to be placed at the top of this talk page.

☺ Coppertwig (talk) 02:12, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

Sounds like a plan. I like the order. -- Levine2112 ^discuss 02:36, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

This is very innovative. Very good idea (: ——Martin^phi ☎ Ψ Φ—— 04:30, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

Multiple editors have rejected the blocked text. See Talk:Chiropractic#Comments on Education.2C licensing.2C and regulation 7.

Cost-benefit/cost-effectiveness and Scientific research are already NPOV.

History 3 is slightly better than History 2.

The lead can easily be improved by shortening it to four paragraphs. QuackGuru 06:21, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your support, everyone. OK, I'm being bold and adding a section "List of hot topics" below, and placing a template at the top of this talk page, although I realize that not everyone has had a chance to comment yet. Feel free to discuss whether to have this system at all and the details of its implementation. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 12:56, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

Awesome idea! Way to go, this should help considerably and keep us focused till we get things finished. Thanks, CopperTwig for such a wnoderful innovation!!! -- Dēmatt (chat) 15:52, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

• The idea of focusing makes sense, but I disagree with the priorities mentioned. This talk page mutates randomly, and the order of the topics in this talk page has little to do with a good order for addressing the problems. The order listed above doesn't even make sense, as Cost-effectiveness is a subtopic of Scientific research. Eubulides (talk) 19:20, 16 June 2008 (UTC)
• Also, The proposed schedule is unrealistic. Not everyone can visit this talk page in every 48-hour window. Eubulides (talk) 19:20, 16 June 2008 (UTC)
• The most important problem in this Chiropractic is its POV. POV is a violation of a core Wikipedia policy. The other stuff is secondary. We should focus on sections that have the worst POV problems. Right now, Chiropractic #History is by far the worst section in that area, and deserves the highest priority. I don't object if others want to work on Education, but to my mind History comes first, and it can be worked on in parallel (it's mostly done anyway, as #History 2 has merged in the improvements from #History 3 and I hope it doesn't have any serious objections). Eubulides (talk) 19:20, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

The OR violations is science are pretty important as well, after all, that reflects current chiropractic. I've only just begun to look at history. -- Dēmatt (chat) 20:44, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

I'm thinking that everyone has some different priority - but it appears we all agree that something is wrong with each. I'm of the opinion that OR should be solved first, since that can be solved to an ideal level; NPOV is harder.. not that it's an impossibly endless struggle, just that it's a lot to swallow when so much is flying around. (but that's just me) Xavexgoem (talk) 00:24, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

In the ideal case, OR would be simpler. But in this particular case I don't think OR will be any simpler; quite the contrary. Every claim in Chiropractic #Scientific investigation is backed by a reliable source. Claims are not glued together with conclusions supplied by Wikipedia editors. With that in mind, the allegation that Wikipedia's prohibition on original research is violated because the section contains WP:SYN is an odd one. This allegation is not based on anything simple like the examples seen in WP:SYN; it is based on something more esoteric, something that has not been explained well on this talk page. Threshing this out will take a lot of time. Eubulides (talk) 16:57, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

I'm willing to start with education. It is the closest to being finished and more likely to be agreeable to everyone. QuackGuru and I sure could use some more eyes on it to get us over the last hump. -- Dēmatt (chat) 01:53, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

Dematt is very well aware of the problems with Education 3. Education 7 is better. QuackGuru 02:00, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

(ec)Thanks for your comments, Eubulides. I realize that I went ahead and put up the template before you had a chance to comment; as I said, I consider that discussion on this is still open. Perhaps you would like to suggest a different order for the topics. I don't really care what order they're in as long as everybody agrees on one order. I thought it might make sense to do Education first since I was under the impression that it was practically finished, and I tried to use objective criteria to establish the initial order to try to avoid argumentation about the order. Re not everybody being able to visit the page every 48 hours: I've thought of three possible solutions; there may be more: one is to have a waiting period after something has been a "hot topic" and before the new material is inserted into the article. Better, I think, though, is for people who visit the page less often to comment on the one or two topics that are scheduled to be "hot topics" next, so that they don't necessarily have to comment during the actual time they're a "hot topic". A third possibility is to use a longer minimum time that a topic has to remain a "hot topic": perhaps you'd like to suggest a length of time, Eubulides. Coppertwig (talk) 02:22, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

I agree that this is a good idea, and agree with Dematt that it feels like some editors are moving on to other sections once they feel they have gotten the version they like inserted into the article. We have never come to a consensus on Effectiveness or Education, yet some editors have moved on to History. I agree with starting with Education because we are almost there. DigitalC (talk) 03:53, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

I'm feeling a consensus! :-) Which is strange; it's usually so intangible ;-) Xavexgoem (talk) 04:06, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

It isn't actually that strange to get consensus here. For example, we had consensus to not make any major changes to the article without obtaining consensus on those changes first. However, consensus doesn't mean unanimous, and we may see that certain editors will ignore this new good idea. DigitalC (talk) 07:58, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

I guess I don't mind putting Education first, since people are anxious to get it out the door. That will let us experiment with this procedure with a less-controversial section. But after that I suggest looking at the sections that have had the longest-standing and most-major POV or OR beefs first. This suggests the order History, Effectiveness, Cost-effectiveness, Scientific research (intro only), and Lead, with the proviso that any significant changes to earlier sections be coordinated with simultaneous changes to the lead, and that we work on the lead per se more as an exercise in brevity (it's currently too long) rather than removing policy violations (which should all be gone by then). Eubulides (talk) 16:57, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

Thank you, Eubulides. Levine2112 and everyone else, what do you think of the order suggested by Eubulides? ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 00:50, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

I forgot to comment about the 48 hour business. I suggest that we try 96 hours (not merely 48 hours) as a time to wait to see whether consensus has developed. Eubulides (talk) 08:29, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

96 hours sounds OK to me. I forgot to mention that Philosophy, having already been added to the bottom of the list, would come next after the order you suggested. I would appreciate your help, Eubulides, in figuring out where exactly on this talk page each topic should link to (which might change as the discussions progress). ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 12:27, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

96 works better for me, too. -- Dēmatt (chat) 14:46, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

It occurs to me that I was not here for the month that others worked on the Effectiveness or Scientific Research section and that others may be burned out on the science, so I'll agree to go with History next, provided I can take a day to recover from celebrating Education. Eubulides, in the meantime, way up in the Scientific research 3C (I think) you and I discussed taking out the word pseudoscience from that statement about EBM. I would feel a lot better if we took that out while we waited to finish History. Are you alright with that? -- Dēmatt (chat) 02:59, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Yes, that's right, I had forgotten that long ago in #Continued discussion of Scientific investigation 3C you made a convincing argument that pseudoscientific is irrelevant in this particular context. I removed the "pseudoscientific and" from Chiropractic #Scientific research. Eubulides (talk) 06:25, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Keating JC Jr (1997). "Chiropractic: science and antiscience and pseudoscience side by side". Skept Inq. 21 (4): 37–43. Retrieved 2008-05-10. Please read the reference. The word pseudoscience is referenced and it is one of the main points of the article. QuackGuru 06:16, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

It seems to me that there's consensus for Eubulides' suggested order of topics, so I've put them in. I hope that this is settled and that from now on we can just add new topics to the bottom. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 00:53, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

suggestions for next hot topics

Both the history and the lead are finished and are ready for mainspace. I suggest we make both rewrites the next hot topics. QuackGuru 19:46, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

I commend QuackGuru's enthusiasm and energy, which helps keep us moving. However, I weakly oppose QuackGuru's suggestion (apparently) to increase the number of hot topics at one time to two, though not strongly enough to block consensus. I feel strongly that there should not be more than three. The whole idea of having a "hot topic" is to increase the focus on a section; having more than one dilutes that focus. Any increase in the number of "hot topics" might start us down a slippery slope.

As I see it, it's OK to make small changes and non-controversial changes to sections that are not "hot topics". I would prefer that people hesitate a lot before implementing major changes such as a rewrite of an entire section that is not a "hot topic"; I would prefer just waiting to make these changes when it does become a "hot topic", but as a compromise I have another suggestion: "warm topics": if a draft has already been worked on by multiple people and they believe they can get consensus for it, I suggest listing it in a central location (e.g. a "List of warm topics" below the "List of hot topics"), waiting a few days (96 hours?) and then if there are no objections putting it into the article. Maybe there should be a limit to only one "warm topic" at a time. However, I would prefer not having a "warm topics" system at all for slippery slope reasons.

Just for reasons of stability, I also weakly oppose QuackGuru's proposal to change the order of topics, again not strongly enough to block consensus. The less often we make changes in the order of topics, the less time we'll spend discussing the order of topics and the more time we'll spend discussing and finishing the actual article content, allowing us to move through the hot topics list faster. Also, there may be people who have relied on the stated order of hot topics to know that they probably don't urgently need to visit this page in the next few days; changing something unexpectedly could be unfair to them. In any case, I think we should wait at least a couple of days (96 hours?) for those who edit less often to comment before making either of these two changes. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 10:52, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

Cost-effectiveness is not a hot topic.

Scientific research (intro only) is not a hot topic.

Vertebral subluxation is not a hot topic.

Cost-effectiveness is an old topic. The scientific research intro is not being debated on chiropractic talk. The debate is about the SYN tag. Vertebral subluxation is not being discussed. QuackGuru 20:07, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

Why is it that you get to decide what is, or is not, a hot topic? DigitalC (talk) 01:29, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

Why is it that you think I get to decide what is, or is not, a hot topic? QuackGuru 05:52, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

I put Vertebral subluxation at the bottom of the list because it needs to be updated along with he rest of this article and I have some new stuff to put in, but will wait till we get to that section... provided, of course, that the list doesn't just keep changing. And I am concerned about cost effectiveness and Scientific Research, too. I seem to keep having to say this. -- Dēmatt (chat) 02:55, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

Dematt put Vertebral subluxation at the bottom of the list of hot topics without a specific proposal. If you have concerned about cost-effectiveness or Scientific research then please discuss it. QuackGuru 05:52, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

(outdent)

• My concern is that the list of "hot topics" would serve to freeze the article unduly. Under the current schedule, it might take nearly six months to get through the list of "hot topics". That is a glacial pace, not a hot one. Having a current hot topic should not preclude work in parallel in other areas. This point particularly applies to proposals that were already drafted on this talk page before the "hot topic" idea was proposed. It would not be right for proposals with no substantive negative comments to languish in limbo for six months.
• I'd rather avoid the bureaucratic overhead of the "warm content" idea unless the bureaucracy is truly necessary, which I hope it isn't. The "hot topics" idea is complicated already; let's not overcomplicated it.
• I'm sympathetic to QuackGuru's point that History and the lead have specific proposals for improvement, and in that sense are hotter topics than Effectiveness (syn tag), Cost-effectiveness, and Scientific research, which do not have any specific wording proposals for improvement. I expect that sections without specific proposals will take considerably more time to discuss.
• I'm also sympathetic to Dematt's point that the POV issues are more serious in Effectiveness, Cost-effectiveness, and Scientific research. I don't mind addressing them first, but we need specific wording suggestions to make progress there.
• I see no reason to have 3 separate items in the list of hot topics for Effectiveness, Cost-effectiveness, and Scientific research. It is essentially the same dispute about all three. I propose we merge these 3 items into one. This will help allay some of my worries that this process will drag on too long.

Eubulides (talk) 08:18, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

We might have consensus for Eubulides' suggestion to combine three topics into one; we can wait a bit longer to see if anyone comments on that. I could be missing something, but it seems to me that we don't have consensus for any change in the order of hot topics, nor do we have consensus for a "warm topics" system. In my opinion it's OK to put just the name of a topic at the bottom of the list without a specific proposal; the implication is that that section of the article will be discussed. When it gets closer to the time for discussing it, I suppose proposals will appear; if not, the topic can be discarded when it reaches the top of the list. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 01:42, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

I think Education is pretty well done, so I've changed the "hot topic" template to point to History. If there are still some minor points to discuss re Education, that discussion can still continue. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 14:36, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

List of hot topics

Add new topics to the bottom of the list. Each topic should focus on a section of the article where major changes are needed, or on a new section to be added to the article. A topic will remain "hot" for at least 96 hours and no longer than 3 weeks. People can change which section of this talk page a topic is linked to, as long as it's essentially the same topic – or provide more than one link for a topic.

• Education, licensing and regulation, starting 12:56, 16 June 2008 (UTC) See also: Comments on Education, licensing, and regulation 7 and here and draft 8.
• Current hot topic: History, starting 14:36, 28 June 2008 (UTC)
• Scientific research, effectiveness and cost-effectiveness. See also: Syn tag
• Lead
• Philosophy
• Vertebral subluxation

Lead rewrite

I deleted this cut and paste of the lead since no specific changes were made to the text. I see editors are editing the lead in mainspace instead. QuackGuru 05:53, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

Comments on lead rewrite

The lead is a bit long and some parts of the lead may need a rewrite to match the changing article. Feel free to edit the above draft. Any thoughts? QuackGuru 20:33, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

This is much better than the current lead, but way too long IMO. Also a bit too technical. ——Martin^phi ☎ Ψ Φ—— 04:14, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

This was a cut and paste of the lead. QuackGuru 05:45, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

Lead Rewrite 2

Chiropractic (from Greek chiro- χειρο- "hand-" + praktikós πρακτικός "concerned with action") is a complementary and alternative medicine health care profession that focuses on diagnosis, treatment and prevention of mechanical disorders of the musculoskeletal system and the effects of these disorders on the functions of the nervous system and general health. It emphasizes manual therapy including spinal adjustment and other joint and soft-tissue manipulation.

A chiropractor usually has a first professional degree and can develop and carry out a comprehensive treatment and management plan that can include spinal adjustments, soft tissue therapy, prescription of exercises, and health and lifestyle counseling.

Chiropractic was founded in 1895 by D. D. Palmer in the USA, and is practiced in more than 100 countries. Since its inception, chiropractic has been controversial, both within the profession and in the medical and scientific community, particularly regarding the metaphysical approach espoused by its founders and advocated by "straight" chiropractors. Traditional and evidence-based chiropractic beliefs range from vitalism to materialism. Vaccination remains controversial within the chiropractic community.

The principles of evidence-based medicine have grown in prominence and have been used to review research studies and generate practice guidelines. Chiropractic care is generally safe when employed skillfully and appropriately. Patients are usually satisfied with the treatment they have received.

Comments on Lead Rewrite 2

I deleted some stuff, trying to keep what seemed most essential. I moved a few sentences and condensed two sentences into one for the beginning of the 2nd paragraph. This version retains at least a brief mention of each of the major topics in the article. Feel free to make a few minor changes in the above draft by using strikeout to remove and italics to add stuff. WP:LEAD says "up to four paragraphs"; this version satisfies that.

In reference to the version posted by QC, in detail what I've done is: Deleted the last two sentences of the first paragraph. Taken little more than the mention of "first professional degree" from the first sentence of the second paragraph, deleted the second sentence, and combined the mention of "first professional degree" with the third sentence. I kept the first 2 sentences of the history paragraph, deleted the third sentence and almost all of the 4th paragraph (re "straights" and "mixers"), the last sentence of which I joined to the previous paragraph. I discarded most of the 5th paragraph, but took the last sentence, about patients usually being satisfied, and put it at the end of the following paragraph. I moved the mention of vaccination from the last paragraph to form the end of an earlier paragraph mentioning philosophy. I left out the 2nd and 4th sentences of the last paragraph (re effectiveness and cost-effectiveness). ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 18:17, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

This is much better per length. I would put in something not quite what QG has, but something like that there is a movement of chiro from its metaphysical and practical roots as an all-encompassing healing system toward accepting only those parts which can be made in harmony with EBM. While some straights still adhere to the original manner of practice and belief. ——Martin^phi ☎ Ψ Φ—— 04:18, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

This version is too short but it gave me good ideas for improving the lead. QuackGuru 05:48, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for your comment, QuackGuru. Do you have a draft somewhere that you're working on? Would you provide more information about how you consider it too short: what particular topics do you think need more coverage in the lead? WP:LEAD says four paragraphs, but these paragraphs are rather short – one is a single sentence, I think – so there's room to add a little more information. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 13:42, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

Per Lead, four paragraphs. It is that simple. Each paragraph can be about four sentences. I recommend you edit mainspace and give it a try. The lead in mainspace is way too long and should be fixed. QuackGuru 17:04, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

• There is no requirement that the lead be four paragraphs. It can be three, and many editors prefer that. I suggest keeping it quite short, and three paragraphs would be better than four. Eubulides (talk) 19:20, 16 June 2008 (UTC)
• A quick review of #Lead Rewrite 2: it is too repetitive in some cases (e.g., it has adjacent sentences that talk about spinal adjustments and soft-tissue therapy, which are essentially duplications). More importantly, it omits crucial topics. It says nothing about effectiveness, which is the central issue in the controversy between chiropractic and mainstream medicine.
• Would you rather I wrote a new draft, or edited #Lead Rewrite 2 in place?

Eubulides (talk) 19:20, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

Lead Rewrite 3

Chiropractic (from Greek chiro- χειρο- "hand-" + praktikós πρακτικός "concerned with action") is a complementary and alternative medicine health care profession that focuses on diagnosis, treatment and prevention of mechanical disorders of the musculoskeletal system and their effects on the nervous system and general health. It emphasizes manual therapy including spinal manipulation and other joint and soft-tissue manipulation, and includes exercises and health and lifestyle counseling. Traditionally, it assumes that a vertebral subluxation or spinal joint dysfunction can interfere with the body's function and its innate ability to heal itself.

D. D. Palmer founded chiropractic in the 1890s and his son B.J. Palmer helped to expand it in the early 20th century. It has two main groups: "straights", now the minority, emphasize vitalism, innate intelligence, spinal adjustments, and subluxation as the leading cause of all disease; "mixers" are more open to mainstream and alternative medical techniques such as exercise, massage, nutritional supplements, and acupuncture. Most chiropractors practice in the U.S.; it is also well established in Canada and Australia.

For most of its existence chiropractic battled with mainstream medicine, and was sustained by the antiscience philosophy of the straights. Vaccination remains controversial among chiropractors. In recent decades chiropractic gained legitimacy and greater acceptance by physicians and health plans, enjoyed a strong political base and sustained demand for services, and became more integrated into mainstream medicine, and evidence-based medicine has been used to review research studies and generate practice guidelines. Opinions differ as to the efficacy of chiropractic treatment; the efficacy and cost-effectiveness of maintenance chiropractic care is unknown. Although spinal manipulation can have serious complications in rare cases, chiropractic care is generally safe when employed skillfully and appropriately.

(Citations that already appear in the body of Chiropractic: )

Comments on Lead Rewrite 3

Here is a shorter version than the current lead. Feel free to edit this improved lead. QuackGuru 19:46, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

I joined the "internal conflicts" sentence so the sentences wouldn't be so short. I moved vaccination up into the 3rd paragraph. I replaced the "rigorously proven" sentence with the "opinions differ" sentence per WP:V, and moved it so it could be joined with a semicolon to another sentence.☺ Coppertwig (talk) 02:22, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

[190][191][192] There are three refs at the end of the first paragraph. I recommend we delete the unnecessary ref(s). QuackGuru 02:40, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

Is the cost-effectiveness of maintenance care really important enough to be in the lead? DigitalC (talk) 04:54, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

That is a sticky one, especially since insurance companies explicitly exclude maintenance care from their coverage and/because quality evidence for a beneficial effect of treating asymptomatic individuals with adjustments is notably lacking. There are other versions that include other treatments, but the classic chiropractic version is basically repeated adjustments. -- Fyslee / talk 05:55, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

I'm just not sure that it is an appropriate summary of the cost-effectiveness section, and doesn't seem to be balanced per NPOV for this one tidbit to be in the lead. DigitalC (talk) 06:05, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

I tend to agree, but the solution would be to develop the article content on the subject a bit more, and then tweak the sentence in the lead to summarize it better. Right now the lead states:

• "The cost-effectiveness of maintenance chiropractic care is unknown."

That summarizes a section including this content in the article:

• "For some, prevention includes a concept of "maintenance care" that attempts to "detect and correct" structural imbalances of the neuromusculoskeletal system while in its primary, or functional state.

My comments below are about this aspect of maintenance care, which emphasizes detection and correction while in the primary (IOW asymptomatic) state. Right now we are barely mentioning this important and growing paradigm that straight chiropractors are cultivating as their "safe haven". They are going over to cash practices so that they can avoid Medicare and insurance company limitations and regulations that refuse to recognize this type of practice as legitimate. That's how traditional "real chiropractors" plan to survive in a profession that is slowly evolving in another (and more scientific) direction. This is part of the whole story and should not be ignored, but covered. It could be developed even more in a separate article about straight chiropractic, which is definitely a very notable subject, with lots of documentation and an interesting history. It's very much alive. If you want to get the focus of discussions about chiropractic quackery diverted away from this article (leaving only a short mention here), that would be the article where it would be proper to document it as an important part of the whole story. In this article it would hopefully become part of the history section, while in that article it is current history. -- Fyslee / talk 06:44, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

I agree that, as the article is written now, "the cost-effectiveness of maintenance care is unknown" appears as a non-sequitur.

We do need to consider that there are several perspectives to every controversy. Fyslee explains one side really well (and quite colorfully;-) But, for instance, maintenance care and wellness care mean different things to different people. These are parts of every health care practitioner's office. There is nothing wrong with physicians promoting healthy lifestyles with exercise and good nutrition to manage blood pressure, stress, and healthy attitudes. An occasional check-up to make sure everything is still moving well isn't that bad of an idea is it? I don't know, do you? I would think that people want their doctors to do that. Insurance never paid for wellness care, whether for infants in the pediatrician or checkups at your family practitioner. BTW, I'm not sure that we would be mentioning the cost-effectiveness in articles about them (whether it was cost-effective or not - much less unknown). Now, whether or not it is quackery, well - it depends on who we use as a source. If we define quackery as overpromotion, then I think practically all healthcare professionals fit into this category (just look at all the drug commercials promoting a happy sex life:-). Where do we draw the line for promotion of healthy lifestyles and overpromotion of healthy lifestyles. If we handle this at all, it would have to be NPOV showing all sides of the picture without making judgements about any side because basically all the SPOV says is "unknown" which is different than "proven wrong". -- Dēmatt (chat) 15:22, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

#Lead Rewrite 3 was a good first draft, but it was somewhat disjointed and a bit too long. I tweaked and trimmed it. One principle that I'd like us to adopt is that every citation in the lead should also be a citation the body. It makes very little sense for a citation to appear only in the lead, as the lead is supposed to be summarizing the body. I've edited #Lead Rewrite 3 along those lines. It still needs work, though. Eubulides (talk) 08:29, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

The Lead looks reasonable after your changes. I changed antiscience to vitalistic as that particular source did not use antiscience (though Keating did when he was describing the different thought patterns of the different chiropractic groups). This source notes DDs change from materialistic to vitalistic approach in his second theory in 1904 (about the time he was being accused of stealing osteopathy from Andrew Still) so I think it probably is more appropriate to choose the word "vitalistic" as what sustained chiropractic during those years when medicine was absorbing all of the healing arts, because medicine could not absorb vitalism. There might need to be some changes later once we finish the rest of the article per WP:Lead which is why this should be last on our list of priorities. -- Dēmatt (chat) 13:59, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

Keating JC Jr, Cleveland CS III, Menke M (2005). "Chiropractic history: a primer" (PDF). Association for the History of Chiropractic. Retrieved 2008-06-16.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)

Page 37: A significant and continuing barrier to scientific progress within chiropractic are the anti-scientific and pseudo-scientific ideas (Keating 1997b) which have sustained the profession throughout a century of intense struggle with political medicine. QuackGuru 19:00, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

The lead rewrite 3 is an improvement over the old version that was in mainspace. QuackGuru 07:05, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

I see you put it in. I can't disagree with this either, although the case is less strong for it than it is for replacing Chiropractic #History with #History 2. Eubulides (talk) 07:53, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Wellness (maintenance) care

For background, here's a bit of history:

The nature of the chiropractic "wellness" movement has long/always been based on the regular and lifetime treatment of asymptomatic individuals, using spinal adjustments to treat vertebral subluxations. The creator of the concept of wellness chiropractic was Joseph Flesia. He developed a very successful "subluxation-based wellness procedure" of mentally manipulating patients into better "compliance" and into "increasing PVAs" (Patient Visit Average) for the chiropractor who successfully mastered this "vitalistic" procedure. Here are a few quotes expressing the classic chiropractic wellness treatment paradigm:

• "Subluxation based Wellness Chiropractic is vitalistic in nature. A concept medicine and allopathic chiropractors have dismissed as quackery many long years ago. The "Wellness" movement that is in full swing and acceptance in the industrial countries is vitalistic in nature. The philosophy of the "Wellness" marketplace is fundamentally the same as real Chiropractic. The subluxation innate based Chiropractic movement fits so very well on its own VSC ladder with you on the top rung under the "Wellness" umbrella. The CBS sponsored Wellness seminars that I present teach the details and the reality of this new "position" for the real Chiropractor, creating large volume subluxation based Wellness practices. These new profile "safe haven" practices (not a political safe haven but a practice safe haven) are populated, for the most part, with patients who are already deeply involved in the "Wellness" paradigm. They accept us as part of their "health pie" working with the elimination of the Vertebral Subluxation Complex so they can further express their innate human potentials." A Safe Haven, Joseph M. Flesia, D.C.

• "For example, national PVAs are five for acute patients and 17 for the entire practice, whereas in Renaissance and Dr. Guy Riekeman's Quest the statistics are 30-35 PVAs for initial care and more than 100 PVAs for wellness care. The Renaissance wellness procedure works and I highly recommend it to all doctors.

With this as a basis for your new wellness procedure, next time I will begin to outline a 16-point in-office clinical and general patient education strategy that can start you on your journey to a large wellness practice." [14]

• "... the well care patient: these patients are specifically referred into this pre-care lecture, first. They are healthy people who are interested in learning about their true health potential, and the role of chiropractic in the improvement of their "wellness" for a lifetime, with their family. This represents 81% of the people in America. Well care patients have the opportunity and privilege of participating in our well patient care family fee system." Narrative for 37 Patient Education Visits, Joseph Flesia

• "My position is that the 81% of society into wellness today are ALL prospective subluxation-based, vitalistic/innate intelligence chiropractic wellness patients. With their entire families, children and parents -- for a lifetime, of course. Renaissance Seminars has been teaching and maturing this very same message for 21 years." - Joseph Flesia, DC

Of course reform chiropractors and insurance companies have objected to this approach:

• "I understand there are many who feel that a "real" chiropractor would not practice this way. Fine. If being a real DC means wellness care, asymptomatic care, excessive x-rays, poor working relationships with MDs, rejection of scientific data, bizarre techniques, outrageous claims, and the same treatment each visit regardless of the problem, then I don't want to be a "real" DC." - Food for Thought 2000, G. Douglas Andersen, DC

-- Fyslee / talk 05:55, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

I think a real chiropractor does anything that he can to get that 250 pound, sugar consuming couch potatoe to develop a healthy lifestyle. That's part of being a real doctor. Chiropractors just don't use drugs or surgery. The only problem is the one that tells that patient that they will lose that weight *as the result* of spinal manipulation. -- Dēmatt (chat) 15:32, 17 June 2008 (UTC)