The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.
The result was: promoted by Yoninah (talk) 23:13, 4 March 2018 (UTC)
... that laughter, a signal of amusement, helps us cope with stress because it relaxes the muscles in our bodies?
5x expanded by Galenmcneil (talk). Self-nominated at 23:06, 1 December 2017 (UTC).
Not new but expanded on November 21-24.
Long enough.
Is neutral.
Some in-line citations are needed.
No close paraphrasing found.
The hook is short enough.
I don't see a citation for the hook.Zigzig20s (talk) 10:30, 15 December 2017 (UTC)
This is a challenging topic and I reckon the current draft falls too far short. The OED defines its current meaning as "The pleasurable occupation of the attention, or diversion of the mind (from serious duties, etc.)" and explains that this has evolved from being an "Idle time-wasting diversion" to "Anything which lightly and pleasantly diverts the attention, or beguiles the time; a pastime, play, game, means of recreation". It is therefore a very broad category covering not just humour but many kinds of pastime and play. The article entertainment does this much better and we should be considering merger with that page. Andrew D. (talk) 18:57, 15 December 2017 (UTC)
I don't really see that - this covers the emotion, not activities which promote it. Entertainment is already 129k raw bytes. Johnbod (talk) 17:39, 16 December 2017 (UTC)
I concur, plus this is not FAC, it's DYK so if the article meets the requirements of the DYK criteria, which actually allows for an article to be "far short" of what is possible, then there's not one single scrap of grounds for complaint in that regard either. Plus the stomping into another reviewer's review is bad form too. So a hat-trick of failure. So please, Zigzig20s, continue with your review. The Rambling Man (talk) 21:31, 16 December 2017 (UTC)
I'll third. Mr Davidson's objection is completely ill taken, given that the relevant policy isn't WP:¡¡¡EVERYONE!!! but WP:PRIMARYTOPIC. There are additional senses of the word and they should be available in a hatnote or at Amusement (disambiguation) but that's no reason to try to blow up the article's WP:SCOPE to fit every recorded or potential form of time-passing. "Amusement" as the state or agent of "being amused" is perfectly straightforward.
That said, we still need some more citations, including for the hook, apparently. — LlywelynII 13:10, 17 December 2017 (UTC)
Laughter prescription This is an article not a study, but it apparently cites a number of studies showing that laughter can be beneficial in cancer treatment regimes. It's also been cited itself a few times.
Most of the Mayo Clinic articles are signed by one of their named editors. My guess is having this one as "Mayo Clinic Staff" is not so much official as their editors being too embarrassed to put a name on it. Which is amusing, but not supportive of the hook. Which claims as a mechanism that laughter relaxes muscles. David notMD (talk) 16:02, 19 January 2018 (UTC)
I don't agree that it's an issue of embarrassment. There's really nothing embarrassing about the page; it's pushing a line that's really well accepted by science, and really well received by the public. I tend to think it's more of a "everyone's on board, so we'll just say it came from everyone" than "nobody wants to put their name on something this silly." ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPantsTell me all about it. 16:14, 19 January 2018 (UTC)
Regardless, by marking it as being by "Mayo Clinic Staff" they're straight up saying that this is the position of their staff, which is tantamount to saying that it is the clinic's official position (because if the clinic had an official view on the subject, then they could not possibly be anything except what the staff as a whole thinks). ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPantsTell me all about it. 08:02, 21 January 2018 (UTC)
I am not amused that the citation for the proposed hook "...because it relaxes the muscles in our bodies." offers no scientific support for that statement except for a hyperlink to a publication (Bennett 2006) that offers no scientific support for that statement. David notMD (talk) 04:46, 29 January 2018 (UTC)
MjolnirPants, at this point the article needs a medically reliable source that specifically supports the "because it relaxes the muscles in our bodies" statement in the hook and the source. If you can't provide that, or an alternative hook that uses some other fact that is more clearly sourced, then I think it's time to close this nomination, which was created as the final act of a student in a college course that ended back in December. I should probably note that there are two separate places in the article where this is discussed: the Vocal burst subsection, which reads The experience of laughter changes our breathing pattern and often causes all our muscles to relax., and the Laughter therapy subsection, which has a broader claim, Laughter causes the bodies' muscles to relax. If one of these sources has text that meets the latter of these claims, please quote it here for us and tell us where it is located so we can confirm it. Thanks. BlueMoonset (talk) 18:55, 4 February 2018 (UTC)
Or the "because it relaxes the muscles" bit could be removed. There's a 100% solid MEDRS source above that supports the rest of the sentence. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPantsTell me all about it. 23:13, 4 February 2018 (UTC)
ALT1: ... that laughter, a signal of amusement, helps us cope with stress?
Calling for a reviewer to make sure that the MEDRS source is in the article and supporting the facts in ALT1. I have struck the original hook since MjolnirPants did not provide backing for muscle relaxing part of the hook. BlueMoonset (talk) 05:27, 5 February 2018 (UTC)
It wasn't in the article, but I just added it to the appropriate spot. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPantsTell me all about it. 14:39, 5 February 2018 (UTC)
Overall: Hook is cited reliably now. — Coffee // have a ☕️ // beans // 13:37, 24 February 2018 (UTC)
@Galenmcneil: Please could you address the "citation needed" tags so that this can go ahead. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 06:36, 25 February 2018 (UTC)
Cwmhiraeth, Galenmcneil was a student editor, whose final day of Wikipedia editing was also the day on which he nominated this article for DYK. At this point, we need someone else to look for cites for the three "citation needed" tags you mentioned, which were placed by this nomination's original reviewer. Perhaps MjolnirPants would be willing to see if they can be found and added. (The material in question could also be removed, if sourcing is not available/feasible.) BlueMoonset (talk) 16:08, 27 February 2018 (UTC)
I added a source to the first one which explicitly supports both sentences since the last citation. (A login is needed to view the whole source, but I can dig up quotes if reading the first page doesn't convince you that it's supported.) [1]
I moved another so it could be included by existing citations that supported it. It probably doesn't need a citation, as it's a logically inescapable extrapolation of supported claims anyways. I would argue to the ends of the earth that it's not WP:SYNTH due to it's necessity; it can't be wrong while the source is right unless amusement worked differently than other emotions, a claim which is explicitly denied by several sources used in the main article for the theory. But one of the two sources used amusement as an example in a passing mention, so I went ahead and moved the sentence to be included by the citation. [2]
I removed the third, which was a rather ignorant bit of OR anyways, contradicted as it was by other sources used in the article. [3]ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPantsTell me all about it. 18:12, 27 February 2018 (UTC)
Thank you. Replacing Coffee's tick as this is now good to go. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 19:46, 27 February 2018 (UTC)
This is a challenging topic and I reckon the current draft falls too far short. The OED defines its current meaning as "The pleasurable occupation of the attention, or diversion of the mind (from serious duties, etc.)" and explains that this has evolved from being an "Idle time-wasting diversion" to "Anything which lightly and pleasantly diverts the attention, or beguiles the time; a pastime, play, game, means of recreation". It is therefore a very broad category covering not just humour but many kinds of pastime and play. The article entertainment does this much better and we should be considering merger with that page. Andrew D. (talk) 18:57, 15 December 2017 (UTC)
Calling for a reviewer to make sure that the MEDRS source is in the article and supporting the facts in ALT1. I have struck the original hook since MjolnirPants did not provide backing for muscle relaxing part of the hook. BlueMoonset (talk) 05:27, 5 February 2018 (UTC)
Hook is cited reliably now. — Coffee // have a ☕️ // beans // 13:37, 24 February 2018 (UTC)
Done
Thank you. Replacing Coffee's tick as this is now good to go. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 19:46, 27 February 2018 (UTC)