User talk:Devingbost

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Welcome to Wikipedia and WikiProject Medicine

Welcome to Wikipedia from WikiProject Medicine (also known as WPMED).

We're a group of editors who strive to improve the quality of medical articles here on Wikipedia. I noticed that you are interested in editing medical articles; it's great to have a new editor on board. In your wiki-voyages, a few things that may be relevant to editing Wikipedia articles are:

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Sourcing of medical and health-related content on Wikipedia is guided by our medical sourcing guidelines, commonly referred to as MEDRS. These guidelines typically require recent secondary sources to support information; their application is further explained here. Primary sources (case studies, case reports, research studies) are rarely used, especially if the primary sources are produced by the organisation or individual who is promoting a claim.
The Wikipedia community includes a wide variety of editors with different interests, skills, and knowledge. We all manage to get along through a lot of discussion that happens under the scenes and through the bold, revert, discuss editing cycle. If you encounter any problems, you can discuss them on an article's talk page or post a message on the WPMED talk page.

Feel free to drop a note on my talk page if you have any questions. I wish you all the best on your wiki voyages! Alexbrn (talk) 06:19, 23 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Resveratrol

On my talk page, you said: Why did you remove the section "Resveratrol has been studied for its potential therapeutic use. As of 2019^[update], 244 clinical trials had been completed and 27 were underway.^[1]"? That seems like a legitimate citation, so I don't understand why it was removed. It's important for people to know how many clinical trials have been completed because the present representation of the page makes it seem like almost no research has been completed and that the little research so far shows no potential for medical benefit. A simple google scholar search will show that there is an abundance of animal evidence that shows much promise. Readers need to know about this. At present, the page is rather misleading.

References

^ Singh AP, Singh R, Verma SS, Rai V, Kaschula CH, Maiti P, Gupta SC (September 2019). "Health benefits of resveratrol: Evidence from clinical studies". Med Res Rev. 39 (5): 1851–1891. doi:10.1002/med.21565. PMID 30741437.

First, the number of clinical trials on resveratrol is a moving number and is not a WP:SECONDARY source. Second, there are no high-quality sources on human effects reviewed in the above source, as nearly all the article sources are from animal studies. Third, an encyclopedia does not cover content that might be in a journal or thesis, WP:NOTJOURNAL #6-8. Showing "promise" is still primary research until proven, and remains a future event yet to be demonstrated, WP:CRYSTAL. Zefr (talk) 18:14, 25 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Why would it be appropriate to remove animal studies from a Wikipedia page about a drug? Are you saying that peer reviewed studies with animal evidence are unfit for use in a Wikipedia page? Devingbost (talk) 18:47, 25 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Devingbost - It is not a prescription drug but rather an ill-defined phytochemical. Yes, it doesn't matter if publications are peer-revewed - what matters for an encyclopedia is a systematic review or meta-analysis of high-quality clinical studies (which have not, and cannot, be done with rigorous control of dietary consumption). See WP:MEDRS. Zefr (talk) 18:59, 25 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

A large body of prescription drugs are phytochemicals. You're saying that unless a study is a systematic review or meta-analysis that it shouldn't be published on Wikipedia? That's quite a high threshold or burden of evidence to meet. I've seen animal studies (that weren't meta-analyses) cited on most other medical Wikipedia pages I've read. I believe that most people want to know a summary of findings, not just findings that pass a test that is so exemplary that it excludes most scholarly research. Devingbost (talk) 19:08, 25 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Drugs may be derived from phytochemicals, but are not the origin phytochemical. Sourcing for medical content is simple: read and apply WP:WHYMEDRS and WP:MEDASSESS. Zefr (talk) 19:45, 25 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

August 2020

Please stop your disruptive editing. If you continue to add unsourced or poorly sourced content, as you did at Resveratrol, you may be blocked from editing. All biomedical claims must be sourced to WP:MEDRS sources, and you've had this explained previously. RexxS (talk) 19:18, 25 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I encourage you to read the section above - Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not an indiscriminate collection of random numbers/facts/etc. The exact number of clinical trials conducted on something is rarely of importance to include in an article. Furthermore, there's many many things that "have been studied" but aren't in Wikipedia. The problem here seems to be that you are adding trials from 2012, 2013, and 2015 - if those trials were truly groundbreaking, there would either be more results by now, or they would be covered in reviews such as Cochrane reviews. Wikipedia isn't designed to report the "breaking news" of a trial being completed - Wikipedia reports what already is the scientific/medical consensus of the majority of those in the field. Most people coming to Wikipedia do not, as you claim, "want to know a summary of findings, not just findings that pass a test that is so exemplary that it excludes most scholarly research" - they want to know the consensus and the best information. Nobody coming to Wikipedia wants to know the results of all 200 something trials you claim exist - they want to know "okay, so what does this mean". Wikipedia's job is not to present all the information to the reader like clinicaltrials.gov or a journal may - our job is to report on what people are saying about those studies/trials and whether they're relevant to the material at hand. I encourage you to go to pubmed or your desired resource of choice and limit your search to meta-analyses and systematic reviews - and try and find a newer one than what's in the article already. The main problem here is that you referencing one or two studies can not override the systematic reviews present in the article already - so unless you can find newer systematic reviews that take into account the studies you desire to add, there is no basis to add them. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 19:38, 25 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

P.S. - this is the first line in the "Basic advice" of WP:MEDRS, and it applies here: Primary sources should not be cited with intent of "debunking", contradicting, or countering any conclusions made by secondary sources. - this means that given there are at least 4 secondary sources I count in the article which state resveratrol does not have any proven health benefits in humans, you cannot cite primary sources such as single studies/trials to override those secondary sources. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 19:44, 25 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Devingbost: I am afraid that you are mistaken. It may be counter-intuitive for anyone who has done research, but double-blind, placebo-controlled clinical trials from scholarly medical journals are still primary studies, and suffer from the same issues as any other primary study. Yes they are good quality primary sources, but on Wikipedia we build our biomedical content from secondary sources. You can read all about it by following this link: Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources (medicine), as has been already pointed out to you. If you want a summary, then these are quotes from that page:

Ideal sources for biomedical material include literature reviews or systematic reviews in reliable, third-party, published secondary sources (such as reputable medical journals), recognised standard textbooks by experts in a field, or medical guidelines and position statements from national or international expert bodies.
all biomedical information must be based on reliable, third-party published secondary sources
Primary sources should generally not be used for medical content – as such sources often include unreliable or preliminary information, for example early lab results which don't hold in later clinical trials.
A primary source in medicine is one in which the authors directly participated in the research or documented their personal experiences. They examined the patients, injected the rats, ran the experiments, or at least supervised those who did. Many, but not all, papers published in medical journals are primary sources for facts about the research and discoveries made.
A secondary source in medicine summarizes one or more primary or secondary sources, usually to provide an overview of current understanding of the topic, to make recommendations, or to combine results of several studies. Examples include literature reviews or systematic reviews found in medical journals, specialist academic or professional books, and medical guidelines or position statements published by major health organizations.

It's not difficult to find secondary sources about resveratrol: A PubMed search finds 1,056 reviews since 2015. If you're interested in the vascular system, perhaps you might read:

Neurodegenerative diseases:

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28283884/

Inflammatory bowel disease:

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29191255/

and so on. There's certainly no shortage of secondary sources (although they are rarely as confident in their conclusions as the primaries tend to be), so can you see why we don't think you should be trying to write content based on primary studies? I really don't want to block you from editing, but there's simply no justification for using primary studies in that article. --RexxS (talk) 19:53, 25 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Checking in

Hey,

I noticed that you're adding material still, and I'd like to start by saying I do not think you are intentionally doing anything wrong, and I truly believe you're just trying to make Wikipedia better. I think you've run into a perfect storm of issues here - you're editing in an area that, unfortunately, is subject to a lot of "questionable" research, and Wikipedia's goal is to get it right, not necessarily get it fast. One problem (not just in vitamins but all of medicine) is that there exist some journals who are "for profit" journals. Academia ideally is never "for profit" - it's "for science" or "for benefit" - i.e. the only money changing hands is that which is necessary for the actual science to get done, and not to make a buck for the publisher/author/researcher/etc. Unfortunately nowadays, there exist many hundreds of what are called predatory publishers/journals - they prey on both scientists and readers without actually being scientifically useful. This edit by you was removed by Zefr because you cited one of those journals - unintentionally. These journals operate on a "make money" principle - and to do so they need people paying them to publish their papers. Unfortunately, this leads to quite often poor if not completely absent editorial oversight and/or peer review of the papers they publish - they charge a (usually higher than normal) fee, and they'll "review" the paper and publish it, regardless of if it's been actually edited, reviewed, and vetted by competent editors. You can find an incomplete but still very thorough list of some predatory journals to try to avoid at WP:CITEWATCH. An alternative, which I personally use myself, is to go to User:Devingbost/common.js and add the following code, which enables a javascript which highlights potentially predatory sources in articles when added/previewed:

importScript('User:Headbomb/unreliable.js'); // Backlink: [[User:Headbomb/unreliable.js]]

I personally use that script because it helps with this. Note that it's not perfect - not all predatory journals are included, and some that are included are not actually predatory (but are highlighted anyway due to technical restrictions). In this case, however, I agree that the review article used in that particular edit is likely not usable as a source on Wikipedia, specifically per WP:MEDRS#Predatory_journals.

Going back, I noticed also this edit which was undone by Zefr also, and unfortunately, I agree with him as well - but this one took some digging and again it's not your fault. The source isn't listed on WP:CITEWATCH, nor in beall's list, so I had to look into the journal itself. It is open access, which is fine - not an issue in and of itself, but I instantly noticed a red flag on their "how to submit" page located here: they say With Fast-Track submission you receive the decision of article acceptance or rejection within 15 days. If you want to opt for fast-track submission, please state it clearly in the submission form. Fast track submission fee is 1.500 euro per article and does not guarantee acceptance. To me, that's a clear indication that the journal cares more about "getting money" than "getting it right". I cannot say I have ever seen a reputable journal charge for "fast tracking" a submission - I have seen journals which have pathways to get "fast review", but it is generally based on a scientific merit to doing so (ex: breakthrough therapy/change, novel discovery, etc) and is decided not by the person submitting but by the editors, without additional charge. So for this reason, I don't consider that journal a valid MEDRS - but I'm open to disagreement from other editors if anyone disagrees.

Put shortly, thank you for what you're doing - you've shown at least me that this article needs a ton of work because there is a lot of information not in the article. I don't want you to get discouraged by this - hence why I'm writing this personal note to you to offer my assistance - I'm a relatively new editor myself and it definitely took me some time to get into the hang of MEDRS and valid sourcing for articles, as well as "wading through the pile of dung to find the diamonds" in pubmed/other sources. What I'd like to offer to you is that I'd be happy to review journals/edits you intend to make prior to you making them if you wish just to see if I can help in any way - but this is by no means a mandatory thing and you're free to keep editing as you have been as long as you're continuing to discuss. Please feel free to ping me if you have any questions or concerns as always, and thanks again for sticking with it and continuing to try - I have no doubt that if you keep it up you will likely become one of the better/prolific medical editors here.

As one final note, I noticed that your talk page comments are not indented when you reply - are you using the visual editor in articles? If so, note that the talk pages are only available in the "source editor" mode - meaning you have to put colons in front of your messages when you reply. I'll put an example of this below in a new section, as well as a script you can use to automatically do that if you don't want to do it manually.

Regards, -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 04:58, 30 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Example of indenting

I made this comment to you! --Example (talk) 12:34, 1 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I am replying to User:Example. -Place holder (T) 12:44, 1 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'd like to reply to User:Place holder's first comment. —the other example 11:22, 2 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'd also like to reply to User:Place holder here. →sand box 13:57, 1 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I also had a reply to User:Example's original comment, but separate from what User:Place holder said. →sand box 13:57, 1 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I am replying to User:Sandbox's comment here. --Example (talk) 12:54, 1 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'm a third user replying to User:Example's original comment, after User:Place holder and User:Sandbox replied. —the other example 11:22, 2 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Notice how this allows for "threaded discussion" - each line of comments can be "followed downwards and inwards" to see who's replying to who and what order the comments came in, as well as allow multiple people to "branch off" into different "subthreads" of the original comment. This can be done by increasing the number of colons one from the comment you're replying to (ex: if the comment you're replying to used 3 colons, start your new line with 4), and placing your comment on a new line right after what you're replying to - even if you have to add in the "middle" of the discussion in the edit window to do so. See below for the "colon code" used in the above example:

I made this comment to you! --~~~~
:I am replying to User:Example. -~~~~
::I'd like to reply to User:Place holder's first comment. —~~~~
::I'd also like to reply to User:Place holder here. →~~~~
:I also had a reply to User:Example's original comment, but separate from what User:Place holder said. →~~~~
::I am replying to User:Sandbox's comment here. --~~~~
:I'm a third user replying to User:Example's original comment, after User:Place holder and User:Sandbox replied. —~~~~

You can also do this by adding the following to your User:Devingbost/common.js page - which will add an automatic "reply" button after signatures for you to type your replies in:

importScript('User:Enterprisey/reply-link.js'); // Backlink: [[User:Enterprisey/reply-link.js]]

Hopefully this helps. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 05:09, 30 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

[1] Singh AP, Singh R, Verma SS, Rai V, Kaschula CH, Maiti P, Gupta SC (September 2019). "Health benefits of resveratrol: Evidence from clinical studies". Med Res Rev. 39 (5): 1851–1891. doi:10.1002/med.21565. PMID 30741437.

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