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COI at Immunoglobulin M

This series of edits has mostly been made by Marc Shulman (talk · contribs), which also happens to be the name of an author of several sources added to this.

I'm not saying those are wrong/bad sources necessarily (the editor added 28 sources, with only 4 of them to his own work), Shulman does seem to be a rather prolific expert author in this field, but if someone could review them as appropriate and unbiased additions, that would be great. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 11:47, 19 August 2017 (UTC)

left note[1]--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 12:00, 19 August 2017 (UTC)
I had already left them a note, what's really needed is a review of the content in the article. If it's all good, great. If not, then some things might need to be updated. I know nothing of the field, so I couldn't even begin to have an opinion. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 23:01, 19 August 2017 (UTC)
Would support going through the article and removing all primary sources. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 07:51, 20 August 2017 (UTC)
The article includes five references co-authored by M. J. Shulman. These references seem to be appropriately used. While WP:SELFCITE is a potential source of conflict of interest, I don't think that applies here. Indeed I think we should encourage experts such as Shulman to edit these articles.
General comments about the article: copyediting is required to improve the flow of the text. The whole article needs to have its formatting/syntax improved. The "Introduction" needs to partially deleted to keep it specific to IgM. Several sections of the article are lacking references. Axl ¤ [Talk] 12:25, 21 August 2017 (UTC)
Like I said above, it was more of a concern for a potential issue than anything else. If the references are appropriately used (independent of Doc James' WP:MEDRS concerns), I'm fine with removing the COI template and moving on. And yes, we definitely need experts like Shulman [who apparently doesn't unduly promote himself!]. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 14:01, 21 August 2017 (UTC)

Veganism and vitamin B12 deficiency

Vitamin B12

More opinions here, please. Best. --BallenaBlanca (Talk) 10:14, 20 August 2017 (UTC)

commented[2]--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 14:26, 21 August 2017 (UTC)

Mannatech - well connected dietary supplement co.

Needs a bunch of work... pinging esp User:David notMD as this is down your alley too. Not sure if you watch here. Jytdog (talk) 21:11, 22 August 2017 (UTC)

The article is appropriately critical, leaving little-to-nothing in content that crosses the MEDRS line. The references need to be cleaned up and/or replaced with published reviews, if available, e.g., the sham 'glyconutrient' concept - PMID 17855741. Nearly all the references are from industry or news sources. What else? --Zefr (talk) 21:41, 22 August 2017 (UTC)
Never a client of mine, so no conflict in my looking at it. David notMD (talk) 23:04, 22 August 2017 (UTC)
yay! I went ahead and worked it over. apparently it got caught up in politics. it was not really complicated. Jytdog (talk) 23:56, 22 August 2017 (UTC)
I added mention of FDA response back in 2001 to initial plans to market the product with unallowable claims. The products are so many, and the ingredients in them so many-many (and the science so flimsy) that I am loath to start introducing criticism of claims for individual products that are not mentioned in the article. Some of the products have 20-40 ingredients, perhaps a few in amounts that may justify a Structure:Function claim, the rest is such small amounts that in effect "in-name-only." Potential consumers recognize ingredients, but do not understand the amounts are too low to be effective. Immoral, but not a regulatory issue unless claims specify those ingredients, or else claim that the combination is what is effective. David notMD (talk) 02:07, 23 August 2017 (UTC)

External link in Visual snow - www.visualsnowsyndrome.com

Hello, there is some disagreement about including an external link to www.visualsnowsyndrome.com on Talk:Visual snow. It would be helpful, if an uninvolved editor could check the site vs. WP:EL, and offer an additional opinion in the discussion. Thanks in advance. GermanJoe (talk) 00:43, 23 August 2017 (UTC)


give opinion(gave mine)--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 16:29, 23 August 2017 (UTC)

Citoid for Wikidata

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1pMHSghEM7A&feature=youtu.be&t=25037 has a very brief demo of the mw:citoid service on Wikidata. This is all in the experimental-code stage, but the goal is to be able to put a PMID, ISBN, DOI, etc. into the reference field for a fact, and have it auto-complete. I'm very much looking forward to this. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:15, 24 August 2017 (UTC)

[3] looks interesting/potentially useful, thanks WAID--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 17:21, 25 August 2017 (UTC)

Merge and redirect proposal for Dry drowning into Drowning

Discussion at Talk:Drowning#Merger proposal, opinions requested. Cheers, • • • Peter (Southwood) (talk): 20:54, 25 August 2017 (UTC)

commented--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 10:03, 26 August 2017 (UTC)

Sertraline: sigma agonist, antagonist, or what?

I see the sertraline article has been added to Category:Sigma antagonists, yet we don't have any mention of this in the article. Given that this article was previously in Category:Sigma agonists (see this diff), this is a non-trivial distinction.

It looks to my layman's eye like "antagonist" is perhaps more likely to be correct: see https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2881105/ . However, this: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24508523 says only that sertraline "may be" an antagonist, and web searches show a lot of discussion on various non-WP:MEDRS Internet fora as to whether it is one of the other. I have no medical knowledge whatsoever, so I'm not in a position to judge: it would be nice if someone with actual medical knowledge could review this article, and add some mention of it in the article itself, with a relevant cite. -- The Anome (talk) 23:35, 25 August 2017 (UTC)

There doesn't yet seem to be a MEDRS-level source answering this one way or the other. However, policy regarding categories is a lot less well defined than the policy regarding article text. If we view categories as search tools rather than as assertions of fact, it might make sense for the category to be there even if we can't justify putting the information in the article. Looie496 (talk) 14:26, 26 August 2017 (UTC)

Foreskin article

Anyone interested in helping to watch Foreskin (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)? I ask this because I know that Sugarcube73 is interested in helping, but he often adds poor sources on this matter and on the matter of circumcision. See this edit that I just reverted, for example. Zad68 used to analyze such edits by Sugarcube73 and try to advise him, but I don't think that Sugarcube73's sourcing has improved, at least by much. Zad68 has been missing in action since May 2016. And I do miss him.

Anyway, when reverting Sugarcube73 moments ago, I invited Sugarcube73 to discuss his sourcing here. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 17:45, 22 August 2017 (UTC)

Followup invitation here. He checks edit histories, and I've pinged him above; so I'm sure he will know of this section, but I can alert him on his talk page as well if others think it's needed. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 17:50, 22 August 2017 (UTC)

Hi Flyer22:

I thought the paper by Frisch et al was a very good paper. It was published in December 2016, so it is quite recent. It reports on a very large scale study carried out in Denmark. It adds significant information about the protective function of the foreskin.

I wonder why you don't like it.

Sugarcube73 (talk) 20:36, 22 August 2017 (UTC)

Just from the quickest skim of the abstract (indeed, just from the quickest skim of the title) I can see that you're misrepresenting the source. It's explicitly a comparison of Muslim and non-Muslim populations in Denmark, not a study of circumcision per se—yes, it finds that Muslim populations display higher rates of meatal stenosis, but that could be down to different diet, sexual behavior etc. As I suspect you're well aware, in studies in countries like the US where the circumcized/non circumcized populations are more similar in cultural background, any differences drop drastically. ‑ Iridescent 20:57, 22 August 2017 (UTC)
You need to do a bit more than a quick skim... It is a population wide study, and in the subset of native danes there is also a statistically significant increase in meatal stenosis. (5% of native danes are circumcised yet 44% of all cases of MS is in this 5%) In fact there is an increase in MS in all population groups, if you are circumcised. But i could be wrong, i'm no expert, and i only looked at this because the scientists are danish :)--Kim D. Petersen 10:26, 24 August 2017 (UTC)
Wouldn't use Frisch - an anti-circ campaigner. Best to stick to non-problematic sources. Alexbrn (talk) 10:57, 24 August 2017 (UTC)
Erm? Since when is it acceptable to dismiss a source on the basis of who a researcher is, and what his or her views are? --Kim D. Petersen 13:48, 24 August 2017 (UTC)
If the source is known to be biased, if other MEDRS-compliant sources state so. See WP:MEDRS. This is why we don't have Soviet psychiatry sources or Chinese acupuncture sources on WP.
No comment on the validity of the source in question, I'm taking Alexbrn's word that this is mentioned in other sources. Carl Fredrik talk 13:50, 24 August 2017 (UTC)
Well quite, Frisch has known beliefs[4]. What's ironic here is that the same POV-warriors who scream blue murder if a (pro-circumcision) Brian Morris source is used (to the degree that the circumcision articles have accommodated this, by swerving these sources in favour of others) they are all over Frisch sources. Frisch has published research laying the blame for many things at the door of circumcision, from ADD to Autism to sexual dysfunction. We need as editors to be very wary of what has been termed "advocacy research" and need to keep WP:REDFLAG in mind. Alexbrn (talk) 14:14, 24 August 2017 (UTC)
First let me state quite clearly: I have no bone/knowledge or whatever about this topic area at all! But if a paper written by a specific person is a WP:REDFLAG no matter what the views are - then WP:MEDRS has gone too far. Arguing the journals quality etc. is fair game - but the authors views expressed in public or elsewhere isn't. And that goes for pro and contra arguers.--Kim D. Petersen 14:24, 24 August 2017 (UTC)
WP:REDFLAG is not part of WP:MEDRS. But it is policy. But since the Frisch article is merely an "investigation" of two cohort studies it hardly rises to the level required by WP:MEDRS in any case. (We really could do with an article on Advocacy research). Alexbrn (talk) 14:35, 24 August 2017 (UTC)
To translate this into other contexts - can we now dismiss papers on Electronic cigarettes because one or more of the authors have expressed advocacy arguments in newspapers? If you are going to say Yes, then i would oppose your view. If you say No, then please explain what the difference is. --Kim D. Petersen 14:42, 24 August 2017 (UTC)
There is no hard-and-fast rule since this level of source evaluation within the context of WP's wider goals is at the point were it's not possible to "legislate clue". Remember Wikipedia's mission is to reflect "accepted knowledge". Alexbrn (talk) 14:48, 24 August 2017 (UTC)
You have got to be kidding me! What use is journal peer-review, and the quality of it then? Impact factor etc etc. Lets just throw that in the bin - the author has "views"! --Kim D. Petersen 14:55, 24 August 2017 (UTC)
Of course there are many factors. Alexbrn (talk) 15:04, 24 August 2017 (UTC)
You are dismissing a paper based upon two population based studies (with >4 mio. participants), in (what so far) is a respected journal, based upon the author having been quoted in the media for having views on the topic. That seems to be it - that indicates POV, don't you think? --Kim D. Petersen 15:09, 24 August 2017 (UTC)
"Many factors". As it typical in cases like this we are looking at primary research in a low-impact journal from an advocate who has originated a lot of surprising research all pointing in one direction. It would be hard to think of a more problematic source for the attempted use. Alexbrn (talk) 15:50, 24 August 2017 (UTC)
Finally you are talking journal instad of person. And you may also want to argue WP:WEIGHT, relevance etc. All relevant factors - person is not. And btw. this result is not in any way surprising (look up our Circumcision article. You may btw. try to adhere to WP:BLP by documenting that "an advocate who has originated a lot of surprising research", since from everything i've read so far, just to research this, is that he is regarded highly in his field, despite his views. --Kim D. Petersen 16:28, 24 August 2017 (UTC)
Maybe you can find something useful on this search to write Advocacy research with. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 14:43, 24 August 2017 (UTC)
(edit conflict)Excuse me? "If the source is known to be biased" is not based on who the authors are, but on the journal and the scientific response. That is what Peer-review is all about, removing methodological problems, personal biases etc. - isn't it?
Since when is "The Surgeon" (journal of the Royal Colleges of Surgeons of Edinburgh and Ireland)[5] comparable to Russian and Chinese journals? Eh? Or have we come to the point where Russian or Chinese scientists are out of the picture as well? --Kim D. Petersen 14:21, 24 August 2017 (UTC)
This journal seems to have an impact factor that is equivalent to the typical academic journal for orthopedic surgery and dentistry. That's not bad, even if it's lower than what editors who are accustomed to big-name journals might guess. I believe that Doc James' rule of thumb is that anything above 1.0 is probably okay, and this clears that threshold.
CFCF boldly added a section on ===Bias=== to MEDRS last year. I'm not sure that it's the ideal approach (and someday, I will go fix the punctuation errors in it), because it can be claimed to support POV editing. It also may not align with WP:BIASED (the general guideline, which also applies to biased sources that are writing about medicine-related subjects). WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:37, 24 August 2017 (UTC)

Here's a quotation from the introduction of the paper in question:

it is widely agreed that one of the more common late complications of circumcision is meatal stenosis, a pathological narrowing of the urethral opening. Indeed, as early as 1881, surgeon William M. Mastin reported that meatotomy to treat meatal stenosis was so common in Jewish males that “the operation had been designated by many of them as their “second circumcision”” and that, among Jewish males, a “marked narrowing is believed to exist in, at least, 95 per cent. of all cases”.4 Subsequent accounts confirmed the impression of a problem largely restricted to circumcised males.5, 6 In 1921, pediatrician Joseph Brennemann wrote that his “attention was drawn with increasing frequency to a peculiar lesion of the meatus urinarius occurring only in circumcised male children”. What he described was meatal ulceration and its likely sequel, meatal stenosis,6 whose symptoms may include painful urination, spraying or deflection of the urinary stream, urgency and frequency of the need to urinate, hematuria and enuresis.7

Contemporary research also supports the view that meatal stenosis is a frequent, if not the single most common, late-occurring (i.e., occurring months to years after the operation) complication of childhood circumcision.8, 9, 10, 11, 12 In 1984, the American Academy of Pediatrics wrote in a pamphlet with guidelines for parents with genitally intact boys: “The foreskin shields the glans; with circumcision this protection is lost. In such cases, the glans and especially the urinary opening (meatus) may become irritated or infected, causing ulcers, meatitis (inflammation of the meatus), and meatal stenosis (a narrowing of the urinary opening). Such problems virtually never occur in uncircumcized penises. The foreskin protects the glans throughout life”.13

So let's pretend that this particular source – despite coming from a reasonably average medical journal with normal peer-review processes – is somehow deficient for the actual claim (which is adding the four underlined words to this sentence: "The foreskin can protect the glans from ammonia and feces for infants in diapers, thereby preventing meatal stenosis"). It's citing a bunch of sources across two centuries about this. Meatal stenosis#Causes, incidence, and risk factors agrees with it. Multiple medical textbooks make the connection between foreskin removal and meatal stenosis (e.g., [6], [7] and [8] – note that "ammoniacal meatitis" is exactly the condition of "the meatus has been irritated by ammonia in a wet diaper").

From what I've read, this condition largely exists in circumcised males, and skipping circumcision would indeed prevent the most common cause of this condition. This fact appears to be generally accepted knowledge, and I've seen no evidence that anyone even disputes the idea. A decent (perhaps not ideal, but decent) source was produced for the claim. Why are we even debating this? Circumcision seems to have some medical benefits (fewer UTIs) and some medical harms (more meatal stenosis). Meatal stenosis is even listed as a possible complication in Circumcision. Surely Wikipedia is NOTCENSORED enough to mention this apparently undisputed fact in Foreskin, even if that mention might possibly change some parent's mind about whether to choose an elective circumcision for their baby boy?

And, you know, if you don't like this source, then maybe you'd like to swap in one or more of the others that say the same thing. It wasn't hard to find them. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:14, 24 August 2017 (UTC)

I would use a better source. But my main issue with Sugarcube73 is that he keeps pushing "the foreskin is better" POV on articles. Do review the number of warnings that Zad68 gave him. Also see this recent edit of his that I reverted; he added the following: "The prepuce is primary, erogenous tissue necessary for normal sexual function." This is contradicted by better sources in the Circumcision article. The foreksin is not necessary for "normal sexual function." Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 23:19, 24 August 2017 (UTC)

Great. Can I count on you to do that soon? I'm kind of inclined to specify (and perhaps it's better in a separate sentence, instead of wedged in there) that the foreskin prevents ammoniacal meatitis, which can lead to meatal stenosis (because my impression is that it usually doesn't, especially if the inflammation is treated with steroid cream), but I trust you to find a couple of good sources and add what seems reasonable.
In general, I think that fighting POV pushing by blanking uncontested facts is not an effective strategy. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:51, 25 August 2017 (UTC)

And he just deleted this and this bit from the World Health Organization (WHO). Alexbrn, can I get your opinion on these matters before I escalate this via some other form of WP:Dispute resolution? Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 23:58, 24 August 2017 (UTC)

I started a discussion at Talk:Foreskin#World Health Organization deletions. Permalink here. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 00:07, 25 August 2017 (UTC)

The view of the WHO on health topics is always due IMO (and I'd always attribute it). Alexbrn (talk) 00:11, 25 August 2017 (UTC)

The WHO has not made up their mind and they don't have any information or a clear opinion. They are still "debating". Therefore, their publication is unsuitable as a reference for Wikipedia. It is offensive to include such a source in the article. It detracts from the article.

On the other hand, the Nordic Association of Clinical Sexology professional association has made up its mind and has a very clear position. Furthermore, the Nordic position is supported by numerous other authorities, so the Nordic position is appropriately included in the article. I hope this is clear.

Time is moving on and more information is being produced so it is necessary to update articles form time to time.

Sugarcube73 (talk) 00:49, 25 August 2017 (UTC)

Even if we were to stipulate that NACS is right and WHO is wrong, it is still normally WP:DUE to identify the WHO's current position. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:51, 25 August 2017 (UTC)
Sugarcube73, as you likely saw, I replied to your rationale on the article talk page. The WHO is not simply debating. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 20:40, 25 August 2017 (UTC)

I had no idea that the citation of an article by Frisch would cause so much consternation. There are an ample number of other authorities to support this matter. I'll try again with other citations.

Sugarcube73 (talk) 21:33, 26 August 2017 (UTC)

Are you a potential WikiFactMine collaborator?

I spent three days on a stall at Wikimania not long ago, and have been updating the WikiFactMine pages on Wikidata to give a quite full view of the project. It applies fact mining to recent open access papers downloaded from Europe PubMed Central. Custom sets of search terms called "dictionaries" are used, and recently we have almost completely switched over to Wikidata and SPARQL queries to generate these dictionaries. This can give quite slick results in dictionary creation, though sometimes going over data is also required.

One significant outcome of my interactions in Montreal was the creation of dictionaries of cell lines and of vaccines.

If you are interested in trying out our highly-parallel search technology, I'd be glad to help you. So far we have concentrated on plants, diseases and drugs. Besides the possible results of search, using Wikidata in this way helps to check and refine its content. I'd also be happy to talk to anyone able to improve the coverage on Wikidata of MeSH identifiers, and explain why work on that area also contributes to the project. Charles Matthews (talk) 16:57, 23 August 2017 (UTC)

thank you for posting(very important work)--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 10:22, 24 August 2017 (UTC)

Thanks. See d:Wikidata:WikiFactMine/Dictionary list#Other for the current list of dictionaries, other than for plants. These are mostly medical. The drugs dictionaries divide up by medical specialty.

I'd be glad to discuss our efforts further, and take suggestions. Charles Matthews (talk) 07:33, 27 August 2017 (UTC)

Implantable RFID

RFID hand

PositiveID#Health_effects has some problems inasmuch as it treats sources FDA, Mythbusters and spychips.com more or less on equal footing. ☆ Bri (talk) 07:13, 24 August 2017 (UTC)

zoiks. that article was putatively about the company but it was all about the chip. I merged it to Microchip implant (human) where the cancer stuff was already debunked. Jytdog (talk) 08:56, 24 August 2017 (UTC)
good idea about merging it is much better now--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 10:45, 27 August 2017 (UTC)

Wikimed App - Light edition

Hello all,

Just a quick note to announce that we released this morning a new version of the WIkimed App* called Wikimed Mini. It basically complements the earlier app in that it is much smaller (136Mb vs. 1.2 Gb), and should therefore make it easier to download and store by users who need it most (50% of installs for the English version happen on the Indian subcontinent; for the French one, 80% are in Africa). But apart from this PSA I wanted to share the thinking that went behind the design of this particular app, as it may have some implications as to how you guys work on your articles.

There basically were three reasons for this "mini" version:

  1. As far as offline goes, size does matter. If you look at the 20+ main offline medical apps out there, you'll see that they all range in the 25-40Mb (the largest being 120Mb). Several of them have 1M+ downloads (150k for Wikimed EN), and even if I am no physician I'd say their content is rather minimal and that WP content is far better: yet people download the other, smaller apps rather than our gigantic, all-encompassing 1.2 Gb one;
  2. You may have heard that thing about 60% of mobile readers not going past the Lead section. We did too, and took the drastic step of removing everything below that - basically keeping only the lead part and infobox. That saved us about 60%, down to 465 Mb;
  3. Then we looked at what was left and figured that infobox illustrations weren't that helpful: either because they look good but are not very informative, or because if they are in fact informative Kiwix limitations make it impossible to see more than a thumbnail. Don't get me wrong: the ability to see high-res images comes high on the list of requests, but a choice was to be made and that one was a low-hanging fruit. So we removed the illustations as well, and now we're down to 136 Mb, pretty much on target with a 90% smaller app.

So to sum things up: (1) the lead is the most important part of an article; (2) the infobox comes second; (3) users want useful diagrams and illustrations.

Last but not least, I want to thank you all for your work: it is heatwarming to see the comments we get, and testament to that good work is the fact that Wikimed is rated higher (4.7) and kept longer (25% uninstalls at D30) that most apps (4.2/80%, respectively on average). I'll keep you posted on how this new app takes off, but if you have any specific question, feel free to hit me up. Stephane (Kiwix) (talk) 14:25, 23 August 2017 (UTC)

* Only in English at the moment for the mini version, and no, it's not on iOS yet. But yes, it's in the works: contact me if you want to be a beta-tester.

agree with #1 and #2(recently in rare diseases category, Ive tried to add as much as possible to infobox), however #3 is limited to the diagrams that are available[9]--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 14:39, 23 August 2017 (UTC)
I understand the desire to save space but keeping only the lead is pretty much disastrous. Jytdog (talk) 08:59, 24 August 2017 (UTC)
You do you think that? Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 09:00, 24 August 2017 (UTC)
yep. the body is already summarizing the literature relatively briefly, and with the lead just summarizing the body so much - so much - is left out. am thinking adverse effects of drugs especially. Jytdog (talk) 09:45, 24 August 2017 (UTC)
Have added the major adverse effects to all the leads of the WHO essential medicines. This is hopefully a push for us to make the leads of our articles better summarizes. Agree some will be left out. Not sure if this new app version will be picked up or not. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 09:50, 24 August 2017 (UTC)
This is the first time I have heard about this Wikimed app. I am delighted to see that you (Stephane & co.) are working to make Wikipedia's medical content accessible to even more people. I am even more delighted that your app is so well-received. Thank you and good luck with further improvements! Axl ¤ [Talk] 10:04, 24 August 2017 (UTC)
  • Agreed that increasingly accessibility is a good thing; I appreciate the tradeoffs. Inclusion of the lead provides further motivation to make those as accurate and well-balanced as possible. The best writing (and reading) is succinct, but it's also highly subject to POV-pushing so we'll have to be careful. If we get more eyes, I hope we'll get better content. — soupvector (talk) 14:01, 25 August 2017 (UTC)
I agree with Jytdog especially since hiding and not defining the refs in the first section of a med article is pretty standard. Also, the lack of side effects/allergies/over use of antibiotics describing a med is pretty concerning. And also know this, the shortened articles identified for translation into over 100 languages have the exact same problem. Barbara (WVS) ✐ ✉ 13:00, 26 August 2017 (UTC)
I guess we will see if there is significant uptake of the new and smaller version. Side effects should occur in the lead IMO. We have an article on antibiotic resistance. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 07:18, 28 August 2017 (UTC)

Cleanup of bad |journal= entries

When User:Citation bot (or other scripts) take citation info from PubMed, they'll often put things like

  • |journal=Science (New York, N.Y.)

Rather than the expected

  • |journal=Science

Plenty of examples exist, like

  • |journal=Development (Cambridge, England)
  • |journal=Lancet (London, England)
  • |journal=Journal of Immunology (Baltimore, Md. : 1950)
  • |journal=J. Physiol. (Lond.)
  • |journal=Science (New York, N.Y.)

Any objection to have User:JCW-CleanerBot convert them to the cityless version? It's been approved to do so already, but I figured I'd let this project know before hand, since it would be the most affected by this. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 02:16, 27 August 2017 (UTC)

I for one don't mind. Thanks for asking. Jytdog (talk) 02:27, 27 August 2017 (UTC)
This is basically going to make an edit to every article within the WPMED area.
We really need to get it such that the edit before a "bot" edit shows up in ones watch lists.
I believe this request is on phabricator somewhere. Wondering if we could combine this change with a more significant one such as the infobox update User:Headbomb? Support is here.
Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 08:34, 27 August 2017 (UTC)
Nah, it's about 1000 articles or so at most from the numbers I seen. And while in theory the combination of the two bots is possible, it's not desirable. As for the watchlist issue, it was in a 'patch for review' last I heard (T11790.Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 11:50, 27 August 2017 (UTC)
James, you may want to go to the Watchlist tab in Special:Preferences and set "Expand watchlist to show all changes, not just the most recent". Then you can hide bot edits without missing anything. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:11, 27 August 2017 (UTC)
Support. Long overdue. This is only relevant if there are genuinely two journals with the same name published in different places. JFW | T@lk 13:06, 27 August 2017 (UTC)
Yeah, I check for those before, there are very few of them in medicine. Open Medicine (De Gruyter journal) and Open Medicine (John Willinsky journal) is about the only one that comes to mind. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 13:11, 27 August 2017 (UTC)
I've done the main ones that I could find. If you notice others, leave a message at User:JCW-CleanerBot. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 02:05, 28 August 2017 (UTC)
This looks sensible. Axl ¤ [Talk] 09:31, 28 August 2017 (UTC)

User:DrChrissy

Hi, all. One of our most erudite and passionate editors, DrChrissy, has died. He was actively involved in animal topics, and some things he worked on pertained to the topic of medicine. I felt that those who worked with him, or are interested in knowing about him, would want to know of his death. Thank you. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 22:33, 25 August 2017 (UTC)

User:Flyer22 Reborn thanks for mentioning this here. It is always sad to loss a great Wikipedian. It takes a special person to contribute here. Our gratitude and appreciate is the least we can provide. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 11:52, 26 August 2017 (UTC)
Sad news indeed. My condolences to his family. Axl ¤ [Talk] 09:51, 28 August 2017 (UTC)

MEDMOS question - effect on family/caregivers

VSD image

So, a chunk of content was added to the Congenital heart defect article about effects on the parents and family. I have moved it to Talk for now, but you can see it here.

This is not about the disease per se... is kind of a "Society and culture" thing... but the content is WP:Biomedical information in my view as there is epidemiology about what the effects on the family are and about treatment of the family per se.

Where should this kind of content go, in an article about a disease or condition? Jytdog (talk) 07:15, 16 August 2017 (UTC)

per Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Medicine-related articles#Diseases or disorders or syndromes I would agree...society and culture section...IMO(an alternate possibility is a 'subsection' of prognosis section as caregivers would be relevant in CHD)--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 10:41, 16 August 2017 (UTC)
I think it depends upon the specific content. "You can't manage diabetes in a young child without active monitoring by family and caregivers" belongs in ==Management==. "Desperate parents waste whole fortunes on ineffective treatments for kids with autism" probably belongs in ==Society and culture== (but could also go in ==Treatment==, if ineffective treatments are being discussed there). "Family support correlates with positive outcomes for people with alcoholism" belongs in ==Prognosis==.
For some things, such as caregiver burnout in Alzheimer's, I think that content could reasonably be placed in several locations, and the main thing is to make sure that it's somewhere in the article (and probably infused throughout the article, in that example). In a few cases, social/emotional factors (that's the individual's own social history (medicine) and emotional fallout, not societal factors) may need their own sections (e.g., schizophrenia, infertility, abuse, and any condition likely to provoke the process of adjustment to disability).
I am concerned about relegating everything about family to ==Society and culture==. For some conditions, family and social support is a key factor in survival, and it wouldn't be appropriate to bury that in a section with popular culture references, laws, activism, and religious POVs. It wouldn't be neutral to treat the parents of a child with a devastating congenital heart condition as if they were of no more relevance than an awareness advertisement. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:43, 16 August 2017 (UTC)
I hear that. I brought this here because it is a real question - chronic disease in an individual does affect and is affected by environment (eg family) a great deal and it seems to me that the literature is dealing with this kind of stuff more and more. (and with respect to affecting, the literature often deals with managing those effects) I am unsure how we should handle this kind of content, generally. This content is a good case study - children with congenital heart problems. Jytdog (talk) 23:53, 16 August 2017 (UTC)
Using this as a case study (I agree with you that it's likely to be a good one), the first paragraph makes me think: Where do you put "People freak out when they hear the 'C-word'"? I think I'd put "Parents are frightened when they learn that their children have a potentially life-threatening heart condition" in the same section as "Patients are frightened when they learn that they have cancer". WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:02, 18 August 2017 (UTC)

Olive leaf

There was a couple of recent additions of medical information added to olive leaf that could probably use the review of members of this WikiProject if anyone wants to take a look. 108.16.195.87 (talk) 11:09, 28 August 2017 (UTC)

Lots of health claims supported by weak/primary sources and some apparent WP:SELFCITE issues. Have cleaned-up a bit. Alexbrn (talk) 13:50, 28 August 2017 (UTC)

Any British editors here?

Help very welcome at Draft:Best interest decisions in England and Wales.—S Marshall T/C 19:21, 26 August 2017 (UTC)

made minor edit[10]--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 10:47, 27 August 2017 (UTC)
What do you think the odds are that the words "divorce" and "custody" ought to appear at least once in that article? That is the primary use of this principle in the U.S., at least, and with each year finding about another ~100,000 minors in England and Wales dealing with their parents divorcing, then that's presumably a more common situation than the one-in-a-million child with a rare disease whose parents disagree with their healthcare providers. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:17, 27 August 2017 (UTC)
See first para of article Waid. Family Court deals with those issues. -Roxy the dog. bark 11:22, 28 August 2017 (UTC)
It's a bloody good question to ask, though, because it stirs up some of those language differences between nations. Thanks for asking me that:- it usefully challenged my thinking. In the UK nowadays, when parents separate, they don't get "custody" of a child; the child is awarded "residence" with a parent. The relevant law doesn't talk about the child's best interests, but the "welfare of the child". I think that, as regards England and Wales, the content you're talking about would belong in welfare of the child (a redlink that urgently needs to go blue) or possibly in Child Arrangement Order. Here in the UK most best interest decisions are along the lines of "Now granny's dementia is getting worse, should we sell her house and put her in a nursing home?"
I'm now inclining to the view that "best interests" might be the wrong title because although it's the language used in the sources, it's unhelpful to an international audience. I wonder if the finished article might need to be called Mental capacity in England and Wales instead.—S Marshall T/C 12:11, 28 August 2017 (UTC)
Does it need its own article if most of this is about the MCA 2005 and its related processes (e.g. DOLS)? JFW | T@lk 13:28, 28 August 2017 (UTC)
  • I'm not sure and could be persuaded either way. This is content we don't currently seem to have. I intend to get the writing done and if others think we should merge it somewhere then I'm open to having that discussion.—S Marshall T/C 14:00, 28 August 2017 (UTC)
Custody is more than the child's place of residence. Which parent gets to make legal decisions for the child (e.g., to sign a form releasing a sports organization from all claims in case of injury)? Which parent gets to decide which school the child attends? Joint legal custody is common in much of the US, but I don't think that it's universal anywhere (e.g., if one parent is abusive, imprisoned, missing, or incapacitated).
I think you are correct about the desirability of another article title (and I've got no objections to the proposed merge). WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:30, 28 August 2017 (UTC)

Thoughts

Culinary coaching

Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 15:08, 28 August 2017 (UTC)

Seems promotional but not sure it's totally unwarranted; related to but not completely overlapping other topics such as Medical nutrition therapy. — soupvector (talk) 21:16, 28 August 2017 (UTC)
That is an ugly kind of abuse of WP, to promote one's self and one's department. I have AfDed it. Jytdog (talk) 05:28, 29 August 2017 (UTC)

Failed merger proposals

I have been looking at merger proposals recently and I made a list of merger proposals that come under the scope of WikiProject medicine. I then looked at all the proposals and tried to determine if consensus was reached. Guidlines state that a merge tag should be placed on the source and destination page and also a merge proposal discussion should be started on only one of the talk pages to prevent having two separate discussions. You can see many articles where I found that the procedure wasn't observed correctly. I think it would be a good idea for me to de-list (detag) as appropriate since many of these are stale anyway, but others might have different suggestions to make about that. Notice the proposals where there was support but didn't get merged, most likely because there are several thousand articles in general, waiting to be merged. Quite a few articles didn't generate any discussion; I have been guilty myself of making minor edits to articles whilst turning a blind eye to the merge banner. At a minimum it would be good if we could have some kind of buddy check to ensure a merge proposal was made correctly, although it would appear to me that one should propose a merge only if they are prepared to carry it out themselves. CV9933 (talk) 09:58, 16 August 2017 (UTC)

[11]some definitely should be detagged--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 16:55, 16 August 2017 (UTC)
CV9933, the main reason why merge proposals hang around forever is because we don't have enough editors who like organizing/curating content this way. The exact process is relatively unimportant, because everything done during a merge can be undone just like any other edit.
Please, if you're interested in this, please go through the ones that were tagged more than a few months ago, and either remove the tags (if nobody's particularly interested in the merge and you personally don't think it's a good idea), or merge the articles yourself (if nobody's particularly opposed to the merge and you personally support it – just follow the steps at WP:MERGETEXT). Feel free to skip the ones that you don't have an opinion about. Even if you only process a few of them, it will be an important contribution to the project. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:06, 17 August 2017 (UTC)
This is interesting to me because I often find enough sourcing for a separate article based upon the content in an existing article. Usually I can turn four sentences into a brand new article that has enough references to stand on its own. I suppose this could be regarded as the 'opposite' of a merge since there is more information on a topic in the new article than can fit into the paragraph of an existing article. Another editing activity I engage in is to fill out a redirect to a full fledged article on the actual topic of the redirect. Frankly, there are probably not enough editors to even become involved in merge discussions. Besides, I have had the content removed and merged into existing articles with no notification to me as the article creator, no discussion and no consensus many times. I guess that is being bold on the part of the editor doing the merging. Best Regards, Barbara (WVS) ✐ ✉ 20:28, 18 August 2017 (UTC)
If you think that a tagged article shouldn't be merged, and nobody's commented after a reasonable time, then please take the tags off. Even if you don't have time to adding the sources and expand it, just getting it off the list of potential merges is an improvement. A note on the talk page to explain why is nice, but not strictly necessary. If we can focus attention on the things that actually need attention, that really is helpful. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:10, 19 August 2017 (UTC)
WAID, I am not referring to any tags, I am referring to a merge being done without tagging and without discussion and without consensus. My point is - since performing the merger without discussions seems to be OK, There might be a different problem in addition to this one. Barbara (WVS) ✐ ✉ 13:00, 20 August 2017 (UTC)
Curiously, when I look at the merger proposal for Hemorrhagic smallpox, at first sight the destination seems pretty obvious. On the other hand if one considers the point Barbara made, there would be a case for stripping that section out of smallpox and letting it stand on it's own. CV9933 (talk) 21:10, 19 August 2017 (UTC)
that could be done as well...--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 11:11, 30 August 2017 (UTC)

Draft:Resensys

Discussion started at WP:COIN#User:Mehkalan (medical devices). —PaleoNeonate – 03:40, 31 August 2017 (UTC)

yep that appears to be a COI thing - i left them at note at the talk page too. Jytdog (talk) 03:50, 31 August 2017 (UTC)

Video on how to edit

Editing Wikipedia

Medical content. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 17:24, 30 August 2017 (UTC)

It's over to the right, for anybody else who couldn't find it. maybe i am the only dummy who fumbled. :) Jytdog (talk) 19:14, 30 August 2017 (UTC)
looks great!(informative)--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 20:24, 30 August 2017 (UTC)
great! Who created it and with what funding? Just curious. EMsmile (talk) 21:30, 30 August 2017 (UTC)
It looks like it comes from https://open.osmosis.org/ WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:42, 30 August 2017 (UTC)
Yup. They are funded primarily by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 06:26, 31 August 2017 (UTC)

Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 11:55, 29 August 2017 (UTC)

Nice catch. You missed Retained blood syndrome which is particularly disgusting. Jytdog (talk) 01:55, 30 August 2017 (UTC)
Retained blood syndrome has been sent off to spam heaven—the others should probably run their course at AFD as it's conceivable the company is notable even if their non-existent made-up condition invented for their marketing campaign isn't. Someone who knows more about cardiac medicine than me needs to go through Special:WhatLinksHere/Retained blood syndrome and see which, if any, of the redlinks should be deleted outright and which should be replaced with something else. ‑ Iridescent 19:03, 30 August 2017 (UTC)
Thanks for pointing out the "what links here". Followed that and removed a bunch more of the medical marketing. Really thanks!!! Jytdog (talk) 19:46, 30 August 2017 (UTC)
@Jytdog, Special:WhatLinksHere and Special:LinkSearch are always quite handy when it comes to catching spammers—the more intelligent PR agencies don't create an article on their client directly, but instead create a bunch of redlinks and citations to the client, to give the appearance that there's a strong demand for an article on their client and thus someone else will create the Wikipedia article after which they can insert their puffery. It's a slower process, but one in which the spam is much more likely to stick as the article will show up in logs as having been created by an established and neutral Wikipedia editor and thus won't be flagged to new page patrol. If you know the name of the client, it's always worth doing a straightforward Wikipedia search on the client's name to see if someone is systematically slipping it in as a citation on multiple articles to try to make it appear that the person in question is a notable and much-cited author (this is something of a low blow but is nonetheless a good example of the process in action). ‑ Iridescent 10:11, 31 August 2017 (UTC)
Gotcha, thanks. Jytdog (talk) 12:57, 31 August 2017 (UTC)

ISO 4 redirects help!

{{Infobox journal}} now features ISO 4 redirect detection to help with the creation and maintenance of these redirects, and will populate Category:Articles with missing ISO 4 abbreviation redirects. ISO 4 redirects help readers find journal articles based on their official ISO abbreviations (e.g. J. Phys. A → Journal of Physics A), and also help with compilations like WP:JCW and WP:JCW/TAR. The category is populated by the |abbreviation= parameter of {{Infobox journal}}. If you're interested in creating missing ISO 4 redirects:

  • Load up an article from the category (or only check for e.g. Medical journals).
  • One or more maintenance templates should be at the top of page, with links to create the relevant redirects and verify the abbreviations.
  • VERIFY THAT THE ABBREVIATION IN |abbreviation= IS CORRECT FIRST
  • There are links in the maintenance templates to facilitate this. See full detailed instructions at Category:Articles with missing ISO 4 abbreviation redirects.
  • |abbreviation= should contain dotted, title cased versions of the abbreviations (e.g. J. Phys., not J Phys or J. phys.). Also verify that the dots are appropriate.
  • If you cannot determine the correct abbreviation, or aren't sure, leave a message at WT:JOURNALS and someone will help you.
  • Use the link in the maintenance template to create the redirects and automatically tag them with {{R from ISO 4}}.
  • WP:NULL/WP:PURGE the original article to remove the maintenance templates.

Thanks! Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 12:48, 31 August 2017 (UTC)

thank you for posting --Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 21:17, 31 August 2017 (UTC)

Edit request at NEET

An edit request is awaiting review at Talk:National Eligibility and Entrance Test#editsemiprotected relevant to this WikiProject. See "...after the recommendations from the Medical Council of India (MCI)..." jd22292 (Jalen D. Folf) (talk) 20:04, 31 August 2017 (UTC)

[12]apparently answered( they[13] are requesting an x to y format)--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 21:16, 31 August 2017 (UTC)
I think you meant that they didn't use the "change X to Y" format.
This article seems to be about the medical school entrance tests in India (so equivalent to the MCAT). Apparently the test has been updated, and a logged-out editor would like someone to update the semi-protected article with the new information. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:31, 1 September 2017 (UTC)

Assessing readability of articles?

I had this question on Teahouse in March and in August but am copying it here in case people from WikiProject Medicine have some additional thoughts to add? Are you assessing articles based on readability, too? I am currently doing it for the Top-100 articles on sanitation topics and the results are very poor, meaning the articles are very very difficult to read & comprehend!

I'm copying below a question by User:PlanetCare and answer from the archive (from 22 March) as I don't think it was discussed sufficiently yet (I will put a new answer at the end):

++++ I've been using "copy and paste" to put text into an MSW doc, and then doing the readability test from there. This can't go on!......there must be a way to do a check inside Wikipedia. Help. and Thank You.PlanetCare (talk) 00:39, 22 March 2017 (UTC)

Hi, PlanetCare. Are you referring to this sort of readability test? I'm afraid I can't find any evidence of on-Wikipedia readability tests. There was a proposal in 2008 where a bunch of editors said it was a good idea but apparently no one ever did anything about it. Sorry, but it looks like there is no way to do such a check in Wikipedia right now. Howicus (Did I mess up?) 01:02, 22 March 2017 (UTC)
Oh, there is a tool I found here, not on Wikipedia but Wikipedia-related, which gives the readability of all pages in a given category (up to 50). There's a similar tool here. But that's maybe less convenient still since you can't just copy-paste the article text. Howicus (Did I mess up?) 01:06, 22 March 2017 (UTC)
The tool for assessing 50 pages all at once is worth something. but it's not the kind of specific tool that will "drive action." I want to be able to show my co-writers that if they pay attention to readability they can actually influence the score, and increase the chances that people will understand what they have to say.

Any chance of restarting the conversation, to see if we can get a better tool inside of wikipedia? I'm very new to wikipedia and have been working on sanitation related pages in the lead up to World Water Day. PlanetCare (talk) 01:49, 22 March 2017 (UTC) ++++

I have found this tool which calculates automated Flesch scores for readability: http://www.readabilityofwikipedia.com/ Any good?

Secondly I came across an old project page from 2012 which provided metrics to assess readability and other quality parameters of Wikipedia articles manually: https://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Wikipedia:Ambassadors/Research/Article_quality#Metric (I also wrote on the talk page there).

However this doesn't solve your desire to have an automated readability assessment tool. - Does anyone else know anything in that respect, other than the replies given so far? From our experience with WikiProject Sanitation, the readability score of many Wikipedia articles is quite low (meaning the articles are difficult to read and understand). This means we are potentially not reaching a huge number of people who are less educated and unwilling to read through a cumbersome, complicated Wikipedia article (or those who are not native English speakers). User:Doc James, has WikiProject Medicine looked at assessment tools to quickly assess readability scores of its articles? EMsmile (talk) 08:36, 14 August 2017 (UTC) EMsmile (talk) 21:32, 30 August 2017 (UTC)

If the Babbletics was under an open license we could maybe integrate it as a gadget. Otherwise it could be added as an add on maybe? Would be cool to have a tool that color coded text based on difficulty to help guide editors.
Tech support is super hard to find for creating tool though :-( I have a bunch of projects I need but am unable to find tech support for. There are a number of places one can post project proposals that are looking for programmers. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 06:32, 31 August 2017 (UTC)
That's because you never ask me. Most readability tests work on formulas relating to two metrics: average syllables per word and average words per sentence. It's relatively easy to find the number of words and the number of sentences in a block of text, but the number of syllables is a tad harder. Stack Exchange has some algorithms as does Stack Overflow. I think that the most important text to determine readability for would be the lead, which in html is all of the paragraphs between the opening div and the first h2 tag. I'm not sure what language would be best to use - probably php has the easiest way to access to the text of our articles, but I suppose you really want something in JavaScript that could work inside a gadget? --RexxS (talk) 15:43, 31 August 2017 (UTC)
When I was at CRUK they were intensely interested in this, and their writers for the general public somewhat horrified by our readability levels. Letters per word is a reasonable proxy or alternative for syllables per word. If you want to know what medical text with a good readibility score looks like (and fully SEO-d), look no further than NHS Choices or CRUK pages for the public - at least one of these was written to a reading age of 12. Or some of the American etc equivalents. But they typically take a very long time (and often many different rather short pages) to get round to the unavoidable long words which people need to be aware of (if only because their doctor is likely to use them), and which completely sink the readability score. My (sadly unpublished) research with adult general public subjects doing online research on a health topic suggested many preferred a quicker run-in to the hard stuff, and also that they liked to sample a number of sites. I agree we should concentrate on a comprehensive lead with a reasonable readability score, which is already in our guidelines, and is hard enough to do. Shortening sentence length by simple rewriting, or just splitting, is often relatively easy to do, and we should be sure to quickly explain important terms, even if linked. Johnbod (talk) 16:12, 31 August 2017 (UTC)
The two metrics may be convenient and relatively easy to automate, but they don't tell you everything. One word which is completely unfamiliar will make the sentence more difficult to understand than several familiar polysyllabic words, even if the unfamiliar word has only one syllable. Hooray for links. • • • Peter (Southwood) (talk): 16:59, 31 August 2017 (UTC)
Thanks for this very interesting feedback, everyone! @PlanetCare: And I like your idea, User:Doc James to have a tool that highlights the difficult sentences in colour. This tool gives the overall score and basis stats (like % of Wikipedia articles that are harder to read than this one): http://www.readabilityofwikipedia.com/ It is based on the Flesch readability score and you can also analyse just the lead on its own. I am not sure how it determines syllable numbers though. And it's for free which is good. I have contacted the person at Babbletics who is listed under "about" but no response yet. The second person was a PhD student who did his thesis on "Trust in online information" in 2013 using Wikipedia as a case study. Available here. Readability was one parameter that was determining trust in online information. - I am totally admiring what the people behind WikiProject Medicine have achieved so far, by the way. We from WikiProject Sanitation are using you as a shining example that is inspiring us! EMsmile (talk) 21:23, 31 August 2017 (UTC)
User:RexxS would love to see a gadget that would highlight the sentences of the lead based on your two rules. I try to structure articles so that the lead is easier to read and allow the body of the article to be more complicated. Would it be possible to look at the frequency specific words are used in the EN language? Maybe use google books? This could be a proxy for how common and thus understandable a word is. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 08:58, 1 September 2017 (UTC)
I've used http://hemingwayapp.com (free for desktop web, at least; I don't know about the downloadable app). It highlights long and complex sentences, passive voice verbs, and adverbs (which are often, but not always, unnecessary). It also provides some statistics and a grade-level reading score.
Something I think is important is that it doesn't choke on jargon. It highlights specific words that could be replaced by shorter words (try "use" instead of "utilize"), but it accepts the simple sentence, "Chronic lymphocytic leukemia is the most common form of blood cancer" without complaint, and gives it a Grade 9 rating. It accepts the slightly more accurate, but still simple, sentence "Chronic lymphocytic leukemia is the most common form of hematological malignancy" without complaint, and gives it a Grade 14 rating.
If you want to try it, then just copy your text, go to the website, and paste it into the middle of their webpage (as if to replace the description/instructions there). (Maybe it would be possible to create a user script that essentially automates the copying and pasting step?) WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:21, 1 September 2017 (UTC)
Would be cool to have something like that avaliable as a browser add on. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 16:08, 1 September 2017 (UTC)
Oh wow, I am loving that website that you recommended, User:WhatamIdoing. Thank you! And yes if it could be integrated into the Wikipedia system that would be awesome - even if only to raise awareness to folks about the importance of good readability! Meanwhile, I am going to use it on our 100 articles that we have chosen to be improved ahead of World Toilet Day, see here if anyone is interested. EMsmile (talk) 21:14, 1 September 2017 (UTC)

Draft:Thom Lobe BLP

In case it's of interest. Also, I would like to know if posting such updates here is appropriate, or annoying. While I don't do much new page patrolling or work at articles for creation, the WP:SKEPTIC alerts often bring up such articles to attention via specific keywords. It's possible that WP:MED has a similar system already reporting these. Thanks, —PaleoNeonate – 22:01, 1 September 2017 (UTC)

COI?[14]....User:Regen_stemcell (have trimmed[15])--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 22:15, 1 September 2017 (UTC)

Button load issue

I am not sure if others have had this problem with button loading, but Amir says he can fix it if I can get consensus. Problem described here were I am trying to get consensus. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 16:06, 1 September 2017 (UTC)


Sexism in Medicine

Obviously POINTY re this (18:52, 31 August 2017) and this (21:44, 31 August 2017) per this history, but a new article that could probably use eyes. The identification of "Culinary coaching" as somehow a "women's topic" is problematic but whatever. Jytdog (talk) 03:41, 2 September 2017 (UTC)

We should have not only Sexism in medicine, but also Racism in medicine, Ageism in medicine, Ableism in medicine, Homophobia in medicine, and Religious discrimination in medicine. WhatamIdoing (talk) 07:21, 2 September 2017 (UTC)
Agreed. Arguably, intersex medical interventions have been grounded in a form of sexism. Probably deserves a separate article. Trankuility (talk) 07:37, 2 September 2017 (UTC)

Drafting proposal to help address impersonation

Interested in peoples advice on the wording here Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 11:19, 2 September 2017 (UTC)

Well, my edit got refused as "spam" and "harmful". "::When I added "I only use this name on the WMF projects" and the "Unified login" userbox on my en user page it was in case of similar events. Not only could one pretend to be a WP user for paid editing, but one could also pretend to be in attempt to stir some controversy elsewhere, for instance on sites dedicated to WP drama. Especially when not using one's real name, legal means are limited to pressure a third party sites to restrict impersonators. Someone could even register a domain name and there's litte one could do in this case..." and no time to go report the false positive right now (I'd also have to find out how). —PaleoNeonate – 15:20, 2 September 2017 (UTC)
People interested in this should also see the proposal at mw:Talk:Code of Conduct#Suggested Amendment: No impersonation. The Code of Conduct for technical spaces applies to on-wiki and off-wiki behavior, so, for example, it covers someone showing up at a Hackathon or joining a technical mailing list and pretending to be Doc James. It doesn't apply to non-technical spaces, so it wouldn't cover someone registering "User:Doc James (Board account)" and claiming to be him while editing Wikipedia. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:58, 2 September 2017 (UTC)
Sounds like another important effort to support.Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 16:12, 2 September 2017 (UTC)

Yoga nidra

I came across this page and was concerned that it did not even come close to complying with WP:MEDRS (e.g. see the "religion primary" template at the top of the page). Everymorning (talk) 03:59, 3 September 2017 (UTC)

Did some initial trimming of poor sources used to make health claims. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 17:39, 3 September 2017 (UTC)

That reminds me of this promotional page. Sometimes we can't fix everything. QuackGuru (talk) 18:09, 3 September 2017 (UTC)

Merge the Sex characteristics article into the Sexual characteristics article?

Opinions are needed on the following matter: Talk:Sex characteristics#Merge proposal. A permalink for it is here. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 21:51, 3 September 2017 (UTC)

Interesting; one appears to mostly be related to humans and legal aspects, the other is more familiar biology... —PaleoNeonate – 22:08, 3 September 2017 (UTC)
yep--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 22:52, 3 September 2017 (UTC)
Both are, at this point in time, mainly focused on humans. And this is what the Sex characteristics article looked like before a recent expansion. I would state more, but it would be biasing this section. I've stated enough on the article's talk page. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 22:49, 4 September 2017 (UTC)
Collapsed for obvious reasons. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 01:00, 5 September 2017 (UTC)
Do you have a policy point to make about those changes? Or is this just a generalized complaint? It comes across as aggressive, and suggestive of WP:NOTHERE. Trankuility (talk) 23:31, 4 September 2017 (UTC)
Anyone can read the talk page to see what I mean, or this comment since you want to bias this section that is supposed to remain neutral. Funny that you talk about me coming across as aggressive when your tone at the talk page is dripping with it, no doubt because of the recent genderqueer discussions (at WP:LGBT and the Genderqueer talk page respectively). Sorry, I go by the rules, which is very much in contrast to WP:NOTHERE. You should try following them sometime instead of putting your WP:Activism ahead of them. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 23:38, 4 September 2017 (UTC)
On the contrary, your comments have now entered the territory of personal attacks, and not a focus on improving Wikipedia. Trankuility (talk) 23:43, 4 September 2017 (UTC)
I suggest you read WP:Personal attack. You are the one who implied that I, with as much editing experience and article improvements I have under my belt, am WP:NOTHERE. I have shown that I am "here" times over, while you have narrowly focused on one thing and one thing only, sometimes to the detriment of the encyclopedia. It took me listing a number of sources and making sound arguments at the Genderqueer talk page just to keep the aforementioned WP:Activism from happening yet again. We have clashed at times, but have usually been on good terms. But I am beyond tired of the WP:Activism I keep seeing from you. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 23:51, 4 September 2017 (UTC)
I need to take a break from this, and will not be responding further. Trankuility (talk) 23:53, 4 September 2017 (UTC)

Note: The discussion now has an RfC to aid it. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 01:00, 5 September 2017 (UTC)

How do I find a list of the pages that are flagged as needing work?

Hi, I am starting a wikipedia assignment for first year medical students at Queen's, working on our course page right now and creating the structure of the assignments. Here is the link to the course page: [[16]] How do I send the students to the pages that need work? They are each going to pick a page that needs some content and citations on September 21st. Any advice appreciated! HeatherMurray Queen's (talk) 16:41, 4 September 2017 (UTC)

One approach might be to focus on improving articles which have been rated as "Top" or "High" importance but relatively low quality ("Stub", "Start" or "C" class) in the article categories to the right; i.e., the top importance C-class articles, high importance C-class articles, high importance start-class articles, and high importance stub-class articles, which encompasses roughly 600 articles. The disadvantage to this approach is some of these articles might be slightly mis-categorized (i.e., the importance rating is set too high).
Another approach to finding articles to work on improving is to look at popular medicine-related articles with low quality ratings. WP:TOPMED lists the top 5000 most popular articles that are associated with this Wikiproject; the C-class, start-class, and stub-class articles in that list need the most work (see the table legend on that page). Seppi333 (Insert 2¢) 17:21, 4 September 2017 (UTC)
@Doc James: you have more experience in this area, so I figured I'd ping you. Seppi333 (Insert 2¢) 17:25, 4 September 2017 (UTC)
  • If I were to suggest anything, it would be to choose mid or high importance articles which have been deemed at either start or C-level.
    Too obscure or underdeveloped articles (low importance/stub quality) tend to be more difficult to edit than those in the middle. It is difficult to write something from scratch, but to add a paragraph or so to an article and create a Treatments or Epidemiology section is I would say quite graspable for a medical student.
    HeatherMurray Queen's, is there any focus area for your class? Surgical diagnoses, anesthesiology and orthopedics tend to have quite underdeveloped articles in relation to the wealth of source material out there. The same is true for ophthalmology, and articles relating to human anatomy are often in dire need of additions of a Clinical importance section (see table at Wikipedia:WikiProject_Anatomy#Article_assessment_statistics). Carl Fredrik talk 17:46, 4 September 2017 (UTC)
They are being asked to select whatever interests them - since they are just starting medical school I thought I'd leave it wide open for them. I will communicate that information to them though, thanks! HeatherMurray Queen's (talk) 18:15, 4 September 2017 (UTC)
Thanks this is really helpful! HeatherMurray Queen's (talk) 18:15, 4 September 2017 (UTC)
You might like to get the groups to evaluate each others' work (as chosen by you) as a last step - ie. the group working on Activities of daily living might assess the work done by the group who chose cerebral palsy, to give them a bit more of an idea on actively evaluating WP articles. The page views tool might also be motivating for your students to see how many people their work reaches. --122.108.141.214 (talk) 02:16, 5 September 2017 (UTC)

Improving the Breast article

Opinions are needed on the following matter: Talk:Breast#Assessment - September 2017. A permalink for it is here. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 21:11, 4 September 2017 (UTC)


Is the medical content created by the UK protected by copyright? Thanks for the answer.

Best Regards, Barbara (WVS) ✐ ✉ 23:19, 4 September 2017 (UTC)
Yes, unfortunately: crown copyright. However, some agencies have moved towards open access, under the OGL-licence. This varies between agencies, but without express mention of the OGL-licence or other CC-compatible licences it is nor free to reuse. Carl Fredrik talk 23:27, 4 September 2017 (UTC)
Thank you so much for such a speedy reply. I don't have a problem paraphrasing (these govt websites are so 'wordy') but avoiding the possibility of a copy vio is pretty important. Best Regards, Barbara (WVS) ✐ ✉ 23:32, 4 September 2017 (UTC)
@Barbara, assuming you mean the website of NHS England the above advice is incorrect. There's no such thing as "The UK" in this context, as England, Scotland, Wales and NI have their own legal systems and their own healthcare systems, but when it comes to NHS England, all material on the NHS website (which I assume is what you mean) is free to reuse under OGL unless it's a photographic image or is credited to a third party—the general release is here. ‑ Iridescent 08:02, 5 September 2017 (UTC)
Thank you for your reply Iridescent. Please forgive my political and geographical ignorance. Best Regards, Barbara (WVS) ✐ ✉ 08:41, 5 September 2017 (UTC)
Iridescent — How is the information I gave incorrect? I mentioned the OGL, with the proviso that content need expressly be licenced under the OGL — as is made clear by your link that (some of) the NHS England's information is. This is vastly different from the situation in the United States where government produced content is de facto public domain.
NHS England makes up a rather limited subset of the information available from UK health services, which include a number of other government agencies.
NICE, which is a far better source for Wikipedia than the NHS — does not use the OGL, but instead a very restrictive quasi-"open" licence which is not at all compatible with Wikipedia: [18] Carl Fredrik talk 15:26, 5 September 2017 (UTC)

No editor can cut and copy content without the proper attribution even if it is in the public domain. The general release is here. That does not tell editors how to add attribution. The website states "These terms are compatible with the Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0 and the Open Data Commons Attribution License, both of which license copyright and database rights. This means that when the Information is adapted and licensed under either of those licences, you automatically satisfy the conditions of the OGL when you comply with the other licence. The OGLv3.0 is Open Definition compliant."[19] It must be attributed. If it is not attributed the edit history must be deleted if any editor added content. WP:COMPLIC needs to be updated. See Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Medicine/Archive 100#Wikipedia:Copyrights. QuackGuru (talk) 15:39, 5 September 2017 (UTC)

Ribbit

I've just noticed Psychoactive toad, which has a decent claim to be the single worst medical article on Wikipedia and has a grand total of four references, not a single one of which is remotely MEDRS compliant ("Kuwait Information on psychoactive toads", anyone?) and three of which are broken links. Although it's an ultra-niche topic, it gets a steady 300 readers a day. What I know about psychoactive neurotoxins could be written on the back of a stamp so I'm not going to try to clean it up myself (although I'm sorely tempted to unilaterally delete it and redirect it to Bufotenin)—does anyone want to take a stab at de-crufting it? ‑ Iridescent 07:56, 5 September 2017 (UTC)

I took a stab at it. It is a little more boring and pageviews probably will drop. But do you wonder...how many people actually licked toads because of what they read on WP? And do you also wonder what the toads thought of it? Barbara (WVS) ✐ ✉ 08:48, 5 September 2017 (UTC)
No mention of some turning into princes? —PaleoNeonate – 12:00, 5 September 2017 (UTC)
redirected to the relevant toad. Jytdog (talk) 18:20, 5 September 2017 (UTC)

Apitherapy

In

we are told

although the full mechanism is not well defined yet, several studies have shown how the antioxidant and anti-inflammatory effect of honey can prevent the initiation of cancer

and

honey, enclosing a perfect mix of synergistically active ingredients, offers a promising chance for a clinical employment to prevent and manage human cancer diseases

Really? I think WP:REDFLAG applies; in WP:MEDRS terms this source is arguably okay (though it is barely comprehensible in parts). Alexbrn (talk) 00:58, 3 September 2017 (UTC)

peer review fails again, and I have written yet another email to an editor-in-chief.
Example of the horror: " It is well consolidated that HIV patients daily consuming 80 g of natural honey for 21 days show improved prostaglandin levels and NO production compared to healthy subjects". That is cited to a case study; N=1. PMID 17369997. Generalizes horribly, in two ways: 1 to many; biomarkers to actual clinical outcome. Oy.
Fortunately we can simply argue that this review recently published in a high quality journal is a very minority perspective. But that is a fingernails argument. Jytdog (talk) 01:19, 3 September 2017 (UTC)
  1. Alexbrn, please explain what you did [20].
  2. Jytdog, do not forget to write a letter to the "Nature": "For example, melittin, a major constituent of bee venom, raised interest :as a potential anticancer reagent in recent years" [21].
  3. Graham87, Tronvillain please, help. I do not English well, I need someone to look after all this. Thank you. --Мит Сколов (talk) 01:44, 3 September 2017 (UTC)
@Мит Сколов: you can't say that "evidence" for a therapy resides in religious texts: such texts are full of nonsense on health topics. Alexbrn (talk) 01:56, 3 September 2017 (UTC)
@Alexbrn: My English is very bad, really. I'm using translate.google. My native language is russian. It would be very nice of you not to delete it, but to fix it. Thank you. --Мит Сколов (talk) 02:01, 3 September 2017 (UTC)
@Alexbrn: Without having an opinion on whether this merits mention or not here, changing "The evidence of Apitherapy is found in the influential religious texts..." in [22] to "References to medical properties of honey can be found in traditional Chinese, Korean, as well as ancient Egyptian and Greek civilizations, as well as religious texts such as the Vedas, the Bible and the Koran" would seem to solve the "evidence" issue.
The paper from Nature's Cell Death Discovery is a) a primary source so irrelevant here; and b) about novel peptides. You are need to understand the policies and guidelines better, as well the subject matter of developing new drugs. You are bee-ing too aggressive. Jytdog (talk) 02:20, 3 September 2017 (UTC)
@Jytdog: this editor just told you English wasn't their primary language and that he's using Google translate to communicate, and you make puns? Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 10:52, 6 September 2017 (UTC)

New WikiProject

Wikipedia:WikiProject Chiropractic - only one member yet I believe, very new. May perhaps become useful for related articles monitoring (categories, alerts) in relation to alt-med vs POV and MEDRS, etc... —PaleoNeonate – 22:53, 1 September 2017 (UTC)

I was going to report it here myself. WP:MED really ought to keep a close eye on that one to ensure it doesn't become a quack magnet. I'd rather see the project become a taskforce of WP:MED than its own thing personally. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 23:09, 1 September 2017 (UTC)
A WP:WikiProject is a group of people. If there's only one participant, then there is no WikiProject, regardless of whether someone created some pages for a (presumably) hoped-for group of people to use in the future.
The average lifespan of newly created WikiProjects is very short. This page wasn't created by a newbie, so it might do somewhat better than average, I doubt that anyone really needs to worry about it becoming a magnet for, well, anything. If there are a few people who are keeping up with their watchlists at the moment, it'd be kind of you to put this (and all of our neglected task forces) on your watchlist, in case someone asks questions there.
(Editors could have a nice friendly argument over whether it'd be more appropriate as a task force of WP:ALTMED or here, but since it's just not important, it's probably better to leave the pages alone.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:25, 2 September 2017 (UTC)
Was just linked to this discussion by PaleoNeonate's post on WP:Skepticism. I just made the project active today after trying to set it up the best I could. The reason I didn't make it a task force of WP:MED is because chiropractic isn't medicinal at all, so I figured it wouldn't fit in too nicely. I discussed the possibility of a WikiProject on this topic in the past with a few others who have displayed interest. Since opening up the project I've slowly been reaching out to them (which is how Paleo led me here!) so hopefully in the coming weeks it won't be my solitary name on the members list. (This is an open invitation if any of you would like to join as well!) The basis for the WikiProject is to maintain all chiropractic-related pages in an easy to manage location, and help combat biases seen in these pages. As I've gone through the pages I've seen just terrible writing and awfully biased statistics in favor of chiropractic on the many school pages, organization pages, etc. I also want to have a group who can flesh out the role of chiropractic in other articles on this site (i.e. Low back pain, Neck pain, etc). This I can't do myself as I'm the first to admit my naivete in all things chiropractic. What I do not want the project to become is a cesspool of group-think and pro-chiropractic bias. I don't want any page to become pro-chiro, just as much as I don't want any page to become anti-chiro. I just want the facts presented and supported as best they can. In any case, this got longer than I intended, thanks for the opportunity to share. SEMMENDINGER (talk) 23:30, 5 September 2017 (UTC)
Many claims of chiropractic are in the realm of WP:Biomedical information and so in scope for this Project; it also sometimes comes up at WP:FT/N. Since WP:WikiProject Alternative medicine is moribund I'd be surprised if there were many people interested in a yet more narrowly-scoped project. Alexbrn (talk) 05:07, 6 September 2017 (UTC)
Thanks for the link to WP:Biomedical info and WP:FT/N, i'll make sure to refer back to the frequently. While I share the understanding that WP:ALTMED is dead, I've never seen a task force become successful from an otherwise dead parent Wikiproject. Usually a task force relies on the greater WikiProject for support, but if that life-line is non-existent I don't see a point in being intrinsically tied to it. Keep in mind it's been less than a day since the Project opened, and while the other two projects I'm a part of boast large memberships, only 4-5 people are actively working on each, so I'm not too worried at this very early moment that we're too narrowly focused or that the interest is not there. SEMMENDINGER (talk) 13:37, 6 September 2017 (UTC)
You may be interested in keeping an eye on Wikipedia:WikiProject Directory/Description/WikiProject Chiropractic. As you start tagging articles, you'll get a second list of usernames, which will show who has been working on the articles recently. It will look something like Wikipedia:WikiProject Directory/Description/WikiProject Medicine (but shorter). You may want to see who is already editing the articles and doing a decent job, and focus your recruiting efforts mainly among them. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:02, 6 September 2017 (UTC)
Thank you for the suggestion! I've only reached out to a select few so far who I have noticed good editing habits with in the past, and unfortunately my longer list now includes many inactive Wikipedians, so this will be a great resource. I appreciate your help! SEMMENDINGER (talk) 15:08, 6 September 2017 (UTC)

Laser gingivectomy

Can someone review Laser gingivectomy? My CSD was declined; the page still has obvious problems but I'm not sure what to do about them. Power~enwiki (talk) 20:32, 6 September 2017 (UTC)

I'm not surprised that a {{db-spam}} was declined, as it was little more than a reasonably fair summary of the (unfortunately) primary sources on the procedure. Fairly representing an enthusiastic literature can look promotional, but that's not technically what we mean when we talk about "promotion". (Looking at the creator's talk page, it might be worth finding out whether {{db-copyvio}} is a concern, though.)
The main article on gingivectomy is quite brief, so perhaps this stub could be successfully merged into it (especially if someone could add a little information about the traditional non-laser methods, so that adding a few sentences about the laser version didn't completely unbalance the main article). WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:56, 6 September 2017 (UTC)
An interesting thing is that the indications/contraindications conflict with those of gingivectomy. —PaleoNeonate – 20:58, 6 September 2017 (UTC)

Milk fat globule membrane

New article, appears to be a valid topic as numerous secondary sources exist, but the current version relies far too heavily on primary sources. Currently at AfD. Looie496 (talk) 23:29, 6 September 2017 (UTC)

Howarth Bouis

Not sure if very relevant to the project, but on logs today I noticed Howarth Bouis which is a new bio article, with references to nutrition and micronutrients. —PaleoNeonate – 23:51, 6 September 2017 (UTC)

curious editing by article editor[24]--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 17:37, 7 September 2017 (UTC)

nejm review

interesting read...IMO[25]--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 17:35, 7 September 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for this link. The title is "Evidence for Health Decision Making — Beyond Randomized, Controlled Trials", and it is probably a valuable use of time for anyone who cares about "scientific evidence", and what we mean when we use that term. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:18, 7 September 2017 (UTC)

Reworking of articles about Vaccine, Immunization, etc.etc.

Vaccination

See Talk:Vaccine#RfC on merge.

It was noticed that article texts of Vaccine, Vaccination, Inoculation, Variolation overlap heavily. The first two were merged, but it is suggested to split them along clear lines. The second pair is 90% about the same subject, namely history of smallpox inoculation. I would like to invite y'all to rework/rearrange these. Staszek Lem (talk) 18:03, 7 September 2017 (UTC)


Music Therapy

Brodman area(Neurological music therapy

Not sure we need all these distinct articles, but in any case there is a lot of really problematic content here. I may have time in a few days to take a deeper look but in the meantime, if anybody wants to get stuck in ... Alexbrn (talk) 06:43, 23 August 2017 (UTC)

seems at least a couple could be merged...IMO--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 09:54, 23 August 2017 (UTC)
Music therapy in Canada is not notable. A merge sounds like a good idea for some of them. QuackGuru (talk) 10:57, 23 August 2017 (UTC)
I think that the base problem is something more broad than music therapy. There is a general concept of "Recreational therapy" or "activity therapy" in which a health care provider recommends a hobby and social activity as a medical treatment. Some examples are Equine-assisted therapy, Art therapy, Bibliotherapy, and Horticultural therapy. These have no Wikipedia category and so someone would have to either find a source which lists these or do original research to categorize them together. Any of these can overlap with counseling, occupational therapy, or psychotherapy. Instead of trying to merge the music articles with each other, I think they all need to be connected to a core article which presents the common elements then the specific practices and research associated with each one can go in the individual articles. Blue Rasberry (talk) 14:46, 23 August 2017 (UTC)
These therapies sit in a few different taxonomic hierarchies (looking at MeSH, e.g. Therapeutics/Rehabilitation/Music Therapy or Therapeutics/Complementary Therapies/Sensory Art Therapies/Music Therapy) so I think it's problematic to privilege one by baking it into our article hierarchy - might be better to use categories for this taxonomy info? I suspect after de-crufting there is enough good content for just one Music Therapy article. Alexbrn (talk) 15:01, 23 August 2017 (UTC)

Relatedly:

Alexbrn (talk) 15:12, 23 August 2017 (UTC)

wow Music therapy is so bloated. I agree that they should all probably be merged into that. there are a ton of primary sources cited... the hacking down and merging in, should be pretty straightforward. Jytdog (talk) 09:03, 24 August 2017 (UTC)
I find it really annoying when people just arbitrarily create a slew of nominally different articles on the same topic like this. It just creates work for other editors later on. Music therapy is really bloated with a page size of 130kB; all the others combined are around 120kB. If we can prune the redundant content across articles and cut the remainder of those articles in half - which is likely to be the case given what Jytdog said (NB: I haven't looked at the articles, just the article stats) - then all of them could be merged into 1 article which conforms to WP:Article size. Seppi333 (Insert 2¢) 07:56, 27 August 2017 (UTC)
First would be to trim poorly supported stuff and than see how much remains. Likely a merge of the topic area into a single article will than be possible. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 07:51, 28 August 2017 (UTC)
I don't think that's the best approach for an article like this. How about finding a good source, reading it, and then figuring out how much of the stuff that's currently followed by a "poor" (by MEDRS's appropriate, but untraditional standards) source could be left in the article and replaced by the kind of source that we happen to prefer?
Blanking content that might be good just because the currently cited source isn't the kind we idealize often results in articles that are unbalanced, POVish, or incomplete. It's easy for us, but it's often bad for readers. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:21, 28 August 2017 (UTC)
I sort of agree with WAID on this point. Music likely does have a clinical effect for certain conditions (even in healthy individuals, listening to music and auditory stimuli impacts cognitive functions and task performance), so the MEDRS non-compliant article refs should be replaced where possible. Merging redundant content is the simplest approach to take at first. Fixing the citations for what's left as well as deleting dubious or off-topic material should probably be done after that. Seppi333 (Insert 2¢) 22:35, 29 August 2017 (UTC)
agree as well w/ WAID, on music's beneficial effects--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 09:41, 8 September 2017 (UTC)
  • Comments:

The following were homework assignments and should probably be axed outright:
This article was created entirely by redlink SPAs:
A somewhat similar problem exists for this one, created by IPs and redlink SPAs, but it seems to have more legitimacy and would be hard(er) to delete:
It's rather obvious that this does not deserve its own article:
-- Softlavender (talk) 15:49, 28 August 2017 (UTC)

User just wrote an article about themselves :-(

Varshil Mehta Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 22:00, 7 September 2017 (UTC)



more opinions still needed--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 12:43, 9 September 2017 (UTC)

Clinical method

User comes from fr: and article exists: fr:Méthode clinique. Some previous COI and copyvio issues discussed on fr user talk page with some blocks. The article was previously tagged for speedy deletion unsuccessfully by another editor. Discovered through User:InceptionBot/NewPageSearch/Skepticism/log. Thanks, —PaleoNeonate – 23:27, 30 August 2017 (UTC)

Hello, I'm a french clinical psychologist in psychiatry and would like to propose this interwiki translation from the french wikipedia section. I hope other professionals or searchers will help.--Epeclect (talk) 06:18, 31 August 2017 (UTC)
tagged for references[26](Jytdog added PROD[27]...I agree)--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 12:03, 31 August 2017 (UTC)

Draft:Phasevarion

Regulation by the phasevarion

Dear medical experts: Here's a draft about bacteria. Perhaps someone here woould like to look at it.—Anne Delong (talk) 01:32, 9 September 2017 (UTC)

this author [28]Srikhanta appears in almost all of the sources?--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 12:48, 9 September 2017 (UTC)
Well, over half the sources -- but given the quality of the sources he appears in (Nature Reviews Microbiology, for example) I don't have any really serious concerns about the legitimacy of the article. The main issue, as I see it, is that there is a bit too much reliance on primary sources. I expect that PMID 28018352 and PMID 28859312 could substitute for a number of the citations. Looie496 (talk) 13:24, 9 September 2017 (UTC)
If it's a notable topic, is the draft in condition to be in mainspace?—Anne Delong (talk) 21:25, 9 September 2017 (UTC)
I wouldn't object. Looie496 (talk) 14:32, 10 September 2017 (UTC)
Similarly, I'm a bit concerned that M.P. Jennings appears as a (usually senior) author on 13 out of 16 papers cited in that draft. Of the three remaining papers, two don't use the term phasevarion in the body text. A quick PubMed search for phasevarion only returns 17 total papers (published over the last 12 years); 14 of those were coauthored with Jennings. (The two editors who wrote most of the draft also have usernames which strongly suggest that they are coauthors of a number of those papers, as well.)
Is the relative paucity of independent groups using this term because this is a minority choice of nomenclature for this concept, or perhaps because it's a small (but possibly important) part of a larger concept, or for some other reason? Does this content perhaps belong in another article or under another title? This kind of feels like a situation where this scientific concept (and associated nomenclature) needs to be placed in a larger context, with some additional secondary sources. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 01:43, 11 September 2017 (UTC)

OMICS again: "Medical Journals Have a Fake News Problem"

See this article. Doug Weller talk 13:11, 6 September 2017 (UTC)

interesting read--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 13:13, 6 September 2017 (UTC)
Yup. Another problem for us to keep an eye on. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 13:50, 6 September 2017 (UTC)
Thanks for sharing this.JenOttawa (talk) 12:49, 11 September 2017 (UTC)

Is Endometriosis.org a reliable medical source?

I made a question about source reliability on Reliable Sources Noticeboard#Is_Endometriosis.org_a_reliable_medical_source. Tagging it here for more input. Thanks! Dinosaurseatpancakes (talk) 12:06, 11 September 2017 (UTC)

no it is not, see Wikipedia:Identifying_reliable_sources_(medicine)--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 00:50, 12 September 2017 (UTC)

Old primary press article

There is a discussion here Talk:Cervical_cancer#1996_popular_press_piece regarding the use of old primary press peices as sources. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 13:54, 9 September 2017 (UTC)


Journal of Addiction Research & Therapy

Are there any obvious indicators that this is a sketchy journal? I'll explain why I'm asking pending feedback. Seppi333 (Insert 2¢) 07:02, 1 September 2017 (UTC)

Nevermind, I noticed that the journal is part of OMICS Publishing Group. I was asking because roughly half the text in this paper is copy/pasted from amphetamine with superficial revision (entirely without attribution), including 2 tables and 2 diagrams that I drew; they also reused an additional table from Substituted amphetamines#Legal status, but they actually included attribution for that content.
Frankly, I'd be embarrassed to have my name on that paper given the abhorrently shitty quality of some of the sources they cited (study.com / amphetamines.com) ... lol. I'm assuming the publisher knew about and ignored the blatant plagiarism from Wikipedia and the copyright violations in that article. Seppi333 (Insert 2¢) 07:52, 1 September 2017 (UTC)
Also noticed that their "Mechanism of action of amphetamine" section is copied from Adderall#Mechanism of action - that isn't cited either. Seppi333 (Insert 2¢) 08:03, 1 September 2017 (UTC)
So: how often does WP cite that journal? Alexbrn (talk) 08:26, 1 September 2017 (UTC)
Yes I know of that group. They are not good and we should be using nothing from anything associated with them. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 08:53, 1 September 2017 (UTC)
@Alexbrn: "J Addict Res Ther" is the NLM title abbreviation of the journal. So, I tried the searches special:search/Journal of addiction prefix:Wikipedia:WikiProject Academic Journals/Journals cited by Wikipedia and Special:search/J addict prefix:Wikipedia:WikiProject Academic Journals/Journals cited by Wikipedia and checked all of the /J# suffixed pages in the results for that journal; I didn't find it listed on any of those pages, which means that journal isn't included in the |journal= parameter in any {{Citation}}, {{Cite journal}}, or {{Vcite journal}} templates on Wikipedia. Seppi333 (Insert 2¢) 09:55, 1 September 2017 (UTC)
We need an article tag for Talk pages, "This article is plagiarised without credit here..." Bondegezou (talk) 11:17, 1 September 2017 (UTC)
Is Template:Backwards_copy appropriate here? Little pob (talk) 11:48, 1 September 2017 (UTC)
When it is done in violation of the CC-BY-SA license, then we use {{Backwardscopyvio}}. It displays the same text, but it makes it quicker for editors to separate known plagiarism from other uses if there is a need to do so. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:34, 1 September 2017 (UTC)
I added that template to both talk:Amphetamine and talk:Adderall earlier today. Seppi333 (Insert 2¢) 18:05, 1 September 2017 (UTC)
I tried to leave a comment on https://www.omicsonline.org/open-access/amphetamines-potent-recreational-drug-of-abuse-2155-6105-1000330.php?aid=91763:

Mostly copy-pasted from Wikipedia: https://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Amphetamine without attribution. This is a copyright violation and a breach of the terms of the CC-BY-SA licence that Wikipedia releases text under. Is this typical of the contents of this journal? If not, why didn't your peer reviewers and editors spot the plagiarism?

But the page won't accept the comment - "validation code does not match", despite refreshing the Captcha three times. This sort of ramshackle outfit that is incapable of accepting comments really needs to be on our blacklist. --RexxS (talk) 09:54, 2 September 2017 (UTC)
It just occurred to me that in the case of both diagrams from those articles (Commons:File:ΔFosB.svg and Commons:File:TAAR1 Dopamine.svg), the authors should have also cited me directly (via the Commons page for these images) per the CC-BY-SA-3.0 license that I released those under. I've previously been contacted by the author of a behavioral neuroscience textbook (via email) and an individual from a school of pharmacy (via this thread on my talk page) about reusing the 1st image and how I'd like to be credited. In total, there's a significant amount of article text from at least 2 Wikipedia articles and 2 Wikimedia Commons files that are being reused without attribution and in violation of the CC-BY-SA 3.0 license. Seppi333 (Insert 2¢) 00:11, 4 September 2017 (UTC)

Doc James (talk · contribs), for journals that are unlikely to be cited often, it's usually better to use an "insource" search like [29] to also find non-template citations. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 11:27, 1 September 2017 (UTC)

Meant to ping Seppi333 (talk · contribs). Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 11:28, 1 September 2017 (UTC)
@Headbomb: That's useful to know, thanks! Seppi333 (Insert 2¢) 00:44, 2 September 2017 (UTC)
@Seppi333: that journal is still cited 3 times... no one seems to have bothered to update those articles. Are those reference deemed genuine? Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 10:44, 6 September 2017 (UTC)
@Headbomb: Those 3 uses seemed innocuous, so I didn't bother cutting them, but if you think they should come out, I'll remove them. Seppi333 (Insert 2¢) 01:25, 7 September 2017 (UTC)
I've removed every citation to that journal as of now. Seppi333 (Insert 2¢) 01:30, 7 September 2017 (UTC)
Utterly no opinion on them, I didn't read the articles. But if they were shit sources for the claims they were supporting, it's best to purge them yes. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 01:46, 7 September 2017 (UTC)

ResearchGate is currently hosting the aforementioned paper and both diagrams (1st, 2nd) without the required attribution per CC-BY-SA-3.0. Is ResearchGate a reputable enough organization to actually follow-up on a takedown request if I go through this process (Copyright and other Intellectual Property Infringement Notification Requirements) that they've posted? Seppi333 (Insert 2¢) 05:56, 4 September 2017 (UTC)

I believe that they are. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:50, 4 September 2017 (UTC)
@WhatamIdoing: alright, I'll submit a takedown request via [30]. I've got a question for you though; since Wikipedia articles (per Wikipedia:Text of Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License) and my figures are both published under the CC-BY-SA-3.0 unported license (compare to: CC-BY-SA-3.0 US license), should the "Country of claimed rights" field in that PDF file be something like "international (CC-BY-SA-3.0 unported license)", or should a more specific region be specified? Seppi333 (Insert 2¢) 01:24, 7 September 2017 (UTC)
That sounds like it's meant to identify either your home country or the country where the material was first published (which is maybe the US for things first published on Commons?). Someone at Commons could probably tell you the ideal approach. c:Commons:Village pump/Copyright would probably be a reasonable place to ask. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:42, 7 September 2017 (UTC)

Response Seppi's from email to ResearchGate

I've sent notices of copyright infringement to contact.omics@omicsonline.org and copyright@researchgate.net with links to the early March revisions of the plagiarized Wikipedia articles (i.e., the March 4 and 5 revisions of Adderall and Amphetamine, respectively; the journal article was submitted for "peer review" on March 10) and the images on Wikimedia Commons. Hopefully something will come of it. Seppi333 (Insert 2¢) 02:46, 10 September 2017 (UTC)

I received a response from ResearchGate this morning; they've disabled access to the HTML and pdf versions of the article on their website and left only the abstract of the paper. They also removed all of the images from the article's figure preview page. Now I'm just waiting on a response from OMICS. Seppi333 (Insert 2¢) 16:08, 10 September 2017 (UTC)
That's a quick response.
I don't think that peer reviewers see their jobs as including "copyright police". But the journal editors ought to be ashamed, because checking for text-based copyright violations is so easy these days. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:28, 10 September 2017 (UTC)
Moot issue
@Anyone: What sort of timeframe should I give OMICS before sending a reminder notice or escalating further? Their "peer review" process for this article took three months; Wikipedia:Mirrors and forks#Non-compliance process suggests that I wait an excessive amount of time (1–3 weeks) between subsequent follow-up actions, whereas some external websites about online copyright infringement that I've read suggest simply waiting "at least 24 hours" before following-up on a polite notice of copyright infringement with a cease and desist letter and subsequently a DMCA takedown notice provided no response is received or action is taken. If OMICS doesn't reply to any of my subsequent responses to my initial notice, I honestly don't think I'm going to wait a full 1.5 months before ultimately submitting a DMCA takedown notice (using the Wikipedia:Standard license violation letter#DMCA takedown notice template), as suggested by the mirrors and forks page. Nevermind, I've decided to just wait 1 week between sending subsequent notices; that seems adequate. Seppi333 (Insert 2¢) 23:07, 11 September 2017 (UTC) – Edited 02:54, 12 September 2017 (UTC)

Response from Seppi's email to the Journal's editorial staff

I found two email addresses for the editorial staff of the Journal of Addiction Research & Therapy. Roughly three hours after emailing them today about the issue and requesting that they inform me how they intend to resolve the issue, they sent me the following reply:

Dear [redacted name]
We informed the mistakes in the pdf to author and he had done the corrections, once we receive the final corrected pdf we will update it online
Feel free to contact us for any further queries
With thanks,
Rezina

Seppi333 (Insert 2¢) 06:46, 12 September 2017 (UTC)

The template up is for deletion this time: See Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2017 September 10#Template:Paraphilia-related support groups. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 00:13, 12 September 2017 (UTC)


more opinions(gave mine)--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 09:11, 12 September 2017 (UTC)

Therapeutic touch, reiki & cancer

From PMID 27194823 we learn

Based on the results of this review, an affirmation can be made regarding the use of therapeutic touch as a non-invasive intervention for improving the health status in patients with cancer. It also seems that this method can be used as a safe method in the management of physical function, pain, anxiety, and nausea in cancer patients. Training TT to those interested to the field can possibly be of great help in caring for cancer patients and reducing complications of the disease.

Again, this is arguably WP:MEDRS; I say WP:REDFLAG. Alexbrn (talk) 06:25, 11 September 2017 (UTC)

I took a look at it and also feel that more sources would be necessary to "affirm" these conclusions. What is the proposed edit?JenOttawa (talk) 12:47, 11 September 2017 (UTC)
It was this. I beginning to wonder whether we would benefit from a WP:MEDFRINGE saying that while WP:MEDRS guidance is useful for sources within mainstream medicine, for areas of WP:FRINGE medicine where claims would overturn well-established precepts of basic science it does not mean sources can be used in contravention of WP:PSCI and WP:REDFLAG. (Even legitimate EBM is sometimes worthless because it does not always pre-qualify the thing-being-studied to see whether it's simply impossible: witness any number of homeopathy studies). Alexbrn (talk) 12:59, 11 September 2017 (UTC)
It would be useful to have some statement that allowed editors to use common sense concerning violation of physical laws or other aspects of mainstream science. We ought to be able to reject out-of-hand a source that makes claims based on nonsense such as

"Special theories underlying TT include Dora Kunz’s model of human energy fields, electromagnetism and quantum physics, interpersonal psychology, Martha Roger’s theory of human unity, (relying on quantum and whole system theory, and Eastern science and philosophy)"

(from pmid:27194823). Even if that's asking too much, we ought to be able to treat a so-called "literature review" as garbage when it uses clear bias in its selection criteria - see the full text at PMC where we read

"The number of 334 articles was found on the basis of the key words, of which 17 articles related to the clinical trial were examined in accordance with the objectives of the study. A total of 6 articles were in the final dataset ... Moreover, any trials with TT as part of their complex intervention, aimed at the development of methodologies for TT procedures without having any clinical outcomes, and those in which no data or statistical comparisons were reported, and healthy participants were also assessed, were excluded from the study."

In other words, any of the 334 articles studied that didn't have positive outcomes were excluded! It's hardly surprising that if you remove over 300 studies that didn't show any effect, you might end up with 6 that apparently showed some effect. But to then base conclusions solely on those 6 is tantamount to academic fraud, IMHO. Should we be flagging "Med Arch" (Medical Archives, Journal of the Academy of Medical Sciences in Bosnia and Herzegovina) as a problematical publication, because I don't see much evidence of peer review or editorial oversight in that article. --RexxS (talk) 14:35, 11 September 2017 (UTC)
We can and do use common sense to rule out such sources, but it seems to me to be happening increasingly (with the rise of "fake news" journal articles) and requiring the same Talk page argument pattern over and over. And then WP:MEDRS is quoted back at us thus: this is a MEDLINE-indexed journal and we shouldn't be engaging in peer review (like assessing their selection criteria) should we? but be treating the conclusions of review articles as sacrosanct. Alexbrn (talk) 14:43, 11 September 2017 (UTC)
That's the point I wanted to make, Alex, and I'm sorry if I wasn't clear. We have agreed rules that stop sources that don't meet certain standards being used to promote fringe nonsense, but those aren't guaranteed to cover all of the garbage. And we can't do amateur analysis of sources because that would open up the good sources to similar review by the POV-pushers. The problem is that we really need an asymmetrical set of "rules" that favour mainstream science and medicine and create a much higher bar for obvious fringe. One might have thought that REDFLAG and FRINGE would be enough, but nobody working to keep our medical articles honest believes that they are enough alone. Something more is definitely needed. --RexxS (talk) 14:58, 11 September 2017 (UTC)
I think this is an interesting example in how EBM can get it wrong and how minor journals may be less reliable! This is a better review and I would suggest using it in the article. The biggest flaw in the article for me is that it is entirely plausible that "therapeutic touch" makes people feel better without the biofield stuff being true. Something like reiki can be quite pleasant. That's different from saying reiki works as reiki is meant to work. Bondegezou (talk) 15:08, 11 September 2017 (UTC)
Of course, Bondegezou and thank you for that review. It's clear that placebo often has a powerful effect; and we know that simply paying attention and being sympathetic to someone often makes them feel better. I'm pretty sure acupuncture relies on that, for example. But without double-blind trials where some participants get "theraputic touch" from a real person and others get the same "touch" from an inanimate object realistically masquerading as a human hand, we've no way of disproving the notion that the touch actually has an effect through some kind of magical "energy field" that people are supposed to have. The problem, as ever, is that nobody is going to take the time and effort to set up these kind of experiments, because no sane person is going to think them necessary, and the "true-believers" won't want to run the risk of having their beliefs shattered. How do we hope to fix that? --RexxS (talk) 16:18, 11 September 2017 (UTC)
This makes me wonder: would there be a way, or is there an existing initiative, to pressure medline into being more rigorous about what it indexes in the future? Have some already addressed a possible corruption issue (if any)? If this sounds irrelevant, I'm sorry, my field is computer science, not medicine or legal. It seems to me that if being medline indexed is a factor in determining MEDRS and this starts to fail, the credibility of medline may be affected, or we need an alternative assessment method... —PaleoNeonate – 16:35, 11 September 2017 (UTC)
I don't think there's any point trying to get Medline to change. It's trying to be comprehensive: it's not trying to be a gatekeeper of quality at the article level. Bondegezou (talk) 17:46, 11 September 2017 (UTC)
Thanks for the explanation, —PaleoNeonate – 22:13, 11 September 2017 (UTC)
  • fwiw, i looked for an impact factor and they don't list one, so i looked at ThomsonReuters journal information thing, and Medical archives (Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina) is not listed there. So I think we can rule out PMID 27194823 as being in a low quality journal without doing summersaults. Jytdog (talk) 17:24, 11 September 2017 (UTC)
    • Thanks, Jytdog, that solves the immediate problem of "therapeutic touch". I still think it's symptomatic of a more fundamental problem in the way we grant the crap sources respect as if they might somehow be equivalent to top-quality ones - it seems the burden of proof is always on the wiki-defenders to demonstrate the weakness of obviously duff sources. Cheers --RexxS (talk) 19:41, 11 September 2017 (UTC)
Yep. Would be interesting if there was some semi-automated tool that could provide us with some kind of quality rating for a given article and the journal and its in. Enter a PMID and it would output whether the publisher or journal was on beall's list or that new one, what its IF is, who indexes it... for the article, what kind of article the journal classified it as, the pubmed classificaiton, and the number of citations or something... Without that it is always going to take humans to judge source quality. But POV pushers are going to grab whatever ref they like and try to drive it and content based on it in... and that includes REFSPAMMERS... Jytdog (talk) 23:36, 11 September 2017 (UTC)
I think that Bondegezou is on the right track. We need to acknowledge that people feel better when they encounter pleasant, harmless things like therapeutic touch. (With cancer patients in particular, their families may be afraid to touch them (for fear of spreading germs), so this maybe doubly important.) We don't have to say "Therapeutic touch is scientifically proven to treat pain and anxiety" to do that. It would not be UNDUE to say something like "Pleasant experiences, such as a gentle massage, can make people feel better." WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:47, 12 September 2017 (UTC)
Therapeutic touch and Reiki do not necessarily use actual touch and are nothing like massage - it's more like using the Force from Star Wars. Alexbrn (talk) 03:39, 12 September 2017 (UTC)
Sure, but it sounds like they fall into the general category of "pleasant experiences", of which gentle massage is mentioned in my sentence only as an example. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:23, 12 September 2017 (UTC)
Probably not that pleasant having your wallet emptied for something that doesn't do what it says - not pleasant for the victim anyway; the quack can smile all the way to the bank! Alexbrn (talk) 17:29, 12 September 2017 (UTC)

Genital modification and mutilation article

More eyes are needed at Genital modification and mutilation (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views). By this, I definitely mean the talk page in addition to the article editing. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 20:20, 12 September 2017 (UTC)

Pathological demand avoidance

More eyes would be useful. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 15:58, 12 September 2017 (UTC)

will watch--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 21:29, 12 September 2017 (UTC)

Duan Shumin

New neuroscientist BLP (with Chinese sources). —PaleoNeonate – 22:32, 11 September 2017 (UTC)

[31]additional ref--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 21:52, 12 September 2017 (UTC)

Pankaj Naram

A new Ayurveda BLP, an interesting part captured my attention (with source):

An independent scientific study was released soon after, assessing the effectiveness of the treatments used.[1]

Abstract quote:

All 50 respondents reported high incidence of alleviation of previously intractable symptoms, chiefly respiratory symptoms, fatigue, and depression.

References

  1. ^ J. J. Dahl, K. Falk: Ayurvedic herbal supplements as an antidote to 9/11 toxicity. In: Alternative therapies in health and medicine. 2008 Jan-Feb;14(1), p. 24–28, PMID 18251318.

—PaleoNeonate – 22:21, 11 September 2017 (UTC)

[32] doesn't say review...--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 09:13, 12 September 2017 (UTC)
Found a decent source from the BBC and the Guardian. Trimmed the poor quality sources. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 16:49, 12 September 2017 (UTC)
What a drastic transformation... —PaleoNeonate – 21:00, 12 September 2017 (UTC)
Yes, I think the BBC and Guardian content makes them barely notable. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 15:47, 13 September 2017 (UTC)

Effort to address impersonation which will also help with monitoring paid editing

RfC here Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 15:26, 13 September 2017 (UTC)


Iclaprim

Iclaprim

Have an editor who appears to be an expert with an WP:APPARENTCOI doing the worst things one expects - edit warring, removing negative content based on their own authority, etc etc. Finally got the page protected but eyes will be useful. Thanks. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jytdog (talk • contribs) 11:54, 13 September 2017 (UTC)


that editor seems to be [33]--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 09:30, 14 September 2017 (UTC)
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