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Feingold diet and using Quackwatch as a source

has turned into a bloated monster... oy. Jytdog (talk) 07:03, 7 December 2014 (UTC)

I've lanced the bloat, wondering if there's a source which places this diet is a historical context but don't have library access today. 12:38, 7 December 2014 (UTC)
thanks!! Jytdog (talk) 20:44, 7 December 2014 (UTC)
I'm not happy with the use of Quackwatch as a source for medically oriented articles. See my comment here MLPainless (talk) 13:11, 8 December 2014 (UTC)
Can you suggest an alternative? Alexbrn talk|contribs|COI 13:16, 8 December 2014 (UTC)
Just follow MEDRS. Quackwatch does not make the grade. MLPainless (talk) 13:17, 8 December 2014 (UTC)
We use Quackwatch and Science Based Medicine all the time to deal with non-mainstream topics, where the regular scientific literature generally doesn't go into depth. Jytdog (talk) 13:20, 8 December 2014 (UTC)
Who is "we"? You mean you? It is extremely unwise to use Barrett's blog as a source of scientific comment. This should be prohibited, and the prohibition added explicitly to MEDRS. Doc James? MLPainless (talk) 13:24, 8 December 2014 (UTC)
Quackwatch has been repeatedly found so be okay for fringey health topics at WP:RS/N. So far as I can tell the "mainstream" lost interest in this diet in the 1980s, and it has enjoyed a kind of populist zombie existence since then (mixing in things like flouridation conspiracies) as subsequently covered in Quackwatch. We're not sourcing anything at all weighty to QW. Would be happy if other mainstream sources existed (which is why I was asking about something for historical context above). But do they? Alexbrn talk|contribs|COI 13:26, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

I think the example Igave above (CFS) shows why we cannot use QW as a source. Really, need I say more? MLPainless (talk) 13:31, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

The community consensus tends to be otherwise:
Alexbrn talk|contribs|COI 13:35, 8 December 2014 (UTC)
Consensus changes. I'm relating data that shows it's an unreliable source. CFS was already acknowledged in the literature while Barrett continued with the "debunking" of CFS on his blog. We had a long argument about it. So now I'm giving you this new information. And as Keynes said "When my information changes, I alter my conclusions. What do you do, sir?" MLPainless (talk) 13:48, 8 December 2014 (UTC)
I don't know about the worth of QW's take on CFS, but even assuming you're right, the logic that any publication that was ever imperfect becomes unreliable in toto would see us throwing out an awful lot of prestigious journals! The use of QW for the Feingold diet is fine, but if there are better sources then bring them forth! Alexbrn talk|contribs|COI 14:02, 8 December 2014 (UTC)
Quackwatch has been used extensively as a reliable source here, and should continue to be used as such. -Roxy the dog™ (resonate) 14:09, 8 December 2014 (UTC)
Quackwatch is a non-peer reviewed, self-published blog that has no impact factor and is not indexed in any scientific databases. It is, by all measures, a pseudoscientific source. -A1candidate (talk) 14:21, 8 December 2014 (UTC)
Which is an indication it's not reliable for MEDRS level content, but isn't as much of an issue when describing fringe topics for reasons described above because it has a relatively good reputation in that specific area. Not all content will be based on journal articles (although the bulk of it will be in this field). Kingofaces43 (talk) 15:08, 8 December 2014 (UTC)
A pseudoscientific source is unreliable for all encyclopedic content. -A1candidate (talk) 15:38, 8 December 2014 (UTC)
you are going to have to fight that out with Arbcom, A1. This isn't the place, unfortunately. Jytdog (talk) 15:39, 8 December 2014 (UTC)
We're not here to fight but to reach for consensus. -A1candidate (talk) 17:49, 8 December 2014 (UTC)
Quackwatch is a fine self published source for alt med topics, when appropriately in-text attributed. It's reputation for fact checking (the requirement for passing WP:V) is borne out by the fact that multiple high quality sources themselves use it as a source or praise it. The position that Quackwatch itself is pseudoscientific is nonsensical. Yobol (talk) 16:46, 8 December 2014 (UTC)
It is non-peer reviewed, has no impact factor and is not indexed by any scientific databases. -A1candidate (talk) 17:49, 8 December 2014 (UTC)
Many other sources we consider reliable for Wikipedia (even in med articles depending on the specific content) fall within that category too in general. The qualities you are referring to are metrics for journal articles. We're not talking about a journal article here and we don't limit ourselves strictly to journal articles for all content. Kingofaces43 (talk) 17:57, 8 December 2014 (UTC)
So can we agree that Quackwatch is not a scientific journal? It is a blog; a self-published website. -A1candidate (talk) 18:03, 8 December 2014 (UTC)
Which is fine for the specific use here as has been mentioned on this page and in the multiple RSN, etc. links. It seems your concerns have been addressed there already. Kingofaces43 (talk) 18:07, 8 December 2014 (UTC)
QW as a pseudoscientific source was not addressed. -A1candidate (talk) 18:08, 8 December 2014 (UTC)
One link above even had using it for such topics (quackery, pseudoscience, etc.) in its title [1] . . . The general consensus in all those has been that QW can be reliable for describing fringe content. I'm really not seeing where the legitimate opposition is at this point. Kingofaces43 (talk) 18:16, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

A1, you have to know when to walk away. Nobody here is going to be interested in overturning arbcom (and for that, I am not even sure we can - please see WP:CONEXCEPT) nor interested in rejecting QW or SBM for the things where it is so useful. You are getting no traction; please drop the stick. I won't be responding further. Jytdog (talk) 18:20, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

Based on the link Kingofaces43 provided, many editors said it should be only be used on a "case by case basis". -A1candidate (talk) 18:25, 8 December 2014 (UTC)
I'd like to see us using QuackWatch a lot less. It may be useful in a few cases, but it tends to be used "because I like it" rather than "because there are no other good sources".
I have seen a few editors over the years who cite QuackWatch as their first choice, even when much better (e.g., peer-reviewed review articles) are available. If you're here to make sure the world knows that you're opposed to ineffective quackery, then citing QuackWatch is a way of showing your credentials. If you're here to write an encyclopedia, then you'll look for other sources. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:02, 8 December 2014 (UTC)
The main problem I have with QW isn't its reliability or lack thereof, it's the name, particularly in the article text, particularly in the lead. No matter how on-point the content might be, the name immediately casts a pejorative light on the subject which makes NPOV harder to maintain. Basie (talk) 20:49, 8 December 2014 (UTC)
MEDRS is unevenly applied on Wikipedia and often comes back to, I like it here and everyone uses it rather than what are the best sources we can find in health related articles. I agree also that the source title Quackwatch colours an article's tone immediately.(Littleolive oil (talk) 21:02, 8 December 2014 (UTC))
I agree. (I think that implicit pejorative tone is actually why some editors like using that source.) In the instant case, I'm not sure why anyone cited it. It supports statements like "the diet omits these chemicals", which just about any source on the subject will support. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:05, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

Nothing said here changes the arbcom ruling, or the usefulness of Quackwatch and SBM for calling pseudoscience, pseudoscience. They are both useful sources. Yes they need to be used with care. But they have their place in the MEDRS world. Jytdog (talk) 21:05, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

See WP:IGNORE. This is a good situation to invoke that. -A1candidate (talk) 21:16, 8 December 2014 (UTC)
Jytdog, I looked over the Arbcom ruling, and if you interpret it as an endorsement of Quackwatch, then it is a remarkably tepid one. The end result is mostly "Oops, we didn't mean to issue a ruling on content", not "Quackwatch is a reliable source!". WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:05, 8 December 2014 (UTC)
It is a source to be used with care (i.e. in-text attributed for the most part, used sparingly, etc). When better sources are available (i.e. journal articles) I agree that we should replace when appropriate. However, QW is a notable (in the general sense) alt med source, which has been widely cited and praised as a useful resource. For some alt med articles, it can be so fringe that QW may be one of the only available source to place it in context to the medical use outside in-universe alt med sources (which is specifically how WP:PARITY is to be used). In the end, since it is widely praised and used by other reliable sources, we should not have a blanket claim that it can't be used. Yobol (talk) 14:59, 9 December 2014 (UTC)
thank you Yobol, I have been trying to remember that WP:PARITY link. thanks. Jytdog (talk) 15:06, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

We have MEDRS-sources so there's no need to use QW. -A1candidate (talk) 18:06, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

  • Quackwatch is a pseudohistorical revisionist nonsense, that often use fake citations. It has inspired a number of irrelevant crackpot theorists(at least 2 other websites) who would copy the same fake citation for backing their opinion without ever looking into the source. Bladesmulti (talk) 01:54, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

Quackwatch is essentially one person, Stephen Barrett, now 81 years old. What do we know about him? I did a little research and found a page at www.quackpotwatch.org/quackpots/quackpots/barrett.htm that has some interesting data on him (I cannot post the link here because WP bans links to the site, probably because it is not a RS itself). I think everyone here supporting the use of Quackwatch as a source needs to be aware who Barrett really is. If any of the info on that page is true, QW should be immediately removed from the project as a source. MLPainless (talk) 03:13, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

It has a form of peer-review. QuackGuru (talk) 03:16, 13 December 2014 (UTC)
From the not-linked site above: "And worse, the "double-blind study" is considered to be heinous, and was banned by world government during the Helsinki Accord in 1964."
Happy to agree quackpotwatch is not a RS itself. Adrian J. Hunter(talk•contribs) 03:28, 13 December 2014 (UTC)
MEDRS is a guideline not a policy and we are supposed to use common sense in interpreting it. Some editors, I think, interpret its scope too broadly. Do we say we cannot write about famines because starvation is a medical issue? If a theory is notable but ignored by the medical experts then we need other sources such as news reports or social science papers. For example, when writing about anti-fluoridation activists, we need to use these types of sources, because medical experts do not write about activists, they merely write about the medical effects of fluoridation and other rs rely on their medical opinion. TFD (talk) 03:49, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

It would appear Barrett is currently on the receiving end of a lawsuit by "Doctor's Data" that seems to be moving successfully against him, with punitive damages of $20M ... more at www.bolenreport.com MLPainless (talk) 04:02, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

That is relevant how? You do realize anyone with enough money can file a lawsuit, irrespective of the merits of the case? a13ean (talk) 04:29, 13 December 2014 (UTC)
Which is also why we don't typically include lawsuits in Wikipedia content until there is a result to use as weight. Kingofaces43 (talk) 04:37, 13 December 2014 (UTC)
And courts decide all kinds of strange things (especially, it seems, in the US). It's hardly going to change the mainstream view that the healthcare offerings of Doctor's Data are ... suspect. Alexbrn talk|contribs|COI 04:39, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

Yah, last year Doctor's Data was still advertising provoked heavy metal testing, and their website said: Analysis of the levels of toxic metals in urine after the administration of a metal detoxification agent is an objective way to evaluate the accumulation of toxic metals. One cannot draw valid conclusions about adverse health effects of metals without assessing net retention. […] To evaluate net retention, one compares the levels of metals in urine before and after the administration of a pharmaceutical metal detoxification agent such as EDTA, DMSA or DMPS. The last three are chelation agents, and this whole statement needs a great big {citation needed}. The scientific community agrees that serum and urine heavy metals can be used to diagnose heavy metal poisoning, but NOBODY in the mainstreams believes that standards exist for "provoked testing" where you give a chelator and THEN test levels in the urine. But Doctor's Data was doing that, and forgetting to tell their clients that their test result levels of "high" could only be read for the non-provoked state, and that all bets were off if you'd been given a chelator (after which everybody excretes more). The tests results were then invalid, and in my opinion and Barrett's could be expected to lead to false diagnosis of heavy metal poisoning. Barrett in 2010 caught Doctor's Data doing this, and wrote about it. Doctor's Data threatened to sue him unless he retracted. He said "What am I supposed to retract? You know full well your tests are not valid under chelator provokation-- nobody's are." So they sued him. The case has dragged on through deep comprehensive discovery, which is designed to bankrupt. I think somebody is hoping the judge isn't sophisticated enough to understand the difference between provoked and unprovoked mercury urine levels, even with Barrett's lawyers trying to explain it. Doctor's Data even had some "hired gun" chemists testify that urine mercury testing is scientific, without explaining the fine details of when it is scientific (unprovoked), and when it isn't scientific (when done like Doctor's Data recommended). And that's what's happening.

Oh, and Tim Bolen has been following the whole thing as though it was a college rape allegation, and he was Rolling Stone. Meanwhile, Doctor's Data has taken down the wording above, and you can't find it on their website in 2014. But they did that quietly, without admitting anything. Now they say: [2] Additionally, the comparison of urine element concentrations before and after administration of a chelator can be used to estimate net retention of potentially toxic elements. Subsequent urine element analyses, also following the administration of a chelator, are useful for monitoring the efficacy of metal detoxification therapy. That's language not as strong, but it still requires a big {citation needed} because in the opinion of myself and the mainstream literature, there is no science behind it. SBHarris 06:13, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

Barrett and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome

I detailed above how I had an email argument with Barrett, the 81-yr old behind QuackWatch, in the 1990s about Chronic fatigue syndrome. In those days, his site stated openly that CFS was nothing more than a scam. That's how he put it. That's despite the fact that there was already a lot of published science on CFS at that time. Modern medicine has proved beyond doubt that CFS is real, as screeds of research shows.

I went back today to see if Barrett has updated his views. It seems he has stepped back from his idiocy, but not far. He is still referring to CFS as a "fad" diagnosis. [3]. He states now that in order to be diagnosed with CFS, the following needs to pertain: "fatigue persists or recurs for at least six months and is severe enough to reduce the patient's activity level by more than half. In addition, the fatigue should be accompanied by several other symptoms, such as severe headaches, low-grade fever, joint or muscle pain, general muscle weakness, sleep disturbance, and various psychological symptoms."

Unfortunately, he is incorrect again. The CDC has a definitive list of diagnostic criteria here that does not quite agree with Barrett's. Barrett's (pejorative methinks) reference to "various psychological symptoms" is a hangover from his days of outright denial, when he told me the whole thing was a scam and probably just a psychological problem with the patient.

So not much has changed. A dinosaur remains a dinosaur! MLPainless (talk) 21:28, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

Is the continual reference to his age supposed to be an ageist insult? I recommend not doing that.
If you read the CDC list of CFS symptoms, you'll find these three items:
  • post-exertion malaise lasting more than 24 hours
  • unrefreshing sleep
  • significant impairment of short-term memory or concentration
These are "psychological symptoms", as generally understood by the medical profession. It's important to remember that "psychological" doesn't mean "fake" or "all in your head". It's not an insult or disparaging classification. It's more like "things we can't measure biologically, and rely on the patient to report".
Barret is also correct that CFS diagnoses run in fads. It's a trashcan diagnosis, which means (in practice) that if it's on your mind, perhaps due to television shows, then you'll make more of these diagnoses, basically to 'get rid of' (thus the name "trashcan") patients who have real problems with non-specific symptoms that you don't know how to help. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:18, 15 December 2014 (UTC)
I disagree. Fatigue (IOW post-exertional malaise, unrefreshing sleep) is not a "psychological" symptom per se. Yes, it's patient reported and untestable, but it is not in the sphere of psychology. (I have qualifications in psychology, btw). Nor is memory impairment. Psychological symptoms would be things like depression, anxiety etc. Fatigue is mentioned in many medical diagnoses (e.g. cancer), and is not regarded as psychological. Barrett is coming from the old school of thought that argued that CFS was a form of neurasthenia to be classified as a psychiatric condition. Some doctors of Barrett's vintage even regarded CFS as a form of mass hysteria. These were the kind of views he expressed to me in our correspondence. I have no evidence that he has substantially changed this view.
My reference to his age is to highlight that WP is essentially using the blog of a superannuated, opinionated individual as a RS, and that that is something that should change.MLPainless (talk) 22:38, 15 December 2014 (UTC)
No, your reference to his age, like the above statement, is a blatant, ad hominem attack on his credibility, not to mention gross ageism. Fortunately, we need not rely on your pseudonymous assessment as there are ample numbers of published experts who regard the site as credible, as discussed at length in our article here. LeadSongDog come howl! 22:56, 15 December 2014 (UTC)
(edit conflict) Yes, psychology people consider some of these to be "physical" symptoms, but "medical" people call them psychological, (with the net result that the patient gets shuffled from to the other because "your other provider should be following that"). However, even psychology people admit that poor sleep due to anxiety (for example) is a psychological condition. If you have training in psychology, have you not heard of people falling asleep during therapy sessions as a means of avoiding stressful subjects? How about suddenly seeming to have no recollection of incidents or what they were talking about? Even I've heard of that, and I've never even taken the most basic psychology class. For far too many people, the medical treatment of cancer fatigue is "Do you have anemia? Okay, then it's not related to your cancer treatment. Maybe it's because you're depressed and/or anxious."
Who cares if he's "superannuated"? "One noisy guy's blog" is a concern. "An old guy" is not. In most fields, having decades of experience is highly desirable. In fact, the general belief is that, if you have anything other than a run-of-the-mill medical problem, you want either a very old doctor or a very new one. The old ones have seen everything before, and the new ones were just trained on it. Middle-aged people (like you and me) are the least effective. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:04, 15 December 2014 (UTC)
Please stop with the ageism taunts. It's been known for a long time that older doctors are inferior to younger doctors, for example Older doctors are six times more likely to ‘pose a risk to patients’. Most enforcement actions taken against doctors are against older doctors. [4] Personally, I won't see a physician over 55 (I have had unpleasant experiences with older doctors that have forced me to adopt that policy). Barrett's age is relevant inasmuch as his views reflect the older generation. I've shown that. Moreover why would WP want to use a site owned and run by such a person as a RS? I mean, I have proved him wrong on at least one issue (CFS), an issue where he only changed his views (if indeed he did change them, which is doubtful) belatedly, half-heartedly, and when forced. Do we really need a source like this? If fringe medicine topics cannot be debunked from published literature, do we really need to turn to a noisy (and sometimes wrong-headed) critic like Barrett to give us ammunition? It sullies the project! MLPainless (talk) 23:48, 15 December 2014 (UTC)
Personally I don't trust anyone over thirty. Including myself. Basie (talk) 00:11, 16 December 2014 (UTC)
Not seeing the ad hominem attacks of a single WP editor outweighing the published reliable sources that consider Quackwatch reputable (American Cancer Society), reliable (JAMA) and of importance and quality (numerous others). Propose better sources for the diet article, provide sources that carry the kind of weight as those in the WP article on Quackwatch or stop wasting the time of others with innapropriate personal unsourced attacks based on prejudice and original (unpublished) research. - - MrBill3 (talk) 08:54, 16 December 2014 (UTC)
So I see it's probably futile pointing out the absurdity of using QW as a RS when WP's alpha males and BSDs come at me and cite the echo chamber of approval that surrounds QW as reason enough to keep using it. A lot of what the QW site lampoons is coincidentally also the target of big pharma, so one is left wondering at who is funding the site(s), especially since we know there have been many costly lawsuits. We also know that the insurance industry cites Barrett's highly opinionated Quackbuster attacks to deny paying claims for many non-traditional remedies and services, so he provides value to some, it seems. Apparently Barrett conceded, in one court case, his ties to the AMA, Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and Food & Drug Administration (FDA). So this is not a pristine source of unbiased scientific information! This is someone who is being funded, and who is providing value to his financial backers! Another tidbit: at trial, Barrett conceded that he was not a Medical Board Certified psychiatrist because he had failed the certification exam. [5] Now I do not support chiropractic in any way, but it looks like the chiropractic people exposed Barrett somewhat in that case. Anyway, I'm not going to take on the regulars here any further on this issue. You mostly seem to have decided, for whatever ill-advised reason, to support the QW site. It's a bad decision, as I'm sure time will tell.... MLPainless (talk) 13:11, 16 December 2014 (UTC)
It's probably also futile to point out that your most recent comment is offensively sexist, but I'm going to do it anyway. Speaking as one of several women who frequent this board, your references to "alpha males and beta sub-dominants" is offensive. Please stop posting discriminatory insults. If you truly can't figure out how to post without insulting people about their gender or age (or any other character not under their control), then please don't post at all. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:23, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

MLPainless, you are obviously not here to build an encyclopedia. You are here to advocate fringe POV, attack "big pharma" and the "pharmaceutical industry", attack Quackwatch and Barrett, and defend alternative medicine which has little or no evidence of effect. Our experience here at Wikipedia invariably shows that those who come here and attack Quackwatch and Barrett are so misguided that they just create problems of this type. They get their information from extremely fringe and libelous sources. You are getting yours from TB, who is indefinitely banned here, and from his websites, which are all blacklisted. They aren't just extremely unreliable, they are poison, somewhat like trying to get truth from Hannity or Limbaugh. Reading that content will poison your mind. It's fabrications and libelous smears, all written to defend TB's paymasters, who are usually convicted of crimes. His most notable one was the notorious cancer quack Hulda Clark. Since that's where you get your information, there is little hope that you will be able to contribute much of worth, and it will always be viewed with suspicion, your every action will be watched, and your editing will be a path of disruption. Please find somewhere else to spew your nonsense. Write a blog. If you don't radically change, stop attacking QW and Barrett with BLP violating lies from TB, and pushing nonsense, you'll likely get banned soon. -- Brangifer (talk) 16:28, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

Nobody has contested that Barrett failed his board certification exam (as taken from a trial transcript, not a loony fringe source), so where are the "BLP violating lies"? I'd love to know. Nobody has shown that I am here with a fringe medicine agenda (I am not, FWIW). Nobody has materially contested my actual experience with Barrett, which as a CFS patient, extremely frustrating and unpleasant (to be called, in effect, a malingerer when you are bed-ridden with CFS is an experience I do not recommend). But I am wasting my time here, clearly. The personal attacks on me rather than my arguments are beyond the pale. Out. MLPainless (talk) 21:25, 16 December 2014 (UTC)
  • Maybe it'd be best if someone not involved in this conversation close it? It doesn't seem like anything is really beyond ranting and some soapboxing on how an editor doesn't like a particular site with no indication that general consensus on the source will change. It's getting a bit out of hand now and it seems like now is as good as any time to drop the stick. Kingofaces43 (talk) 20:08, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

A peer-reviewed paper citing Wikipedia

The paper is here. Is it a problem that they start off with "According to Wikipedia"? Everymorning talk 14:40, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

It's strange because I don't see immediate red flags except maybe a lower impact factor for a medical journal (not sure if 1-2 is considered normal or low). The abstract looks pretty sloppy though in general, but it looks like these authors have published a bit too. Very strange that wasn't caught in peer-review. Kingofaces43 (talk) 16:50, 13 December 2014 (UTC)
"According to Wikipedia" is now a common rhetorical trope often used at the start of a piece to grab attention by legislators, jornalists and academics. There is a degree of dramatic tension as you don't know if the statement following will be incorrect or, as here (I presume), boringly correct. It does look odd beginning the abstract of a medical paper, I agree. Johnbod (talk) 00:29, 14 December 2014 (UTC)
Yeah, it's one thing to have it in an opinion piece which aims to intrigue and ask questions, but to start a paper presenting results seems odd. Nonetheless I don't see it mattering too much either way, it isn't really giving us any added legitimacy.-- CFCF 🍌 (email) 13:56, 14 December 2014 (UTC)
In this case, it looks like all the article does is give some IP his/her 15 minutes of internet fame (meaning, maybe someone should check that.) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:03, 14 December 2014 (UTC)
Should use a proper ref and acknowledge Wikipedia but not use it as a source. But that is just me. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 02:29, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

STI versus STD

A discussion regarding what the article should be called is here [6] Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 03:50, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

Free 'RSC Gold' accounts

I am pleased to announce, as Wikimedian in Residence at the Royal Society of Chemistry, the donation of 100 "RSC Gold" accounts, for use by Wikipedia editors wishing to use RSC journal content to expand articles on chemistry-related topics (including, of course, drugs). Please visit Wikipedia:RSC Gold for details, to check your eligibility, and to request an account. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:58, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

Parent Management Training

Parent Management Training (PMT) is a student-edited article that is in pretty good shape, but I could use some help if anyone has time.

Recent reviews suggest that PMT is effective in some populations (the underserved poopulations haven't yet made it into the article, so I'm concerned there's a bit of positive bias, not sure since I don't have full journal access, though), but PMT can be costly, and someone needs to access the recent reviews to flush out the missing issues of for whom it has been shown effective for what, and what are the cost and other negative considerations/implications. Besides lack of journal access, I have the flu and mush-brain.

I'm concerned about mention of four specific "brands" of PMT, because the sourcing wasn't strong, but an IP has just posted an interesting website from (I think?) the State of CA that gives support to the specific brands of PMT. PMT is a difficult and costly decision that parents of neurologically different children must make: this article is already decent, and it would be grand to make it better.

Could others have a look in at Talk:Parent management training#Update, specifically, this website as support for the statement (now poorly sourced):

Much obliged, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:51, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

Well, that website was a dud, using only primary sources with no reviews. I did find some reviews for the specific programs and added them, but could still use help expanding the article. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:48, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

Never mind :) I've gotten my hands on five recent reviews, and I think I can handle this one! SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:35, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

Student editing again (term-end)

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, it is term-end, when poor student edits show up in time for grading. Can we get a list of articles hit, so we can later clean up? I am aware of so far: SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:25, 4 December 2014 (UTC)

  1. Autism (FA, reverted as of now)
     Done SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:51, 9 December 2014 (UTC)
  2. Hearing loss (a complete mess, but some of the mess pre-dates students)
     Not done SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:51, 9 December 2014 (UTC)
  3. Posttraumatic stress disorder (have not had time to look)
     Not done, primary sources, WP:UNDUE text, WP:MEDMOS should be checked. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:54, 9 December 2014 (UTC)
  4. Quercetin (reverted earlier today and WP:3RR warning issued, with a user Talk page explanation) -- I am new watching the Wikiproject Medicine board and am unfamiliar with the practice you are referring to Sandy of (high school?) students being encouraged by teachers or thinking alone that entering content with weak English syntax and no observance of WP:MOS or WP:MEDMOS is a way to pass a school test. This is requiring significant effort and time to get a message through; is a screening/reverting tool available? Brief explanation of what you know please? Thanks. --Zefr (talk) 15:37, 4 December 2014 (UTC)
     Done SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:51, 9 December 2014 (UTC)
Some background. User:Jbmurray brought his class to Wikipedia years ago. And with the help of lots of long term Wikipedians produced some great results. The WMF put together a formal effort to encourage school to engage with Wikipedia. While Prof Murray is an expert Wikipedian and highly involved many of the subsequent teachers were not. A number of issues have occurred.
We at Wiki Project Med Foundation are officially working with UCSF College of Medicine. This is an intensive effort which involve myself and Jack among others giving a couple of days of lectures on how to edit Wikipedia in person. The students are also 4th year medical students. Results are promising but not scalable.
We have a fair number of other classes running projects without as much involvement from the core medical editor community. The prof with this class has however been open to feedback. Class ends Dec 23rd 2014.[7] Was also discussed above.
The student you bring up is not with that class. They are from Boston College per the urls they use to the inside net of their school. We need staff to help use with these students. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 16:48, 4 December 2014 (UTC)
Yep, except: " While Prof Murray is an expert Wikipedian and highly involved many MOST of the subsequent teachers were not." JBMurray's project took an enormous amount of community resources, and was successful because of his experience as a Wikipedian and the number of other long-time experienced editors who helped him produce several FAs. But it was an experiment that did not scale, yet was brought forward and publicized to such an extent that we now have hundreds of ill-prepared students adding content to medical articles alone. The students do not know how to communicate on Wiki, and never return to edit after their term ends (so attempts to bring them up to speed on Wikipedia policy and guideline are a waste of time). The profs LOVE IT, because they get free teacher's assistants (us). We get to check the edits for plagiarism, copyvio, sourcing, poor writing, the works. Profs rarely even weigh in.

Medical articles are particularly hard hit because of our stricter sourcing requirements, and because there were initiatives to get psych articles edited by students.

The WMF seems to have put out publicity that furthers this program (and other related Gender Gap bologna), but to my knowledge has been tongue-tied when it comes to press releases and internal recognition about the problems caused, particularly in the medical and psych realms. In fact, misinformation has several times come from the WMF. See WP:ENB. The Education Program has ruined editing for many long-time editors, myself included. I can no longer keep up with the bad edits, so I tune in at term-end to see what damage has been done, and hope I can correct a small bit of it.

There is a new trend in Wikipedia editing, where volunteer editor effort is deprecated, while WMF staff or WMF-sponsored programs rule. That is, paid editing dominates, and the rest of the on-the-ground nimwits get to clean up the messes. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:06, 4 December 2014 (UTC)

Definitely appreciate your help following up on these students edits. Yes it is not scalable and this needs to be address. We basically need staff to take this one.
Basically we need copyeditors like those found at all reputable publishers. The question is who will pay? Will the school provide some funding? IMO they should. People pay for open access publishing, why not Wikipedia publishing? Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 18:17, 4 December 2014 (UTC)
  • Hello. Some of this is part of that women and health class, and some seems to be unrelated. I emailed the professor and one of the campus ambassadors. This class is in my city and I would like to support it. I am meeting the campus ambassador in person in a few days. If the professor would have me, I would meet them and the class too. Blue Rasberry (talk) 16:57, 4 December 2014 (UTC)
Great thanks Blue. I have already recommended you to her. We have a start of a conversation on my talk page User_talk:Doc_James#BrooklynProf_-_Thanks_for_feedback Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 17:03, 4 December 2014 (UTC)
Thanks for this illuminating discussion. It seems instructors of university-level biology classes (or perhaps just one) are encouraging students to write/edit for Wikipedia. Although this is desirable for educational reasons, it's not helpful when those of us who take editing seriously have to repeatedly deal with the zeal and persistence of novice editors to have their content stick in the encyclopedia, so repeat insertion of content even with reverting and WP:3RR and WP:BLOCK warning continues. One novice user stated on his/her Talk page that the revisions were part of a biology assignment, creating the image that appearance of content on Wikipedia was evidence of acceptance and achievement for the course. This mess just perpetuates the problem, with no end in sight.
Fyi, Sandy, on the Quercetin page, even after considerable Talk page discussion and WP:3RR warnings within 24 hr, the student editor is back, so I am now moving to an Administrator's block request, a sad position to have to take. Now by reviewing the history of contributions, it appears that a team of students is inserting unqualified information into the article. --Zefr (talk) 00:36, 5 December 2014 (UTC)
Have fully protected the article in question and restored to its previous state. A couple of them were plagiarizing content. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 01:52, 5 December 2014 (UTC)
Zefr, I'm sure that you didn't mean to imply that novice editors were only an inconvenience to "serious" ones. We were all novice editors once upon a time. I wouldn't be here if Arcadian hadn't quietly cleaned up my mistakes. Doc James probably wouldn't be here if JFW hadn't spent weeks talking about how to properly source material correctly. If we want new editors, then we have to be willing to help them along, just like people helped most of us along.
I would like to see more support from the schools (e.g., someone at the school checking for copyvios and plagiarism), but I also want novice editors, including student editors, to feel like Wikipedia is a place where their efforts to contribute productively are encouraged. WhatamIdoing (talk) 10:25, 5 December 2014 (UTC)
The students from the most recent UCSF class said that they were interested in continuing editing. I will check in 3 months. I have not seen many students continue editing after the course ends. This is what makes it difficult.
Student appear to come for a mark rather than simply come to improve Wikipedia. They are externally rather than internally motivated and thus appear to be a different group of editors.
Yes we need the schools checking for copyvios or plagiarism. I would be even happy to set up a program where they could pay to have this done ( ie would hire and train people ) Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 13:04, 5 December 2014 (UTC)

A way forward?

I have been thinking about this today (after Guettarda bright it up) to see if there is a way of being proactive and making for a better environment for students. Perhaps if we draw up a list of articles that are significantly incomplete yet pretty broad - that students could easily find secondary sources with good material that is otherwise missing or otherwise unreferenced? That way (a) we get more articles improved, and (b) students don't get disheartened getting their edits reverted.....? Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 02:54, 5 December 2014 (UTC)

I do not know. I have just dealt with a lot of plagiarism. We also have a chemistry / pharmacy class. This is not scalable. We need staff. Building an encyclopedia is slow. It is not something a student can wipe off in two days. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 03:04, 5 December 2014 (UTC)
I guess I am trying to think how we can get the best out of this situation - we could direct them to prioritise taking a start or stub class article. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 03:17, 5 December 2014 (UTC)
Cannot even figure out who this class is Indeloxazine. At least three copy and pasting [8] Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 03:50, 5 December 2014 (UTC)
I'd be concerned about stubish articles though since that can give them too much free reign to try to write up a report (which we don't want) without having an article format there already. Students (or just new users in general) need a good series of examples of how Wikipedia works before they are turned loose on editing. I sat back and watched talk page discussions for many months before I ever made a single edit. That doesn't work so well for students though since their goal isn't really to contribute to Wikipedia, but get a grade. It's the answer that really isn't an answer, but I would say students need more structure here rather than just being given a list of articles that could use improvement. Whatever the case, definitely not an easy answer here. Kingofaces43 (talk) 04:20, 5 December 2014 (UTC)
They need a couple of days of lectures on Wikipedia by someone who is experienced.
By the way the class is 19 PhD students Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 04:26, 5 December 2014 (UTC)
Tricky then - maybe pointing them to a subject template? Part of me thinks that this isn't rocket science surely.....Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 04:32, 5 December 2014 (UTC)
I am trying to figure out if they received an instruction. Have sent one an overview of our guidelines. These educational efforts are not scalable. Here we are battling over the use of systematic reviews versus guidelines as sources and we have students adding dozens of animals studies that are primary source. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 04:41, 5 December 2014 (UTC)
Actually per Indeloxazine User:Formerly 98 tried but as the assignment is soon due they just continue. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 04:44, 5 December 2014 (UTC)
Formerly 98 reverted a bunch of stuff with an edit summary that contains a relevant link. There are zero talk page discussions and zero personal messages to the new user. We have no reason to believe that the new editor has even looked at the history page, much less understood the edit summary.
I'm left thinking, "December: the time of year when all new editors working on an article about a drug are assumed to be students trying to get credit for a class, rather than shills for the pharmaceutical companies". It makes for some variety, but it's not a good attitude in either case.
People who are citing good-quality primary journal articles are usually doing so because they are real-world professionals who have some experience with writing peer-reivewed papers themselves. Our rule about using secondary sources is great for Wikipedia, but it is definitely not what medical and science professionals expect. Almost all of us have made that kind of mistake. Here's an example of someone citing a good-quality primary study on his second-ever day of editing, and if you look at the name at the top of that diff, I'm sure you will all agree with me that even people citing 1991 primary sources can turn out to be a good editor.
Perhaps our problem is that we're getting too many good new editors. If we saw a lot more people citing garbage blogs, then maybe we'd be properly grateful for the few who are citing the scientific literature.
If you want to help these editors, you need to go to their own user talk pages and leave personal messages. Thank them for what they're doing well and for caring enough to help. Explain that we have weird standards for sourcing. Offer to help. Don't just assume that reverting (however necessary that might be) is an effective way to engage and educate the newbie. WhatamIdoing (talk) 10:48, 5 December 2014 (UTC)
Of course we want to welcome and guide them. I have done this for a dozen or so today. What I am asking is for is help.
Is this a PhD student in pharmacology? Yes definitely. The similarity with the rest in the class is unmistakable. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 15:50, 5 December 2014 (UTC)
To see why we get such problems, see Wikipedia:Training, with the more-or-less official introductory online training modules. These give the estimated time to complete the training:
  • "Training for students: a four-part training intended for students doing assignments on Wikipedia, with more detailed introductions to core Wikipedia policies, editing basics, and more specific editing advice for students" - from p. 1 "In total, the four modules should take about one hour to complete."
  • "Training for educators: a four-part training for professors and other educators who want to run Wikipedia assignments for class, with introductions to core Wikipedia policies, editing basics, and an overview of best practices for designing and implementing Wikipedia assignments" - "In total, the four modules should take about one to one-and-a-half hours to complete."
  • "Training for Wikipedia Ambassadors: a four-part training for Wikipedia Campus and Online Ambassadors, with introductions to core policies and editing basics for those new to editing and an overview of best practices for Wikipedia assignments" - "In total, the four modules should take about one to one-and-a-half hours to complete."
- some of the "ambassadors" and the odd prof/instructor will have more experience than that, but it seems many won't. No wonder we get such poor results. Wiki CRUK John (talk) 10:33, 5 December 2014 (UTC)
@Casliber surely the ratings system provides a rough approximation as to what articles need attention / improvement the most? We have 20,000 start and stub-class articles... surely students could be directed there? I think an obvious prerequisite for class editing would be to leave FA and GA-class articles alone?--Tom (LT) (talk) 21:22, 6 December 2014 (UTC)
LT910001 the more I think about it the more I think we try and direct people to look at this group of articles. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 13:02, 7 December 2014 (UTC)
You mean direct students to FA and GA? I think what SandyGeorgia is saying is that student editors do not always understand our editorial standards and so require a lot of scrutiny. At least if they were expanding some of our 20,000 start + stub class articles they will be quantitively expanded, bringing some new content to readers, rather than replacing or alering our existing GAs or FAs. --Tom (LT) (talk) 21:35, 7 December 2014 (UTC)
If they expand those underdeveloped articles, then we will just complain that they're working on "little-watched articles" and thus it is inconvenient for us to scrutinize their work (which will often be on pages that nobody really reads, either). WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:42, 8 December 2014 (UTC)
I was thinking something similar WAID. But the problem is that their editing always requires review and work. I guess it is a question of whether any of us wants to work to integrate poor content into an already-developed article, or work with a less developed (and less complicated) context. It would seem to me that the latter is easier and students will have a higher chance of generating something that can stick - too often the new content plopped into existing articles duplicates other parts and is worse written and sourced, so just gets deleted - huge waste of time for everybody. Jytdog (talk) 01:56, 8 December 2014 (UTC)
Really what we want is:
1) The students to paraphrase in easy to understand English
2) To use high quality secondary sources and format them properly
3) Follow the section ordering and language advice at WP:MEDMOS
4) Actually read the article they are editing to determine what it already covers
5) And finally not capitalized and bold every second word
Often they appear to be batting 0 for 5 and at that point it does matter what article they are working on. They however do get greater leeway on none FAs and GAs to play. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 03:25, 8 December 2014 (UTC)
agreed with that 100%. especially 5 :) the problem is that they don't.... and pointing them to stubs seems to me a way to reduce the work for us and maximize the chance of satisfaction for them of seeing something stick. Jytdog (talk) 03:29, 8 December 2014 (UTC)
Yup and I have no idea how to get them to follow these 5 basic instructions. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 03:41, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

examples

Boston College and Barnard College student editor problems

Copied from User talk:Doc James, in response to the professor of the Quercetin article: We don't know if what you represent is true because a) you have apparently decided to no longer run a course page, making it harder for us to check your students' edits, and b) your students tend to edit on obscure topics, so the problems may be going undetected. Even more so now that your course has essentially "gone underground" (no course page).

Certainly, as to past problems, your students did not understand primary sources when I encountered them in 2011, and my experience with your course led me to resign as FAC delegate to attempt to get some change (unsuccessful) in the Education Program. Your students' involvement forced me to clean up an obscure topic about which there is basically NO secondary review information, period, so I was forced to carefully use their primary sources to fix their work.

So, now, you are openly operating outside of the Education Program, making more work for regular editors (these problems should be dealt with by the paid staff of the Education Program, not us), and making it impossible to know who your students are and which articles they may have damaged with copyvio.

And your statement that "all stand in much better shape" is not because of your students. I had to edit the silly klazomania stub into compliance with policy and guideline, spending inordinate amounts of time trying to correct your student edits on an obscure topic that gets less than 20 page views per day. That article is improved because of MY time, not your students, and my time could have been used more productively elsewhere. And, of course, for all the time I in good faith invested in mentoring and bringing them up to speed on Wikipedia processes, policies and guidelines (holy cow, see my article edits and the talk page and my talk interaction with them), not a one of them returned or stayed on as Wikipedia editors, which is pretty much 100% true for all student/courses. YOUR course caused me to stop enjoying and stop editing. While you are running a course and had a total of something like four edits in 2013, and now a few in response to this for 2014. You are clearly not an involved professor.

It would be a great assistance to those of us who have to clean up the damage your students leave if you would a) register a course page, to b) work with the paid staff when your student edits need cleaning up, c) identify which other articles your students have edited, and d) engage the project yourself (that is, follow the edits your students make, make sure they are adding a course template on talk, etc). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:18, 5 December 2014 (UTC)

  • Ian (Wiki Ed) The professor described above is a Wikipedian who has been engaged and interested for years and the students are studying upper level health topics, and are the kind of audience which we want to have a good experience. There are significant problems with what the students did and I regret that students of this sort regularly are unable to navigate Wikipedia infrastructure to lead to students and Wikipedia functionaries having a mutually positive experience. If there is anything that you can do to help relieve tension here then it would be appreciated. Blue Rasberry (talk) 15:24, 5 December 2014 (UTC)
  • Blue, pls do not change section headings. I started this discussion so we could track in one place all of the cleanup needed as a result of this school term. One particular prof's course does not account for all of the articles listed. Also, the professor is not engaged; look at his contribs. He hasn't edited, pretty much, for two years, he isn't checking his students' edits for copyvio, he doesn't have a course page registered, we don't know who his students are or what articles they are editing, they aren't adding course templates to talk, and so on. NeuroJoe is completely disengaged. For that matter, we don't know if he ran the course in 2013. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:31, 5 December 2014 (UTC)
Your concerns are serious. I do not know how to respond at this time. I made this section heading so that this discussion would be easier to find in archives, because "Student editing again (term-end)" does not convey the information that I need to sort for myself the nature of the problem. You have asked me in the past to quit changing section headings. I acknowledge that I continue to do it, but I commit to stay away from those you start. I apologize and will not do it again. Blue Rasberry (talk) 15:44, 5 December 2014 (UTC)
Thanks, Blue, no problem ... I just didn't want to lose sight of the numerous articles that may need repair, or the place to keep track of them. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:49, 5 December 2014 (UTC)
SandyGeorgia I am seeing now that the title I chose does not reflect the multiple unrelated problems identified, and also includes the less or non-problematic case of Barnard College. I am not sure this can be sorted at all at this time. Blue Rasberry (talk) 16:15, 5 December 2014 (UTC)
That sounds discouraging, Blue :( SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:23, 5 December 2014 (UTC)
Yes we are also discussing a third class of 19 students from Kentucky. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 15:53, 5 December 2014 (UTC)
In addition to NeuroJoe's unregistered course, we still have to clean up, at least, after:
(WHEN will the Education Program understand this venture is killing volunteer editing?) Doc James, could you add the Kentucky course to the list above? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:56, 5 December 2014 (UTC)
The Kentucky course also appears to be working under the radar. I have managed to send them instructions through one of their students. They stand out when you look at this list Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 16:07, 5 December 2014 (UTC)
Seriously, Doc James, I'm watching the time you are investing in those students and articles, and wondering when it is time to put together a list of the students, bypass the Education Program (who won't do anything anyway), and go to ANI and request they all be blocked per WP:MEAT. Your time is too valuable for this. They don't even know how to conduct talk discussions, and haven't identified their prof or course, and you've been at this for much too long already. When is enough enough? In times before the EP, this would have been blocked as meat puppetry. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:38, 5 December 2014 (UTC)
If things do reach the point for any future student issues going to ANI too, I could see folks there opposing action just because they are students (i.e., be patient with them). I would hope citing WP:NOTTA that students don't get extra privilege compared to new editors and making clear attempts had been made to work with them to a reasonable degree would get the point across. I could see a gray area between some editors who would think a person didn't do enough to help students, where those of us who have dealt with "motivated" students at the expense of our time tend to have a little less patience when things get this problematic. Just something to be wary of. Kingofaces43 (talk) 17:58, 5 December 2014 (UTC)
I am not sure what the solution is Sandy. Yes I would rather be editing content (been meaning to improve the lead of Alzheimer's and STIs. I do sort of feel that many schools take advantage of us. I assume that most of the time it is unconscious (except in the case of the U of T where I have a feeling that it was conscious). At UCSF I volunteer to be involved but I been sucked in on the rest :-)
I am beginning to believe that schools should be paying a fixed amount per student that funds teaching assistants that are shared between these classes. These teaching assistants would review edits and continuously reinforce the MOS and RS guidelines, as well as recommendations to write in basic English rather than technicalize. They would provide feedback to the prof and would have an effect on the students marks. (students would then take them seriously)
The question is what leverage do we have to enforce this? Maybe once up and running classes that are editing under cover can be simply blocked per meat. But I am not sure the wider community would go for this. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 18:00, 5 December 2014 (UTC)
King, it is time to put together a list of the years long issues that WPMED has faced with students. There are plenty of people who understand that we aren't dealing with "regular" editors, in the sense that these editors never stay on or come back, in spite of the significant investment of time we make in them. No amount of mentoring seems to make any difference. Doc's time is much too valuable for what he is doing here.

Doc, we have a log of multiple issues at the Education Noticeboard incident archive. If the ENB doesn't get a handle on this (and they haven't yet, so I don't believe they will), it is time to compose an RFC or a comprehensive post to ANI, for some new admin action. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:06, 5 December 2014 (UTC)

I am looking into hiring a "teaching assistant". If we could get support that classes are required to use this service and provide some funding to support it that would be excellent. If classes do not would the community support that they will lose their ability to edit Wikipedia if problems occur? Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 18:12, 5 December 2014 (UTC)

Massive blocks of text rolling in

It appears that the time to hand in assignments is approaching. It appear that no one has taught these students about WP:MEDRS, WP:MEDHOW or WP:MEDMOS. Most of them have also not read the articles they are editing.

The reason being that most appear to be writing their articles in word perfect just like any standard paper and than dropping it into Wikipedia.

Here are a few (some okay, but all a lot of work) — Doc James 04:35, 9 December 2014 (UTC) — continues after insertion below

  •  Done. There was some proper use of MEDRS sources (one use of PMID 16417420), but almost all sources were primary and very outdated.[11] Reverted, tagged the miserable article, retained a MEDRS source added by students. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:15, 9 December 2014 (UTC)
@User:SandyGeorgia and @User:Doc_James, I will take a look. --Jaobar (talk) 16:32, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 04:35, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

I do not get it, why do students SO LOVE capital letters? Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 04:37, 9 December 2014 (UTC)
oh crap... Jytdog (talk) 04:38, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

These also coming in soon

For anyone who is interested. They also LOVE their caps and their primary sources. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 05:00, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

Well, I've been interested (and have known that) for three years :) By the way, please talk to Ocaasi about the ADHD edits ... it appears that he was part of this and she was part of that.

As I've long said, it's not only student editing; it's paid editing in here (whether students for a grade, profs for free TAs or staff for salary). Volunteer knowledgeable editors are just supposed to clean up for free. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:52, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

This question has probably been addressed numerous times before, but why exactly is the WMF promoting student editing in medical content if this happens with the vast majority of classes? Seppi333 (Insert 2¢ | Maintained) 04:19, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

The Barnard class is actively working on addressing the issues (we've been in communication with the people there), and Ian (Wiki Ed) has been helping with student articles, even ones not affiliated with our program. We'll definitely be doing a post mortem once the busy part of the term is over to change a few things to hopefully avoid some of these headaches for next term (for example, we had students from non-medical classes editing medicine articles, and so they were not sent to our medicine resources as we didn't have them flagged as med classes, which is clearly something we need to fix). But we're not actively encouraging more medicine classes to edit; rather, we're trying to provide support for classes who approach us, so that students can contribute in productive ways, as they do across many other disciplines. While there are a lot of problematic edits coming from classes unaffiliated with Wiki Ed, those classes are operating independently, and I don't think it's fair to say Wiki Ed is not "on the ground", because we are in there working with student editors, as are many other community members. We're trying to figure out a way of making it more obvious to all community members which issues our staff will be prioritizing, so volunteers who want to help can concentrate on the non-Wiki Ed classes. Again, I'll post an update here in a few weeks once we've determined the changes for next term. --LiAnna (Wiki Ed) (talk) 19:59, 10 December 2014 (UTC)
Thanks User:LiAnna (Wiki Ed). By not on the ground I mean that I have not see people from the Foundations fixing references and providing feedback to the students involved on Wikipedia.
I agree many of the issues are with classes run outside the Foundations. My apologies as I do not mean to misdirect my frustrations toward these programs. Especially since these programs do not have any greater authority over these classes than we do and are providing support behind the scenes. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 00:01, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

Another course

Scores of articles, including:

SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:57, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

Well the prof did training as a trainer for WP editing yesterday Difference between revisions, after, as far as I can see, 2 edits to article space. We run (very good) similar courses in the UK, but restricted to about 10 participants, all of whom are normally highly experienced. Wiki CRUK John (talk) 21:07, 10 December 2014 (UTC)
cool ... prof did training yesterday, course page isn't filled out, students have been adding text all semester, and we have a webcast up with even more recruiting going on, kool-aid drinking with no mention of the problems we're facing in here. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:11, 10 December 2014 (UTC)
oh AN3 report. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:58, 10 December 2014 (UTC)
And now effectively meat puppetry, with another student from the same class reverting my MEDMOS order of section correction. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:03, 10 December 2014 (UTC)
I have reached out to the professor to make her aware of the situation. Helaine (Wiki Ed) (talk) 23:00, 10 December 2014 (UTC)
Thank you Helaine for contacting me regarding this issue. Many professors are monitoring student pages, but would like to hear from the community when these issues occur. The Wikipedia-editing assignment has been completed for this course and students are no longer editing as part of the course. Consequently, we likely have some "rogue" editors that I will follow up with personally. Cshanesimpson (talk) 00:36, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

And another

Doesn't appear to be User:NeuroJoe students are at Sacred Heart University

Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 21:27, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

A proposal

With respect to how to prevent this from happening again is being drafted here Wikipedia:Education_noticeboard/Incidents#Proposal_A Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 03:47, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

We are outnumbered

It appears that we are outnumbered at least 100 to 1.[14]

Massive amount of plagiarism with no one cleaning it up. Have proposed a mass roll back. Please comment there. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 06:52, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

Don't forget to thank them for their good edits

Most of the edits are good. While you're dealing with the chaos, don't forget to thank students for their good edits.--Melody Lavender 12:15, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

Another

Now that I understand more about how to use the Education Program interface, this just popped up:

Indicating Sleep hygiene as a new Good Article (Talk:Sleep hygiene/GA1); I see multiple issues, including term-paper/essay-like statements, uncited text, very old sources, and WP:LAYOUT issues (eg WP:MSH and more).

Is there a lower GA standard for students? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:22, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

Sure nuff. From the course page: "Submit your article to Wikipedia’s “Did You Know?” feature. Try to get “Good Article” status. Not all will be accepted of course, and that’s okay. Extra points if yours gets in, though." SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:59, 12 December 2014 (UTC)
The "GA standard" is the same for everyone in theory, but in practice it is highly variable, as it is ultimately determined by a single reviewer. (Also, in theory, the GA standard is lower than what you expect; for example, compliance with the entire MOS mainpage, including MSH, is explicitly not required.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:37, 15 December 2014 (UTC)
Indeed, much too variable for my taste. It also typically takes two months or so, whereas their timetable allows some 2 weeks. User:Boghog beat me to commenting at the course page, but we might keep an eye out for qpq reviewing within the class (not an issue with Sleep hygiene, which Sandy & others have now done many edits on). Wiki CRUK John (talk) 13:33, 15 December 2014 (UTC)
Thanks, WAID, but I know what the GA criteria are; individual standards that differ or editors that may not apply criteria are not my concern. WP:LAYOUT is specifically mentioned at WP:WIAGA, and LAYOUT includes sections and headings. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:51, 16 December 2014 (UTC)
LAYOUT says nothing about the (minor) problems present with the section headings in the old version of the article. LAYOUT's only real concern with section headings is that you don't skip from ==This== to ====That==== with no intervening ===Third level===. Things like whether it's okay to mention the name of the article in a section heading are not part of LAYOUT (and never have been, AFAICT). WhatamIdoing (talk) 07:38, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

Source query

Does anyone know what this citation is?

It is a link to a database, not an article title with an author and date. Don't know what to make of it. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:49, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

http://www.practicewise.com/pwebs_2 cannot be accessed without logging in. I would guess someone found an article at that database while logged in, copied the url, then they or someone else pasted that same url into an internet browser while not logged in and were redirected to the url in the citation.
The link was added five weeks ago in this edit by Kguan10. Perhaps they could locate the original source? Adrian J. Hunter(talk•contribs) 07:21, 16 December 2014 (UTC)
It appears to be the company's "PracticeWise Evidence-Based Services Literature Database". We don't have a {{cite database}} template, even though it's perfectly fine to cite a database, so I'm not really surprised by the barebones citation.
Access is US $15 per day or $150 per year. Since Wikipedia editors generally refuse to pay for WP:PAYWALLed sources, I'm dubious of the {{or-inline}} tags that someone added to the article. "I can't read the source (because I won't pay for it)" does not translate very directly into "so I conclude that this material was never published anywhere". WhatamIdoing (talk) 07:43, 16 December 2014 (UTC)
Thanks Adrian (I knew all of that :) The problem is that the student has linked to the database as if that is a source, without actually giving a citation (author, title of the article, date, etc). The student appears to have accessed an article via the database, but then did not specify which article was accessed (akin to accessing a Cochrane review on their website, and then citing Cochrane database without giving the specifics on which article, or accessing an article on Jstor and then citing only Jstor with no article specifics). If anyone has access to that database, help is appreciated in locating an exact article (although we don't have enough info in the citation for that). Parent management training is a pretty decent article on an important topic (in my world, anyway :) and there are multiple recent reviews that haven't been used, while primary sources and some other very old sources were used. Any help in accessing sources and expanding the article would be welcomed!

(WAID, who's saying they won't pay for it? These sorts of unhelpful comments are becoming more and more frequent from you ... perhaps you can gaze into your crystal ball and tell me the name and author of the article so I might purchase it?) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:33, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

The editor might actually have been citing the database's own, unique content. S/he is supporting statements like "As of 2014, a review of scientific literature on PMT revealed that approximately 48 PMT treatments had reached the highest level of research support possible, and PMT treatments constituted the majority of best-supported evidence-based treatments for childhood disruptive behavior". The ad copy for the database says that it includes evidence-based summaries of the literature("Using this online searchable database, professionals can access summaries of the best and most current scientific research"), which implies that their staff is writing content as well as including copies of papers. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:34, 16 December 2014 (UTC)
The editor "might" have been doing many things, but we so far have no answer from that editor (and in the meantime, I found a "review" in parent management training cited to another online database that was not a review at all, rather a proposal for a review-- I have queried article talk as to whether the actual review has been done). The wording in the article ("approximately 48 ... ") could also (pending clarification) mean that s/he counted 48 studies in the database, which would be OR. Without an accurate citation, or an answer to the query on talk, we don't know. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:48, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

Summary, still needing cleanup

  1. Hearing loss (a complete mess, but some of the mess pre-dates students)
  2. Systemic lupus erythematosus
  3. Eating disorder not otherwise specified
  4. Anorexia nervosa 30,000 bytes of content into the middle of the article.

These were noted above by someone (unsigned)

And the list of drug articles above that jytdog and Doc James are working through.

And:

There are still many more articles from the various problematic courses, complicated by the fact that profs had not filled in the course pages, so we would have to dig to find articles. Wiki Ed staff says they will try to do better on getting profs to fill in course pages. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:13, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

IP adding primary source

This IP is adding a primary source to article ref lists, even though the citation is unlikely to be used in the article.[15] Too many for me to tackle. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:56, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

Will watch Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 19:50, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

Videos promoting Wikipedia's health content

What did we edit in 2014?

VGrigas (WMF), the Wikimedia Foundation storyteller, made the What did we edit in 2014? video. One Young World made a video of Jimbo talking and posted it to YouTube.

We have a project within English Wikipedia called WikiProject Medicine. And the WikiProject Medicine group they look after all the entries having to do with medicine and this group has a fairly fearsome and frightening reputation within Wikipedia because they're very very strict. They're one of the most strict groups of people who are really keen on making sure that our entries about medical issues are very very accurate and so they don't put up with any nonsense. Within that there's a subgroup called the Translation Task Force where they try to get people to take the best entries from various languages but particularly from English Wikipedia and translate them into other languages around the world.

And what they did in August was a really remarkable project. they partnered with a group called Translators without Borders and a translation company I think called Rubric and they took our entry on Ebola virus disease and they translated it - and its a very good entry - into sixty African languages...

— Jimbo, Q&A with Wikipedia Founder Jimmy Wales, YouTube

Blue Rasberry (talk) 15:20, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

Work by some people here gets a nod here, in the three-minute Video about what we edited in 2014. I believe that this was just released yesterday. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:51, 18 December 2014 (UTC)
Thanks. Congrats to all involved :-) Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 19:52, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

IP thanks you all for your work

I thought this comment might be a bit heartening to a lot of the editors here. John Carter (talk) 23:27, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

Except that the IP is thanking wikipedia for providing medical advice and saving him/her a trip to the doctor, when wikipedia is not supposed to provide medical advice. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.181.201.237 (talk) 23:31, 17 December 2014 (UTC)
No, he seems to have gotten "health information", not "medical advice". There's a world of difference between "it is a fact that people who eat this sometimes get this benign, self-limiting symptom" and "you do (or do not) need to see a doctor". WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:14, 18 December 2014 (UTC)
Off topic and total speculation, I wonder what the weird symptom that wasn't mentioned in any detail was? Keriorrhea perhaps if it was deep sea fish... 92.41.95.243 (talk) 17:56, 18 December 2014 (UTC)
I replied on their talk page. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 19:55, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

Medical uses of propolis

I've had propolis on my list of articles to improve for awhile, but I've been rather stumped on how to tackle the myraid of medical issues in it. Basically, the reviews I've read so far seem to show there's research indicating there may be something worth checking out in select cases for future research, but nothing saying that it is actually recommended for specific uses. Definitely makes it tough (though interesting) to craft content there. I'm reading up on the literature a bit more now, but if someone is also interested in checking the article out and has some advice for what kind of content should stay or go or is even willing to pitch in, that would be helpful. The main nuance I'm having trouble with is how do we report (if at all) on what is more preliminary evidence in the research process. Thanks! Kingofaces43 (talk) 06:24, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

That's hard to do without engaging in OR and violating MEDRS. If reliable and independent sources discuss it, one can word those reports carefully, without doing any direct promotion. -- Brangifer (talk) 08:17, 17 December 2014 (UTC)
Well the more nuanced issue is that review articles do discuss it, but when they do it's more in the context of novel effects seen in the lab, not knowing the mechanism or which chemical with propolis could have caused it, could hold promise but a lot more research is needed, etc.. They haven't reached the point of saying it is effective for treating condition X or how it compares to standard treatments. Basically it seems like it's the equivalent to a review article stating a particular set of compounds is currently being researched for activity in a particular function, but the field is nowhere near saying the compounds are effective for something. I guess the main question would be if a review's context is more towards summarizing the research to date and future research directions, but hasn't reached the point of actual medical recommendations, do we not include content on the research findings at all? Do we have very nuanced content saying some effect was found, but it's a work in progress still? I'm very wary about doing the latter because it can be easy to still write something that can make readers think taking a compound will cure their cancer just because we mention that cancer cells were affected in a petri dish by it. Is it better not to mention ongoing lab research when properly designed in vivo studies are not mentioned in the review? Kingofaces43 (talk) 16:54, 17 December 2014
As I've said on the propolis talk page, any claim relevant to medical science should be supported with WP:MEDRS-compatible secondary sources. Anything else is better left out. This is how you distinguish between an encyclopedia article and some enthusiast's personal web page. JFW | T@lk 17:39, 17 December 2014 (UTC)
The question I'm getting at is what are we calling distinguishing though. We have review articles saying things, so source quality is not in question. The question is more about weight. The reviews are not going so far to recommend actual use as a treatment, but describing things in the research world other researchers should look into that hold promise from a research perspective. Do we even mention things that "early" on in the research process under MEDRS even though they are review articles? I'm personally leaning towards no, but it doesn't seem very clear what kind of weight we give that degree of evidence based on my reading through the relevant guidelines. That's why I'm asking for thoughts on it here. Kingofaces43 (talk) 18:24, 17 December 2014 (UTC)
To me brief mention of research is acceptable when presented appropriately. But are we talking about actual research or areas of research that have been suggested but the actual research is not occuring? - - MrBill3 (talk) 04:04, 18 December 2014 (UTC)
Suggested, but additional developments aren't mentioned in the literature (yet at least). That can mean the research isn't being done, is ongoing, or was done and nothing really amounted form it. That's why my inclination is to not mention things until we have something more conclusive information for actual medical use, but as you said, brief mention might be the way to go. There are definitely things I'll cut out, but seeing that discussing more preliminary research is sort of ok, I probably won't cut as much as I first thought. Thanks. Kingofaces43 (talk) 04:17, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

A potentially 'ideal' MEDRS (per DARE) that isn't currently sourced:

Lists of people with condition X

I recently stumbled upon a few articles that seemed rather odd:

List of people with bipolar disorder

List of people with major depressive disorder

List of people with schizophrenia

My first thought was that none of these topics appear to be notable for a Wikipedia article and if having the condition was noteworthy, it should then be included on the individual person's page. We generally don't make lists like this for most medical conditions, much less ones that have a huge potential number of people that could be the list that seems to border on a indiscriminate list for celebrities and the like. My first thought was to nominate these for deletion, but that's just my gut reaction after seeing all this. Any thoughts from folks here on having lists like those? Whether each person on it is properly sourced is one thing, but I'm questioning whether the notability is there for having such lists in the first place. Thanks. Kingofaces43 (talk) 15:50, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

Also, WP:LISTN does address this, but it doesn't seem to be super clear one way or another on this one. Kingofaces43 (talk) 15:55, 15 December 2014 (UTC)
Generally I think most of us would delete these articles on notability grounds at once. The major arguement for keeping them is that by directing people to these lists we don't have to deal with the clutter on the main articles. -- CFCF 🍌 (email) 16:41, 15 December 2014 (UTC)
I am pretty suspicious about these for ongoing mental conditions. Apart from the obvious BLP issues they are invariably in practice "List of modern American celebrities with (or said to be with) foo". I am more sympathetic to lists of "death from", or those for very clear diagnoses like cancer, where celebrity cases do play a role in raising public awareness. But these have their problems, not least with historical figures who died from "historical" diagnoses (see all the people who "died of gout". Wiki CRUK John (talk) 16:54, 15 December 2014 (UTC)
Usually, you try to limit those lists to people who are well-known for having the condition. The actress who played Lois Lane in on the Superman movies, for example, is practically a poster child for bipolar disorder. For common conditions, it is impossible to list everyone who is well-known in some part of the world/in some decade for this condition and still keep the list to a reasonable size. The result is that it gets WP:SPLIT out of the article into its own list. So long as everything is properly cited (e.g., to a news article), then there is nothing wrong with it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:53, 15 December 2014 (UTC)
I thought that was the criteria for inclusion in the main article? I was unaware of any criteria apart from proper sourcing for inclusion in these types of lists. That said maybe we should try to reach a consensus and draft some guidelines around such lists. As I mentioned previously they are a good way to redirect inevitable clutter from would-be editors who create these lists on main articles otherwise, but on the other hand I don't agree they actually serve any purpose or even pass WP:Note (that is apart from any ethical dilemma they raise). Even List of notable Ebola patients isn't really notable. -- CFCF 🍌 (email) 09:14, 16 December 2014 (UTC)
Maybe this is something for Wikidata? :p -- CFCF 🍌 (email) 09:16, 16 December 2014 (UTC)
CFCF Ideally Wikidata is the best place for this. If this were sorted, it would be at d:Wikidata:List_of_properties/Person. Right now the closest property might be cause of death. I have no problem keeping the lists for now. Most lists fail to meet WP:N so that is nothing new, although it remains problem to be addressed. Blue Rasberry (talk) 14:34, 16 December 2014 (UTC)
Every stand-alone list has its own list-selection criteria, which should be posted at the article (but usually aren't in practice). NB that I just re-wrote WP:LISTPEOPLE to make it match actual practice last week; like most guidelines, it drifts occasionally. Whether to include "everyone" or "everyone who is well-known" depends on the prevalence of the disease. A complete "list of people with cancer" would probably encompass a quarter of all biographies and must be limited further. A "List of people with this rare disease" would probably encompass very few and could be complete. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:29, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

WP:LISTPEOPLE is pretty clear. Generally the person listed needs to fulfill BP notability criterion on his or her own, for reasons other than being on the list in question. So it would be silly to have a list of cancer victims, but not silly to have a list of cancer victims who were notable for something else and would have a WP article whether they had cancer or not. Once a person is famous, or at least notable per se enough to have an article or stub, then the number of lists they can be on after that, is infinite. And these can be trivial and very benign such as lists of (notable) people based on where they were born. WP has HUNDREDS of these: see Lists of people by nationality. If they can list a notable person by nationality (or by US state of birth, etc), they can certainly list them by hair color or whatever. See for example, the very long list of bow tie wearers. Yes, WP editors can be insane about this, and historically List of bowler hat wearers failed and was deleted, because some people just like bow ties more than bowler hats, and think a list of people who wear bow ties is intrinsically more interesting and contributes to human knowledge more than a list of people who wear bowler hats. Indeed, this makes no sense and boggles the mind. But it's Wikipedia and nothing if not inconsistent.

The only other thing to hinder medical lists is the BLP problem of stigmatization, but if the person is already famous for having a disease from many sources, that problem disappears, as WP has nothing more to contribute. And for (already) notable dead people where there are no BLP problems, it disappears more easily, so long as you have one reasonably reliable source for the disease or condition or therapy. SBHarris 01:15, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

I think WhatamIdoing made the most relevant comment. Such lists should include people for whom having such condition is notable. This would keep BLP issues with stigmatization in check. I also agree with Blue Raspberry's comment that such information as all people who are notable enough to have an article on WP who have been factually identified as having a condition is better on wikidata. This may not be in place yet but I think categories can also provide such data without placing people on lists that may be associated with a stigma. - - MrBill3 (talk) 03:52, 18 December 2014 (UTC)
Categories are good for the bios, assuming that the diagnosis is mentioned in the biography. I went through the breast cancer survivor cat a few years ago, and a surprising number of bios in the cat did not mention cancer at all. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:45, 18 December 2014 (UTC)
Hmm, so would it make sense to just do away with these list articles then when we have an appropriate category? We functionally get the same thing by adding the category to the bio and going to the category page. That way the information is verified directly at the bio where it would need to be appropriately sourced anyways. Kingofaces43 (talk) 18:31, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

Just catching up here. See also:

I have found the Category:People with Tourette syndrome to be useful in making sure individual claims are well sourced. Samples: [16] [17] So, my overall take is that we cover notability for conditions, diseases, etc at WP:MEDMOS, and when articles/lists are not in the context of that notability for individuals (eg, as I did at Tourette syndrome), we should redirect these articles to the main article or the Sociological and cultural aspect sub-article, and be done with the cruft. Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate list. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:34, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

I've been involved in a few such medical lists, many moons ago. Some I created, some I've helped with, some are by other people. For example, List of people with epilepsy, List of poliomyelitis survivors, List of people with hepatitis C and List of brain tumor patients. These are all featured list. IIRC at least two of them have been sent to AfD (and survived). On the other hand, someone who had one of these conditions once wrote to me to thank me for writing such an inspirational and fascinating article. So opinions clearly vary. Read any popular science book or newspaper/magazine article about a disease, and chances are it will be described in terms of people. People who had the disease and people who cured or treated it. We are social animals after all. Perhaps a journalist will interview a non-notable family or perhaps they will simply do their research in the library. This information has educational value. The charities that care for people with or conduct research in these diseases often maintain lists such as these. Their focus is in providing inspiration, and for having famous people to help with fund-raising. Not everyone learns the same way. For some, a cold clinical description of polio's symptoms may be all they need, for others, examples of how polio affected people's lives is important. There's no better place to get such descriptions than from the biographies of notable people. Of course, such lists need to follow our policies and guidelines, particularly on sourcing and especially so for conditions with stigma. The last time I looked at category guidance it discouraged using categories for contentious labels. This is particularly true for posthumous diagnoses, where categories simply don't let us state how doubtful the diagnosis is. We also sometimes have trouble with "self diagnosis" of some diseases/disorders (e.g. autism spectrum). So I support the use of lists to make clear such diagnoses are posthumous or self-declared or to give alternative explanations, etc. I also support the guidance that such lists aren't a great idea for including in the disease article itself, unless very rare. If one must mention famous people in the disease article, then it should be in prose IMO, and anyone mentioned really must have an outstanding reason for inclusion. -- Colin°Talk 20:16, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

I was just coming back here to say the same. From Colin's post on another article talk page, I went to WP:FL and found:
So, I've revised my post above, and this is not so much a problem with the lists as how to carefully prosify them and keep content relevant-- the Featured Lists give an example of what they could be/should be. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:40, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

Members of this WikiProject might find something of value in "List of original articles related to Wikipedia" before its possible deletion.
—Wavelength (talk) 21:01, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Elsevier ScienceDirect - 10 accounts, free for a year; HURRY HURRY

For those who don't read the spam at the top of their watchlists, Elsevier have offered 10 free accounts for 1 year for The Lancet etc etc, plus 20 for other areas of science. Places going fast. Wiki CRUK John (talk) 11:18, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

Wiki CRUK John Not getting the spam. I also don't use my watchlist. What should I do? JFW | T@lk 22:51, 18 December 2014 (UTC)
You still have one, with the link I presume. Or follow the link in the section header above. Wiki CRUK John (talk) 02:43, 19 December 2014 (UTC)
Thanks for posting this. I know that I'm interested--- Steve Quinn (talk) 05:32, 19 December 2014 (UTC)

Cerebellum at FAR

IMS is back

So the former WikiCorrect-Health account has been renamed to Protein1EFN and it looks like IMS wants to get moving. (this was discussed a while back, archive is here). But briefly, IMS main business is providing intelligence/reports about the pharmaceutical industry - they are a big established company with a good name - and they want to start offering clients a service editing WP articles. Their first (awkward, badly handled) edits were to the Transcranial magnetic stimulation article, which one or more of their clients apparently wanted improved. The editor(s) at IMS made several mistakes, but I have emailed and spoken with the guy running that division, and he says that they very much want to do things right, especially so that they do nothing to harm IMS' good name. (their self interest is to our benefit, here)

Beginnings are fragile times, and I think that for everybody's benefit it would be useful to think about how to structure their work here so that it is as transparent and compliant with Terms of Use, policies, and guidelines as possible. I am copying and editing a comment I made on that account's Talk page, to open a wider discussion.

Every employee who edits WP for IMS needs an individual account, that only he or she uses. WP accounts are personal. They can be anonymous with regard to the person, but they need to be used only by one person. With regard to work each of those individuals does in WP via his or her account, per the Terms of Use, the fact that he or she works for IMS, the client or clients on behalf of which the work is being done, and any other affiliation needs to be disclosed (ideally on the relevant article Talk page, and on the editor's User page). And they should agree to follow the WP:COI guideline rigorously - no direct editing of articles, but rather, changes suggested on the article Talk page with an edit request template. And ideally, somebody from IMS will disclose all the accounts someplace central, and it would also be useful if the boss would provide a way to contact him or her here in WP, so that problematic edits by employees can be reported (as well as being handled primarily by our own processes - blocking, etc). I think there are probably two main ways to structure this.

  • set up something like a course page - here is an example: Education_Program:Brock_University/NUSC_1P10_Professional_and_Therapeutic_Communications_(Fall_2014) - these are project pages, where all the participants are listed and all their edits are logged and tracked, and there is clear contact information there for everybody involved and for the responsible individuals. I have no idea how that would be created or what Project (if any) would "host" it. We could also set up some kind of banners/templates for easy use/labelling....
  • list all accounts and activities on the boss' user page, and have each employee link to that page, on their user pages.

There may well be other or better ways to ensure transparency and allow the community to track/audit their work.

I am posting a notice of this discussion at WP:COIN, too. Thoughts? Jytdog (talk) 15:46, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

  • I have no judgment on this proposal, but if anyone would like to explore the Wikipedia Education Program's software interface, training starts at Wikipedia:Education program and goes on with a request for a userright at Wikipedia:Education noticeboard. I help people use this interface. Anyone with an affiliation with WikiProject Medicine is welcome to contact me for a tour of the functionality of it.
This software was designed to be used by professors with classes in universities. In my opinion, it could be used by a Wikipedian overseer to manage any group of new editors, but this software has never been used outside the context of school groups so the first people to try this will likely encounter some bumps. Blue Rasberry (talk) 16:50, 10 December 2014 (UTC)
The safeguards look good as far as they go, we may want to go further. I'm concerned about the sentence "they want to start offering clients a service editing WP articles," which suggest that they will be advertising the service, and will in some ways parallel WikiAds (whatever the name was) or similar services. I guess the minimum safeguards would be to properly explain WP policies, ToU, and guidelines to their customers and to insist that if the service itself did not post the proposed changes in favor of letting the client do so, that the client must disclose as a paid editor, i.e. IMS must police its customers on this. That is pretty hard to do, but I think we have to insist, otherwise the service just becomes a ToU avoidance scheme. I may have more concerns later. Smallbones(smalltalk) 18:40, 10 December 2014 (UTC)
Smallbones thanks for your input, and for watching this. Yes I have been trying to communicate to them the realities of editing WP - that no one can make a good faith promise with regard to any given edit "sticking" or staying stable. So far they ~seem~ very earnest about wanting to be transparent and abide by all policies and guidelines. We'll see how this goes! Jytdog (talk) 18:47, 10 December 2014 (UTC)
Yes I think they should need to disclose who is paying them. They declined to do so last time I asked. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 18:48, 10 December 2014 (UTC)
agreed - transparency and full compliance with the Terms of Use is going to be essential if this is not going to turn into a disaster all around. Jytdog (talk) 18:57, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

We can't keep up with what the Education Program is doing to med articles, and now more paid editing? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:24, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

SandyGeorgia I completely hear you. IMS appears to be committed to doing this and to following the rules, which means that they will post edit requests on Talk pages. If their edits suck (in any of the myriad ways that edits can suck), it will take one of us forever to get around to implementing it, and their business will fail. It will be in their interest to learn, as quickly as possible, what kind of edits will fly, which will be DOA, and which will be marginally OK but maybe promotional (which type will also languish since nobody respectable among us will want to be tarred with implementing PROMO content). The only way they can make their business really workand be transparent, is to make really high quality, truly NPOV suggested edits. That is my perspective at least. It has real potential to lead to a win-win. (it also has real potential for them to fill Talk pages with crap suggestions which will languish... but that will not last long). I think the potential for IMS to start doing stealth paid editing is very low. They are a real company, not a baloney outfit like the paid editors we have been plagued with. Jytdog (talk) 20:40, 10 December 2014 (UTC)
You assume there are enough of us to monitor them. I don't. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:46, 10 December 2014 (UTC)
i hear you on that. i intend to keep a close eye on them, and to set things up so that it easy to do so. not everybody will want to. but i really think the worst potential outcome here is going to be Talk page clutter, if their proposed edits are bad. How do you see this potentially harming articles? They propose crappy content and unsophisticated editors implement? I am sorry that you are distressed. Jytdog (talk) 20:52, 10 December 2014 (UTC)
and it may be that the community says "no thank you". I don't know, actually, how we could do that, though. Is there a way to stop them, if they want to do this? Would we want to? (I haven't asked those questions b/c I didn't think it was possible to prevent them if they are going to do this; and it seemed best to be set things up with the best possible chance of success. maybe i have my head up my ass somehow. if so please tell me!) Jytdog (talk) 20:54, 10 December 2014 (UTC)
Efforts to stop them could include the NYTs and FDA. Companies do not like bad press. And the FDA does not like covert advertising. But I do not think we are at that point yet. I am okay with them providing feedback on the talk page. If they do so poorly like they have in the past than my hope is the community will have no issues with us ignoring them. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 00:46, 11 December 2014 (UTC)
thanks doc james. those would be relevant after they started, and only if they acted badly. i meant, i don't see any way to prevent them from starting. Jytdog (talk) 15:45, 11 December 2014 (UTC)
I am a little bit concerned about what I might call "COI-laundering" (for lack of a better term). I expect that there will be a certain lack of transparency about the nature of the commitments or representations IMS will make to their clients versus the disclosures that are made to Wikipedia, and a certain additional amount of nudge-nudge wink-wink about what IMS might formally commit to on paper versus what IMS might be expected by a paying client to do.
Aside from a certain amount of common-sense cynicism, I base this on situations and responses like this one, from the original Transcranial magnetic stimulation kerfuffle: [18]. (At the time, Protein1EFN – editing under his old username or sometimes while logged out – made a series of edits which added positive studies and removed or soft-pedalled critical material. I offer no specific evaluation here of the appropriateness of the material or the changes to the article's slant.) I was quite troubled by the response that Doc James got in response to his query about who had funded or requested the changes. The IMS employee averred that no one had specifically requested or paid for the changes, but that the topic had come up at an IMS workshop dedicated to IMS' new Wikipedia editing program, where they had "received requests from the industry"—whatever that means.
Are we likely to encounter similarly-vague and evasive responses in the future? As a representative of..."industry", will I be able to launder my conflict of interest and avoid disclosure of my connection to any Wikipedia edits by not paying for specific edits, but just paying to attend a "workshop" where I can share a word to the wise? TenOfAllTrades(talk) 18:55, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

*First I'd say that the FDA is not going to stop them because as near as I can say they are following the FDAs guidance to a "T" (and in my humble opinion, anyone participating in this discussion should read that document immediately if they have not already). I think they've made a good faith effort to get into compliance, and as near as I can tell the "addition of positive information and removal of negative information " that occurred consisted entirely of updating and correcting mischaracterizations of what cited sources actually said. Maybe I'm just a voice in the wilderness here, but I find the level of concern here striking given how casually we allow unidentified IPs, those engaged in litigation against manufacturers, and activists of all sorts to edit at will. As I documented here on a prior thread, the. TMS article was more accurate after they edited it than before. Thats more than you can say for about half of randomly chosen edits to medical articles here. Forty percent of SSRI edits and 43 percent of Tylenol edits are by IPs. I find this obsession with a self identified entity that is subject to FDA sanctions if they post anything that is incorrect difficult to understand.

I'll be way too honest here and say the following: Given the reception of hostility and suspicion that I've seen directed toward this group that seems to be self-identified, legally obligated to present information accurately, and sincerely trying to follow the rules, in addition to the hostile response I recieved when I first started editing here and attempted to correct inaccuracies on the fluoroquinoline articles, I would not recommend this path to anyone. If a friend of mine noted that horribly inaccurate information about his company or her organization had been posted here, I'd suggest that they just go find a local Starbucks, log on, and fix it as an IP. Because unlike many who attempt to approach Wikipedia in a spirit of transperancy, IP's are welcome or at least much more likely to be left alone. Formerly 98 (talk) 21:50, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

mm I hear you but how does this help manage IMS' potential presence here?

::::What I'm saying is that everyone ought to try to relax a little bit. Corporate <> evil. All this intensity and suggestions of "covert advertising" and "insist that they leave comments on the Talk page only, and then ignore those comments" are way over the top based on any behavior that has been seen so far. We have openly SPA accounts that operate here daily, and they are not under legal obligation from the FDA to 1) present materially truthfully, and 2) only correct unfavorable incorrect information if they also correct any favorable incorrect information found in the same article. An no one has insisted that they be restricted to leaving comments on the talk page, and that maybe it would be best if we then ignored those comments.

In contrast to strong reaction to IMS, I have on many occassions posted here requesting for help with SPAs posting blatantly inaccurate information on medical articles and gotten no response. I think people need to think about consistency and what their underlying assumptions are. Based on the current reactions, they seem to be that posting inaccurate negative information about drugs is just fine, but ANY post by a corporate entity is a bad thing, even if it makes the article more accurate. But deaths caused by information that is too negative don't offset those from excess pharmaceutical promotion, they're just more deaths. Formerly 98 (talk) 23:21, 11 December 2014 (UTC)
OK, so you just wanted to rant a bit. :) fwiw, everybody knows that WP:ADVOCACY sucks and destroys articles, and everybody knows that it is damn hard for the community to manage conflicts generated by editors with ADVOCACY issues. I hope you are aware that there have been acres of pixels blackened with discussions about paid editing/COI blah blah blah. That happens to be what we are faced with, with IMS. I think we have a responsibility to manage the problem, and I think the better we manage it, the more we increase the chance of a decent outcome. If you want to part of that, it would be great. Jytdog (talk) 23:59, 11 December 2014 (UTC)
TenOfAllTrades thanks for commenting! Doc James was very clear above (as was I), and I have been very clear to the program head there in e-mails (and have sent him a link to this thread), that if IMS users do not fully comply with the ToU (which means actually disclosing their clients) they will get blocked in a heartbeat and their program will fail. No dancing around the ToU. I am fully committed to ensuring that and to seeing them shut down if they try to fudge it. This only works with transparency. Jytdog (talk) 22:35, 11 December 2014 (UTC)
Yes so far I have not been impressed Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 01:45, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

Hi, my name is Siva Nadarajah, General Manager at IMS Health. My division manages the Wikipedia contribution service at IMS Health. Thank you so much for all your valuable input and discussions around our presence here. First and foremost, I'd like to apologize for the wrong start. I can clearly see my team has made serious mistakes and violated some of the policies of Wikipedia. I'd like to confirm and give assurance that we are very committed to follow the rules of Wikipedia. We'd like to propose the following: Please let us know if any of you have concerns around our approach.

1) We will create individual accounts for each and every editor who will be contributing. These accounts will be tied to the individual's IMS company email account. In the event of the employee's departure from the company, we will deactivate the account so that the person does not use the account outside of IMS Health.

2) We will disclose our clients in each and every edit request. That is actually required by FDA (based on the 2014 guidelines). IMS is legally obliged to do this.

3) We will create one master account for IMS Health and list all individuals who will be contributing. This account will be tied to a single email account within IMS Health(example: wikipedia_master@imshealth.com). This account will be not be allowed to make any edits or suggestions. I don't want this account to be tied to a person because people may not stay with the company forever.

Please let me know your thoughts. Also, if it makes easier to have a call, please send me an email.

Thank you so much and I really appreciate all of you spending your valuable personal time cleaning up the mess we created. Siva Nadarajah --Nadakumar (talk) 18:31, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

Thanks. A few more questions:
  1. I asked "So who is funding these proposed changes" here and the answer was not clear. Can you clarify?
  2. IMS's website used to say "IMS Health works with Wikipedia’s top administrators to correct inaccurate information" what does this mean and what are the user names of these "top admins"? Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 02:36, 17 December 2014 (UTC)
Doc James
1) The edits on TMS article were requested by a company called Neuronetics and our own (IMS Health's) analytics team, who are doing research on this topic.
2) The statement on our website was misleading(we have removed the site since). We don't work with any "top" administrators. Our intention was to say we work with admins of each page to suggest the edits. Hope this clarifies.--Nadakumar (talk) 18:52, 18 December 2014 (UTC)
Thanks; however, there are no admins for each page? And Neuronetics is a company that manufactures the product in question. How would you propose disclosing these sorts of COIs going forwards? And are you willing to just edit the talk pages / never edit the main space? Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 19:24, 18 December 2014 (UTC)
James, right now, she's working with you, and there are people who would call you a "top admin".
Nadakumar, I think the phrase you're after is something like "the editors at each article". WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:27, 18 December 2014 (UTC)
WhatamIdoing Doc James Thank you, yes "the editors at each article". :-)
Going forward, we will always name the company(COI) who requested the edit in the talk page. Also, we will never edit a page. I have outlined guidelines for all of our employees about this. If an IMS Health employee edits a Wikipedia page, they will be in violation of company policies. They are requested to suggest the proposed edit only via talk page. Just a question though. What if the editors don't respond since all of you, of course are volunteers with a day job. Where else can we submit the suggestions? Thanks again.
--Nadakumar (talk) 23:30, 18 December 2014 (UTC)
We can also start a page where you can list all your open requests. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 01:07, 19 December 2014 (UTC)
That will be really helpful. Thanks Doc James
Technically, you should write your policy to say that your staff will not edit "articles", rather than "pages", since talk pages are "pages", too.
You might also talk to your staff about how you want them to respond if (when) someone tells them to edit the article directly ("WP:Be bold!" "{{Sofixit}}!"). Different companies have taken different approaches to this. Finally, it's possible that someone else who does a lot of paid editing, like CorporateM, might be able to tell you whether there are any on-wiki essays that might be helpful to you. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:37, 19 December 2014 (UTC)

Regarding enforcement, I have spoken with someone with the Federal Trade Commission, which is cited in the Terms of Use as requiring disclosure of a financial connection online, and they were interested in hearing examples where misleading product claims were successfully made in Wikipedia article-space by someone with a non-disclosed financial connection. If anyone comes across example(s) that have not been corrected, I'd love to hear them by email.

Regarding a good Wikipedia essay, Wikipedia:Plain and simple conflict of interest guide remains the most widely recognized essay on how to participate on Wikipedia with a conflict of interest and is easier to understand than WP:COI, which is filled with Wikipedia jargon, errors, and other issues.

Regarding general advice, I am confused as to whether IMS is a publisher of analyst reports participating with a self-citation COI, or if they are opening shop as a paid editing service to write about pharmaceutical businesses. For example, for self-citation I would refer them to Pete Forsyth and suggest direct, disclosed editing. For paid editing on behalf of pharma clients, I would recommend gaining copious experience as a volunteer first + I would caution that most medical articles are already handled well by the community; I have not seen very many good opportunities for ethical participation in this particular sector. Most pharma companies feel certain Wikipedia articles are unfair/incorrect, whereas they are not actually. CorporateM (Talk) 18:20, 19 December 2014 (UTC)

Ok, giving the discussion a closer read, I see they are already on the right track and are looking to facilitate edits on behalf of pharma clients. Rather than having a large number of editors from your company involved, my recommendation would be to use one person as a cross-client specialist, so the individual can earn a reputation for facilitating good edits and can gain specialized experience with Wikipedia. Also, the one lesson every new paid editor learns is to be selective about which clients you take on in this role. For example, statistically for my Wikipedia services, I turn down 75 percent of new business prospects, because their objectives are too mal-aligned with Wikipedia's policies for them to be ethically served. Your ratio may vary depending on the circumstances, but it's hard for businesses to reject substantial revenue opportunities for the sake of ethics. It looks like there are plenty of editors offering to chip in though. Best of luck! CorporateM (Talk) 23:04, 19 December 2014 (UTC)

Wikilite

Is willing to release some of their images under a CC BY SA license so that we may use them. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 20:37, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

What kind of images do they have? I'm unfortunately not able to access their page right now, and google isn't giving me much apart from graphs. -- CFCF 🍌 (email) 08:07, 19 December 2014 (UTC)
This could be good for MM [19] Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 08:23, 20 December 2014 (UTC)

[20] Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 08:23, 20 December 2014 (UTC)

NCCAM as a MEDRS?

I'm not sure if we have dealt with this source or situation before, but generally single primary sources, even if they are high quality (non-review) pieces of research, are not considered to meet the bar of quality we require of a MEDRS source. We generally prefer reviews of multiple (hopefully high quality) pieces of research.

What happens with NCCAM, which often uses such sources (single pieces of research) in their statements, and then editors use NCCAM as a RS, but claim it's a MEDRS? Is it a MEDRS when it's not quoting a review, but a single piece of (usually favorable) research?

The situation at hand is my restoration of MEDRS tags which questioned the quality of NCCAM refs. My edit summary: "Reverted good faith edits by Miracle dream (talk): Our MEDRS standard is higher than NCCAM, which is an advocacy agency, controlled by AM partisans. (TW))" A well-known defender of alternative medicine then reverted me.

The POV of whoever added those tags, which I share, is obviously disputed, including by TimidGuy, whose edit summary said this: "Undid revision 638019361 by QuackGuru (talk) rv Why are NCCAM statements MEDRS violations? This is clearly compliant."

Now I'm here and want to see what a discussion determines. I obviously believe that NCCAM is not itself a MEDRS source. It all depends on how it's used. An appeal to authority is especially dubious when referring to NCCAM, which secures its funding by endlessly wasting taxpayer money on research of non evidence-based methods which have no hope of working, even while it's forced to admit that most alternative medicine is not backed by good evidence. I subscribe to their reports, and it's always dismal reading for any true believer in nonsense methods, such as homeopathy. At present it seems that QG is alone against several pro-AM editors. -- Brangifer (talk) 00:09, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

NCCAM publications do not meet WP:MEDRS. NCCAM-funded double blind experimental research published in reliable peer-review journals may well meet WP:MEDRS. Stuartyeates (talk) 00:44, 15 December 2014 (UTC)
OK,I am the editor who add these sources. From what I see, National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine is a United States government agency that investigates complementary and alternative medicine and part of U.S. Department of Health & Human Services. Hence, when you told it is an advocacy agency and controlled by AM partisans, I felt really confused. By the way, in this situation, I don't know whether we need to notice other editors involved this edition.Miracle dream (talk)20:12, 17 December 2014‎
[MEDRS] says: "Statements and information from reputable major medical and scientific bodies may be valuable encyclopedic sources. These bodies include....U.S. National Institutes of Health.... The reliability of these sources range from formal scientific reports, which can be the equal of the best reviews published in medical journals, through public guides and service announcements, which have the advantage of being freely readable, but are generally less authoritative than the underlying medical literature." NCCAM is part of NIH, so it is MEDRS compliant, but where on the quality spectrum within MEDRS? Is the NCCAM source being used a "scientific report"? if so, then it is the highest quality according to MEDRS. If the NCCAM source is a "public service announcement", then the source is "generally less authoritative than the underlying medical literature", but still MEDRS compliant. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.181.201.237 (talk • contribs) 02:04, December 15, 2014‎ (UTC)
No one is disputing that the NCCAM is a RS for its own opinion. Note that your quote does not mention NCCAM, but mentions actual "medical and scientific organizations", which are something very different than NCCAM.
NCCAM is a government organization created to research CAM, and it is populated and operated mostly by pro-AM people, who then give money to their buddies, who often perform horribly deficient research, but it keeps them in business so they can claim that their dubious method is the "subject of intense research". What a laugh! NOT. If this network of pro-AM cronies weren't running the show, it would have been defunded and closed a long time ago for wasting taxpayers' money. Numerous calls for doing so have been made.
Individual pieces of primary research, even of the best kind, and regardless of who performs it, are generally not considered MEDRS. That position is our only way to prevent massive OR about biomedical content here. We wait for replication and confirmation, and then we consider the reviews and meta-analyses to be MEDRS. Even Cochrane reviews are becoming dubious sources, so even with reviews we must be wary.
Our MEDRS guideline is much better than the standards of NCCAM and most peer reviewed medical journals. We should be proud of that and not lower our standards. -- Brangifer (talk) 02:27, 15 December 2014 (UTC)
I knew NCCAM is a government organization but how did you it is populated and operated mostly by pro-AM people? Are there any reliable sources to show this? I also find some article from websites of some universities, like Harvard, UW-Madison, to support AM.[21] As this theory, can we consider these universities are also controlled by pro-AM people which is unbelievable. Moreover, these theory by now seems just a claim from you but I did not see RS to support. I wonder whether it can be considered as an original research, When you determine a government organization is unreliable, it is a kind of academic research. However wiki is not a place to do academic research which actually is an original research, Some claims like"What a laugh! NOT. If this network of pro-AM cronies weren't running the show, it would have been defunded and closed a long time ago for wasting taxpayers' money." is more like original research by wiki editors. Miracle dream (talk)
There is a difference between personal opinions and commentary on a talk page and original research in an article. You should learn the difference. The leaders of the NCCAM, at least a few years ago, were key figures within alternative medicine. That's simple history. Check it out. If you will examine the criticisms which have been leveled at the NCCCAM for years, they detail this type of thing. I'm just parroting those criticisms because they were accurate. -- Brangifer (talk) 05:52, 15 December 2014 (UTC)
  • NCCAM is part of the NIH. Formally (i.e., considering the POV-independent factors that our content policies care about), it is exactly as reliable as any other part of the NIH. The fact that it is criticized by people who resent its funding or are irritated with some of its conclusions is exactly as irrelevant as the fact that the same types of complaints are lodged against other parts of the NIH (including, to give only two common examples, NIMH, run by "pro-psychiatry cronies" and NCI, which is owned by pro-breast cancer industry cronies).
  • No source is "reliable". No source is "MEDRS". It is only possible to determine whether a source is reliable when you compare it to the exact statement being supported.
    • In the instant case, the statement says, "A 2012 analysis of data on individual participants in acupuncture studies looked at migraine and tension headaches. The analysis showed that actual acupuncture was more effective than either no acupuncture or simulated acupuncture in reducing headache frequency or severity."
    • The source cited was What the Science Says About the Effectiveness of Acupuncture-For Heaache from National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine.
    • The relevant contents of the NCCAM website are, "A 2012 analysis of data on individual participants in acupuncture studies looked at migraine and tension headaches. The analysis showed that actual acupuncture was more effective than either no acupuncture or simulated acupuncture in reducing headache frequency or severity"—word-for-word what the NCCAM webpage says. (There's no copyvio here, because there's no copyright in US government works.)
    • Is this webpage reliable for these contents (i.e., for describing the contents of some other source)? Yes.
    • Would the underlying "analysis of data in...[multiple] acupuncture studies" be exactly the sort of meta-analysis that MEDRS promotes? Yes. Or, at least, it is presumably the sort of source that MEDRS holds in highest esteem, although it's possible that there would be some serious failing (e.g., not ever having been published).
    • In particular, it would be really silly to say that it's excellent for a Wikipedia editor to read that meta-analysis and write his own description of it, but that it's impossibly bad to have actual professionals read that study and write a description of it. Amateurs are not always better than professionals, especially when it comes to evaluating something technical. Also, if your information comes from NCCAM, then WP:SAYWHEREYOUGOTIT applies, and you aren't permitted to cite the original meta-analysis (unless and until you obtain the paper and read it).

As a side note, one of the things that is annoying about the disputes on that subject is that the anti-acupuncture people seem to take the view that acupuncture must be proven not merely to make people feel better, but to make people feel better through the exact mechanism claimed. If getting a speech about "meridians" and sticking some needles in a particular spot (or sacrificing a rubber chicken at midnight during a full moon, or swallowing large pills, or whatever ritual you want) reduces the number of headaches, then that's great news for the world. Even if the mechanism involves nothing more than cultural conditioning (so it only reduces the number of headaches for people who are in the relevant culture), then that's great news. Wikipedia is not in the business of suppressing scientific data about the number of headaches being reduced (even if it's just slightly reduced, which is what I've assumed), just because the underlying mechanism claimed for reducing them involves rather silly mystical things like "meridians". There will be studies that favor this treatment for some subjective symptoms, and studies that don't. We should present both and quit trying to suppress the "wrong" POV. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:48, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

What we/they should be proven to be is better than a placebo. Alas the concept of placebo is inseparable from believed-mechanism. There are non-trivial issues with experimental design and finding a good placebo for something as interactive a acupuncture, but it has been attempted pretty thoroughly. Stuartyeates (talk) 22:17, 16 December 2014 (UTC)
WhatamIdoing, I think you have unwittingly proposed a straw man argument. Advocates of science-based medicine aren't "anti-acupuncture" but pro-evidence of efficacy. It matters not whether we understand the mechanism. If it works, we'll use it in medicine. There are many forms of medical products and methods which still lack clear understanding of mechanisms, but where efficacy is no longer in doubt, and they are used. The explanation would be nice, but it's not essential for acceptance.
You would benefit from reading this section: Alternative medicine#Terms and definitions. It contains these great statements from some pretty influential people:
  • "It is time for the scientific community to stop giving alternative medicine a free ride. There cannot be two kinds of medicine – conventional and alternative. There is only medicine that has been adequately tested and medicine that has not, medicine that works and medicine that may or may not work. Once a treatment has been tested rigorously, it no longer matters whether it was considered alternative at the outset. If it is found to be reasonably safe and effective, it will be accepted. But assertions, speculation, and testimonials do not substitute for evidence. Alternative treatments should be subjected to scientific testing no less rigorous than that required for conventional treatments."
  • "...there's no such thing as conventional or alternative or complementary or integrative or holistic medicine. There's only medicine that works and medicine that doesn't. And the best way to sort it out is by carefully evaluating scientific studies--not by visiting Internet chat rooms, reading magazine articles, or talking to friends."
  • "Alternative medicine has either not been proved to work, or been proved not to work. You know what they call alternative medicine that's been proved to work? Medicine."
We don't suppress good evidence here. We use MEDRS to ensure that our biomedical claims are backed up by stable and good quality sources, not lots of primary studies which are preliminary results, case-control studies, "needs more study" type stuff. We want reviews of multiple pieces of quality research which show an effect. Explanation would be nice, but it's not essential.
The area where pushers of acupuncture get in trouble is where they keep pushing nonsense like meridians and acupoints. Continual proferring of mystical explanations in this day and age is rightly called pseudoscience. The medical acupuncture people have dropped such pseudo-explanations and seek more verifiable biological and psychological explanations. They admit that acupoints and meridians aren't histologically verifiable structures, but metaphysical belief systems from ancient and ignorant times. Felix Mann, a hugely influential figure in acupuncture, put it rather bluntly:
  • "The traditional acupuncture points are no more real than the black spots a drunkard sees in front of his eyes."
  • "The meridians of acupuncture are no more real than the meridians of geography. If someone were to get a spade and tried to dig up the Greenwich meridian, he might end up in a lunatic asylum. Perhaps the same fate should await those doctors who believe in [acupuncture] meridians." (p. 31)
I think you'll find that if editors would provide robust MEDRS documenting consistent and predictable effects, then we'd include them, and we actually do in some cases, but most attempts are MEDRS violations using primary sources, often from China, where we know that 100% are favorable, and that's a huge red flag regarding the unreliability and lack of objectivity of TCM and acupuncture research from China. -- Brangifer (talk) 03:55, 17 December 2014 (UTC)
"What we/they should be proven to be is better than a placebo." — No, you're thinking like a scientist, not like a patient. What the patient cares about is whether it works for me. It doesn't matter if it works for anyone else, and it doesn't matter whether the claimed mechanism is correct. What matters is that it works for me. (Of course, acupuncture isn't going to work for me personally, because I have no interest in going to an acupuncturist.) The placebo effect is real, and for some problems, like pain, "only" achieving the placebo effect is extremely helpful to the patient. Refusing to accept the placebo effect as being an actual effect leads you to nonsense discussions: "This is great! I feel so much less pain," says the patient. "No, you don't! I can prove statistically that you hurt just as much as ever!" says the scientist. Well, I say it's spinach: If the purpose of the treatment was to make the patient hurt less, and the patient actually hurts less afterwards, then the pain treatment "works". It doesn't necessarily work well enough that I'd recommend it, and it doesn't necessarily work in other cultures, but it works well enough that the individual patient received some actual benefit from it, even if the source of that benefit is the ritual or the belief rather than the actual treatment. In fact, it probably "works" better than some highly conventional treatments, like arthroscopic knee surgery for knee pain (which is proven worthless), and it's probably lower risk than, say, opiates (addiction risk), aspirin (gastrointestinal bleeding), and paracetamol (liver risk).
Brangifer, I wish that your statement were true. However, the people who identify with "science-based medicine" include a wide variety of viewpoints, from people who say acupuncture really works in some circumstances, to people who would recommend it in very limited circumstances (e.g., if you have no other safe options to offer the patient, and are hoping that the placebo effect will happen to work for them) to people who say that it doesn't matter if the actual patients feel better, or if it works better than, say, massage (which is actually a conventional medicine treatment for some conditions), or if it has fewer side effects than pharmaceutical medications, because meridians are nonsense (which AFAICT, they are).
"If it works, we'll use it in medicine." — Sadly, this is not true, even if your statement had been complete, namely "If we become aware that it works better than what we've already got, using a statistical, group-average definition of "better", we'll use it in medicine." The view that altmed is "what doesn't work" is a distinctly minority viewpoint. Some altmed works (usually worse than modern, conventional medicine). Most of it does nothing. Some altmed was conventional medicine, once upon a time. Also, the evidence base for conventional medicine is remarkably thin in some areas, and actual practice disagrees with it in thousands of patient encounters a day: people with knee pain get arthroscopic knee surgery (evidence against), people with colds are told to take dextromethorphan (so completely proven useless that the FDA ought to revoke its marketing authorization), people in apparent good health are sent to get echocardiograms before surgeries, people are denied food and drink after some surgeries until bowel sounds reappear (evidence against; this increases the length of hospital stays), people in Japan almost never leave a doctor's office without orders for either a drug or a test (ultrasounds are popular, because they're least likely to hurt the patient, except through causing overdiagnosis). You could probably write an entire book about what obstetricians do with their pregnant patients without evidence, or even with evidence against. So, no, I don't buy the fairy tale that the healthcare practice can be neatly divided into evidence-based and non-evidence-based, with the Good Doctors doing only the one and the Evil AltMed Quacks doing only the other. The real world is much messier than that.
"We don't suppress good evidence here." If you really believe that we have no anti-altmed POV pushers here, then you have not been paying attention. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:33, 17 December 2014 (UTC)
To reply Brangifer. Sorry, it made me a little confused. I thought the topic is whether NCCAM is MEDRS violation not whether we should give free ride for alternative medicine. Most of your comments is about how bad the alternative medicine is.None of these are about NCCAM. Some comment is "China is huge red flag regarding the unreliability" It seems these comments did not have much relationship with NCCAM topic. Especially, for "China is huge red flag regarding the unreliability", despite I cannot agree this, can you tell me what the relationship between this and NCCAM. NCCAM is a government organization of U.S. No matter what China is, it is totally unrelated. You claim "Alternative medicine has either not been proved to work, or been proved not to work." but in the same time you define all research organization for alternative medicine is unbelievable or unreliable, even this organization is supported by U.S. government and is part of U.S. National Institutes of Health which is defined as reliable in MEDRS. If all positive sources for alternative are unreliable, then the only reliable source will be negative.You comment like "NCCAM is populated and operated mostly by pro-AM people" " Even Cochrane reviews are becoming dubious sources, so even with reviews we must be wary" "Our MEDRS guideline is much better than the standards of NCCAM and most peer reviewed medical journals. We should be proud of that and not lower our standards." made me feel there are academic seminar in wiki which has its own academic research . The result of this "wiki research" is NCCAM is unreliable and the Cohrane review is also unreliable which should be checked by us.
By the way, if all alternative medicine is unbelievable, why article Ayurveda is so positive and used so many sources which you considered as unreliable? Does it mean Ayurveda is not an alternative medicine?Miracle dream 20:15, 17 December 2014‎
Brangifer mentions the stuff about China to explain a "rule" for rejecting apparently high-quality review articles published in reputable academic journals by highly experienced researchers: if the study is about acupuncture, then throw away anything that looks like it might have been written by Chinese researchers. You will not find this rule in MEDRS, but you will find people promoting this rule on the related talk pages. Because Chinese studies find stronger effects (which is exactly what you'd expect, if treatment effect required cultural conditioning, no?), then some editors believe that all the Chinese sources should be assumed to be lies. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:04, 18 December 2014 (UTC)
Actually I don't care whether Chinese sources are believable here. The reason I mentioned Chinese sources is I thought the comments of Brangifer was out of topic. NCCAM is belong to U.S. government. This topic is whether NCCAM is MEDRS compliant. I thought his comments above has no relationship with this topic, I just use Chinese sources as an example why I think Brangifer is out of topic. What I cited is from NCCAM, I just want to know whether the citation from NCCAM is reliable. If wiki defines all Chinese sources are unreliable for acupuncture, it is totally fine for me. Currently I don't care about the status of Chinese sources in this topic. However, I personally oppose any original research in wiki.I think every claim should be cited from sources. I oppose to use personal opinion to determine whether sources are reliable when make edition in wiki. Then I personally think culture is culture and medicine is medicine. They are different. Even though culture may effect different medicine, I personally will not use anything about culture to explain medicine. Miracle dream 02:54, 18 December 2014‎
Wikipedia does consider that homeopathy is pseudoscience, despite the fact that it is taught in medical schools, practiced by MDs and many people consider it useful. It is not so that MDs who advocate pseudoscientific treatments would have their license revoked or be judged for heresy. The medical profession allows for much arbitrary in treating people, if architects and engineers would enjoy the same discretion as MDs, bridges would fall at the slightest wind blow. Tgeorgescu (talk) 00:09, 18 December 2014 (UTC)
  • I personally have a pretty dim view of NCCAM (although it has improved somewhat over time from its especially inauspicious beginnings). That said, NCCAM clearly meets our sourcing bar as described in WP:MEDRS; it's part of the NIH and thus falls under "reputable major medical and scientific bodies". MastCell Talk 21:42, 17 December 2014 (UTC)
  • I agree. In the end, we have to choose between publishing what established (perhaps "entrenched" would be a better word) editors believe is The Truth™, or publishing what the sources say, giving the various viewpoints in due proportion to their prominence. If you're doing the latter, then you have to take NCCAM on the same footing as NIMH or NCI. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:04, 18 December 2014 (UTC)
I think the key word reputable is being missed. The reputations of NIMH and NCI are considerably different than that of NCCAM. As a recognized government agency I think NCCAM carries some weight. The question is due weight. As the reputation of NCCAM has been critiqued in multiple reliable sources it's statement weight are reduced and probably require qualification. I think there is a crossroads in terms of alt med and I am not sure WP has resolved the encyclopedic way to handle it. Alt med is a subject of discussion in serious academic circles. I think many of the editors described as "entrenched" prefer an editorial style that presents facts and evidence. This is perhaps to the exclusion of scholarly discussion and publication of discussion of analysis of alt med in terms of popularity and practice. In my opinion policy is quite clear that biomedical information should emphasize medical knowledge, however what is happening and what is being debated/discussed/considered in practice is also important factual information. I am not entirely clear on the best way to balance but I lean towards a clear presentation of the information about what is known prominently with less prominent and clearly framed presentation of the use of and discussion of alt med. - - MrBill3 (talk) 03:40, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

There seems to be some confusion here. NCCAM does carry some weight, but it is not the publishing body. It cites published research, and it's the research which is either MEDRS compliant or not. Just because NCCAM cites a single person opinion piece (for example), does not elevate that opinion piece to the level of a high quality MEDRS citation here. It is the research, not its mention by NCCAM, which we must judge. In this instance (this thread), IIRC, NCCAM was citing a piece of primary research which we would not consider MEDRS compliant. That is why I objected.

OTOH, if NCCAM cites a true literature review of high quality research, then we would judge that literature review as MEDRS compliant, but not because it was cited by NCCAM. It is the actual research which is covered by MEDRS, not the source or because it was cited by NCCAM.

We still consider sources, since we aren't supposed to forsake the use of common sense, but even the highest rated source, for example The Lancet, would not elevate a single study primary source piece of research to the level of a MEDRS compliant source. It's not a literature review, and that's what we want. We want to see what happens after that piece of research has been judged and replicated by many others, and a review is then written about that situation. THAT'S what we consider a MEDRS compliant source we can use here.

In that sense, our MEDRS standards are higher than even The Lancet's standards. -- Brangifer (talk) 04:46, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

Brangifer, the source cited was NCCAM's own website, and NCCAM's website is actually published by NCCAM. I hope we can also agree that NCCAM is a reliable source for basic facts about altmed publications that they're directly describing, e.g., that it existed if they say it did, that it was a review rather than a trial it they say it was, that it came to certain general conclusions that they claim it did. I further hope that we can agree that "analysis of data on individual participants in acupuncture studies" is what's normally called (i.e., practically the definition of) a meta-analysis (of the "individual participant data type; go search for "IPD" in our article on the subject), and that I hope that we can agree that meta-analyses are not primary sources (exactly like MEDRS says they're not). In short, I hope that we can agree that NCCAM's website is actually reliable for what was actually being supported in that article.
(Maybe I should get back to that idea of explaining the difference between "reliable" and "due weight" in MEDRS itself; NCCAM's website is reliable for this statement, but no single source proves due weight.)
Wikipedia editors aren't supposed to be "judging the research" at all. MEDRS prohibits it: ""Assessing evidence quality" means that editors should determine the quality of the type of study. Editors should not perform a detailed academic peer review." WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:37, 18 December 2014 (UTC)
We're talking about different things. I have not disputed that NCCAM is a RS in the usual sense. Have you even read what I wrote right above your comment? MEDRS is about research, not websites. The only exception would be a consensus declarations by a national body of science, or some similar organization. That would weigh quite heavily with us. We would assume that such a declaration is based on the whole body of evidence, and that such considerations would be based on reviews.
We favor secondary reviews over primary research, regardless of the quality of the primary research. Our editorial evaluation to determine whether research is primary or a review is necessary. That has nothing to do with quality but of type.
"the source cited was NCCAM's own website", but WHAT was mentioned there? Mention of a piece of primary research by NCCAM (the reason we have this thread) does not elevate that piece of primary research to the level of a literature review or meta-analysis, so we shouldn't use it as a reference. In such a case, NCCAM is not a MEDRS compliant source because that single piece of primary research it is citing is not MEDRS compliant. Its mention by The Lancet wouldn't help either. Brangifer (talk) 07:13, 20 December 2014 (UTC)

Other issues at Acupuncture

An editor restored the MEDRS violations and deleted text from the safety section among other problems. See Talk:Acupuncture#TCM_is_largely_pseudoscience_according_to_the_source_presented. This is the version before the MEDRS violations was restored. Please check the edit history. QuackGuru (talk) 02:38, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

This is not the place to censor or investigate others' behavior. If you think his behavior violate some rule, you can simply put these to Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents. Then these sources was first added by me. For your opinion, do I have some other problems? Then I see you block history which shows you have been blocked more than 10 times.[22] Every year you were at least blocked one time. Can I say you have other problems based on such a bad block history? However,I can notice this editor in his talk page so that you have a chance to debate with him about his "other problems." Miracle dream (talk)
Miracle dream also blindly deleted text from the safety information without explanation (and restored the MEDRS violations). I fixed the refs in the other conditions section but that was reverted without explanation too. See Talk:Acupuncture#TCM_is_largely_pseudoscience_according_to_the_source_presented for more details. QuackGuru (talk) 03:22, 15 December 2014 (UTC)
Oh, really. That's right. Wow. Yes, actually it is I revert you change. Sorry, I did not notice that before. If you ask why I did this, it is because I thought you just revert my change [23]. I did not notice you add new thing. Wow, you really did a huge change. You deleted my editions and added new things in the same time. It is really hard for me to notice this. I am really Careless. Ok, I totally understand why user TimidGuy revert what you added. It is because I careless revert your change. Then you revert it again but never told me I have deleted something you added. user TimidGuy must think you just deleted what I edited. Then he careless revert all. I guess this is the story. It seems it is all my false. However, it is OK. I give you a suggestion. You can send this to Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents. Please, if you want to debate this thing to me, go ahead to report it in the noticeboard.It seems you really like to censor others' behavior. I think you should control your behavior before censor others so that you would not be blocked about 10 times. Miracle dream (talk)
My edit summary was "Rmv 3 WP:MEDRS violations; fix refs for other conditions; add safety; better summary for 2011 review. The text removed for the 2011 review was about the images. See Talk:Acupuncture#TCM is largely pseudoscience according to the source presented."[24] I clearly explained I did fix the refs and added information about safety among other things. QuackGuru (talk) 03:49, 15 December 2014 (UTC)
So what? I said I did not notice this. I am careless. This is the reason. If you don't believe me, go ahead to report me in Administrators' noticeboard. I told you so many times to report me if you don't believe me. By the way, in such a long sentence "Rmv 3 WP:MEDRS violations; fix refs for other conditions; add safety; better summary for 2011 review. The text removed for the 2011 review was about the images. See Talk:Acupuncture#TCM is largely pseudoscience according to the source presented", only two words are "add safety". It is really hard for me to see these small two vocabularies in such a long sentences. This is not the first year I became a user in wiki but this is the first time I involved in this debate. Give me a reason why I need to delete your edition. As I said, this is the first time I involved a debate in this topic but honest to say the way you censor others really gave me a surprise and made me impressive. Thanks a lot. Miracle dream (talk)
The response, "So what?" suggests it really does not matter what you have done. Do you realise what you did to the refs among other things? For example, see 175. Are you going to fix the mistakes you have made? I think a collaborative editor would of fixed the mistakes rather say "So what?".[25] QuackGuru (talk) 04:10, 15 December 2014 (UTC)
The most important thing is there is totally three users who revert your change but you never try to notice this mistake to us. Then there is a debate here. You suddenly accuse us has some misbehavior. If you notice me, for example, send a message to my talk page like what you do now, this problem will never happen. No,you did not select to notice me. Wait for a debate here. Then suddenly accuse someone have different idea with you. I wonder whether your purpose is to block us so that nobody will debate with you in this topic. For my response,yeah, sorry for offensive. If you feel unhappy, I am sorry about it. But nobody will feel good when his behavior is censored by others. Imagine if I always check your block history, I think you would be also unhappy. Miracle dream (talk)
Also I have a question. You sent a message like a warning from Committee. The problem is I did not see any decision by any committee. I wonder whether this is your personal warning to me. If so, I will also accept this warning but I need to know whether it is your own warning to me. I will try to be careful but it is a little hard to be careful in every time. Hence, please notice me some mistakes during the edition in the future. Don't wait a debate then accuse me in discussion. Miracle dream (talk)
I clearly explained it in my edit summary and on the talk page my edits. I asked you "Are you going to fix the mistakes you have made?"[26] yet you did not address if you are going to fix your mistakes[27] or do you think your edit was not really a serious problem? The National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine does not meet MEDRS and is not a medical body. I gave you a neutral message like I did for other editors. Of course, not everybody listens to me advise. Continuing to add or restore MEDRS violations is counterproductive IMO. I suggest you fix the mistakes and remove the MEDRS violations and start fresh. QuackGuru (talk) 04:56, 15 December 2014 (UTC)
Yeah, you gave me a neutral message after the debate began, also after you accusing us misbehavior and even after someone create a topic about these Other issues at Acupuncture. This is why I said you could notice us during the edition but you chose not. Then after many people involved a debate, you suddenly accused us. Haven't you find it was all written after this debate started. Then how did you use an user's opinion as the evidence to show whether some sources are reliable. You neutral message sent after you create a topic for accusing us misbehavior. Did you think about to notice us earlier than this? Actually I loosely check the link you posted in your lost response.
Then about "fix your own mistake". Oh my god. This is a discussion page. Everybody discussed in the page itself. Why did you select to use an edition summary to notice me instead of simply talking in this discussion page? I simply reply the word of page but never follow an edition history of discussion page? I have never seen other users used a edition summary to express idea in discussion page. However, yeah, now I have fixed my mistake and re-added what you added before.
All by all, everyone may make mistakes.For example, QuackGuru, you were blocked about 10 times before. It means you also made lots of mistakes and broke lots of rules but you still continue your edition. Hence, this time I made a mistake. I will try to be careful next time Miracle dream (talk)
Miracle dream, please sign your comments with "four" tildes. The time stamp is important. -- Brangifer (talk) 19:29, 15 December 2014 (UTC)
It would be useful to separate the discussions of editor behavior and content. - - MrBill3 (talk) 03:44, 18 December 2014 (UTC)
Indeed, Wikipedia:EDITSNOTEDITORS here. Behaviour goes elsewhere.LeadSongDog come howl! 18:07, 20 December 2014 (UTC)

Ordering of sections of e-cigs

A RfC is started again here Talk:Electronic_cigarette#Ordering_of_sections_2 Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 21:16, 20 December 2014 (UTC)

An interesting review on salt

[28] Wondering how peopl would summarize it? Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 23:52, 20 December 2014 (UTC)

I would say something like: "The evidence for reducing salt intake to prevent cardiovascular disease remains weak." -A1candidate (talk) 09:51, 21 December 2014 (UTC)
Thanks A1 Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 10:12, 21 December 2014 (UTC)
I'm not so sure about that. The study is very much focused on advice to individuals to reduce their intake, which is not quite the same thing. Johnbod (talk) 12:27, 21 December 2014 (UTC)
To be exact, it's actually reducing salt intake through dietary advice or salt substitution. In any case, UpToDate says: "Some but not all evidence supports a cardiovascular benefit of salt restriction. The literature does not provide a definitive answer." That ties in with what the Cochrane review concluded. -A1candidate (talk)

Infobox bacterial labs

{{Infobox bacterial labs}} has only one transclusion. Is it of any use? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 20:44, 20 December 2014 (UTC)

Well it is niche, but I could probably see it being used on quite a few articles. I don't think it should be deleted, but rather spread around a bit more so that more people know about it. Check WP:MCB. -- CFCF 🍌 (email) 18:02, 21 December 2014 (UTC)

The following articles have very poor reliance to WP:MEDRS. I've done some cleaning, but there is so much that needs to be removed. -- CFCF 🍌 (email) 21:00, 21 December 2014 (UTC)

Will add more if/when I find them-- CFCF 🍌 (email) 21:00, 21 December 2014 (UTC)

Lists of side effects

Many of our drug articles (and the psychiatric drug articles in particular) feature extremely detailed lists of "Side effects", in with subheadings estimating incidence in ranges of ">10%", "1 to 10%", etc, in some cases going all the way down to "0.01% to 0.1%". Unfortunately, these listings are extremely misleading, as the terms "side effects" and "adverse effects" are used throughout to describe what are actually adverse events. In the case of bupropion for example we have the following rates quoted for the drug. I've added the rates seen in the placebo arm of the clinical trials below, these rates are NOT shown in the article.

Adverse Event Buproprion Incidence (at 300 mg standard dose) Placebo Incidence Description in article
Headache 25% 23% Adverse effect with incidence >10%
Asthenia 2% 2% Adverse effect with incidence 1-10%
Alopecia "rare" not stated Adverse effect with incidence 1-10%
Concentration difficulties Not mentioned in pkg insert Not mentioned in pkg insert Adverse effect with incidence 1-10%
Depression No rate mentioned in pkg insert Not mentioned in pkg insert Adverse effect with incidence 1-10%
Uticaria ("indicative of hypersensitivity reaction" incidence not mentioned in pkg insert Not mentioned in pkg insert Adverse effect with incidence 1-10%

In addition, we list about 50 "adverse effects" with an incidence of 0.01 to 0.1%. a rate of 0.01% is one per 10,000, which would not normally be seen in a development program of about 3000 patients, so these are presumably all from spontaneous reports, and of unknown causation. They are "adverse events" and not "adverse effects"

I'm not quite sure what to do about these. Given the large and active anti-psychiatry group on Wikipedia, I'm suspicous that we have these very large (and apparently partly fictitious) lists of "adverse effects" that seem to be selectively added to psychiatry drug articles. I was going to rename "adverse effects" as adverse events, but I'm not sure how to phrase that for the average reader. And I suspect it will be a tremendous amount of work to go through each list and weed out the fictious entries.

Any thoughts.

Formerly 98 (talk) 16:01, 21 December 2014 (UTC)

Formerly 98 I have worried about this for a long time. We run a real risk of Wikipedia articles interfering directly with someone receiving the most appropriate treatment for a disabling condition (somatic or psychiatric). My view has been that we should only discuss common side effects, or rare ones that are significant (e.g. agranulocytosis in clozapine use). Ideally we should have a secondary source if we claim that "myalgia was common in people on statin X, but not more common than in the placebo arm".
Should we discuss this on WT:MEDMOS, in consultation with WP:PHARM? JFW | T@lk 20:30, 21 December 2014 (UTC)
Listing any other than major adverse effects has the potential to be complex. It's not just the drugs: it's how they're given, what formulation, to which patient group, for which condition. No-one is going to argue when we say that frusemide can cause hypokalemia any day of the week, but old amphoteracin B had a horrible adverse effect profile compared to the newer liposomal form in more common use nowadays. Too much detail will tend to date articles rapidly, with a significant maintenance burden, and is hardly the place of a general encyclopedia in any case. Where do we draw the line though? Basie (talk) 00:12, 22 December 2014 (UTC)
thanks for your interest. I don't know all the ropes here, so will follow your advice if you have specific ideas on how to proceed. I've also initiated an article-specific discussion on the bupropion talk page for dealing with that particular article. Formerly 98 (talk) 20:34, 21 December 2014 (UTC)
Bluerasberry Could this also be something we could move off to Wikidata? -- CFCF 🍌 (email) 20:48, 21 December 2014 (UTC)
CFCF If we had good data for this then it could go into Wikidata; my expectation here is that we will almost never have good data. Even with thousands of participants in any given clinical trial the side effect percentages are going to vary. The usual note differences are male and female but Chinese versus European differences come up a lot too, and are significant. If someone finds an excellent dataset then we can talk about putting that on Wikidata as a test case; I am not sure what set of data ought to be the test case and probably for this we need input from an expert.
This kind of data should not be in Wikipedia at all. We have practices to not talk about doses, give primary data which needs interpretation, or import large datasets. I am still in favor of listing subjective side effects which are reported in secondary sources in both Wikipedia and Wikidata, but we are not prepared in any Wikimedia project to start collecting objective data of this sort. Blue Rasberry (talk) 02:43, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Medical Group Visits

Dear medical experts: There are a lot of citations attached to the this old AfC draft. Is this a notable topic? Should the page be kept and improved? It's about to be deleted as stale. —Anne Delong (talk) 23:25, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

Looks like a mess. Anne Delong, I really want to thank you for all the work you do in notifying us of AFCs; because of your notifications, I've sometimes found an AFC worth working on, but this one isn't. Best, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 11:01, 13 December 2014 (UTC)
Something about this concept should be merged into (or created afresh for) Doctor's visit. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:25, 15 December 2014 (UTC)
Thanks to you both. I will leave the draft alone. If anything is to be added to another article it will take someone with more medical expertise than I. —Anne Delong (talk) 23:34, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

New introduction for South Beach Diet

Hello again, all. I have been working on making updates to the 'South Beach Diet article along with several regular editors of this WikiProject. It has been an ongoing process since August, with many lengthy discussions on the Talk page. I believe we've made progress, but there are still several outstanding issues, including updating the introduction paragraph. I just proposed new text which addresses the critiques made of my last draft and I am hoping to find editors here to review it. I should note that I do not make direct edits myself as I have a financial COI, and instead ask other editors to provide feedback on my proposed changes and make any edits as they see fit, or offer counter suggestions. Thanks in advance, WWB Too (Talk · COI) 02:55, 23 December 2014 (UTC)

Monkey Christmas everyone!

...including the great emergency response team :)) 109.158.8.201 (talk) 12:33, 23 December 2014 (UTC)

Wow!--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 19:15, 23 December 2014 (UTC)

Further comments about sourcing and paraphasing

here if people have a moment. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 23:09, 23 December 2014 (UTC)

Caps

How do we capitalize a title like this Gleason Grading System?Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 23:47, 23 December 2014 (UTC)

Gleason grading system, per PMID 2458582, etc 109.158.8.201 (talk) 02:04, 24 December 2014 (UTC)
Done Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 02:44, 24 December 2014 (UTC)

Caffeine used to treat asthma

Discussion here Talk:Caffeine/Archive 1#Asthma Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 08:46, 24 December 2014 (UTC)

Depictions of the Black Death

Hello everyone,

I'm looking for some help making sure that this image is used correctly across various Wikipedias. An academic article in The Medieval Globe has pointed out that the image has often been used to illustrate the Bubonic Plague (the Black Death), but that in fact it represents leprosy.

As things currently stand, User:Rmhermen has very helpfully removed the image from the English Wikipedia, and a few other languages. However, even excluding use in user boxes (en.wp) and as decoration in categories (fr.wp), the file has pretty wide usage in other languages. Is there anyone who would be able to help with one of the languages where the image is still used? Replacing the image is simple enough, but explaining why if someone objects (or leaving a short explanation on the relevant talk pages) would make the changes more likely to stick.

Because it helps to have an alternative image to make sure the Omne Bonum illustration isn't reintroducing by a well-meaning editor, here is one. I've been in touch with one of the authors of the paper and depictions of the Black Death online aren't easy to come by.

The article explaining the misinterpretations is available as an open access PDF here. Page 312 is particularly worth a read. The great thing about the article being open access is that we can see it and act on it quickly. Because Wikipedia is the first port of call for many people, it's important we do our best for our readers. Any help replacing this image would be very much appreciated. Nev1 (talk) 00:19, 24 December 2014 (UTC)

Thanks. Looks like it has been cleaned up. Drop us a note if you need further comments. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 00:58, 24 December 2014 (UTC)
How fascinating. I see the image is an illuminated initial letter from a medieval encyclopedia article. I propose that Wikipedia should adopt this practice and that medical articles could be used to set a good example. Thincat (talk) 11:19, 24 December 2014 (UTC)

Radiation from smart meters

Editors might wish to use material from this report.

—Wavelength (talk) 02:15, 25 December 2014 (UTC)

At the risk of sounding boring, a case series is a (very) primary source, and certainly not medrs. (Thank you though for indirectly pointing out the need for some tlc on the Case series page.) Cheers, 109.158.8.201 (talk) 10:45, 25 December 2014 (UTC)

Further comment on WP:Wikicredit

Is requested here [29] Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 09:12, 25 December 2014 (UTC)

This is about Wikipedia:Wikicredit#Byline_changes. Blue Rasberry (talk) 17:06, 27 December 2014 (UTC)

Pharmacological torture

Seeking input to the discussion on the article talk page for Pharmacological torture. In particular,

1. Whether reliable sources support characterizing the administration of the antimalarial drug mefloquine to prisoners from malaria endemic countries at normal therapeutic doses, but without prior testing for infection, as a form of torture

2. Whether MEDRS-compliant sourcing would be needed for such a characterization.

In passing I'd like to note the Mefloquine article may not be a particularly reliable source for information about the drug. I've noted that in at least once place that a source document has been misquoted in a way that significantly changes the meaning of the quote. So the entire article probably needs to be checked to ensure that the statements actually reflect what is in the source (sigh).

Thanks Formerly 98 (talk) 15:33, 26 December 2014 (UTC)

From what I hear, treating symptomatic people for malaria, in malaria-endemic countries, without testing for infection is called "normal practice". The fact that people take anti-malarials when they actually have (for example) influenza is one of the reasons that anti-malarials are losing efficacy. "Treating prisoners exactly like non-prisoners" (in this case, treating probable but unconfirmed malaria without testing for the presence of the malaria parasite) is not normally considered any kind of problem, much less torture. (Refusing to allow a prisoner to refuse consent for normal medical treatment would be a violation of medical ethics, but still not "torture".)
You don't need a MEDRS-style source for this label. "We call this torture" is not biomedical information. It is socio-legal information. You would want a really good source to prove that this is WP:DUE (i.e., that more than one person/activist organization claims that this is torture), and unless the view is widely held (which I doubt), you will need to use WP:INTEXT attribution to indicate who holds this position. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:30, 26 December 2014 (UTC)
Bauer, the hyoscine-pentothal will make you talk! JFW | T@lk 22:13, 27 December 2014 (UTC)
JFW what are you talking about? Mbcap (talk) 16:40, 28 December 2014 (UTC)
Mbcap Cultural reference. From 24 (TV series). JFW | T@lk 20:44, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Dr. Rana

Dear medical experts: I have been looking for references to improve this old AfC draft about a medical specialist, but without much luck. Maybe I don't know where to look. Is this a notable person? —Anne Delong (talk) 04:46, 25 December 2014 (UTC)

  • I doubt it. His h-index is only 5 according to Google Scholar, and while he is the editor in chief of the Journal of Parkinsonism and Restless Legs Syndrome, this journal doesn't appear to be "major" enough to meet WP:PROF. Everymorning talk 00:46, 26 December 2014 (UTC)
Thanks, Everymorning. It has now been deleted as a stale draft. —Anne Delong (talk) 02:59, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

Help with starting new Wikiproject

I am trying to get this assess table to work Wikipedia:WikiProject_Sanitation#How_to_help. Does anyone know how to fix it? Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 03:04, 23 December 2014 (UTC)

Have you tagged any articles yet? WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:32, 23 December 2014 (UTC)
Yes a few including pit toilet Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 02:43, 24 December 2014 (UTC)
I'm wondering if the problem is your cat names: you have Category:C-Class sanitation articles, and it expects Category:C-Class Sanitation articles. (Cats can be moved now, or the template docs tell you how to specify a "non-standard" cat name.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:43, 24 December 2014 (UTC)
Okay have moved them. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 10:55, 25 December 2014 (UTC)
Thanks has worked. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 11:07, 25 December 2014 (UTC)
Might want to look around Category:water and sub cats. Many bear on water management, water disinfection, etc. LeadSongDog come howl! 05:54, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

WikiCup 2015

Hi there; this is just a quick note to let you all know that the 2015 WikiCup will begin on January 1st. The WikiCup is an annual competition to encourage high-quality contributions to Wikipedia by adding a little friendly competition to editing. At the time of writing, more than fifty users have signed up to take part in the competition; interested parties, no matter their level of experience or their editing interests, are warmly invited to sign up. Questions are welcome on the WikiCup talk page. Thanks! Miyagawa (talk) 21:52, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

Notification -- medical navboxes have changed

TLDR
All medical, anatomy and pharmacological navigation boxes have changed.

The small line of links at the bottom of the navbox has now changed to an "Index of..." with "Description", "Disease" and Treatment" subsections. This will affect almost all medical, anatomy and pharmacology navboxes. As an example, see here:

The links at the bottom ("Index of heart...") are what have changed. A full list is at Template:Medicine navs.

Why this has changed
Previously all navboxes have had a line of links to other navboxes embedded within them. An example is here: [30]. Prior to today, that line that was a list of abbreviated terms that linked to relevant templates. This attracted a lot of negative feedback, and a length discussion was held on how to improve them. See here for the RfC: Template_talk:Medicine_navs#Roundtable_discussion_on_legibiltity_and_usability_of_medical_navs. We concluded that it would be better for the embedded navboxes to be expanded in full form. This is much easier for mobile use, links are clearer, and lay users who may not be familiar with the abbreviated forms can now use the templates with greater ease.
What we have changed
We expanded all the abbreviations. We tried very hard to get the right balance between readability for lay audiences, who are not familiar with medical terminology, and technical accuracy. We have tried to use standard terms for all the templates. Further explanation can be found by reading the discussions on Template_talk:Medicine_navs

Cheers, --Tom (LT) (talk) 23:15, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

Feedback

Please leave feedback here: Template_talk:Medicine_navs#Feedback_after_roundtable_changes 

23:15, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

PR firm writing an article about a doctor

I came across the article Mark S. Komrad, which appears to have been written by a PR firm, Stoosh PR (who were kind enough to identify themselves in their username, but haven't shown any other explicit acknowledgement of their status as paid editors). While they seem open to toning down the advert-sounding-ness of their original effort, the article could certainly benefit from some outside attention, so I thought I'd bring it up here. JesseW, the juggling janitor 06:10, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

Jeez, if you're going to do COI editing at least be good at it. Those bare links are killing me. 0x0077BE (talk · contrib) 12:45, 30 December 2014 (UTC)
Yes we need to clarify the status of paid editing. There are dozens of examples. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 12:50, 30 December 2014 (UTC)
I wonder if at some point there will be some analog to the Education projects for COI editors / PR firms. Given that the Education projects themselves tend to be horribly controversial, I imagine it'll be a hornet's nest, but my guess is that having COI editors organized and guided would be a massive improvement to them just sneaking around. You'll always have rogue PR firms and such, but if an avenue is already presented for interfacing with Wikipedia, I imagine most of them would take the path of least resistance and get on board. The tone issues are one thing, but these PR firms are similar to students in that they are given an incentive to produce a bunch of content, but not necessarily an incentive to learn how Wikipedia works. I'm sure a lot of these social media marketer types would want to put "Wikipedia COI Editing Workshop" on their CVs if such a thing were available, and it might at least create a class of stable editors who might produce quality content. 0x0077BE (talk · contrib) 13:47, 30 December 2014 (UTC)
The pattern is often one account per job. Many are making a fair amount of money. Their current processes appear to be working fairly well as the content ends up being accepted by Wikipedia most of the time and they end up getting paid.
When one is trying to write articles about non notable topics in a promotional fashion it is easier to do it "rogue". The students at least have no incentive to write in a promotional manner and thus I see them as less of a potential issue. The are also often happy to have support. Copyright violations can be addressed with a technical solution. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 14:06, 30 December 2014 (UTC)
0x0077BE, ...so the outcome would be Wikipedia institutionalizing promotion (for money) of individuals/groups and their services/products. Hmmm... 109.158.8.201 (talk) 15:21, 30 December 2014 (UTC)
paid editors are parasites (no offense to whomever does, I do this because its interesting + helpful)--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 19:12, 30 December 2014 (UTC)
Yes we need to figure out how to deal with paid advocacy editing that promotes people, companies and products.Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 13:13, 31 December 2014 (UTC)
Agree, and I think that's well-phrased: paid advocacy editing that promotes people, companies and products. As distinct from paid non-advocacy npov editing through charities or other institutions that share Wikipedia's goals in providing reliable (medical) information that's freely available to all. Imo, that can turn into a valid way of contributing to the mammoth task of maintaining and improving our medical content, and one that doesn't conflict with our editing by unpaid volunteers. Unfortunately, advocacy editing tends to give paid editing as a whole a bad name. (Disclaimer: I have no interest in doing paid editing myself.) 86.181.67.166 (talk) 14:21, 31 December 2014 (UTC), previously 109.158.8.20 etc

Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Beryllium lymphocyte proliferation test and Beryllium poisoning

Dear medical experts: This old AfC submission was declined with the suggestion that content be added to the Beryllium poisoning article. Would someone with medical knowledge like to move any appropriate content, while crediting Jparris3 in the edit summary? If so, the AfC draft can be moved to mainspace as a redirect, and I can add the appropriate merge templates if needful. Thanks... —Anne Delong (talk) 03:13, 1 January 2015 (UTC)

Diabetes 2015

The updated guidelines for diabetes:

http://care.diabetesjournals.org/content/38/Supplement_1

-A1candidate (talk) 12:22, 2 January 2015 (UTC)

Editors should note that the license they've used is CC-BY-NC-ND, which is incompatible with Wikipedia's unless we first get explicit permission from the publisher. Pity, we won't be able to reuse it, but we can still cite it as a source. LeadSongDog come howl! 18:46, 2 January 2015 (UTC)

Donation of pathology images

Supporters of Wikimedia India just announced that The Department of Pathology at Calicut Medical College in Kerala has donated some images and uploaded them to Wikimedia Commons at Commons:Category:Images from Department of Pathology, Calicut Medical College. Interested persons may wish to add any of these images to Wikimedia articles.

This project was organized by a collaboration between that school, Wikimedia India, and the Centre for Internet and Society (India).

In the past few months the Wikimedia chapter in India, Wikimedia India, has had some turnover in board governance. Its new leadership has members who are particularly interested in developing health content and I hope that more content is coming. Blue Rasberry (talk) 14:42, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

Lets hope this is the start of a bigger collaboration as some of these images are very interesting in that they show conditions that are very rare in Western countries. For example they had a number of images of leprosy, and it might also be possible to get a few of parasitic infections that are extremely rare in the developed world. Are you in contact with them, and would they be willing to get some of the infections on the WHOs list of neglected diseases? -- CFCF 🍌 (email) 00:05, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

interesting read....ebola/west africa

[31] and [32]--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 19:51, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

Hey there

Just wanted to say hello. I am new on Wikipedia editing and interested in making Autoimmune articles better. Currently working on the Relapsing polychondritis article. EllenvanderVeen (talk) 13:20, 4 January 2015 (UTC)

Great and welcome. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 13:24, 4 January 2015 (UTC)

Cerebellum

Cerebellum is at Wikipedia:Featured article review/Cerebellum/archive1, and Looie496 has mostly cleaned it up. I'm going to be going through checking prose and MOS-y stuff, but it would be nice if someone medical would have a look before the FA is Kept. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:23, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

The article uses a 1985 source 12 times; can anyone update? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:51, 4 January 2015 (UTC)

RfC notification

Hello everyone, there is an RFC that people from this project may be interested in commenting on: Talk:Traditional Chinese medicine#RfC: Is the Nature article an appropriate source for the claim it is attached to?. Thank you for your feedback. rʨanaɢ (talk) 21:06, 4 January 2015 (UTC)

Weird and funny category

Sorry for adding so many questions haha, but I found this interesting: https://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Category:Autoimmune_diseases Look at J, Joelle. It is a person, and she has an autoimmune disease, but should we add her to that list? It seems a bit off compared to the rest. What do you guys think? EllenvanderVeen (talk) 21:27, 4 January 2015 (UTC)

Maybe we should add a sub-category or another category about persons with autoimmune diseases? EllenvanderVeen (talk) 21:29, 4 January 2015 (UTC)

We already have a few sub categories for people. Yes we need one for all the people. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 21:42, 4 January 2015 (UTC)
Category:People with alopecia universalis exists. A category for people with autoimmune diseases would be dauntingly broad. Maralia (talk) 21:56, 4 January 2015 (UTC)
I don't see why that couldn't become a subcategory, along with the lupus and multiple sclerosis people categories, and have created Category:People with autoimmune disease (with the title chosen in analogy to Category:Deaths from autoimmune disease). Huon (talk) 22:06, 4 January 2015 (UTC)
I think that is a great idea Huon! EllenvanderVeen (talk) 22:12, 4 January 2015 (UTC)
Alright, it is all fixed now (thank you Huon!), have a look here: https://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Category:Autoimmune_diseases EllenvanderVeen (talk) 22:41, 4 January 2015 (UTC)
Welcome, Ellen. This is a great place to post questions and to ask for all kinds of help. Generally speaking (always use your best judgment, etc.), we try not to put living people in this type of category unless the disease is an important (public) aspect of their lives. If it's not a typical component of sources about the person, then I wouldn't add the category. Also, it really needs to be mentioned (and sourced) in the article. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:55, 5 January 2015 (UTC)

Wikipedian-In-Residence at NIOSH

Hello WikiProject Medicine! I wanted to let you all know that I'm the new Wikipedian-in-Residence at NIOSH, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. Usually I edit as User:Keilana but for the purposes of this project, I'll be using this account. There'll be a COI notice on my user page and a soon-to-come WikiProject NIOSH/WikiProject Occupational Safety and Health, so if you have any interest in these topics, many new resources will be coming your way! Watch this space for more details. :) Best, Emily Temple-Wood (NIOSH) (talk) 21:04, 2 January 2015 (UTC)

Congrats Emily. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 21:36, 2 January 2015 (UTC)
Excellent news, Emily. :)) 86.181.67.166 (talk) 23:28, 2 January 2015 (UTC)
welcome--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 23:42, 2 January 2015 (UTC)
Emily Temple-Wood (NIOSH) Keilana Hurray, well done! We can definitely do with more content about occupational health and safety, particularly with conditions that affect people of working age. JFW | T@lk 23:19, 3 January 2015 (UTC)
Also congrats! Wiki CRUK John (talk) 10:12, 5 January 2015 (UTC)

Mechanisms (or biology) of disease?

I've drafted a MEDMOS proposal (permalink) regarding one of our section headings. I realize that the timing of this proposal may seem a bit perverse following the recent heading change. I'd just like to reassure everyone here that I have no particular axe to grind and I'm not trying to "push through" anything. I just feel that terminological appropriateness is relevant to the encyclopedia, and needn't necessarily conflict with accessibility considerations. 109.158.8.201 (talk) 12:30, 27 December 2014 (UTC)

"biological mechanisms"[33] ?--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 13:19, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

Pathophysiology is the only correct term for this. I know we would like to simplify technical terms for readers, but this cannot be done at the expense of factual accuracy. -A1candidate (talk)
Sure, appropriate use of terminology is important (imo, at least...). But so is effective communication with our general readership, including accessibility considerations. If we scare off certain highly relevant categories of reader (eg patients and those close to them), then in some ways we hinder rather than help provide reliable information freely to all. Research is being conducted by HenryScow and others on what members of the general public actually do when they come to "read" these pages. I can't help wondering to what extent lay readers actually get to or get our information on disease mechanisms (even the admirably succinct Lung cancer section). Could there be a rationale for directing interested readers to specific sub-pages along with carefully crafted pages containing lay-friendly explanations of more general topics such as carcinogenesis (without immediately invoking a "blebbishield" level of detail), while providing on the parent page only information that is reasonably[?] digestible to a sizable portion at least of the lay reading public? Perhaps such an approach (per WP:SUMMARY) might ultimately also facilitate encyclopedic expansion of non-clinical content? 109.158.8.201 (talk) 12:32, 29 December 2014 (UTC)
This section should also include pathogenesis. A widely understood term that encompasses both pathogenesis (molecular) and pathophysiology (cellular) is mechanism. Boghog (talk) 14:02, 29 December 2014 (UTC)
To combine two of these responses: The "correct term" depends on the content of the section. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:46, 29 December 2014 (UTC)
WAID, I agree with that, but I'm not sure all the FA folk (for instance) do. How prescriptive is MEDMOS intended to be? For some, it seems, very. Is that just their interpretation of the processes? Or is that how we're really *supposed* to operate here? 109.158.8.201 (talk) 17:16, 29 December 2014 (UTC)
I usually expect the FA folks to be able to read guidelines, and WP:MEDORDER begins with this statement: "The following lists of suggested sections are intended to help structure a new article or when an existing article requires a substantial rewrite. Changing an established article simply to fit these guidelines might not be welcomed by other editors." "Suggested" means "suggested". It does not mean "required", "mandatory", "practically mandatory", "optional in theory but required in practice", or any similar prescriptivist idea. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:53, 30 December 2014 (UTC)
Aha... But is there general consensus on that? A question for a new section perhaps (either here or at wt:medmos)? Editors need to know. 109.158.8.201 (talk) 13:07, 31 December 2014 (UTC)

I agree that there are sections that should be simplified to aid readabiliy. Taking Lung cancer#Pathogenesis as an example (since you've mentioned this), it is possible to summarize and simplify the section in this manner:

Just like many other cancers, lung cancer is often caused by long-term exposure to carcinogens that result in DNA sequence changes. Some of these mutations may lead to the activation of tumor promoting oncogenes such as K-ras and the overexpression of epidermal growth factor receptors (EGFR). Both processes are associated with a significant percentage of certain types of lung cancers. For example, K-ras mutations are present in 10–30% of all lung adenocarcinomas. However, epigenetic changes are also known to play a key role as they affect gene expression and may lead to inactivation of some tumor suppressor genes such as p53 and RB 1.

As you can see, it's not difficult to summarize the text into a single paragraph. I believe the above paragraph could be well-understood by any reader with a sufficient amount of basic education. The rest of the information should be moved to a seperate article ("Pathology of lung cancer"). The actual difficulty lies in finding trained medical experts to do the work. -A1candidate (talk) 14:25, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

I fully concur with A1candidate's general strategy. At the same time, I suspect the text may still (at first reading at least) be largely impenetrable to most of the members of the general public who consult Wikipedia – though hopefully they'll find that other parts of the page assume less background knowledge. Would it be well-understood by the majority of those readers who specifically want to find out something about the biology of the process? I just don't know... And what would we consider to be "a *sufficient* amount of basic education"? Imo, that would be the level of background knowledge possessed by those readers who are interested in finding out about these matters (per WP:AUDIENCE, I think). (@Axl: I selected the page because of its merits.) 109.158.8.201 (talk) 17:04, 29 December 2014 (UTC)
Of course I also agree about the human resources issue and the need to mentor rather than discourage potential good new contributors – though valid medical writers/editors don't necessarily have to be *experts* in anything in particular. 109.158.8.201 (talk) 17:42, 29 December 2014 (UTC)
Since 109.158.8.201 has pinged me and A1candidate has commented on the section in "Lung cancer", I shall respond.
Until six months ago, the "Pathogenesis" section was rather basic. (The old version is here.) In July 2014, Wiki CRUK John posted an external review. One of the comments was "Pathogenesis needs more explaining". On that basis, I expanded the section to its current size. Axl ¤ [Talk] 00:15, 30 December 2014 (UTC)
Unlike most writing on diseases, Wikipedia tries to address the full spectrum of audiences. The shortened draft above omits a good deal of detail that part of our readership would understand, & I agree with 109 that it is optimistic to think that a mass-audience will get much out of most of the short version, unless "a sufficient amount of basic education" includes some university level biology. These sections are among the most difficult to make accessible as they require a basic understanding of the science that a general audience simply doesn't have. These are very tricky issues to get right - if that's actually possible. I don't agree that the short section as is should be moved out to a new article, unless a lot more was added. Some of the wording in the short version could usefully be worked in to the existing text though. Wiki CRUK John (talk) 10:31, 5 January 2015 (UTC)

as stated above, it would be best to "simplify technical terms for readers", however, biological mechanisms can be used/mixed with other more specific terms , while not endangering the intent of the article, paragraph or sentence--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 13:27, 4 January 2015 (UTC)

Acupuncture arbitration request

WikiProject Medicine members may be interested in taking a look at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case#Acupuncture, a new case request filed yesterday. NW (Talk) 14:26, 5 January 2015 (UTC)

Need some help with opening a few articles

Hey guys, I want to add a section about the history of Relapsing polychondritis but I can not open the oldest articles about this on Pubmed. Can anyone have a look and send them to me by wikipedia or e-mail me at e.m.w.vanderveen@students.uu.nl

The articles I am looking for:

If you have any other idea about this, that would be welcome also Thank you very much! EllenvanderVeen (talk) 19:29, 4 January 2015 (UTC)

We should try to use recent reviews that discuss the history of the condition rather than try to interpret really old articles ourselves. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 19:58, 4 January 2015 (UTC)

I agree on that actually, unforturnally I have searched hours and hours for it and only found secondary news articles about it. like this one: http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/331475-overview Or a little older from the 60's like this one: http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=1177828 So I thought that the best thing I could do is look at those articles and see if the secondary articles are right. I don't know, what do you think I should do? EllenvanderVeen (talk) 20:48, 4 January 2015 (UTC)

I tried too,(do what Doc James says get recent reviews)--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 21:00, 4 January 2015 (UTC)

Textbooks via google books are often useful for this. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 22:24, 4 January 2015 (UTC)
Here we are [34][35][36] and there are more. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 22:28, 4 January 2015 (UTC)
Oh thanks guys, yes I will have a look at these links. I will also look in the Uni library next to my house, didn't even think of that, sure there are some books about it. Thx for the good criticism, I appreciate it! EllenvanderVeen (talk) 22:30, 4 January 2015 (UTC)

One small suggestion is that MAGIC syndrome should be mentioned and linked in the article somewhere. Matthew Ferguson 57 (talk) 00:16, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

  • Bulleted list item

Infobox Templates is Missing a Template

Hi, I think that infobox templates should include one for Cosmetic Procedures. This is for procedures such as male circumcision and plastic surgery. Many pediatric organizations in the world think that male circumcision has no medical benefit, so the procedure (in these regions ) would be primarily cosmetic or religious. I think that cosmetic would be the best word here.

I work primarily on the male circumcision page. Based on the information I have obtained I have learned that this procedure has varying medical benefit dependent on which country you are observing. For some nations it does have a benefit, for others it is insignificant. It would help if we had an infobox for cosmetic on the infoboxes page. This would better help represent the procedure on the page for male circumcision. I also think that having a cosmetic infobox would help the overall medical literature on Wikipedia. There are medical practices, such as plastic surgery, that are performed by medical professionals for primarily cosmetic reasons.

JohnP 19:20, 28 December 2014 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by JohnPRsrcher (talk • contribs)

JohnPRsrcher We should use the infobox for surgical procedures without giving the suggestion that it is cosmetic or therapeutic. Infoboxes are meant to be WP:NPOV, and your suggestion runs the real risk of getting a whopping edit war over an infobox. JFW | T@lk 20:46, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

Yeah. But this is neutral, because many circumcisions would be classified as cosmetic by country's major pediatric organization's policy guidelines, while others are therapeutic in the case of medical interventions or if the country finds circumcision to be a cost effective intervention to prevent certain diseases. This is supported by the policy statements regarding circumcision from most of the world's organizations. In the US, neonatal circumcision may still be defined as therapeutic because circumcision is a cost effective procedure for reducing some diseases; however, this is not the same in Canada, Australia, the Netherlands, or Britain. We need to have an infobox labeled cosmetic so that the procedure is labeled as both a cosmetic procedure and intervention. This is due to the fact that it can be either of these things in different cases.

This would be neutral since the policy guidelines in Australia, the Netherlands, Britain, and Canada have already labeled infant circumcision in the most cases as cosmetic; so the procedure is already both cosmetic and therapeutic and as a result we should label it as such.

JohnP 02:15, 29 December 2014 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by JohnPRsrcher (talk • contribs)

JohnP, are you aware that readers don't see the name of the infobox? Calling it "Infobox cosmetic surgery" is just as invisible to them as calling it "Infobox stupid idea" or "Infobox 2409".
The more important problem is that we don't actually want to have two separate infoboxes that contain the same list of parameters. "Infobox something" and "Infobox copy of something because I don't like the name" is inefficient and causes maintenance problems. It's so widely agreed to be a bad idea that it is one of the very few grounds for speedy deletion of a template (WP:T3).
Finally, this has the potential to cause pointless drama and edit wars at the many articles about procedures that are used both for cosmetic and for non-cosmetic purposes. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:08, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

To the first argument. Yes I am aware that readers don't see the infobox, still it is important that we label the procedure by what it is classified as according to law. In many areas the law says that it is cosmetic, so shouldn't we also add a label to indicate that it is cosmetic?

In addition, I don't see any infoboxes on the page that would be interpreted as a copy of cosmetic. It's entirely individual. The only other infobox that is really related to it is intervention. This would make it never be deleted, and applicable to medical procedures that need it.

This does not have the potential to cause drama and edit wars. Once we have the infobox I will propose to add it to the circumcision page. The consensus of the other editors will determine if it is added or not.

In addition, it has one added benefit. Plastic surgery can be classified as a medical procedure with its own infobox.

JohnP 03:27, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

JohnPRsrcher I strongly suggest you do something more productive. Both myself and WhatamIdoing have told you that this is a guaranteed dispute. You have already been warned about edit warring on the circumcision page. People will disagree with you on this one.
I would also suggest that we close this thread now, because you are not likely to get support for your suggestion at all. JFW | T@lk 08:18, 29 December 2014 (UTC)
I second that, logic and objectivity dictates there is no reason to pursue this--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 11:16, 29 December 2014 (UTC)
"it is important that we label the procedure by what it is classified as according to law." — No. It is important that readable article content classify it according to the many views presented in reliable sources, not just the legal views. What happens in the infrastructure is unimportant.
If editors really want an infobox on that article (and they might not want one), then use whatever infobox you would use on articles about breast surgeries, which are also legally defined as both cosmetic and medically necessary, depending on the circumstances. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:55, 29 December 2014 (UTC)
I also see no point in adding an indication of 'cosmetic', whether in a new infobox or a field in an existing infobox. As JohnP said, the "procedure is already both cosmetic and therapeutic", therefore adding a yes/no indicator would be pointless and encourage edit warring.
If you think it is relevant to readers what countries consider it as cosmetic vs therapeutic, it may make sense to compile the data into a list of countries page. Mamyles (talk) 17:06, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

Honestly breast surgery is listed as an intervention even though it in reality is both cosmetic and an intervention. It's the same for a nose job as well (rhinoplasty.) Just wanted to point out that a lot of our surgeries aren't classified correctly. Mamyles I'm not trying to add a yes or no indicator, rather you should be able to just use both infoboxes. WhatamIdoing JFW

JohnP (talk) 02:03, 5 January 2015 (UTC)

How about this: you could just add an infobox for intervention/cosmetic. Then we could just use this infobox. Also other pages could make use of it.

JohnP (talk) 00:53, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

Starting back with a bang

Hey everyone. Up until 6 months ago I was editing here frequently but I took a Wikibreak for a while due to worklife. I came back last week to help with an article and (of course) within 2 days of starting someone decides to add a bunch of commercial stuff to the Dental implant article. Six months away and the article stayed clean then within 2 days of returning I'm in an edit-war with what appears to be a company that wants their stuff on the page! I removed the material and left a message on the user page, but it's been replaced. Can someone else take a look at the article and User:FixtTeeth. They openly say it's a procedure they're plugging, so I think it's just lack of knowledge. Sorry for the drama so soon. Ian Furst (talk) 15:21, 4 January 2015 (UTC)

Great having you back. Have watched. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 18:08, 4 January 2015 (UTC)
User has been indef-blocked for spamming. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 20:58, 4 January 2015 (UTC)
Thanks everyone. Ian Furst (talk) 02:24, 6 January 2015 (UTC)
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