Talk:Color blindness

Punnett squares

Updated chart

The Punnett-square chart appears to rely on colours (black, blue, one or more others) to convey information. It would be helpful if the caption explained in layman's terms what that information is. Thanks. Frans Fowler (talk) 13:08, 2 June 2023 (UTC)

Well spotted, @Frans Fowler: it was poor form of me to use a colour-blind-unfriendly diagram to illustrate colour-blindness!

I've thus italicised the blue text. With this change, normal text denotes a person (or a gene chromosome from a person) who has normal colour vision and no defective gene, italics: has normal colour vision and a defective gene, and bold: is colour-blind.

However, the thumbnail has terrible spacing due to a bug caused by a recent update to the rsvg renderer. I've asked for help on Wikipedia:SVG_help#text-anchor="middle"_workaround_not_working.

Cheers,
cmɢʟee⎆τaʟκ 00:34, 5 June 2023 (UTC)

 Done @Frans Fowler: I believe I've worked around the text-alignment issue in both English and Romanian versions. cmɢʟee⎆τaʟκ 06:40, 16 June 2023 (UTC)

Thanks, @Cmglee:. --- Frans Fowler (talk) 00:55, 30 June 2023 (UTC)

Where should BCM (blue cone monochromacy) go?

The Wikipedia:Lead section is an introduction to, and summary of, the article. It can't hold the entire article. This is why I (and perhaps MrOllie too) reverted today's addition of big BCM text to the lede. It was taking up undue space in the lede.

BCM is already mentioned three times in the Classification section. And there is a Blue cone monochromacy article with more detail. How much more discussion of BCM in the Color blindness article is warranted? Mgnbar (talk) 02:03, 2 November 2023 (UTC)

This is my first attempt at editing a Wikipedia article. Sorry if I am not doing something correctly. I have a rare genetic vision condition called BCM (1 in 100,000 people have it). It is so rare that I did not get a diagnosis until I was 57 years old. Very few eye doctors have any experience with it which means they misdiagnose it. My edit is trying to help other people that do not know what they have to find out. BCM was already discussed in the colorblind article but is hard to find and has some inaccuracies. Someone who is not already aware of BCM would have trouble figuring it out.  I wanted to add a sentence to the beginning paragraph to help others like myself figure out what they have by the symptoms as easily as possible without having to wade through the rest of the article. For someone who knows they are colorblind and that there vision is generally bad but don't know what their conditions is (and neither does their eye doctor) one of the first things they would do is go to Wikipedia and look up colorblindness. However, the bulk of the article is talking about typical color blindness issues and is not easy to go through and figure out that they have BCM. The sentence I added is no different than the previous sentence which points out that Achromatopsia (another rare eye disease) is the complete absence of color vision and lists the added symptoms. I just tried to add the same kind of sentence for BCM to help people like me figure out what they have.  It is also to help cement this condition in the minds of any eye specialists who run across it to help diagnose their patients.

If maintaining a short lede for colorblindness is a priority it would seem to me that it is more important to convey the range of the condition than the obvious statements stated earlier in the lede.  The statements “It can impair tasks such as selecting ripe fruit, choosing clothing, and reading traffic lights.^[2] Color blindness may make some academic activities more difficult.^[2] However, issues are generally minor, and people with colorblindness automatically develop adaptations and coping mechanisms.”  These statements are rather generic and obvious and could be moved down into the main body.

Another reason this is important is that genetic treatments for BCM are currently in development with clinical trials likely to start in the next few years.  A large percentage of people with BCM do not know that BCM is what they have (only that they are colorblind, have very poor vision and are sensitive to bright light).  This added sentence should help people realize what they have and reach out to the BCMFamilies organization and get involved and registered to have a chance of being involved in clinical trials.

What I want to add is one short sentence of 37 words:

“A rare type of colorblindness some males have is Blue Cone Monochromacy (BCM) with symptoms including impaired color vision, poor acuity, discomfort in bright light, nearsightedness (myopia) and may include nystagmus especially in infants (uncontrolled eye movement).[3]”

Is that really too much to ask when it could really help a significant number of people get a correct diagnosis! Dean402 (talk) 06:37, 2 November 2023 (UTC)

You appear to be here to raise awareness or make the world better, but that's not what this site is for. It is here to be a neutral encyclopedia written in accordance with some well defined policies. It is not the place to advocate for a cause, even if that cause is a worthy one. We are also explicitly not supposed to be a site that diagnoses people or provides medical advice, so trying to help people like me figure out what they have is really not what we should be doing here. MrOllie (talk) 12:22, 2 November 2023 (UTC)

Dean402, you might enjoy reading Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Lead section#Content (and the rest of that manual). The "generic" (as you say) statements are there because this article is an overview of color blindness. The "obvious" statements are there to ease readers into the subject, without assuming any prior knowledge of it.

In general, your complaint is similar to one that we get a lot in technical articles: that readers can't learn the subject from the Wikipedia article. But Wikipedia is not a textbook. And nor is it WebMD or an advocacy group, as MrOllie explained.

Specifically about the achromatopsia sentence: I think that it's intended to contrast with the previous sentence — to explain that, while most color blindness has a small impact on people's lives, some forms have bigger impacts. I'll try to improve this part.

Meanwhile, I need to remember not to bite the newcomers. :) Your input is valuable specifically because you are an interested, well-meaning reader who is not an experienced editor. We just need to reach consensus on how much the lede should say. Mgnbar (talk) 12:53, 2 November 2023 (UTC)

The Wikipedia manual of style that you referred me to specifically references that for the first paragraph of the lede “It should also establish the boundaries of the topic”. This would seem to support including the extreme of colorblind conditions (Achromatopsia and BCM) in the first paragraph. A compromise to keep the lede short could be to include them in one sentence “Extreme cases of colorblind conditions are Achromatopsia (no color vision) and Blue Cone Monochromacy (very limited color vision) with both conditions having additional symptoms of poor acuity and sensitivity to bright light.”

Also in the manual of style it says:

“By contrast, in Wikipedia articles, the first sentence is usually a definition, the lead is longer, and it ultimately provides more information, as its purpose is to summarize the article, not just introduce it.”

Since Achromatopsia and BCM are included in detail in the article I think it is justified to include them in the summary. Dean402 (talk) 16:47, 2 November 2023 (UTC)

Boundaries are specific to list articles. This isn't a list article. MrOllie (talk) 17:23, 2 November 2023 (UTC)

Here is the exact place it states to cover the boundaries of the topic (I don't see any reference to lists)

"Opening paragraph

The first paragraph should define or identify the topic with a neutral point of view, but without being too specific. It should establish the context in which the topic is being considered by supplying the set of circumstances or facts that surround it. If appropriate, it should give the location and time. It should also establish the boundaries of the topic; for example, the lead for the article List of environmental issuessuccinctly states that the list covers "harmful aspects of human activity on the biophysical environment". Dean402 (talk) 18:15, 2 November 2023 (UTC)

That clearly does not mean what we need to add examples of the most and least severe versions of a condition to every lead section. This type of technicality based close reading of the policies is a fairly common thing for new users to do, we have an essay about it at WP:WIKILAWYER. It doesn't work. MrOllie (talk) 18:51, 2 November 2023 (UTC)

I had hoped to correct some of the other errors in the Colorblind article that relate to Blue Cone Monochromacy which is not actually Monochromacy as is stated in the article (it was misnamed in early research). With BCM in normal room light I have functioning blue cones and rods resulting in dichromacy color vision (in very bright light like sunlight it is close to monochromatic). This is supported by multiple research papers. However, with the push back I am getting to just add one sentence to the article I see no point in trying to correct these errors especially when following the style manual seems to be of no help. Dean402 (talk) 20:37, 2 November 2023 (UTC)

Dean402, I'm sorry if our responses are frustrating you. I don't think that you appreciate that the lede (and especially its first paragraph) is the most sensitive, delicate, argued-over part of an article. You are actually trying to do the most difficult Wikipedia editing first.

If I were you, I would: Edit the rest of this article. Then edit some other articles. Then, with deeper understanding of Wikipedia norms, circle back and improve this article's lede.

Of course, I am not your boss. :) I am trying to help you overcome the learning curve, just as others helped me when I started. Regards, Mgnbar (talk) 23:54, 2 November 2023 (UTC)

"People with"

@Mgnbar I'm not sure about your Aug 1 edit on converting the standard endonyms to inclusive naming. I am aware of inclusive efforts to replace "disabled person" with "person with disability" or "albino" with "person with albinism". In many cases, it seems warranted, but it seems regressive in this article. Using inclusive naming (person with protanopia) is neither endonymic, nor used in academic literature, where protan (or more specifically, protanope, as in the reference) is preferred. Is there wiki precedent or style guide for this decision? Curran919 (talk) 11:02, 21 December 2023 (UTC)

Hi, Curran919. I made those edits only in response to this discussion about depersonalizing language. I don't know much, or feel strongly about, the issue myself. I am not aware of Wikipedia policies for or against it. You are right to give weight to how the vocabulary is used in the academic literature (preferably the recent literature). Maybe it would be productive for you to engage with Wikipedia:WikiProject Accessibility on this? Mgnbar (talk)

Aaah! Okay, thanks for the context. I'll dig into that some more and act accordingly. Curran919 (talk) 15:59, 23 December 2023 (UTC)

After digging into the links provided by koavf in that discussion, it seems an important distinction here is the medical vs. social models of disability. My take away is that disabilities that fall into the medical model should use person-first language (e.g. ALS, depression), but disabilities that fall into the social model should avoid it (e.g. the Deaf and autists). To avoid medicalization of colorblindness (and other reasons I can elaborate on if anyone wants to discuss it), I am going to stick with standard (non-person-first) language in the article. In any case, thank you @Mgnbar for bringing this up. Curran919 (talk) 22:47, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for documenting your thought process here. Possibly it will be argued about in the future. But right now it seems reasonable to me. Mgnbar (talk) 22:50, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

As you mentioned, @Mgnbar, I am inclined to avoid talking about "the Deaf" - or in this case "the color blind".

In the second paragraph (and elsewhere in the article) I'd prefer to see ".. affect daily life and color blind people automatically develop adaptations .." in place of ".. affect daily life and the color blind automatically develop adaptations ..". This feels easier to read as well as avoiding the impersonal/passive way of referring to people with colourblindness.

I'll check back in a week or so to see if some people within the colourblind community (if there is such a coherent body) can add to this discussion and speak about the best phrase to use in this situation. Tim C Harris (talk) 20:24, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

As long as we aren't going back to person-first language, I'm okay with that distinction, and switching "the colorblind" to "colorblind people". Using "the colorblind" may infer a level of cohesion or community that doesn't really exist. To the contrary, deaf people are much more likely to be part of the "deaf community" so referring to them as "the deaf" seems more appropriate, but I can't talk for them directly, obviously. Curran919 (talk) 20:03, 11 November 2024 (UTC)

Thanks, @Curran919. After a little more digging I discovered the discussion @Mgnbar was referring to (it has moved into an archive). So I will spend some more time following the Manual of Style referred to there before make any change on this page. In the meantime I did update the link so that others can follow that path a little more directly in future. Tim C Harris (talk) 23:23, 11 November 2024 (UTC)

colorblindness as a symptom, not a condition

As per the split made last year in this discussion, I am endeavouring to emphasize the distinction between colorblindness as a symptom, and any conditions that typically include colorblindness as a symptom (daltonism, acquired tritan, BCM, achromatopsia, etc.), most of which have their own article, and some of which have symptoms more severe than colorblindness. I'm going to make this distinction more clearly in the lede and throughout to hopefully avoid the newcomer editing that tends to link cvd to a specific condition. Just wanted to leave a paper trail here and give an ear for discussion if anyone cares. Curran919 (talk) 11:16, 21 December 2023 (UTC)