Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Medicine/Archive 118

Latest comment: 6 years ago by Doc James in topic Primary sources
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Updating wikipedia knowledge ecosystem image

 
Collaborations between the WikiProject Medicine community, journals, and translators

Hello all, I'm looking to update this image, especially now that Wikipedia Zero has ended. Are there any other interesting interactions or collaborations that I should include? I'm intending to more explicitly refer to WikiEdu. WikiData will definitely have to be mentioned somewhere too. Are there other collaborations that could be included (e.g. Internet-in-a-Box)? I'll also try to update WP:W2J and WT:MEDJOURNAL a bit. T.Shafee(Evo&Evo)talk 01:32, 23 October 2018 (UTC)

maybe Scholia?--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 10:45, 23 October 2018 (UTC)
Yes d:Wikidata:Scholia will probably have ingested all PubMed papers by end of 2019. Right now it has about 15 of 25 million. The meta:WikiCite conference in November 2018 will plan for the rest of the papers. Medicine is the majority of Wikidata in terms of content and professional engagement. Blue Rasberry (talk) 15:00, 24 October 2018 (UTC)
@Evolution and evolvability: the diagram is missing all of the work done by Chapters and User groups. I would obviously refer you to Wikimedia UK and Wiki Project Med as examples that I'm most familiar with, but other chapters like Wikimedia DC are just as active this respect. --RexxS (talk) 12:01, 23 October 2018 (UTC)
@Bluerasberry and RexxS: Thanks! I'll look through those links and try to add in the info. T.Shafee(Evo&Evo)talk 04:08, 28 October 2018 (UTC)

Supportive psychotherapy article

Supportive psychotherapy (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

If interested, see Talk:Supportive psychotherapy#WP:MEDRS. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 16:24, 29 October 2018 (UTC)

please give opinion(gave mine)--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 17:55, 29 October 2018 (UTC)

Majocchi's granuloma, etc.

The page for "Majocchi's disease" is incorrect. There are two similarly named conditions (unfortunatley) that are confused within the page. Majocchi's granuloma is a SEPARATE entitity from Majocchi's Disease. The page in question is named Majocchi's disease but in fact describes majocchi's granuloma. This page should be deleted and two separate pages should be created with the following titles: "Majocchi's granuloma" is the first title and should contain the majority of the content within the existing page. A second page should be created named "Purpura annularis telangiectodes" AKA Majocchi's disease which will contact entirely separate content.

This was a post on the Help desk that went unanswered. I have no idea if the complaint is valid or not. Rmhermen (talk) 01:19, 29 October 2018 (UTC)

The OP at the help desk is basically correct. Majocchi's disease could refer to granuloma tricofitico or purpura annularis telangiectodes, although the latter is the more common use.[1][2] We should probably set up a dab page between the two and place the content at the non-eponyms to prevent further confusion, but I don't know how to disentangle the existing article. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:06, 29 October 2018 (UTC)

Hydrolipoclasy

Is this...a real thing? There's only two sources on PubMed ([3]) and 11 on GScholar ([4]). I don't know if they're reliable or good enough to support the article (which is a total mess regardless). ♠PMC(talk) 10:31, 26 October 2018 (UTC)

It looks real, and it sometimes produces infections.
It might be part of the larger procedure described at Buttock augmentation#Ultrasonic lipectomy, but I'm not certain of that. AFAICT with a quick search, the names "ultrasound lipoplasty" and "ultrasound liposuction" are hydrolioclasy plus mechanically sucking the fat out.
On a related point, I wonder whether this Bioontology classification system would be useful for grouping procedures or professions. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:37, 26 October 2018 (UTC)
Yah I guess should it be merged somewhere? Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 19:24, 26 October 2018 (UTC)
That's kind of what I was wondering, but I don't know where. Sorry to keep hassling you guys with these weird left-fielders, but I pulled all the medical stubs out of the Feb09 orphans with PetScan and I'm kind of having a field day :) ♠PMC(talk) 01:32, 27 October 2018 (UTC)
Your weird left-fielders are fun. Please keep posting when you need help. Thank you for sorting through that stack of articles. It's important and valuable work. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:04, 29 October 2018 (UTC)
Hah, thanks, I'm glad someone enjoys them. Come to think of it, would it be of any interest if I made a subpage for them, or posted a small list somewhere for WP:MED people to pick over? If not, no problem, I think the current system works too :) ♠PMC(talk) 04:14, 30 October 2018 (UTC)

Eyes on Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions

Hi, yesterday User:WIKIBIOMEDAQU added a link to BioMedAQU to Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions. I reverted the edit because of the obvious connection to the promotional username, and the account was blocked as promotional. Today, a new account has been created and added exactly the same link and text, so I assume it's the same person adding it under a less promotional account name. I don't feel able to revert this time though - I can't look at the link from my work PC so I don't know for certain that it doesn't belong there, and the new account name isn't so problematic. Might be pure spam though - is anyone able to take a quick check to see whether it's worth keeping? Cheers GirthSummit (blether) 13:56, 30 October 2018 (UTC)

I removed that whole laundry list of "Examples of Marie Curie Actions" as it's essentially not encyclopedic. Alexbrn (talk) 14:13, 30 October 2018 (UTC)
That ought to do it. GirthSummit (blether) 14:55, 30 October 2018 (UTC)

Hi, it seems that there is a misunderstanding. The examples of Marie Curie Actions are projects financed by Marie Sklodowska-Curie Actions. These are not commercial projects so it would seem legitimate to add them.BioMed30 (talk) 15:25, 30 October 2018 (UTC)

It's not about whether they're commercial. It's about Wikipedia being an encyclopedia. It would be more encyclopedic to provide a summary rather than an itemized list. You want something that sounds more like "In the past, MCA has funded scholarships and research expenses", instead of "Here's a complete, itemized list of 40 projects that we funded". Reading through old encyclopedia articles about non-profit organizations, such as this one, or about agencies, such as this one, might help you get an idea of what Wikipedia is looking for. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:20, 30 October 2018 (UTC)
Also, @BioMed30:, if you have an affiliation with BioMedAQU, you need to declare it - please see our WP:COI policy. It's not enough to have a new account name that looks less like the name of the institution - that's a start, but there are other steps you need to take. The guidance is all there in the policy document. Cheers GirthSummit (blether) 18:28, 30 October 2018 (UTC)

Thank you for all this information and examples. I have a question regarding external links, does it also mean that external links should not be there since there are not 'encyclopedic like'?BioMed30 (talk) 08:55, 31 October 2018 (UTC)

The policy on external links is here. GirthSummit (blether) 09:22, 31 October 2018 (UTC)

I am a beginner in Wikipedia so tell me if I am right or not; but will it be possible to add this information as external links?BioMed30 (talk) 10:06, 31 October 2018 (UTC)

Will continue this discussion at the user's talk page. GirthSummit (blether) 16:02, 31 October 2018 (UTC)

AfD for Internet phobia

I took it to AfD for reasons noted at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Internet phobia. Some can check the DSM-5 to see what I mean. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 05:33, 31 October 2018 (UTC)

Gah. Randomly combining "phobia" with any other word does not a Wikipedia article equal. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 18:03, 31 October 2018 (UTC)
A clear case of Random-article phobia. --RexxS (talk) 18:47, 31 October 2018 (UTC)
We have a whole lot of them at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Phobias
Many could probably be simple redirected to List of phobias Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 20:32, 31 October 2018 (UTC)
Agree with you that "randomly combining 'phobia' with any other word does not a Wikipedia article equal." It doesn't automatically make a phobia either. Look at the Technophobia article, for example. At Talk:Technophobia, an IP stated, "The introductory two paragraphs seem particularly biased. While there are people who have a psychological fear of technology, the majority of the time the term technophobia is used it's referring to people who take a principled stance against technology, as shown by the rest of the article with Luddites and Anabaptist groups. While psychological adversity to technology is a thing, this article should atleast make an explicit distinction between the two." Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 20:58, 31 October 2018 (UTC)

The request for help relates to Draft:Evolution of HIV. Some subject knowledge is needed. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 06:35, 1 November 2018 (UTC)

Osteolipochondroma

Hello again! Does osteolipochondroma need its own article, or can I merge it somewhere? If it should be left on its own, any anyone suggest where I can link it for de-orphaning? Halloween chocolate for anyone who helps :) ♠PMC(talk) 00:11, 1 November 2018 (UTC)

How sure are we this exists? 0 hits on pubmed, uptodate, and google scholar. I really wanted to find something for the halloween chocolate. Natureium (talk) 00:32, 1 November 2018 (UTC)
No clue! It may not, in which case I'll gladly PROD it. I saw GBooks hits, but I never know how reliable those are, so I come here to ask people who do :P ♠PMC(talk) 00:47, 1 November 2018 (UTC)
This ref says it is a osteochondroma that contains fatty tissue.[5] Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 05:51, 1 November 2018 (UTC)
Any objections if I merge it in there then? ♠PMC(talk) 07:14, 1 November 2018 (UTC)
Seems like a good idea. Bondegezou (talk) 14:50, 1 November 2018 (UTC)
User:Premeditated Chaos already done. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 18:26, 1 November 2018 (UTC)
Thanks :) ♠PMC(talk) 19:50, 1 November 2018 (UTC)

Community Wishlist Survey 2019

Is now open for proposals. Basically if you have a tech request this is were one can "win" engineering time to get it completed. I have two ideas:

  • Improvements to the watchlists (basically am wanting more granularity around Wikidata on the Wikipedia watchlists, the ability to exclude edits that fully cancel each other out, and the ability to batchview across multiple days)
  • A user script to help with educational efforts. Students make the same "errors" year after year. I am wanting the ability to add a user script to the students in a class I am involved with such that 1) after they hit save the script will analysis their changes and provide them feedback based on their changes such as a) if the periods are not after the punctuation it will recommend place them per the MOS b) if lots of capitals are used it will provide feedback on that c) if they are linking to the inside net of their university it will tell them to provide a PMID / ISBN d) if no pages are present for books this will be requested. The student will than have the opportunity to fix the issues based on the feedback or to ignore and publish anyway.

Anyway will be writing these up soon. Others have ideas? Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 15:59, 30 October 2018 (UTC)

These are both great ideas James. I have a small idea: fixing up the PMID/DOI tool bugs in the visual editor. Here are a few things that make new users stumble:
  1. Extra link to ncbi is inserted when using PMID
  2. Add in a place to add a "ref name" for multiple references, rather than having to switch to source mode and adjust manually
  3. Fix the bug with the date (it does not like the dates of recently published articles added with PMID, these need to be adjusted manually to remove red flag)
  4. DOI: When you add a journal with a DOI (rather than PMID) the citations come out looking more like a text book.
Thanks! JenOttawa (talk) 17:15, 30 October 2018 (UTC)
Yes great suggestion :-) Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 17:23, 30 October 2018 (UTC)
From Jen's list, because I happen to know about that area:
  1. Suppressing that "extra" link is a WONTFIX – the devs won't do it. The "extra" link is the one that readers understand better. (Also, it's a style preference for one wiki, and different wikis have different styles. If we don't like it, then we could always change our CS1 templates to ignore it, without requiring everyone else to do the same.)
  2. The central task for this is phab:T52568. It should be a reasonable size, and it should be in-scope for the wishlist. I don't know if it will be popular enough to win, but it won't be rejected before voting.
  3. Is this the red error about dates containing only a month ("2018-10" for "October 2018"), or a different error? If the first, then the solution is to change the CS1 modules to accept those as valid dates (with the downside that typos won't get flagged).
  4. I can't reproduce this. I get slightly different results, but they look very similar. See uncorrected/unadjusted automatically generated citations. The first is from the doi and the second from the PMID. Perhaps it depends upon the doi? (Some of them actually do lead to chapters in textbooks, so that would be "working correctly" anyway.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:38, 30 October 2018 (UTC)
The solution to #3 is to have the bot put "October 2018" instead of "2018-10". Because a date like "2008-09" is ambiguous, as it could refer to both the period of 2008 to 2009, or September 2008. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 19:23, 30 October 2018 (UTC)
"October 2018" is only a solution if the whole world speaks English. The English Wikipedia could create such a bot for itself (or set up an AWB fix) if it wanted to do that, but the citoid service has to work for all the wikis. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:40, 1 November 2018 (UTC)
That's what localization is for. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 14:59, 1 November 2018 (UTC)
"2018-10" is only a solution if the whole world uses Roman numerals. They don't, and the citoid service needs to be much more ambitious about internationalisation. Those Wikipedias that can't read "October 2018" could create bots for themselves just as others must for "2018-10", as we can only expect partial results from citoid anyway. --RexxS (talk) 14:29, 1 November 2018 (UTC)
Localization only works if you have the translators for the 200+ languages that MediaWiki supports, which we mostly don't. It can take years to get those translations, and some of them will never appear. However, almost all of those languages use the same Arabic numerals as English. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:59, 1 November 2018 (UTC)
Those are twelve of the most common words around. Google translate would not fuck those up. If that's somehow too risky, and that human translators are required, the ambiguous numerical format can be a fallback 'solution' for those languages without translations. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 18:04, 1 November 2018 (UTC)
".. almost all of those languages use the same Arabic numerals as English" That's an interesting new use of the word "almost" that I hadn't come across before. It appears, then, that it's okay to ignore localisation as long as there are only about 3 billion readers who would nominally require it? --RexxS (talk) 19:13, 1 November 2018 (UTC)

Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 20:13, 30 October 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for the comments and suggestions on the tool. @WhatamIdoing: I appreciate your help and expertise with this tool. Ironically, I cannot replicate the error today either. This was definitely happening earlier this fall (and over the past year). Now, the only thing that I notice is that when we add with the DOI tool there is no PMID and the journal issue is not listed. The date error also seems to be resolved. For the past 6 months, any recent reviews that I have cited with the PMID tool (and not adjusted manually) would have an error in the date and it was red flagging this.
*DOI tool: Bath, Philip M; Lee, Han Sean; Everton, Lisa F (2018-10-30). "Swallowing therapy for dysphagia in acute and subacute stroke". Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews. doi:10.1002/14651858.cd000323.pub3. ISSN 1465-1858.
*PMID tool: Bath, Philip M.; Lee, Han Sean; Everton, Lisa F. (2018-10-30). "Swallowing therapy for dysphagia in acute and subacute stroke". The Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews. 10: CD000323. doi:10.1002/14651858.CD000323.pub3. ISSN 1469-493X. PMID 30376602.
Thanks again, JenOttawa (talk) 16:09, 31 October 2018 (UTC)
Please let me know if it happens again, because I'm interested in this question. It might depend upon the exact source – a slightly future date, perhaps? WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:43, 1 November 2018 (UTC)
Yes it might be due to the fact that occasionally enterez research returns a two digit month code (whilst the script was expecting a string). CV9933 (talk) 09:48, 1 November 2018 (UTC)
It happened here: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Endometrial_cancer&type=revision&diff=866806726&oldid=866806574&diffmode=source @WhatamIdoing:. This is not a big deal if you are used to editing but for new users I find it throws them off a little ("what did I do wrong"). My original edit was adding using the PMID tool (not manually changing the date and got error message). Thanks again! JenOttawa (talk) 17:46, 1 November 2018 (UTC)
Please, please, please let us not go back down the MOSNUM date format rabbithole. There be dragons. If people can't or won't distinguish the en dash from the em dash, then just use a decimal period in lieu of the en dash. 2009.10 is clearly not an interval. LeadSongDog come howl! 21:03, 1 November 2018 (UTC)
2009.10 is also a violation of the MOS, and will get flagged as an error by CS1 templates, just as 2009-10 would be. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 21:14, 1 November 2018 (UTC)

DayQuil

DayQuil has been redirected and unredirected a couple times. I don't know if it needs a separate article, or where it should redirect if not. I could see it redirecting to NyQuil, cough syrup, or Vicks. Does anyone have any thoughts on this? Natureium (talk) 01:54, 31 October 2018 (UTC)

It should be redirected to cough medicine (which should be renamed to cold medicine). Jytdog (talk) 01:57, 31 October 2018 (UTC)
Agree with User:Jytdog and done. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 02:30, 31 October 2018 (UTC)
We should get more consensus rather than just 2 users. I believe it should have stand alone pages, with ample sources and lots of info to give reader. Very notable brands should have their own articles. NyQuil was also redirected. Tinton5 (talk) 02:37, 31 October 2018 (UTC)
Theses article were in breach of a bunch of WP:PHARM guidelies.
The last think we need is a separate article on each brand of a medication. Many meds have 1000s of brands.
This are cold medicines. The references were very very poor. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 02:41, 31 October 2018 (UTC)

The refs for nyquil were

1) a google site https://sites.google.com/site/tylenolpt/home/history

2) A page not found http://www.oakridger.com/article/20130524/NEWS/305249943

3) Another page not found and not independent https://vicks.com/en-us/browse-products/childrens-medicine/childrens-nyquil

4) Another dead link http://news.ufl.edu/2006/07/19/decongensant/

5) And a shopping website of P and G https://vicks.com/en-us/shop-products/nyquil This is a great example of WHY we should redirect these pages to the generic. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 02:44, 31 October 2018 (UTC)

Currently cited sources aren't the only thing that should be considered for notability, per WP:N itself. The NyQuil/DayQuil brands are literally textbook examples about marketing. There is an entire book just about that company's marketing approach.[6] These specific products also had a brief problem with illegal marketing in 2009.[7] I conclude therefore that the brand is notable, and that there should be a separate article (with relatively more information about the branding and history than about medical aspects). WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:08, 1 November 2018 (UTC)
That was not what these article were about though. They were about the cough medicine. And if people want to write about the brands that can be done at Cold_medicine#Brands Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 06:03, 1 November 2018 (UTC)
That's what those articles should be about, and there's far more detail about that specific pair of brands than will fit comfortably in a subsection of an article on the broader subject. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:01, 1 November 2018 (UTC)
Well once someone decides to fill in the details at "cough medicine" than we can split out an article at "cough medicine (brands). And once that is too large we can split out one at "Nyquil (brand)". But what we should not do is allow every brand to be a coatrack of the generic term. The prior articles just covered the medical aspects. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 04:43, 2 November 2018 (UTC)

Nelson Pill Hearings

Please take a look at Nelson Pill Hearings - there seems to be some anti-contraception bias in that article. Tony May (talk) 15:57, 31 October 2018 (UTC)

Redirect to the article about the person. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 18:06, 31 October 2018 (UTC)
Tony May, I looked at the latest version, and I didn't really see any anti-contraception bias. The list of alleged side effects ("decreased sex drive, weight gain, heart problems, blood clots, and depression") look pretty much like what you'll find listed at Combined oral contraceptive pill#Side effects. It looks to me like the main complaint was that a bunch of men with conflicts of interest were declaring that everything was fine, and the politicians never bothered to talk to the women who were dealing with the problems.
It's also worth remembering that these hearings were in 1970, which means that the pills had significantly higher doses, and therefore significantly higher side effects. This was less than a decade after the thalidomide disaster, and it was still uncommon to do thorough safety testing of drugs in women. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:46, 1 November 2018 (UTC)
The problem was that it was based on none independent sources and written by someone with a COI. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 18:32, 1 November 2018 (UTC)
I'd have said that the problem was that it wasn't an encyclopedia article. But Tony's concern was primarily about bias, not about style or sourcing. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:44, 2 November 2018 (UTC)

Other thoughts? Do we need a list of thousands of peoples... Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 18:26, 1 November 2018 (UTC)

It would be millions. See this from the WHO. I binned the list, at least until clear criteria are defined. That said, List of youngest birth mothers is simply awful, listing child rape victims by name. It really demands oversight. LeadSongDog come howl! 19:30, 1 November 2018 (UTC)
agree--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 20:50, 1 November 2018 (UTC)
Support removal. SEMMENDINGER (talk) 22:12, 1 November 2018 (UTC)
Agree, no place in WP. Kitb (talk) 14:45, 2 November 2018 (UTC)

Female hysteria merge discussion

Opinions are needed on the following: Talk:Female hysteria#Merge discussion. A permalink for it is here. The discussion concerns what to do with the Hysteria article since "hysteria" is not synonymous with "female hysteria," at least in the modern sense. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 23:43, 2 November 2018 (UTC)

Global Health MSc at the University of Edinburgh

Hi all, you'll have seen some University of Edinburgh students editing topics related to Global Health in the last 72 hours. The assignment page is here. They were asked to add 180 words to a topic related to Global Health with today as their deadline. I wasn't aware of which articles they were going to edit as the project was put together relatively quickly with limited training time so your indulgence is craved here a little so please do bear with me. I can see already we need to spend more time on the stricter referencing requirements for biomedical topics (as we now do for the Reproductive Biology assignment) and reinforcing the need for citing the open access url not the University of Edinburgh paywalled url. I've seen a few Wikiproject Medicine editors have now made some copyedits, many thanks, in terms of where the edits are appearing in the article and the type of language used so if there is particular takeaways from this that you would like to get across then do let me know what these main bullet points would be so I can pass on accordingly. The course leaders and the students are keen to learn but they also have a packed MSc programme to get through so it's a little bit of a balancing act to see how they can dip their toes in, learn the need to know stuff, have a positive experience contributing to Wikipedia about Global Health topics and hopefully then go on to spend more time contributing in future iterations of the course and once they graduate also. I do appreciate on this occasion there is some tidying up and reversions needed, apologies, but am keen that the students can have a positive experience overall and we learn from this to do it better next time. All best, Stinglehammer (talk) 17:52, 2 November 2018 (UTC)

@Stinglehammer:
Thanks for giving it a go and for recognizing what to do better next time.
Yes, I saw the paywalled URLs. It is good that they emphasized the use of citations.
If you want a basic orientation then take the dashboard medical training so that you can teach others.
The way to get time from staff and classes is to show them that they did not have problems editing Wikipedia, but that they had problems doing basic research. We have seen this thousands of times but people with advanced education often cannot differentiate between primary and secondary sources until someone directly teaches this topic. The worst outcome from this could be that the staff resents Wikipedia, when actually the major lesson to be learned here is that Wikipedia critiqued the content in the way that any instructor ought to do even for papers written internally.
This is not to call anyone out because most graduate students at most universities in the world do things like this, but check out the edit to pneumonia. When examined this seems obvious, but on an article giving general information about pneumonia, we have to use a systematic review and not make global generalizations based on a small study from 1988 on the mountain children of Pakistan. See similar in obesity at special:diff/866796180/866781794
There is a lesson here that the students should learn basic research in 30 minutes and it applies far beyond Wikipedia. For formatting text in Wikipedia the students get perfect marks, because they did the Wikipedia part minus the research correctly. Show the instructors how the Wiki community evaluated this stuff so that they appreciate the experience and do it again. If they planned to dump content and leave forever, then they probably came into this taking it for granted that the quality of their submissions would be so far beyond Wikipedia that they never even needed to consider it. Make them believe. Blue Rasberry (talk) 18:54, 2 November 2018 (UTC)
Open access is not needed. We just need a PMID / DOI. And they should not use the ezproxy of the inside net. WP:MEDHOW walks through things. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 00:21, 3 November 2018 (UTC)

Protein-sparing modified fast

Some disagreement about sourcing quality; more eyes could help. Alexbrn (talk) 18:34, 4 November 2018 (UTC)

commented--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 19:04, 4 November 2018 (UTC)

Impaired glucose tolerance and Subclinical diabetes

There has been a discussion open since January 2018 at Talk:Impaired_glucose_tolerance#Merger_Discussion. Can folks think about what pages should there be as we have Impaired glucose tolerance and Subclinical diabetes as well as Prediabetes. As well as Insulin resistance. And Impaired fasting glucose. Weirdly, this material is only briefly covered in Diabetes mellitus type 2, which has been passed as a Good Article...

More opinions on what should be merged into what'd be good....Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 05:35, 4 November 2018 (UTC)


StatPearls

Peoples thoughts on this source? Examples include [8] Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 14:53, 3 November 2018 (UTC)

the example seems good[9], --Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 15:36, 3 November 2018 (UTC)
Interesting review article. More info on stat pearl here: https://www.statpearls.com/home/about/. They state that the review articles are reviewed every 2 years and that users are permitted to post questions (which are reviewed daily) and that these questions may lead to revisions of the review article. JenOttawa (talk) 01:22, 4 November 2018 (UTC)
Hum and further details here[10]
They claim to have 3,000 articles and appear to have been around for a couple of years
Only a couple of news articles on the site.[11]Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 03:39, 4 November 2018 (UTC)
Hmm, I used their Epistaxis article when editing the Swedish version of nosebleed (sv:Näsblod), only for supporting one small statement though. Seems to be secondary articles, but are they reliable/MEDRS? --Treetear (talk) 17:21, 6 November 2018 (UTC)
Yah I would not call them a good source. Are they an okay source? Meh. Have not been around long enough to determine their quality. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 19:35, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

Queen's University student editing initiative

Medical students at Queen's have begun to make suggestion on the following article talk pages. They are monitoring their talk pages this week and will be making article improvements Nov 10-13th. I encourage the ProjectMed community to give these students a warm welcome and have some patience while they are learning. The group is excited to be contributing. Hopefully, we will be able to work together to improve the evidence that is shared in these 16 articles and give the students (and faculty) a positive experience on Wikipedia that so that some of them may stick around and help us with our efforts. If you have any questions or suggestions please do not hesitate to let me know.

List of Articles being worked on. We specifically chose articles in B or C class.
  • Epileptic seizure editing in progress, I expect a few more revisions over the next week
  • Drowning suggestions on talk page
  • Colorectal cancer editing in progress, thanks to community members for their adjustments
  • Atrial natriuretic peptide editing in progress, thanks to community members for their adjustments
  • Sepsis editing slightly delayed due to a non-wiki related tech issue, I expect this page to be edited in the next 1-2 weeks
  • Open fracture Most edits added, thanks to community members for their adjustments and suggestions
  • Stroke recovery editing in progress, thanks to community members for their adjustments and suggestions
  • Melanoma editing in progress, thanks to community members for their adjustments and suggestions
  • Endometriosis Most edits added, thanks to community members for their adjustments and suggestions
  • PTSD Most edits added, thanks to community members for their adjustments and suggestions. One comment still needs addressing (acupuncture, as flagged below)
  • Prenatal testing editing slightly delayed due to a non-wiki related tech issue, I expect this page to be edited in the next 1-2 weeks
  • Hypothermia editing in progress
  • Wilms' Tumor editing in progress
  • Allergen immunotherapy editing in progress, thanks to community members for their adjustments and suggestions
  • Fibroadenoma most edits have been added. thanks for the community feedback
  • Macular degeneration editing in progress, thanks to community members for their adjustments and suggestions
If you have any questions, comments, or feedback I welcome it (and appreciate it) at any time. Hopefully we can work together to encourage these students.

JenOttawa (talk) 19:07, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

User:JenOttawa a number of them have not posted anything yet. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 19:34, 6 November 2018 (UTC)
Good luck with this, Jen & colleagues - I'll try & keep an encouraging eye on the epilepsy page! Kitb (talk) 01:10, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

another student article

From the previous, or another, class:

Outriggr (talk) 02:22, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

User:Outriggr Trimmed the poor sources. Added some good ones. Merged into the main topic. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 06:31, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

Random #cite editors

Where are editors like this one at the Cracked nipple article and this one at the Oophorectomy article coming from? Notice it's the first editor's first edit. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 01:16, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

Looks like an editathon: Wikipedia:WikiProject_Medicine/National_Network_of_Libraries_of_Medicine. ♠PMC(talk) 01:41, 8 November 2018 (UTC)
Have provided them feedback about ADAM again (that it is not public domain). Any specific issues User:Flyer22 Reborn? Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 06:32, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

Summarizing Drugs.com information on the Xylitol article

 
Xylitol

Myself and User:Zefr appear to both have reached a disagreement on Talk:Xylitol#Veterinary_studies, over the inclusion of this sentence. In small, laboratory scale animal studies, controlled feeds very high in Xylitol, increased the bone density of rat's with osteoporosis.[1][2]

User:Zefr's position appears to be repeating that this is either a primary source issue, when drugs.com is clearly a reputable secondary source or that it is FRINGE medical advice. However the stance I've taken is that respect for reliable sources per WP:MEDREV, is central to the project, alongside repeating that this is not an article on animal osteoporosis, so it doesn't require the level of scientific rigor that would understandably be deemed necessary on that article. Which I would agree with, if it were. Instead this is an encyclopedic article on a relatively obscure sugar, what it has been used for and where areas of study have gone. So I hope you can understand why I am perpexpled by what I see as an entirely misplaced apprehension to suggest A review...is not compliant with WP:MEDRS to imply any effect on osteoporosis. When again, this is not an article on animal osteoporosis? so how is their concern applicable?

A google search will find a hundred plus citations for this allegedly fringe area of study. Which anyone can do, by typing - xylitol bone mineralization - into your favorite search engine. It is clearly squarely in the domain of WP:MEDANIMAL and it is further made absolutely clear that it is not to be tried by humans, with the inclusion of the Monica Reinagel citation, which explicitly spells out exactly why this is not to be taken as medical advice, in graphic detail. So in sum, I'm perplexed by how WP:MEDRS or any other policy applies, as grounds for exluding this.

Boundarylayer (talk) 00:19, 26 October 2018 (UTC)

The subject of the article isn't the most important factor. For better or worse, this kind of claim is often understood by average (i.e., non-scientists) as meaning "Grandma should take xylitol for her osteoporosis".
Ultimately, this is not a question of "RS". It is a question of WP:DUE. And the question to be asked is: Why is this so important that it needs to be included in the article at all? WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:33, 26 October 2018 (UTC)
Aye, we do not generally include generic "small scale laboratory animal studies" in articles as either a) they would quickly overtake the page or b) require massive cherry-picking prohibited by WP:NPOV. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 06:36, 26 October 2018 (UTC)
There are tens of thousands of small-scale laboratory experiments on animals that may be of interest to rats, but which contribute nothing to the sum of human knowledge. They could indeed be misleading to the lay reader who might extrapolate a greater significance to their conclusions than is warranted for primary studies on animals. --RexxS (talk) 13:00, 26 October 2018 (UTC)
I do not know of anyone who wants to know about preventing osteoporosis in rats. We should wait until human studies are carried out. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 17:03, 26 October 2018 (UTC)
I'll take a stance of WP:USEBYOTHERS to respond. Doc James Looking at Proligestone, which is apparently used in veterinary medicine to control hypersexuality in cats and dogs...now while it too could be argued that some lay readers may decide to read into that article and equally extrapolate that Grandma so-and-so should take this for that problem. We don't exclude information on the basis of what lay readers may do with it. Do we? We have articles with more than the proposed single line, given to the likes of anti-malaria drugs used on salmon, that's right fish and a similar wealth of material that one could equally rather dismissably argue, that it does not [directly] contribute to the sum of human knowledge RexxS, though I would consider an encyclopedia without that information, especially when that very information is in reliable secondary sources like drugs.com, more than just a little deficient as an encyclopedia.
Indeed for those two other examples above, there isn't even a secondary medical source referenced and they're just two substances off the top of my head. While in the case of xylitol and WP:DUE, the mention to its use in these studies, is in the very first paragraph of the drugs.com entry. So I have to say, my interest has been slightly piqued by this, when there is the complete lack of clearly defined policy on the matter of if wikipedia should summarize the uses of a substance, as they are found in the opening paragraph of secondary sources like drugs.com, would that really create POV issues as you suggest Jo-Jo Eumerus? How? When as I've mentioned, there are scores of articles that convey the kind of information that substance xyz was investigated as an anti-malaria drug for salmon and so on found on the project and for good reason. Yet Xylitol getting a line, that's just a summary of drugs.com is verboten?
Boundarylayer (talk) 10:00, 27 October 2018 (UTC)
@Boundarylayer: Please read WP:INDENTGAP to help you in formatting your posts. As for your question, you only have to read WP:DUE to get the answer. Excluding sourceable information from the encyclopedia in this case is not done on account of what the reader may do with it, but because it is not accepted knowledge. Are you sure drugs.com is acting as a secondary source here? When I look at https://www.drugs.com/inactive/xylitol-64.html drugs.com calls it a "pharmacologically inactive substance". So which page are we to believe? On the page you picked, it is introduced with the phrase "Medical literature documents the use of xylitol in medical conditions and applications." Sure, but medical literature documents the use of statins to treat pneumonia - although, of course, the treatment had no effect. It's one thing that some sort of lab experiments have been made, but that's a huge leap to extrapolate that to state that drug X has an effect on condition Y. You're going to need a lot more secondary sourcing before you get to assert that xylitol has any mainstream-accepted effect on osteoporosis in any situation. --RexxS (talk) 11:25, 27 October 2018 (UTC)
I think you may have been unfortunately misled RexxS, as the likely reason for your preceived contradictory presentation on viewing drugs.com, is that specific page you linked to, is the common use of Xyltol in typical sub-gram quantities in the mentioned Excipient role, with the usual amounts ingested in this application resulting in the inactive label. However this is not an actual contradiction that casts a bad light on the website, or confusion about which the other page is to not be believed, as you understandably bring up. Instead, as you will similarly find that same inactive-label attached to substances like the related PEG/polyethylene glycol on drugs.com, which almost identically is a widely used inactive excipient at most oral doses usually encountered, as an excipient. However the question of something happening at massive doses of PEG...is truly brilliantly called miralax, a well known and very active regimen. See https://www.drugs.com/inactive/polyethylene-glycol-177.html. That latter page even incidentally provides an explanation for why the site calls some substances inactive and also then active within the same breath, which should clear up any lingering clouds of distrust of the sites reputation.
Quite similarly, as you may know, the xylitol lab studies, if put in easily relateable terms are the equivalent of an anverage human ingesting over a cup full of pure xylitol per day, for weeks. Some thousand times the inactive excipient dose usually encountered and almost identically, ingesting a cup of xylitol a day will result in the widely accepted and fairly active laxative effects -which is likely why we'll never see any human trials, as they'd be close to inhumane- The Monica Reinagel reference, was added explicitly to prevent anyone even thinking of gaining some bright ideas from self-usage. However despite that, I think it is incontrovertible that Xylitol has met the criteria for inclusion into wikipedia, given the hundreds of pubmed citations, for exploring the condition of osteoporosis in rats, though it again, is outside the reasonable expected therapeutic window of a reasonable drug to treat osteoporosis, even of the rat kind, I would not cast it off as completely useless on that either, as I have heard they make good pets and their was a craze in the eighties with a particular movie featuring Michael Jackson, titled Ben. So I really consider it completely bizarre that there is resistance to inclusion. It really isn't going to be selling more Xylitol, in fact we might see about doing the very opposite. By if you wish giving more than a single line to it and explaining in the article that it's not a good idea to take a cup full of it, if you do have osteoporosis, for obvious reasons relating to quality of life, to put it mildly. It's just simply a WP:NOTABLE applicably to veterinary scenarios fact, worthy of exploration of how it works, if you want to be completely utilitarian about it.
Those poor rats may hate us but their osteoporosis did improve. Drugs.com notes it, a reliable Secondary source and perhaps there is actually a WP:DUE reason to mention it in the Xylitol article. In order to prevent any bright spark from continually trying it?
I mean self experimenters are, as I've just found, already buying bulk bags of it and taking still relatively low doses. https://treato.com/Xylitol,Osteoporosis/?a=s So is it not WP:DUE to write something about why it's a bad idea, as these effects were only observed in rats and at mega-doses, which could you know, cause serious and totally unexplored digestion impacts in humans?
19:50, 27 October 2018 (UTC)
It seems you didn't manage to read or understand WP:INDENTGAP in much the same way that you've failed to understand why we want secondary sources, or my objection to inclusion of information about a couple of lab trials. In a nutshell, those experiments show nothing about the general effects of xylitol on any organism. The actual trials show that those particular rats (some calcium-deficient, some diabetic, etc.) saw some improvements in their bones while being fed particular doses of xylitol. That's well below the threshold for an encyclopedia to make any use of whatsoever. Drugs.com is no more a secondary source for those claims than PubMed would be. It performs no review, no selection, no analysis, no aggregation, no overview, or any of the jobs that we use secondary sourcing for. --RexxS (talk) 21:36, 27 October 2018 (UTC)
secondary sources are essential, (agree w/ RexxS)see MEDRS--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 11:15, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

Stating that research has happened is of value to readers. Wholly in contrast to your suggestion that this is, somehow below the threshold for an encyclopedia to make any use of. You only have to view the Methylene blue article, were what it likewise has been studied for. Is succinctly listed. To quote the article. It has been studied in AIDS-related Kaposi's sarcoma, West Nile virus, and to inactivate staphylococcus aureus, and HIV-1. Phenothiazine dyes and light have been known to have virucidal properties for over 70 years - that sentence is well balanced and of due weight. While none of these applications are clinical practice for a galaxy of reasons, the fact that study has occurred with substance A to treat a condition B, is both definitely of value and truly encyclopedic. I note that entire sentence there on the Methylene blue article, went unchallenged and did not cause a fuss. Yet for some reason using a secondary source here with the case of Xylitol, to communicate that something has been investigated. Is for some reason not good enough because we need aggregation of studies? ...Why exactly? We're simply stating a fact. Just like the methylene blue article does and just like countless other aricles that do the same. Yet am I to take away that you and others here, similarly object to all of the inclusion occurring in these other articles? ...Really? Boundarylayer (talk) 12:13, 28 October 2018 (UTC)

The equivalent sentence for xylitol would be something like "It has been studied in people with sore throats, dry mouths, and infections".
The drugs.com page contains a lot of facts. Why did you pick this one out of it? For example, why do you want to say that it prevents osteoporosis in rats, but not that it causes explosive diarrhea in humans (at the equivalent dose)? WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:33, 28 October 2018 (UTC)
Would you believe WhatamIdoing, I incidentally just added the first mention to diarrhea on the article page, moments before just coming back to check up on this trend. So I clearly do not have a problem with the article mentioning that. As what I do have a problem with is opposition to the stating of fact, that this has been studied. It is a novel area of study, a sugar was found to increase bone volume in lab rats, treating osteoporosis? Wow, how did that work? That's notable. I had initially just added a short section focused as a synopsis of the various studies, per WP:DUE. Having gone back and forth with Zefr on the talk page, I even added the Reinagel reference that states with no ambiguity that - if you are human, do not try this. Now having more recently found that there are apparently forums with people going back to 2009, in practice buying xylitol in bulk to try it for their very human osteoporosis. For that reason alone I think it certainly meets WP:DUE to mention not to try it, or at very least, tightly bound what is written, by communicating that no humans trials have occurred or are expected at the dose equivalent. If it really needs to be further driven home any futher, we could also say, that it is not clear if the effect would even be seen in humans. linking to Animal testing on rodents#Limitations could be done there too.
Would that be acceptable? As this is really above and beyond what Methylene blue and many other articles, have no problem with the stating of fact. I do not understand the opposition? Has it been studied for osteopororsis in rats? Yes. So why is it seemingly forbidden to even have a mention to the fact?
Boundarylayer (talk) 04:56, 29 October 2018 (UTC)

References

Complex orphan diseases; lumping or splitting

I while back I came across Multisystem proteinopathy which looked like this at the time. I trimmed out the primary sources which made it like this.

I then merged it into Hereditary inclusion body myopathy.

An IP editor objected to this and would like to see the multisystem proteinopathy page split back out. Which you can see at the HIBM talk page at Talk:Hereditary_inclusion_body_myopathy#Undoing_merge_with_multisystem_proteinopathy.

They've been following up with me (with remarkable patience) and I have not made up my own mind yet.

More input would be helpful. Jytdog (talk) 16:01, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

The article you merged into the bigger article is a stub. It can be forked back out, per MOS guidelines, if that disease gets enough material or expanded on. Yanping Nora Soong (talk) 20:07, 8 November 2018 (UTC)
There are lots of things we can do. The question is what is best. But the place to discuss is there, not here. Jytdog (talk) 20:09, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

Medical marketing (eg Medtronic)

I am not sure if this has been previously addressed by this Wikiproject, but it sort of stuns me how commercial companies have brazenly inserted wikilinks to themselves into "see also" sections for articles about medical devices like artificial cardiac pacemaker and implantable cardioverter-defibrillator (two such diffs where I removed these UNDUE influences: here and here.

This paragraph that I removed, which cites "google.com" (lol) was particularly bad. Out of the almost dozen commercial influences and self-important redlinked doctors/companies mentioned, only Anthony Adducci was actually mentioned in the patent (the coinventor, Schwalm, was not even mentioned in the article as a "pioneer").

Companies like Medtronic are large and prestigious and deserve appropriate coverage. However, looking at the "what links here" for this company (as an example), it seems someone at this company wants to insert mention of this company into as many medical device pages as possible, possibly to boost their search results when people search for medical devices on the internet. I feel the project should be aware of and actively fight this unethical form of search engine optimization. Yanping Nora Soong (talk) 01:02, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

What you are describing is of course possible, but it is also possible (and perhaps more likely) that it's just the result of entirely natural editing by regular editors here. Is there actually any evidence for what you claim? Are there certain accounts adding these links, or certain IPs, or any specific edits that are concerning? Deli nk (talk) 01:15, 7 November 2018 (UTC)
I just removed more content that definitely must have been inserted by paid editors. This seems pretty prima facie (though behavior not confined to Medtronic), and especially this one. Why would regular editors be compelled to bold product pitches, proclaiming how novel and improved something is? Unpaid editors are more likely to document history they feel has been neglected, as far as medical devices go. I will dig into the page histories over the next few days. Yanping Nora Soong (talk) 01:18, 7 November 2018 (UTC)
I don't know about that.
Consider this line:
  • bolus calculators: Pump software helps by calculating the dose for the next insulin bolus.
MOS:NOBOLD says that those terms should have been in italics rather than bold, but that's not an unusual mistake. (It might even be easier to read.) Properly, it should be in definition list format, but I'm practically the only editor who ever uses that. But even if it's not ideal formatting, that kind of basic definition it doesn't exactly scream promotionalism, does it?
The content you're complaining about was added in 2006 (just days after the first draft of MEDRS was started), includes multiple manufacturers (why would Medtronic pay someone to mention their competitors?), and was made by an editor whose userpage says that his kid has Type 1 diabetes. I think that "save my kid's life" is a far more plausible explanation than "paid editing" in this case. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:22, 7 November 2018 (UTC)
I might have been overzealous there, because I was trying to chase down where Medtronic might have inserted themselves into other articles via there Whatlinkshere, but I feel that they definitely inserted themselves into pacemaker-related articles in a rather egregious manner. Yanping Nora Soong (talk) 20:23, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

User:Yanping Nora Soong We have had multiple global heads of marketing at Medtronic try to white wash a Wikipedia article. They, like most undisclosed paid editors, told falsehoods and their stories changed once caught. Was written up in the Atalantic.othe Agressive trimmed of these "see also" sections is fine by me. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 06:41, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

  • yep we are always driving this stuff out of the encyclopedia -- we are aware of the problem generally, and calling attention to specific instances is very helpful. Thanks for posting. Jytdog (talk) 20:11, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

Med article retractions

I noticed this site: Retractiondatabase.org. Do we have a project page that lists retractions that need to be cleaned up on medical pages in Wikipedia? I am visualising something similar to the Cochrane bot (that flags retracted and updated reviews for humans to adjust the knowledge being shared and the citations accordingly).
Does anyone have any suggestions?
Thanks, JenOttawa (talk) 14:12, 30 October 2018 (UTC)

I see some folks going around and removing retracted / predatory papers. Not sure if we have technology assisting in this. Would be a good idea especially for predatory journals. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 15:49, 30 October 2018 (UTC)
User:Headbomb do you do some work on this? Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 17:23, 30 October 2018 (UTC)
Not on retractions specifically, but I am working on predatory publishing through WP:CRAPWATCH with JLaTondre (talk · contribs). Adding unreliable/predatory to the Crapwatch is pretty easy to do, although retractions would be out of scope as many (most?) legit journals will have retractions at some point in their lives. A dedicated retraction bot would be a great thing though, as would a |retracted=yes in CS1 templates. There is {{retracted}} though. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 19:00, 30 October 2018 (UTC)
I'd make a request for such a bot at WP:BOTREQ if I were you. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 19:05, 30 October 2018 (UTC)
Thanks for the feedback. Do you think that the retractiondatabase.org site I noted above would be a good place to start with a bot? The bot could generate a list that we can work from and insert the retracted flag into the articles as @Headbomb: suggested?JenOttawa (talk) 16:13, 31 October 2018 (UTC)
Honestly I don't know where else you could start, short of compiling retractions yourself. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 15:00, 1 November 2018 (UTC)
Totally support this suggestion, Jen (& there is a good rationale as to why the staus quo generally is inadequate[1]). Nowhere else systematically incorporates retraction notices into their searches, so this could be a major coup for WP - making it the 'go to' place to check! Just had a look, and the Retraction Watch database contains over 19,000 items, so it would be an invaluable place to start for a bot - and a long process for humans, even if crowd-sourced! Kitb (talk) 21:50, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ "Watching out for retractions". I, Science. 6 July 2018. Retrieved 8 November 2018.

Teaching Wikipedia editing for healthcare audiences

 

I am a largely-retired UK geriatrician with an interest in medical education. I am planning to set up some Wikipedia training locally. Following a discussion with Doug Taylor, we thought it would be helpful to draw up a list of transferable skills needed to edit a Wikipedia page successfully, and be a part of the Wikipedia community. Identifying the specific skills in this way will allow teachers to identify how they might teach them and assess them. It could also form a useful template to allow comparison with different healthcare (& other) curricula, for example undergraduate, and UK Foundation Programme. This in turn would improve the ease of incorporating teaching Wikipedia editing into such curricula.

What to teach

Towards this end I thought it might be useful to start a draft template. It's at Matrix of WikiEdu teaching template headings & component skills. If thought useful, it could be amended iteratively by the Wikipedia community, in order to build up a comprehensive document. What do you think? Kitb (talk) 12:21, 20 October 2018 (UTC)

seems like a good idea(though it might need some changes), however youll need more editor opinions--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 12:06, 21 October 2018 (UTC)
I think that what you need to know depends on whether you want the editors to be engaged in a one-time, in-person workshop or trying to promote ongoing, independent work. One-time workshops are usually project-based. With independent, ongoing work, building up slowly through small assignments is probably a good idea. (Week 1: Fix a typo. Week 2: Tag or remove something that you think is wrong. Week 3: Add a sentence with a source....) WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:12, 21 October 2018 (UTC)
Excellent point - the idea was that we accumulate all the component parts in one place so that people undertaking any training (whether one-off, or long term engagement) can select the appropriate one(s) for their needs. This is just a first step - selecting which to use - and how - might be further peices of work, down stream. Kitb (talk) 13:09, 22 October 2018 (UTC)
Somewhere very high up in that list, should be understanding the mission of Wikipedia, how the community realizes the mission, and why we do it that way. I wrote User:Jytdog/How to help people get oriented to those three basic things. So many things here seem bizarre to people unless they understand those things.
Once somebody understands that our mission is to summarize accepted knowledge, when they go to add content about some topic, the question they should be asking themselves is "What is accepted knowledge about this?" and they should be trying to summarize what MEDRS/RS sources say about it. And making sure that what they write makes sense in the context of the whole page, in terms of the emphasis they give to it. Way too many people grab a source and plop 'some stuff' in an article based on what it says. Which is missing the mark.
I don't know how that fits in your matrix. Jytdog (talk) 20:36, 21 October 2018 (UTC)
Thanks - great point! I'll work on that... ;-) Kitb (talk) 12:44, 22 October 2018 (UTC)
I've tried an amendment to incorporate your suggestion - does that seem OK to you? Kitb (talk) 13:33, 22 October 2018 (UTC)
I doubt that speeches about purpose are effective.
This all seems quite unrelated to how long-term editors begin. Maybe that's why so few students stick around? Most of us start by fixing a typo or reverting vandalism. But with the formal training, we start off with "Create an Account" and "Naming of Parts". They can't actually do anything until we've bored them stiff with lectures about all the buttons in the interface (and after all that, we discover that someone brought a tablet, so we've just described the wrong interface). User:Sage (Wiki Ed), has your team looked into whether newbies could start with something more interesting and obviously useful, like a round of RecentChange patrolling for obvious vandalism? WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:09, 22 October 2018 (UTC)
I've always found that formal training works better if we start with: "This is your user page: make an edit"; "This is your sandbox: make an edit"; followed by working through the steps involved in deciding whether Ombre is actually a card game for two or three players, which leads to adding a reference. Demonstrating and then asking participants to attempt the task themselves is generally accepted as the preferred way of teaching skills. They don't need me to teach them the underpinning knowledge; they can read that for themselves at their leisure. --RexxS (talk) 21:31, 22 October 2018 (UTC)
at the start of the "how" i thing, i note that most people learn by whatever magic socialization impulses we humans have. i wonder if anybody has studied how long-term editors get established and how that socialization process actually works here. It is amazing what we have accomplished as a community where that socialization process is really the only "training" most people get. When people are intentionally trained, in my view putting the mission upfront, along with how we realize it and why we realize it that way, is essential for making sense of what goes on here. People want things to make sense, and helping people understand is a much better way to orient and introduce, than presenting "rules" that come across as arbitrary. One can call intentional orientation "speeches about purpose" but that is just ugly. Jytdog (talk) 15:58, 24 October 2018 (UTC)
WhatamIdoing: We've not tried vandal patrol in particular, but many of our courses do start with minor edits on an article of personal interest — find something to copyedit or otherwise improve. We've also tried using Citation Hunt as the basis for 'getting started' tasks, but we found that a large enough portion of students aren't ready for that early on (because working with citations and sources in nuanced ways can be tough, before you really grok Wikipedia's norms around that). I think the big thing that makes retaining student editors hard is that editing Wikipedia wasn't their idea. Early results from our new program, which uses much of the same training content but is for academics and other researchers to learn to edit themselves (basically, a professional development course), show substantial retention.--Sage (Wiki Ed) (talk) 16:51, 31 October 2018 (UTC)
Thanks for the above valid observations. The key focus of this piece of work I am proposing, though, is not how to teach/help learn, so much as what to. If you like, an epistemology of WP editing, simply to allow any teaching module skills to be easily mapped onto the relevant curriculum. I have tried to put it in an order which fits with Bloom's taxonomy. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kitb (talkcontribs) 11:02, 23 October 2018 (UTC)
Thanks for sharing this Kit. I am pinging @Blueraspberry: on this discussion as well. @EditingDentist: also has experience organizing Wikiediting clubs at Dental Schools. JenOttawa (talk) 12:53, 23 October 2018 (UTC)
You'll need to ping Bluerasberry to attract Lane's attention, Jen. And @EditingDentist: as well  . Cheers --RexxS (talk) 13:53, 23 October 2018 (UTC)
Thanks, yes I noticed my typo but got called away before it was saved. I appreciate your help!JenOttawa (talk) 14:50, 23 October 2018 (UTC)
Thanks again, Jen and Doug - your input greatly appreciated! (PS sorry I forgot to sign earlier entry!) Kitb (talk) 20:00, 23 October 2018 (UTC)

How to teach it!

Having now done a (small) pilot session, I have learnt some valuable lessoons! I just wondered is there a repository anywhere about how to teach WP editing to a helathcare [esp medical] audience? It would be great to curate some simple dynamic resources re WP medical usage, so that one could rapidly & simply check out latest usage & impact stats to put on a slide (or, even better, get the learners to explore online!). Is there any appetite for this? Kitb (talk) 11:44, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

Hi Kit, my “cheat sheet” is my attempt to summarize important points. If you have any feedback and suggestions, I welcome it at any time! https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JenOttawa/Introduction_to_Medical_Editing:_Cheat_Sheet JenOttawa (talk) 02:24, 9 November 2018 (UTC)

Talk:Breathing_circuit#Requested_move_4_November_2018

There is a move discussion at Talk:Breathing_circuit#Requested_move_4_November_2018. Flooded with them hundreds 08:09, 11 November 2018 (UTC)

commented--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 11:55, 11 November 2018 (UTC)

Mucosectomy

Hello, it's me again! Is a mucosectomy the same as an endoscopic mucosal resection? de:Mukosektomie through Google Translate says yes, but I have no idea. ♠PMC(talk) 13:03, 10 November 2018 (UTC)

I don't think they're exactly synonyms. I think that mucosectomy is the goal you're trying to achieve, and cutting it out by passing a knife down (or up) the digestive tract is just one of several ways to achieve the goal. Other methods seem to include laparoscopic mucosal resection (stick the knife through a 'keyhole' in your skin) and ablative mucosectomy (destroy the tissue, e.g., by burning or freezing).
It might be reasonable to merge the articles, and describe the different techniques all in the same place, but I don't think that they're exactly the same things. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:29, 12 November 2018 (UTC)
Hmm ok. I think I'll link mucosectomy from endoscopic mucosal resection and leave a merge for someone else to determine. As always, I appreciate you weighing in. ♠PMC(talk) 07:49, 12 November 2018 (UTC)

Editors in this WikiProject may be interested in the featured quality source review RFC that has been ongoing. It would change the featured article candidate process (FAC) so that source reviews would need to occur prior to any other reviews for FAC. Your comments are appreciated. --Izno (talk) 21:31, 11 November 2018 (UTC)


N,N-Dimethyltryptamine

Could use some additional eyes. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:54, 12 November 2018 (UTC)

Specifically [12] Enigmamsg 00:21, 13 November 2018 (UTC)

Cleanup needed: Spinal Muscular Atrophy

I noticed that this article contains a lot of primary references. I removed one sentence that was added (no reference and seemed to be self promo). I will flag it here if anyone has time to take a look: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spinal_muscular_atrophy# Thanks, JenOttawa (talk) 02:53, 9 November 2018 (UTC)

It's a rare disease. Primary sources are sometimes the best possible sources for standard information about rare diseases. Secondary is not the definition of a good source. It's important to balance multiple considerations around the reliability of sources. A recent primary source from an expert in a respected journal in a relevant area is often better than a review article written by a grad student in a third-tier journal. When we're writing about a common or well-researched condition, we can pick the best of the best of the best (and that's what we wrote MEDRS around), but when we're working on articles about rare diseases, we need to think about sources holistically, and not just through a simplistic primary-bad/secondary-good lens. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:50, 9 November 2018 (UTC)
Thanks for this clarification, WhatamIdoing - really helpful to us less experienced folk! Kitb (talk) 18:04, 9 November 2018 (UTC)
We have decent reviews on the topic
https://rarediseases.org/rare-diseases/spinal-muscular-atrophy/
https://rarediseases.info.nih.gov/diseases/7674/spinal-muscular-atrophy
Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 06:37, 11 November 2018 (UTC)
I agree that those are decent secondary sources, and I would encourage anyone interested in the subject to use them. However, they are not technically review articles, because they are not published in peer-reviewed academic journals. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:20, 12 November 2018 (UTC)
Thanks for all the feedback @WhatamIdoing and Doc James:. There are many sections of Spinal Muscular Atrophy that are summaries of RCTs/case studies and in vitro/in vivo work. For example,
"Butyrates (sodium butyrate and sodium phenylbutyrate) held some promise in in vitro studies[1][2][3] but a clinical trial in symptomatic people did not confirm their efficacy.[4] Another clinical trial in pre-symptomatic types 1–2 infants was completed in 2015 but no results have been published.[5]"
When you mention above that primary sources are often the best that we have, I do not disagree with you for background info in a Wikipedia article. How do you feel about the above paragraph? It is my understanding that this would not be acceptable as per MEDRS. Similar to @Kitb:, I really appreciate this discussion from a learning point of view.JenOttawa (talk) 14:27, 12 November 2018 (UTC)
User:JenOttawa better to replace with secondary sources IMO Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 02:17, 13 November 2018 (UTC)
I think it depends upon what sources exist. In the case of the sentence about the file drawer problem, the source could be updated to PMID 27490705, which is a 2016 review.
If the three animal studies are the ones cited by the primary source that says it didn't work in humans, then it's a bit like "citing" a historically important paper (which we accept as a valid use): you're putting it there for the convenience of the interested reader, not really as proof that the statement is accurate. The 2016 review mentions both of these substances. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:27, 13 November 2018 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ Chang, J. -G.; Hsieh-Li, H. -M.; Jong, Y. -J.; Wang, N. M.; Tsai, C. -H.; Li, H. (2001). "Treatment of spinal muscular atrophy by sodium butyrate". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 98 (17): 9808–13. Bibcode:2001PNAS...98.9808C. doi:10.1073/pnas.171105098. PMC 55534. PMID 11504946.
  2. ^ Andreassi, C.; Angelozzi, C.; Tiziano, F. D.; Vitali, T.; De Vincenzi, E.; Boninsegna, A.; Villanova, M.; Bertini, E.; Pini, A.; Neri, G.; Brahe, C. (2003). "Phenylbutyrate increases SMN expression in vitro: Relevance for treatment of spinal muscular atrophy". European Journal of Human Genetics. 12 (1): 59–65. doi:10.1038/sj.ejhg.5201102. PMID 14560316.
  3. ^ Brahe, C.; Vitali, T.; Tiziano, F. D.; Angelozzi, C.; Pinto, A. M.; Borgo, F.; Moscato, U.; Bertini, E.; Mercuri, E.; Neri, G. (2004). "Phenylbutyrate increases SMN gene expression in spinal muscular atrophy patients". European Journal of Human Genetics. 13 (2): 256–9. doi:10.1038/sj.ejhg.5201320. PMID 15523494.
  4. ^ Mercuri, E.; Bertini, E.; Messina, S.; Solari, A.; d'Amico, A.; Angelozzi, C.; Battini, R.; Berardinelli, A.; Boffi, P.; Bruno, C.; Cini, C.; Colitto, F.; Kinali, M.; Minetti, C.; Mongini, T.; Morandi, L.; Neri, G.; Orcesi, S.; Pane, M.; Pelliccioni, M.; Pini, A.; Tiziano, F. D.; Villanova, M.; Vita, G.; Brahe, C. (2007). "Randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial of phenylbutyrate in spinal muscular atrophy". Neurology. 68 (1): 51–55. doi:10.1212/01.wnl.0000249142.82285.d6. PMID 17082463.
  5. ^ "Study to Evaluate Sodium Phenylbutyrate in Pre-symptomatic Infants With Spinal Muscular Atrophy (STOPSMA)". Retrieved 28 December 2011.

Problems today with the PMID tool in visual editor

Is anyone else having problems? Using Chrome I cannot seem to get the PMID tool to work today (visual editor). I can use the DOI. I got an error message with the PMID: "We couldn't make a citation for you. You can create one manually using the "Manual" tab above." JenOttawa (talk) 16:12, 12 November 2018 (UTC)

sometimes it does happen--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 20:29, 12 November 2018 (UTC)
Working again now. Just a few hours down! Thanks. JenOttawa (talk) 21:08, 12 November 2018 (UTC)
I asked a dev about this yesterday (we were waiting for a meeting to start), and he said that this kind of behavior is usually due to a server problem somewhere, rather than a software bug. If it happens more frequently, then please let me know. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:29, 13 November 2018 (UTC)

PubMed Labs

A beta site with some new tools that might get incorporated into Pubmed depending on the feedback they receive can be found here CV9933 (talk) 16:48, 29 October 2018 (UTC)

thanks for info--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 10:01, 31 October 2018 (UTC)
Thanks - the 'PubMed Health' website is different from 'PubMed', and the changes mentioned in your link do not affect the latter (NB please sign your posts with 4 tilde [′~'] marks)! Kitb (talk) 23:43, 8 November 2018 (UTC)
'PubMed Health' was closely connected to the work of Hilda Bastian ( aka User:Hildabast, and also a thoughtful and good-humoured EBM blogger [13][14] :). I believe 'PubMed Health' kept the needs of Wikipedia's medical editing here in mind. I'm sorry to see it go. Among other characteristics, I appreciated its use of DARE appraisals. Thank you @Hilda! 109.145.79.163 (talk) 11:28, 10 November 2018 (UTC)
PubMed Health is now gone, which means one of the links in {{Reliable sources for medical articles}} is obsolete (the link named ..."or to systematic reviews"). I mentioned this on the templates talk page but I don't think anyone noticed (link to discussion: Template talk:Reliable sources for medical articles#PubMed Health will be discontinued 31 October 2018). This link needs to be updated/replaced in the template, which is featured on many articles' talk pages. --Treetear (talk) 23:18, 13 November 2018 (UTC)
I've removed the link for now. --RexxS (talk) 23:36, 13 November 2018 (UTC)
 
Head of femur

Since my last visit here, I've collected some more pages with bad links which need expert attention. Search for 'disam' in main view and for '{{d' in edit mode. As always, if you solve one of these puzzles, remove the {{dn}} tag from the article and add {{done}} here.

As always, thanks in advance. Narky Blert (talk) 10:50, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

Great work! I'll be back in a month or so with some more :-( Narky Blert (talk) 09:36, 8 November 2018 (UTC)
Thanks for hunting them out for us less experienced folk to work on!! Kitb (talk) 11:31, 8 November 2018 (UTC)
A handy tip someone placed here before, was to go to your user preferences and on the gadgets tab, select the box "Display links to disambiguation pages in orange" CV9933 (talk) 12:25, 8 November 2018 (UTC)
Quick link on above tip: Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-gadgets -> scroll down to "Appearance" -> select box (5th from bottom) "Display links to disambiguation pages in orange" -> click Save. --Treetear (talk) 21:58, 9 November 2018 (UTC)
thanks Treetear--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 15:33, 10 November 2018 (UTC)
When I joined WP:DPL, there were c. 40,000 known bad links to WP:DAB pages which had never been looked at or which had been flagged {{dn}} as too difficult. (I was late to the party - I've seen old reports suggesting 200,000 and much worse.)
Once we got that number down below 10,000 or so, I began to ask specialist WikiProjects to help solve some of the remaining problems. Some of those WikiProjects have been utterly indifferent, and therefore utterly useless. However, I can cheerfully say that Wikipedia:WikiProject Medicine is one of the three WikiProjects whose members I have found always to be well-informed and eager to solve puzzles relating to their speciality. Props!
A tip. I or other disambiguators will, sooner or later, pick up bad links to WP:DAB pages, because User:DPL bot flags them as needing attention. However, none of us will ever pick up bad links to WP:SIA pages. Narky Blert (talk) 03:19, 11 November 2018 (UTC)
I've always believed that this group was awesome. :-) WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:41, 11 November 2018 (UTC)
@Narky Blert: Why is a link to a WP:SIA a "bad link"? The reason I ask is that I "disambiguated" the glutamate synthase link in GltS RNA motif by changing that page from a DAB to a SIA, as all of those articles refer to enzymes which catalyze glutamate synthesis. Seppi333 (Insert ) 07:52, 14 November 2018 (UTC)
@Seppi333: SIAs aren't always bad ideas, but they very often are. They are only good ideas if it can be guaranteed that every incoming link is designed to point readers to every article on the page. If even one incoming link is meant for only one of those articles, that confuses readers and degrades the encyclopaedia.
The three enzymes on the glutamate synthase page have different coenzymes. I very much doubt whether every future incoming link will intend to refer to all three.
There is a way to link to a DAB page showing that all articles on it are meant. Link through the (disambiguation) qualifier, and mark it as <!--intentional link to DAB page-->. Narky Blert (talk) 10:28, 14 November 2018 (UTC)

Help needed improving gene infobox (alternate title: Tom (LT)'s annual gene infobox whinge)

I need some help from this project to improve an infobox, specifically infobox gene

The article agrees that it's a protein. First line: "Ceruloplasmin (or caeruloplasmin) is a ferroxidase enzyme that in humans is encoded by the CP gene" Yet the infobox... incomprehensible!! Just look at that monster!

I encounter this issue every protein article I visit. They are darned difficult to read!! I can confidently say they are completely incomprehensible to any reader that's not trained to biology at a university level. Is that what we want??

I proposed some changes here, some with consensus, but unfortunately the discussion was archived without any being made.

I would in the wiki way make these changes (including small ones myself), but the infobox is programmed in lua. Whilst I admire the lovingly handcrafted box this means that only a handful of editors can change this 2,000+ line programmed monolith.

I am seeking some help improving the infobox. I'm not too fussed how but some simple suggestions are:

  • primary purpose of the box be summarising key points of information to readers (WP:INFOBOX) - readers who are not biomedically trained
  • Use plain english where possible (WP:TECHNICAL)
  • Decrease the use of images which are unnecessary, such as the mouse karyotype
  • If the gene infobox is used in an article about a protein, include some information about the main functions of that protein (such as what it primarily does, where it is, where it's mostly made in the body) in simple terms. (WP:INFOBOX)

--Tom (LT) (talk) 10:37, 12 November 2018 (UTC)

    • I'd love to see some changes in the gene / protein pages in general. I'm a clinical laboratory geneticist, and my eyes glaze over reading them. There is also significant work on protein / enzyme vs gene, but I don't even know where to begin with that one. The inclusion of all the info for the gene on the page for the protein / enzyme makes things difficult to parse, even if you know what you are looking for. Canada Hky (talk) 20:40, 12 November 2018 (UTC)
      • Infoboxes aren't necessarily for reading are they? I think they are more for referencing information quickly. There could be some information added (although standardizing it would be difficult), but I think the purpose of it is fulfilled. We can use prose in the article itself. Natureium (talk) 21:27, 12 November 2018 (UTC)
        • On a page for the protein, much of the information in the infoboxes is irrelevant and confuses the distinction between gene and protein. That isn't helpful. Canada Hky (talk) 21:37, 12 November 2018 (UTC)
          • I completely agree Canada Hky, the distinction between the gene and protein is lost which adds an additional level of confusion. As a clinical geneticist you don't even find it useful! I wonder if it may be better just to completely recreate a new infobox in wikicode for proteins and then replace the existing set. At least the new ones could be edited and/or sandboxed in a normal manner. --Tom (LT) (talk) 06:47, 14 November 2018 (UTC)

@Boghog: You might be interested in this thread. Seppi333 (Insert ) 08:31, 14 November 2018 (UTC)

I was hoping for a bit more buy-in from the maintainers of the infobox since Module:Infobox gene is scripted in Lua which I am not very familiar with. Based on the ideas generated in the previous discussion, I will try to hack a prototype when I find time. Boghog (talk) 08:57, 14 November 2018 (UTC)
Template:Infobox protein already exists and has 944 transclusions. I would have thought it would be simplest to make use of that. Further parameters can be added on request.
However, as Template:Infobox gene draws its information from Wikidata, I wondered if you would like me to convert Template:Infobox protein to do the same? I would not code the whole thing in Lua, but simply use Module:WikidataIB to fetch values from Wikidata where no local parameter was supplied. That would allow us to override the Wikidata value whenever we chose, and it would not have any visible effect on existing uses. What do folks think? --RexxS (talk) 15:25, 14 November 2018 (UTC)
We spent several years replacing thousands of {{infobox protein}} transclusions with {{infobox gene}}, so I am not so keen on that solution ;-) Also it really doesn't solve the problem, except perhaps make it easier for non-Lua programmers to implement. The best solution is to get the maintainers of the infobox to implement these changes, but that doesn't seem to be high on their priority list. If we can put together a prototype for community comment, that might catalyze the process.
Please note (this was a source of confusion in previous discussions) that despite the names, both infoboxes are about the gene and the protein. The protein box is still used for special cases (for example families of proteins). Boghog (talk) 17:24, 14 November 2018 (UTC)

The MerckManual and MerckHome templates - don't work

Hi, (well at least one doesn't work, I'm extrapolating...EDIT on the template page of the two examples Folliculitis doesn't work, Lymphadenitis does)

Does anyone know who should be looking after these templates? (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:MerckHome & MerckManual)

I tried a link, e.g. at the bottom of Miliaria it links to: http://www.merck.com/mmhe/sec18/ch206/ch206b.html which is sort of broken, it goes to Lice Infestation. The layout of the site seems to have changed from the section chapter topic format. I assume it (merck.com) was trying to translate to the new format, but got the wrong redirection.

e.g. the new place for Miliaria is https://www.merckmanuals.com/home/skin-disorders/sweating-disorders/prickly-heat

I was about to edit the page but found the template, which implies many such links may be broken. ˥ Ǝ Ʉ H Ɔ I Ɯ (talk) 02:41, 15 November 2018 (UTC) Edited ˥ Ǝ Ʉ H Ɔ I Ɯ (talk) 02:55, 15 November 2018 (UTC)

Well, sort of nobody. User:Davidruben created the template, but hasn't edited for over a year, and User:Scottalter, whom I've often asked for help with templates before, has only made a few edits this year.
It doesn't look like there is a clear path from the old path to the new one. We're starting with {{MerckHome|18|206|b|Prickly Heat}} and I don't think that information can be bashed into the new URL. They might require manual updates. The good news is that this will probably require only a few dozen edits, as the templates are not very widely used. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:40, 15 November 2018 (UTC)

Phospholipidosis

 
Phospholipid

Can editors with medical experience please have a look at Phospholipidosis? There's lots of poorly formatted recent editing and an over-reliance on primary sources. Plus there is what appeas to me to be promotion for a company named Nextcea, Inc. Considering one of the major editors of the article is an account named Nextcea (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log), I'm sure there is COI/paid editing involved too. Sorry to just drop this here, but this topic is out of my league. Deli nk (talk) 23:38, 12 November 2018 (UTC)

though it has medical aspects, talk page[15] only indicates Wikipedia:WikiProject_Pharmacology--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 13:36, 13 November 2018 (UTC)
Trimmed the mass of primary sources and tried to better summarize the review. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 04:11, 14 November 2018 (UTC)
Further comments here Talk:Phospholipidosis would be useful. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 15:35, 15 November 2018 (UTC)
I left a message and I am happy to help. JenOttawa (talk) 15:52, 15 November 2018 (UTC)
talk[16] indicated COI--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 17:17, 15 November 2018 (UTC)

Clinic for Special Children

Just dropping this here in case anyone is interested to take a look at it. Came across this because of a request at WP:FFU. I basically gutted the article. I did a bit of BEFOREish poking around and I suspect there may be enough to piece together an article with some substance, but it's not my forte. So here is it in case anyone has a particular interest in apparently rare genetic disorders and Amish people. GMGtalk 18:37, 15 November 2018 (UTC)

I will take a look, and can likely source and expand. It is quite an astonishing story and very well regarded genetics clinic and community health initiative. Canada Hky (talk) 18:45, 15 November 2018 (UTC)

School project

The new article Common Practices in Pain Management with an Emphasis on the Role of Opioids, which appears to be the product of a school assignment, could use medical review. Peacock (talk) 21:01, 15 November 2018 (UTC)

I'm tempted to draftify it, it's clearly an essay rather than an attempt at an encyclopedia article. ♠PMC(talk) 21:03, 15 November 2018 (UTC)
That seems reasonable to me. Peacock (talk) 21:04, 15 November 2018 (UTC)
It was draftified by Praxidicae. Natureium (talk) 21:10, 15 November 2018 (UTC)

Feedback would be helpful regarding adding two reviews to the PTSD article pertaining to Acupuncture

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Posttraumatic_stress_disorder#Acupuncture If you have a chance, gathering a consensus/suggestions would be helpful here. Thanks! JenOttawa (talk) 12:57, 15 November 2018 (UTC)


give opinion(gave mine)--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 22:22, 16 November 2018 (UTC)

Student editors

We have several articles being edited by students who seem to have not been informed about MEDRS. The following articles would benefit from increased monitoring:

Thanks. Natureium (talk) 00:25, 15 November 2018 (UTC)

thank you for posting--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 03:00, 16 November 2018 (UTC)
Class seems to be very active right now. JenOttawa (talk) 01:33, 17 November 2018 (UTC)

Sophia Getzowa

A group of us have been collaborating on this article, though none of us are specialists in medicine. The biographical part is mostly done (except her early life, which is still buried in questions). None of us are comfortable in attempting to discuss her research and expertise. The sources relating to her pathological research are discussed here. If there is anyone from this project that could help explain her research that would be very much appreciated. Thank you. SusunW (talk) 18:41, 17 November 2018 (UTC)

Looks good. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 19:14, 17 November 2018 (UTC)
Doc James I'd really like help explaining what it was that she discovered. I read the articles, but I do not understand what her research was about. Clearly needs to be written by someone with expertise. Her discovery "solid cell nests" does not have an article, so linking to it isn't even an option. SusunW (talk) 19:25, 17 November 2018 (UTC)

Voting has opened on the community wish list

  • Have a proposal to improve Wikidata in watchlists HERE

Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 19:43, 17 November 2018 (UTC)

How does that relate to Wikidata/Expand automatic edit summaries? Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 20:04, 17 November 2018 (UTC)
Would be nice to get both done User:Jo-Jo Eumerus. The one I linked is about removing links to edits on Wikidata that do not effect what is displayed on EN WP. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 01:26, 18 November 2018 (UTC)
Does anyone have any favorite items from the wishlist? I haven't looked at it recently. I remember a proposal about maps, and better map support can be useful to us for some articles (epidemiology, where the outbreak occurred, etc.). What else? WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:56, 18 November 2018 (UTC)

Large genetics class off the rails

Please see Wikipedia:Education_noticeboard#Large_genetics_class_off_the_rails and the pages linked there, which need checking. Jytdog (talk) 20:10, 18 November 2018 (UTC)

And than we have this one [17] which is also related Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 22:27, 19 November 2018 (UTC)

Primary sources

Hello. I have a quick question in regards to the recent edits by MegGutman (talk · contribs) ([18], [19]). Should we use these sources or is it unnecessary per WP:PSTS? Thanks, Lord Sjones23 (talk - contributions) 04:21, 18 November 2018 (UTC)

Well, I think that the simplest question to resolve is whether "The electrical activity map of the human skin indicates strong differences between normal and diabetic individuals: A gateway to onset prevention" is a good source for such basic information as "Prediabetes indicates a condition that occurs when a person's blood glucose levels are higher than normal but not high enough for a diagnosis of type 2 DM." This is the sort of thing that we'd normally cite a textbook or even a medical dictionary for, rather than a prototype involving 36 people. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:01, 18 November 2018 (UTC)
this is a comparative study editor[20] should read MEDRSWikipedia:Identifying_reliable_sources_(medicine)--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 17:10, 18 November 2018 (UTC)
All of the sources added are primary sources, and each is being used to support some very general biomedical claims. That contravenes MEDRS and is unnecessary. As WAID says, there are bound to be textbooks or good quality reviews that we should be using to support fairly basic claims like the difference in causes and predisposing factors between type 1 and type 2, or a prediabetic condition. --RexxS (talk) 17:23, 18 November 2018 (UTC)
They were unfortunately an account interested in spamming a single author with a number of other accounts also promoting said author. Combine that with the use of primary sources for topics in which much much better sources exist and edit warring... Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 22:31, 19 November 2018 (UTC)