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paid editing

Interested in folks thoughts on this: Wikipedia_talk:Conflict_of_interest/Noticeboard#Odesk.2C_etc. Maybe it would be worthwhile to post such a listing here, for health-related requests that pop up at sites like that? Jytdog (talk) 14:11, 29 January 2015 (UTC)

Yes agree it would be a good idea to do this. Other things we could try is requesting that Odesk and Elance take down these types of jobs. I will try to get a hold of people at these organizations. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 14:26, 29 January 2015 (UTC)

Jytdog that is a very good idea--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 14:33, 29 January 2015 (UTC)

Odesk and Elance have merged. Odesk's TOR do not allow activities that infringe upon other websites TOU per 20.1 https://www.odesk.com/info/terms/ Emails sent regarding working together on the issue of undisclosed paid editing. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 21:58, 29 January 2015 (UTC)

oh awesome!!! nothing like taking initiative. maybe we can cut 'em off at the pass, as it were. or a bunch of them at least. thank you! Jytdog (talk) 22:36, 29 January 2015 (UTC)

any or all information that helps identify this type of editing is good--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 10:37, 3 February 2015 (UTC)

Elance has gotten back to me and take down the first account in question. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 05:41, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

Couple of links

Selective_serotonin_reuptake_inhibitor contains links in the infobox to which lists all the meds in the class and what they are used for. Plus a discussion of the relative economics

Peoples thoughts? Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 21:42, 31 January 2015 (UTC)

My thoughts are this: though Consumer Reports is supposedly a non-profit organisation, I've never found their information helpful. (And I do resent being constantly barraged with adverts from them through the mail.) The "Best Buy Drugs" label in the infobox is misleading because the price really depends on where you live and in what country as well as what insurance, if any, you have. The information on treatments for depression is superficial and points towards drugs, not even mentioning other possible non-pharmacological solutions. And all their links advise subscribing to Consumer Reports for complete information. So it's basically an ad, IMO. EChastain (talk) 00:49, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

I think Consumer Reports is fine however they don't seem to indicate alternatives for treatment--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 10:32, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

Both these give very US-centric advice, and far from include all SSRI brands. I'll take a look if there is any EU equivalent to balance this with. -- CFCF 🍌 (email) 14:25, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

The European Medicines Agency has a similar page, but it doesn't allow the same search type. This is an example of a treatments for Major Depressive Disorder -- CFCF 🍌 (email) 16:39, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

The NIH druginfo has a very clear page for Antidepressants, and if you click on the Category button you will find a listing of 86 different medications, not all being SSRI. -- CFCF 🍌 (email) 16:45, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

yes the NIH site does offer a better page and info--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 18:34, 4 February 2015 (UTC)

please see ANI discussion on how medical questions should be handled by the Reference desk

ANI - Does Misplaced Pages offer medical advice now?

EChastain (talk) 22:46, 31 January 2015 (UTC)

I find it strange that such a discussion should even exist when there is a strict no medical advice (period).--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 23:06, 31 January 2015 (UTC)

Yup we must not give medical advice. Could result in badness. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 00:02, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

Going off that statement I have an general question: legally who would be at fault if a user were to give medical advice a) on an noticeboard, or b) in an article? Is there or should there be some sort of protocol where we contact those directly effected by such events? Peter.C • talk • contribs 00:49, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

An article as such has not been given to a particular person and is hence to advice as such. This is entirely different to a conversation on a talk page. I presume culpability would lie with the person who gave advice. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 13:04, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

Legally both situations are supposed to be covered by WP's general and specific medical disclaimers. So no-one.Johnbod (talk) 15:36, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

I suspect that the above comment is why we also disclaim the offering of legal advice on Misplaced Pages. Misplaced Pages's disclaimers were solely designed to protect Misplaced Pages (the site and WMF) from liability. Any legal cover they might provide to nitwits practising medicine (or law)—or otherwise giving advice they damn well shouldn't is purely incidental.

That said, I've always been extraordinarily frustrated by Misplaced Pages users and editors who believe that protection from legal liability is the sole and overriding concern. One should not give medical advice on Misplaced Pages because, first and foremost, someone could get hurt. (And in my experience, the editors who are most likely to violate our rule about not giving medical advice tend to be the ones who are least competent to realize when they're doing it particularly badly.) Someone getting hurt can lead to lawsuits, yes—but it also leads to harm to the project's reputation, damage to our ability to fundraise, difficulty recruiting competent medical experts and scientists who won't want to be associated with us, and Jimbo dealing with a PR disaster on the 6 o'clock news. (Who here is 'old' enough to remember the Seigenthaler controversy, out of which we got the BLP policy?) Worst and most essentially, someone getting hurt means that someone got hurt.

That's not a good thing to risk when the reward is someone on the Reference Desk got to enjoy playing doctor. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 16:09, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

He asked the question. Incidentally or not, the disclaimers are important for the potential liability of editors, apart from the questions of knowing who and where an editor is, and (for Americans) whether s/he has enough assets to be worth suing. I'm not sure what you think you are arguing against here. Wiki CRUK John (talk) 12:07, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

measles outbreaks on WP

Measles is getting a lot of attention nowadays. The article, and many articles related to measles, especially MMR-related articles, have been getting a lot of edits. Many of these edits are "updates" to recent outbreaks in the Recent outbreak section on the Measles article. This section reads like a newspaper, as does the article Measles outbreaks in the 21st century. Many outbreaks and epidemics are missing, and information for most of the rest is outdated. Additionally, measles is still endemic to many nations, it is difficult to keep up-to-date information on smaller outbreaks, and there are simply too many outbreaks that occur to include them all. All in all, it just looks like a mess. What's the best way to deal with this? ComfyKem (talk) 00:09, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

Create a subpage called Epidemiology of measles and move the in depth discussion there. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 00:41, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

I second that emotion. Then use a "main" link and the lead of the new fork as the only content in the section left behind. -- Brangifer (talk) 01:41, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

Is it a good idea, though, to encourage any article to become or remain a rather slipshod blog of measles outbreaks? One that will focus, almost exclusively, on cases in first-world, English-speaking nations, that take place when there isn't a sexier disease (Ebola, anyone?) on the cable news cycle, because those are the easiest sources? (Let's be honest, would there be anywhere near as much coverage of or interest in the recent California outbreak if it didn't happen to have a connection to Disneyland?)

"Move the blog to another article" reduces the noise level at the main article and is, I suppose, a "win" in that sense—but deliberately creating midden heaps for all the scraps we throw out of the good articles isn't appealing. And I admit that WP:NOTNEWS is probably our most-ignored core policy; there's no practical way to get enough editors to hold off on adding each new clipping to our articles as they happen. But we should be asking and looking for editors who are willing to clear out the underbrush, who can go back and summarize coherently after the initial rush, converting the "blogging" based on primary news sources into proper article content based on scholarly secondary sources. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 05:02, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

I believe creating a subpage is a good idea, As Misplaced Pages is not a paper source, editors are encouraged to include current and up-to-date information within its coverage, and to develop stand-alone articles on significant current events--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 11:27, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

You could WP:SPLIT it to a List of measles outbreaks. You're right that there is no realistic way to keep the "news flash" information out of an encyclopedia that anyone can edit. The main reason for a split is that it gets the trivia into a lower-traffic and more controlled space. When the media attention dies down, then it can be re-written into an encyclopedia summary (or deleted). In the meantime, we're protecting the main articles and giving newbies and other enthusiastic people a more helpful (less unhelpful? It kind of depends on the edit) way to contribute. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:45, 3 February 2015 (UTC)

Category:Health

Opinions are needed on the following matter: User talk:Flyer22#Health category. Rathfelder stated, "My understanding was that categorisation was heirarchical. So it makes sense to put articles in more specialised categories. If we fill the top categories with everything that could be included in them they won't help people to find their way around. Am I wrong?"

I stated, "Hello, Rathfelder. Before you made this change to the section on my talk page, I was about to bring up the fact that I reverted you at a number of articles, including the Vaginal flora article (seen here). I fail to see how the Vaginal flora article does not belong in Category:Health unless one makes the argument that it's already covered by being included in Category:Feminine hygiene. As for the other articles, I reverted you at, seen here, here, here, here, here, and here, I mainly reverted you (as indicated) because you were changing the categories with no explanation and marking the edits as WP:Minor. You should ask about these matters at WP:Med."

And the discussion continued from there. I'm asking WP:Med whether they think that Rathfelder's categorization was correct at all of the articles I reverted him at (listed in the second paragraph above). Flyer22 (talk) 11:06, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

I'm not claiming that all my categorisation was correct. I'd be grateful for help. I was trying to tidy up the categories at the top of the heirarchy - Health, Healthcare, and Medicine - which because they are so comprehensive collect too many articles. My understanding is that articles should be put into more specific categories where possible.Rathfelder (talk) 11:11, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

"Think" is the keyword. If you are convinced that all of your categorization of health articles is correct, you should have no problem getting wider input on the matter... I already stated above, "I fail to see how the Vaginal flora article does not belong in Category:Health unless one makes the argument that it's already covered by being included in Category:Feminine hygiene I agree with this statement by Flyer22, it seems that there are pre-existing category placements like "category:health" that should have been used--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 11:38, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

In general he is right and you are wrong. Read and digest WP:OCAT. There might be a case for a new intermediate category for "human microbiology" or something (if nothing exists), allowing Human microbiome to connect to a health tree, which I imagine it should, but very specific articles like Vaginal flora should certainly not be in a top, top level category like "Health". Wiki CRUK John (talk) 11:59, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

I would expect few or no articles in Category:Health because it is such a broad category that almost any concept categorized as health would be better subcategorized within the health category. Flyer22, as you say, "vaginal flora" is a topic best categorized as Category:Feminine hygiene, which should be a subcategory within health. I am not sure what the nature of the disagreement is since both parties seem to want the same thing. Blue Rasberry (talk) 15:58, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

It's clear enough, surely. Everybody wants "Vaginal flora" categorized somewhere in the health tree. Flyer22 and Ozzie10aaaa think putting it and a bunch of similar articles straight into Category:Health is an acceptable way of achieving this. You, me, and Rathfelder don't. WP:OCAT may often be ignored but it is crucial to stop the category system from becoming entirely overgrown. That, in this case, "makes the argument that it's already covered by being included in Category:Feminine hygiene", and should be followed. Wiki CRUK John (talk) 18:36, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

I don't think that "putting a bunch of similar articles straight into Category:Health is an acceptable way of ." If I thought that, I would not have stated, "I fail to see how the Vaginal flora article does not belong in Category:Health unless one makes the argument that it's already covered by being included in Category:Feminine hygiene." I judge things like this (meaning categories) on a case-by-case basis. Others have now made the argument I have -- that the Vaginal flora article is categorized as a health topic by being in Category:Feminine hygiene. Remove Category:Health from the article again, and I will not care. I already noted that I reverted Rathfelder at the Vaginal flora article because he removed the category without an explanation when vaginal flora is a health topic, marked the edit as WP:Minor, and was going around changing the categorization of other health topics. I felt that a discussion should be had about all of this. I had not seen Rathfelder editing health articles before, and I felt that WP:Med might have varying opinions on the matter. These articles were categorized in these ways for some time, without anyone, that we know of, thinking that the categorizations were a problem. Sometimes an article is categorized one way, and then someone adds what can be considered a redundant category; happens all the time, and so do arguments over those matters. I generally stay out of article categorization arguments because I generally view them as trivial unless they are of the WP:BLPCAT variety. I did not bring this matter here because I think that "putting a bunch of similar articles straight into Category:Health is an acceptable way of ." Furthermore, I pointed to more than just the Vaginal flora article above. If editors here are fine with all of Rathfelder's other changes noted in the second paragraph above, okay then.

On a side note: I don't need to be pinged to this discussion via WP:Echo. WP:Med is on my WP:Watchlist, and I'll check back in on this discussion without any push to do so. Flyer22 (talk) 19:09, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

I wouldn't put such a narrow article as Vaginal flora in Cat:Health. Only very broad subjects, like Disease and Human nutrition, should be in the top level there.

I also want to add that sometimes people add the broad categories because they don't know which sub-cat the article belongs in. Consequently, it's especially important to assume that someone adding a broad cat is trying to help, to the best of their ability. I really appreciate the work of people who disperse articles from those broad cats. It's an important area of maintenance that is often most efficient for a small number of people to specialize in. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:06, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

I second this opinion. I really appreciate the work people do with categories, which is often a thankless but useful task. I agree only broad subjects should be in the top level. If we follow the logic that the majority of articles should be kept within top-level categories, there is barely any need for categories at all. On the other hand I do recognise that some finesse is required working out which subcategory an article should be placed in, as a poor choice can sometimes be quite pejorative. --Tom (LT) (talk) 09:36, 3 February 2015 (UTC)

Thank you all for your kind advice. I don't generally work on medical articles. I specialise in British healthcare.

There is a well developed policy on Category tree organization - which I hadn't read before I started doing this, but I'm pleased to say I completely agree with. The other principle I'd like to emphasise is Boldness. The fact that you haven't come across an editor before does not imply that their edits should be reverted. Nor is it necessary to ask permission of a Wikiproject before you trespass on their territory.Rathfelder (talk) 19:54, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

I often do this kind of category diffusion also. It might help if, rather than leaving a blank edit summary or simply the word 'category', you were to use something more explanatory. I typically use something like 'refined category' or 'removed overly broad category; already in appropriate subcategory'. With a gadget like wikEd, you can set saved edit summaries so you needn't type them every time, and can instead bring them up with (usually) a single key press. Maralia (talk) 20:13, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

Personally, I like WP:HotCat for this type of work, but when you're changing a single cat, it doesn't always let you add explanations in the edit summary. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:56, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

Rathfelder, I never stated that I reverted you because I have not come across you before. You have repeatedly read too much into what I have stated. I made it clear that suggesting that this matter be taken to WP:Med had nothing to do with you asking permission to be WP:Bold. You act as though matters should not have wider input when disputed and/or that suggesting wider input is some grave offense. It's common practice to have disputed matters get wider input. Taking a disputed matter to a WikiProject is a part of WP:Dispute resolution. My discussion with you about the matter had run its course, for me anyway. And while it is not "necessary to ask permission of a Wikiproject before you trespass on their territory," certain WikiProjects have more experience than you in dealing with topics related to them and often know how best to handle those particular matters. Being WP:Bold does not excuse anyone from having their edits challenged. My interaction with you was not solely about the Vaginal flora article; however, since editors have not specifically weighed in on your other aforementioned changes, I will assume that they are fine with them. I still maintain that you should be clearer in your edit summaries about what you are doing and why; on my talk page, you seemed to be stating that you would be...unless you meant that you would no longer mark the category changes as WP:Minor. But looking at your latest contributions, you are not. Flyer22 (talk) 20:25, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

in the end Flyer22 it was a very good idea to bring it here as you say certain WikiProjects have more experience...in dealing with topics related to them and often know how best to handle those particular matters its always best, as you did, to have more opinions on any matter (BTW I agreed with you, check above)--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 00:25, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages talk:Articles for creation/CAM (Controlled Ankle Motion) walking boot

Dear medical experts: This old AfC draft seems like a notable topic. Is it already covered under some other title? Should it be accepted and improved? —Anne Delong (talk) 15:50, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

It is a type of below knee walking boot that we often use instead of casting. Needs some adjustment but it is okay. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 23:27, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

brain initiative/NIH

came across this info site on NIH ,the brain initiative it also has a couple of informative downloads (left-hand side) i believe it to be a good read. thank you--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 19:40, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

Shameless Dermatology Article Plug

Hey guys, anyone interested in reviewing acne vulgaris for GA? I admit it hasn't been nominated for a terribly long time and this really comes from my lack of patience, but it would be good to get this up to GA as soon as possible, so if anyone here is interested (or knows someone who might be interested), please let me know. Thanks everyone! TylerDurden8823 (talk) 00:39, 3 February 2015 (UTC)

TylerDurden8823 I reviewed this on a few points. Others can comment at Talk:Acne_vulgaris/GA1. Blue Rasberry (talk) 16:51, 3 February 2015 (UTC)

Breastfeeding sources

Is all, part, or none of this information acceptable to use for the Breastfeeding article as far as sourcing guidelines go? Gandydancer (talk) 03:29, 3 February 2015 (UTC)

In the society and culture section it would be okay. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 03:49, 3 February 2015 (UTC)

It might make more sense to put it in Infant formula.

Breastfeeding needs a thorough overhaul. I've ripped out a handful of primary sources (only a small fraction of what's present, alas), but it also needs someone to remove verbiage of the "According to a 2007 review artile by Prof. I.M. Portant" type and write actual summaries of the contents, rather than descriptions of the sources. From the looks of the history, we've pretty much ignored it and abandoned Gandydancer to maintain quality on her own, and that's put her in a very difficult position, especially for an article that will get more good-faith edits from potentially valuable new editors than usual. If someone could find a really excellent, recent source for the overall issues, that would be really helpful. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:31, 4 February 2015 (UTC)

Jtydog is good at this sort of thing and he may be willing to help. We are talking about moving the AIDs info since the article is so long. We'll see. Gandydancer (talk) 15:21, 4 February 2015 (UTC)

CCSVI

We have a new editor here chronic cerebrospinal venous insufficiency attempting to replace reviews with the popular press. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 05:31, 3 February 2015 (UTC)

Circumcision

User attempting to use an older primary source to refute newer secondary sources. Thoughts? Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 08:19, 3 February 2015 (UTC)

New CRUK animations on Commons, and Esophageal cancer

I'm into my last two weeks at Cancer Research UK, which has been an amazing time. We still have a few shots in the locker, and now we have finally worked out how to get short animations up to Commons (for newer browsers that aren't Internet Explorer, I think). So there's Commons:Category:Animations from Cancer Research UK. I hope there wil be more in future, now we know how to do it.

Pancreatic cancer is now FA, thanks to the contributions of many here. Esophageal cancer has had some sections greatly improved by our 86 etc IP, but others need referencing, checking and updating. There are several recent sources mentioned on the talk-page. Is anyone interested in helping? If so please let me know, or just start. Any help very welcome.

Generally, if people have specific requests relating to cancer that I can help with, now is the time to ask. User:HenryScow will remain able to help, but his time is much more limited than mine, while I am still in place. Thanks again for all the help I've had from the community. I intend to remain active in medical areas, the amount depending on what else I'm up to. Wiki CRUK John (talk) 18:05, 3 February 2015 (UTC)

Wiki CRUK John the how cancer gets blood supply , and when cells cause cancer by giving the wrong messages are both very good animations. You indicated if there were any request, I have a question,before dealing with how STATc is regulated I use to deal with mammalian cell (oncological). What is the most recent advance in terms of sickle cell anemia in your opinion (though not a cancer, treatment of sickle cell anemia is similar to therapies used for blood-forming cancers such as leukemias or lymphomas),? thank you--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 18:54, 3 February 2015 (UTC)

Not found anything on this so far, I'm afraid. Wiki CRUK John (talk) 15:49, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

electronic medication caps --Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 16:08, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

John thanks for your amazing work over the last few months. Is there further interest for a WiR at CRUK? Are you coming to the GLAM conference in Amsterdam? And did you get to studying how people who may have cancer use the Internet? Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 01:07, 4 February 2015 (UTC)

1) Thanks! 2) The emphasis is on incorporating collaboration with Misplaced Pages into normal working practices - that flame's been lit in various places, & I hope it will continue to burn. For example the most recently produced diagrams were uploaded as part of normal process, without any involvement by me, which is great. 3) Hope so (it's Den Haag isn't it? Same airport) 4) Yes, that's still happening. Very interesting results, which I will report here later, and we hope to publish eventually. I'll be doing a final newsletter and report, though work on the research in particular will continue after my term officially finishes. Wiki CRUK John (talk) 12:43, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

Proposed merge of Cite cochrane into Cite journal

Have proposed this here Template_talk:Cite_cochrane#Merge_to_.22Template:Cite_journal.22 Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 23:13, 3 February 2015 (UTC)

Dead link issue

I would like to fix the dead link issue once and for all, at least for medical articles. Basically what I propose is archiving all links using Webcite. The plan would be to have this done by bot. Would people support such a bot arching all links used as references within medical articles? Will need to figure out how much it will cost. Currently Webcite is hosted on Amazon. Not sure if they offer discounted to NGOs and it is unclear just how much space this will take.

Support

• Support Dead link issue is a pain and wastes lots of editors time fixing them. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 09:17, 4 February 2015 (UTC)
• Support the bot and archiving, but I am not sure that I support Webcite. See below. Blue Rasberry (talk) 19:28, 4 February 2015 (UTC)
• support for bot, archiving, and Webcite--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 21:00, 4 February 2015 (UTC)

Oppose

• Oppose. I think this is a distraction. Most medical sources have identifiers that make them fairly immune to link rot. We should be hosting all relevant data on Misplaced Pages or Wikidata. JFW | T@lk 21:42, 4 February 2015 (UTC)

We cannot do this for sources like WHO or NHS pages due to copyright. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 04:36, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

• Oppose. I don't see any evidence that link rot is major problem for Misplaced Pages's medical articles. Axl ¤ 23:31, 4 February 2015 (UTC)
• Oppose I don't see a pressing need for this, I don't think this is a major problem for readers, and I think dead links are a healthy part of WP showing that, in general, such sources should be replaced or updated. --Tom (LT) (talk) 21:48, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

Discussion

My main concern is how much this will cost, and who will pay for it. Also, I am not convinced that link rot is a major problem for medical articles. Most journal sources link to PubMed. Many other references are textbooks, which don't even have web links. Axl ¤ 13:56, 4 February 2015 (UTC)

While first we need consensus to do anything before we can begin to figure out funding. No one is going to consider donating money for something we do not want. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 15:11, 4 February 2015 (UTC)

• Webcite is one option and Internet Archive is another. Both are nonprofit. Internet Archive and their wayback machine might be better positioned as partners especially if fundraising is done. I support the idea of archiving, and having it done by a bot, and having it hosted by a third-party outside of Wikimedia projects, but I am not sure about Webcite as the partner. Blue Rasberry (talk) 19:28, 4 February 2015 (UTC)

How big of a problem are people really having with this? My superficial impression is that most of the broken links I encounter are to magazine articles, blogs and other crappy sources that are being used inappropriately to support health related content. In some cases its actually easier to delete the offending material as unsupported than to argue with editors unfamiliar with or indifferent to MEDRS about whether Bobbie Sue's Lipitor Gave Me Cancer Blog is a suitable source. Formerly 98 (talk) 20:18, 4 February 2015 (UTC)

Throw out the baby with the bath water. Even if most of the broken links are inappropriate, a large number of these links are appropriate (e.g., |laysummary= links when paired with a WP:MEDRS compliant source) and are definitely worth saving (see for example Pages that link to "Template:Wayback"). Even if inappropriate, these links provide documentation that may be useful in finding a more appropriate link (e.g., tracking down the original source that the blog talked about). Boghog (talk) 21:03, 4 February 2015 (UTC)

Well, I guess my point was that in my experience, a disproportionate number of these rapidly evaporating links are used to support statements for which there are no WP:MEDRS compliant sources. So no, it's not my habit to throw the baby out with the bath water. But I don't hesitate to flush the toilet when its appropriate to do so. Formerly 98 (talk) 21:24, 4 February 2015 (UTC)

I'm not fully persuaded that encouraging the use of a laysummary parameter/link is a good idea for MEDRS-compliant journal article citations. As the encyclopedia, we're supposed to be providing the lay summary of the content, which is supported by the high-quality, high-level cited work.

As well, using a service like Webcite to archive 'lay summary' content which merely describes a particular source – or one aspect of an interpretation of a source – seems a bit off. It's not content that's actually being used to support our article, so I'm not sure that we'd be justified in maintaining an archive of it. And as others have noted, link rot is a much less serious problem with journal articles themselves. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 22:00, 4 February 2015 (UTC)

The CDC, WHO and NHS are some of the organizations that change their urls fairly rapidly thus resulting in dead links. Yes it is less of an issue for us than other topic areas of Misplaced Pages. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 02:06, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

Have you considered starting small, rather than "once and for all"? Archiving US government links would save many of the more reputable sources, and significantly reduce the risk of copyvio problems. (I understand that the status of web archives is uncertain there, and I'm personally inclined to be conservative.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:04, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

Yes good suggestion. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 10:59, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

ACNES

This new article needs attention. In particular, I'm not sure what categories it belongs in and if the sources cited meet WP:MEDRS. Everymorning talk 15:49, 4 February 2015 (UTC)

four of the sources are more than five years old--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 13:22, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

Suggested change to South Beach Diet introduction

Hello, I've been here before about the South Beach Diet article, and I'd like to see if someone here is interested in reviewing a fairly narrow suggestion, to replace the introduction's second paragraph (just one sentence) with a slightly longer paragraph. (Worth noting: I am working as a consultant on behalf of the company that publishes the books, so I won't be making any direct changes to the article myself.) I'd previously discussed this with a couple of other editors, however they seem to be busy with other things. With a week gone by, I'd be appreciative if someone else would consider it. Here is a direct link to the proposed change, and previous conversation can be found by scrolling up from there. Cheers, WWB Too (Talk · COI) 22:30, 4 February 2015 (UTC)

EHF therapy

I need your help. I'm having some issues with someone working for a company that sells medical devices based on EHF therapy on another language wiki. The company states that EHF is scientifically proven to be effective against a list of varying disorders (eg. diabetes, hypertension, arthritis, just to name some). Let's just say that I'm a bit skeptic about that, even after searching Pubmed, though I have found some citations. I know that the community of Misplaced Pages is not an "official scientific forum" or whatsoever to decide whether something is accepted or not, yet I'm still interested in your opinion. On the other hand the english version of EHF therapy needs sourcing as well. Regards, --Kohlins (talk) 00:15, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

i recommended it for speedy deletion. Jytdog (talk) 01:42, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

There is one review article on the topic. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 10:11, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

in a poor journal... by authors from a company that sells woo... Jytdog (talk) 10:31, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

Atually, I was thinking of this:

• Millimeter waves: acoustic and electromagnetic.

I'm not quite sure, but if I get it right, this millimeter waves thing seems to be the basis of EHF therapy according to the manufacturer. Regards, --Kohlins (talk) 11:02, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

that's not a terrible source. It would be better if it were independent (it's a review of the author's own research career), but it is not bad. We would need more than this to build an article.Jytdog (talk) 11:28, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

I see, and that's why I'm confused a bit. Most of the references in the article are the previous findings of the very same person. As for the clinical efficacy, he's refering to another former review (seen here) but that lists the results of some russian investigations in journals I've never heard of (most of them are russian). Regards, --Kohlins (talk) 12:02, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

Are there any completely independent sources about this subject? If everything's written by the people in that company, then it would not qualify for an article on the English Misplaced Pages. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:07, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

IMO it doesn't qualify for that reason, it looks as if all that is written has a COI--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 13:47, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

fwiw the article has now been deleted. Jytdog (talk) 14:12, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

Mintop Solution (Minoxidil)

A new editor User:NupurPathak has created a new article Mintop Solution, which appears to be a trade name of Minoxidil. User:DPRoberts534 redirected the new article to Minoxidil, but was reverted by NupurPathak. Apparently the new editor thought that the article was "deleted" because of the image used (so he put back a version with no images). It seems that from MOS:MED the article should be redirected, but I am not too sure of that.--Joshua _{What I've done?} 08:31, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

Thanks. Have restored the redirect. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 10:03, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

Question on line graph copyright status from a review

Would anyone happen to know if simple line charts as in the case of graphs (B) and (C) in this journal graph link are in the public domain (if cropped), or would I need to redraw them if I wanted to use the information conveyed in these? I know (A) isn't PD for sure since it includes a superimposed autoradiogram, but I don't care about that graph. Seppi333 (Insert 2¢ | Maintained) 12:25, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

This applies, so I think you need to redraw. Wiki CRUK John (talk) 12:32, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

User:Moonriddengirl is the expert. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 13:22, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

The article's page states "Copyright © 2001, The National Academy of Sciences" and "Request permission to reuse". A cropped graph would not be in the public domain, nor would it be covered by "fair use". Axl ¤ 14:58, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

All simple geometric figures are PD. Any published chem structure diagram w/ or w/o labels is PD, and I've uploaded a series of them from a published paper under {{PD-chem}}. The question here is whether graphs of simple mathematical functions (here, a step function and roughly a bell curve) w/ labels would also be PD. Seppi333 (Insert 2¢ | Maintained) 15:06, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

• Seppi333 My opinion is that the situation is not clear because I know of no precedent either way.

The point to determine is whether this graph incorporates any subjective creativity, or if in contrast it is a routine presentation of data. If it is based on a dataset, and it is comparing two routinely compared items in that dataset, and it is graphing them in the most natural and obvious way that anyone would graph these, then because no creativity went into producing this the graph can be treated like any other set of facts and is not copyrightable. Much of science is asserted to be an objective presentation of data with no creativity, so this is possible.

If the graph becomes complicated enough that someone has made minimally creative decisions to present the data in a way that is unlikely to be replicated exactly, such as by multiple people who might independently graph the same data, then it might be copyrightable.

My first thought is that these graphs seem no more creative than the datasets from which they were derived, and that nothing at all is special about the choice in what is graphed or how the graph is drawn, and that the presentation in graphing would be the same for any computer to graph these things. If that really is so, then they would not be copyrightable.

As a related issue, note also we have affirming statements from the WMF and the US government that we can rip through medical journals for any medical images made and published in the United States and copy those into Commons. See Commons:Commons:Requests for comment/Xrays for this December 2014 development. To say that the graphs are copyrighted is to say that they are made with more creativity than x-rays. Blue Rasberry (talk) 18:03, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

Meh. I'll just redraw them later then I guess... they represent what the default {{Psychostimulant addiction}} caption indicates about accumulation/decay of ΔFosB. Seppi333 (Insert 2¢ | Maintained) 01:27, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

• How's that look? Original image: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC58680/figure/F1/
  Seppi333 (Insert 2¢ | Maintained) 07:10, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

it looks great --Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 15:58, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

Vladimir Putin Asperger

This should be interesting.

Articles:

• List of people with autism spectrum disorders
• Asperger syndrome
• Vladimir Putin

WP:MEDMOS#Notable cases doesn't seem to contain guidance for this situation.

In addition to the (poor) sources listed at Talk:Asperger syndrome, there are more news sources, including but not limited to:

• CBS news
• CNN
• Moscow Times with a denial.

See also the text inserted at Vladimir Putin. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:13, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

• I suggest, at minimum, this text does not belong at List of people with autism spectrum disorders, as it is speculative and Moscow has denied it. For the same reason, and per MEDMOS on notable cases, it does not belong at the Asperger syndrome article. How to handle the issue, then, at the Putin article needs discussion. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:16, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

@SandyGeorgia: No, it needs no discussion. It's a medical claim: MEDRS isn't a policy for medical articles; it's a policy for medical statements. The scope of MEDRS includes all WP articles. Seppi333 (Insert 2¢ | Maintained) 14:27, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

Edit:In other words, you're fully justified in removing that content from all those articles right now if you want to. Seppi333 (Insert 2¢ | Maintained) 14:31, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

I disagree in a case like this. It is well covered by mainstream sources, and we can find a way to address it responsibly. I suggest anything more than one sentence is WP:UNDUE. Claim of asperger, denied by Moscow should do it. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:36, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

If you say so. It seems absurd to me to assert that "X has 'medical condition Y'" is a nonmedical claim. I care too little to actually argue about this, but think that over for a moment. Seppi333 (Insert 2¢ | Maintained) 05:21, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

The actual claim ought to be "X said that Y has condition Z", at which point it's technically "what some BLP said" rather than "medicine". WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:28, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

I reduced the WP:UNDUE text at Vladimir Putin to one sentence, for discussion. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:52, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

• A 2008 report about Putin's personality from the Pentagon’s internal think tank, the Office of Net Assessment, authored by Brenda Connors of the U.S. Naval War College, said that Putin had behaviors consistent with Asperger syndrome; the Kremlin denied the report as "rubbish, unworthy of commentary".

It is a social / cultural claim not a medical one. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 15:49, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

I don't understand "cultural". The report includes observations about deficits in physical movement on one side of the body. (Note that one citation is the full report.) But more importantly, the present single sentence is misleading. The report is not limited to Putin's "personality". It forms a medical hypothesis on the basis of physical observations, and correlates that hypothesis with behavioural characteristics, both known and projected. The present sentence provides no hint of the significance of the hypothesis for Putin's reactions as a leader, his judgement and decision making. In other words, it's unmotivated, excluding the main point made in the report. Layzeeboi (talk) 16:12, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

I also disagree with the assertion that it's a sociocultural issue. "He has this condition" is generally considered highly medical—to the point that school nurses in the US aren't even legally allowed to tell parents, "Little Johnny should go home; he has a fever", but must instead say something like, "Little Johnny should go home; he has a temperature of 39.5 °C" (because "39.5 °C" is "test results", but "fever" is a "diagnosis", so only people holding specified types of licenses can decide whether Little Johnny has a fever).

If this is getting a lot of attention in multiple sources (especially if that attention is sustained over time), then Sandy's formulation of "X said he has it, Y denied it" would work. Otherwise, I would omit it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:15, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

Layzeeboi, AS can't be diagnosed by video (nor can most other conditions); any more than what we have is UNDUE speculation, no matter the source. We can address the wording if needed. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:30, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

Actually, I thought that there was some work on diagnosing children based on video. I don't know that it's been done for adults, but I've read that researchers are using videos, e.g., birthday party videos that were taken the day before the vaccination that allegedly caused the autistic behaviors. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:37, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

<off topic> If professionals could diagnose based on photos and videos, someone could look into that cold, black, flat-affect look in Putin's eyes in our cover image, and diagnose him a sociopath. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:40, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

SandyGeorgia, I think your comment above about "diagnosis" is extraneous. Neither my original edit nor my comment above used that word. Above, I used the word "hypothesis". I agree that the word 'diagnosis" should not appear. Also, absent that word, is your word "speculation" based on the assumption that the authors of the report have little or no relevant professional expertise? It appears to me that they have credible expertise in military or diplomatic intelligence, where brain scans are typically not available. Hence I think the word "speculation" is also unwarranted, and that standard medical expertise is not the only relevant qualification for evaluating the relevance and Weight due to the report. Hence, I also think this discussion should be on the talk page of the Putin article, not in a medical talk page. Layzeeboi (talk) 18:16, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

I hardly know where to start with this: the idea that asperger's or most neurological conditions can be diagnosed via a brain scan is wrong to begin with. The Putin AS information was added to or suggested on three different pages, so this central discussion is linked from all of them. Speculation because no one can diagnose AS from a video. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:47, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

It only really belongs here if someone is asserting in WP's voice that Putin has symptoms consistent with Aspergers. If they report on a notable source that claims it (naming the source of the claim), and that it has also been denied, that does not seem to require MEDRS.Herbxue (talk) 18:53, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

Again the extraneous word "diagnosed" appears in SandyGeorgia's latest comment. This seems to me to be an example of the straw man fallacy. One way to "start with this" would be to carefully read the report. Nowhere does it claim to make a "diagnosis". (There is a more easily searched version here.) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Layzeeboi (talk • contribs) 19:34, February 6, 2015 (UTC)

i watched about a minute of the CNN video, to the part where the analysis said something about "supported at the reptilian stage of development" and closed the tab. Rubbish. RUBBISH. Then I watched the rest of it. They actually interview a doctor at the end (see about 2:11) who calls "Bullshit" in very clear terms. This is as ugly and stupid as psychiatric abuse under the Soviet Union. Really unhappy to see this in WP and will go delete this now where ever it appears. Jytdog (talk) 20:07, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

How is the CNN video relevant? It was not cited. Layzeeboi (talk) 20:10, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

I don't know who you are layzeeboi but we do not deal with health related topics on this kind of utter bullshit level anywhere in WP. Please read both WP:MEDRS and WP:BLP. Jytdog (talk) 20:17, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

Jytdog, don't you think "I don't know who you are" violates WP:Civility? Of course, my contribution list tells you all you ever have a right to know about who I am. Have you actually read the original report? Layzeeboi (talk) 20:37, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

The analyst used Laban Movement Analysis which was created by a dance instructor who was influenced by mysticism and who received funding from Joseph Goebbels. TFD (talk) 21:15, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

by "I don't know who you are" i meant, "I don't know how much you know about how we handle health content nor why you care about this issue". Sorry for being too terse. I have read the original report (although it is a WP:PRIMARY source and is not something we should ever use in WP, per the policies WP:OR and WP:VERIFY and the guidelines, WP:RS and WP:MEDRS.) The original report is definitely not compliant with MEDRS and I have seen no MEDRS-compliant source that discusses it. What MEDRS compliant source are you aware of, for this content? Jytdog (talk) 21:28, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

In my opinion, your new interpretation "I don't know how much you know about how we handle health content nor why you care about this issue" is also uncivil. How would you like it if I wrote "I don't know how much you know about argumentation theory"? And especially, you have no right to raise questions about my personal interests. Finally, if you read Talk:Vladimir Putin#Asperger, you would know that I contest the relevance of WP:MEDRS in that article. Not every source that employs medical language is subject to WP:MEDRS. Layzeeboi (talk) 21:46, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

The claim that Vladimir Putin has Asperger's Syndrome is funny nonsense. Putin is dominant, confident with a big ego and is socially successful (the vast majority of his country people love him and think that he is a great leader). He is almost the polar opposite of someone with an autism spectrum disorder. The small group of psychiatrists who came up with this diagnosis are connected to or hired by a USA intelligence agency so it is likely in my view that it is one of many psychological techniques of heaping pressure on him and his ilk because of the Ukraine war and other geopolitical goingons. Like trying to agitate his ego by making him look like his inflexible tough guy approach is actually autistic cognitive inflexibility and perhaps for negotiations to soften him up by making him think the world thinks he can't be diplomatic because of 'his autism'. I guess psychological warfare amongst our leaders and Intel agencies is preferable to military warfare. Call me paranoid but this is what I think. If the claim is added to any articles then any good quality sources disputing the funny claim must be added countering it.--WholeNewJourney (talk) 23:58, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

They are not psychiatrists, they are dancers who combine their knowledge of dance and spiritualism to analyze people. TFD (talk) 02:27, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

• Closure proposal IMO it is pretty safe to conclude that after the initial publication many experts agreed that this "diagnose" is a wild guesswork and hence this subject may be closed in the context of this wikiproject. Nevertheless it remains to be decided whether the subject is noteworthy for other reasons. But this continuation belongs to where it belongs: Talk:Vladimir Putin. -M.Altenmann >t 07:17, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

  if it is closed here, it is done. this is a health-related matter; there is no other bucket it goes into. it is bullshit WP:RECENTISM WP:TRIVIA that doesn't deserve mention in WP. Jytdog (talk) 07:30, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

  Nope. There are plenty of buckets to go into: politics, conspiracy theories, defamation, to name a few. Any of them may develop significantly. And please keep in mind that alphabet soup is useless if you don't cite particular arguments from the guidelines you mention. In particular, WP:RECENTISM gives a good advice how to handle such kind of information, not when to delete it. -M.Altenmann >t 07:36, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

References

References

1. Ray Locker (4 February 2015). "Pentagon 2008 study claims Putin has Asperger's syndrome". USA Today. Retrieved 5 February 2015.
2. Brenda Connors (January 2008). "A Technical Report on the Nature of MOVEMENT PATTERING, THE BRAIN and DECISION MAKING". Office of Net Assessment, Office of the Secretary of the Navy. Retrieved 5 February 2015.
3. Anna Dolgov (6 February 2015). "Pentagon Report Saying Putin Has Asperger's Is Political, Analyst Says". The Moscow Times. Retrieved 6 February 2015.

TRIPOD Statement submitted as a draft at Articles for Creation

Hello everyone. Any thoughts on what to do with Draft:TRIPOD Statement? This concept, or model or whatever it is, seems to have been published in a wide variety of respectable journals, but the Draft as currently presented doesn't provide any references to sources discussing the concept/model... as opposed to publications of the concept/model. Normally when I see a Draft whose sources all share a principal author, my first thought is that notability is unlikely to be proven, but the unusual spread of publications gave me pause for thought. Arthur goes shopping (talk) 14:34, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

On the down side, they have their own Twitter account -- https://twitter.com/tripodstatement. On the up side, it's commented on here: http://www.ajkd.org/article/S0272-6386(14)01536-4/abstract. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 15:48, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

Trimming spam refs

Altmetrics is adding Misplaced Pages as a way of measuring impact. Difficulty is that it may promote people spamming their own work. We may need to increase our efforts to keep out primary sources / people trying to spam in their own papers. It may also encourage people to engage more with Misplaced Pages. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 15:33, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

This is a very bad thing for us. We already have lots of problems with scientists pushing their publications into WP based on ego alone; now there will be measurable incentive to do so. James, would it be worthwhile to reach out to Altmetric, and ask them not to do that, due to the very high risk of abuse in the context of WP and our anonymous editing model, and the fact that it happens a lot already even without the metric? (you can point them to the history of the Interleukin 2 article and the contribs of Special:Contributions/Kasmith as an example that was quite naked; another one is Misplaced Pages:Conflict_of_interest/Noticeboard/Archive_79#Erika_Jensen-Jarolim which affected a lot of articles - folks apparently from her lab pushed citations of their work into a bunch of articles, as well as pushing content that antacids/acid reducers cause food allergy into the side effects sections of several articles about drugs. Folks here may have other examples.) If we cannot dissuade Altmetric or folks feel it is not a good idea to try, I think we should pump up warnings not to cite your own work in WP:COI, WP:EXPERT, maybe elsewhere. Just oy. Jytdog (talk) 16:03, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

Altmetrics counting WP citations would also give credence to the arguments made by Limit-theorem about the danger of WP accepting free subscriptions from publishers, which he stated here WP:Conflict_of_interest/Noticeboard#Malapr: "As an academic I find this highly unethical: to cite journals BECAUSE they give you a free account. Sorry, but this is COI. A reference on Wiki is something that leads to citations. Please note that there have been a few scandals of note with academic journals solliciting citations". I don't think his arguments have had validity up to now, but Altmetric's move puts us in the icky position of promoting the journals that we accept free subscriptions from. Jytdog (talk) 16:12, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

• I am not afraid of the academic community. It is more likely than not that this community means well and will circulate best practices. They have more at stake in establishing good relationships than PR organizations. Some of the other points mentioned are part of a radical, global, life-changing culture change that is far beyond Misplaced Pages or any other single organization to control. This issue is very complicated and I am not going to further argue it because there is a lot of serious valid opposition to this, but I right now feel that bringing the attention of people in academia to Misplaced Pages in this context is something that I want to support despite the real drawbacks. Blue Rasberry (talk) 17:09, 6 February 2015 (UTC)
• This certainly puts pressure on us to keep patrolling articles for additions of new sources, especially primary ones. That said I don't think it is necessarily bad, at least not per se. It gives credit to the importance of Misplaced Pages, and may lead new editors to join when they understand Misplaced Pages matters even in an academic environment. Neither do I think we can solve the problem by adding paragraphs to WP:COI or WP:EXPERT, because as Bluerasberry says the academic community is more or less a benign one (at least when it comes to this type of thing). Rather we need some way to increase the visibility and readability of policies. One possible idea is for summary versions of important policies that could be premiered to new users, while for debating specific changes we can still rely on the full text, in some way like a traditional legal text. The problem is unlikely related to the wording of policy, but rather to how new users do not know of them (and how even among established users there are gray areas). If I had to keep up with all the new policy changes I would never have time to actually write anything on Misplaced Pages. As for arguments about how journals give access to Misplaced Pages I can say, without reading Limit-theorem's argument - my only response is that this isn't a case of a conflict of interest, but rather a systemic bias based upon access. It's similar to how we premier English literature although there is no (theoretical) reason why it necessarily needs to be better. -- CFCF 🍌 (email) 17:28, 6 February 2015 (UTC)
• I agree with CFCFThis certainly puts pressure on us to keep patrolling articles for additions of new sources, especially primary ones. That said I don't think it is necessarily bad, at least not per se. It gives credit to the importance of Misplaced Pages, whatsmore we should always be on the lookout for this even if it takes time away from the articles we are usually on--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 17:52, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

• I am a bit troubled by the responses above. COI is a serious issue in WP; stuff like the Wiki-PR scandal really hurts our credibility and COI-driven editors can really screw up the encyclopedia. Just as money is the lifeblood and reason-for-existence of companies (and the purpose of financial-COI-driven WP editing is advertising, to increase sales or increase share price)... highly-cited publications are the lifeblood of academic scientists - "publish or perish" is real; great publications lead to more grant funding and to promotions. That is what academic scientists live on. To the extent that Altmetric allows universities or grant-making agencies to start "counting" citations in WP, that sets up a direct incentive for academic scientists to add citations to their own work in WP - the actual COI is as stark as that of any paid editor. And so different from any other context. I can cite my own work but beyond that, citation is (almost) totally at the whim of the authors of papers. That scientists could come to WP and add citations to their own work, anonymously, and have it count, is a gold rush stampede waiting to happen. It would be like allowing people to add e-commerce links to WP articles about products. Do you all not see that? Or do you think I am missing something? thx Jytdog (talk) 18:55, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

• Its a good problem to have. Academics are under pressure to measure impact. Medics, certainly in the UK, often refer to Misplaced Pages as a first line of research. It's not realistic to stop people counting Misplaced Pages citations. It just means we work hard to maintain standards.Rathfelder (talk) 20:55, 6 February 2015 (UTC)
• Overall I agree with Jytdog. Anything that encourages CoI edits just increases the burden on Misplaced Pages's dwindling population of regular contributors to even maintain articles, leaving even less time to actually improve them. What's more, poorly cited or early-career scientists would have the most to gain from Misplaced Pages links, so this will tend to encourage ref-spam to low-impact primary articles, when for most Misplaced Pages content, a link to a review article or online textbook would be far better. I'll note one mitigating factor: according to the link Doc James provided, "Any mention in Misplaced Pages (or even multiple mentions) will add a flat count of 3 to the score (so even if an article is mentioned 3 times across Misplaced Pages, it will still only add 3 to the score)." So scientists will have no incentive to spam multiple references to a single article. (Though if they've published, say, 35 articles, they'll have incentive to add citations to all 35 of them.) Adrian J. Hunter 03:44, 7 February 2015 (UTC)
• What we want is not for the number of times a ref is in Misplaced Pages to count but the amount an academic has improved Misplaced Pages to count. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 10:58, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

i've said my piece and i got a too deep into risk management there. We can just wait and see what happens, and if things start to get ugly (and they might not) we can ask them to stop, with good data in hand. Jytdog (talk) 13:04, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

• I think you overrate Misplaced Pages. It is easy to do literature search (Pubmed, Scopus, Springer search, Google scholar, etc.) and to see the impact factor of the journal and how many times/where an article have been quoted in another peer reviewed article. I mean for the academic folk it is not really interesting what articles have been referenced in Misplaced Pages.--77.13.227.110 (talk) 19:21, 7 February 2015 (UTC)
• I note that only references using citation templates are picked up, apparently under the mistaken impression that all WP refs are supposed to use these. Johnbod (talk) 01:54, 8 February 2015 (UTC)
• I wonder if we could convince them to only "count" citations to secondary sources. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:31, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

Have requested this. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 11:46, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

Clinical/Medical

There is a set of articles categorised as medical research and another set - not overlapping much, as far as I can see - categorised as clinical research. I can't see any obvious difference between the two sets. Am I missing something important? And if I'm not, should the two categories be combined?Rathfelder (talk) 20:51, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

Links please - don't make your readers do the work, or most won't bother! Johnbod (talk) 15:59, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

We have tow categories: Medical research and Clinical research. Is clinical research different from medical research? and if so, how? I'm a lay person, and I can't see any obvious difference.Rathfelder (talk) 11:38, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

medical research (or pre-clinical/laboratory) is done by PhD (principal investigator), while clinical( is a branch of healthcare science that determines the safety and effectiveness of medications, devices, diagnostic products and treatment regimens)--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 14:32, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

Do you think this distinction is adhered to in our existing categorisations?Rathfelder (talk) 18:49, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

probably not, but only a group opinion would satisfy the question in earnest--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 21:37, 8 February 2015 (UTC)ernest

Rotavirus vaccine Can someone please semiprotect the Rotavirus vaccine article?

Could someone please semi-protect the article. Edit warring by antivaccine IP. Thanks. Formerly 98 (talk) 00:26, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

We could also just block the IP. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 02:44, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

Amish anomaly

An IP has been adding the following text to Amish anomaly without a citation, even after I have removed it: "In addition to gene pool variations, Amish populations are significantly different to the general population in a very large number of others ways, also completely unrelated to vaccination. An example being more traditional diets, higher in fibre and lower in sugar, which may significantly affect the make up of inherited gut microbiomes. The number of varying factors is far too large to link any supposed variation of incidence, to vaccination." Can anyone find a source that would back this up? Everymorning talk 01:44, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

Ref needed agree Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 02:43, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

Breastfeeding extremely biased

I haven't really come across any article before with this amount of issues and being so one-sided concerning a major topic. The lede is especially horrible, mentioning "working mothers" etc. etc., it both fails to be neutral, or even to stick to the facts. The WHO has a controversial position, albeit a very important and influential one. This is reflected across the literature, but not in the article. Everything in the lede is pro breastfeeding, without allowing the reader to weigh anything themselves, and consistently cites "Experts" as some form of authority. As for the rest of the article, it needs major trimming, and could use less images of smiling breastfeeding mothers – not really worthy of an encyclopedic article.

Before I make any major edits I'm pinging some editors I know are knowledgeable about womens health as well as well as some concerned about neutrality in articles/have edited the article previously. Flyer22, Keilana, SandyGeorgia, WhatamIdoing. Thanks, -- -- CFCF 🍌 (email) 15:32, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

I've been extremely conservative in cleaning it, but it is such absolute rubbish. Need major help getting this to anything near representable. If there ever was a clear example of WP:Systemic bias this is it. -- CFCF 🍌 (email) 19:22, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

yeah, I looked at it, and it does seem to have some issues--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 19:26, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

What a horrible article. I see that you and WhatamIdoing have cleaned up a lot of it, CFCF, and what is there now is like clay that needs to be significantly re-shaped. I also spotted Doc James at the article. By linking the female editors (including me) that you linked above, I take it that you think female perspectives would be especially beneficial to improving that article? Flyer22 (talk) 20:16, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

I know I only linked to female editors there, I'd put that down to knowing few others who have put major effort into articles on women's health. I didn't ping Doc James, because I thought he was bound to notice this anyway. -- CFCF 🍌 (email) 21:51, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

Also Ottawahitech, Jfdwolff -- CFCF 🍌 (email) 21:58, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

Tangentially, Home birth looks like it need some attention too. Alexbrn 20:23, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

It used to be a ton worse, before I cleaned it up, but I've hit the level of my competance with a medical-related article so any help anyone can give would be most appreciated, --PresN 21:24, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

I've been swamped, and will remain so for another week or so, but will do what I can when I can. Assuming you want a breastfeeding, homebirth mom to clean up non-MEDRS and other slop :) No promises as to how soon I can get there, but will try! SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:51, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

I've got a massive anatomy exam this week but may procrastinate by nuking non-MEDRS content. I also have some obstetrics texts that may be useful here so I'll try to have a go at it soonish. Keilana| 17:05, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

• Yes, I am also busy adding and then reverting the endless reverts, and fighting endless nominations for deletions. Just wanted to mention that I see the very of this article in 2002 mentioned collostrum, but the current article does not. Ottawahitech (talk) 23:03, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

That would be my fault, but only because what was mentioned lacked any reviewed sources. -- CFCF 🍌 (email) 23:35, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

Meeting resistance when cleaning according to WP:MEDRS

Meeting the first resistance now and content has been restored that seemingly violates WP:MEDRS. -- CFCF 🍌 (email) 23:30, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

Strike that, I overreacted to a rather civil request to calm down in the my removal of content. Being overwhelmed with work has a tendency to make one rather overzealous. -- CFCF 🍌 (email) 00:14, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

User:CFCF, unfortunately you have immediately returned to the article and gutted it of even more content, a massive amount. That borders on vandalism/bad faith editing. It's definitely misguided because that's not how we build an encyclopedia. Your massvie deletions slap all the previous editors in the face who have in good faith done all that work.

Try to build and preserve by tweaking, rather than using mass deletion. It is not your job to delete it and recreate the article as you think it should be. You must preserve and work with what is there by tweaking it. Improve what's there. -- Brangifer (talk) 06:19, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

IMO there doesn't seem to be anything wrong with User:CFCF edits, its the article that is in great need of adding and subtracting, to therefore shape it into a better article for readers--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 10:28, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

• Brangifer's edits to the article should be more carefully scrutinized: His insistence for the inclusion of non-MEDRS sources such as newspaper articles and primary studies might have contributed to the article's current state. --A1candidate 14:57, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

• User:A1candidate, that was a pretty cheap personal attack which reveals an assumption of bad faith and failure to do your homework. I know you don't like me because I oppose your constant defense of and pushing fringe science and alternative medicine, but at least refrain from nonsensical claims about me that haven't a shred of basis in reality.

You'll find I have only made ONE minor previous edit to that article, and it had nothing to do with content. The latest edits were reversions of improper mass deletions which claimed MEDRS violations, when most of the deleted content was not covered by MEDRS. That content has improperly been deleted again.

Looking at what has been happening, I have lost any confidence in User:CFCF's abilities as an editor in this situation. They show gross disrespect for other editors' efforts. There seems to be little if any attempt to WP:Preserve existing content and sources. We are supposed to "Try to fix problems", not delete lots of existing content. These mass deletions are serious violations of multiple policies.

A1candidate, you seem to think that all sources must be MEDRS compliant, but that's simply BS. You don't understand our sourcing requirements. Only strong biomedical claims are covered by MEDRS. All other content can be sourced to books, articles, newspapers, websites, organizations, advocates and critics, etc., and when they are matters related to controversies and WP:Fringe issues, they can even be sourced to the blogs and websites of subject experts and skeptics per WP:PARITY. Removal of non-MEDRS content makes the article much poorer.

Keep in mind that MEDRS does not apply to whole articles, even those on medicals subjects, but only to biomedical claims in all articles at Misplaced Pages.

Per MEDRS, we don't usually use primary studies, so, contrary to the false accusation above, I don't "insist on their inclusion". -- Brangifer (talk) 16:35, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

There's a place for nuking and re-building from scratch, just like there's a place for checking whether some claims that are sourced to primary sources could be sourced to secondary ones without changing the content. CFCF has listed some good sources on the talk page. Maybe you two would like to pick one and re-build content from good sources. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:37, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

Umbilicoplasty - "Spot" the error

This article is/was severely lacking, and actually featured a before and after image displaying two different people (Note: Naevi locations, not normally altered with surgery). We may have a WP:SPA on our hands. -- CFCF 🍌 (email) 21:29, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

What is the issue? Sometimes plastic surgeons do move the naevi. This user has already been banned. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 00:26, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

As far as I'm concerned these are impossibly the same person. The naevi are completely different, not just slightly. Also the editor would be the one responsible for:

• Midriff
• Navel in popular culture
• Alvinolagnia
• Navel fetishism

I don't mind it there, but "it"'s moving to articles that are more medical in nature. -- CFCF 🍌 (email) 01:13, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

They were banned for these images and there promotional editing. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 01:35, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

User in question is --WikiMan88 -- CFCF 🍌 (email) 02:03, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

James, you're right that plastic surgeons do move naevi sometimes, but they're really, really, really unlikely to move birthmarks on the upper arm when they're doing surgery on the abdomen. The marks just above the elbow don't match. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:41, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

Yes agree. They are different people in the before and after. A little dishonest there. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 10:12, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

Khan academy

After more than a year of negotiations the Khan academy has agreed to release three videos under a CC BY SA license as a trial. I have added them to three articles. I think videos are a good idea for Misplaced Pages and there is the potential of more videos to come. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 11:50, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

Wonderful, what do you make of these by the way? Entire channel is CC-BY https://www.youtube.com/user/awolfnp It takes me a few hours to download, convert, upload so I haven't gotten to it yet. -- CFCF 🍌 (email) 12:08, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

Yes we should add them to commons. We need a bot. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 14:32, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

Doc James, blood flow through the heart is very good--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 14:25, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

I don't think these videos add anything of value to our articles. The blood flow through the heart video is simply a repeat of what is stated or implied in the article. There's nothing of educational value that is not already described in detail in the main article. I would be more impressed if you could find a video of a cardiomyocyte beating in a petri dish or in vivo, or something similar that expands upon, rather than repeat, the information in the main text. -A1candidate 14:39, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

Different people learn in different ways. There videos on math would be excellent especially as much of our math content is difficult to understand. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 14:51, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

And what is so difficult to understand about blood flow through the heart? This isn't rocket science. -A1candidate 14:59, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

I think quite a few people would disagree with you there, the Frank-Starling mechanism isn't very straightforward. -- CFCF 🍌 (email) 15:10, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

Cardiac physiology is a suitable topic for videos, but a 2-minute discussion about the differences between veins and arteries would be more appropriate in the Simple English Misplaced Pages. -A1candidate 15:23, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

A1candidate, not everyone is an A1candidate. Misplaced Pages is not written (just) for medical students. Johnbod (talk) 15:24, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

It is written for the general reader, who I presume has a decent amount of general knowledge and knows what lungs, arteries, and veins are. -15:29, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

A1Candidate, while that is true the reader gets more if he/she reads and sees what the article is about, I wonder if a Western blot would be so easy on paper as opposed to seeing where restriction enzymes must cut, how transformation works or transfection is done on a video?--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 15:40, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

It's generally a good idea to demonstrate specific laboratory techniques with the aid of diagrams and videos. Perhaps we could approach the Journal of Visualized Experiments to see if they're willing to donate something. The main issue I have with the Khan Academy is that they are neither a medical organization nor an academic publisher. As far as I know, none of their videos are peer-reviewed. -A1candidate 16:03, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

well then, im in partial agreement with you, (I would think peer review is best)--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 16:09, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

Simple English is not for simplified information. It is for people who do not speak English as their native language. This project, on the other hand, is supposed to be able to educate native English speakers, including teenagers and people who didn't finish high school (or never even attended it). It's true that 90% of American kids finish high school or get equivalent education now, but more than a quarter of American senior citizens didn't finish high school. This project is supposed to be for those readers, too. It's not just for geniuses. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:45, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

Influenza vaccine

Some efforts to refute secondary sources with primary ones is occurring here. More eyes appreciated. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 14:54, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

Wish this was a month ago, I forgot to get my shot and I'm feeling rather crummy. Would have reminded me. I'll keep tabs on it. -- CFCF 🍌 (email) 15:12, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

Suprapubic catheter

There are two SPAs, Suprapubic catheter (talk · contribs) and Tom Catheter (talk · contribs), who share a peculiar obsession with one narrow (no pun intended) aspect of medicine. I reverted their last edits to Catheter (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch, but there are more on

• Suprapubic cystostomy (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch and
• Urinary catheterization (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch.

I didn't look at these in detail, but since most of eir previous edits still stand, I wanted to bring it to your attention. — Sebastian 19:04, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

Disorders not specifically listed in databases

What's the deal with disorders not specifically mentioned in ICD-10, ICD-9, OMIM and similar refs, but who are part of generalized groups? For instance, some specific phobias, such as spectrophobia which in ICD-10 falls under F40.2 (specific phobias) and in OMIM under Template:OMIM2 (phobia, specific). Is it possible to put infoboxes with such codes into related articles? I presume the default status is not to have an infobox on them. Brandmeister 19:39, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

You can add those codes. It's not required, so if there happen to be any objections at a given article, then I recommend going along with whatever the other editors want.

I've seen comments on discussion sites in which clinical coders say they use Misplaced Pages's infoboxes to find appropriate codes, so some of our readers get a lot of value out of those numbers. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:50, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

Disorders vs. diseases

I am sure this has been discussed before, but it appears that Misplaced Pages does not have a disoder(medical) article? Ottawahitech (talk) 00:09, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

(your redlink has a typo) what would be the "pros" of having one--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 00:19, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

Actually, we do have that: Disorder (medicine), Medical disorder, and Disorder (medical) are all blue links. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:53, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

Intimate partner violence‎ and Domestic violence against men articles

Can Jytdog and I get some WP:Med editors' attention at these articles? As to why, see Talk:Intimate partner violence#"Gender symmetry" and Talk:Domestic violence against men#Gender Symmetry. Prefixcaz is repeatedly editing poorly with regard to the "gender symmetry" topic by adding WP:Undue weight, WP:Fringe and/or non-WP:MEDRS-compliant sources. I brought the matter here not too long ago (see Misplaced Pages talk:WikiProject Medicine/Archive 58#Intimate partner violence article -- "Gender symmetry"), but I did not get any help. Flyer22 (talk) 01:08, 9 February 2015 (UTC)