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Drug withdrawal & Withdrawal syndrome

Can anyone think of any reason why Withdrawal syndrome should not be merged into Drug withdrawal? Seppi333 (Insert 2¢) 07:19, 9 February 2018 (UTC)

would support a merge--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 11:18, 9 February 2018 (UTC)

Not sure if that would really work, I think it would be less messy if Withdrawl syndrome was just a dismabiguation page.CV9933 (talk) 20:31, 11 February 2018 (UTC)

Hmm. Well, given that Neonatal withdrawal, Antidepressant discontinuation syndrome, and Antipsychotic withdrawal are not mentioned in drug withdrawal, but are forms of drug withdrawal, I suppose the best option would be to merge and redirect these to a subsection of drug withdrawal titled "Other withdrawal syndromes" or something similar. By definition, those are all withdrawal syndromes that arise from discontinuation of drug use/exposure. While it's possible to be dependent upon a non-drug stimulus, the withdrawal syndromes that arise from dependence to non-drug stimuli are not normally referred to as "withdrawal" (e.g., separation anxiety is a form of psychological dependence upon a person or location). Seppi333 (Insert 2¢) 00:47, 20 February 2018 (UTC)

Seppi333 Yes in principle you can make some merger proposals and see what responses you get. I had a look at most of the merge proposals that are within the scope of this project last year, to try and fathom out why so many weren’t getting completed. Some subjects which seemed to be obvious candidates for a merger didn’t get merged for a variety of reasons and getting consensus can get a bit messy in my opinion. I can imagine some reasons against might be that merging might create a bloated article, or not all withdrawal syndromes are drug related such as gambling or sugar cravings etc. I don't have any strong feelings either way, but I would suggest you only propose a merge if you are prepared to carry it out yourself. Feel free to take a peek in my sandbox to see where I am coming from. Regards CV9933 (talk) 16:00, 21 February 2018 (UTC)

I do not agree with merging with a redirect neonatal withdrawal, antidepressant discontinuation syndrome and antipsychotic#Withdrawal to drug withdrawal article as these subjects are notable enough for their own articles and commonly searched for information. Another reason is that someone looking for information on antipsychotic withdrawal, neonatal withdrawal and antidepressant discontinuation syndrome is not going to search for 'drug withdrawal'. The lack of mention of these specific drug withdrawal/discontinuation syndromes in the drug withdrawal article should, I suggest, be solved by adding in a mention to said article via reliably sourced material, rather than merging substantial and notable articles.--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 17:16, 21 February 2018 (UTC)

@Literaturegeek and CV9933: The only article pertaining to my merge proposal is Withdrawal syndrome, not neonatal withdrawal, antidepressant discontinuation syndrome and antipsychotic#Withdrawal. When I said "merge and redirect these" in my reply above, I meant merge only the bullet entries in Withdrawal syndrome for these pages and redirect Withdrawal syndrome to a section titled Drug withdrawal § Other withdrawal syndromes. I did a bad job at explaining that earlier. I'm very strongly opposed to the idea of merging entire sub-articles into the drug withdrawal article; that would be grossly NPOV unless every sub-article were merged, which is also a bad idea due to article length IMO. Seppi333 (Insert 2¢) 08:11, 22 February 2018 (UTC)

Oh, okay - I see. No worries. I wonder if it would be better to merge the 'drug withdrawal' article into the 'withdrawal syndrome' article because I think that 'drug withdrawal' is not the WP:COMMONNAME. The ICD-10 calls it 'withdrawal state' and most authors (and possibly DSM V?) call it 'withdrawal syndrome'. So, I am leaning towards the idea that the 'withdrawal syndrome' article should be the target of the merge - with 'discontinuation syndrome', 'withdrawal state' and maybe 'drug withdrawal' bolded as alternative names in the first sentence. Thoughts?--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 14:56, 22 February 2018 (UTC)

4th WP:FAC nomination of β-Hydroxy β-methylbutyric acid

Since this article is now a GA, I re-nominated this article at FAC a little under 2 weeks ago: Misplaced Pages:Featured article candidates/Beta-Hydroxy beta-methylbutyric acid/archive4.

It would be very helpful and very much appreciated if other editors from this WikiProject would comment and review the article against the WP:Featured article criteria. It is incredibly difficult to get a pharmacology article promoted at FAC, and unless editors who are familiar with the subject matter (i.e., editors from WP:MED/WP:PHARM/WP:MCB) review and comment on a pharmacology nomination at FAC, it very likely will not be promoted. For instance, amphetamine required five consecutive featured article nominations before being promoted in WP:Featured article candidates/Amphetamine/archive5 for that very reason.

So, if you're an active editor at WT:MED and edit drug articles on a somewhat regular basis, your input at the this nomination would be invaluable. Moreover, if any of you intends to nominate a drug article at FAC at some point in the future, reviewing another pharmacology nomination as well as reading the reviews by other editors at that nomination will give you a good idea of what to expect and prepare for at your own FAC nomination(s).

For those who haven't reviewed an article at FAC before, this is the "FAQ" page for reviewing articles at FAC. Seppi333 (Insert 2¢) 03:38, 2 February 2018 (UTC)

Seppi333, I did the GA review on Norepinephrine but I couldn't do an FA review on my own for the first time. So I would be glad to help with the review and think if we could find another co-reviewer then this could really happen. I know there are biochemists in the project but can't recall who they are at the moment. I have created articles on medications, a degree in chemistry and coursework in pharmacology. I can't evaluate the referencing of an article because, well, I'm not the best editor for this task. The guild of copy editors might like to help. I would really be thrilled to see this happen. Best Regards, Barbara (WVS) ✐  ✉ 13:08, 4 February 2018 (UTC)

The main difference between reviewing a FAC and a GA candidate is that there's no official reviewer or structured process for reviewing and the reviewers aren't the ones who decide whether or not the article is promoted or fails the FAC process, although there are structured review criteria. To review a FAC, you basically just add your comments about the article's compliance with the FA criteria to the FAC nomination page and, if the nomination has received sufficient support within 2 months of the nomination date, the FAC coordinators will promote it; otherwise, the nomination is archived (i.e., the article fails).

Just to clarify: the FAC coordinators decide whether or not an article is promoted based upon their assessment of the consensus among reviewers about its compliance with the FA criteria. If 3 reviewers oppose for a stupid reason (e.g., "I just don't like it") and 5 support it after extensively reviewing the article against the criteria, the coordinators will probably promote the article to FA status. Seppi333 (Insert 2¢) 02:55, 5 February 2018 (UTC)

As of right now, only 1 reviewer supports the promotion of this candidate and 0 reviewers oppose it. There's a lot of comments/discussion at the moment though. Seppi333 (Insert 2¢) 07:18, 9 February 2018 (UTC)

I have also contributed. It would be appreciated if other editors could put in their 2¢ given that this is the fourth nomination. --Tom (LT) (talk) 00:10, 11 February 2018 (UTC)

Deleting Cochrane Reviews more than 10 yrs old?

A few editors are going back and forth on the Acupuncture page removing/re-adding Cochrane Reviews that are 10-11 years old. Generally speaking, Cochrane Reviews are an exception to WP:MEDDATE as they are updated when more evidence becomes available. How do you feel about these edits? Thanks, JenOttawa (talk) 03:50, 12 February 2018 (UTC)

I don't see a strong basis for making general exceptions for Cochrane reviews; your qualification "Generally speaking" illustrates the fact that the update schedule is not uniform, so it should not be assumed. Cochrane reviews are useful, but they are by no means the last word (as illustrated starkly by their recent HCV fiasco). Cochrane reviews are quite valuable but not positively exceptional. — soupvector (talk) 04:40, 12 February 2018 (UTC)

I am happy to still provide the Cochrane reviews for acupuncture even if 11 years old. MEDDATE is not written in stone. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 10:48, 12 February 2018 (UTC)

MEDDATE is inexact guidance which is predicated on the assumption that in a well researched field, a review will have been superseded after somewhere between 5 and 10 years. There's nothing special about those time spans; they are simply a reasonable estimate of the average time between significant reviews in the same field. However, when we are examining a niche topic outside of mainstream, the review cycle may well be longer than that. We certainly don't want to throw out what we know about the effect of acupuncture on knee pain, for example, simply because the last significant review was in 2007. On the other hand, if the last review of a topic was in 1977, then it is appropriate to ask whether there really has been no further research since then (It does happen: Christian Lambert's analysis of the factors governing oxygen toxicity onset has not been repeated to my knowledge since the late 1970s, but modern diving medicine is still based on its findings). Obviously it is difficult to codify, but surely a good dose of common sense would go a long way towards settling these issues. --RexxS (talk) 12:42, 12 February 2018 (UTC)

I sometimes tell editors not to use WP:MEDDATE so strictly. I even point to what WP:MEDDATE states about not being so strict with its use. Despite what it states, and it having been tweaked to not be interpreted too strictly, we still editors interpreting it strictly. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 14:14, 12 February 2018 (UTC)

I tried to improve the WP:MEDRS guidance here, but TenOfAllTrades keeps reverting. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 13:26, 13 February 2018 (UTC)

Your change, which you keep trying to stuff in without discussion despite being reverted, is redundant and makes for clunkier wording. Ask around, you'll find that I'm as strong an advocate as any for recognizing the limits of WP:MEDDATE (and I get incredibly frustrated whenever someone slavishly and robotically declares a source "isn't MEDRS compliant!" solely because it's five years and one month old). Nevertheless, adding more and more qualifiers and caveats to the text of MEDRS isn't going to fix the problem. We already have:

• "This page...is a generally accepted standard that editors should attempt to follow, though it is best treated with common sense, and occasional exceptions may apply." (At the very top of the page)
• "Keeping an article up-to-date while maintaining the more-important goal of reliability is important." (Emphasis added)
• "These instructions...may need to be relaxed in areas where little progress is being made or where few reviews are published."
• "In many topics, a review that was conducted more than five or so years ago will have been superseded by more up-to-date ones, and editors should try to find those newer sources, to determine whether the expert opinion has changed since the older sources were written. The range of reviews you examine should be wide enough to catch at least one full review cycle, containing newer reviews written and published in the light of older ones and of more-recent primary studies."
• "While the most-recent reviews include later research results, this does not automatically give more weight to the most recent review..." (Emphasis added)
• "There are exceptions to these rules of thumb... A newer source which is of lower quality does not supersede an older source of higher quality."

You're always going to have editors who want to interpret the guideline as a strict rule rather than a heuristic, no matter how much we water the wording down. Adding just one more caveat isn't going to magically turn on the lightbulb for an editor who isn't getting it. And if there is an article where the use of older reviews seems contentious, it's not necessarily a bad thing to have an actual discussion about it—not every problem is solved by smacking down your opponent with a WP:SHORTCUT link. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 15:24, 13 February 2018 (UTC)

• There is no reason to keep a laundry list of reviews on the same topic; we generally just use the most recent one or two. A 13 year old Cochrane review has no value when there are four (already too many) more recent, good quality reviews as with lower back pain in this diff. Likewise there are two more recent reviews for RA in that diff. Both of the knee pain reviews should have been kept as there are not more recent ones cited. There is nothing especially sacred about cochrane reviews; we should think about them like we do any other (generally) good quality reviews. Jytdog (talk) 14:09, 13 February 2018 (UTC)
• I generally agree with Jytdog: There's nothing magic about an old Cochrane review. If it's that old, and if we have other, equally good sources, then we should use the other ones. (It is important to check the dates carefully on Cochrane reviews, because you don't want to confuse the old original publication date with the newer date for an updated edition.) I also agree with TenOfAllTrades: The English Misplaced Pages has many mindless rule-enforcers, and many POV pushers (on all sides), so whatever we write is going to be applied overly strictly in too many situations. If I were trying to improve MEDDATE, I'd add:
  • explicit language about the "ten years" rule-of-thumb. If you go read WP:MEDDATE, you'll find that only the "five years" part of that rule is written down. You have to hang out at this page to know that we actually mean five to ten, depending upon the details. IMO it would be useful to say "Five years for areas of active research, such as hypertension, and up to ten years for areas without significant active research, including most rare diseases". This was discussed a couple of years ago, and was rejected partly because we worried that people would use it to cram in six-year-old review articles that editors disagree with (e.g., any review article that presents a positive POV about altmed).
  • explicit language that permits several of the most recent high-quality secondary sources that we can find, for those conditions that don't even manage to get a few reviews in a decade. For example, the dates of the three most recent review articles at PubMed for congenital methemoglobinemia are: 2016, 2008, and 1991. We shouldn't ban the second one when it hits its tenth birthday in May. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:59, 15 February 2018 (UTC)

agree w/ WAID and Jytdog--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 11:28, 25 February 2018 (UTC)

I would actually go further and suggest that the "ten year rule-of-thumb" isn't widely known as rule of thumb. (To be honest, I've never heard it cited until right here and now; it may well come up and be used casually on a subset of topic areas.) It feels like a bit of a shortcut, to essentially change the existing waffling "five or so years" to a still-waffling "five or maybe ten years" to push back the timeframe where we need to discuss the quality and currency of older sources. 'Any' attempt to codify additional time windows and conditions is going to be subject to both confusion and gaming, and I'm not sure that we should write in another specific time horizon to deal with older sources that are already handled by the list of caveats and conditions above.

Sometimes the best source will be a review from a year ago, and a three-year-old source will be wildly out of date. Sometimes the best source will be a review from eight years ago, or twelve, or more. There's an unhealthy focus on date of publication because it's the easiest and least-subjective criterion for editors who lack familiarity with the literature to employ. If anything, we should strike the existing language that refers to "five or so years" and replace it with something less specific. Editors should be well-nigh forced to engage with the quality and content of sources, rather than the publication date. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 13:57, 15 February 2018 (UTC)

That said, I do agree that we should encourage more flexibility and awareness of the value of using multiple sources – including ones that may be older, or even 'dated' – to provide extra support and additional context. We do our readers a disservice when over-zealous trimming leaves the misleading impression that (a) no science occurred before 20122013, and (b) no scientfic or medical fact is supported by more than one scholarly work. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 14:01, 15 February 2018 (UTC)

Immersion in nature as therapy

• Forest bathing
• Forest therapy (nominated for speedy as duplicate of the above)
• Draft:Prairie Bathing

Something is afoot. Jytdog (talk) 00:58, 15 February 2018 (UTC)

I removed the speedy tag, as there are no circumstances under which an article that contains 10 times as many sentences as another and is a plausible title for a redirect to that other article will meet the criteria for WP:A10. Either of those circumstances mean that it's not CSD material. I've tagged the two articles for merging. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:09, 15 February 2018 (UTC)

Merged the two articles. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 08:10, 15 February 2018 (UTC)

Reminiscent of "tree therapy", which was a hoax some pranksters wrote for Wiki4CAM. Part of me wonders whether forest therapy (touted among other things for causing a "surge in the activity of cancer-fighting white blood cells") isn't an elaborate hoax too. We live in strange times. Alexbrn (talk) 08:19, 15 February 2018 (UTC)

Terpenes from Forests and Human Health--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 11:51, 25 February 2018 (UTC)

Links to DAB pages

In my travails travels as a WikiGnome, I keep coming across medicine- and anatomy-related articles which include {{disambiguation needed}} tags. Can any of you experts help fix problems such as these? Search for "disam". They range from the genomic to the surgical levels.

If you do solve any of these problems, remove the {{dn}} tag from the article and add {{done}} here.

• Chromosome conformation capture  Done
• Simon Flavell Leukaemia Research Laboratory Done
• HSD2 neurons Done
• Local lymph node assay Done link removed, see edit summary
• Gluten-related disorders Done
• Theodor Axenfeld Done
• Mammillothalamic fasciculus
• Superior extensor retinaculum of foot Done

I'm testing the waters with this post. I have other, similar, links bookmarked, and will post them here if you experts can help solve these problems. Narky Blert (talk) 23:07, 15 February 2018 (UTC)

thank you for posting--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 23:13, 16 February 2018 (UTC)

Thank you indeed for posting. As of now there is only one left (which I cannot help with unfortunately). I'd say: please do post more, Narky, if you have a list. :) --Treetear (talk) 08:55, 17 February 2018 (UTC)

Bambot has a list of 40 such pages at https://tools.wmflabs.org/bambots/cwb/bycat/Medicine.html#Links%20needing%20disambiguation The page is large, but this is actually one of the smaller sections, so here's the list:

1. 2p15-16.1 microdeletion syndrome  Done
2. Adult T-cell leukemia/lymphoma  Done
3. Arcuate uterus  Done
4. British Pharmacopoeia  Done
5. Causes of Parkinson's disease  Done
6. Cervicectomy  Done
7. Devra Davis  Done
8. Diffuse myelinoclastic sclerosis  Done
9. Encephalomyelitis  Done
10. Epidemiology  Done
11. Free-radical theory of aging  Done
12. Gluten-related disorders  Done
13. Hormone  Done
14. Intrauterine growth restriction  Done
15. Iuliu Hațieganu University of Medicine and Pharmacy  Done
16. Jugular venous pressure  Done
17. Juvenile idiopathic arthritis  Done
18. List of diseases (P)  Done
19. List of health and medical strikes  Done
20. Median arcuate ligament syndrome  Done
21. Myeloproliferative neoplasm  Done
22. Neglected tropical diseases  Done
23. Neonatal-onset multisystem inflammatory disease  Done
24. Pallesthesia  Done
25. Paramedics in Canada  Done
26. Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon  Done
27. Reticular formation – Reticular nucleus was reclassified as a WP:set index article
28. Scleroderma  Done
29. Sigard Adolphus Knopf  Done
30. Small fiber peripheral neuropathy  Done
31. Subdural hematoma  Done
32. Suicide awareness  Done
33. Susan Lim  Done
34. Systematic review  Done
35. Theodor Axenfeld  Done
36. Thumbprint sign  Done – it was pointing at a set index, which is not unreasonable
37. Thunderclap headache  Done
38. Transient synovitis  Done
39. Unicornuate uterus  Done
40. Wafik El-Deiry  Done

WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:29, 17 February 2018 (UTC)

Narky Blert, my awesome friends here, especially Soupvector, have taken on this whole list of pages tagged by this project. There's just five left as of this comment: Devra Davis, Diffuse myelinoclastic sclerosis, Iuliu Hațieganu University of Medicine and Pharmacy, Systematic review, and Thumbprint sign. I'm sure someone will jump in to fix these last few by re-linking or re-wording soon.

We're less than 24 hours from being able to get an updated list from Bambot (it runs once a week). When that's available, I'll post the list from https://tools.wmflabs.org/bambots/cwb/bycat/Anatomy.html#Links%20needing%20disambiguation It currently lists 14 articles, but some of them are duplicated here.

I want to say: Thanks. I love the way that WPMED folks pitch in for content and clarity problems like this, even over the weekend. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:29, 19 February 2018 (UTC)

Thanks all, terrific work! IMO WikiProjects are among the best features of Misplaced Pages: full of knowledgeable editors who are keen on the project.

As a idea of the progress which has been made on fixing links to DAB pages in recent years, have a look at WP:TDD Table 1. That's teamwork by WP:DPL, and volunteers like you who they've managed to coerce.

I may have some more medical-type links bookmarked. I know where to post them ;-) Narky Blert (talk) 16:43, 19 February 2018 (UTC)

Everything from these lists has been done except the Mammillothalamic fasciculus anatomy page, which links to a dab page in a sentence about the "anterior or dorsal nucleus of thalamus". Perhaps the dorsal nucleus page should be a WP:SETINDEX instead of a WP:DAB page? Or perhaps, since it talks about both the front and back of the nucleus of thalamus there should be a page at nucleus of thalamus, and it should link to that? WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:47, 21 February 2018 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Short descriptions

Hi all,
Some of you are aware of the prolonged discussions with WMF to try to sort out the problem of inaccurate, inappropriate, and vandalised Wikidata descriptions being used on mobile view and in other places in association with Misplaced Pages titles, and that the agreed solution is that these short descriptions should be considered text content and Misplaced Pages content should be stored in Misplaced Pages. The consensus of the recent RfC to immediately shut down Wikidata short descriptions and provide them in Misplaced Pages, however, was rejected by WMF and they plan to impose their preferred solution, which continues to display Wikidata descriptions unless there is a short description on Misplaced Pages, until Misplaced Pages has 2 million or more local short descriptions. I have started a WikiProject to add short descriptions to eventually all Misplaced Pages articles, and it will be a major undertaking.
WikiProject Medicine is a strong project, with an real-life impact scope and some fairly dedicated members, and as such seems a likely group to provide the short descriptions needed to accurately and reliably describe their project's articles. Medical articles should preferably be defined by people who, if not necessarily experts, at least have a clue about the topic, so I hereby invite those of you who can spare the time to start adding short descriptions to medical articles. The template we are using adds a maintenance category so it is not too difficult to keep track of the ones that are done.
I have already done a few medical short descriptions that overlap with WikiProject Scuba diving. Some of these may not be optimal, so feel free to improve them whenever you can. Like any other content, short descriptions can be improved later, but should be at least fit for purpose.
Cheers, · · · Peter (Southwood) : 15:23, 16 February 2018 (UTC)

I think WP:MED should at some point come to a consensus on - for example - where to put the {{short description}}-templates in the articles. I suggest far at the bottom, near other templates such as authority control, and similar, in near relation to categories. But this might not be the place to discuss it, perhaps TALK:MEDMOS is better. Also this isn't really enforced yet as I understand it, so we might want to wait a bit. --Treetear (talk) 14:32, 17 February 2018 (UTC)

I've been encouraging the use of the template as the very first item of wikitext on the page. The reason is that it is intended to be the short description displayed on mobile view immediately after the page title, and before any other content. In that sense, the top of the wikitext would most closely mirror the place where it would be most commonly seen. --RexxS (talk) 14:36, 17 February 2018 (UTC)

My fear is that it is too easy for vandals to find and edit when it's the absolutely first thing available to them, especially on WP:BLP. But I see your point. Do you know where there currently are discussion(s) about this, and could link us there? :) --Treetear (talk) 15:36, 17 February 2018 (UTC)

This was exactly my first thought. I don't think short descriptions should necessarily be prominent in the edit window. Once created, short descriptions should generally be very stable text that requires little editing, especially by new or inexperienced editors, so "hiding" them at the bottom doesn't seem like a problem to me. -- Ed (Edgar181) 15:47, 17 February 2018 (UTC)

If you want to test the short descriptions and see what Wikidata has (i.e. what mobile viewers using the Misplaced Pages app see now), then you want to see the text where it would appear, not multiple screens down. The whole argument to base short descriptions on text that was easily editable from Misplaced Pages was to make it easier to combat vandalism that was hard to find. If I saw vandalism on the second line of an article, I wouldn't expect to find the text I needed to fix at the bottom of the page, would you? --RexxS (talk) 16:02, 17 February 2018 (UTC)

If combating vandalism is the motive behind this, making the short description slightly less obvious to find will help in that regard. It will shift the balance toward vandal fighters (typically experienced Misplaced Pages users who will have no trouble learning where to find it) and away from vandals (who who go after easy targets and typically aren't dedicated Misplaced Pages users). -- Ed (Edgar181) 16:08, 17 February 2018 (UTC)

In that case, you might as well give in to the WMF and leave the text for the short descriptions on Wikidata, because that's even more "less obvious to find" and "experienced Misplaced Pages users ... will have no trouble learning where to find it". That argument was rightly discredited in the RfC. We know that vandalism will happen, and the easier we make it to fix the more rapidly it will be fixed - remember that the majority of short edits to Misplaced Pages are make by IPs, folks who spot a problem and fix it. --RexxS (talk) 16:18, 17 February 2018 (UTC)

Finding vandalism in the wikitext of an article is not at all comparable to finding vandalism imported from another website. -- Ed (Edgar181) 20:02, 17 February 2018 (UTC)

Of course it is. Your "experienced Misplaced Pages user" will quickly learn it's one click away in either case. Unfortunately most of the vandalism fixing isn't done by them, so it's sensible to keep things simple: problem at top of page => fix it at the top of the wikitext, not the bottom. --RexxS (talk) 00:48, 18 February 2018 (UTC)

I agree with RexxS on all points above. Having the short description embedded in a template may reduce vandalism in source edit, but who knows. I don't even know what it looks like in VE yet. Having it at the top will make life easier for good faith editors, so I suggest we put it there until there is convincing evidence that the top is a bad place. There may be problems with displaying it in a logical place on desktop view for those who want to see it if it is hidden in a strange place, and hiding it from our editing community means vandalism is more likely to be missed.· · · Peter (Southwood) : 06:33, 18 February 2018 (UTC)

Treetear, I don't know what you mean by "enforced", If you mean the magic word is not working yet, WMF predict it will be by the end of the month, give or take unforeseen contingencies. As to whether it will happen or not, short of intervention by the board, it seems inevitible. The short descriptions we are adding will only show when the software has been installed. The Wikidata descriptions will only be turned off when there are enough short descriptions on Misplaced Pages to convince the WMF people that they can't hold out any longer. Starting sooner means that that point can be reached sooner, and the bottleneck will be the writing of descriptions. anything that can be automated will go so much faster that it is effectively not a delay. Like everything on Misplaced Pages, we only do it if we think it is worthwhile. I think is is important, so am demonstrating my conviction by doing what I consider most constructive, i.e. writing short descriptions as part of another project. Not contributing to writing short descriptions just makes the Wikidata descriptions remain for longer. If that is your preference then that is what you should do. If you really don't care, you are probably with the majority of Wikipedians. Things here only get fixed by people who do care. I think that accurate short descriptions are important for medical articles, so where I consider myself sufficiently competent, I will write them, as and when I see the need. I am systematically working on other projects, where I am more expert, so I don't edit medical stuff very much, but I will fix what I can in passing. · · · Peter (Southwood) : 10:07, 18 February 2018 (UTC)

• I see there was an RfC about this that ran from December to February

I should not have pulled the RFC I started to get the rest of the descriptions pulled and to community ban the people at WMF Reading Team responsible for them. (it was here

I remain furious about this. Volunteer time is the lifeblood of WP. Because of the clueless arrogance of the WMF reading team, volunteers now are starting a "major undertaking" to fix their damage - doing that instead of building and updating content. (e.g the Cipro article is still out of date with regard to medical guidelines for use of these drugs. Nobody has had time to get to that.) And these short descriptions will inevitably lead to disputes about precisely what to say, which will be yet a further waste of time.

They never should have intervened into content this way in the first place. Clueless and arrogant breach of the basic deal here - the editing community generates content; the WMF just publishes it. Now the tail is completely wagging the dog.

I am not going to participate in this project. I recognize that the community has basically accepted this power play/blackmail, but it is horrible. Because of the December/February RfC I will not remove these tags, but I am going to ignore this except to remind everybody from time to time that our work has been hijacked, and that this is a capitulation to an exercise of power by our publisher over us. Raw power. Jytdog (talk) 15:50, 17 February 2018 (UTC)

While I completely agree with you on some points, like the wasted time arguing about this with WMF, which is a complete pain, I disagree with you on others. Such is life. The short descriptions do have a useful function, and more useful functions will be found. Refusing to help contribute to useful functions because you rightfully resent the way they were imposed is your choice, but perhaps not a particularly constructive one. Shit happens. I choose to take the opposite approach and try to make this work for us. It is not the short descriptions that are the abomination, it is the way they have been handled. Cheers, · · · Peter (Southwood) : 06:23, 18 February 2018 (UTC)

Are you planning to re-open the RFC calling for a community ban? You made some good points there that could be examined in more detail. · · · Peter (Southwood) : 07:09, 18 February 2018 (UTC)

Jytdog, You mention a breach of the basic deal. Is this basic deal formally defined anywhere? If this is a breach of contract matter it is something the Board and Legal must deal with. Cheers, · · · Peter (Southwood) : 05:48, 19 February 2018 (UTC)

User:Pbsouthwood, replying...

The ToU say for example:

• in the summary You take responsibility for your edits (since we only host your content). (emphasis in the original).
• In the Overview section 1st paragraph These Terms of Use tell you about our public services at the Wikimedia Foundation, our relationship to you as a user, and the rights and responsibilities that guide us both. We want you to know that we host an incredible quantity of educational and informational content, all of which is contributed and made possible by users like yourself. Generally we do not contribute, monitor, or delete content (with the rare exception of policies like these Terms of Use or legal compliance for DMCA notices). This means that editorial control is in the hands of you and your fellow users who create and manage the content. We merely host this content.
• In the "Our Services" section: The Wikimedia Foundation is dedicated to encouraging the growth, development and distribution of free multilingual content, and to hosting the full content of these wiki-based Projects for the public free of charge. Our role is to host some of the largest collaboratively edited reference Projects in the world, which can be found here. However, we act only as a hosting service, maintaining the infrastructure and organizational framework that allows our users to build the Wikimedia Projects by contributing and editing content themselves. Because of our unique role, there are a couple of things you should be aware of when considering our relationship to you, the Projects, and the other users:

  a) We do not take an editorial role: Because the Wikimedia Projects are collaboratively edited, all of the content that we host is provided by users like yourself, and we do not take an editorial role. This means that we generally do not monitor or edit the content of the Project websites, and we do not take any responsibility for this content. Similarly, we do not endorse any opinions expressed via our services, and we do not represent or guarantee the truthfulness, accuracy, or reliability of any submitted community content. Instead, we simply provide access to the content that your fellow users have contributed and edited.

  b) You are responsible for your own actions: ...

That is on the level of content. The ToU also make it clear that the editing communities govern themselves, with regard to behavior (as defined for example in the Management of Websites section The community has the primary role in creating and enforcing policies applying to the different Project editions. At the Wikimedia Foundation, we rarely intervene in community decisions about policy and its enforcement..

This whole thing that editors govern content and behavior and WMF just publishes (with a few very well defined exceptions) is the "the basic deal" here. It underlies everything that happens here. Besides being really the foundation of everything we do, it also does 2 things - the autonomy we have itself drives volunteerism and it brings WMF under the DMCA shield.

When I say "clueless and arrogant" I mean they:

• did not understand or consider the content maintenance issues
• did not understand or consider the cross-project governance issues between the WD and enWP (at least) editing communities
• did not even consider the basic governance deal, the "constitution" if you will, which like many simple fundamental principles, matters in many, many ways. They just blew right past that.

That was all bad enough when they first did it. It was more infuriating when they narrowly interpreted the RFC about removing the short descriptions from the mobile view and left it in the app, and was utterly infuriating when they refused to take it off the app even when they started to become aware of the issues. I worry about the idea now being out there in the WMF staff, that it is just fine for them to intervene this way. Jytdog (talk) 15:27, 19 February 2018 (UTC)

Jytdog, I find your arguments compelling. I suspect that a lawyer would weasel their way out of it, or at least give you a run for your money, but it probably should be taken further, because it was a shabby piece of work, and the lines are getting smudged by precedent. The problem is that I dont actually know how to take it further. This appears to be beyond the scope of Arbcom, and the Ombudsman committee. Legal is officially the tool of WMF, so not sure they would touch it, or be sympathetic to our side of the story. The only recourse that seems appropriate is the board, since this does appear to be a governance issue. However, I have no idea of how they should be approached. Any suggestions? · · · Peter (Southwood) : 16:10, 19 February 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for taking the time to consider these issues. The only tool we have is to ban them.

I have been listening to them, btw. They say that this serves readers, and they have better insight into what will serve them, who have no voice here, than the editing community does.

What I believe, is that the seed of this was planted during the whole Knowledge Engine (Wikimedia Foundation) fiasco, where the WMF was trying to figure out what it is really good for as a corporate entity itself - where it could bring value and have a better-defined identity internally and among all the other companies out there. It set up this Big Goal of being The Search Engine for Knowledge and started to take definitive re-organization steps, and setting goals, to make content from all the projects (and other free content) available under their rubric.

You can see this now also in search results in en-WP, where they have introduced search results from other projects in the margins. This is the same thing, but less intrusive. The "short descriptions" imported from Wikidata and displayed in en-WP content (and used elsewhere, for instance in the "blurb" that appears when you search on mobile or in the app) is just the most glaring edge of this bigger thing.

I think that is the root of this -- the mindset that produced this. Yes I think that is a board level thing, as this set of ideas seems to be internalized in the employees there and what they think they should be doing, and I don't know that anybody thought it through with respect to the basic deal -- with respect to what it means for the WMF to play mixmaster this way and where the limits should be.

Before I got too angry and frustrated to be able to continue talking in a civil manner with them, I talked to a couple members of the reading team via skype. They acknowledged that they had not considered the fundamental deal or the inter-project governance issues, or the content maintenance issues, at all, when they did this short descriptions thing. But they still held fast to their "we know the readers and we serve them" rationalization in maintaining their power play/blackmail. They also keep repeating the horrible shit that by recruiting en-WP editors to work on these descriptions, Wikidata will be improved and everybody wins. I say that is both foolish and is despicable blackmail. What that means in reality is "we are going to force this content into en-WP; if it violates an en-WP policy then you can and should go to Wikidata and fix it". I do not volunteer to improve Wikidata and I don't want to argue with Wikidatians about whether BLP and V should matter. I have no interest in that nor any desire to change Wikidata governance. That editing community has its own autonomy that i respect, and its content governance will develop as it develops.

The new "magic word" is that same blackmail, one step removed. "We are not removing the Wikidata descriptions. If that is such a problem then make your own content and we will use that instead".

What nobody at the Reading Team seemed to be able to see, was this radical new thing - that the WMF has set itself up as an entity having its own interpretation of the movement mission and that its interpretation trumps everybody else. That is the raw power play here - "We unilaterally made this decision; we think it is best. We published it, and we are not changing it". And we can do precisely nothing about that. They are the publisher. Jytdog (talk) 16:36, 19 February 2018 (UTC)

I have seen a similar tendency in the 2030 vision statement survey, or whatever it was called, where the WMF basically cherry-picked the input to mash into something which can be interpreted to mean more or less whatever you want it to mean at the time.

This little circus reminds me of the days at Wikitravel when the management of Internet Brands forced their preferences on the community and it all went pear-shaped and we ended up forking off to Wikivoyage. Doc James will remember how that went down. Rule 1 of crowdsourcing is don't alienate your crowd. Annoy them enough and they will drop you and leave. Perhaps the board should consider whether it is easier to replace the volunteers who create the product or the staff who seem to spend a lot of time and money producing things that annoy the volunteers and distract them from building the encyclopedia. · · · Peter (Southwood) : 20:06, 19 February 2018 (UTC)

I do remind others of these facts. Misplaced Pages only works with a strong community and the existence of such a self governing community is not to be taken for granted. Expecially as new competitors are beginning to pick up steam. With respect to the short descriptions, I believe they are useful in the mobile age and thus will write some.

We could add initial ones by bot such as "is a medical condition" to all articles that have "infobox medical condition" in the lead and is a drug" to all that have the "drugbox" in the lead. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 04:02, 20 February 2018 (UTC)

As Jytdog points out, disrespecting the community's primary method of self-government by WMF staff is very dangerous to the stability and morale of the community and a dangerous precedent. Whether the intentions were good or bad, WMF has basically told Misplaced Pages that our governance system, which has evolved from anarchy and survived all these years in spite of being theoretically impossible is of no importance when they have a whim to enforce. They do not take it for granted, they consider it irrelevant. If Misplaced Pages is to survive in its present form, this should not be ignored. It is a blow to our very basic foundations. WMF staff who do not understand how Misplaced Pages works should not be allowed to have this sort of power in negotiations. The Board should remind the Reading Team of these facts.

The two suggestions for conditions and drugs would be helpful in two ways: They would probably provide a correct, though very limited description to a lot of articles which don't have a description on Wikidata, and would override any incorrect descriptions on Wikidata. I would suggest they also add a maintenance Category:Bot generated short description, so editors of a gnomish persuasion will be encouraged to look at them and improve them where they can. I will list them as suggestions on the project page. · · · Peter (Southwood) : 08:21, 20 February 2018 (UTC)

• Having not participated or heard of these problems about short descriptions until today.. if the issue was vandalism affecting the short description in the first place, what would stop a vandal from just editing the "short description" template added to the page? With this in mind, I agree with those in the above chain of comments that if we decide to add these (which seem to be inevitable) they should be at the bottom of the pages so they aren't the easy target for first things vandalized. Because at that point why even add the template at all? SEMMENDINGER (talk) 22:04, 17 February 2018 (UTC)

The major concern regarding vandalism is that it is much less quickly reverted on Wikidata than it is here on Misplaced Pages. -- Ed (Edgar181) 22:20, 17 February 2018 (UTC)

That makes sense - but if the template is a wiki-data only inclusion, now we have editors spanned across both projects spending time much better suited elsewhere on reverting vandalism tasks. Eh. SEMMENDINGER (talk) 15:10, 19 February 2018 (UTC)

Vandalism is one part of the issue. Storing text content on Wikidata is another, Incompatibility of function between projects is a third. · · · Peter (Southwood) : 06:23, 18 February 2018 (UTC)

• I support the descriptions going at the beginning of our medical articles. This will make it easier for me to keep an eye on them. Plus that is were they occur in our articles. I consider having them at the top to be a greater benefit than the risk of increased vandalism. IMO the ideal solution would be to create the ability to ONLY watchlist items from Wikidata used on Misplaced Pages. I consider this to be a less preferred solution. With respect to policies between WD and WP being different, I think we can likely work that out if issues occur. It is undetected WD vandalism that is the big issue. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 03:21, 18 February 2018 (UTC)

  Doc, you are not taking into account that while a short description on Wikidata may be suitable to use to describe a Misplaced Pages article, this is not necessarily the case. As far as I can make out the description on Wikidata is intended as an in-house description of the data item which is linked to the Misplaced Pages article, not the Misplaced Pages article itself. There is no concept definition requiring that the article in English Misplaced Pages is the basis for the data item, it could be based on any original, and the linked articles may diverge over time and require different Wikidata items and descriptions. We cannot insist that English Misplaced Pages takes priority. · · · Peter (Southwood) : 06:48, 18 February 2018 (UTC)

  In such cases the Wikidata item would need to be split. If two Misplaced Pages articles in different languages are attached to the same Wikidata item but the articles are about disparate topics, then they should not be attached to the same Wikidata item. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 10:12, 18 February 2018 (UTC)

  Simple vandalism is not the real problem. It is actually subtle spin that causes trouble. One of the things that would be done by POV-pushers is to add ethnicities to descriptions at Wikidata, so Bernie Sanders (Q359442) might be described as "Jewish American politician, senator for Vermont". The naive folks over at Wikidata wouldn't see anything wrong with that, so it would show up on the English Misplaced Pages app, contrary to our established policy on stating ethnicities/religious views, etc. Despite all the argument that has gone on on the English Misplaced Pages to resolve those sort of issues, we would be powerless to insist on changing the displayed content on our own Misplaced Pages article because it is out of our control. The WP:Short description is our way of regaining control of our content on the English Misplaced Pages. Once we have the text of the short description editable from English Misplaced Pages, we can use our own anti-vandalism systems to maintain policy-compliant descriptions. It is important though, to make it easy for vandal fighters to fix the vandalism, and having the wikitext in the same position as it is displayed in mobile or app view is the best bet unless shown otherwise. The present template – an interim measure – can be enabled to display on desktop view for any editor, so that they can get an idea of how it looks, or if they want to work on adding short descriptions. --RexxS (talk) 17:08, 18 February 2018 (UTC)

  How do we enable it to show on desktop? Sharing the same text with WD IMO would also help to improve WD. And reduce duplication of effort. I can understand also wanting to have a version which admins and local policies apply to. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 03:52, 19 February 2018 (UTC)

  Doc James There is a scipt available for each (WD short description and Misplaced Pages short description if it exists) which you add to your css file. · · · Peter (Southwood) : 17:56, 19 February 2018 (UTC)

• Comment. I haven't followed all of the links in this discussion through, but this strikes me as yet another case of the Wikidata tail trying to wag the Misplaced Pages dog. I have met several cases of Wikidata-based templates importing bad data into Misplaced Pages, and it's often very difficult (to say the least) to do anything about them or to fix the erroneous data – especially if the Wikidata item links to a DAB page and there is no relevant Misplaced Pages article. Misplaced Pages is explicitly stated not to be WP:RS; and, in all frankness, I do not trust Wikidata at all. It's unsourced, and IMO badly policed compared with Misplaced Pages. Narky Blert (talk) 22:01, 19 February 2018 (UTC)

  You really ought to start reading the discussion before embarking on yet another round of mindless Wikidata-bashing. Nobody from the Wikidata community is trying to wag the Misplaced Pages dog. This entire problem is caused by WMF staff deciding to use a particular piece of text from Wikidata as a "strap line" for English Misplaced Pages articles. Not only that but they chose text that has no means of being sourced on Wikidata (and was originally intended merely as an aid to disambiguate Wikidata entries that otherwise would have the same label). Hopefully that's clearer for you now. --RexxS (talk) 23:16, 19 February 2018 (UTC)

  Narky Blert, as a self-confessed gnome, you may be the sort of person best suited to helping to provide good short descriptions on Misplaced Pages. Take a look at the short descriptions WikiProject and if you like the idea, go for it. It is at least as useful as disambiguating links - it is a very closely related concept. Cheers, · · · Peter (Southwood) : 07:59, 20 February 2018 (UTC)

Existing descriptions on Wikidata

I don't know whether the following are useful, but here are a couple of pages showing the existing descriptions on Wikidata, that are currently being shown to readers on mobile:

• Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Short descriptions/wd/drugs
• Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Short descriptions/wd/diseases

Column 1 gives a count of how many different articles each description is used on; the link in column 2 will give a list of them.

One big caveat is that the pages only include Wikidata items in the subtree on Wikidata below a given target item, looking down first by subclass of (P279), then instance of (P31) below those. This might not include everything that has eg infobox medical condition or the drugbox.

The lists will update automatically every 24 hours, or can be re-generated at will by clicking the "Automatically update the list now" link at the top right.

Similar pages can be created to see the current state for other topics by copying amd pasting the wikitext of , then going to the third line and changing the value specified for ?target from wd:Q12136 to some other Q-number, for a new top item. Saving the page and hitting the "update" link should then generate the new page.

It should be possible to adapt the underlying queries to show only articles that don't yet have {{short description}} templates here on en-wiki, to give a countdown list of articles still needing it in a particular field. That's information I think can be hoisted into the query, based on the category the template sets, but I've never used that to date, so it might take a bit of experimentation, if people think that would be useful.

Anyhow, this should give an idea of the baseline that we start from. Jheald (talk) 18:56, 20 February 2018 (UTC)

It's nice to see these in one place to get an idea of which descriptions are just plain wrong (e.g. Alcuronium chloride: "operation theatre"), and which ones are just bizarre (Geographic atrophy: A form of MACULAR DEGENERATION also known as dry macular degeneration marked by occurrence of a well-defined progressive lesion or atrophy in the central part of the RETINA called the MACULA LUTEA. It is distinguishable from WET MACULAR DEG"). Were these originally written by a human or a bot? Natureium (talk) 20:07, 20 February 2018 (UTC)

A lot of these (particularly the more generic ones) will have been added en-bloc by a Wikidata editor to all the items for articles in a particular category or with a particular template in some wiki (not necessarily en-wiki); occasionally in the process sweeping up items for articles that may have been included in the category for somewhat oblique reasons, leading to them being given completely inappropriate descriptions, and possibly inappropriate statements too.

Some may have been added later en-bloc after a query for items with no description, but with particular statements. Some may have been added using machine-generated descriptions from the "autodesc" script (see below), when the item had no other description, perhaps when it also had fewer statements that it does now. Some may have been paraphrased by an editor from the start of an en-wiki article. Some may have been translated from a description originally added in another language or from another wiki. Some may have been lifted from whatever source came top of a Google search for that phrase that day. Some ... goodness knows.

Added: a further route: if a Wikidata item has been created as a new item via the Mix'n'match tool, a description for it will be imported from the description in the catalogue it has been matched from. This I think is how the description for geographic atrophy (Q47200750) came about, taken from the "MeSH Diseases" catalogue. . Jheald (talk) 12:25, 21 February 2018 (UTC)

Overall they have been assembled by no systematic process; and until now, perhaps more importantly, there's almost certainly not been any attempt at systematic quality control or assessment or review.

But that's what's there at the moment, and being served to people reading articles on mobile.

And, for all their faults, they at least give us a rough-and-ready starting set we can look at, and think about what descriptions we like and what we don't, and why. Jheald (talk) 22:25, 20 February 2018 (UTC)

A further group to also consider are articles where there is currently no description on Wikidata. For these a machine-generated description is currently shown on mobile, created by Magnus's autodesc script:

• Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Short descriptions/wd/drugs-autodesc (224)
• Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Short descriptions/wd/diseases-autodesc (3361)

(Note -- I haven't checked whether these are or not exactly the descriptions being shown on mobile; but if not exactly the same, they're likely pretty close.) Jheald (talk) 22:54, 20 February 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for compiling these useful tables Jheald. I have linked them from the main Short descriptions project page at Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Short descriptions#WikiProject Medicine short descriptions:. · · · Peter (Southwood) : 08:37, 21 February 2018 (UTC)

A quick scan through the autodesc generated descriptions does not fill me with enthusiasm for its utility for purpose. It may work well enough for other fields, but for medicine it does not often add anything useful. If the reading team are really using these on mobile view they are not doing the readers any favours. On average a blank space would be more informative and less confusing. · · · Peter (Southwood) : 08:54, 21 February 2018 (UTC)

Will adding a short description on the Misplaced Pages article have any effect on these tables? How will we know if there is already a Misplaced Pages short description? Some people will want to concentrate their efforts to improve the description on Wikidata to articles which do not already have a description on Misplaced Pages. · · · Peter (Southwood) : 08:54, 21 February 2018 (UTC)

@Pbsouthwood: I've been looking into whether I can do that. There is an experimental service to access category data from Wikidata-style queries (mw:Wikidata_query_service/Categories), but

(i) Access to it isn't currently enabled for ordinary Wikidata queries -- I have put in an ask for this to be allowed: mw:Topic:U819g8g0y4r5cgu1

(ii) It uses a copy of the category information that is only updated once a week -- not so good for a cross-off list, that one would want to be able to update at will.

An alternative approach would be to use Petscan, which can take a list of articles from a query, and can remove those in a category. One can also filter the Petscan output to include/exclude a particular description. But I don't think it can actually show the WD descriptions. Jheald (talk) 11:26, 21 February 2018 (UTC)

Funny thing - I tried mobile view from desktop to try to find out whether the autodesc descriptions are used, but I cant get any Wikidata short descriptions to display, even for articles where we know they exist. · · · Peter (Southwood) : 09:40, 21 February 2018 (UTC)

@Peter: After the last round of complaints, the devs turned off short descriptions as the line after the title from mobile view (i.e. what readers see if they use a browser to read articles on their phone/tablet), but left them turned on for the Misplaced Pages app (i.e. what readers see if they install e.g. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.wikipedia ). Of course the are also still used as descriptions for search results in lots of places as well. --RexxS (talk) 14:21, 21 February 2018 (UTC)

Death from dementia

Misplaced Pages has these categories:

• "Deaths from dementia" (should its contents not be moved to "People with dementia"?).
• Deaths from Alzheimer's disease‎
• Deaths from dementia with Lewy bodies‎

Surely this is wrong. Is it not the case that (as with HIV or AIDS) death by these afflictions alone is impossible.

Do you agree that the cats should be changed to example "People with Alzheimers disease‎" (no apostrophe). Or would it be more appropriate to change it to (even this, is not quite right) "Deaths from dementia related illness"‎. What titles do you recommend? --BeckenhamBear (talk) 14:24, 20 February 2018 (UTC)

I get what you're saying. How about renaming the categories "Alzheimers-related deaths" or "Parkinsons-related deaths" like the category AIDS-related deaths. SEMMENDINGER (talk) 00:32, 21 February 2018 (UTC)

Both of the related articles (Alzheimer's disease and Parkinson's disease) use the apostrophe, and it would make sense for the categories to match the articles. (Neither approach is "wrong"; they're just different stylistic choices.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:13, 21 February 2018 (UTC)

I am not a big fan of these categories. Why someone dies is usually not that simple as "dementia". Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 03:18, 22 February 2018 (UTC)

There is also a "Deaths from Arthritis". --BeckenhamBear (talk) 12:46, 22 February 2018 (UTC)

And this article mentions here death is actually from something else.Letitia_Baldrige Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 13:48, 23 February 2018 (UTC)

Whoops, yes it should include the apostrophes. Granted I'm not a fan of them either as they aren't entire factual.. SEMMENDINGER (talk) 00:02, 25 February 2018 (UTC)

Eponymous diseases are no less factual than calling a bird Cooper's Hawk on the grounds that Cooper described it, rather than Cooper breeding them or owning one. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:38, 26 February 2018 (UTC)

Agreed. Just a comment on use in possessive form: One of my mentors (Victor McKusick, who developed OMIM and was a leader in description of genetic diseases) was strongly against use of the possessive for a variety of reasons, not least because of clarity and consistency - e.g. people often think Graves disease should have an apostrophe between "e" and "s"; compound forms (e.g. Lesch-Nyhan syndrome) are never possessive. There is some published analysis on this topic (e.g. MacAskill and Anderson 2013), suggesting that there is time- and specialty-specific variation in the use of possessives. Since we must represent consensus, there's no one rule to guide WP's use of medical eponyms. — soupvector (talk) 02:48, 26 February 2018 (UTC)

What's this about apostrophes? Its a medical opinion I'm after! In any case, apostrophes are simple affairs. There is no letter missing, therefore no apostrophe is the rule. There is no stylistic choice rule. Rules are there to keep ideas in check. --BeckenhamBear (talk) 15:05, 26 February 2018 (UTC)

That's BeckenhamBear's opinion, obviously. Oh, wait: There's no letter missing there, so did you want me to write "That's BeckenhamBears opinion" instead?

I think you will find that apostrophes are somewhat more complicated than just "if you have a missing letter".

That said, the stylistic choice is between "Down's syndrome" (possessive) and "Down syndrome" (not possessive). Some sources/fields/people choose one style, and some choose the other. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:55, 26 February 2018 (UTC)

You're right. Can we get back to the medical opinion now? --BeckenhamBear (talk) 11:13, 27 February 2018 (UTC)

The CDC lists Alzheimer's as one of the most common causes of death. IMO it is therefore medically reasonable to consider Alzheimer's a cause of death.

"People with Alzheimer's" (living and dead people together) is a much broader category compared to "People who died of Alzheimer's" (dead people only). Whether one or the other is preferred by editors is not really a medical question. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:24, 27 February 2018 (UTC)

A "commentary" in a journal

So per this page, the journal Acta Neuropsychiatrica has a category of articles called "Commentaries". Here is how the linked page describes them:

Commentaries focus attention on scientific issues in the field of the journal, and should highlight, discuss and amplify these issues. Commentaries may contain up to 5,000 words (not including references, figures and tables) and should include an abstract of up to 250 words and 3–5 keywords in strict accordance with Medical Subject Headings (https://meshb.nlm.nih.gov/search). Commentaries are invited by the Editor-in-Chief.

There is an IP editor, who is wanting to use PMID 28718394, which is such a commentary, to counter the summary of a recent review, PMID 28178949, in the Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor article.

So, do we "count" that commentary as a "review" that should have equal WEIGHT with the actual review, or is this a classic case of somebody wanting to use a weaker primary source to "counter" a review as discussed in WP:MEDREV?

I have a left a note at the article talk page where this has been discussed; i imagine the IP editor will be along presently. Jytdog (talk) 22:13, 20 February 2018 (UTC)

In my opinion a commentary of this type, invited by the editor of a highly reputable journal and almost certainly carefully peer-reviewed, should count as a MEDRS-level source. It shouldn't necessarily be given equal weight with the BMC Psychiatry review, but it should justify a statement that the views expressed in that review are not universally accepted. At a more general level, commentaries in medical journals should not be disqualified as sources for Misplaced Pages. Looie496 (talk) 00:12, 21 February 2018 (UTC)

Thanks. This is an interesting question to me and I am really interested in folks' thoughts. Jytdog (talk) 02:38, 21 February 2018 (UTC)

Some commentaries are (usually well-informed) opinion pieces, and therefore not equivalent to a review. Others might be closer to narrative reviews, or at least secondary sources that analyze some particular point. However, when you're talking about a reputable journal, even those written in the style of an opinion piece can be used to support non-biomedical claims (e.g., "I.M. Portant says that this is the most important/neglected/promising area of research") or to report the non-biomedical fact that a certain study was criticized or not accepted. You might also read a reputable commentary and then use WP:Editorial discretion to consider how or even whether you choose to use a particular source.

It's probably important to note that what's called a "Commentary" varies dramatically. They are not always invited, and in one case that I'm aware of, the "Commentaries" were a response to an open call with a promise from the editor to publish anything that was on topic. The same confusion can happen with "Letters" in some older journals. "Letter" can mean short articles of original/primary research (which are presumably peer-reviewed) rather than a Letter to the editor. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:31, 21 February 2018 (UTC)

Often one will have multiple reviews on a topic. If they come to different conclusions you will then have a bunch of commentaries from "both sides" explaining why the other side is wrong. And then replies explaining why the commentaries on the reviews are incorrect. I guess the question is how much details should we go into as an overview? If the paper has been withdrawn sure, we remove it. But most commentaries do not result in that. I am hesitant to include these and not sure they deserve much weight. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 00:06, 22 February 2018 (UTC)

So can we reach a conclusion here? I must point out that the Kirsch review has "commentary" included that is not very different from what I wanted to add. Also, please see the new Cipriani et al. review on the "talk" page. Any comments on that? 82.196.109.14 (talk) 20:33, 26 February 2018 (UTC)

Here's the disputed change:

A 2017 systematic review stated that "SSRIs versus placebo seem to have statistically significant effects on depressive symptoms, but the clinical significance of these effects seems questionable and all trials were at high risk of bias. Furthermore, SSRIs versus placebo significantly increase the risk of both serious and non-serious adverse events. Our results show that the harmful effects of SSRIs versus placebo for major depressive disorder seem to outweigh any potentially small beneficial effects". The review was criticized for being inaccurate and misleading.

1. Jakobsen, Janus Christian; Katakam, Kiran Kumar; Schou, Anne; Hellmuth, Signe Gade; Stallknecht, Sandra Elkjær; Leth-Møller, Katja; Iversen, Maria; Banke, Marianne Bjørnø; Petersen, Iggiannguaq Juhl (2017-02-08). "Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors versus placebo in patients with major depressive disorder. A systematic review with meta-analysis and Trial Sequential Analysis". BMC Psychiatry. 17. doi:10.1186/s12888-016-1173-2. ISSN 1471-244X. PMC 5299662. PMID 28178949.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: unflagged free DOI (link)
2. Hieronymus, Fredrik; Lisinski, Alexander; Näslund, Jakob; Eriksson, Elias (July 2017). "Multiple possible inaccuracies cast doubt on a recent report suggesting selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors to be toxic and ineffective". Acta Neuropsychiatrica: 1–7. doi:10.1017/neu.2017.23. ISSN 0924-2708.

I'm not really seeing the problem with this proposed change. It would actually be surprising if a review that concluded SSRIs were possibly useless and definitely harmful hadn't been criticized. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:35, 26 February 2018 (UTC)

Thank you for your input WhatamIdoing and Looie496. I will revert the changes to what is seen above.82.196.109.14 (talk) 23:33, 28 February 2018 (UTC)

Encephalitis lethargica

any help with above articles(multiple) issues is appreciated, thank you--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 13:24, 22 February 2018 (UTC)

• thanks for edits--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 17:15, 23 February 2018 (UTC)

Leprosy in Malta - second pair of eyes

Hello! I have recently completed a translation on Leprosy in Malta from French to English and could do with a second pair of eyes to look at it to check that everything looks okay as I am not a medic or medical historian - do rates of contagion among the population look right, for instance? Apologies if this isn't the right place to ask, I couldn't find a project for History of Medicine. Thank you! Beckettnoti (talk) 16:24, 22 February 2018 (UTC)

A small tip to editing in general: go to your Preferences, choose the Gadgets tab, scroll down to Appearance and tick the box "Display links to disambiguation pages in orange" + don't forget to go all the way down and press "Save". This way, you will get disambiguation pages (DAB) in orange/yellow colour instead of blue colour. This way, you would have noticed that "semitic" and "Sacré Cœur" you link to in the article are DAB pages. We generally do not want to link to DAB pages. Instead, try to specify which exact page. I haven't checked the actual contents of the article, so I can't comment on that, I just thought this tip would help. :) Good luck! --Treetear (talk) 17:21, 22 February 2018 (UTC)

The last line (which needs a citation) stating Leprosy being considered extinct might be better saying erradicated. Good tip Treetear thanks. CV9933 (talk) 17:50, 22 February 2018 (UTC)

Thank you both - all very helpful! :) Beckettnoti (talk) 21:24, 22 February 2018 (UTC)

Rutin

could use more eyes, thx Jytdog (talk) 01:38, 23 February 2018 (UTC)

editor had several reverts on other articles as well--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 20:38, 25 February 2018 (UTC)

Hyperglycinemia

Hello everyone! On the hyperglycinemia article I suggested that it should be made into a disambiguation page, pointing readers to the Propionic acidemia and Glycine encephalopathy articles. My reasoning is that this article as it stands is poorly formatted and largely duplicates those two. What little sourced content is here but not in one of the other two can be merged for reader convenience, so they don't have to look through multiple pages to get the full picture of these diseases. I haven't gotten any responses there, so I'm asking here before making the edit, because this is a pretty huge change. Do you agree with my reasoning? Does this make sense? --HighFlyingFish (talk) 21:54, 24 February 2018 (UTC)

commented--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 11:57, 25 February 2018 (UTC)

Bumping this, since the original request only got one reply and they "would prefer to see other opinions" (as would I). --HighFlyingFish (talk) 18:55, 2 March 2018 (UTC)

Fund raising

"Wiki Med Foundation Inc." is now an approved charity at smile.amazon.com. If you chose use and shop via that url 0.5% of the purchase will go to WPMEDF to help buy hardware for Internet-in-a-Boxes for places with poor access to Misplaced Pages. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 11:00, 25 February 2018 (UTC)

great effort and purpose--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 11:59, 25 February 2018 (UTC)

Kallmann syndrome

Hello,

I made a bold edit today and moved the genetics table off the main article onto a new page on its own Genetics of GnRH deficiency conditions. After advise from other readers / editors I am hoping this will make the main article less technical and a bit easier for readers new to the condition to read. I hope this is suitable.

I would like to try to get this article up to at least "B" standard if I can.

I do have a recently e-published review article to add to the genetics section later this week when I get time.

Neilsmith38 (talk) 11:54, 25 February 2018 (UTC)

Nothing wrong with being bold, the worst that can happen is you get reverted. Looks sensible enough to me though. It might be worthwhile taking a look at article splitting to make sure you conform with Misplaced Pages's licensing requirements. CV9933 (talk) 12:54, 25 February 2018 (UTC)

Draft:Mutational Signatures in Cancer

Can someone please review Draft: Mutational Signatures in Cancer and determine whether it is scientifically sound? It doesn't have to be up to Good Article status to be accepted. Robert McClenon (talk) 18:43, 25 February 2018 (UTC)

I would rate it as Start class, but I believe it is scientifically sound and a proper topic for a WP article. Looie496 (talk) 18:58, 25 February 2018 (UTC)

It relies too much on primary sources, although the principal source used, Signatures of mutational processes in human cancer (available on PMC) is difficult to classify as it is a study that takes the form of a kind of meta-analysis of other data. Other opinions would be useful. --RexxS (talk) 21:20, 25 February 2018 (UTC)

The article reads like a compilation of data. It would be helpful to know the motivation for organizing the data in this way. Commentaries will surely exist, since a lot of people seem to be working on the data collection. Somebody could figure out if information about the Cancer Genome Project might be used in this article. You could also check whether the proposed article duplicates the material in the COSMIC cancer database article. (The word COSMIC appears in the reference list but not in the body of this article). EdJohnston (talk) 03:16, 26 February 2018 (UTC)

Signatures are mutational patterns. The concept of a mutational signature is an attempt to find recognizable patterns in the masses of data produced by sources such as COSMIC and the Cancer Genome Project. As I said before, this draft is not all that well developed, but the topic is drawing enormous interest. There are better sources than most of the ones used in the article, for example PMID 24981601. Looie496 (talk) 15:39, 26 February 2018 (UTC)

I will accept the draft. You can tag it and improve it. Robert McClenon (talk) 03:43, 27 February 2018 (UTC)

Now in mainspace at Mutational signatures in cancer. Clearly an important topic, though the organization may need to be worked on. EdJohnston (talk) 04:29, 27 February 2018 (UTC)

Serious cleanup needed at adrenaline/epinephrine

It looks like the article epinephrine was split into two articles, one for medical uses and one about its action as a hormone (which is fine with me), but there seems to be cleanup still needed related to this. The article currently titled epinephrine (medication) should be located at epinephrine - the disambiguation in the title is no longer needed. Epinephrine currently redirects to the article at adrenaline, which doesn't seem right to me. Plus I think because of cut-and-paste moves, there are revisions that are misplaced in the article histories. And lastly, I think many of the incoming links to the two separate articles are going to the wrong article. This was a complicated article split and I don't think the logistics of doing it properly were well thought out before it was done. ChemNerd (talk) 14:22, 26 February 2018 (UTC)

thank you for posting/will look at issues you've raised--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 17:47, 27 February 2018 (UTC)

Talk:Corneotherapy

I had redirected a brand new article on corneotherapy to moisturizer. Creator likely has a COI.

This organization appear to be trying to write this concept into Misplaced Pages

I am not convinced it is a notable enough topic for an indepedent article. Others thoughts? Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 15:04, 26 February 2018 (UTC)

The concept seems to fit neatly within the article on moisturizer. I say redirect. Natureium (talk) 16:01, 26 February 2018 (UTC)

It might be notable, but in its current form I'm unconvinced. The only reference that doesn't violate WP:MEDRS, and has a link to verify its accuracy, is written by the individual who coined the term. That's hardly a reliable source. Another reference points to a magazine called "Professional Beauty" with no link, which makes it impossible to verify. The magazine just seems like product advertisement anyway. The rest of the references seem to be primary sources, and thus fail MEDRS. Redirect seems to be the best choice until secondary sources can be found. SEMMENDINGER (talk) 16:03, 26 February 2018 (UTC)

I started looking at this yesterday. Refs are from a small group that likes to praise each other. Jytdog (talk) 17:39, 27 February 2018 (UTC)

Yes I am the opinion to redirect aswell. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 13:23, 28 February 2018 (UTC)

Dangerous Misplaced Pages prostate suite of articles

PMID 29406053, March 2018 review

Casliber Anthonyhcole Colin Jytdog Doc James MastCell RexxS Johnbod

Prostate cancer — Prostate cancer screening — Prostate-specific antigen

So, here I sit, in between radiology and surgery. Never imagined I would fall prey to grossly outdated, poorly written Misplaced Pages artcles, but here I am. And I cannot deal with an unfavorable cancer prognosis and fixing Misplaced Pages artcles at the same time.

If this suite of articles cannot be updated and written with the accuracy warranted for a condition that will affect one man in six, then these articles should be gutted. At minimum, the biased and outdated preferencing of poor information regarding PSA screening should be removed. I tried and have been reverted, even though there are MANY more journal reviews and professional guidelines than the one I listed above.

For years, Misplaced Pages has preferenced the USPSTF information in the entire suite, and has completely left out multiple other guidelines. This is bias of the dangerous kind. And this is costing men’s lives.

For years, medical editors have tried to patch up articles, but the finger in the dike approach to the repair needed in this entire suite is not adequate. Please, either dedicate the resources this topic deserves, or gut the articles to remove the dangerous and outdated sections. PSA screening saves lives. A lack thereof, thanks to one guideline bias, results in advanced prostate cancer, that is harder to treat. Please join me in at least alarm, if not sadness. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:32, 27 February 2018 (UTC)

Very sorry to hear this news. Health editing on Misplaced Pages is largely a damage limitation exercise. It was a situation which paralleled yours which first interested me in editing medical articles. I don't see what we editors can do except keep hammering away at the content. Alexbrn (talk) 16:59, 27 February 2018 (UTC)

so sorry I did not ping you, Alexbrn .... probably forgot others, hard to edit from iPad. I accept that wikipedia has problems, but again, as always has beeen the case, we could solve it by treating biomedical content like a BLP. If we cannot provide decent content, then the articles should be gutted. No info is better than faulty info. There are good sources out there for prostate info. Our information is horrible. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:24, 27 February 2018 (UTC)

I am sorry for the situation you are in SandyGeorgia; i figured something like this was going on based on your edit notes. I will get back to this, this week. I don't know that our articles are so bad. That state of the science and commercialization for prostate screening and diagnostics, is bad. PSA remains a very bad screening test - it drives zillions of unneeded biopsies and those are positively medieval. "Here i will stick a bunch of needles in you multiple times and then only really examine some of the tissue that is extracted, and we will see what we can generalize from that." No good blood test, no good medical imaging for this. Lots of people are trying to find better ways for sure but as of 2018 still nothing great. Jytdog (talk) 17:50, 27 February 2018 (UTC)

This is not meant as a goad, but you've got to be kidding, right? Half of the Prostate cancer screening article was sourced by the New York Times. Barbara (WVS) ✐  ✉ 21:49, 27 February 2018 (UTC)

You will get back to this, this week? I disagree. We can get back to this right away. This is an urgent request. Time for QuackGuru to edit. QuackGuru (talk) 19:01, 27 February 2018 (UTC)

What's urgent about this? Misplaced Pages has no deadline, and is a project of continual improvement. Natureium (talk) 19:05, 27 February 2018 (UTC)

See WP:YESDEADLINE and per comments by original poster. QuackGuru (talk) 19:26, 27 February 2018 (UTC)

??? That essay is about the loss of knowledge when sources are destroyed. No one is physically destroying all reference to current medical guidelines. Natureium (talk) 19:39, 27 February 2018 (UTC)

See WP:DEADLINENOW. Misplaced Pages articles are mostly outdated and/or contain inaccurate content. QuackGuru (talk) 20:25, 27 February 2018 (UTC)

Very sorry to hear this news. I've tried to update the few references to the UK situation, but I have to say they pretty much agree with the USPSTF on general screening. Johnbod (talk) 18:17, 27 February 2018 (UTC)

I'm sorry to hear that things are complicated, Sandy.

I haven't read the review linked above, but the abstract is not convincing. Lead time bias, improved treatment (which usually means no treatment for most men with prostate cancers), and other biases can all lead to the perception of "decreased mortality" without actually saving any lives that were actually threatened. This is exactly the sort of thing that breast cancer patients have been dealing with.

It looks like the NHS is working on a large-scale trial for PSA testing, with almost half a million men enrolled. That's the sort of trial that finally demonstrated that Breast self-examination didn't actually save any lives in average-risk women. (NB: BSE provides some net value for high-risk women.) We should be watching for those results, and updating the articles as soon as we have them. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:52, 27 February 2018 (UTC)

On the worries about readers: Most internet users prefer to look at multiple sites, as a way of making sure that they've got the whole story. So they're going to read our articles plus articles such as this from WebMD, which mostly discourages it, this from Scientific American, which discourages it, and this from the Mayo Clinic, which mostly recommends it. They don't necessarily read the scientific literature, but people who are seriously looking for information don't read just one webpage and assume that it's correct, either. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:09, 27 February 2018 (UTC)

Yes, we have had that argument before. Our article, and our approach to editing, is still wrong. At minimum, as Casliber points out, we could focus on getting screening info correct, so people will know when to consult further. I cannot answer all of this from iPad, but will when I am home. Not only are there plenty of reviews, and guidelines left out (how about NCCN), but I will address the faulty logic about why we (Misplaced Pages) are wrong in our cherry picking. We do not get to choose to preference one biased guideline, and ignore or downplay the rest. More when I am next home from hospital. Well, yes, there is no rush for our case ... we are already too late to pay attention to screening. One thing is life expectancy— another thing is quality of life. When women lose their breasts (which can possibly be reconstructed) are they looking at a lifetime of urinary or fecal incontinence or reduced sexual function, even if they survive the cancer? Apples and oranges. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:20, 27 February 2018 (UTC)

I understand that, after comparing all of the apples and oranges, the worldwide DALYs for breast cancer are approximately two to three times worse than the DALYs for prostate cancer. None of which matters in individual cases, of course.

I do think that we should name multiple significant guidelines for common conditions like this. The NCCN's earlier guidelines were a significant cause of PCa overdiagnosis and overtreatment (they were derided at the time as "test early, test often, biopsy many"), so I'm not particularly attached to the idea of including their new one (although I don't actually object to including it, either). I wish that NICE had one, because I think it's particularly valuable to have a non-American POV (I couldn't find one, and I spent about half an hour searching for it). WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:36, 27 February 2018 (UTC)

Indeed, the emperor is wearing no clothes. Perhaps we can come up with a list of health screening articles to attack. I am currently working on the screening for hypothyroidism in women-also pretty important. While the IPs keep editing medical Rabbit test article, which has over 1500 views a day, we can get busy and do some real editing. Best Regards, Barbara (WVS) ✐  ✉ 20:06, 27 February 2018 (UTC)

Incredible...the prostate screening article is actually an anti-screening essay supported by terrible referencing. Ouch. Barbara (WVS) ✐  ✉ 20:55, 27 February 2018 (UTC)

BINGO. PRECISELY!! And given that I cannot deal with a chronic condition and have time to also fix the article, I hat-noted one article, that was removed, and the article was not fixed. Can this piecemeal semi-fix approach please stop? And there are so many MEDRS sources that are just ignored. I have a one-hour trip each way to hospital, and am too tired today to write more. The sources are out there to do this right, and most of you have better access to full-text of recent journal articles than I do. I do not have time or energy to fix this. The idea that we have any excuse for such bad text about a screening issue-- one that has kept physicians and patients alike from paying attention to valid combinations of PSA and DRE-- should be set aside, as we have a clear example of an entire suite of articles that is important and needs work. One in six men will get prostate cancer, PSA screening saves lives, and we have an anti-PSA-screed which amounts to cherry picking of one source, and poor contextual framing on other sources. I should not have to tell the personal details of how this came about in my case-- this should only be about reliable sources, and they are there. But I will come back another day and share the personal part so more of you might understand just how misleading our content is. Perhaps before I do that, some more medical editors will have taken the time to actually look up the dozens of recent reviews I was able to find, and get the full text of them. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:22, 27 February 2018 (UTC)

Sandy, in your honor and understanding the frustration of not being able to improve vital info when you can't, I'll take a stab at the other articles. Feel free to leave a 'to-do' list on my talk page that will help me prioritize those improvements that you feel are necessary. I feel like you have the 'bigger' picture and I don't. But I sure can put together an (imperfect) article with good referencing that others can edit and critique. Please be well. Best Regards, Barbara (WVS) ✐  ✉ 16:19, 28 February 2018 (UTC)

The Prostate cancer screening#Alternative techniques section is obsolete. There are new tests available. See here. The table summarizes the tests and indications. QuackGuru (talk) 21:49, 27 February 2018 (UTC)

@SandyGeorgia: terrible news and my condolences - prostate cancer is the start. We should make a hit list somewhere.....Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 23:33, 27 February 2018 (UTC)

Screening for prostate cancer using the DRE or PSA is controversial. Some reviews state it reduces mortality. Others do not. The 2012 USPSTF specific recommended against it. It appears they are softening that position in 2017/2018 but this remains in a draft. Yes Misplaced Pages sometimes lags behind. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 12:10, 28 February 2018 (UTC)

By the way cancer.org says as of Feb 6th 2018 "The issue of prostate cancer screening is controversial. In the United States, most prostate cancers are diagnosed as a result of screening, either with a PSA blood test or, less frequently, with a digital rectal examination. Randomized trials have yielded conflicting results. Systematic literature reviews and meta-analyses have reported no clear evidence that screening for prostate cancer decreases the risk of death from prostate cancer, or that the benefits outweigh the harms of screening."

Canadian Guidelines recommend against routine screening as of 2014 for all age groups.

A diagnosis of cancer is always terrible news. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 12:23, 28 February 2018 (UTC)

Made more terrible when diagnosis was delayed for four years because GP did not pay attention to regular and valid screening tools and information, meaning the cancer had time to progress when it could have been detected at a curable stage. (I put my personal story on Anthonyhcole's talk page, as it should not be part of this discussion.) There has long been MEDRS reliably sourced objections to the USPSTF (review posted at head of this section is useful-- please read full text).

The real issue here is the cherry picking and bias throughout out poorly written prostate cancer suite of articles. Misplaced Pages outright preferenced one source (a controversial one), to end up with an article that is an anti-screening essay, while ignoring many other reliable sources. Besides, that the main points of how to screen, when to screen, who to screen, how to correctly combine PSA and DRE into patient recommendations, are poorly covered to inaccurate. I hope you all are concerned, but past experience tells me ... to expect something different. I do appreciate any and all attempts to clean up these articles for the next guy. One in 6 men gets prostate cancer, so it will affect several of you here. Good luck. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:18, 28 February 2018 (UTC)

Ok, ready for an informal review of Prostate screening. Over 300 of you have already taken a look. It would be great to have all the comments above related to this topic appear on the article's talk page. I haven't been able to locate the "who to screen", "when to screen", and the combination of screening practices. From what I got from the sources is not crystal clear on this (no algorithm). If one type of screening indicates that there may be an issue, then screening continues to rule out prostate cancer or at least to stage it. Best Regards, Barbara (WVS) ✐  ✉ 16:09, 28 February 2018 (UTC)

I think that this group (taken as a whole/not every individual) appreciates the science-only POV of the USPSTF. One criticism of the USPSTF's recommendation is that it doesn't answer the "But now what?!" question. By law, they're not supposed to care whether they produce a recommendation in favor of anything. They're only supposed to say what has been proven, to a certain scientific standard, to work. When the answer is "nothing", then they recommend against everything. But if you're the clinician, "can't do anything – nothing is proven to work!" isn't functional. USPSTF's model is that if there are no double-blind randomized trials of parachute use, then they have to recommend against using parachutes due to insufficient evidence. This is why the USPSTF and clinician groups produce different guidelines. They're both right: the evidence for PSA tests alone is weak, the harms from testing are substantial – and "always do nothing for all men everywhere" isn't necessarily the best response. That kind of situation is why Shared decision-making in medicine is a thing. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:19, 28 February 2018 (UTC)

I cannot tell you all how much I appreciate the work. I disagree that USPSTF is "science-only"-- as the review I posted above indicates, their position is more likely driven by the economics. I understand there are a lot of Gleason 6 men running around hysterical, and a lot of unscrupulous practitioners willing to milk that cash cow, but that is NOT our situation. And I am in no (emotional) position to be involved in fixing these articles-- I am living the failure. We have yet to celebrate our fifth wedding anniversary. Four years ago, PSA screening DID detect my husband's cancer, and four years ago, his cancer was most likely treatable if not curable. Today, it is not (based on a number of factors and features, but I digress-- it was curable when GP ignored PSA). BOTH PSA and DRE DID DETECT the cancer, which GP ignored, because he was following USPSTF bullshit. All I ask is that our articles use all sources to cover the issue correctly and completely-- not cherrypick and overrely on one source. You will not find a urologist who discounts PSA screening to the extent that USPSTF recommendations advocated. USPSTF was a player in my husband's prognosis. Our articles can do a better job of covering the whole matter, and our articles did not do that previous to now. It would be much too upsetting for me to look in on those articles now, and I appreciate anyone who is trying to help. Wish I did not now understand prostate cancer as well as I do, but I do. As a patient living the nightmare, and as an editor with knowledge of our medical sourcing and neutrality policies, I find that our articles are (were) horrible. For a condition that will affect one in six men, that should bother us. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:55, 28 February 2018 (UTC)

The screening article now contains info on a variety of other diagnostic procedures. PSA testing may be controversial, but a digital exam done as a regular part of a check-up is still used along with advancements in imaging. Best Regards, Barbara (WVS) ✐  ✉ 23:44, 28 February 2018 (UTC)

"The Task Force does not consider the costs of a preventive service when determining a recommendation grade (A, B, C, D, or I). While the Task Force has congressional authority to review evidence related to cost-effectiveness, it excludes costs from its determination of the benefits and harms of a clinical preventive service. This deliberate decision was made to maintain a clear focus on the science of clinical effectiveness (i.e., "what works"), and not consider cost, in part to avoid any misperception that the Task Force's purpose is to limit health care based on cost."

I understand that the USPSTF's position is that the test hasn't been proven to have any net value and therefore shouldn't be performed (without individual reason, e.g., symptoms or family history). I don't believe that they've said the results should just be ignored after you've already run two tests and both came back positive.

I'm really sorry to read about what you're dealing with. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:59, 1 March 2018 (UTC)

See Prostate cancer. See here and here for changes and previous wording. One source failed verification and the current source says 69. Editors should be carful when adding more than one citation for each claim because different sources make different claims. It currently says "Informed decision making is recommended when it comes to screening among those 55 to 69 years old." It is sourced to the USPSTF. That seems controversial. Is there another source with better information? I found a list of prostate cancer screening guidelines by various organizations . QuackGuru (talk) 16:05, 28 February 2018 (UTC)

Your changes are tendentious as hell. Jytdog (talk) 05:58, 1 March 2018 (UTC)

I prefer the anti-screening stuff removed from the lead. See below for my review. QuackGuru (talk) 17:22, 1 March 2018 (UTC)

• It seems to me that part of the problem is that Prostate cancer screening, which refers to mass testing in a way that is currently not standard anywhere as far as I can see, is the only article, or decent section, that we have on the detection and diagnosis of prostate cancer. Indeed that article begins "Prostate cancer screening is the assessment and detection of prostate cancer in men", which is surely not a correct definition? That article is very largely about the pros and cons of having screening programmes, with very little about the interpretation of the results and follow-up. The diagnosis section at the main PC article seems pretty thin, and Prostate-specific antigen covers in some detail the use of PSA levels after a diagnosis (D'Amico Criteria etc), but has very little on how PSA contributes to diagnosis, just: "PSA levels between 4 and 10 ng/mL (nanograms per milliliter) are considered to be suspicious and consideration should be given to confirming the abnormal PSA with a repeat test. If indicated, prostate biopsy is performed to obtain tissue sample for histopathological analysis." Johnbod (talk) 15:14, 1 March 2018 (UTC)

• Another problem right now is that the prose at prostate cancer screening is quite problematic, borderline unintelligible in several places. There are multiple instances where I have no idea what the lead is attempting to say. I cannot outline those—I have been at the hospital every day this week, and am heading back. But there are significant enough prose problems that anyone should easily see them. I continue to say that articles on a highly traficced website that cannot present a minimum level of reliably sourced and decently written medical content should be gutted, so that readers will move on to the large numbers of reliable sources available. Misplaced Pages is not able to systematically produce reliable medical content. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:08, 1 March 2018 (UTC)

I appreciate the feedback, but the definition is difficult to nail down because the sources all say: "PSA"=Prostate cancer screening. Since there are other screening tests and exams available for detecting prostate cancer, I balk at the definition being only about PSA. All efforts to help with the article are appreciated. Best Regards, Barbara (WVS) ✐  ✉ 16:36, 2 March 2018 (UTC)

Lets review Prostate cancer:

• Current wording:

Prostate cancer screening is controversial. Prostate-specific antigen (PSA) testing increases cancer detection but it is controversial regarding whether it changes the risk of death from the disease. Informed decision making is recommended when it comes to screening among those 55 to 69 years old.

• Previous wording:

Early detection of prostate cancer via prostate cancer screening may help with prognosis and treatment before disease advances. Prostate-specific antigen (PSA) testing increases cancer detection but also increases unneeded subsequent testing and procedures due to false positives. As of 2013 it was unclear whether results of PSA testing change the risk of death from the prostate cancer. Broad use of prostate cancer screening resulted in a reduction in mortality. Informed decision making is recommended when it comes to screening among those 55 to 69 years old.

• The word controversial does not tell the reader much. Stating "controversial" even once is too much for the lead. It looks like a mini anti-screening essay is staying in the lead without any wiggle room for improvement. QuackGuru (talk) 17:22, 1 March 2018 (UTC)

This should really be taking place at the article on prostate cancer not here. Yes prostate cancer screening is controversial. Some well respected organizations recommend against screening. Others shared decision making with screening and no screening both being options as it is not clear what effect screening has.

This sentence is vague "Early detection of prostate cancer via prostate cancer screening may help with prognosis and treatment before disease advances". Many excellent sources says it is "unclear" if prostate cancer screening improves prognosis.

We often give US government sources a great deal of weight. In this instance we are giving weight to NCI and USPSTF. These conclusions are also supported by a bunch of review articles and the WHO.

Yes in the last couple of years some in the US mostly have advocated that we simple let patients decide if they want or do not want screening. The argument is not that screening would not help anyone (yes it would help some people) but it also harms some people. So at a population level it is unclear if it helps or harms more people. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 11:26, 2 March 2018 (UTC)

Individuals get tested. Population groups get screened. Let's stick to that distinction, or things get horribly confused. Johnbod (talk) 17:15, 2 March 2018 (UTC)

This can also be discussed here. Telling our readers that prostate cancer screening is controversial in the lead is a mini anti-screening essay in the lead. QuackGuru (talk) 17:05, 2 March 2018 (UTC)

What does that even mean? "Controversial" means there's views on both sides, which indeed seems to be case here. Alexbrn (talk) 17:08, 2 March 2018 (UTC)

What does that mean when I initially read it? It means testing for prostate cancer is controversial (not really necessary). Skipping testing is dangerous (and life-threatening). QuackGuru (talk) 23:10, 2 March 2018 (UTC)

Again, "testing" and "screening" are not the same thing. Testing is dangerous for some individuals (possible infection or damage from blood draws; needless biopsies in healthy people), and skipping testing is dangerous for other individuals (the fraction of people with cancer that would be discovered earlier by the test and that early discovery would change the actual outcome). Screening asymptomatic people, nearly all of whom don't have a given condition (and therefore have no possibility of receiving any benefit) can have more harms than benefits.

I think that some people might be interpreting the word controversial as meaning "bad". I don't think that's a fair interpretation, but it might be common. Maybe we could look for other ways of explaining it, such as "Researchers disagree about whether screening causes more harms than benefits". WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:34, 3 March 2018 (UTC)

Update

Ok all, I have made Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Medicine/Priority maintenance - everyone is welcome to add to it. Two categories so far - screening articles and (common) OTC meds. If someone wants to make more comprehensive tables I'd be grateful. This can then be updated over time. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 23:56, 27 February 2018 (UTC)

I agree that the parts of articles relating to before medical advice is sought should have the highest priority, but shouldn't we say diagnosis, signs and symptoms or something rather than screening, "a strategy used in a population to identify the possible presence of an as-yet-undiagnosed disease in individuals without signs or symptoms", which only applies to some diseases? Johnbod (talk) 15:50, 2 March 2018 (UTC)

Journey to GA

Please feel free to engage in the effort to prepare Vagina for its GA review. Current talk page discussions on proposed content are on the talk page. Best Regards, Barbara (WVS) ✐  ✉ 13:03, 2 March 2018 (UTC)

Note: The Vulva article is up for GA. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 00:53, 3 March 2018 (UTC)

Living review

I recently created this, as a WP:BCA. The term comes from Living Reviews journal series established in 1998, but it clearly is the same type of publication as the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews established earlier. Feel free to edit and update. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 16:25, 2 March 2018 (UTC)

Not the same, but similar. What is more important about Cochrane reviews than their being updated is that they are systematic reviews. Thanks, Carl Fredrik 18:39, 2 March 2018 (UTC)

Undisclosed Conflicts of Interests among Biomedical Textbook Authors.

Might be an interesting read for people here: PMID 29400625.
Includes Harrison's which I know I and many others use for referencing. Carl Fredrik 18:48, 2 March 2018 (UTC)

Yes it is a big issues not only here but within academia generally.Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 04:43, 3 March 2018 (UTC)

Childhood trauma

Some might want to review edits by Babblinon (talk · contribs), who created Misplaced Pages:WikiProject ChildhoodTrauma and Category:Trauma Types. The editor also tried to create the Childhood trauma article, but was reverted by L235. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 00:47, 3 March 2018 (UTC)

Constipation

What foods should I avoid and which are the best to include in my diet. I am 83 yrs old. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.110.47.215 (talk) 09:31, 3 March 2018 (UTC)