Talk:British Nuclear Medicine Society

Content deleted

Hi @Beevil:, Hope you are doing well. Thanks for contributing to BNMS and EANM articles.

BNMS: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Nuclear_Medicine_Society

EANM: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Association_of_Nuclear_Medicine

I noticed that you had removed a list of publications from EANM and BNMS article. The reasons for removal were: "Reorganised activities to prose, removed contributions to society section as it sounds non-neutral and is effectively a bibliography of BNMS, and tangentially related, publications" AND "Removal of "Contributions to Society" section - the heading alone doesn't seem neutral or encyclopaedic, and the content itself is essentially a bibliography and collection of citations, not what Wikipedia is for"

I agree with you that "Contributions to Society" section does not seem neutral. Would it be appropriate to the section "Publications by BNMS" and "Publications by EANM". You also mentioned that it is inappropriate to list a bibliography. However, why does it appear to be acceptable to list bibliography in the middle of biography but not for other articles? I have listed here a few examples as the complete list is very long.

If it is just the presentation of the removed content, then I am happy to rewrite it so that some of the material can be added back to the article. I also think that some of the content could be moved to the history section. I welcome your comments and ideas on it.

Thank you Earthianyogi (talk) 11:48, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

@Earthianyogi: I would say that examples of something existing in other articles isn't necessarily evidence that it's a good thing or worthy of including (see Wikipedia:Other stuff exists). Having said that, I have looked at the examples you included. I note that all of these examples are individuals rather than professional organistions, and the majority have short lists of 4-8 works. One of the two with very long lists is already tagged with a template referencing the external links policy, I think the other relevant policy is that wikipedia is not a directory. Not to do a Wikipedia:Other stuff exists myself, but I would suggest more comparable articles are organisations like the ICRP, British Institute of Radiology, SNMMI and Royal College of Radiologists, none of which have comparable sections (though are by no means without issues of their own).

Personally I think these sections aren't useful, and add a lot of fluff (especially for subjects such as these where it's hard to find good references and the content is naturally fairly brief). If someone wants to see the publications from these organisations, their own websites are better suited to finding and organising them. I wouldn't expect for an encyclopedia article on an organisation which has a major function of producing guidance and documentations, to list those publications, unless one had been particularly controversial/impactful (e.g. talked about in non-industry sources). It just feels like documenting the basic work of the organisation in a way that doesn't really benefit anyone reading the article. You also end up with a lot of self-references, or references to publications which don't really discuss the subject in any detail.

I don't have specific wikipedia policy or guidance to fully back that view up, and if you want to restore the deleted sections or adapt them I won't be removing them again. Beevil (talk) 12:37, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

Editing to add: I realise the above was quite general, regardless of whether the type of section as a whole is appropriate for these articles I think there were also specific issues with the included items. For example from the BNMS article, items such as;

In 2020, ARSAC Support Unit, Centre for Radiation, Chemical and Environmental Hazards, Public Health England, published notes written by the members of the Administration of Radioactive Substances Advisory Committee, that highlighted valuable resources published by BNMS as guidance for what constitutes sufficient for a Medical Physics Expert (MPE) to hold a licence.

seem disproportionate to the amount and type of coverage in the ARSAC guidance (the extent of which is "Guidance on what constitutes sufficient support has been published by ... the British Nuclear Medicine Society (BNMS) ...") (also "valuable" sounds promotional here).

Another line is simply stating that a write up of a conference session was published (I think the term "review" is incorrect here, the session itself is described as an "invited review interactive session")

In 2000, Hogg et al., wrote a review about the interactive session they had at the BNMS Brighton's meeting to discuss the extent of delegation of medical duties to non-medical health care staff.

Another item about a survey undertaken in 1979 just doesn't seem to add much to the article. I could understand if this were used as a reference for a sentence describing the type of work the BNMS does more generally, but not as a specific point itself

In 1979, a survey by BNMS identified an issue with the level of training provided to clinicians, who were providing service to the public.

Many of the included items aren't particularly notable, and I don't see why attention should be drawn to them in particular (not that I'd prefer a comprehensive list of both organisations' publications and citations!). Hope this helps make my thought process in removing the sections slightly clearer. Beevil (talk) 13:18, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

Commment I see Beevil's edits as very positive. This is what happens in Wikipedia articles: someone who is keen about a subject (Earthanyogi) comes along and they create an article. They will often include too much material. Another editor comes along and trims it to a more encyclopedic standard. The problems with the bibliography of "contributions to society" are numerous, and Beevil has listed many of them above. Mainly though, we write articles that contain the important things; we don't write articles that contain material that promotes any organization in a subjective manner. The biblio is not important to general readers, and its sole purpose seems to be to promote the importance of a marginally notable organization. The removal of this section was a valid edits that improved the neutrality of the articles, and the removed material should not be restored. ThatMontrealIP (talk) 13:28, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

@Beevil:, Thanks. I get your point; however, these articles (below) have sections that mention publications, which you already noticed "though are by no means without issues of their own". Also, "the invited review interactive session" is still a "review" of the latest and cutting-edge research presented at a conference conducted by experts in the field, so it is absolutely "correct". I think a new editor's perspective may be slightly biased based on various reasons. It takes time to learn anything new. I already acknowledged in my message that "contributions to society" is not a neutral heading. The point I take from it is that only notable content should to be added, for example, the "Publication 1" of an organisation, or if there was a controversy about an article written by an organisation. I wouldn't add all the content back, but I will re-read the deleted content, and see if there is anything notable that can be added back, with consensus, of course.

short list
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Commission_on_Radiological_Protection#%22Publication_1%22 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Institute_of_Radiology#Publications

Earthianyogi (talk) 14:14, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

@Earthianyogi: My apologies, I had somehow completely missed the Publications section in the BIR article. However, apart from being badly formatted and fitting some of the points outlined above, it appears to have been edited by an account with a clear conflict of interest. Prior to that it was just a list of the BIR published journals, the BNMS journal is still mentioned in this article Beevil (talk) 14:29, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

@Beevil:, Thank you. I fully appreciate (Wikipedia:Other stuff exists); however, I have another question. Why were the following articles accepted on the basis of meeting the notable/visibility condition? I have listed here a few examples as the complete list is very long. Any thoughts? :@ThatMontrealIP:, your comments are also welcome.

Earthianyogi (talk) 14:36, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

@Earthianyogi:, It's just a case of WP:otherstuffexists. Wikipedia is not perfect. This page is for discussing this article. ThatMontrealIP (talk) 14:59, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

@Beevil:, :@ThatMontrealIP:: I thought so, and that it is not a directory, until I found these pages (are these articles?), which leave me slightly confused. A short-list is presented here ...

Earthianyogi (talk) 08:31, 5 June 2020 (UTC)

Please learn how to use a list in a post. (look up bulleted list). ThatMontrealIP (talk) 13:45, 5 June 2020 (UTC)

See above. I hope it helps. Earthianyogi (talk) 14:25, 5 June 2020 (UTC)