Template talk:Anatomy terms

Where in an article does this template go?

Does it belong at the top as a hatnote, in the see-also section, or at the bottom as a footnote (like stubs)? We should create some documentation for it. – voidxor ^{(talk | contrib)} 23:08, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

Used in the 'see also' section. --Tom (LT) (talk) 06:13, 21 February 2015 (UTC)

I've only seen it in the See also section, which is usually at the end of the article where this template isn't as helpful as it could be. Anyway, infoboxes link to Anatomical terminology, so I don't think they should be added to the See also section when there is an infobox present. --Tilifa Ocaufa (talk) 06:40, 21 February 2015 (UTC)

I've started a documentation page. Feel free to add to it and correct it as you see fit. I hardly ever touch medical articles, so you guys will know more about this template's usage than I do. – voidxor ^{(talk | contrib)} 06:48, 22 February 2015 (UTC)

I'm planning to have a go at this -/doc page in a few days' time. Anybody have any opinions? or thoughts? (Anybody wanna get in there first, before I do?)

At present we're in a right muddle with this template and its documentation (and nowt has got better in the last year). What we've got at present is a -/doc page saying the template "adds a hatnote" but also advising, in apparent contradiction, tht it should be placed "in the 'see also box'" of the article.

Both statements are of uncertain status and authority. The mention of hatnotes arose from something unrelated. (The decision had been taken to delete a category). The contrary instruction, to put it in the "'see also box'", is obscure (unless I'm being dense? what's a see also box?) - and again it got its start in iffy circumstances. ("See also" is mentioned in the first draft of the documentation - which was set up, evidently as a courtesy, by a user who originally wanted someone else to do it and remarked when he did it - see above - tht he "hardly ever touch[ed] medical articles", so "you guys will know more about this template's usage".)

As regards what the documentation should say - I can't see two sides to the argument. Quite rightly, the only opinion explicitly stated here about where the template should go - as opposed to where it does appear at present - favors somewhere earlier in the article. I've not seen any other discussion on this (but is that because I don't know where else to look?)

The point of the template is plainly to advise the reader startlng on the article. It has to be a hatnote type of thing (and yes, the See also kind of hatnote suggests what's needed). Functionally, the offer of help is useless anywhere near the bottom of the article. For practical purposes it might as well be omitted completely. And in terms of concept, the See also section at the end of the article has nothing going for it (let alone External links!! (external to what??)) Help with anatomical terms isn't something the interested reader might like to go on to look at after finishing the article. For the readers it's there for, it's something they're gna need if they're even to get to the end of the lede! <rant/>

- SquisherDa (talk) 18:08, 23 February 2020 (UTC)

@SquisherDa: as a hatnote, this blatantly goes against WP:RELATED. – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 18:29, 23 February 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for getting back on this. And I found myself wondering if hatnote guidelines might cause difficulty. But no, WP:RELATED is dealing with something different. "Disambiguation hatnotes are intended to link to separate topics that could be referred to by the same title" (my emphases): we're dealing with an article the reader may well need to refer to, or read in conjunction with the present article, to make any sense of it (not with an article tht may well be what the reader was looking for in the first place). It's more a See also kind of cross-reference, not a "See instead".

As a general thing, encyclopaedia articles normally should be free-standing, but in highly specialised areas this isn't attainable for the general reader. The problem the template is tackling is unusual and specialised; but it needs a solution - muddle-free - if the encyclopaedia is to cover this area of knowledge.

- SquisherDa (talk) 19:13, 23 February 2020 (UTC)

@SquisherDa: the solution is for writers to observe MOS:JARGON. – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 20:44, 23 February 2020 (UTC)

I certainly agree that proper implementation of MOS:JARGON should negate the need for this template, but good luck implementing that given the current self-serving nature of many medical editors.

@SquisherDa: To say that it's a hatnote that belongs in the see-also section isn't a contradiction at all; not all hatnotes belong at the top of articles. See {{See also}} and {{Main}}, for instance. Pending outcome of this discussion, I just revised "see also box" to "see-also section" in the meantime. – voidxor 23:13, 23 February 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for the ping, voidxor. I too have noticed how the placement seems to differ between articles. My personal feeling is that it's unnecessary to have it as a hatnote, and inconsistent with other WP articles (except for the template about Chinese surnames). I see it most useful as in the see also section as it's sort of a link to a related article to help readers understand the terminology that's used (and the reason for it). --Tom (LT) (talk) 10:26, 25 February 2020 (UTC)

As to your comment above the current self-serving nature of many medical editors I'd ask you to please assume good faith. Like you, I and other editors are human and turn up here to donate our time and effort to try and improve it so that our stored knowledge can be communicated to our readers. So I don't think that kind of comment is helpful and to be honest it's a little hurtful. I try as much as I can to communicate simply (see eg WP:ANATSIMPLIFY), however sometimes it's either not possible or requires a lot of effort and time. --Tom (LT) (talk) 10:26, 25 February 2020 (UTC)

@Tom (LT): To assume bad faith is to assume that somebody has bad intentions. That is not the case above. I'm frustrated by the direction that things are going, but I certainly am not asserting that anybody involved has bad intentions.

Let me start by explaining that I am not in the medical industry. In fifteen years of editing, I've increasingly seen medical articles hijacked by editors in the industry, academia, or research. Many such editors have adopted a "You don't have a medical background; you don't know what you're talking about," attitude toward the rest of us. I've pretty much stopped working on medical articles in the recent years because of it. Occasionally I still make a grammatical or formatting fix at the risk of being told, "That's not how we do things here." I get that Wikipedia has a possible liability of people taking medical advice from it instead of from their doctor, but I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about formatting and jargon and the general need (at least by some in the community) to suppress layman's terms.

For example, when I search for the name of a medication to see what it is used for, I'll get redirected from the drug's brand name to its molecular name (which is fine). Then, the lede sentence will start along the lines of, "Molecularname is a beta uptake antagonist..." Great, so I need an advanced pharmacy degree to read the lede. Moving on to Google or WebMD to answer my simple question... – voidxor 18:50, 25 February 2020 (UTC)

@voidxor - totally agree with you here - have had something similar to what you express above on my main page since 2015 (User:Tom_(LT)#2015). I often find articles are very incomprehensible and very difficult to parse - especially our large swathes of less loved material from Gray's Anatomy 1918 edition - and this is a strong factor that motivates my continued editing. Hope to see you around the traps :) --Tom (LT) (talk) 10:15, 26 February 2020 (UTC)

@Tom (LT): Thanks for your work in this area - and for joining this discussion. You've said you see the template as "most useful" in the See also section as "it's sort of a link to a related article to help readers understand the terminology that's used" . . but to my mind that reason, "link to a related article", is a reason leading to a different conclusion. In this context, I don't think of Anatomical terminology as (just) another article to check out. I think of it as a tool the reader needs, to get anywhere with the article they're already on.

It is an article , of course. And thinking of it that way makes the See also section the neatest place to put the cross-reference to it. (And that's probably a fairly prominent point to consider, for an article contributor, such as yourself? And of course the main thrust of your work on the problem lies in another direction.) Anyway, I can now see two sides to the argument!

I note tht you see it as "unnecessary" to have the template as a hatnote. You're very familiar with the terms, of course. But what made me join this thread is a very strong sense, as a reader, tht to be useful the template needs to be at the top. To me it still seems obvious tht (as mentioned in my rant) if it's going to be anywhere near the end of the article it might as well be omitted entirely.

So I'm grateful for everyone's contributions - and I quite see tht wider and better compliance with WP:JARGON would make the template less important - but I think the problem is here to stay, your essay does what can be done to avoid it, the template is the way to manage it so far as it's unavoidable, and for the template to achieve its aim it needs to be at the top of the article using it. I'm still thinking of amending the -/doc accordingly (in, again, a week or two's time, to draw further comment if any).

-- SquisherDa (talk) 03:06, 1 April 2020 (UTC)

@SquisherDa just to let you know - anatomical terminology and related templates (of neurology, etc.) are also linked to in the infoboxes of anatomy articles. With regard to placing it earlier in the articles - I cna't recall where, but I have had a past discussion and the actual barrier we hit was that it wasn't consistent with other (non anatomical) articles on Wikipedia. That said, I'd be happy to contribute to a discussion and am pretty enthusiastic about this topic as I sense you are :). Feel free to ping me or post at Wikiproject Anatomy if there are other ways I / the project can help out --Tom (LT) (talk) 07:37, 1 April 2020 (UTC)

Thanks, @Tom (LT):. I'll see what I can do to identify and engage with any issues around anatomy-article infoboxes and/or other related templates.

Consistency barrier: I'll try to identify this issue too - and establish how far it's similar to Finnusertop's point about WP:RELATED. Do you recall any other contributors tht were in the past discussion you mention? Or where such discussions might have been?

-- SquisherDa (talk) 08:49, 1 April 2020 (UTC)

Hiyall! Please be aware of proposed change to -/doc recommending placing Template:Anatomy terms at article head: discussion @Talk open for more contributions.

The terms template makes the reader of an anatomy article aware of help available, if needed, in the Anatomical terminology article. The proposal is to state in the template documentation tht the template should normally appear as an article hatnote - ie at the head of the article, not in a section. Note tht there's already a mention of the help article in inboxes, at the foot of the box. Comment welcome! - please add to the discussion above this subsection.

This subsection is essentially a list of people to notify, via pings tht will result (I hope!) from creating it. I've identified those people by checking out the locations mentioned. Can anyone locate an earlier discussion Tom (LT) has mentioned, concluding tht there would be a problem about consistency with other (non anatomical) articles on Wikipedia?

Here obviously, = Template talk:Anatomy terms

voidxor

Tom (LT)

me - here for completeness!

Finnusertop

User:Tom (LT)#2015

Nbauman

Template:Anatomy terms's history

Toccata quarta

GregorB

CFCF

Izkala

Feminist

Adrian J. Hunter

DocWatson42

Primefac

Comp.arch

A876

Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Anatomy/Archive 4#Link to terminology

LT910001

(The above list is deduplicated, so each contributor appears only under the location where first found).

-- SquisherDa (talk) 23:19, 2 April 2020 (UTC)

@Doc James: Adding you to the discussion since you are a major contributor to WikiProject Medicine. —DocWatson42 (talk) 02:06, 3 April 2020 (UTC)

Thanks Squisher. As a summary of the current situation, this template is usually included in the 'see also' section of articles, although sometimes it is placed as the very first hatnote of the entire article, and occasionally in references. I feel this template is useful and that it's important to help our readers navigate to somewhere they can understand the language of articles (although as mentioned above, myself and other editors are trying to simplify the language). In general I do think this should remain a hatnote that can be used (ie. I would oppose a deletion). I am not sure placement as the first thing in the lead is a good idea and it doesn't seem to be consistent with other articles that use technical language. However I'd like to hear what other editors think about the placement of this hatnote, and as I tend to edit in this area, my perspective about its use and placement is somewhat skewed, so I look forward to hearing a variety of voices. --Tom (LT) (talk) 06:23, 3 April 2020 (UTC)

Agree with User:Tom (LT). I think it is perfectly reasonable in the "see also" section.

For certain anatomy article, yah maybe okay as a hatnote but would generally use that sparingly. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 07:04, 3 April 2020 (UTC)

• Top of the article, though I'm open to changing my opinion. I reread this discussion and have been mulling it over for the last couple days. Takeaway points I'd like to convey include:
  • As somebody who's not a medical professional, I consider myself in the target demographic of this template. If an article contains enough jargon that it requires a "for help understanding this, see this article" template, it should be before the content in question. I rarely read beyond the lede of medical articles because I'm usually only seeking a cursory summary of a term that I don't know.
  • Semantically, not all hatnotes are placed at the top of articles; some are placed at the top of sections. Examples of the latter include {{Main}}, {{Further}}, and {{See also}}. While that doesn't affect the direction of this discussion, I'd caution against falsely equating "hatnote" with "top of the article".
  • To the point about WP:RELATED, I don't interpret that guideline as saying we can't place this template at the top of the article. For one, this isn't a disambiguation hatnote. Secondly, Anatomical terminology is not going to be related to the articles on which this template is used, as much as it is a primer that some readers will require to better follow along.
  • I wholeheartedly agree that this template should not be necessary, per MOS:JARGON and WP:ANATSIMPLIFY. It's a workaround, not a solution. The solution is to simplify, introduce (e.g. using parenthesis), and link the terminology, as so: "The lower teeth are held in place by the jawbone (mandible)," or the opposite "...mandible (jawbone)."
  • This template may have value tracking which articles need their terminology simplified. The transclusion list could be used. Would it be prudent to have it add articles to a maintenance category, just as {{Technical}} adds articles to Category:Wikipedia articles that are too technical? – voidxor 01:22, 4 April 2020 (UTC)