Craigsjones

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Hello, Craigsjones, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are some pages that you might find helpful:

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I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your messages on discussion pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically insert your username and the date. If you need help, check out Wikipedia:Questions, ask me on my talk page, or ask your question on this page and then place {{helpme}} before the question. Again, welcome! JFW | T@lk 05:44, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

NAFLD

Please see my comments on Talk:Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. JFW | T@lk 05:44, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

In general, could you try not to make your contributions look like they are snippets from news articles? News sources are interesting, but in the end it is much more helpful if you provide a reference to the original study (usually easily found with Pubmed by typing in the surname of the principal investigator and the year of publication). JFW | T@lk 05:46, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Again, please avoid news sources for this kind of information, as you did on subarachnoid hemorrhage. The article presently cites a study that takes a worldwide view, and to have separate entries for each group in the population is unhelpful. JFW | T@lk 14:36, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Again... use of news sources

I find it hard to understand that you continue to make additions sources to news collections on the internet. I appreciate you try to include citations to the primary studies where possible, but which encyclopedia in the world is built entirely on bits of newsprint?

If you are fascinated by a topic you read about on Eurekalert or Newswise, it is much more advisable to post a message on the talk page of the relevant article and explain why this new discovery might be worth including. Alternatively, you could familiarise yourself a bit more with the topic and make a contribution that does not depend on the news source for its verifiability.

You would do well to familiarise yourself with our reliable sources policy. This week's Wikipedia SignPost carries a very good article on the importance of reliable sources: Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2008-06-26/Dispatches.

Let me know if you have any questions. JFW | T@lk 14:30, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for the feedback and thank you for directing me to the informative Wikipedia SignPost. I have been trying to learn to use Wikipedia well and appropriately, and to be a good contributor.

While I appreciate your due diligence, I respectfully disagree with your assessment of my additions to Wikipedia entries. My sources are entirely verifiable and pass the standards written in the "Reliable sources" section. Newswise and Eurekalert and other online information resources other than Wikipedia contain useful reference material. I don't see anything in Wikipedia suggesting that it allows only citations to academic journals.

The articles on Newswise come directly from the studies' authors or affiliations. They are not "news items" written by journalists for journalism publications but are source material directly from the institutional bodies or organizations conducting research. In addition, they provide greater detail than the abstracts provided by PubMed, including quotes from researchers. They are perfectly suitable for Wikipedia users to verify that the information in the Wikipedia entry is complete and accurate.

Isn't the point of an online encyclopedia is to have access to the LATEST credible research and information on a given topic, as opposed to a "stagnant" textbook that provides general knowledge? I assure you, I would never purposely add anything to Wikipedia that wasn't verified by legitimate, peer-reviewed sources -- unlike several of the entries I've come across in my years of reading Wikipedia. In fact, I think I'm adding something truly useful for the knowledge-seeking public. Craigsjones (talk) 20:14, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

I think you have missed my point. It is not the information you are adding, but it's the style and the sourcing I am concerned about. When you add a "recent find" from Eurekalert or Newswise, you must keep in mind the flow of the article you are editing. At the moment, your contributions take the form of "oh, and while we're at it, this most amazing discovery was made five minutes ago - we don't know for sure if it applies to people because the experiment was conducted on slices of rat brain, but the study's main investigator is very excited and hopes this will increase his funding". In the long run, the information given by investigator in "news" items tends to be highly speculative and badly failing our verifiability policy.

It is not the point of Wikipedia to have access to "the LATEST credible research and information". Obviously it is not meant to be stagnant, but very often the very latest findings, especially when only experimental or (with pharmaceuticals) in phase I or II study, tend to have little impact in real life and may disappear off the radar just as easily. I can give you a few real-life examples (e.g. the dichloroacetic acid saga), but we have been completely vindicated in this approach on several occasions. JFW | T@lk 06:31, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

Hi there, JFW asked mw to comment here, as one of the authors of the article he linked to above. I do agree that newspape artcles are OK as sources (although they are not really as good as going to see what a researcher actually said in their paper). However, the thing to realise about the breaking edge of research is that much of it will be totally wrong, not apply to people, or badly misinterpreted. Putting such "speculative" findings in articles takes a good deal of care.

For instance PMID 15785770 appeared a radical breakthrough in our understanding of genetics, suggesting widespread non-DNA based inheritance and that organisms could somehow "remember" which genes they had in the past. At the time in 2005, it would have been OK to add this to the Arabidopsis article, and but probably not rewrite the main genetics article, since the result hadn't been confirmed. Indeed, when people tried to confirm it, it turned out to be an artefact (PMID 17006468). You've just got to treat current science with real care. Tim Vickers (talk) 15:28, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

Please review my comments above

I am actually surprised that despite my requests above you continue to use Newswise news items as sources. It is really not hard to find the original study instead of linking to news content, using Pubmed or Google, and providing appropriate references. Please justify your approach. I am strongly contemplating a request for comments. JFW | T@lk 06:18, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

Why are you getting on my case? I noticed that the Dementia entry has sources other than Pubmed citations. Why are citations 21 to 24 acceptable? A citation from BBC NEWS isn't a "news item," using your terms? I think I have justified my approach in my response above. These are REAL relevant studies I've been adding.CSJ (talk) 13:33, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm not "getting on your case" other than that you are editing articles on subjects that I have an interest in. I agree that dementia has other sources, and these should be replaced; that does not open the way for similar references.

Whether the studies are REAL or relevant can usually only be established where there are secondary sources available. See WP:MEDRS for explanations. If a study is indeed relevant, doesn't it make much more sense to provide a direct reference to the scientific journal in which that study was published, or a website that regurgitates "news". JFW | T@lk 15:45, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

Alzheimer's disease

I reverted this edit for several reasons. First, we shouldn't use news sources in medical articles per WP:MEDRS. The original, peer-reviewed source was easily obtained. Second, the statement is already within the article, and there's no reason to add weight to a measure that isn't going to actually prevent the disease. Finally, please review WP:CITET; this article is an featured article, and much work was invested by several editors to clean up the references. Please take all of this as advice and not as a criticism of your actual edit. OrangeMarlin ^{Talk• Contributions} 07:36, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

October 2011

Hello Craigsjones. I notice there is a "Craig Jones" working for Newswise. If you are affiliated with some of the people, places or things you have written about in the article Suicide, you may have a conflict of interest. In keeping with Wikipedia's neutral point of view policy, edits where there is a conflict of interest, or where such a conflict might reasonably be inferred, are strongly discouraged. If you have a conflict of interest, you should avoid or exercise great caution when:

1. editing or creating articles related to you, your organization, or its competitors, as well as projects and products they are involved with;
2. participating in deletion discussions about articles related to you, your organization or its competitors; and
3. linking to the Wikipedia article or website of your organization in other articles (see Wikipedia:Spam).

Please familiarize yourself with relevant policies and guidelines, especially those pertaining to neutral point of view, verifiability of information, and autobiographies.

For information on how to contribute to Wikipedia when you have a conflict of interest, please see our frequently asked questions for organizations. Thank you. Shakehandsman (talk) 02:48, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

ArbCom elections are now open!

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