DrMemar
Welcome to Wikipedia from the Wikiproject Medicine!
editWelcome to Wikipedia from Wikiproject Medicine (also known as WPMED).
We're a group of editors who strive to improve the quality of content about health here on Wikipedia, pursuing the mission of Wikipedia to provide the public with articles that present accepted knowledge, created and maintained by a community of editors.
One of our members has noticed that you are interested in editing medical articles; it's great to have a new interested editor on board!
First, some basics about editing Wikipedia, which is a strange place behind the scenes; you may find some of the ways we operate to be surprising. Please take your time and understand how this place works. Here are some useful links, which have information to help editors get the most out of Wikipedia:
- Everything starts with the mission - the mission of Wikipedia is to provide the public with articles that summarize accepted knowledge, working in a community of editors. (see WP:NOT)
- We find "accepted knowledge" for biomedical information in sources defined by WP:MEDRS -- we generally use literature reviews published in good journals or statements by major medical or scientific bodies and we generally avoid using research papers, editorials, and popular media as sources for such content. We read MEDRS sources and summarize them, giving the most space and emphasis (what we call WP:WEIGHT) to the most prevalent views found in MEDRS sources.
- Please see WPMED's "how to" guide for editing content about health
- More generally please see The five pillars of Wikipedia and please be aware of the "policies and guidelines" that govern what we do here; these have been generated by the community itself over the last fifteen years, and you will need to learn them (which is not too hard, it just takes some time). Documents about Wikipedia - the "back office" - reside in "Wikipedia space" where document titles are preceded by "Wikipedia:" (often abbreviated "WP:"). WP space is separate from "article space" (also called "mainspace") - the document at WP:CONSENSUS is different from, and serves as a different purpose than, the document at Consensus.
Every article and page in Wikipedia has an associated talk page, and these pages are essential because we editors use them to collaborate and work out disagreements. (This is your Talk page, associated with your user page.) When you use a Talk page, you should sign your name by typing four tildes (~~~~) at the end of your comment; the Wikipedia software will automatically convert that into links to your Userpage and this page and will add a datestamp. This is how we know who said what. We also "thread" comments in a way that you will learn with time. Please see the Talk Page Guidelines to learn how to use talk pages.
- Thanks for coming aboard! We always appreciate a new editor. Feel free to leave us a message at any time on our talk page. If you are interested in joining the project yourself, there is a participant list where you can sign up. You can also just add our talk page to your watchlist and join in discussions that interest you. Please leave a message on the WPMED talk page if you have any problems, suggestions, would like review of an article, need suggestions for articles to edit, or would like some collaboration when editing!
- The Wikipedia community includes a wide variety of editors with different interests, skills, and knowledge. We all manage to get along through a lot of discussion that happens under the scenes and through the bold, edit, discuss editing cycle. If you encounter any problems, you can discuss it on an article's talk page or post a message on the WPMED talk page.
Feel free to drop a note below if you have any questions or problems. I wish you all the best here in Wikipedia!
Further note about sourcing health content, and formatting citations
editThe three most important documents cited above are WP:MEDRS (about sourcing), WP:MEDMOS (the style guide) and WP:MEDHOW (lots of important/helpful tips).
The note below has a bit more information about MEDRS and MEDHOW, but there is no substitute for reading them. :)
Thank you for contributing to Wikipedia. Remember that when adding content about health, please only use high-quality reliable sources as references. We typically use review articles, major textbooks and position statements of national or international organizations (There are several kinds of sources that discuss health: here is how the community classifies them and uses them). WP:MEDHOW walks you through editing step by step. A list of resources to help edit health content can be found here. The edit box has a built-in citation tool to easily format references based on the PMID or ISBN.
- While editing any article or a wikipage, on the top of the edit window you will see a toolbar which says "cite" click on it
- Then click on "templates",
- Choose the most appropriate template and fill in the details beside a magnifying glass followed by clicking said button,
- If the article is available in Pubmed Central, you have to add the pmc parameter manually -- click on "show additional fields" in the template and you will see the "pmc" field. Please add just the number and don't include "PMC".
We also provide style advice about the structure and content of medicine-related encyclopedia articles. The welcome page is another good place to learn about editing the encyclopedia. If you have any questions, please feel free to drop me a note. Jytdog (talk) 05:26, 20 November 2018 (UTC)
Reference spamming
editHello, DrMemar. We welcome your contributions, but it appears as if your primary purpose on Wikipedia is to add citations to research published by a small group of researchers.
Scientific articles should mainly reference review articles to ensure that the information added is trusted by the scientific community. Adding citations to research papers published by you or your colleagues can also violate the policy against adding original research to Wikipedia articles.
Editing in this way is also a violation of the policy against using Wikipedia for promotion and is a form of conflict of interest in Wikipedia -- please see WP:SELFCITE and WP:MEDCOI. The editing community considers excessive self-citing to be form of spamming on Wikipedia (WP:REFSPAM) and the edits will be reviewed and the citations removed where it was not appropriate to add them.
Finally, please be aware that the editing community highly values expert contributors - please see WP:EXPERT. I do hope you will consider contributing more broadly. If you wish to contribute, please first consider citing review articles written by other researchers in your field and which are already highly cited in the literature. If you wish to cite your own research, please start a new thread on the article talk page and add {{requestedit}} to ask a volunteer to review whether or not the citation should be added.
Jytdog (talk) 20:44, 30 November 2018 (UTC)
- Dear Jytdog, thank you for your comments, however, my additions to the Mohs Surgery page have been removed. My addition was to inform the different ways physicians become Mohs surgeons in the United States. The American Society for Mohs Surgery is an important educational society. I am at a loss why that information is considered not important! — Preceding unsigned comment added by DrMemar (talk • contribs) 18:17, 1 December 2018 (UTC)
- Thanks for replying! Quick note on the logistics of discussing things on Talk pages, which are essential for everything that happens here. In Talk page discussions, we "thread" comments by indenting (see WP:THREAD) - when you reply to someone, you put a colon in front of your comment, which the Wikipedia software will render into an indent when you save your edit; if the other person has indented once, then you indent twice by putting two colons in front of your comment, which the WP software converts into two indents, and so on, and when that gets ridiculous you reset back to the margin (or "outdent") by putting this {{od}} in front of your comment. Threading/indenting also allows you to make it clear if you are also responding to something that someone else responded to if there are more than two people in the discussion; in that case you would indent the same amount as the person just above you in the thread. I hope that all makes sense.
- Also, at the end of the comment, please "sign" by typing exactly four (not 3 or 5) tildas ~~~~ which the WP software converts into a date stamp and links to your talk and user pages when you save your edit.
- Threading and signing, are how we know who said what to whom and when.
- Please be aware that threading and signing are fundamental etiquette here, as basic as "please" and "thank you", and continually failing to thread and sign communicates rudeness, and eventually people may start to ignore you (see here).
- I know this is unwieldy, but this is the software environment we have to work on. Will reply on the substance in a second... Jytdog (talk) 18:23, 1 December 2018 (UTC)
- Thanks again for replying. Your edit violated several of our policies. Would you please review the introduction information posted above (really, please do read the messages above, and the links within them)? Also if you some connection with The American Society for Mohs Surgery, please disclose it. Thanks. Jytdog (talk) 18:26, 1 December 2018 (UTC)