Tellingtales

Talk here, friends.tellingtales 06:50, 2 March 2017 (UTC)

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Conflict of interest

If you have a relationship than you probably have a conflict of interest. If you are paid in anyway, then you have to disclose that. Read WP:COI and WP:COIPAYDISCLOSE. Thanks. Doug Weller talk 15:37, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

Yes, I confess to further criminality. I am paid. Who else is going to update the page? No one! It's atrocious that it is so outdated and obviously until I started updating it no one has touched it for years. Is it really better to have outdated material on Wikipedia than to have it updated by someone who has been writing about it and all the projects for three years? Who else updates similar pages? It must be employees or it would never get done. tellingtales 18:05, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

I have added a response in the Talk section of the actual page. tellingtales 18:44, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

Notice of Conflict of interest noticeboard discussion

There is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Conflict of interest/Noticeboard regarding a possible conflict of interest incident with which you may be involved. Thank you. I've raised your edits there as I think you need counseling by editors who work more with the problems of conflict of interest than I do. Doug Weller talk

Thanks. tellingtales 21:38, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

@Doug Weller I have still not heard from anyone who is willing to review my edits of the page. tellingtales 23:14, 23 March 2017 (UTC)

Discussion about COI issues

Hi Tellingtales. I worked on COI issues in academia for about 15 years and have also worked on them extensively here in WP. I hope you will be open to further discussion.

Wikipedia highly values contributions by subject matter experts; at the same time, experts have some special challenges when they first start editing here. Please see the essay with advice for experts, WP:EXPERTS, which discusses both sides of that coin.

One of the challenges is related to conflicts of interest (COI). I reckon you are very familiar with that concept -- it is very common in academia, at least -- but it has some interesting twists here in Wikipedia, since:

• a) WP articles aren't signed - this is nothing like a journal article, book chapter, or normal signed encyclopedia entry. Readers have no way of knowing who what wrote what, without doing a lot of digging around in the history. This lack of clear disclosure of authorship and the affiliation of authors, makes it all the more important that we actually manage COI.
• b) People who edit Wikipedia directly publish their edits, with no mediation (no publisher, no peer review - just direct publication).

Wikipedia is a scholarly project. Per WP:NOT, one of the foundational principles here, we aim to provide the public with accepted knowledge that is well-sourced, NPOV, and yes, up-to-date.

So - it is essential that we, the community, manage COI to ensure the integrity of Wikipedia and retain the public's trust in it. As in academia, COI is managed here in two steps - disclosure and a form of peer review.

You have disclosed your connection with the Center, so disclosure is pretty much done. (but again, that is really something for other editors)

Peer review step. What we ask editors with a COI to do, is offer suggestions on the Talk page for others to review instead of directly editing the article. Going forward, please do not directly edit articles where you have a COI, but rather offer suggestions at the article's Talk page. You can do that easily - and provide notice to the community of your request - by using the "edit request" function as described in the conflict of interest guideline. There is a section at the bottom of the mustard-colored box at the top of the Talk page - there is a link at "click here" in that section. If you click that, the Wikipedia software will automatically format a section in which you can make your request. Would you please do that going forward?

Also, a wikipedia article is not an extension of any organization's website. (see WP:PROMO -- really please see that). We always look for independent sources - a whole section or article sourced from an organization's website is a pretty clear sign that COI editing has taken place and the article is unlikely to be neutral.

Please let me know if you are willing to post changes on talk pages for peer review, and if you understand why we look for independent sources instead of using some one's, or some organization's or company's, website.

I am happy to talk, if you have any questions or want to discuss anything, you can write them below. I will see your remarks. Jytdog (talk) 20:04, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

Hello

This is fine with me -- I do not have a problem with this. I had a problem with feeling like I was under attack and being accused in an extremely unfriendly and negative manner. The initial threats to revoke editing privileges were counter productive in my view and I was trying to figure out how to change my username and delete the account. It was so complex I didn't have time to figure it out, but I also thought that it was wrong to allow myself to be bullied out of this environment. I wrote something yesterday on another talk page about this and I will repeat some of it here.

The information I have provided is not opinionated, but based on fact from the citations. Obviously, the presence of "fake facts" can be assumed. To me, it makes more sense for Wikipedia editors to productively rebut than to randomly delete and accuse. I'm not a scholar, I'm a journalist, so I understand objectivity. Although I am currently in the employ of this non-profit organization, I have no urge to twist the facts.

I never said or indicated that I was not open to anyone critiquing or changing anything I had added and while I understand you obviously have an extremely narrow window in which you place

The page has been left woefully outdated, so I decided to update it. That is it. The page said that it is funded by the Rockefellers and the EC, which is absolutely not true. Over the many years of its existence the funding has changed and while the Rockefellers initially funded it, they haven't for many many years. That is something that I have tried to correct. Additionally, there was no mention of the director general, no mention of the significant scientist or scientific work. I set up the awards section to feature some of those scientists who have played a key role in the world of maize and wheat. I could have/or someone could change it from "Awards" to "significant contributors" or some such. Instead, the entire section was deleted and I was accused of copyright infringement. Like it or not, these are significant scientists who have played a major role in changing the way these crops are/can be produced.

The programs have changed and expanded and the center is involved in many more cross-cutting initiatives via the CGIAR. Of course, writing about such things could be considered promotional, but that is not my intention behind sharing knowledge. In fact, as I'm sure you well know, sharing information can have negative consequences.

I am not a bot. I am a human being. If this is really an open forum, then it behooves us all to look at the positives rather than turning everything into a negative.

I realize that there is a very narrow window for copyright infringement in this forum, but drastically threatening to remove editor privileges is not helpful. It seems much more productive to simply explain the error as @Doug Weller did, so that I can revise the text.

Otherwise, a simple next interpretation of a copyright infringement on the part of your editors means I'll have to stop editing the page. If that is really what you want, then I would prefer that you just say so directly rather than offering up hostility. No wonder it is so outdated. Who dares to update it?

Your copy and paste software detected that I had copied and pasted some material from the website, which I had written and which is standard boilerplate intended for such purposes. I didn't think about the fact that the website says it is copyrighted and I had written it myself, rearranging and truncating some of it.

Editors also made some ludicrous deletions, including regarding funders and other items which could never come under any kind of copyright infringement whatsoever. I think that such editors should actually read what they are deleting and understand whether they are actually copyright infringements before making accusations and randomly deleting information. To state the academic background of the directors general is hardly biased. I had sourced to a variety of places, including universities, CVs.

I was charged with using only one source for the citations, but this is and was not true, except in cases where it had to come from the primary source because obviously only the primary source is an authority on certain topics -- such as funders, for example. In some cases, however, it is possible to find some funders admitting they fund, so I began the process of adding links to those sources.

Obviously, there is lots to be said on these topics to do with wheat and maize, and internationally many people find agriculture, particularly wheat, controversial. Maize is also an extremely controversial topic, but for other reasons. Let's not lose sight of the fact that the page should be updated regardless of personal opinion and views. There are all kinds of interesting aspects to the topics, but I see none of them presented here.

Furthermore, I notice that other Wikipedia pages are updated by only one main source and often cite only one source so I wonder why there is a double standard. I looked at the other pages to do with similar organizations and see that they are either sourced to the center's site or even blatantly updated by someone at the center, but no one has reprimanded them as far as I can tell.

Anyway, I think it would be beneficial to hear what you would want to see on the page and I can make a list of what I think needs to be there and someone can pre-approve rather than grandiosely post-disapprove.

In fact, I tried to request that someone take a look at the overall CGIAR page. The name changed again to CGIAR System Organization from the official name of Consortium of International Agricultural Research Centers (CGIAR) on November 21, 2016. I've added a link to the official document confirming it.. It's now considered an "independent international organization" and is intended to succeed in title the Consortium of International Research Centers established in 2010 as a "contractual joint venture" by the 15 centers. Someone might want to update this...

And the reason for the name change is that the governance structure was changed in June 2016, which is linked from the bottom of this page http://www.cgiar.org/about-us/our-governance/

http://www.cgiar.org/about-us/our-governance/system-organization/

http://library.cgiar.org/handle/10947/2592

http://library.cgiar.org/bitstream/handle/10947/4371/CGIAR%20System%20Framework%20-%20WEB.pdf?sequence=4

And who is to say that everyone isn't biased anyway? I could have kept concealed the fact that I work there or I could even be lying about it and you would not know either way. tellingtales 21:24, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for replying! Quick note on the logistics of discussing things on Talk pages (like this one), which are essential for everything that happens here. In Talk page discussions, we "thread" comments by indenting - when you reply to someone, you put a colon ":" in front of your comment, and the WP software converts that into an indent; if the other person has indented once, then you indent twice by putting two colons "::" which the WP software converts into two indents, and when that gets ridiculous you reset back to the margin (or "outdent") by putting this {{od}} in front of your comment. This 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. This, along with signing with four tildas, which you already know how to do, is how other editors know who said what to whom. I know this is insanely archaic and unwieldy, but this is the software environment we have to work on. Sorry about that. Will reply on the substance in a second... Jytdog (talk) 21:29, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

OK, I took some time, and read your reply a couple of times.

First, there is a lot in what you wrote that is reactive -- about how you feel about how you were treated -- as you acknowledged in your first paragraph. I don't want to belabor this but I reviewed everything, and what happened was entirely appropriate. There is zero tolerance for copyright violations, and your copyright-violating edits were removed, simply, without any vituperative comments. Other interactions folks have had with you were simple and direct. You were treated like any other person -- like any other editor.

All I can say is that there is a learning curve to working in WP (simple things like signing and indenting, basic scholarship like not plagiarizing or violating copyright, and lots of other stuff -- more on that below) and if you are going to be defensive, that is just going to get in the way of you accomplishing your goals here. If suggestions you make to change content are not accepted, ask why and try to learn, and don't have a cow. Really - nobody here has treated you like you are not a person, or "attacked" you, in any way. Having your edits removed is not being attacked - it just means you don't know what you are doing yet. So - please focus on the work.

Second, about Wikipedia generally. Articles get created because someone has an interest in the topic, and are maintained and improved (or vandalized, or just messed up) likewise. Any article is only as good or bad as the last editor who worked on it made it. There is no Chief Editor who ensures that everything is up to snuff.

In the case of the Center article, if you look at the history of the article (available through the "View History" tab near the top of the page), and expand that view to see 500 edits, you find this. It was created by Hajor; that editor was active from 2002-2005 and seemed to write about lots of South American topics. (see their contributions - you can see anyone's "contribs" via a link under "tools" on the far left side of any User talk page or Userpage) - and at the bottom of contribs page, you can see a link to "Edit count" which provides a nice overview of what someone has done here - here is the Edit Count page for that editor). You can also see from the article history that few people have worked on it. You can also review editing statistics for any page in WP through a tool that you can find in "page information" under "tools" in the menu to the left. here are the "Revision history statistics" for the Center article. (the link is at the very bottom of the Page Information page) You can see there have only been 179 edits, ever made to the article. Not well travelled.

Third, and to the heart of matter of why I am talking with you. Having a direct interest - a conflict of interest - is certainly one kind of interest that brings people to a given WP article. (Just yesterday I interacted with two people who have your role at drug companies). It is great that you want to see the article improved, and it makes sense that you want to see it it improved. Thanks, very much, for agreeing to follow the peer review process going forward to manage your conflict of interest. That is great.

Finally (for now) I have created a brief-as-possible orientation as to how Wikipedia works, and would be happy to post that here. (this is going back to the "there is lots to learn" thing) If you were more solidly oriented, the time you spend generating suggested improvements will be better spent, and volunteers' time will be better spent as well. Just let me know. Thanks again for talking. Jytdog (talk) 22:04, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for the info on how to indent. I wondered about that and some bot kept signing my messages, although I thought I'd clicked on the tellingtales 22:47, 5 March 2017 (UTC) Of course you are an expert here on human behavior and editing foibles. I checked out your profile and see you have been at this for a while. If you say you agree with everything that happened with regard to the article, then you will admit that things that have since been reinstated were mistakenly charged with copyright infringement and deleted. My point is that indiscriminate assumptions led to the wiping out of information that shouldn't have been wiped out. Anyway, I'm well used to the vagaries of both writers and editors in any context.

Yes, I noticed that the page was managed by Hajor as I checked out the history to try and figure out what century it was written in and by whom. Clearly, it was the right to add the page, as the center plays a big role in Latin America as well as internationally. However, the fact that it is dormant and has been for so long has been something I've wanted to address for a couple of years. I can imagine that many of these pages are updated by people who work in places because they are the only ones who actually know what is going on in them. Anyway, I can definitely make some suggestions and see what comes of it.

Naturally, I'm going to say that I wasn't defensive :) because I'm not. There is a difference between defensiveness and defending oneself. As a journalist and editor, this is something that comes up regularly. There are lots of terrible editors out there who get off on "censoring." I am not one of them. However, you are obviously entitled to your opinion and I hope you agree that I am entitled to mine.

Does the policy require that I request edits on any article I wish to edit or specifically to do with this page under discussion now? Thanks for the offer to send the tipsheet. I am sure I could benefit from it as so far I've just been hacking the site as you know. tellingtales 22:47, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

:) ok we can disagree.

quick additional note on the indenting and signing thing. I think you are not actually "signing". To "sign" in WP, you type four tildas at the end of your comment, like this ~~~~ (I used "nowiki markup there so you could see it) -- when the WP software sees those four tildas when an edit is saved, the software generates the "signature" that you see - with links to the user talk page, talk page, and time stamp. You see some customized signatures around with color and other things - you can customize what the WP software does for your signature in the preferences if you like.

about COI, it is topic specific. WP is so big that probably every editor has a COI on multiple articles. Editors only have to follow the COI guideline when they edit content for which they have a COI. As an example for a while I was with a startup developing a drug to treat an acute brain condition. I didn't create an article about the company, nor did I edit about the drug, nor about acute brain conditions. I just avoided creating a situation where I would be conflicted. But I have no COI on say Insomnia -- I am just like any editor on that topic. Hopefully that makes sense? For you, you have a COI for anything about the Center. You wouldn't have a COI about Insomnia either. :)

Let's see. You didn't respond to the orientation thing, so I will take that as a "no thanks". The last thing I wanted to do was recommend that you ask Lfstevens if they would be willing to review your proposed edits to the Center article. They have edited the page in the past, have experience in the topic, and is a good editor who understands NPOV and high quality sourcing, in my view. I just recommend that, as it is useful to have a partner with those qualities to work with, when you have a COI. I would work with you but I cannot edit that topic nor discuss it. That's it - good luck! Jytdog (talk) 23:25, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

Thanks again. I appreciate you taking the time to discuss this. Yes, I did want the orientation thing, but I referred to it as a "tip sheet" in my message. I would definitely like to read it if you can share it. Thanks again. I will message Lfstevens or would they automatically see this and respond here? Trying the tilde sign off again tellingtales 02:43, 6 March 2017 (UTC)

Oh I missed that. I will post it below in a new section as this one is way too long. With regard to Lfstevens, the "noping" template just links to their page without notifying them, which is a handy thing. I wanted you to be able to consider it without creating awkwardness. If you just wikilink to their user page like this User:Jytdog and sign with four tildas in the same saved post, that generates a notification (you must do a properly formatted wikilink and a signature in the same "save" - it won't work if you made a typo and go back and try to fix one or the other. the <nowiki>@Username: template also sends notification. You can drop by their talk page and explain your situation if you like. Direct and simple is best! Jytdog (talk) 04:36, 6 March 2017 (UTC)

Thanks. Much appreciated. I will try and write to Lfstevens...I still haven't been able to make the signature work but it may happen eventually. Thanks again. tellingtales 05:33, 6 March 2017 (UTC)

Hey, what is going on with this? I've never heard back and the page is still outdated. Thank you. tellingtales 05:26, 20 March 2017 (UTC)tellingtalestellingtales 05:26, 20 March 2017 (UTC)

How to edit

OK, this will get you oriented to how this place works, and to the key policies and guidelines. It is as brief as I can make it...

The first thing, is that our mission is to produce articles that provide readers with content that summarize accepted knowledge, and to do that as a community that anyone can be a part of. That's the mission. As you can imagine, if this place had no norms, it would be a Mad Max kind of world interpersonally, and content would be a slag heap (the quality is really bad in parts, despite our best efforts). But over the past 15 years the community has developed a whole slew of norms, via lots of discussion. One of the first, is that we decide things by consensus. That decision itself, is recorded here: WP:CONSENSUS, which is one of our "policies". And when we decide things by consensus, that is not just local in space and time, but includes meta-discussions that have happened in the past. The results of those past meta-discussions are the norms that we follow now. We call them policies and guidelines - and these documents all reside in "Wikipedia space" (There is a whole forest of documents in "Wikipedia space" - pages in Wikipedia that start with "Wikipedia:AAAA" or for short, "WP:AAAA". WP:CONSENSUS is different from Consensus.)

People have tried to define Wikipedia - is it a democracy, an anarchy, secret cabal? In fact it is a clue-ocracy (that link is to a very short and important text).

There are policies and guidelines that govern content, and separate ones that govern behavior. Here is a very quick rundown:

Content policies and guidelines

• WP:NOT (what WP is, and is not -- this is where you'll find the "accepted knowledge" thing. You will also find discussion of how WP is not a catalog, not a how-to manual, not a vehicle for promotion, etc)
• WP:OR - no original research is allowed here, instead
• WP:VERIFY - everything has to be cited to a reliable source (so everything in WP comes down to the sources you bring!)
• WP:RS is the guideline defining what a "reliable source" is for general content and WP:MEDRS defines what reliable sourcing is for content about health. Using high quality, independent sources, is the road to having content stick. Using low quality, non-independent sources like company websites or press releases, is the road to lots of arguments.
• WP:NPOV and the content that gets written, needs to be "neutral" (as we define that here, which doesn't mean what most folks think -- it doesn't mean "fair and balanced" - it means that the language has to be neutral, and that topics in a given article are given appropriate "weight" (space and emphasis). An article about a drug that was 90% about side effects, would generally give what we call "undue weight" to the side effects. Of course if that drug was important because it killed a lot of people, not having 90% of it be about the side effects would not be neutral) We determine weight by seeing what the bulk of independent, reliable sources say - we follow them in this too. So again, you can see how everything comes down to the sources you bring.
• WP:BLP - this is a policy specifically covering discussion about living people anywhere in WP. We are very careful about such content (which means enforcing the policies and guidelines above rigorously), since issues of legal liability can arise for WP, and people have very strong feelings about other people, and about public descriptions of themselves.
• WP:NOTABILITY - this is a policy that defines whether or not an article about X, should exist. What this comes down to is defined in WP:Golden rule - which is basically, are there enough independent sources about X, with which to build a decent article.
• WP:DELETION discusses how we get rid of articles that fail notability.

In terms of behavior, the key norms are:

• WP:CONSENSUS - already discussed
• WP:CIVIL - basically, be nice. This is not about being nicey nice, it is really about not being a jerk and having that get in the way of getting things done. We want to get things done here - get content written and maintained and not get hung up on interpersonal disputes. So just try to avoid doing things that create unproductive friction.
• WP:AGF - assume good faith about other editors. Try to focus on content, not contributor. Don't personalize it when content disputes arise. (the anonymity here can breed all kinds of paranoia)
• WP:HARASSMENT - really, don't be a jerk and follow people around, bothering them. And do not try to figure out who people are in the real world. Privacy is strictly protected by the WP:OUTING part of this policy.
• WP:DR - if you get into an content dispute with someone, try to work it out on the article Talk page. Don't WP:EDITWAR. If you cannot work it out locally, then use one of the methods here to get wider input. There are many - it never has to come down to two people arguing. There are instructions here too, about what to do if someone is behaving badly, in your view. Try to keep content disputes separate from behavior disputes. Many of the big messes that happen in Wikipedia arise from these getting mixed up.
• WP:COI and WP:PAID which I discussed way above already. This is about preserving the integrity of WP. A closely related issue is WP:ADVOCACY; COI is just a subset of advocacy.
• WP:TPG - this is about how to talk to other editors on Talk pages, like this one, or say Talk:Electronic cigarette aerosol and e-liquid. At article talk pages, basically be concise, discuss content not contributors, and base discussion on the sources in light of policies and guidelines, not just your opinions or feelings. At user talk pages things are more open, but that is the relevant place to go if you want to discuss someone's behavior or talk about general WP stuff - like this whole post.

If you can get all that (the content and behavior policies and guidelines) under your belt, you will become truly "clueful", as we say. If that is where you want to go, of course. I know that was a lot of information, but hopefully it is digestable enough.

If at some point you want to create an article, here is what to do.

1. look for independent sources that comply with WP:MEDRS for anything related to health, and WP:RS for everything else, that give serious discussion to the topic, not just passing mentions. Start with great sources.
2. Look at the sources you found, and see if you have enough per WP:Golden rule to even go forward. If you don't, you can stop right there.
3. Read the sources you found, and identify the main and minor themes to guide you with regard to WP:WEIGHT - be wary of distortions in weight due to WP:RECENTISM
4. Go look at manual of style guideline created by the relevant WikiProject, to guide the sectioning and other style matters (you can look at articles on similar topics but be ginger b/c WP has lots of bad content) - create an outline. (For example, for biographies, the relevant project is WP:WikiProject Biography) (For example, for companies, the relevant project is Wikipedia:WikiProject_Companies/Guidelines)
5. Create the article following the process described at articles for creation for your first few articles.
6. Start writing the body, based only on what is in the sources you have, and provide an inline citation for each sentence as you go.
7. Make sure you write in neutral language. The most rigorous way to do this is to use no adjectives at your first go-round and add them back only as needed.
8. When you are done, write the lead and add infobox, external links, categories, etc
9. Consider adding banners to the Talk page, joining the draft article to relevant Wikiprojects, which will help attract editors who are interested and knowledgeable to help work on the article. If you have a COI for the article, note it there.
10. The completed work should have nothing unsourced (because the sources drove everything you wrote, not prior knowledge or personal experiences or what the client wanted; there is no original research nor WP:PROMO in it.
11. Submit your article for review by clicking the "submit your draft" button that was set up when you created the article. You will get responses from reviewers, and you can work with them to do whatever is needed to get the article ready to be published.

There you go! Let me know if you have questions about any of that.

One thing you may want to consider is doing a complete rewrite of the article about the Center, following the above method and principles. If you want to do that, you would not create a draft and put it through AfC but would follow a different process - you would create it in a sandbox (yours would be here: User:Tellingtales/sandbox - you can use that to experiment or whatever you like, as long as it related to WP) and then work with an independent editor to implement it.

Again that was a lot, but the goal is to get you somewhat oriented. Good luck! Jytdog (talk) 04:44, 6 March 2017 (UTC)

Thanks again. I feel almost as though I've entered a sort of Bluebeard's Castle. I will review and click on the links. I like the idea of rewriting the entire entry for the center. tellingtales 05:28, 6 March 2017 (UTC)

I confess that i had to go read that article. no blood and tears here, and no reluctance to show you around!!  :) there is a learning curve but it becomes second nature after a while when you have mastered the principles (find great sources and summarize them!) Jytdog (talk) 08:46, 6 March 2017 (UTC)

Haha. (Is laughter allowed?) It is a bit dramatic, I suppose, but the subsequent alternative that occurred to me was Sylvia Plath's fig tree in the Bell Jar. Both pretty grim. I've got my work cut out for me and not much spare time right now.

Note on formatting citations

A last thing, after having seen your edit here. I fixed that here, formatting the journal citation better and replacing the press release with an independent source.

On the formatting, there is a very easy and fast way to do citations.

You will notice that when you are in an edit window, that up at the top there is a toolbar. On the right, it says "Cite" and there is a little triangle next to it. If you click the triangle, another menu appears below. On the left side of that new menu bar, you will see "Templates". If you select (for example) "Cite journal", you can fill in the "doi" or the "PMID" field, and then if you click the little magnifying glass next to the field, the whole thing will auto-fill. Then you click the "insert" button at the bottom, and it will insert a ref like this (I changed the ref tags so it shows):

(ref) Huhtaniemi, I (2014). "Late-onset hypogonadism: current concepts and controversies of pathogenesis, diagnosis and treatment". Asian journal of andrology. 16 (2): 192–202. PMID 24407185. (/ref)

That takes about 10 seconds. As you can see there are templates for books, news, and websites, as well as journal articles, and each template has at least one field that you can use to autofill the rest. The autofill isn't perfect and I usually have to manually fix some things before I click "insert" but it generally works great and saves a bunch of time.

The PMID parameter is the one we care about the most for journal articles cited to support content about health.

One thing the autofill doesn't do, is add the PMC field if it is there (PMC is a link to a free fulltext version of the article). you can add that after you insert the citation, or -- while you have the "cite journal" template open -- you can click the "show/hide extra fields" button at the bottom, and you will see the PMC field on the right, near the bottom. If you add the PMC number there that will be included, like this (again I have changed the ref tags):

(ref) Huhtaniemi, I (2014). "Late-onset hypogonadism: current concepts and controversies of pathogenesis, diagnosis and treatment". Asian journal of andrology. 16 (2): 192–202. PMC 3955328. PMID 24407185. (/ref)

The autofill also doesn't add the URL if there is a free fulltext that is not in PMC. You can add that manually too, after you autofill with PMID Jytdog (talk) 08:50, 6 March 2017 (UTC)

OK Thanks. I will review it. Just briefly: Crop Protection usually copy the material. That story is actually about when he was nominated to the American Association for the Advancement of Science and made up of bits and pieces of this and But I guess that is still preferable to a specific url to the center site. tellingtales 19:18, 6 March 2017 (UTC)

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Custom signature fix needed

Hi there! You have a custom signature set in your account preferences. Changes to Wikipedia's software have made your current custom signature invalid.

The problem: Your signature contains a syntax error or obsolete HTML tags.

The solutions: You can reset your signature to the default, you can fix your signature, or you can do nothing.

Solution 1: Reset your signature to the default:

1. Find the signature section in the first tab of Special:Preferences.
2. Uncheck the box (☑︎→☐) that says "Treat the above as wiki markup."
3. Remove anything in the Signature: text box.
4. Click the blue "Save" button at the bottom of the page. (Do not click the red "Restore all default settings" button, which will reset all of your preference settings, not just the signature.)

Solution 2: Fix your custom signature:

1. Find the signature section in the first tab of Special:Preferences.
2. Click the Learn more button next to the error to learn how to fix the error.
3. Update your signature to fix the error.
4. Click Save to update to your newly fixed signature.

Solution 3: Do nothing:

1. In accordance with a recent request for comment, all invalid signatures will be changed to the default, which looks like "Example (talk)", one month from now.

If you have followed these instructions and still want help, please leave a message at Wikipedia talk:Signatures. Thank you! MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 06:05, 2 February 2024 (UTC)