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Medical FA maintenance

@Boghog:, @Jfdwolff:, @MastCell:, @Graham Beards:

I'm here with a plea, wearing two different hats-- medical editor, as well as former Featured article candidates (FAC) delegate and active Featured article review (FAR) participant, who resigned from FAC to resume medical editing.

The FAR team is working now on developing the next phase of review of older Featured articles. As we have begun to process through a sandbox listing of older FAs, I am consistently finding citation issues in the medical featured articles (FAs).

Some history: User:Diberri created the citation template filling tool that is now maintained by Boghog. It was for many years used by almost all medical editors, to the extent that it became the "house style" for most medical content. It uses a style that mimics author name formatting in PubMed, and avoids lots of template clutter with one author parameter; it also avoids clunky punctuation used by some other citation styles. It also avoided lengthy citations in our densely-cited medical articles by listing all authors if there were five or less, while truncating the authors to the first three with an et al when there were six or more authors. I just cleaned up Alzheimer's disease, so an (almost) clean sample can be seen there.

On any article, we should avoid altering citation style, per WP:CITEVAR. But with Featured articles, a consistent citation style is a requirement for FA status; when adding or updating citations, the established style must be maintained.

As I'm processing through the medical FAs, I'm finding that almost all of them used the Diberri format, but they have deteriorated over the years into a mess of citation styles-- some of them now having five or six different styles of citation! Some of this is because editors aren't aware they need to maintain consistency, and some is because there is apparently a tool in the edit window that uses some other style than we have always used. And some of it may be because Boghog made subtle changes to the Diberri tool; I'm not sure I follow all of that.

Could we please be aware of what the Diberri style is, and take care to maintain a consistent citation style in our medical Featured articles? I don't believe (not sure) that a consistent style is a requirement for Good articles, as it is for FA, but it makes sense to use one style on medical content, particularly since we historically had a house style, and we have a tool that generates it.

As we get further along on processing through old FAs, I will separately bring in WP:MED for whichever medical FAs appear to need updates other than in this area of citation consistency. Regards, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:59, 5 May 2015 (UTC)

I believe there's also a bot or script that goes around and "fixes" (read: screws up) Diberri formatting, e.g., by adding all of the authors' names. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:59, 5 May 2015 (UTC)

Correct. I am able to revert them on the FAs I have watchlisted, but I can't stop them from changing thousands of other medical articles (they chunk up the citation parameters, making editing around the templates harder). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:18, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

ive seen those errors too --Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 09:32, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

I like the house style. I hate these bots that go around and make unneeded changes to reference style and clutter up my watch list / hide prior vandalism from my watch list.

I often use the style that the tool in the edit box provides because it is easier. I am supportive of changing that tool to follow the Dibierri style or at least allow users to set that style as their preference. User:Boghog what would be require to do this?

Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 14:54, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

Thanks, Doc! Two followup items:

1. I have never known where to find this "tool in the edit box" you reference. I looked for it yesterday, and didn't find a tool that produces the output you often use for citation templates. Can someone point me towards it? Sorry, techno-dumbie here.
2. On questions for Boghog (to whom we should all express immense gratitude!!!!), I am unclear on just what the tool is currently doing. I don't really know why it's using vcite2, or vauthors, or what it's doing with et al, and how I can convince the new tool to just return a cite journal template that matches the older Diberri style used on most FAs, or even if I should be doing that. In other words, until I understand what the current version of the tool is doing, I'm not sure what our "house style" is any more ... I know what it was years ago ... and if we are now changing our "house style", then we've got quite a task ahead of us on FA maintenance.

Bst, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:29, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

It may be browser dependent. On Firefox, at the top of the edit window in edit mode you get a bunch of mysterious "icons". The open book does a fairly straightforward ref ref & is useful. The {{ }} opens a line of tabs below for Cite web, cite book etc. When you click on one a form thing opens up, which takes PMID & will fill in the rest, but not in Dubarri style. I should add that (having done several FAs with no citation templates), when I came to do Pancreatic cancer I tried to follow Med house style, but could never exactly work out how to do so, & all the citations were worked over (unasked for by me, & by an editor who I think is highly medically qualified & arguably would be better employed writing text). Johnbod (talk) 15:43, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

Seen here WP:MEDHOW Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 15:53, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

Ah, ha! I see the key words are "By using the toolbar (nb: this doesn't work in Internet Explorer) ... ". I will look later today from another computer. Thanks both! SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:58, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

Nothing works in IE :-) Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 16:01, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

OK ... I went to Firefox, found that tool (and the difference vs. IE), and see where some of our issues are coming from. On IE, for example, that tool is adding the awful cite|pmid (which is known to return errors). On Firefox, I don't understand the duplicate punctuation it returns; continued below with samples for discussion. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:45, 8 May 2015 (UTC)

The problem is that we have the following competing priorities:

1. compact Diberri style citation templates whose continued use is supported by WP:CITEVAR (note: CITEVAR applies both to the rendered citation as well as the raw citation wikitext)
2. the defacto {{cite journal}} metadata driven first1, last1, ... ad nauseam house style that is reinforced by RefToolbar
3. medical translation project which is facilitated by seamless transfer of citation templates between languages

{{vcite2 journal}} was designed to be both compact (addresses priority #1) and generate clean metadata (priority #2). The reason that I modified the Template Filling Tool to generate {{vcite2 journal}} instead of {{cite journal}} is (1) as a deterrence to bots that try to substitute |author= with first1, last1, ... parameter bloat, (2) suppress citation error messages, and (3) generate clean metadata. Personally I think the value of citation metadata is grossly overrated, but some editors insist on it. I also changed the Template Filling Tool default to not use "et al." (i.e., include all authors) to prevent citation errors from being generated. My short term plan is to (1) add "et al." support to {{vcite2 journal}} and then (2) change the Filling Tool default back to "et al.". Hopefully this will address the FA related issues. Longer term, if |vauthors= support were added directly to {{cite journal}} and RefToolbar, this would also address priority #3. Then everyone should be happy. Note that I am really busy in real life and will try to implement some improvements mentioned above this weekend when I have more time. Boghog (talk) 19:30, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

Yes we do need a templates that work in all other languages which cite journal more or less does. Thus I am not a big fan of vcite2 journal. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 19:43, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

No one is willing to compromise around here. Seriously, you can't be bothered to substitute "vcite2"/"vauthors" with "cite"/"author"? It is a trivial search and replace. We can port {{vcite2 journal}} to all other languages. It is already ported to six languages. I am really tired hearing about this complaint to the point where I am seriously considering porting to this template to all other languages which will completely nullify this objection. Boghog (talk) 20:06, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

Yup if you port it to all other languages I will be happy with this template being used :-) I have struggled with porting templates. We currently have nearly 200 articles we are translating from. From time to time I update them to a newer version. Updating all the content to a newer version requires multiple steps and takes me many hours. So I appreciate people working with me on this.Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 22:58, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

SandyGeorgia Thanks for the heads up. I am finding very little time to edit but I will see if I can clean up the FAs that I was involved in (coeliac disease, thyrotoxic periodic paralysis, meningitis). JFW | T@lk 20:29, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

Also: write good WP:TemplateData first, before porting anything. The basic structure won't change between wikis. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:56, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

Trappist the monk has now added |vauthors= support to the Module:Citation/CS1 sandbox (see discussion). |vauthors= has also been extended to accept "et al" in the author list. In a few weeks when this goes live, {{cite journal}}, {{cite book}}, etc. templates will all support |vauthors=. I will then change the Wikipedia template filling tool back to its previous defaults, except of course that the name of the author parameter will be |vauthors= instead of |author=. The only remaining issues are (1) convince the maintainers of RefToolbar to add the option of outputting |vauthors= instead of "first1, last1, ..." parameters and (2) convince the maintainer of Citation Bot not to add "first1, last1, ..." parameters to citations that contain |vauthors=. Finally there will no longer be a need for {{vcite2 journal}} since the same functionality will be found in the standard {{cite journal}} template.

I think this is fantastic news that should solve a large number of problems. We should thank Trappist the monk for doing this. Boghog (talk) 06:19, 8 May 2015 (UTC)

Boghog, I hope you understand how seriously I appreciate your work (and the fact that you communicate your work in English), but I am still struggling. I tried to put together some samples for discussion (see my sandbox), but they don't even render as I type them, so I don't know what to do next to try to sort out the remaining issues/confusion I still have. The bottom line for me is that I'm not complaining about anything you do, but I don't know yet a) if we still have a house style, b) what it is, and c) what to do about citation consistency in our old FAs. And I owe LeadSongDog an answer on my talk, which I thought I was going to sort with samples, that I can't even make work. I know you are busy, but if you have a moment, could you help me sort the problems with the citations rendering in my sandbox different than they are typed? I am just trying to figure out how to get our FAs to have consistent citations for FAR review ... and Trappist doesn't communicate in English. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:18, 8 May 2015 (UTC)

You know, the more I look at this, the more I'm confused. Why do we even care which format is rendered, if the template is only going to change next week or next month anyhow? We should just focus on the values. Sooner or later it'll all wind up on wikidata anyhow. LeadSongDog come howl! 19:07, 8 May 2015 (UTC)

Don't count on that last bit. Johnbod (talk) 19:42, 8 May 2015 (UTC)

• There are two separate issues here. The first is the output of the Template Filling Tool which I have control over. As I stated above, once the changes in {{cite journal}} go live, I will change the default output of the tool back to its original defaults. The second issue is how {{cite journal}} render citations which I have no control over. In the first example in the sandbox, the last comma as well as the italics and period after "et al." is stripped from the author list. In the Vancouver guideline examples, a comma should be included between the last displayed author name and "et al." and the final period should be included. Therefore I would support modifying {{cite journal}} so that the final comma and period are displayed. The italics is not part of the standard Vancouver style and most journal do not include it. So, in summary, would it be acceptable if {{cite journal}} were modified so that the final comma and period are displayed but not the italics? Boghog (talk) 20:12, 8 May 2015 (UTC)
• The "Diberri" citation style is a hybrid. It follows Vancouver style author format and relies on {{cite journal}} for everything else. The complication is that changes in how "et al" is rendered by {{cite journal}} have been made. While this could be considered a violation of CITEVAR, because the change was made in the template, the change is at least uniformly applied across all articles that use this template. The only way to insure that rendering of a citation will not change over time is to use non-templated citations. Boghog (talk) 21:16, 8 May 2015 (UTC)

• The only way to insure that rendering of a citation will not change over time is to use non-templated citations. shhhhh ... one of us realized that almost ten years ago. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:21, 8 May 2015 (UTC)

Reboot

OK, if I'm reading everything above correctly, our citations will be in flux until a) something that Trappist did somewhere goes live, and b) Boghog adapts the filling tool. If I am understanding everything (not likely!!!) so far, the filling tool will be adjusted to:

1. List all authors if there are five or less, and truncate to three plus et al if there are six or more.
2. No longer italicize et al.
3. Place a comma after the last author, before the et al.

Then, I still have the following questions:

1. Will/does this mean that the Diberri/Boghog tool will still output vcite2 and vauthors or does it go back to plain old cite journal and author? (I have been stripping the v and the 2 when articles don't use them.)
2. Will/does this mean we will need to retroactively switch old FAs that use either vcite to cite to one or the other? If so, can we get a bot to do that?

On top of those issues, we have other WP:CITEVAR issues. For example, to answer LeadSongDog's query, because I have since, like, forever HATED these eternal alterations in the citation templates (they are at the whim of these developers, and just when the FA author gets their ducks all in a row, some metadata person changes everything and citations go to heck, which is where we are now), I will always defend the right of the main/first developers of any article to maintain their original style (CITEVAR) if they disagree with what the rest of us decide. I think that's all of my questions and confusion, but don't count on it :) Bst, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:59, 8 May 2015 (UTC)

• (ec) The tool will return to its default (list all authors if there are five or less, and truncate to three plus et al if there are six or more). However additional changes to {{cite journal}} will be required to place a comma between the last displayed author and et al. After the changes, {{vcite2 journal}} will be replaced by {{cite journal}} but |vauthors= will be retained. Please note for all of this to work, it is essential that |vauthors= and not |author= be used. The format of the rendered citation and metadata are two completely different issues. Changes in one can be made that does not affect the other. The advantage of the |vauthors= parameter is that it will render the authors in Vancouver style and generate clean metadata without the need for explicit "first1, last1, ..." parameters. Boghog (talk) 21:36, 8 May 2015 (UTC)
• If there is consensus, a bot could easily replace {{vcite journal}}/|author= with {{cite journal}}/|vauthors= and replace {{vcite2 journal}} with {{cite journal}}. Boghog (talk) 21:44, 8 May 2015 (UTC)

Being a stylistic pig, I have no strong opinions about any of this except to request that you please don't take Dberri offline again. I'm too stupid to learn any other way of doing references. thanks. Formerly 98 ^{talk|contribs|COI Statement} 21:33, 8 May 2015 (UTC)

I will try my best keeping Dberri online. The only reason it went off-line is that Dberri no longer had time to support it. Boghog (talk) 21:39, 8 May 2015 (UTC)

Your past and future efforts are hugely appreciated here! Formerly 98 ^{talk|contribs|COI Statement} 21:42, 8 May 2015 (UTC)

Please, do not have the template filler subset the authors. If an article's convention only wants 3 shown, that should be done using display-authors=3. LeadSongDog come howl! 23:30, 8 May 2015 (UTC)

Thanks to Boghog and Trappist the monk for this change! (At the risk of being greedy... presumably Citoid should generate wikimarkup that's similar or identical to what the RefToolbar generates.)

I would agree with the above, annoying as it is to sometimes run into a lengthy author list in wikitext. Truncating the author list and thus dropping the senior authors would dilute the value of the metadata we're trying to generate. Opabinia regalis (talk) 00:09, 9 May 2015 (UTC)

thanks for everything, Boghog ... you're a gem. Now, back to All About Me! And the work needed on our medical FAs and with Wikipedia:Unreviewed featured articles/sandbox. I can hold off on evaluation of medical FAs, but once everything is in place, can we then go through the FAs to determine which have issues with inconsistent citations, and how to fix them (that is, if we need to make any global changes, like author to vauthor)? Bst, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:44, 8 May 2015 (UTC)

@SandyGeorgia: There was a bug in the Wikipedia template filling tool which caused "et al." not to be output regardless of whether the checkbox was checked or not. This has now been fixed so that "et al." can once again be toggled on or off (compare on with off). Since most editors seem to favor full author lists for non-FA articles, I have changed the default output to not use "et al.". To get "et al.", you need to check the "Use et al. for author list" box. Please note that you can save a bookmarked link to the tool where this box is automatically checked. I hope this is OK. Please also note that the "et al." is currently incompatible with {{vcite2 journal}} but it will be compatible with the new |vauthors= parameter in the standard {{cite journal}} template once the sandbox changes go live. We can also have a bot

• identify Diberri style citations and replace |author= with |vauthors= and remove |display-authors=etal if present and
• replace {{vcite2 journal}} with {{cite journal}} since the updated {{cite journal}} template will support |vauthors=.

Finally the citation tool will be updated to output {{cite journal}} / |vauthors= instead of {{vcite2 journal}}. Boghog (talk) 12:11, 10 May 2015 (UTC)

Thanks, Boghog. I vaguely follow all of this, but fair warning-- don't expect it to stick, because I find all of this template mumbo-jumbo so gummed up and necessary and it doesn't seem to stay in brain (in spite of your patient explanations). Kind of like the spelling of occassion and embarrass, which I can never remember correctly. (See the confusion about the templates still in the discussion with JMWt on my talk page.) So, when everything is good to go, if you ping me, we can start a new discussion here to figure out what we need to do to get consistent citations within our FAs (and not all of them use the same style). Thank you again for everything! SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:48, 12 May 2015 (UTC)

Thank you, Boghog, for putting the default to not have the template filler substitute , et al. for the remaining vauthors. That is a job which really should be done by the template code, not the filler. Leaving it as an option is largely harmless, as editors will continue to make their own choices. Was there an agreement somewhere on reintroducing italics for et al.? I don't particularly care, but I thought the reverse was the case. As seen at MOS:Abbreviations, et al. is treated as an English loanword, so not italicized. WP:MOSMED does show the italics when referring to the ICMJE Uniform Requirements, but looking at those requirements it is clear that they do not call for italics either. (I suppose that means a correction to MOSMED is called for, to bring WPMED in line with the rest of WP and the ICMJE.) LeadSongDog come howl! 20:55, 12 May 2015 (UTC)

@LeadSongDog: Thanks for reminding me about the italics. It turns out that even if italics is specified, it is still rendered as plain text. For example:

• {{cite journal/new | vauthors = Choi J, Oh S, Lee D, ''et al.'' | title = Mst1-FoxO signaling protects Naïve T lymphocytes from cellular oxidative stress in mice | journal = PLoS ONE | volume = 4 | issue = 11 | pages = e8011 | year = 2009 | pmid = 19956688 | pmc = 2776980 | doi = 10.1371/journal.pone.0008011 |doi-access=free}} renders as:
• Choi J, Oh S, Lee D, et al. (2009). "Mst1-FoxO signaling protects Naïve T lymphocytes from cellular oxidative stress in mice". PLoS ONE. 4 (11): e8011. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.000801. PMC 2776980. PMID 19956688.

Seeing how italics wiki markup is ignored, I will modify the template tool to remove it. One remaining issue is that according to the ICMJE requirements, a comma should be inserted between the last displayed name and "et al." in the rendered citation. But that is an issue with the {{cite journal}} template and not the template filling tool. Boghog (talk) 04:10, 13 May 2015 (UTC)

That's great, thank you, though the authors should still be input as

{{cite journal/new | vauthors = Choi J, Oh S, Lee D, Oh HJ, Park JY, Lee SB, Lim DS |display-authors=3 | title = Mst1-FoxO signaling protects Naïve T lymphocytes from cellular oxidative stress in mice | journal = PLoS ONE | volume = 4 | issue = 11 | pages = e8011 | year = 2009 | pmid = 19956688 | pmc = 2776980 | doi = 10.1371/journal.pone.0008011 |doi-access=free}} Which still renders as

• Choi J, Oh S, Lee D, et al. (2009). "Mst1-FoxO signaling protects Naïve T lymphocytes from cellular oxidative stress in mice". PLoS ONE. 4 (11): e8011. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0008011. PMC 2776980. PMID 19956688.

LeadSongDog come howl! 04:59, 13 May 2015 (UTC)

@LeadSongDog: I agree that it is better to include all the authors and this is now the default output of the tool. However for those that prefer as compact a citation as possible, the "et al." option does that. The new |vauthors= supports "et al." in the author list and will produce clean, albeit truncated author metadata. Please keep in mind that the main justifications for the new |vauthors= parameter is to reduce parameter bloat and the reduce the size of the imbedded citation. Having to add another parameter, namely |display-authors=, partially defeats the purpose of |vauthors=. I have argued that if |vauthors= is invoked, then |display-authors= should automatically set to six (the ICMJE recommendation and the current {{vcite2 journal}} default). Boghog (talk) 08:53, 15 May 2015 (UTC)

I've added the comma before ' et al' to the Module:Citation/CS1/sandbox. In any case, it's a normal rule of English grammar that a comma delineates an abbreviation in these circumstances. --RexxS (talk) 20:38, 13 May 2015 (UTC)

And sadly, I'm now in an edit war with the owner who wants to keep what we've done "historically". Oh well. --RexxS (talk) 22:05, 13 May 2015 (UTC)

@RexxS: Thanks for following up on the comma. issue It is a small thing that has bugged me for a long time and it looks like this will eventually be fixed. Boghog (talk) 08:53, 15 May 2015 (UTC)

Epigenetics of Human Herpesvirus Latency

Cytomegalovirus

This article was apparently created as part of a project at UT-Austin (see bottom of page). It certainly appears that it could use some TLC. Everymorning talk 02:20, 13 May 2015 (UTC)

will look (I checked for copyvio User:CorenSearchBot/manual#Unprocessed_requests--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 13:34, 13 May 2015 (UTC)

Another similar article has been created as a result of the same project: Epigenetics of Childhood Abuse and Trauma. Pinging SandyGeorgia who I know deals with this kind of stuff a lot. Everymorning talk 17:57, 14 May 2015 (UTC)

WP:ENI is that-a-way, but if you all spend a bunch of time cleaning up poorly written and poorly sourced articles, it only makes it less likely that they can be sent back to user space. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:14, 14 May 2015 (UTC)

Ozzie10aaaa, could you please not alter your comments after others have already responded to them? It is my understanding (perhaps incorrect) that Corenbot can only compare to web content-- it does not have the ability to check books or journal articles that are not on the web. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:47, 14 May 2015 (UTC)

the first part of your "comment" is not clear...the second part apparently you mean the bot found no "copyvio" ?...so I went here Wikipedia:Text_Copyright_Violations_101 1) Copyright Violation Detector will scan an article against the internet, excluding known mirrors (though not less common ones), which may be helpful in determining the point of origin of suspect text.2) Madman Bot/manual replaces Coren Search Bot/manual (offline since 31 Dec 2011) to compare an article against the internet; follow the instructions at the link...these are the two I used , the first one did not work properly, so I used the other..thank you--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 23:03, 14 May 2015 (UTC)

Articles like this should be kept as the epigenetic mechanisms of disease processes is a very notable area of emerging research, especially in the case of neuroepigenetics. I feel it prudent to note that articles on disease epigenetics are virtually no different than what I've written in FOSB, which, while technically an article on a gene/protein, almost exclusively contains content that covers the transcriptional/epigenetic mechanisms of addiction; if I revised the lead, it could just as well be retitled "Transcriptional and epigenetic mechanisms of addiction".
It's also worth noting that these articles are just as relevant to WP:MCB + WP:Genetics and their guidelines (e.g., MOS:MCB) as they are to WP:MED and MOS:MED. Seppi333 (Insert 2¢) 00:49, 15 May 2015 (UTC)

I agree--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 12:11, 15 May 2015 (UTC)

Nutrition and pregnancy

This article is completely outside my area of expertise or interest and needs eyes. It was always rather problematic, but is getting a lot of attention recently from a new editor and it's looking more and more like a "How-to" guide as well as containing blacklisted links as "sources" (added by previous editors). Voceditenore (talk) 06:40, 13 May 2015 (UTC)

will look--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 10:55, 13 May 2015 (UTC)

This has such a Western/wealthy industrialized country bias. It would be interesting to re-write it from the perspective of a poor person in a developing country (i.e., what's necessary, not what's nice). WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:00, 13 May 2015 (UTC)

yes your correct--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 12:12, 15 May 2015 (UTC)

WHO best practices for naming of new human infectious diseases

Only directly regards new infectious diseases, but the reasoning here may be of some broader interest perhaps. 86.134.202.206 (talk) 18:21, 9 May 2015 (UTC)

good information...WHO, in consultation and collaboration with the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), has identified best practices for the naming of new human diseases, with the aim to minimize unnecessary negative impact of disease names on trade, travel, tourism or animal welfare, and avoid causing offence to any cultural, social, national, regional, professional or ethnic groups.[1]--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 21:37, 9 May 2015 (UTC)

Which is all very fine, I'm sure, but "unique" doesn't seem to be among the criteria. How any "Acute Respiratory Syndromes" do you think we'll end up with? WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:45, 12 May 2015 (UTC)

that needs an objective answer/result [2]--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 12:27, 15 May 2015 (UTC)

MEDRS issue

The lead section of the article Health effects of tobacco currently references this paper [3] in the NEJM. I am concerned that it does not meet MEDRS. The abstract says "We pooled data from five contemporary U.S. cohort studies..." so it might be a secondary source. Thoughts? Everymorning talk 15:31, 9 May 2015 (UTC)

that is PMID 25671255. fwiw, neither pubmed nor medline classifies it as a review. Jytdog (talk) 16:26, 9 May 2015 (UTC)

meta-analysis?...a quantitative statistical analysis of several separate but similar experiments or studies in order to test the pooled data for statistical significance--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 17:05, 9 May 2015 (UTC)

It is the combination of data from 5 other studies. It is okayish. Have reworded so text we contain is supported. Have removed popular press. And have moved out of the lead. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 18:48, 9 May 2015 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Just a couple of rapid thoughts...

* The primary [observational] studies from which the data were drawn seem to have been chosen for reasons of convenience (no systematic review).

* Not every pooled analysis is a meta-analysis [4].

So, even if MEDRS considers this sort of analysis, in principle, to be a secondary source, imo reasonable advice might be – as always – to treat the source with care. (Note: I see DocJames has already trimmed the statement, together with a supporting non-MEDRS from the NYT. The page seems to have more general MEDRS issues.) 86.134.202.206 (talk) 18:59, 9 May 2015 (UTC)

That is why I said okayish. I agree it does not appear to be a secondary source but may be one of those rare primary sources that is okayish.Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 19:02, 9 May 2015 (UTC)

Agree. Fwiw, I think it may technically count as a secondary source in MEDRS parlance, given that it is a secondary analysis of primary sources. 86.134.202.206 (talk) 19:05, 9 May 2015 (UTC)

I'm fairly certain that it's a secondary source, but it shows that not all secondary sources are equal. This is not a review but an analysis of pooled data from multiple primary sources with no stated selection criteria (other than "contemporary" and "US"). It aims to test a hypothesis (whether more than the 21 already-identified diseases may be attributable to smoking) and reaches a positive, if cautious, conclusion. If you think about it, the conclusions of this secondary source warrant no more weight than a single primary source with a similar sample size to the pooled data here. The same advice should apply here: use cautiously; and don't use it contradict higher quality secondary sources (reviews, systematic analyses) if they exist. --RexxS (talk) 19:59, 9 May 2015 (UTC)

fwiw, i would classify it as primary; the experimental substrate is just data, which is why it ~seems~ tricky to classify. it asks new questions of old data Jytdog (talk) 21:27, 9 May 2015 (UTC)

(fwiw) ...SR/MA do ask *new* questions of *old* data. 86.134.202.206 (talk) 08:57, 10 May 2015 (UTC)

they do--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 15:04, 15 May 2015 (UTC)

AN2728, a topical boron-containing medication under development

Has been submitted to Articles for Creation at Draft:AN2728. Notable? Acceptable in current form? The references include lots and lots of clinical trials, and the body text includes statements like "Therefore AN2728 overall is well tolerated and safe." Arthur goes shopping (talk) 11:33, 15 May 2015 (UTC)

reference #1 is MEDRS compliant...however #2-#8 are non-compliant (due to not either being reviews are being dated)...as for notability , probably this [5] is an affirmative indication.--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 12:03, 15 May 2015 (UTC)

Thanks, I have accepted it and put a medref template at the top of it. Jytdog has pruned some problematic material and offered more advice on its talk page. Judging by earlier talk page material, it seens to have been created as part of a course, perhaps at Northeastern University. Looks likely the course ended in late April and left various things lying around, such as User:Iandoxsee/sandbox and User:Hbialic/Gelatin microparticle.

It may be a problematic interaction between educational courses and the articles for creation process, that articles for creation reviewers will tend to avoid medical submissions because of a lack of knowledge and an abundance of caution, with the result that by the time the submissions eventually get declined or accepted ... can be about a month or so ... the course has ended and the student is no longer around to act on any feedback. Arthur goes shopping (talk) 12:21, 15 May 2015 (UTC)

i went ahead and worked it over. it is a stub. PDE4B apparently needs updating for anybody who likes working on proteins and what they do. thanks for bringing this here Arthur goes shopping Jytdog (talk) 12:56, 15 May 2015 (UTC)

will look--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 15:23, 15 May 2015 (UTC)

Can a source be secondary for some things and primary for others?

(note - section header was formerly " RFC - Does a Clinical Trial Qualify as a Primary Source" and i just changed it. This is not an RfC, but rather an informal effort to get community input, and the question reflected a garbled edit note Jytdog (talk) 01:45, 16 May 2015 (UTC)) )

This RFC specifically relates to a discussion @Formerly 98: and I were having about a revert he made. My opinion is the underlying source is a secondary in nature, even the conclusions about the clinical trials because WP:MEDRS states clinical trials are primary sources. I'll allow him to respond to represent his own opinion or refer you to the commentary in his revert which says "While the overview of safety assessment is secondary research, the conclusion that "most men who would be prescribed finasteride were excluded from trials" is from a primary, single site research study and fails MEDRS". The text removed appears in the conclusion of the abstract for the meta-study. Any objective feedback is appreciated. Thanks. Doors22 (talk) 10:51, 15 May 2015 (UTC)

Where is this RfC being conducted? AndyTheGrump (talk) 10:55, 15 May 2015 (UTC)

What is the question? Blue Rasberry (talk) 11:19, 15 May 2015 (UTC)

some questions need to be answered first (see above) though the topic is interesting--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 12:05, 15 May 2015 (UTC)

I'm not sure this is a formal RFC (I don't think either Doors or myself have every learned how to do that), but it would be helpful to have outside input over on the article Talk page.

The study in question is here. As I have understood it (Doors may have a different view), the study had two parts. They reviewed the historical trials of finasteride and evaluated whether the processes for collected adverse event data were adequate, and concluded that they were not. They also compared the trial eligibility criteria (inclusion and exclusion criteria) to the characteristics of a group of men recently prescribed finasteride for hair loss at their local medical center (I think this is what they did, the protocol is not clearly explained). Based on the latter data they concluded that "most men prescribed finasteride for hair loss were from groups not represented in the trials".

I have argued that the meta analysis of the trials is secondary research, but the study comparing the people prescribed finasteride at the local medical center to the exclusion criteria is primary. As I undertand it, Doors feels the entire study is secondary. This is the issue we need help with. My detailed arguments, along with those of Doors, are on the article talk page here.

Doors and I have a long history of conflict, and we are trying to get off on a better footing, so any input would be real helpful. Formerly 98 ^{talk|contribs|COI Statement} 12:22, 15 May 2015 (UTC)

IMO...I have argued that the meta analysis of the trials is secondary research, but the study comparing the people prescribed finasteride at the local medical center to the exclusion criteria is primary...this statement is correct --Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 12:31, 15 May 2015 (UTC)

• just so everybody is aware, this study was funded in part by Post-Finasteride Syndrome Foundation. And it found a suggestion of systematic underdetection of sexual adverse effects in clinical trials. So it is important to the people who have been very concerned about that. It is a good thing to discuss this in the community to keep it from getting personalized on the Talk page. Jytdog (talk) 13:02, 15 May 2015 (UTC)

"What is the question?" The title of this subsection seems to imply that the question is: "Does a clinical trial qualify as a primary source?" The answer to that is: yes, a paper that specifically describes the method, findings and conclusion of a clinical trial is indeed a primary source.

The contentious statement is: "Moreover, the trials submitted to the FDA for approval for hairloss excluded most men who would normally be prescribed finasteride for androgenic alopecia." Two references are provided for this statement: Belknap and Moore. Belknap's paper is a meta-analysis. Moore's paper is a review of Belknap's paper.

Belknap states: "In a cohort of men prescribed finasteride for routine treatment of AGA, most would have been excluded from the pivotal studies that supported US Food and Drug Administration approval for AGA." Therefore the contentious statement is supported by Belknap.

To clarify: Belknap's paper is a secondary source and is suitable to support the statement in Wikipedia's article. Axl ¤ [Talk] 14:29, 15 May 2015 (UTC)

Ok, I'm supposed to be listening to the community here and not arguing, but strictly speaking...

• You stated "Belknap's paper is a secondary reference" I've stated above that I think it is primary for the contentious statement, because the conclusion relies on previously unpublished original research. Could you explain your reasoning in a way that responds to what I said?
• The Moore paper is technically not a review, but an editorial. Can the editorial be considered a secondary source?

Thanks Formerly 98 ^{talk|contribs|COI Statement} 15:51, 15 May 2015 (UTC)

• I have not commented on this issue yet. The statement quoted by Axl (and lightly paraphrased in the article, which Formerly removed) is from the abstract of the Belknap paper (PMID 25830296). If you read the paper and see what they did, here is part of the Methods section:

To assess generalizability, we evaluated eligibility for the 3 manufacturer-sponsored trials26,27,32 referenced in the Clinical Studies section of the full prescribing information for finasteride, 1 mg, using as our data source the Northwestern University Enterprise Data Warehouse, a clinical data repository of ambulatory and hospitalized patients, providing laboratory data and diagnosis codes from 1992 through 2013 and comprehensive electronic medical record data from January 2001 through September 2013. We applied a 1.25-mg dose threshold because tablet splitting of the 5-mg dose was widely used as a cost-saving measure. We identified all International Classification of Diseases, Ninth Revision (ICD-9) codes for the cohort of men prescribed finasteride, 1.25 mg/d or less, in the clinical data repository and identified 345 exclusionary ICD-9 codes based on the exclusion criteria for the 3 trials26,27,32 referenced in the full prescribing information for men younger than 42 years. Principal exclusion criteria included significant abnormalities on screening physical examination or laboratory evaluation.26,27

So, that part of their conclusions is original research reported in the Belknap paper. The Belknap paper also has sections performing a review of the clinical trial literature, but that part in particular is original research reported in that paper, and the Belnap paper is PRIMARY for that. (i believe that this is what Formerly was trying to communicate in his edit note, which i have found garbled nonsensish until now) The accompanying editorial (Moore PMID 25831198) is an editorial, not a review. This is indeed the kind of the thing that we wait for a review to integrate. Do folks here see that, or do you disagree? Please do weigh in. Thanks

I also want to say that I think that both Belknap and Moore make it clear that we don't have good data showing whether there are or are not long term effects (not correlation) in some small amount of men - both emphasize the difficulty of getting that kind of data, ever. They could be both used to make a statement like that. Jytdog (talk) 01:43, 16 May 2015 (UTC)

Wikipedia a tool for epidemiology?

I found this interesting article: Generous, N.; Fairchild, G.; Deshpande, A.; Del Valle, S. Y.; Priedhorsky, R. (2014). "Forecasting diseases using Wikipedia". PLOS Computational Biology. 10 (11). Medicalxpress.com: e1003892. doi:10.1371/journal.pcbi.1003892. PMC 4231164. PMID 25392913. Retrieved 2015-05-16. -- Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 12:12, 16 May 2015 (UTC)

interesting... We examine a freely available, open data source for this use: access logs from the online encyclopedia Wikipedia. Using linear models, language as a proxy for location, and a systematic yet simple article selection procedure, we tested 14 location-disease combinations and demonstrate that these data feasibly support an approach that overcomes these challenges[6]...--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 13:28, 16 May 2015 (UTC)

Query misuse of "main template"

Wondering if others could comment here Talk:Alcoholism#Main_links Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 13:20, 16 May 2015 (UTC)

give opinion (i gave mine)--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 13:53, 16 May 2015 (UTC)

I've suggested other templates that may be more appropriate than {{main}}. --RexxS (talk) 15:42, 16 May 2015 (UTC)

my first new article - Botanical drug

came across Sinecatechins today while doing something else and realized we had nothing on the drug class. Jytdog (talk) 01:13, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

very good article--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 10:49, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

WP:DYK! Please! Let's have an important subject of interest to the whole world in the list. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:36, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

I generally don't do any of that GA/FA/DYK/ITN stuff but if somebody else wants to DYK it, fine by me. i posted it here b/c i am a little proud to have made my first article and also just to have it looked over for acceptability and anything bad fixed. no news is good news in that regard. Jytdog (talk) 17:36, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

you should be very proud (ive read thru it twice and this ref [7] once)--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 18:35, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

thank you ozzie and you too waid.Jytdog (talk) 18:38, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

by the way, i am a bit stymied by what do with the relationship among Epigallocatechin gallate, green tea extract (which is horrible) and Sinecatechins... Jytdog (talk) 17:38, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

maybe [8] ? Mechanism of Action the exact mechanism of action of sinecatechins ointment is unknown, although epigallocatechin gallate (a major component of both green tea and sinecatechins ointment) has been shown to suppress the growth of...[9] first book on top, same reference --Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 18:41, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

Nice! I just did a very inadequate amount of cleanup of that awful green tea extract article. DYK is a maze of twisty templates all alike, but it'd be nice to see something like this on the main page. Opabinia regalis (talk) 20:41, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

Nicely done! What interesting to me is that people measure antioxidant potential of these polyphenols and think more is better. But another way of saying that these compounds are antioxidants is to say they are easily oxidized, and the oxidation products they form are not necessarily more innocuous than the ones they prevent. Epigallocatechin is not only cytotoxic, our article lists it as a carcinogen. For all the articles in the literature discussing its enzyme inhibition properties at high micromolar concentrations, I'd guess that it's oxidation product is a good old fashioned DNA alkylator. The tea drinking countries of the world also have the highest rates of liver cancer, though HBV is an obvious confounder, Formerly 98 ^{talk|contribs|COI Statement} 23:39, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

Antioxidants cure everything! Also, if you feel bad, you need more oxygen in your cells, and more antioxidants to soak up the oxygen! I had a friend who ran an ozone generator in her home because she actually thought it was healthful. (It was cheap enough that it probably didn't work.) There are a lot of myths out there.

I've sent the new article to DYK. One of the lovely things about DYK is that the cooperation of the original author is not required. If you're interested, then put Template:Did you know nominations/Botanical drug on your watchlist (and help out: medicine-related DYKs are rare, but good ones are even rarer). WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:55, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

Although oxidation reactions are crucial for life, they can also be damaging; plants and animals maintain complex systems of multiple types of antioxidants, such as glutathione, vitamin C, vitamin A, and vitamin E as well as enzymes such as catalase, superoxide dismutase and various peroxidases. Insufficient levels of antioxidants, or inhibition of the antioxidant enzymes, cause oxidative stress and may damage or kill cells. Oxidative stress is damage to cell structure and cell function by overly reactive oxygen-containing molecules and chronic excessive inflammation. Oxidative stress seems to play a significant role in many human diseases, including cancers. The use of antioxidants in pharmacology is intensively studied, particularly as treatments for stroke and neurodegenerative diseases. For these reasons, oxidative stress can be considered to be both the cause and the consequence of some diseases[10]...i agree--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 13:25, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

ozzie, the antioxidant hypothesis for neuroprotection or cancer treatment has been around for ages. every single clinical trial of an antioxidant has failed (with one exception that i know of) - the most dramatic being the SELECT trial. every one. the only exception to that, that i am aware of, is Biogen's recent FDA approval on Dimethyl fumarate for MS. that compound is ~thought~ to work by activating NRF2. and yes per Formerly people are realizing (especially following the SELECT trial, that oxidation serves some useful purposes in maintaining homeostasis and shutting it down is not necessarily a great thing Jytdog (talk) 13:35, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

[11] review article (which in its text indicates the findings in regards to antioxidants)....Ginseng and ginsenosides have vasorelaxation

antioxidative,anti-inflammatory, and anticancer properties. In addition, ginsenosideshave also shown to have an effect on the nervous system [14].Moreover, ginseng has shown more benefit in individuals with diseases compared with healthy individuals [15e17]. In addition, a previous study supported its growing evidence for its indications in CVDs [12]. P. ginseng roots and extracts have been traditionally used by Koreans to renew the body and mind, and improve physical condition.Ginseng is also widely used in individuals with cardiovascular risk factors such as hypertension and hypercholesterolemia--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 18:47, 11 May 2015 (UTC)

I think the key point here is to avoid oversimplification. Yes, the body has and needs systems for preventing uncontrolled oxidation processes, and it uses anti-oxidants such as glutathione, vitamin E and vitamin C for this purpose. But:

• All anti-oxidants can be considered sacrificial substrates - e.g. they are easily oxidized substances that protect more valuable biochemicals by soaking up the pool of available oxidants
• Endogenous ("Natural"?) anti-oxidants such as glutathione, vitamin C, and vitamin D also have the property that they are oxidized to stable substances. Glutathione forms a stable dimer; vitamin C forms dehydroascorbic acid, and so on.
• But not all "antioxidants" (easily oxidized compounds) will have this latter property. Some will be oxidized to reactive substances that can alkylate DNA and do other bad things. Acetominophen is a classic example. It undergoes oxidation in the liver to form a quinone like compound that alkylates proteins and possibly DNA. Overdose causes hepatic failure.
• So for the most part, it is hard to look at the structure of a "dietary phenol" and say much other than that is it easily oxidized. Whether it will exert a protective or toxic effect due to its sacrificial oxidation depends on the strucutre of the product that is produced by that oxidation.
• Much of what is in the literature is bullshit, because it broadly hypothesizes beneficial systemic effects for oral intake of easily oxidized compounds ("antioxidants"). However, nothing taken by mouth sees systemic circulation until after it passes into the portal vein and through the liver. The liver is the most highly oxidizing environment in the body, and most of these easily oxidized substances never come out the other side. The oxidation process that occurs in the liver will in some specific cases produce electrophiles that can cause liver damage.

Formerly 98 ^{talk|contribs|COI Statement} 13:52, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

Botanical drug was on the main page a few hours ago. See Wikipedia:Recent additions#15 May 2015 for the entry. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:21, 15 May 2015 (UTC)

congratulation!--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 17:47, 16 May 2015 (UTC)

Brainwave entrainment; Audio-visual entrainment

some groovy fun (more neuroscience than medicine) but needs some work, as do the daughter articles Binaural beats and Monaural beats. poor Brainwave entrainment has been tagged for help since 2008. oy. Jytdog (talk) 15:43, 12 May 2015 (UTC)

will look (Monaural beats )--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 17:01, 12 May 2015 (UTC)

This is a topic where there is a bunch of fascinating science that the article ought to cover, but the current version is almost entirely devoted to pseudoscience, and the people who have been interested in the article have cared a lot more about the pseudoscience than the science. Up to now I haven't had the courage to try to do anything with it. Looie496 (talk) 13:30, 13 May 2015 (UTC)

that is the reason, I chose to edit one of the "daughter articles" instead--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 22:07, 16 May 2015 (UTC)

Authority control

This garbage was just installed at tic disorder; can anyone tell me what it is and what good it does our readers or anyone else? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:11, 16 May 2015 (UTC)

apparently what it is [12] --Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 17:38, 16 May 2015 (UTC)

that is every bit as intelligible as the gibberish inserted into the article via the link above. my question stands. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:50, 16 May 2015 (UTC)

sandy you remind me so much of the heroine of the terminator movies. You will not accept our inevitable domination by our machine overlords! :) Jytdog (talk) 18:40, 16 May 2015 (UTC)

No, Jytdog, you've got it all wrong. Remember Alien (film)? And Sigourney Weaver battling that creature? I'm the alien :) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:53, 16 May 2015 (UTC)

oh you are always surprising! i thought of you as protecting editors (the little girl) from the alien get away from her.... but wow - editors as the wild, dangerous alien encroached upon by smothering "civilization". crazy and wonderful 19th century german romanticism. i love this place. Jytdog (talk) 00:00, 17 May 2015 (UTC)

An authority control is a unique identifier that allows libraries throughout the world to identify a subject unambiguously. It is used by researchers and library catalogues to ensure that their searches are finding the precise topic required. To take an extreme example, if you have a look at the bottom of our article on Alexander Graham Bell, you'll see that there are around a dozen different identifiers for him, e.g. VIAF, LCCN, SUDOC, etc., many of which are language specific: LCCN (the Library of Congress Control Number) is English (American to be precise); SUDOC (Système universitaire de documentation) is French; NDL (National Diet Library) is Japanese; and so on. It is unfortunate that Tic disorder only has the NDL identifier recorded on Wikidata so far, so all you see when following the link is Japanese. I'm sure it's helpful for any Japanese researchers or librarians who are browsing our article - which appears to be a little better developed than the corresponding article on the Japanese wiki. If anyone knows any English authority controls for Tic disorder, I'd gladly update Wikidata with them - or show you how to do that if preferred. Hope that helps. --RexxS (talk) 19:44, 16 May 2015 (UTC)

thank you RexxS--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 20:19, 16 May 2015 (UTC)

Update: I've added the GND (Gemeinsame Normdatei) identifier that I was able to find, but that's in German. Cheers --RexxS (talk) 20:06, 16 May 2015 (UTC)

Thanks, RexxS. I'm not sure I'm any smarter now than I was this morning, but I'm glad to know it means something to someone somewhere. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:54, 16 May 2015 (UTC)

Note that Template:Authority control is really intended (read tested) for people. For medical subjects use http://id.loc.gov/ (think http://id.loc.gov/authorities/subjects/sh85135241 ) or the (beta) http://id.nlm.nih.gov/mesh/ . Stuartyeates (talk) 21:30, 17 May 2015 (UTC)

Low THC cannabis (formerly Charlotte's web)

I've made some extensive edits to the Low THC cannabis article that I suspect will be controversial. Input from other editors is highly welcome. Formerly 98 ^{talk|contribs|COI Statement} 23:55, 15 May 2015 (UTC)

edits seem appropriate--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 09:56, 16 May 2015 (UTC)

100% of them have been reverted. Formerly 98 ^{talk|contribs|COI Statement} 10:34, 16 May 2015 (UTC)

Yes, there was no consensus for such massive removal of properly sourced content, or for changing the title to a different subject. JzG (Guy) was correct to revert back per BRD. One man's attempt to hijack an article, with the intention of stripping it of most of its content, and then to create an article on a different subject, is very bad form. -- BullRangifer (talk) 00:39, 18 May 2015 (UTC)

Oh, good, misinformation here too? No, BR, what JzG did was basically editwar with you against consensus, because there are PLENTY of us who disagree with everything about that article and support the changes made by Formerly98. JzG exercised a supervote, as if an admin has that in content issues. You and he also removed my advert tag, and the article is STILL an inappropriate advert (unless Formerly rewrote it after I unwatched).

Would you please do me a favor? I unwatched that article because what you have done there-- tossing MEDRS out the window to write a promotional advocacy piece, which undermines MEDRS for ALL of our medical content heneceforth-- disgusts me more than anything I have ever seen in here. Would you please keep your discussion over there so I don't have to see it? Thank you, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:46, 18 May 2015 (UTC)

This is the article that caused me to give up in here and take a very long wikibreak, and why I very rarely weigh in on the running disputes at ANI. It disgusts me when we have big fat long running disputes over (compared to the impact of an article like this) relatively benign fringe topics like acupuncture, while something as dangerously promotional and POV as this article is ignored en masse by WP:MED, in spite of now the fourth thread here.

Really, we need to clean our own house before we throw stones. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:28, 16 May 2015 (UTC)

We have a huge number of major medical topics that need simplification and improvement from psoriasis to osteoporosis. Our issues are not just alt-med and recreational drugs. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 13:47, 17 May 2015 (UTC)

No, but I'd say that misinformation that is likely to prompt a reader to make an actual treatment decision is more worriesome than incorrect or incomplete information about the genetics of GERD. Above all else, we need to be sure we are doing no harm. Formerly 98 ^{talk|contribs|COI Statement} 21:05, 17 May 2015 (UTC)

Let's seek to understand this.... Reporting that homeopaths use homeopathy to treat all kinds of diseases, and some chiropractors claim to use spinal manipulation to cure cancer, MS, heart disease, deafness, and allergies, is not "disinformation", it is reporting what they claim to do. That is our job. Documentation of nonsense is not promotion of nonsense. We must report that, without promoting it in Wikipedia's voice as if it's actually a scientifically proven option. (That's the balancing act in all our alternative medicine articles.) You will note that those articles, and the CW article, make it clear that such claims are unproven and reports of healings are anecdotes. There is plenty of content which makes that clear. More research is needed. That's what everyone says, and that's what we report. We do it because RS say so.

Instead of making these vague aspersions here, try getting very specific at the article, instead of forum shopping here. I want to see the exact words which could be misunderstood. When that has been done at the article, I have made changes to meet those concerns.

The one thing I won't do is strip the body of that Corvette (CW) so you can hijack its chassis for the "chassis museum" article (Low THC cannabis) you want to write. Our Corvette (CW) would be gone, and it happens to have far more than enough independent notability to justify its existence as an article. Our notability policy won't disappear just to suit you in this case. I'm sticking by it. -- BullRangifer (talk) 00:39, 18 May 2015 (UTC)

For anyone who wants to wade through walls of off-topic text and sad tugging at our heartstrings aiming at promoting changes in medical marijuana laws for children based on unproven anecdote and using breathless stories of little Charlotte and the poor marketers getting death threats on Facebook will find Talk:Charlotte's Web (cannabis) that-a way --------> (If they start at the top, and can get through all of that to read the whole page, they will find some very good posts about how we actually write on Wikipedia by Colin. Who is our best epilepsy content editor and the main architect of MEDRS. )

Would you mind keeping it over there? Much obliged, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:53, 18 May 2015 (UTC)

Comments by User:JARacino regarding Traumatic brain injury

I reverted some changes by this user as explained on the talk page of the article in question Talk:Traumatic_brain_injury#Reverted_new_additions_as and their user page. The issues revolve around very old references from the 1980s being used and language changes that do not make sense.

They have left some usual comments on my talk page that also do not make sense User_talk:Doc_James#Traumatic_brain_injury. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 23:55, 16 May 2015 (UTC)

yes, the individuals text is unusual (though, hell lies daily that way to government for public funds[13]--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 00:37, 17 May 2015 (UTC)

There other edits appear to contain similar concerns such as here [14]

They take a simple sentence "Cognitive rehabilitation therapy has been shown to be effective for individuals who suffered a stroke in the left or right hemisphere" and change it to "Cognitive rehabilitation therapy (offerred by a trained therapist) is a subset of Cognitive Rehabilitation (community-based rehabilitation, often in traumatic brain injury; provided by rehabilitation professionals) and has been shown to be effective"

They are adding a bunch of sources from the early 90s.

Here is some more text "It may also be recommended for traumatic brain injury, the primary population for which it was developed in the university medical and rehabiltation communities, such as that suffered by U.S. Representative Gabrielle Giffords, according to Dr. Gregory J. O'Shanick of the Brain Injury Association of America."

I know my grammar is not the best but Gah Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 23:58, 16 May 2015 (UTC)

they might lack command of the language (or maybe something in line with their unusual text on your talk page?(see prior answer))--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 00:41, 17 May 2015 (UTC)

References

There is some very strange stuff on your talk, Doc, which reminds me of another recent situation on another article. I see Jytdog is attempting dialogue on talk, but I am thinking this is something Beeblebrox might look in to. Clearly, the edits need to be removed. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:06, 17 May 2015 (UTC)

Yes substantial cleanup likely needed. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 00:11, 17 May 2015 (UTC)

They wrote this page Community_integration And they refer to themselves and use a lot of sources of which they are an author. Appears to be the author of [15] Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 01:52, 17 May 2015 (UTC)

the author of a book, yet the unusual nature of this [16] ?...very curious--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 02:00, 17 May 2015 (UTC)

• This is just somebody with good intentions who doesn't understand how Wikipedia works. See https://about.me/julieannracino. Looie496 (talk) 14:09, 17 May 2015 (UTC)

your probably right--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 15:04, 17 May 2015 (UTC)

Yes I agree. I do have concerns about the poor English though. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 02:42, 18 May 2015 (UTC)

Elaine Fuchs

Hailed as a pioneer in exploring the basic principles of stem cell[17] biology, Elaine Fuchs of Rockefeller University has been named the winner of the 2015 E.B. Wilson Medal,the highest scientific honor awarded by the American Society for Cell Biology (ASCB). It will be presented at the ASCB's Annual Meeting in San Diego, CA, on December 15.[18]...--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 18:42, 17 May 2015 (UTC)

While they have an article at least. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 02:45, 18 May 2015 (UTC)

Long spine board

following content was added in this dif

Despite its history of use, there is no evidence that backboards significantly immobilize the spine, nor do they improve patient outcomes. Cervical spine immobilization has been shown to increase mortality in patients with penetrating trauma.

References

Not sure that source complies with WP:MEDRS...Jytdog (talk) 17:32, 15 May 2015 (UTC)

maybe [19] ? --Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 17:46, 15 May 2015 (UTC)

It is true though. We should just be using better sources. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 01:41, 16 May 2015 (UTC)

Yes, it's true enough. That's an interesting article and well-referenced. It's not a review though. There is obviously some controversy, so could it be added and attributed as the opinion of an expert under our ordinary RS requirements? I haven't checked all the refs. Are there any there which can be used? -- BullRangifer (talk) 04:04, 18 May 2015 (UTC)

We have this position statement [20] Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 04:25, 18 May 2015 (UTC)

What I like about the position statement, compared to the others, is that it actually names preferable alternatives. "Stop doing that" isn't nearly as educational as "Stop doing that, and start doing this instead". WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:29, 18 May 2015 (UTC)

About "High 2D:4D Digit ratio linked to Asperger's syndrome"

In the paragraph "Correlation between digit ratio and traits" of the article "Digit ratio", I think there is an error in interpretation of a scientific source. Or at least, confusion can be caused. In the table, there is an item "Increased rate of Autism Spectrum Disorders (when comparing digit ratio to general population)[52]" in the column "low digit ratio" (which is completely correct, no problem here), and an item "Increased rate of Asperger syndrome (when comparing digit ratio to person's father)[52]" is in the column "high digit ratio" (which is somewhat problematic).

The reason the second item is problematic is the following. The whole table is about traits, compared to general population. The item about Asperger's however, in the right column, refers to the expected digit ratio compared to the father's digit ratio (which is of little interest in a table about traits, and confusing as it might lead people to believe that Aspergers have a high digit ratio, while in reality they have a low digit ratio).

The confusion is even enlarged by the fact that nowhere in the table is mentioned that, compared to general population, Aspergers have lower digit ratio. The source [52], which is this article: "The 2nd to 4th digit ratio and autism, is very clear on this point: "Children with AS (...) had higher 2D:4D ratios than children with autism but lower ratios than population normative values."

I changed the article "Digit ratio" as follows:

• in the column "low digit ratio" I added "and Asperger's syndrome" to the item "Increased rate of Autism spectrum disorder (when comparing digit ratio to general population)[52]"
• in the column "high digit ratio" I removed the item about Asperger's digit ratio compared to the expected ratio according to the father's. (Maybe it can be put elsewhere in the article). It is not exactly wrong, but confusing (see above), and out of place in the table about traits (it's more about the hereditary question than about traits).

(I am new to editing/talking on Wikipedia, so I apologize for any errors, mistakes or bad practices.)

--Bartvanaudenhove (talk) 07:11, 17 May 2015 (UTC)

Moved post from WT:ANATOMY as the page mostly relates to medical claims. The page is full of junk. I will have a look myself in 2 weeks when my geographical access to higher-speed internet improves. Otherwise it looks like the article is full of junk and primary sources. Bartvanaudenhove, the relevant guideline we try to follow is WP:MEDRS. --Tom (LT) (talk) 01:42, 18 May 2015 (UTC)

yes, looking at the references it has a high amount of primary or dated references...I concur with the poster quote.... The reason the second item is problematic is the following. The whole table is about traits, compared to general population. The item about Asperger's however, in the right column, refers to the expected digit ratio compared to the father's digit ratio (which is of little interest in a table about traits, and confusing as it might lead people to believe that Aspergers have a high digit ratio, while in reality they have a low digit ratio).The confusion is even enlarged by the fact that nowhere in the table is mentioned that, compared to general population, Aspergers have lower digit ratio....I have tagged the article --Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 11:02, 18 May 2015 (UTC)

Golden standard for comparison of cardiology articles

Hi. I am working on doing a small sample study of the quality of cardiology articles. I have a couple of cardiologist and "cardiologist-in-training" lined up for a blinded evaluation for a couple randomly selected of the higher rated articles (will properly be GA and B) compared to... and here I am bit of a lost. I need some sort of golden standard in English for the comparison.

Most of my textbooks are in Danish so my knowledge of English textbooks is limited. I am thinking of Harrison's Principles of Internal Medicine. Is this a book known to most physicians educated in countries where English is the main language? Is it a book of high enough quality to be considered some sort of standard? Does anybody have a better suggestion? A think it would be best to avoid a pure cardiology textbook since there will be a different assumption of the readers knowledge and depth compared to what Wikipedia is written for.

All comments and suggestions are welcome and if somebody would like to look over the protocol when I get that far you are more than welcome. ...and sorry if somebody feels I went a bit off topic for this forum. Kind regards JakobSteenberg (talk) 18:31, 14 May 2015 (UTC)

Harrison's looks OK,(however I know more research than clinical)...this is the online version [21]--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 20:05, 14 May 2015 (UTC)

There is no single "gold standard" User:JakobSteenberg. While a textbook like Harrisons is okay it is a few years out of date by the time a new version is published.

What will you be using as a comparator? Reviews in the NEJM/BMJ? Emedicine articles? Uptodate articles? Articles from the NIH? Articles from patient.co.uk?

Will the assessor's be blinded to the source of the text they are assessing (ie will you remove all identifiers that the content is from Wikipedia / a comparator)? Otherwise it is my assumption that you will just be measuring academics preconceived ideas of the quality of Wikipedia. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 01:14, 15 May 2015 (UTC)

The basic idea for the protocol is to random select e.g. ten "high-class" articles from Wikipedia which have a section in a textbook of a certain quality that is widely used; for the sake of argument lets say it is Harrison's. The ten articles from Wikipedia and the coresponding ten from Harrison's are then striped down to a text-only version (removal of all images, image text, reference-section plus inline refs, for WP e.g. see also section, or see page 234 for Harrison's), then formatted with same fond, layout whatever... Half the Wikipedia articles will be labeled A and other half B, same with the corresponding textbook articles/sections, so if the Wikipedia article on atrialflutter is labeled A the Harrison´s version will be labeled B (done by a third party to achieve some sort of double-blinding).

The reviewers are blinded in that sense that they do not know which articles are the test-article and which is the control. They are also blinded in the way that the will not be told what the two sources the are reviewing are (and they do not know of my involvement on Wikipedia). Then they will be given two articles A and B (one from Wikipedia and one from the textbook both on the same subject), be told to read A, fill out the questionnaire for A, then B and fill out its questionnaire.

I think this is the closest I can get to a fair based double blinded comparison with a small sample of both articles and reviewers. JakobSteenberg (talk) 20:31, 15 May 2015 (UTC)

• User:JakobSteenberg - You can also consider Hurst's the Heart: Manual of Cardiology as a standard reference textbook for general topics on cardiology. -A1candidate 10:15, 15 May 2015 (UTC)

As I mentioned I think it would be best to use a non-cardiology (read internal medicine) since its and Wikipedias target group are more aligned. If it is a "introduction to cardiology" it might be just as good. I will take a look at it no matter what. Thanks for your suggestion. Kind regards JakobSteenberg (talk) 20:31, 15 May 2015 (UTC)

• In cancer the key American textbook sources had online versions, kept pretty up to date (at a steep price). Johnbod (talk) 13:10, 15 May 2015 (UTC)
• In Molecular biology [22] 7th ed --Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 20:43, 15 May 2015 (UTC)

For all practical purposes it would need to be a digital version. I do not think it have to be a continuously updated version but of course the latest version be used. But if the latest version of whatever book I end up with is lets say three years old I still think it would be a valid comparison. JakobSteenberg (talk) 20:31, 15 May 2015 (UTC)

Sounds reasonable. Will the reviewers be given any idea what sort of content they are reviewing? Not mentioning any of the sources / Wikipedia will improve blinding. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 09:30, 16 May 2015 (UTC)

Jakob, do you really want them to review whole articles (could take half an hour just to read some of the longer ones), or would it make more sense to split them up by sections/sub-topics? From the perspective of a reviewer, being asked to look over a few paragraphs about the symptoms of X would seem less daunting than being asked to read 15 pages about X. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:12, 18 May 2015 (UTC)

that could be a factor(perhaps a less daunting amount of material will yield truer results?)--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 13:10, 18 May 2015 (UTC)

I am still working out the basics but I was planning to include exclusion criteria of the articles stating if one of the two articles on the subjects is longer than XXX or shortet than XXX. I get what you are saying but I do not think that a article like Atrial flutter and the corresponding text in a textbook would be to much since I was planning on sending them one subject (two articles) a week for e.g. five weeks. I am however still working out some basics but today I found an older colleague who also supervises ph.d´s whom agreed to help me a out a bit.

Draft:Bio-Strath (dietary supplement)

just reviewed and declined this. others may have different opinions. Jytdog (talk) 19:55, 18 May 2015 (UTC)

reference 19 is MEDRS compliant (references 1-18, 20-28 are non-MEDRS compliant)...further the article text is like an advertisement--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 20:02, 18 May 2015 (UTC)

Ozzie10aaaa, why do you think that MEDRS is relevant for ref 8 (for example)? Do you think that the sentence it supports, "Currently, David Pestalozzi (son of Fred Pestalozzi) is the CEO of Bio-Strath AG." contains any WP:Biomedical information at all? WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:48, 18 May 2015 (UTC)

if you notice #1. the poster (Jytdog) indicated it was declined on the basis of Wikipedia:Verifiability#Self-published_sources Anyone can create a personal web page or publish their own book, and also claim to be an expert in a certain field. For that reason, self-published media, such as books, patents, newsletters, personal websites, open wikis, personal or group blogs (as distinguished from newsblogs, above), Internet forum postings, and tweets, are largely not acceptable as sources. Self-published expert sources may be considered reliable when produced by an established expert on the subject matter, whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable third-party publications.[7] Exercise caution when using such sources: if the information in question is really worth reporting, someone else will probably have done so, #2 it has text that indicates advertising...I reviewed and declined this, per the note there. This is written like an ad for the product, not like an encyclopedia article. Please read WP:MEDRS - you can find good sources for health claims by using the links in the box I placed at the box of the top of this page. For content not related to health, please use sources independent of the company and inventor. The way to create a great (or good enough) article, is to gather sources first, and then see what you can say, based on them. Don't start with what you want to say and find sources to support that - that is backwards, and you end up with articles like this. i hope that makes sense. Jytdog (talk) 20:25, 18 May 2015 (UTC) [23] #3 since it had already been declined and was therefore not being considered anymore I was pointing out #19 as a good reference (MEDRS), since the other references including #8 were being used as advertisement.thank you.--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 22:48, 18 May 2015 (UTC)

Sure, whichever one was the 19th at the time you reviewed it probably is a good one for biomedical information. But it does not follow that the other 27 "are non-MEDRS compliant", which is exactly what you said here.

Self-published corporate sources are not only typical but generally considered authoritative for the names of staff members. But someone reading your statement above would get the impression that you believed that MEDRS applies to this sentence (it doesn't, but BLPSPS does) and that the source was actually unreliable for the statement being made (it isn't). WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:49, 19 May 2015 (UTC)

id refer you to my prior answer (or Doc James ) thank you--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 09:57, 19 May 2015 (UTC)

The problem is it reads like spam. Sentences like "a particularly useful species of yeast" with support from the supplements seller. Gah Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 11:04, 19 May 2015 (UTC)

Smegma

The smegma article seems to be pushing a POV and cherry-picking pro-smegma primary sources. Abductive (reasoning) 05:49, 18 May 2015 (UTC)

references 5,6,9,10,13,14,15,16 are non-MEDRS compliant...there are some older references, [24] which when citing history is allowed.--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 10:55, 18 May 2015 (UTC)

I'm trying to work out if I'm "pro-smegma" or not .... Johnbod (talk) 19:37, 19 May 2015 (UTC)

You beat me to it (not going there). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:52, 20 May 2015 (UTC)

Cannabis (drug)

Some addition eyes on this would be appreciated, especially per the discussion on the Talk page regarding ER visits associated with Cannabis use and whether the US Department of Health and Human Services is a reliable source. Thanks. Formerly 98 ^{talk|contribs|COI Statement} 01:33, 9 May 2015 (UTC)

will keep an eye on it--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 09:32, 9 May 2015 (UTC)

New cannabis review

Formerly 98, a new review. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 04:39, 20 May 2015 (UTC)

• Hoch E, Bonnetn U, Thomasius R, Ganzer F, Havemann-Reinecke U, Preuss UW (2015). "Risks associated with the non-medicinal use of cannabis". Dtsch Arztebl Int. 112 (16): 271–8. doi:10.3238/arztebl.2015.0271. PMC 4442549. PMID 25939318. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |lay-source= ignored (help); Unknown parameter |lay-url= ignored (help)

What is "leaky heart valve"?

"Leaky heart valve" seems to be a layman term for a range of conditions.

• WebMD
• heart.org
• Cleveland Clinic

I think in all cases when this term is used it refers to Regurgitation (circulation). That article is about a heart plumbing phenomena, and not any medical condition, and anyway that is a disambiguation article. I think the most common cause of this kind of regurgitation is Valvular heart disease.

I just made leaky heart valve a redirect to valvular heart disease. I do not have good sources because getting precision is difficult for layman terms. If anyone has a better idea, could someone change this redirect? Thanks. Blue Rasberry (talk) 17:32, 19 May 2015 (UTC)

I concur ...One of the causes of CHF and a very common contributor to the harmful effects of CHF is a leaky mitral heart valve. The mitral valve is located in the center of the heart between the two left or major heart chambers and plays an important role in ... [25] --Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 20:21, 19 May 2015 (UTC)

Yes a leaky heart valve is a type of valvular heart disease and should redirect there. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 06:25, 20 May 2015 (UTC)

Thrombocytopenia

have been on this article (as has TylerDunden8823), should "treatment table" section be replaced for a more condensed explanation of the four conditions stated?(give opinions here or at talk page) thank you--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 16:33, 19 May 2015 (UTC)

I have switched it to normal sections to make it easier to edit. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 06:33, 20 May 2015 (UTC)

Nasal polyp

Nasal polyp 25x H+E (1)

An unsourced statement about sinus rinsing to keep nasal polyps from growing back after surgery arouses my suspicions. More importantly, it occurs to me that some here might quickly add some good treatment resources to help push out the bad. Wnt (talk) 13:42, 18 May 2015 (UTC)

will look--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 14:23, 18 May 2015 (UTC)

I won't be editing the article, but there are plenty of cochrane reviews for this topic. Matthew Ferguson (talk) 20:54, 18 May 2015 (UTC)

Thanks User:Wnt. Trimmed the bit that was not supported. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 06:41, 20 May 2015 (UTC)

Disamb. needed?

Do you reckon Extrinsic pathway could use a disambiguation page? It's too vague a term in my opinion. Let me know your thoughts and ping me if possible. It came to my attention when reading Prothrombin time and noticing the wikilinks in the lede had nothing to do with coagulation. Regards, FoCuSandLeArN (talk) 21:50, 19 May 2015 (UTC)

it could use one--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 21:55, 19 May 2015 (UTC)

• It says "Dogma states that the DISC is composed of the death receptor, FADD, and caspase-8." Is it just me or is it odd to find dogma evoked in such a context? Johnbod (talk) 03:41, 20 May 2015 (UTC)

Oh, Central dogma of molecular biology I presume. If someone who understands such thing can confirm, the link should be added. Johnbod (talk) 03:43, 20 May 2015 (UTC)

Yes, this needs to be a dab (along with intrinsic pathway) - both done. In other news, the articles on apoptosis are terrible.

In this case the article doesn't mean the central dogma itself, but there are some sort of jokey usages of "dogma" in biology riffing off the term. I understood the "dogma" of apoptosis to be "cells expressing caspases are doomed to die", but google suggests other occasional usages. Fixed, in any case. Opabinia regalis (talk) 04:34, 20 May 2015 (UTC)

@FoCuSandLeArN: Dab page added; is that ok with you? Opabinia regalis (talk) 04:35, 20 May 2015 (UTC)

Yes, I know cell biologists like their jokes, but they are best rationed on WP. Thanks! Johnbod (talk) 13:20, 20 May 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for that! Biologists can be quite cheeky. Yes, the sciences in general are quite underdeveloped, we're just needles in a haystack. FoCuSandLeArN (talk) 13:25, 20 May 2015 (UTC)

Morgellons Lyme hypothesis

• Hypothesis that Morgellons is linked to Lyme disease, with common cause of Borellia spirochetes

POV fork? AndyTheGrump (talk) 00:43, 20 May 2015 (UTC)

Morgellons' first sentence describes it as a delusional belief, which says a lot about this situation. I suggest a merge and redirect to Morgellons. Stuartyeates (talk) 01:22, 20 May 2015 (UTC)

I am not good at writing AFD rationale (or someone has to set up a merge discussion ?), so I'm at least flagging the primary sources for now (basically, it's an article pushing one primary source, PMID 24715950. The editor who let it out of AFC needs to become familiar with Wikipedia policies, and probably shouldn't be working at AFC. POV fork-- redirect to Morgellons. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:23, 20 May 2015 (UTC)

Struck unnecessary and unhelpful comment. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 08:12, 20 May 2015 (UTC)

So, by the time I finished cleaning it up, I found it had a lot of off-topic content already covered elsewhere, and basically was a POV fork to push two primary sources. I redirected it to Morgellons. I see there have been recurring issues with the editor who created it at Talk:Morgellons. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:53, 20 May 2015 (UTC)

Ah, my dear SandyGeorgia, it seems I have made a mistake and incurred your wrath. You have a great career ahead of you as a diplomat. You fire both barrels and get snarky, not just on my talk page, but here as well. It seems that I let some ordure escape to pollute your drinking water. We have filters to remove pollution. You are one of them. Shit happens. Get over it, learn humility and stop being so snarky. If you cared that much you would be working hard at the great firehose of ordure that is WP:AFC. Please try your hardest to remember that we are all volunteers, and that we can all make mistakes. Had you been less unpleasant in the way you have gone about this you would even have received an apology. Do remember we are meant to WP:AGF, and recognise that your snark has come very close to being a personal attack.

You need to view this as a great opportunity. You say you are not good at drafting AFD rationales. This is a fantastic time to learn. Treat it as a learning experience. Move along people, nothing to see here.

So, to the rest of the project, I apologise for making a mistake. To the failed diplomat? No. Fiddle Faddle 06:41, 20 May 2015 (UTC)

Teacup storm now happily resolved with goodwill on both sides. Fiddle Faddle 08:15, 20 May 2015 (UTC)

That invective wasn't worth two orange bars. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 06:46, 20 May 2015 (UTC)

User:Timtrent is AFC able to sort by subject matter? I would be interested in running through medical topics as those are the only ones I know anything about. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 07:03, 20 May 2015 (UTC)

@Doc James: I wish it were. What we get so far is an outpouring of the most amazingly self serving trash interspersed with some that is immediately acceptable and a large amount of stuff that can be improved, some of which is abandoned subsequently. We'd be very interested indeed at a mechanism, even an imperfect one that could sort it into topic areas. Most of the drafts that are submitted are in the form User:Foo/sandbox and we need to determine many things including putative article title. Would you please pop over to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Articles for creation/Reviewer help where I will start a discussion on the topic. Your input would be excellent. Fiddle Faddle 07:11, 20 May 2015 (UTC)

Doc, I thought we had a pretty good sorting mechanism in place: it was called Anne Delong :) She runs medical topics by us, and has for a long time-- did she give up? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 07:34, 20 May 2015 (UTC)

Anne still looks very active. So I hope not. Will see if I can think of some sorting mechanism. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 07:37, 20 May 2015 (UTC)

(edit conflict) For those who wish to contribute, the discussion is started now at the AFC Reviewer Helpdesk. Pleaseg do join in, especially if you have any ideas how it might be done. If you have no idea how, just wanting it is enough. Fiddle Faddle 07:40, 20 May 2015 (UTC)

thanks Doc ... one would think that title alone would warrant a ping to us :/ SandyGeorgia (Talk) 07:43, 20 May 2015 (UTC)

And lest the issue get lost among the rabble, there continues to be quite a mess at Morgellons, and the editor who created the (too long to type article name above) has turned the talk page into a bit of a quagmire. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 07:43, 20 May 2015 (UTC)

• on a side note...AnneDelong does a great job--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 09:45, 20 May 2015 (UTC)

• Thanks, SandyGeorgia and Ozzie10aaaa. I still report draft medical topics whenever I see them, but lately I have been working with old, abandoned drafts, so I don't see ones which have just been created. Also, there are now more than 28,000 pages in draft space, far too many for one person (or even for all of our active reviewers, really) to check through. The few I report here are only the tip of the iceberg. To see what I mean, try typing the word "treatment" into this search box and you will see nearly 800 drafts, about 60 of which are waiting for review. —Anne Delong (talk) 11:14, 20 May 2015 (UTC)

Thanks, Anne Delong. I will be traveling for a few weeks and don't know what internet access I'll have, but I will peek in about mid-summer. Bst, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:45, 20 May 2015 (UTC)

Acute erythroid leukemia

Chris Squire, the bass player in my favourite band, Yes, has just been announced as suffering from acute erythroid leukemia (AEL) and the news is beginning to get some mainstream media coverage. Unsurprisingly, hits to the AEL article have shot up. I've gone to the page and done a bit of work on it, but it's a rare condition so I haven't found any systematic reviews/guidelines/textbooks on AEL as WP:MEDRS prefers. Any help/suggestions appreciated. Bondegezou (talk) 10:13, 20 May 2015 (UTC)

will look ( your right it is rare...is a rare form of acute myeloid leukemia (less than 5% of AML cases[26])--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 10:47, 20 May 2015 (UTC)

NCI has some data here [27] Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 11:32, 20 May 2015 (UTC)

And than we have a lot of great books [28]

By google [29] Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 11:34, 20 May 2015 (UTC)

Thanks User:Doc James and Ozzie10aaaa for that rapid response! Bondegezou (talk) 12:51, 20 May 2015 (UTC)

I can take a look in DaVita Oncology when I get home tomorrow. Keilana|^{Parlez ici} 17:51, 20 May 2015 (UTC)

Problem with "Contributors" link

The "Contributors" link, at the top of articles like Achondrogenesis type 2, is not working (it's generating a code 301, "Permanently moved"). Would someone who knows what is behind this link (see Category:Articles with contributors link for more information) fix it? Thanks. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 16:27, 19 May 2015 (UTC)

The 301 is a redirect page. The url that the 'Contributors' link points to:

• https://tools.wmflabs.org/xtools/articleinfo/?wikilang=en&wikifam=.wikipedia.org&grouped=on&page=Achondrogenesis_type_2

has been changed to:

• https://tools.wmflabs.org/xtools-articleinfo/index.php?wikilang=en&wikifam=.wikipedia.org&grouped=on&page=Achondrogenesis_type_2

and so a redirect has been left behind. Unfortunately wmflabs can run very slowly at times, and sometimes even time out, giving the impression that it's not working. But I can assure you that I just tested the 'Contributors' link and it eventually worked for me, even though I had to wait almost a minute for the page to appear. I could get the target of the 'Contributors' link changed to the current url, but then you'd be staring at a blank page for 50-odd seconds instead of one that said "301 Permanently moved". I remain to be convinced that would represent a significant improvement. --RexxS (talk) 19:11, 19 May 2015 (UTC)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_(technical) I have gone here with this type of problem--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 20:14, 19 May 2015 (UTC)

@RexxS: Thanks for the update. As I understand your response, you're saying that (a) a redirect page that a viewer stares at for almost a minute is better than (b) a blank page that a viewer stares at for almost a minute. May I suggest a third option: (c) Take down the "Contributors" link until such time as the response from wmflabs is reliably only a few seconds? I suggest that option because, quite frankly, the current situation does not put Wikipedia or the WikiProject Medicine in a particularly favorable light: we're not helping people by providing information, we're hurting people because we're wasting their time. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 03:12, 20 May 2015 (UTC)

User:John Broughton this is an alpha feature that has to be turned on under gadgets. Thus you can simply turn it off if you wish. Yes I am aware that this feature needs a lot of work. As does labs unfortunately. IMO we need better support for user generated tools generally. And we need excellent support for tools that have gained a sufficient following within the community. But this is a side issue...Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 06:31, 20 May 2015 (UTC)

@John Broughton: It's worth noting that the 'Contributors' link is actually a shortcut for opening the article history page, then following the link for "Revision history statistics" (near the top, about third row down). Whatever performance issues affect "Revision history statistics" also affect the Contributors link. We're trying to test the functionality of the shortcut, not the performance of WMF Labs. I understand your concern, but I feel the problem you've encountered is entirely one for WMF to solve, not one that the English Wikipedia or WikiProject Medicine can do anything about directly. --RexxS (talk) 10:40, 20 May 2015 (UTC)

@Doc James: @RexxS: Thank you for the additional information. I was under the (false) impression that the (prominent) Contributors link was visible to large numbers of people. But since it is in fact only visible to registered editors who enable it via preferences, this looks like just part of the larger problem of performance issues with tools that are run at WMF labs. So, nothing to see here, folks - I'll just be moving along. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 18:08, 20 May 2015 (UTC)

Bisphenol A

This needs a significant amount of attention, there are like a gajillion primary studies that don't seem to meet MEDRS, many of which are animal and/or in vitro studies. Everymorning talk 20:55, 11 May 2015 (UTC)

could not agree more. see Wikipedia_talk:Identifying_reliable_sources_(medicine)/Archive_7#toxicity Jytdog (talk) 22:15, 11 May 2015 (UTC)

ive gone thru this article a couple of times and do find BPA interesting as a subject. However, when I look at the Health effects section I cant help but think it needs its own article( at about 170k bytes I think the article generally speaking is too long)--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 23:34, 20 May 2015 (UTC)

weighing the trade-offs of COI regulation(part 3 of 3)/nejm

[30] ..I deem this a good read, thank you--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 09:56, 21 May 2015 (UTC)

Amlodipine and Acral lentiginous melanoma

did a few edits on this calcium channel blocker and Acral Lentiginous melanoma (if anyone would like to chip in please do). thank you--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 23:47, 21 May 2015 (UTC)

Image issue

This image

Could someone who speaks images better than I do look at this situation at Deep brain stimulation? The username who added it is the same as the author on the study, I don't know if the image is correctly licensed, and I don't know if we're OK using that primary source to cite the image caption (I suspect it's fine, but ... way technical for me). And, depending on that outcome, then the (new) editor needs to be approached about COI. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:50, 16 May 2015 (UTC)

The person appears to be Andreas Horn of the Max Planck Institute for Human Development. Apart from lecturing him on COI issues, we could try to convince him to join us as a regular editor. I'm not sure if the image is suitable at that place, but it does look pretty spectacular. He also added this image to our article on the Default mode network. -A1candidate 00:11, 17 May 2015 (UTC)

he would be a good addition--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 14:54, 17 May 2015 (UTC)

This is a difficult one, because we've historically allowed far more latitude for original research in creating images than for our text content. I'm not sure if that's a good precedent to carry forward to medical articles, insisting as we do on only the very best sources. On the other hand, if someone is an expert in his or her field, then it might be reasonable to defer to their ability to create an image that illustrates a topic in that field. Remember we can summarise a secondary text source, but we can't create a "summary image" (and many, many images will be copyright, so unavailable to us). I suspect that unless someone equally expert comes along and criticises a given image, we're best on balance to just say "thank you" to Andreashorn, and accept the donation of the image. What do others think? I agree, by the way, that we ought to gently point him to our WP:CoI policy, as much for his own protection as Wikipedia's. --RexxS (talk) 20:33, 17 May 2015 (UTC)

That image is awesome, and you can't even really appreciate it properly until you've clicked through to see it as a full-screen image. I'd love to have more. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:50, 18 May 2015 (UTC)

This user would also be very welcome at WikiProject Anatomy and WP:NEUROSCIENCE. --Tom (LT) (talk) 02:36, 19 May 2015 (UTC)

Generally speaking, the MEDRS issues with images must be fewer than with text. It's accuracy that is more often an issue. Images aren't confirmed (or generally carried) by reviews, and very few images from secondary or tertiary sources are available to us. Johnbod (talk) 03:48, 20 May 2015 (UTC)

Thanks, all. Has anyone been able to follow up with this editor? I've had a busy two days, and have completely fallen behind here. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 04:00, 20 May 2015 (UTC)

I have one complaint about the image: why did they make the red nucleus green? Axl ¤ [Talk] 12:33, 20 May 2015 (UTC)

Depicted is a reconstruction of bihemispheric DBS electrodes that have been surgically placed into the most common target structure for treatment of Parkinson's Disease, the subthalamic nucleus (orange). Other subcortical structures include the red nucleus (green), the substantia nigra (yellow), the internal (cyan) and external (blue) pallidum and the striatum (red). A stimulation volume is modeled by applying 2V (at 1000Ω impedance) to the second-uppermost contact of the left electrode. Structural fibertracts traversing through this volume are visualized and cortical regions that they connect with the stimulation volume are selected from an automatic anatomical labeling atlas and visualized [31]... the Striatum (neostriatum or striate nucleus) was already red--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 10:43, 22 May 2015 (UTC)

*sigh* Axl ¤ [Talk] 11:31, 22 May 2015 (UTC)

non-related to wikimed project--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 20:09, 22 May 2015 (UTC))

Ozzie10aaaa, your tendency to reply to every thread here, even when your comment adds nothing, is wearing. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 12:08, 22 May 2015 (UTC) we can take it to ANI if you want--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 12:17, 22 May 2015 (UTC) You already did; enjoy. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 12:21, 22 May 2015 (UTC) Since the ANI was speedily closed, [32] I will followup on your talk. [33] SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:05, 22 May 2015 (UTC) I believe I indicated to you you are not welcome at my talk page.(any further discussion will be taken back to ANI in the future) try to be civil , you obviously aren't thank you--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 13:21, 22 May 2015 (UTC)

Panadol

This is at AFD, so I was wondering what other medical editors thought about whether brand names in general/this specific one are independently notable or if it should be redirected to paracetamol. Everymorning talk 14:26, 20 May 2015 (UTC)

That is a sensible solution - please recommend that at the AfD. We have an article on Tylenol I know - that subject is notable due to the cyanide poisonings (and only for that, as far as i can see). There is nothing notable about the Panadol brand that I can see. Jytdog (talk) 14:39, 20 May 2015 (UTC)

agree--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 14:46, 20 May 2015 (UTC)

Most commentators seem to be arguing that passing WP:GNG is more important than article titling, so I expect we may end up with a precedent that will effectively drive a coach and horses through the guidance at Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Medicine-related_articles #Article titles. I've commented. --RexxS (talk) 19:40, 20 May 2015 (UTC)

When people search for a brand name of a medication they are most commonly looking for a discussion of the medication not of the brand itself.

The solution I propose is moving all notable brands to "Name of brand" (brand) and than having the brand name redirect to the generic. We then link from the generic article in the lead to "Name of brand" (brand). For none notable brands we simply redirect to the generic.

This allows reads to get the med info they need without it being duplicated. It allows those who truly care about brands to find this info and those who wish to write about them to do so. It also makes clear that brand articles are about the brand not the medication in question.

It decreases the prominence we give brands so that people are less inclined to carry out brand name spamming which I have been seeing a lot lately for Indian brand names. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 08:42, 21 May 2015 (UTC)

I agree, good idea--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 09:52, 21 May 2015 (UTC)

Do you mean Name of Tylenol (brand)? That sounds awkward. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:36, 21 May 2015 (UTC)

No I mean Tylenol (brand) with Tylenol going to the generic article paracetamol Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 22:47, 21 May 2015 (UTC)

Done. [34]. Good move, James. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 01:46, 22 May 2015 (UTC)

yikes, can't say I like that plan ... I see thousands of new articles for us to deal with, mostly duplicating info, with need for AFDs ... ! SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:24, 22 May 2015 (UTC)

Mmm. Well, most people searching for "Tylenol" will be looking for info' on the drug, but there is plenty to say about the brand, Tylenol, so renaming Tylenol to Tylenol (brand) and a search for "Tylenol" taking readers to Paracetamol makes sense to me.

There is almost nothing to say about Panadol or any other paracetamol brand that isn't already in Paracetamol, so Panadol (brand) (and Panamax (brand), and any other brand name) strikes me as unnecessary duplication (unless something noteworthy comes to light about Panadol that hasn't yet been mentioned and doesn't fit in Paracetamol). If Panadol (brand) is created and survives AFD, then I fear you may be right. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 02:44, 22 May 2015 (UTC)

Yea, I'm good with Tylenol, but don't see at all the logic being extended to Panadol. Yes, if we have Panadol, we'll end up with everything ... and AFD after AFD after AFD ... and with all the "inclusionists", we may as well just accept that if we open the door. Who is going to watch, consolidate, merge, fix, ... it will never happen. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:29, 22 May 2015 (UTC)

99% of brands if discussed at all should occur at paracetamol brand names including likely the content of panadol. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 03:30, 22 May 2015 (UTC)

I think I agree, but want more clarity. This would if I understand leave paracetamol as the drug article for the 99%, paracetamol brand names as the list, Panadol (brand) as redirect to the list, Panadol as a dab between the drug and the list!, and Tylenol a redirect to the drug article, where a hatnote would say "Tylenol redirects here.This article is about the drug. For information about the brand, see Tylenol (brand)". Once established, move protection on the redirects and dabs might be needed. Have I got it right? LeadSongDog come howl! 13:40, 22 May 2015 (UTC)

All brand names would redirect to paracetamol as Tylenol currently does. Most brands would be discussed at paracetamol brand names which is a subarticle of paracetamol. Panadol (brand) could be its own sub article like Tylenol (brand) or it could be redirected to paracetamol brand names. No hatnote needed (undue weight). We do however link to Tylenol brand in the first paragraph. And we link to paracetamol brand names in the society and culture section. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 00:48, 23 May 2015 (UTC)

I thought that the point was to make Panadol redirect to paracetamol, on the grounds that if you're searching for the brand name of a drug, then you really want to know about the drug, not the marketing. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:15, 22 May 2015 (UTC)

Yet another RfC on alternative medicine

I know there's not much appetite for yet another discussion on alternative medicine, but for those who want to help resolve this longstanding and seemingly never-ending dispute, your input over here is greatly appreciated. -A1candidate 00:08, 23 May 2015 (UTC)

give opinion, (I gave mine)--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 08:51, 23 May 2015 (UTC)

We appear to dominate Google results for medical conditions, signs and symptoms

(I've posted this at Jimmy's talk page but thought it might interest members here.)

We need a bigger sample to be certain, but it appears to be the case. I took a sample of 40 of our 30-odd thousand medical articles and checked where they rank in Google searches. We were first in 24 searches, second in 11, and third, fifth, seventh, eighth and ninth in the other five. User:Anthonyhcole/Google rank of WPMED pages. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 14:01, 15 May 2015 (UTC)

I thought that was fairly well-known. (As an aside, I was interested to see that baboon syndrome was included in your list—I was previously unaware of the syndrome.) Axl ¤ [Talk] 14:34, 15 May 2015 (UTC)

This article would certainly benefit from an image... Matthew Ferguson (talk) 16:01, 15 May 2015 (UTC)

In that case, we had better make sure that all of these articles are top notch. bd2412 T 16:09, 15 May 2015 (UTC)

• Anthonyhcole Note that anyone's Google Search engine results page is unique. Factors which contribute to it include being logged into any Google service, your IP address, your location, and cookies. Wikipedia users are more likely to see Wikipedia results in Google search.

Still, for several years I have been saying that Wikipedia is the world's most consulted source of health information because of its high search engine ranking. Some evidence in the literature supports this and I have never seen anyone dispute this or make a competing claim. See health information on Wikipedia for more context. Blue Rasberry (talk) 16:25, 15 May 2015 (UTC)

• That article's a great resource. Thanks for pointing to it. It seems the best source for 50% of doctors using Wikipedia is IMS Health (2014). "The use of Wikipedia in Health Care". --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 17:22, 15 May 2015 (UTC)

• On a slightly related note, see Draft:Maternal morbidity. FoCuSandLeArN (talk) 16:28, 15 May 2015 (UTC)

We also come first on virtually any google search for a chemical that is a dietary supplement, OTC drug, pharmaceutical, or illicit substance; this might simply be true for literally any compound as opposed to just pharmacological agents. Seppi333 (Insert 2¢) 17:00, 15 May 2015 (UTC)

I'm not surprised. I suppose it's the same for medical devices too. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 17:20, 15 May 2015 (UTC)

probably (that's good)--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 17:35, 15 May 2015 (UTC)

Probably worth just pointing this out: interlinking an article within wikipedia is literally the most significant factor in boosting the google search ranking for it; adding external links to other websites that are ahead of wikipedia in the search ranking will usually maintain that page's ranking ahead of the wikipedia article. External linking to another webpage which isn't ahead of wikipedia will usually put it on the first page of a google search simply because of how much weight the google search algo assigns to outgoing links from heavily interlinked wikipedia articles (e.g., I external linked to [35] from FOSB and, as a result, it was boosted from, IIRC, a 2nd page entry to being the 2nd entry when googling ΔFosB).
Their search algo is basically just a really big linear system which assigns a webpage's search ranking based upon a weighted average of links to that page from other webpages, where the weighting of a particular incoming link is based mostly (or entirely, provided it didn't change since I took linear algebra in college ) upon the search ranking of the incoming link's webpage (its ranking is also based upon the weighted average of that page's incoming links). Or, in plain English, for a particular search phrase, every webpage's search rank is based upon the search rank of all other webpages that link to it. Seppi333 (Insert 2¢) 17:59, 15 May 2015 (UTC)

@Bluerasberry: I'm pretty sure only the paid advertisements, and possibly webpages for which a first page listing has been purchased for a particular search term, are unique to searches from different browsers/computers on google. The remainder would just simultaneously ranked in the search by solving that linear system I mentioned, which wouldn't vary by user. Seppi333 (Insert 2¢) 18:09, 15 May 2015 (UTC)

Seppi333 Perhaps. I am not sure. Some people say otherwise. Blue Rasberry (talk) 18:12, 15 May 2015 (UTC)

I'm quite certain that when I google for a term, I regularly get different results from friends and colleagues. Google makes a point of using a complex algorithm to determine search ranking and weighted incoming links are only part of that, and as our nofollow article observes, search engines are moving away from heavy reliance on links to rank a page. It's also worth noting that all external links in Wikipedia have the "nofollow" value set because if there were any chance that a link from Wikipedia could improve the search ranking of the target, our encyclopedia would grind to a halt with SEO spam. --RexxS (talk) 02:03, 16 May 2015 (UTC)

I'm honestly not sure how their search results would produce different results for simultaneous searches on 2 different machines. AdSense would differ in its results, but it literally marks ads as such and wouldn't be confused with a search result. Even if a page had purchased a top pagerank for a specific search term (I'm not completely sure that google offers that service), its placement would still be static and remain as the top result for that search term and different machines. PageRank#Description says what I mentioned before in English, while PageRank#Algorithm explains the linear system, its properties, and solution methods. Its solution isn't stochastic (note: it's described as a probability vector that simply means its entries sum to 1), nor is it described as a function of anything on an individual (the searcher's) machine, so it shouldn't produce variable results for simultaneous searches of a term on 2 different/arbitrary machines. That said, it's possible that google offers a third service (of which I'm unaware) that assigns page rank through a stochastic or user-based algorithm - that would explain variability in the search results; however, I'm not really sure how they'd be able to assign page rank based upon both algorithms - that would necessarily involve a third algorithm to combine results though. Seppi333 (Insert 2¢) 05:44, 16 May 2015 (UTC)

Edit: I just noticed in Bluerasberry's link that searches from different locations may obtain results from different data centers - if the solution is computed on different machines, then when (since page rank changes over time) and how (e.g., different solution methods or even just different computation software) the results are computed would affect the page rank results even if there were no random element in its computation.
In any event, I have no clue how to explain what I observed with that particular external link given the nofollow on ELs. Is this attribute also assigned to internal (wiki-)links? Seppi333 (Insert 2¢) 05:54, 16 May 2015 (UTC)

Wikipedia uses nofollow, but are all of our zillion gajillion mirrors so careful? Adrian J. Hunter^{(talk•contribs)} 12:51, 16 May 2015 (UTC)

good point--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 13:38, 16 May 2015 (UTC)

@Seppi333: Check out Sorry - You Are Not Really on Page 1 of Google! or just google "tailored search results" (you'll probably get some of the results that I did :D) --RexxS (talk) 15:01, 16 May 2015 (UTC)

Search results do vary, even if you're not logged in and don't have any special settings. Allegedly there is at least one website that will show your "true" SEO results (sans any geolocation, preferences, history, etc.). WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:20, 18 May 2015 (UTC)

agree (they do vary)--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 12:50, 23 May 2015 (UTC)

Weird comments

There are some weird comments on Talk:Human papillomavirus and I think the commentator is trying to use sarcasm but I'm having trouble understanding exactly what they mean. If their concerns are valid, I have some more recent references to insert to replace the older ones that I found while working on Cervical cancer. Best Regards,

  Bfpage |leave a message  23:18, 23 May 2015 (UTC)

the Outdated lead and sections text does seem odd--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 23:49, 23 May 2015 (UTC)

Metabolic syndrome rates around the world

I suspect this article should be moved, perhaps to Epidemiology of metabolic syndrome. I'm also concerned that the Indian Journal of Endocrinology and Metabolism (cited several times in the article) does not meet MEDRS, given that it has no IF and is not indexed in MEDLINE. Everymorning talk 19:45, 24 May 2015 (UTC)

if the journal (article) isnt PubMed indexed, no....in regards to the move i think that's a good idea...IMO--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 20:19, 24 May 2015 (UTC)

There needs to be a section for epidemiology at the main article (Metabolic syndrome), regardless of whether the article is moved or not. (I think it should) -A1candidate 20:25, 24 May 2015 (UTC)

Done Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 05:43, 25 May 2015 (UTC)

Med article made it to main page in the "...did you know?" section today

The list List of microbiota species of the lower reproductive tract of women is listed on main page today. Yeah for Project Medicine! Best Regards,

  Bfpage |leave a message  11:32, 24 May 2015 (UTC)

congrats!--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 11:34, 24 May 2015 (UTC)

Well done Bfpage. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 05:56, 25 May 2015 (UTC)

Butyrate, butyric acid, sodium butyrate merge

These 3 articles are on a short chain fatty acid which is produced in the microbiome and affects neurological function (among basically everything else) by acting on epigenetic drug targets. It's also sold OTC (usually as 1 of the salts), so we need a drugbox for it.

Question is: which page should these be merged to? Seppi333 (Insert 2¢) 20:01, 22 May 2015 (UTC)

the easy answer is Butyric Acid..because it has the most information (article)...IMO--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 20:25, 22 May 2015 (UTC)

IMHO butyric acid is more of a chemical and research tool than a drug. DrugBank classifies it as an experimental small molecule (DB03568). Drugs.com only has a short dictionary entry for this chemical. Finally butyric acid has a very short half-life which limits its effects (see for example PMID 23140283; tributyrin, a butyric acid prodrug looks more promising). Hence I do not think replacing the chembox in butyric acid with a drugbox would be appropriate. In addition, WP:CHEMMOS also applies to this article. I think there should be selective merger of the material about biological activity from butyrate and sodium butyrate into butyric acid. But butyrate (disambiguation) and sodium butyrate (distinct chemical) should be retained in shortened form. Boghog (talk) 07:31, 23 May 2015 (UTC)

@Boghog: Ah... I didn't even notice this reply before I wrote on your talk page. I suppose using a DAB approach would be fine; the pharmacology/research content on butyric acid should simply be moved to butyrate in that case. I just went with that at first because I noticed IUPHAR used butyric acid and butyrate as synonyms for their page title. Seppi333 (Insert 2¢) 11:59, 23 May 2015 (UTC)

I found a slightly (more informative) definition of butyric acid...A short-chain saturated fatty acid (C4:0). It occurs as the triacylglycerol in 5–6% of butter fat, and in small amounts in other fats and oils. Also formed by intestinal bacterial fermentation of resistant starch, when it is possibly protective against the development of colo-rectal cancer.[36]...i believe you are correct butyrate and sodium butyrate should be retain (in an abbreviated form)--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 19:14, 23 May 2015 (UTC)

I'm not sure any of them should be merged since it appears that having articles for both conjugate acids and bases is standard. See Citrate/Citric acid, Oxalate/Oxalic acid, Formate/Formic acid, Malonate/Malonic acid, Acetate/Acetic acid, Et ceterate/Et ceteric acid. Perhaps a broader discussion on how conjugate acid/base articles should be managed should be started, or perhaps such as discussion has already occurred.TypingAway (talk) 00:44, 24 May 2015 (UTC)

I had intended to propose merging some of these awhile back after encountering the sad stub at valerate. The ion articles seem to be systematically crappier than the acids. Opabinia regalis (talk) 07:59, 24 May 2015 (UTC)

The "ate" articles refer to either a salt or an ester. Hence I think it is appropriate to convert these into disambiguation pages linking to the parent acid and (within reason) to any notable esters or salts. Boghog (talk) 08:52, 24 May 2015 (UTC)

agree--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 21:17, 25 May 2015 (UTC)