This is an essay. It contains the advice or opinions of one or more Wikipedia contributors. This page is not an encyclopedia article, nor is it one of Wikipedia's policies or guidelines, as it has not been thoroughly vetted by the community. Some essays represent widespread norms; others only represent minority viewpoints.

Advice is a page of snippets of advice that either I've written and wish to retain for advice gleaned from others around Wikimedia and perhaps elsewhere. If I've given you the link to get here, it may be because you are a participant in a dispute that I'm mediating. If that's the case, welcome! Read what you want, accept what you want and discard the rest. :-)

If you're another dispute mediator (formal or informal) or any other person and I've given you this link; please put your feet up, make a cup of tea and then steal whatever your like :-) (no links or citations necessary, unless it's someone else's stuff of course)

Regarding Sources

What are independent sources?

The following explanation was offered during a dispute over what constitutes a medical degree as that term is understood by the general public;

I'd like to just make a commentary, if I may. Everyone involved in this is intelligent, and most certainly a professional in their desire to have an article that is factual and conforms to Wikipedia's standards of reliable sources, referencing, and meets so-called scientific scrutiny. So to illustrate the point of view, as I see it, of Jwri, I'll use an illustration from the world of evidence-based medicine, which is something we should all be able to respect. Imagine a researcher develops a drug that he claims provides improved bronchodilation for a period of 24 hours per dose. He's actually even done an RCT and got results. Let's say this man already has a Nobel prize, so he's good, unquestionably. He takes the results and publishes them on his university website. Can we believe these results? No, because they are first party results and haven't been reviewed by anyone, let alone peers. Later we pick up JAMA and he's got his results published in it. Can we believe that? Well, we can certainly lean towards believing it. JAMA are no fools and we can assume they did the math and checked the figures. But, we can't yet begin to rely on the results of the study, yet. We need other people, not related to the distinguished researcher, to review his work, people we trust and who's opinion we value. Later when we pick up The Lancet and find a review of his work we can start to see if their is significance in the results and we can start to rely on the man's methods and conclusions, if they are supported by the reviewer.

Now, if we take a profession like; Doctor of "A new school of medical thought goes here" that seems to be emerging and gaining acceptance amongst the established professions of medicine. Following the same logic as for EBM (and, we're scientists, so why wouldn't we?), we can see that the "new" doctors calling themselves thus, or their degrees "medical", is not a scientifically reliable source of this information. Nether is their schools calling them doctors, or saying their degrees are medical degrees, reliable in this sense, because of the same conflict of interest. The accrediting bodies that accredit the new schools of medicine are beginning to give us the reliability we're after. (I'd be cool with accepting them as reliable references for the purposes of this page) If the government referred to these people as doctors or their degrees as medical degrees then that is unquestionable. Any national, state or major metropolitan government anywhere. If that government licenses such people as medical doctors (of any specialty or philosophy), that is proof that they are in the medical profession and thus their degrees are medical degrees. If reliable, notable, major media outlets refer (preferably more than one source unless it is a feature article) to such people as doctors or their degrees as medical degrees then that is evidence also.

The reason this matters here is public dependability in the information contained here. This subject is not an article about yellow flowers, it's about medicine, and we all agree that that is important! The terms medical school, medical student, medical doctor, physician, surgeon and medical degree or diploma (and their local equivalents) have already perceived meaning in societies around the World. As such, any degree listed here must (for public safety) link only to the degrees of genuine, recognized practitioners of medicine. I know quite a bit about naturopathy, and I admire them and wish they were available more on the NHS (they are in Scotland at one hospital). I also understand the emerging situation in the US, and indeed in Europe also (although more established there). I know that you are primary care providers in some states in the US and I believe that some have qualified for hospital service also. This makes you physicians in your own right, in my opinion. I think you should consider a search for 2nd or 3rd party sources though. It would be more in keeping with what is happening elsewhere at Wikipedia, and it would be more in keeping with the scientific nature of your profession. What do you think? :-) ^[1]