Here's wishing you a belated welcome to Wikipedia, Rchurt. I see that you've already been around a while and wanted to thank you for your contributions. Though you seem to have been successful in finding your way around, you may benefit from following some of the links below, which help editors get the most out of Wikipedia:

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Again, welcome! Adrian J. Hunter^{( talk• contribs)} 05:29, 23 April 2012 (UTC) reply

I reverted you at Negative feedback and Positive feedback. Without edit summaries, it was impossible to tell if there was a good reason for your changes to the definitions. Dicklyon ( talk) 03:17, 11 May 2012 (UTC) reply

With negative feedback, I kept the meaning of the definition intact, but phrased it in a more concise, understandable way. I also added information about positive feedback and feedback loops.

With positive feedback, I changed the meaning of the existing definition to clarify that positive feedback has nothing to do with any kind of disturbance to a system. It is only a process inherent in a system by which that system increases its activity. I also added edited the existing definition of negative feedback as it appeared in that article, and added information about feedback loops.

I would appreciate it if you would undo your revert instead of making me redo my edits. Thanks.

On the negative feedback article, an anon earlier today, before you, had removed the sourced definition (also without edit summaries, so I thought maybe it was you); we should find a better sourced definition if we don't like that one. On the positive feedback, you left the citation to a source, so it's hard to see how you can think changing the definition was OK. Dicklyon ( talk) 03:30, 11 May 2012 (UTC) reply

Right. I think that finding a better sourced definition is appropriate for the negative feedback article. I'm somewhat confused by your last comment. I don't understand how leaving a source invalidates a change. But I do realize now that I shouldn't have left the old source when I put in a new definition. Rchurt ( talk) 03:41, 11 May 2012 (UTC) reply

The point is that the source (presumably) supported the definition that was there, so (presumably) would not support what you changed it to. If the edit summary had said something like "changing definition to agree with what the cited source says" then I would have believed you and left it alone. Dicklyon ( talk) 03:44, 11 May 2012 (UTC) reply

I'm not concerned with whether or not the source supported the definition. Because whether it did or not, I didn't agree with the definition. Just because the definition agrees with the source, it doesn't mean that the definition is an accurate or understandable one. Let's find a more concise, understandable definition. Rchurt ( talk) 03:50, 11 May 2012 (UTC) reply

Yes, please do find a better definition. But be source to cite the source. You need to be concerned about WP:V when you add things, or when you change things that are sourced. Dicklyon ( talk) 04:03, 11 May 2012 (UTC) reply

Sorry, but your definitions aren't correct. While in neuroscience it will (only usually) involve increases and decreases in neural activity, that's not, in general what positive and negative feedback is, it's quite a general thing. It's to do with the direction a system parameter changes in. The parameter could be anything, insulin levels or an electronic signal, a sound wave, the amount of money, prices, or the angular distance between the direction an antenna could be pointed in, and the direction it should be pointed in etc. etc. It's very abstract. It's NOT simply changes in 'activity', and that's not true even in neural science. GliderMaven ( talk) 01:04, 12 May 2012 (UTC) reply

Well, as it affects neural circuits, activity is really the only aspect of a system that can feedback can change. Some neural pathways will upregulate physiological mechanisms (like insulin production), and other pathways will downregulate them. But since each distinct neural pathway has only one specific function, the only way to change the magnitude of the effects that a neural pathway creates is to alter its activity level. I can see why the whole process of feedback can be confusing. But when you understand it, you'll find that it's not very abstract at all. It might help you to consider the example presented on the positive feedback page about the cattle stampede. In that "system," positive feedback increases the activity of the system, which leads to an ever-increasing "level of panic" among the cattle. Does that help you to understand how positive feedback works?Rob Hurt 01:32, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

But consider that positive feedback can cause a decreasing level of panic, or neuronal activity, as well; whereas you wrote: "Positive feedback is the process by which an effect causes an increase in the activity of a system that causes it.", which is an incomplete definition, at best. GliderMaven ( talk) 01:48, 12 May 2012 (UTC) reply

If positive feedback was working on a different system, it could certainly cause a different effect. But in order for it to cause an effect like reducing panic level in cattle, it would have to be working on a system that inherently reduced the overall panic level. So in context of the system that the article discusses, only negative feedback could decrease the cattle's panic level. In that sense, positive feedback increases the activity of the panic-producing system, while negative feedback decreases it. Do you see how that works? Rob Hurt ( talk) 02:06, 12 May 2012 (UTC) reply

Careful here. Positive feedback is defined relative to the displacement from a reference, not relative to the origin. In the example given a herd of spooked cattle may be panicked, but one of them may spot a cow that is not spooked which calms it down; pushes it below it's self-sustaining panic equilibrium point. This can cause positive feedback in the opposite direction, the cows can then stop stampeding; they all calm down very quickly, by positive feedback. GliderMaven ( talk) 02:25, 12 May 2012 (UTC) reply

Clearly this is a new idea for you, you might want to reread any relevant textbooks you have on this subject very carefully, if they're any good this should be explained. GliderMaven ( talk) 02:25, 12 May 2012 (UTC) reply

Comments like your last one aren't helpful. I'm trying to have a logical discussion with you. Please don't be hostile.

The scenario that you just described is actually negative feedback. If positive feedback pushes the cattle toward panic, negative feedback pushes them towards calmness (in terms of this system). Looking at how positive and negative feedback affect this model system shows us how positive feedback increases the activity of a system, and negative feedback decreases it. Rob Hurt ( talk) 03:01, 12 May 2012 (UTC) reply

No, that's not how it works, and you don't have a reference that says it does either. Positive feedback systems characteristically show bistable behaviours, and no negative feedback is required for that to occur. There's a critical difference between negative inputs and negative feedback. A cow seeing a relaxed cow is a negative input on the stress axis, not a negative feedback. GliderMaven ( talk) 03:19, 12 May 2012 (UTC) reply

I agree with GliderMaven. Either kind of feedback can act in either direction, depending on the dynamics. He described a situation in which positive feedback rapidly decreases the activity when it starts to go down. Dicklyon ( talk) 03:21, 12 May 2012 (UTC) reply

Outside view

Hi Rchurt,

Following your note, I've had a look over your changes to positive and negative feedback and the conversation above. I'm afraid I think Dicklyon and GliderMaven were right to revert your changes.

Firstly though, I just want to make sure you understand what Dicklyon was saying about the importance of cited sources matching the corresponding content. When an article says something like "leopards weigh up to 91 kg^[1]", that's shorthand for "source [1] states that leopards weigh up to 91 kg". As a website that anyone can edit, Wikipedia has little or no authority in its own right; its only authority comes from the sources it cites. So it's absolutely imperative that readers can be sure that Wikipedia accurately reflects the sources it cites. It would be a serious problem to change 91 kg to a different number without updating the source, as the Wikipedia article would be falsely stating that source [1] provides a different weight for leopards. I'm sorry if that comes across as patronising, but it's a mistake I see a lot of new contributors make.

On the definitions themselves, I agree with GliderMaven that defining the feedbacks in terms of "activity" is not the way to go. To use an example I'm familiar with, a person's breathing tends to reduce the concentrations of CO₂ and thus carbonic acid in their blood, therefore increasing their blood pH. If a person's blood pH becomes too low, negative feedback causes them to increase their rate of breathing, thus increasing their blood pH, pushing it back towards the ideal value. To me, that fits perfectly with the original definition of negative feedback from before your edits, but it's not obvious how it fits with your most recent version, which seems to predict some kind of decrease in the activity of the system.

On sourcing, I don't trust http://www.biologyreference.com/ at all. The site lacks basic information that we'd need to assess its reliability, such as the credentials of its authors or how it deals with errors. Using Google Scholar, Google Books, or an academic search engine tends to return better sources than a plain Google search.

Anyway, sorry if my response is less supportive than you'd hoped for. I'm glad to see you're using edit summaries now, as well as engaging with other contributors. Cheers, Adrian J. Hunter^{( talk• contribs)} 03:38, 12 May 2012 (UTC) reply

By the way, I noticed you've changed your signature to differ from your username. Just in case you weren't aware, you can request a username change at WP:CU if you'd like them to match. Adrian J. Hunter^{( talk• contribs)} 03:48, 12 May 2012 (UTC) reply

Ok, thanks for the input. That's helpful.

When I talked about "activity," I was thinking about the kinds of positive and negative feedback that estrogen exhibits on the anterior pituitary gland at different points in the menstrual cycle. When estrogen levels are relatively low, any slight increase in estrogen will cause a decrease in follicle stimulating hormone and luteinizing hormone release by the pituitary through negative feedback, and, similarly, any slight decrease in estrogen production will cause an increase in FSH and LH release. But when estrogen levels peak right before ovulation, that rise in estrogen will cause an increase in FSH and LH release by the pituitary through positive feedback.

I couldn't see any kind of "ideal value" that FSH and LH were approaching in either system. All I could see was a difference in the activity of the systems when estrogen acted on them.

I can see why a search through google scholar would usually return more reliable sources than a standard search. I'll use that tool in the future.

Thanks again

Rob Hurt ( talk) 01:02, 14 May 2012 (UTC) reply

Hi Rob. For what its worth, there has long been controversy about definitions related to feedback. Its worthwhile bearing in mind that "positive" has something like 5 distinct definitions, all of which I have seen applied to feedback. Ditto "negative". The scope of the above pages seems implicitly to be around the Control theory definition(s). There are other uses of the terms, and I've tried to document them on my wiki page (with citations), but this table might be a useful guide.

I hope that is helpful. Happy editing! -- Trevithj ( talk) 06:52, 14 May 2012 (UTC) reply

That is actually really helpful. Thanks for sharing! Rob Hurt ( talk) 20:47, 20 May 2012 (UTC) reply

Hi Rob,

Sorry for not getting back to you yesterday – bit flat out in real life at the moment.

When you or I or any other Wikipedia contributor click the "Save page" button, we're agreeing to Terms of Use that require Wikipedia (and re-users of Wikipedia content) to provide attribution to us through the page history. The problem with deleting Quantum efficiency of a solar cell outright is that it would also delete the page history. That wouldn't matter if all the content of that page was obliterated, but now that there's content from that page in Quantum efficiency and Solar cell efficiency, we're required to keep the history of Quantum efficiency of a solar cell in order to attribute the original authors. It's also necessary to indicate in the histories of Quantum efficiency and Solar cell efficiency that some of the content came from Quantum efficiency of a solar cell. I see you've already done that in Quantum efficiency with this edit summary; ideally you should do the same thing in Solar cell efficiency, perhaps by making a "dummy edit" that just adds a space or whatever, so you can write an edit summary acknowledging Quantum efficiency of a solar cell.

So what should happen to Quantum efficiency of a solar cell is that it should be converted to a redirect to the most relevant page, probably Solar cell efficiency. If you think that's the appropriate redirect target, you can just replace the entire page contents with this:

#REDIRECT [[Solar cell efficiency]] {{R from merge}}

Cheers, Adrian J. Hunter^{( talk• contribs)} 14:42, 23 May 2012 (UTC) reply

Hey Adrian,

That makes sense. Thanks for your help (and for taking the time)

Rob Hurt ( talk) 19:19, 23 May 2012 (UTC) reply

Hello! Rob Hurt, you are invited to the Teahouse, a forum on Wikipedia for new editors to ask questions about editing Wikipedia, and get support from peers and experienced editors. Please join us! heather walls ( talk) 05:11, 25 May 2012 (UTC) reply

Thanks for your comment! Thank God some people are actually interested in this stuff haha. That has been mentioned before in one of the discussions already, but the two editors are no longer active. But yes! It is a recurring idea, and I want to make it happen. At the moment, I get the feeling that people are on their exam periods, and don't have time, so, again, I have to put it off until later. But thanks for your comment and if you want to help, please do! Kinkreet ^{~♥moshi moshi♥~} 12:43, 27 May 2012 (UTC) reply

Awesome, I'm glad you're interested. I've been added a bunch of articles to the task force recently, and I was hoping that people would see them and start editing them. A lot of them are stubs right now, and some of them are orphans. Check out the list!

Rob Hurt ( talk) 13:43, 27 May 2012 (UTC) reply

Hi, You noticed that the Effective dose (radiation) page was too technical. I think the effective dose is important as it is required to calculate the effects of many real life exposures, natural and man-made, and I see many wiki links to it.

I've made some edits and tried to get more on the page's talk page. Is the page better now or is there more that we can do? Stephen David Williams ( talk) 12:52, 22 September 2012 (UTC) reply

Hi

I'm contacting you because, as a participant at Wikiproject Medicine, you may be interested in a new non-profit organization we're forming at m:WikiMed. Our purpose is to help improve the range and quality of free online medical content, and we'll be working with like-minded organizations, such as the World Health Organization, professional and scholarly societies, medical schools, governments and NGOs - including Translators Without Borders.

Hope to see you there! Anthonyhcole ( talk) 04:42, 20 December 2012 (UTC) reply

Thank you for your edit to Neuromodulation. Much appreciated! Lova Falk talk 08:51, 12 January 2013 (UTC) reply

I saw that you added the SfN userbox to your page, and I'm happy to see another editor with interests in neuroscience! Please feel free to get in touch with me any time if you have any questions at all about editing here. -- Tryptofish ( talk) 22:04, 12 January 2013 (UTC) reply

Thanks for reaching out to me. I actually do need some help already. I was hoping to add the "Help Me!" script to my screen, but I'm having trouble making it work. When I try to add the script, it gives me the message "Exception of the kind MWexception," even after I substitue my username for "protein" wherever it appears. It's not super important, but it might be nice. Thanks. Rob Hurt ( talk) 18:49, 13 January 2013 (UTC) reply

I suspect no one has tried to install it from the neuro welcome page in a very long time, and I think the script there no longer works, because it was written for an earlier Wikipedia interface and has never been updated to install in the way Wikipedia works now. User:WillowW set it up, but hasn't edited in a very long time. (In fact, I installed it when it was first introduced, but I've never used it! I'm wondering whether we ought to take it down?)

Here's what I'm pretty sure you can do. Create the page User:Rob Hurt/vector.js. You can do that by clicking on the red link I just made. (Apparently, I can't do it for you, because it's your account, not mine.) Once you have the edit screen up, copy and paste the following line into it, then save the page:

 importScript('User:Proteins/switchboard.js');

 importScript('User:Proteins/wpAcronyms.js');

 importScript('User:Proteins/editingtips.js');

You may need to exit and restart your browser for it to work the first time. (It looks to me like you were able to create User:Rob Hurt/monobook.js, but Wikipedia has replaced monobook with vector, which is probably why it wouldn't work for you.) Anyway, if this works, you should have a menu item called "help, please!" that drops down from the little arrow near the top of your screen, just to the left of the search box. Whether it does anything useful, I cannot promise!

Alternatively, and much easier, feel free to just leave a message for me on my user talk page, whenever you have a question (or on any other editor's talk page). I log in most days. -- Tryptofish ( talk) 00:39, 14 January 2013 (UTC) reply

I tried it, and it didn't work :(. Oh well. Thanks for the help. I'll be sure to contact you if I have any questions.

Actually...I would like you to weigh in on something on Talk: Neuromodulation#Optogenetics. I feel like there should be a section about optogenetics in the neuromodulation article, but I may be wrong in my idea of how the two are related. Could you take a look at the conversation on the talk page? Thanks. Rob Hurt ( talk) 00:35, 18 January 2013 (UTC) reply

I looked at User:Rob Hurt/vector.js, and, if you want to be bothered, you can delete everything it says there, and change it to exactly what I showed above (not changing where it says "Proteins"). Whether it's worth your time is another matter.

I've commented at that talk page. -- Tryptofish ( talk) 01:29, 18 January 2013 (UTC) reply

Intermediate-term memory, which you submitted to Articles for creation, has been created.
The article has been assessed as Stub-Class, which is recorded on the article's talk page. You may like to take a look at the grading scheme to see how you can improve the article.

You are more than welcome to continue making quality contributions to Wikipedia. Note that because you are a logged-in user, you can create articles yourself, and don't have to post a request. However, you may continue submitting work to Articles for Creation if you prefer.

• If you have any questions, you are welcome to ask at the help desk.
• If you would like to help us improve this process, please consider leaving us some feedback.

Thank you for helping improve Wikipedia!

Tryptofish ( talk) 19:25, 14 March 2013 (UTC) reply

Yay! Thanks Tryptofish

Rob Hurt ( talk) 19:52, 14 March 2013 (UTC) reply

Hi, the signalling article has been passed as a "Good Article"... and the references and citations have been carefully laid out and checked. There is more than one possible way to do this. It is generally not acceptable to change the referencing system of an existing article. Chiswick Chap ( talk) 07:46, 21 April 2013 (UTC) reply

I'm not familiar with the convention of not changing citation formatting within articles. I am, however, familiar with Wikipedia's convention of using inline citations. I recognize that signalling theory already used inline citations. Based on the many articles that I've read, it appears that almost all articles use the concise reference formatting that I introduced. However, it is much easier for readers to find citations by just clicking on one inline link, rather than having to find each source in a (roughly) alphabetical list below the site that like takes them (especially in cases where more than source written by a single author in the same year is present). But, regardless of any existing conventions, I still believe that my changes improved the overall quality of the article—which is, of course, the intention of any good-faith editor. Rob Hurt ( talk) 22:44, 21 April 2013 (UTC) reply

The scheme used in that article is not very common, but it is recognized as consistent with policy. See Wikipedia:Citing sources/Example edits for different methods#Shortened notes with references written freehand. I used to use a similar method myself, but eventually stopped because I found that it made articles difficult to maintain, since other editors generally didn't understand what was going on. There is a legitimate argument for switching, but in such a well-maintained article as this, it should only be done after getting consensus on the talk page. Regards, Looie496 ( talk) 23:35, 21 April 2013 (UTC) reply

Hello User:Rob Hurt, Your edit on the Schizophrenia page yesterday was moved by someone to the Talk page there & you may want to look at it. The edit looked good, and since the Schizophrenia page already makes multiple reference to the 1990 ICD-10, which predates your own citation, this should be in your favor. You may also add your edit to the DSM4 to DSM5 transition edit list on the Talk page there as well. BillMoyers ( talk) 06:42, 17 December 2013 (UTC) reply

Ugh. Thanks, I'll take a look. Good ideas. Rob Hurt ( talk) 16:08, 17 December 2013 (UTC) reply

Hello User:Rob Hurt, An added reference for you on the Schiz. Talk page. This one is from Toga and Mazziotta with full cite on that Talk page, which should satisfy any further cite requests. Looks like you have enough support to go forward with the edit. BillMoyers ( talk) 05:02, 19 December 2013 (UTC) reply

I didn't see the full citation on there. Did you put it under your earlier comment about that source? I'm not sure that it's worthwhile for me to continue arguing about it. I made the comment after hearing about hypofrontality in a class and noticing that it didn't appear on the page, but I don't feel strongly enough about this edit to keep fighting to keep it. However, if you want to continue the discussion, you might cite the first line of the second paragraph of: WP:MEDASSESS as it relates to the two sources that I most recently suggested. Good luck! Rob Hurt ( talk) 14:59, 19 December 2013 (UTC) reply

Hello User:Rob Hurt, My appreciation for your update. Both User:Tryp and myself are in strong support of your edit. User:Sand, the sole voice opposite, has just admitted that she/he is neither a nurse practioner in psychiatry nor a registered nurse, and that she/he is boycotting the purchase of the new DSM5 manual on the Schiz Talk page. This is the citation which I listed there: Toga and Mazziotta remarkable volume on Brain Imaging: The Disorders, Ch 21, "fMRI Studies of Schizophrenia," pp523-541. Its very useful material which has been supported since the 1990s and has over two dozen references to easily put you over the top as to having good cites. The editors are for it three-to-one. Hope to see your good edit and for you to post it soon. P.S. You are now being invited back on the Schiz. Talk page unanimously to complete your edit with the added cites as of Thurs night, see the Talk under your recent entry on the Talk page there. BillMoyers ( talk) 17:21, 19 December 2013 (UTC) reply

You just added an image at that page, and when I looked at the file page, I saw that it comes from a journal article, but that you claimed a CCxSA3 license for it. Unless the publisher actually licenses everything that way, you may find that the editors at Commons aren't going to let the file stay. It has to be licensed by the publishers, not by the editor who uploaded it. -- Tryptofish ( talk) 21:48, 2 January 2014 (UTC) reply

Yeah, on the journal's website, I clicked "request citation" and input all of the information, and it said that the journal allows you to use one or two figure for free. However, it didn't specify the license to use, and when I was uploading it, I just picked one, but now I'm assuming that I shouldn't have. Does that mean that I should get rid of it, then? Rob Hurt ( talk) 21:58, 2 January 2014 (UTC) reply

It depends on what the publisher actually says. The key thing about acceptable licensing at Commons is not only that it can be used for free, but that subsequent persons, who read Wikipedia, can in turn use it for free, make derivative works from it, and use it or the derivative works for commercial profit without repaying the publisher. I'm guessing that no commercial journal publisher would be OK with that. Unless you know otherwise, you should probably self-revert at the article here, and request deletion of the file page at Commons (or ask someone at Commons to take a look at it). -- Tryptofish ( talk) 14:57, 3 January 2014 (UTC) reply

I understand. I've removed it from ITM, and tagged it for speedy deletion on Commons. In the future, is there any particular place to easily find images that I can safely use here, short of combing through lots of sites where some are free and some aren't? I've used PLoS in the past, but I'm wondering if there's anywhere else like it that I could be using as well. -- Rob Hurt ( talk) 16:33, 3 January 2014 (UTC) reply

It's not specific to images from scientific journals, but there is Wikipedia:Finding images tutorial. There is also Meta:Free image resources, which has a Science section. -- Tryptofish ( talk) 22:27, 4 January 2014 (UTC) reply

Those look great. Thanks! -- Rob Hurt ( talk) 15:14, 5 January 2014 (UTC) reply

Hi Rob Hunt! I hope that you are well. I recently saw you adding some articles to WP:NEURO. We have an interesting bit of cross-over; I've been trying to place (with you and other users) neuroanatomy articles under this category: Category:Anatomy_articles_about_neuroanatomy, in case you'd like a list to check for any additional articles that haven't been properly tagged. Not sure if this is helpful or not, but thought I'd let you know in case you didn't. Kind regards, -- LT910001 ( talk) 01:39, 17 March 2014 (UTC) reply

Hey, thanks, I'll take a look at those articles too. If you want, you can always start on the rest of the Brodmann areas! Rob Hurt ( talk) 02:05, 17 March 2014 (UTC) reply

Hah, I might leave that to you if that's OK! I am busy implementing the new guidelines at WP:MEDMOS#Anatomy on articles with our scope, with the hope of improving the quality and readability of edits, stimulating editing, and pointing out to editors which areas of articles may be deficient. -- LT910001 ( talk) 02:08, 17 March 2014 (UTC) reply

Sounds good. And feel free to add articles to WPNEURO as well! Rob Hurt ( talk) 02:17, 17 March 2014 (UTC) reply

Hi Rob Hurt. Thank you for your work on patrolling new pages and tagging for speedy deletion. I'm just letting you know that I declined your deletion request for Talk:Phasic transmitter, a page that you tagged for speedy deletion, because the criterion you used or the reason you gave does not cover this kind of page. Please use WP:PROD or WP:AFD in the article page to propose for deletion, not the talk page. See WP:CSD for more information on speedy deletions Please take a moment to look at the suggested tasks for patrollers and review the criteria for speedy deletion. Particularly, the section covering non-criteria. Such pages are best tagged with proposed deletion or proposed deletion for biographies of living persons, or sent to the appropriate deletion discussion. § FreeRangeFrog ^croak 02:24, 28 March 2014 (UTC) reply

Please use secondary rather than primary sources. Thanks Doc James ( talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 05:48, 28 April 2014 (UTC) reply

The first edition of The Pulse has been released. The Pulse will be a regular newsletter documenting the goings-on at WPMED, including ongoing collaborations, discussions, articles, and each edition will have a special focus. That newsletter is here.

The newsletter has been sent to the talk pages of WP:MED members bearing the {{ User WPMed}} template. To opt-out, please leave a message here or simply remove your name from the mailing list. Because this is the first issue, we are still finding out feet. Things like the layout and content may change in subsequent editions. Please let us know what you think, and if you have any ideas for the future, by leaving a message here.

Posted by MediaWiki message delivery ( talk) 03:23, 5 June 2014 (UTC) on behalf of WikiProject Medicine. reply

Neat news: BMJ is offering 25 free, full-access accounts to their prestigious medical journal through The Wikipedia Library and Wiki Project Med Foundation (like we did with Cochrane). Please sign up this week: Wikipedia:BMJ --Cheers, Ocaasi via MediaWiki message delivery ( talk) 01:14, 10 June 2014 (UTC) reply

Wikiproject Medicine; Translation Taskforce

Medical Translation Newsletter
Issue 1, June/July 2014
by CFCF, Doc James

sign up for monthly delivery

This is the first of a series of newsletters for Wikiproject Medicine's Translation Task Force. Our goal is to make all the medical knowledge on Wikipedia available to the world, in the language of your choice.

note: you will not receive future editions of this newsletter unless you * sign up*; you received this version because you identify as a member of WikiProject Medicine

Spotlight - Simplified article translation

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Wikiproject Medicine started translating simplified articles in February 2014. We now have 45 simplified articles ready for translation, of which the first on African trypanosomiasis or sleeping sickness has been translated into 46 out of ~100 languages. This list does not include the 33 additional articles that are available in both full and simple versions.

Our goal is to eventually translate 1,000 simplified articles. This includes:

• WHO's list of Essential Medicines [1]
• Neglected tropical diseases [2]
• Key diseases for medical subspecialties like: oncology, emergency medicine ( list), anatomy, internal medicine, surgery, etc.

We are looking for subject area leads to both create articles and recruit further editors. We need people with basic medical knowledge who are willing to help out. This includes to write, translate and especially integrate medical articles.

What's happening?

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IEG grant

I've ( CFCF) taken on the role of community organizer for this project, and will be working with this until December. The goals and timeline can be found here, and are focused on getting the project on a firm footing and to enable me to work near full-time over the summer, and part-time during the rest of the year. This means I will be available for questions and ideas, and you can best reach me by mail or on my talk page.

Wikimania 2014

For those going to London in a month's time (or those already nearby) there will be at least one event for all medical editors, on Thursday August 7th. See the event page, which also summarizes medicine-related presentations in the main conference. Please pass the word on to your local medical editors.

Integration progress

There has previously been some resistance against translation into certain languages with strong Wikipedia presence, such as Dutch, Polish, and Swedish.
What was found is that thre is hardly any negative opinion about the the project itself; and any such critique has focused on the ways that articles have being integrated. For an article to be usefully translated into a target-Wiki it needs to be properly Wiki-linked, carry proper citations and use the formatting of the chosen target language as well as being properly proof-read. Certain large Wikis such as the Polish and Dutch Wikis have strong traditions of medical content, with their own editorial system, own templates and different ideas about what constitutes a good medical article. For example, there are not MEDRS ( Polish, German, Romanian, Persian) guidelines present on other Wikis, and some Wikis have a stronger background of country-specific content.

• Swedish
  Translation into Swedish has been difficult in part because of the amount of free, high quality sources out there already: patient info, for professionals. The same can be said for English, but has really given us all the more reason to try and create an unbiased and free encyclopedia of medical content. We want Wikipedia to act as an alternative to commercial sources, and preferably a really good one at that.
  Through extensive collaborative work and by respecting links and Sweden specific content the last unintegrated Swedish translation went live in May.
• Dutch
  Dutch translation carries with it special difficulties, in part due to the premises in which the Dutch Wikipedia is built upon. There is great respect for what previous editors have created, and deleting or replacing old content can be frowned upon. In spite of this there are success stories: Anafylaxie.
• Polish
  Translation and integration into Polish also comes with its own unique set of challenges. The Polish Wikipedia has long been independent and works very hard to create high quality contentfor Polish audience. Previous translation trouble has lead to use of unique templates with unique formatting, not least among citations. Add to this that the Polish Wikipedia does not allow template redirects and a large body of work is required for each article.
  (This is somewhat alleviated by a commissioned Template bot - to be released). - List of articles for integration
• Arabic
  The Arabic Wikipedia community has been informed of the efforts to integrate content through both the general talk-page as well as through one of the major Arabic Wikipedia facebook-groups: مجتمع ويكيبيديا العربي, something that has been heralded with great enthusiasm.

Integration guides

Integration is the next step after any translation. Despite this it is by no means trivial, and it comes with its own hardships and challenges. Previously each new integrator has needed to dive into the fray with little help from previous integrations. Therefore we are creating guides for specific Wikis that make integration simple and straightforward, with guides for specific languages, and for integrating on small Wikis.

Instructions on how to integrate an article may be found here [3]

News in short

---

To come

• Medical editor census - Medical editors on different Wikis have been without proper means of communication. A preliminary list of projects is available here.
• Proofreading drives

Further reading

• Translators Without Borders
• Healthcare information for all by 2015, a global campaign

Medical Translation partners Translators Without Borders WikiProject Medicine (English) Wiki Project Med Foundation resources Progress (full) Progress (simplified) Babylon Integration guides Wikipedia - Translate outreach Editor Outreach Journal outreach get involved Sign up

Thanks for reading! To receive a monthly talk page update about new issues of the Medical Translation Newsletter, please add your name to the subscriber's list. To suggest items for the next issue, please contact the editor, CFCF ( talk · contribs) at Wikipedia:Wikiproject Medicine/Translation Taskforce/Newsletter/Suggestions.
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For the newsletter from Wikiproject Medicine, see The Pulse
If you are receiving this newsletter without having signed up, it is because you have signed up as a member of the Translation Taskforce, or Wiki Project Med on meta. 22:32, 16 July 2014 (UTC)

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Feature – Ebola articles

During August we have translated Disease and it is now live in more than 60 different languages! To help us focus on African languages Rubric has donated a large number of articles in languages we haven't previously reached–so a shout out them, and Ian Henderson from Rubric who's joined us here at Wikipedia. We're very happy for our continued collaboration with both Rubric and Translators without Borders!

Just some of our over 60 translations:

• Xhosa
• Northern Sotho
• Zulu
• Tsonga
• Venda
• Hausa
• Igbo
• Yoruba
• Kinyarwanda
• Swahili
• Tigrinya

New roles and guides!

At Wikimania there were so many enthusiastic people jumping at the chance to help out the Medical Translation Project, but unfortunately not all of them knew how to get started. That is why we've been spending considerable time writing and improving guides! They are finally live, and you can find them at our home-page!

New sign up page!

We're proud to announce a new sign up page at WP:MTSIGNUP! The old page was getting cluttered and didn't allow you to speficy a role. The new page should be easier to sign up to, and easier to navigate so that we can reach you when you're needed!

Style guides for translations

Translations are of both full articles and shorter articles continues. The process where short articles are chosen for translation hasn't been fully transparent. In the coming months we hope to have a first guide, so that anyone who writes medical or health articles knows how to get their articles to a standard where they can be translated! That's why we're currently working on medical good lede criteria! The idea is to have a similar peer review process to good article nominations, but only for ledes.

Some more stats

• In July, 18 full article translations went live ( WP:RTT), and an additional 6 simplified versions went live ( WP:RTTS)!
• We have a number of new lead integrators into Dutch, Polish, Arabic and Bulgarian, with more to come in smaller languages! (Find them here old sign up page)
• We were mentioned in a Global Voices Online report by Subhashish Panigrahi at Doctors and translators are working together to bridge Wikipedia's medical language gap
• New medical professionals have started, dedicated to working in Odiya and Kinyarwanda!

Further reading

• Translators Without Borders
• Healthcare information for all by 2015, a global campaign

-- CFCF 🍌 ( email) 13:09, 24 September 2014 (UTC) reply

Hi,
You appear to be eligible to vote in the current Arbitration Committee election. The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to enact binding solutions for disputes between editors, primarily related to serious behavioural issues that the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the ability to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail. If you wish to participate, you are welcome to review the candidates' statements and submit your choices on the voting page. For the Election committee, MediaWiki message delivery ( talk) 16:48, 24 November 2015 (UTC) reply

Hello, Rob Hurt. Voting in the 2016 Arbitration Committee elections is open from Monday, 00:00, 21 November through Sunday, 23:59, 4 December to all unblocked users who have registered an account before Wednesday, 00:00, 28 October 2016 and have made at least 150 mainspace edits before Sunday, 00:00, 1 November 2016.

The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to impose binding solutions to disputes between editors, primarily for serious conduct disputes the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the authority to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail.

If you wish to participate in the 2016 election, please review the candidates' statements and submit your choices on the voting page. MediaWiki message delivery ( talk) 22:08, 21 November 2016 (UTC) reply

Hello, Rob Hurt. Voting in the 2017 Arbitration Committee elections is now open until 23.59 on Sunday, 10 December. All users who registered an account before Saturday, 28 October 2017, made at least 150 mainspace edits before Wednesday, 1 November 2017 and are not currently blocked are eligible to vote. Users with alternate accounts may only vote once.

The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to impose binding solutions to disputes between editors, primarily for serious conduct disputes the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the authority to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail.

If you wish to participate in the 2017 election, please review the candidates and submit your choices on the voting page. MediaWiki message delivery ( talk) 18:42, 3 December 2017 (UTC) reply

Hello, Rob Hurt. Voting in the 2018 Arbitration Committee elections is now open until 23.59 on Sunday, 3 December. All users who registered an account before Sunday, 28 October 2018, made at least 150 mainspace edits before Thursday, 1 November 2018 and are not currently blocked are eligible to vote. Users with alternate accounts may only vote once.

The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to impose binding solutions to disputes between editors, primarily for serious conduct disputes the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the authority to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail.

If you wish to participate in the 2018 election, please review the candidates and submit your choices on the voting page. MediaWiki message delivery ( talk) 18:42, 19 November 2018 (UTC) reply

You have been a member of Wiki Project Med Foundation (WPMEDF) in the past. Your membership, however, appears to have expired. As such this is a friendly reminder encouraging you to officially rejoin WPMEDF. There are no associated costs. Membership gives you the right to vote in elections for the board. The current membership round ends in 2020.

Thanks again :-) The team at Wiki Project Med Foundation--- Avicenno ( talk) 05:34, 11 June 2019 (UTC) reply

Great work on the new images you've been adding! A quirk of pdfs on wikicommons is that the previews are pixelated. One solution is to upload images as svg files ( inkscape can change the format for you). Keep up the great work! T.Shafee(Evo&Evo) ^talk 02:44, 7 April 2020 (UTC) reply

Thanks, this is great to know! Is there a way to upload the same file in two formats to a Wikimedia Commons page, or do you have to make separate ones? -Rob

Thank you for your contributions. It seems that you may have added public domain content to one or more Wikipedia articles, such as Tumor-homing bacteria. You are welcome to import appropriate public domain content to articles, but in order to meet the Wikipedia guideline on plagiarism, such content must be fully attributed. This requires not only acknowledging the source, but acknowledging that the source is copied. There are several methods to do this described at Wikipedia:Plagiarism#Public-domain sources, including the usage of an attribution template. Please make sure that any public domain content you have already imported is fully attributed. Thank you. Moneytrees🌴 ^{Talk🌲 Help out at CCI!} 20:17, 8 April 2020 (UTC) reply

Your recent article submission to Articles for Creation has been reviewed! Unfortunately, it has not been accepted at this time. The reason left by Sulfurboy was:

This submission provides insufficient context for those unfamiliar with the subject matter. Please see the guide to writing better articles for information on how to better format your submission.

Please check the submission for any additional comments left by the reviewer. You are encouraged to edit the submission to address the issues raised and resubmit when they have been resolved.

• If you would like to continue working on the submission, go to Draft:Chromatin assembly factor 1 and click on the "Edit" tab at the top of the window.
• If you now believe the draft cannot meet Wikipedia's standards or do not wish to progress it further, you may request deletion. Please go to Draft:Chromatin assembly factor 1, click on the "Edit" tab at the top of the window, add "{{ Db-g7}}" at the top of the draft text and click the blue "publish changes" button to save this edit.
• If you do not make any further changes to your draft, in 6 months, it will be considered abandoned and may be deleted.
• If you need any assistance, you can ask for help at the Articles for creation help desk, on the reviewer's talk page or use Wikipedia's real-time chat help from experienced editors.

Sulfurboy ( talk) 07:38, 1 May 2020 (UTC) reply

Your recent article submission to Articles for Creation has been reviewed! Unfortunately, it has not been accepted at this time. The reason left by SpicyMilkBoy was:

Thank you for your submission, but the subject of this article already exists in Wikipedia. You can find it and improve it at CAF-1 instead.

 The comment the reviewer left was:

There were some copyright issues with this draft (not your fault, because the content came from CAF-1, which was written by other editors). This is now resolved. However, if I'm interpreting your edit summary - copied info from CAF-1, going to redirect that page to this - correctly, it sounds like you want to move CAF-1 to the title Chromatin assembly factor 1. You don't need to submit a draft to do that. Just follow the instructions at Help:How_to_move_a_page. Moving the page to the new title will automatically redirect CAF-1 to Chromatin assembly factor 1.

Please check the submission for any additional comments left by the reviewer. You are encouraged to edit the submission to address the issues raised and resubmit when they have been resolved.

• If you would like to continue working on the submission, go to Draft:Chromatin assembly factor 1 and click on the "Edit" tab at the top of the window.
• If you now believe the draft cannot meet Wikipedia's standards or do not wish to progress it further, you may request deletion. Please go to Draft:Chromatin assembly factor 1, click on the "Edit" tab at the top of the window, add "{{ Db-g7}}" at the top of the draft text and click the blue "publish changes" button to save this edit.
• If you do not make any further changes to your draft, in 6 months, it will be considered abandoned and may be deleted.
• If you need any assistance, you can ask for help at the Articles for creation help desk, on the reviewer's talk page or use Wikipedia's real-time chat help from experienced editors.

SpicyMilkBoy ( talk) 02:01, 9 May 2020 (UTC) reply

Hello, Rob Hurt. It has been over six months since you last edited the Articles for Creation submission or Draft page you started, " Chromatin assembly factor 1".

In accordance with our policy that Wikipedia is not for the indefinite hosting of material deemed unsuitable for the encyclopedia mainspace, the draft has been deleted. If you plan on working on it further and you wish to retrieve it, you can request its undeletion by following the instructions at this link. An administrator will, in most cases, restore the submission so you can continue to work on it.

Thanks for your submission to Wikipedia, and happy editing. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 03:10, 9 November 2020 (UTC) reply

Hello! Voting in the 2020 Arbitration Committee elections is now open until 23:59 (UTC) on Monday, 7 December 2020. All eligible users are allowed to vote. Users with alternate accounts may only vote once. The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to impose binding solutions to disputes between editors, primarily for serious conduct disputes the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the authority to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail. If you wish to participate in the 2020 election, please review the candidates and submit your choices on the voting page. If you no longer wish to receive these messages, you may add {{ NoACEMM}} to your user talk page. MediaWiki message delivery ( talk) 02:28, 24 November 2020 (UTC) reply

You have been a member of Wiki Project Med Foundation (WPMEDF) in the past. Your membership, however, appears to have expired. As such this is a friendly reminder encouraging you to officially rejoin WPMEDF. There are no associated costs. Membership gives you the right to vote in elections for the board. The current membership round ends in 2022.

Thanks again :-) The team at Wiki Project Med Foundation--- Avicenno ( talk), 2021.01