The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Please avoid threaded responses in the "Survey" section, and start a new sub-section in the "Discussion" section for threaded commentary. 22:10, 22 December 2019 (UTC)
Collapsed and replaced below,
SandyGeorgia (
Talk) 23:06, 25 December 2019 (UTC)
|
---|
|
I have collapsed my original response and re-written it to hopefully address concerns about how the RFC is framed. Discussions at the WikiProject level have failed to resolve intractable disputes resulting from application of this local WikiProject guideline (or the items it encompasses even before they were added to the guideline page) for many years now, and broader examination of each of these sentences is needed.
The last uncontested version of WP:MEDMOS had no Lead section, because there was no information specific to medical articles thought necessary. It said only: "Adding sources to the lead is a reasonable practice but not required as long as the text in question is supported in the body of the article", which was in sync with Wikipedia policy and guideline.
See the discussion at the talk page of Featured article Schizophrenia for a sample of problems resulting from application of this guideline. I have highlighted in yellow phrases of particular concern, and prioritized from 1–7 the sentences from WP:MEDLEAD that I see as the most problematic, so that these numbers can be referenced in Survey and Discussion below.
1. To facilitate broad coverage of our medical content in other languages, the translation task force often translates only the lead, which then requires citations. Remove entire sentence.
This is the tail that is wagging the rest of this dog; transparency in this discussion would be aided by disclosure from participants and board members of this Wikimedia project in their responses here. Separate programs or products being advanced by Wikimedia Foundation projects with their own governing boards should not be constraining content in the English-language Wikipedia. Requiring citations—beyond what en.Wikipedia policy requires, for the purposes of a Wikimedia project—should be examined at the level of Wikipedia-wide guidelines, and not in one WikiProject guideline.
2. Medical statements are much more likely than the average statement to be challenged, thus making citation mandatory. Remove this sentence entirely and return to wording similar to the last uncontested version.
Influenza, commonly known as the flu, is an infectious disease caused by an influenza virus.
Because the lead will usually repeat information that is in the body, editors should balance the desire to avoid redundant citations in the lead with the desire to aid readers in locating sources for challengeable material. Leads are usually written at a greater level of generality than the body, and information in the lead section of non-controversial subjects is less likely to be challenged and less likely to require a source; there is not, however, an exception to citation requirements specific to leads. The necessity for citations in a lead should be determined on a case-by-case basis by editorial consensus. Complex, current, or controversial subjects may require many citations; others, few or none. The presence of citations in the introduction is neither required in every article nor prohibited in any article.
3. The lead of an article, if not the entire article, should be written as simply as possible without introducing errors or ambiguity. Remove the highlighted yellow and blue text, and replace the blue with wording along the lines of: while taking great care that clarity is retained and error or ambiguity are not introduced.
Some articles are themselves technical in nature and some articles have technical sections or aspects. Many of these can still be written to be understandable to a wide audience. Some topics are intrinsically complex or require much prior knowledge gained through specialized education or training. It is unreasonable to expect a comprehensive article on such subjects to be understandable to all readers. The effort should still be made to make the article as understandable to as many as possible, with particular emphasis on the lead section.
4. It is also reasonable to have the lead introduce content in the same order as the body of the text. Remove.
6. Avoid cluttering the very beginning of the article with pronunciations or unusual alternative names; infoboxes are useful for storing this data. Remove; alternates and pronunciation may be needed at times.
The lead should stand on its own as a concise overview of the article's topic." and "
The lead must conform to verifiability ... there is not ... an exception to citation requirements specific to leads." I remain convinced that the advice given in MEDLEAD is good advice, and has a good purpose behind it. I don't believe that removing the advice or attempting to make it say only what is in MOSLEAD is beneficial to medical articles or to their readers. -- RexxS ( talk) 03:03, 23 December 2019 (UTC)
other names=
-parameter in
Template:Infobox medical condition (new)). This provision has been included in WP:MEDMOS for years, and overturning it would disrupt readability and searchability of articles — and demand extraordinary efforts to enforce while only resulting in worse articles. I believe this justifies its inclusion despite contradicting suggestions from WP:LEADALT and WP:LEADPRON.
Carl Fredrik
talk 23:02, 25 December 2019 (UTC)
>>
BEANS X2
t
16:54, 6 January 2020 (UTC)
"There is no cure. Early in life constant supportive care is typically required. Treatments may include moisturizing cream, antibiotics, etretinate, or retinoids. It affects about 1 per 300,000 births. There is no difference in rate of occurrence between sexes. Long-term problems are common. Death in the first month is relatively common. The condition was first documented in 1750."
I added a second question to hopefully make the choice less binary. [5] Pokemon articles are quite different from medical articles; clarity in medical topics is undoubtedly more important than in Pokemon, and community-wide guidelines have been vetted to enhance clarity and accessibility. SandyGeorgia ( Talk) 23:04, 22 December 2019 (UTC)
For newcomers to the RFC, there are good examples of how to address the seven separate issues in the Discussion on survey section. SandyGeorgia ( Talk) 19:51, 26 December 2019 (UTC)
SandyGeorgia, it appears that WP:TECHNICAL says to "Use short sentences when possible. Comprehension decreases dramatically when sentence length exceeds 12 words. However, using too many short sentences in a row becomes monotonous; vary sentence length to maintain reader interest." This direction to use short sentences feels more restrictive than merely observing that "Language can often be simplified by using shorter sentences". WhatamIdoing ( talk) 05:14, 23 December 2019 (UTC)
The "greater evil" is that bad information is being left in articles as the Medicine Project has switched from a focus on writing quality content, to writing only leads for translation. This is a big problem, and we should all be worried about the amount of incorrect information that is in our medical content, as the Medicine Project no longer focuses on the kind of work it did five or ten years ago (weekly collaborations, improving article assessments, etc.)
On the guideline, we want people to actually read the page, rather than have it become bloated by repeating what is in Wikipedia's main guidelines. We should be adding at MEDLEAD only information which is specific to medicine and explains how to interpret the main guideline for medicine articles. If we think LEAD is insufficient, we should be addressing it. None of what you suggest is specific to medicine, and the problem we have seen is that an over-zealous application/interpretation of sentence length is negatively impacting clarity. SandyGeorgia ( Talk) 16:58, 23 December 2019 (UTC)
The goals put forward by the text at MEDLEAD are at odds with each other, and it is not surprising that the Medicine Project has not produced a Featured article since the trend set in, when the project once saw good annual growth in good and featured content ( sample, which as of 2019 shows a net decline). These (non-standard for Wikipedia) practices force less accessibility and readability, and less well written content in leads; that is why the Wikipedia-wide guideline does not restrict the writer in the ways MEDLEAD is now. IF we want to improve leads, LEAD and other guidelines tell us how. If we want leads only for translation, that project has their own content-forked pages anyway.
Thank you, at least, for engaging the topic, which was not happening when the discussion was local. SandyGeorgia ( Talk) 19:36, 23 December 2019 (UTC)
Regarding your point (1) on leads and readability: having read thousands (literally) of Featured article candidate discussions on leads during my tenure as FAC delegate, it is my opinion (and that of many others, according to LEAD) that overciting a lead can and does constrain writing, impeding the clearest possible narrative written at a higher level of generality. I will role this into separate sample discussions when I answer RexxS in his section below, because the CREEPy enforced order of content in the lead is also part of that problem.
On your point (2), I believe the idea that we need citations in the lead to help avoid quackery and commercial interest content being inserted into leads is a strawman: WP:MEDRS already gives us the sourcing tool to keep quackery and commercial content out of articles, so we don't need to change lead guidelines for that goal.
On your point (3), you will get no argument from me about the usefulness (or lack thereof) of the GA process, but most FAs most assuredly have what you call a "single champion", typically the WP:WBFAN nominator, but at times, someone else who took the article on after a Featured article review. This is so well understood that the FAR process requires notification of the original nominator when submitting an FA for review, and most FAs whose original nominator is no longer active on Wikipedia end up deteriorating. On this score, most of WPMED's FA writers are gone; that there has not been an FA from the Medicine Project since this trend set in, and that most FA writers are gone from the project, is not IMO coincidental. On a personal note, I once watchlisted every WPMED FA, but I removed most of them from my watchlist when their leads were negatively impacted by the trends evidenced in this guideline; to continue to watchlist them would mean I would need to take them to FAR, so I washed my hands generally. Whenever I do come back to look, I find deterioration (again, see the sample discussion at Schizophrenia; we can't expect Casliber to fix them all).
More significantly, whether we look at B-class or GA/FA level, WPMED in general has moved away from systematically improving content in the body of articles (as once was done in the now-defunct Wikipedia:WikiProject Medicine/Collaboration of the Month/History), to a focus on more exclusively editing leads, to support off-en.Wikipedia projects. Medical collaboration to improve content has been replaced in a project focused almost entirely on off-en.wikipedia ventures, altering leads of even Featured articles, and at a time when the effects of student editing require constance vigilance from competent editors. Gone are the times when we collaborated to bring an article to a higher standard.
As WPMED loses core content writers (including every one of its FA writers), how much has been lost in addressing content issues? Whether we care that no FAs have been produced by WPMED since this trend set in is not the issue: when we lose editors capable of writing at the FA level and replace them with editors who can offer little more than me, too, per-so-and-so in important discussions, where do we end up? This is being done in the belief that it helps "children in sub-Saharan Africa", but at a disservice to English-speaking readers who may read the entire article, or may be looking for information in one section of the article. On that score, we demonstrably have errors being introduced by editors who focus on leads only, and neglect significant errors in the body of articles. This should be a concern. We do not help anyone, in sub-Saharan Africa or otherwise, by focusing on leads to the exclusion of overall content, and relative to years past, that is where we are now. As you say, many of the top articles are already translated, and the translation project has its own content-forked pages for translations, so why should it be imposing guidelines that are not in accordance with Wikipedia-wide guidelines in order to facilitate translation? If an off-Wikipedia venture wants to force requirements into medical content to make translation easier, could they at least not do it in a way that assures that medical content cannot meet the requirements of Featured articles, so that our writers who are capable of producing that content are not chased off ? SandyGeorgia ( Talk) 20:36, 26 December 2019 (UTC)
Colin suggests that MEDLEAD is a content fork, which of course is a guideline about articles, and not project space. The relevant advice for guidelines is actually neither policy nor guidance and is at WP:GUIDELINEFORK, which recommends not to create a page "that conflicts with or contradicts an existing one". I maintain that MEDLEAD neither conflicts with or contradicts MOSLEAD, but supplements it for medical-related articles. It is common practice on Wikipedia for sub-topics to receive different, sometimes inconsistent guidance, and an obvious example is how WP:NPROF and WP:NSPORT differ from WP:GNG and from each other – the criteria in NPROF replace those in GNG; while those in NSPORT supplement GNG.
We are not a bureaucracy, with hide-bound rules, and the guidance given should reflect best practice, and if necessary, we have an RfC to determine what that is.
Turning to specifics: why shouldn't MEDLEAD have a chart of native languages? It helps editors understand the issues faced in making our content available to its readers. Our vision is "a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge" and that means we should be doing whatever we can to increase the availability of our content to every single human being, which includes improving its readability and accessibility, as well as making it easier to translate. This not "tail-wagging-dog"; it is a fundamental principle of writing Wikipedia – what Jimbo called "the nearest thing we have to a prime directive".
There is nothing sub-optimal about making the reading level of our leads (medical or otherwise) low enough to be accessible to the broadest possible audience. That means writing shorter, more direct and less complex sentences to aid comprehension. It means using the simplest phrase available, while still preserving meaning. Wikipedia is not the place for editors to show off their vast vocabulary by using "oral" instead of "by mouth" or "renal" instead of "kidney". I'll gladly sacrifice some of the joy of reading a lead of Shakespearean quality for having one that a 15-year old kid in sub-Saharan Africa can grasp immediately. That's the justification for what's in MEDLEAD, which makes it clear that our editors are pragmatists, not elitists, and write content for the whole world, not just the privileged few. -- RexxS ( talk) 14:39, 23 December 2019 (UTC)
"The lead of an article, if not the entire article, should be written as simply as possible without introducing errors or ambiguity"lead to an improvement in comprehensibility for the sentence "Neuroleptic malignant syndrome and QT interval prolongation may occur.?
But from my perspective as a Spanish-language interpreter in a free clinic for migrant farm workers without insurance, and as someone who is also conversant in Italian, and who lives in a household where fluent German exists, I think by focusing on specific words, we're missing the broader points we should be addressing in how to write the best possible content for any reader in any language. In romance languages, the more technical jargon (typically with a Latin root) is much more likely to lead you to directly to the translation. We don't speak of ear, nose and throat in Spanish: we speak of otorinolaryngología. We don't speak of kidney damage; since kidney = riñon, renal is a word commonly used (as in insuficiencia renal). Interpreting in Spanish means I am frequently using the technical jargon.
An appeal to the children in "sub-Saharan Africa" indicates to me we might try harder to hear/read the intent of those who argue a different point than our position.
When medical editors stop writing or improving content because the environment has become so toxic, then we'll end up with nothing left to translate for anyone in Africa or Venezuela, as well as articles that are inaccurate in the lingua franca, English. So, what is the approach here that will help us get better medical content in English, so we have content worthy of translation? Could those who believe that Wikipedia's content is helping that child in sub-Saharan Africa consider the possibility that, in spite of honorable intentions, they might be deceiving themselves, and weigh their concerns for that child in Africa against the possibility that deficiencies in English-language medical content may be impacting that child in inner city Detroit? If not, we will see an accelerated pace of deficient Wikipedia content in the body of articles, with leads written by editors who aren't necessarily topic experts and don't even know what they've gotten wrong in the leads they are putting up for translation. SandyGeorgia ( Talk) 19:16, 24 December 2019 (UTC)
I maintain that MEDLEAD does not supplement LEAD as a guideline should, rather extends beyond LEAD and even contradicts it (and other guideline pages) in several instances, and in ways that is affecting the precision and clarity so necessary for medical content. I also maintain that, if we are to extend our lead guidance in the way that MEDLEAD has done, that should be done in the main guideline page (LEAD).
Translating articles is not unique to medicine. If the broader community believes we should alter our LEAD guideline to incorporate the needs of a translation project, then we should address that in LEAD. Do we write leads for the English-language Wikipedia, or leads in a Wikipedia in English for the purpose of translators who may not be fluent in English? Further, considering the Translation Task Force implements its own static versions of articles for the purpose of translation (see Wikipedia:WikiProject Medicine/Translation task force/RTT(Simplified)L and example at Wikipedia:WikiProject Medicine/Translation task force/RTT/Simple Dementia with Lewy bodies), why is it necessary to alter the leads of every medical article? (A separate issue is that experienced medical editors should not be altering leads without also adjusting the body of the article.)
Some examples of how over-simplified wording, constrained by citations on each fragment and sentence length, are sub-optimal.
Schizophrenia is a mental illness characterized by ... strange speech ..."Strange" seems to have been chosen as a word that translates easily, but it does nothing to describe the kind of speech characteristic of schizophrenia. Mork had strange speech with Mindy.
Males are more often affected and onset is on average earlier in age.Here is a sentence constrained to 12 words. Does it tell the average reader what they need to know?
About 20% of people eventually do well, and a few recover completely.Again, a sentence constrained to 12 words. What does "do well" mean here? Don't end up hospitalized? Don't commit suicide? Don't need medication? Don't have impairment in certain realms of functioning? The reader is given no idea (and the reasoning given for that on talk page is related to over-citation: the desire to stick with what one simple source states).
This is the result of increased physical health problems and a higher suicide rate (about 5%).The suicide rate is 5% higher than the non-affected population or 5% overall ? A lack of clarity and specificity results from keeping sentences too short and overly simple, rather than when possible as suggested by the broader guideline.
That is surely an injunction to keep text simple, even more so than in the body of the article. MEDLEAD gives this corresponding advice:"It is even more important here than in the rest of the article that the text be accessible. Editors should avoid lengthy paragraphs and overly specific descriptions"
That seems to me to be the correct advice, and I don't think that the argument that editors sometimes fail to avoid "introducing errors or ambiguity" is a reason to remove the guidance. Wikipedia abounds with problems where editors have failed to follow guidance, but the solution is to improve the content to fix the problems, not remove the guidance."The lead of an article, if not the entire article, should be written as simply as possible without introducing errors or ambiguity."
Compare that with MEDLEAD's advice:information in the lead section of non-controversial subjects is less likely to be challenged and less likely to require a source; there is not, however, an exception to citation requirements specific to leads. The necessity for citations in a lead should be determined on a case-by-case basis by editorial consensus. Complex, current, or controversial subjects may require many citations; others, few or none. The presence of citations in the introduction is neither required in every article nor prohibited in any article.
Now, I believe that there is nothing in MEDLEAD that contradicts MOSLEAD. Medical advice is often far more complex and potentially controversial (consider the problems of fake information like the anti-vaxxers and of traditional cures, which can only be countered by citing good sources) than more mundane topics like pop culture and sport. Medical articles are demonstrably more often translated than the average article and so there is an increased requirement for citations in the lead.It is useful to include citations in the lead, but they are not obligatory. Two reasons for using them are: Medical statements are much more likely than the average statement to be challenged, thus making citation mandatory. To facilitate broad coverage of our medical content in other languages, the translation task force often translates only the lead, which then requires citations.
"Males are more often affected and onset is on average earlier in age."is that this example is not a simple sentence. If I were trying to write that information simply, it would look something like
Men are more likely to have schizophrenia than women. Men develop symptoms earlier than women, too."(assuming that's what the age of onset bit was trying to say). The example sentence fails to apply the "one thought per sentence" advice, and the article is poorer as a result. WhatamIdoing ( talk) 06:07, 25 December 2019 (UTC)
See discussion in the section below (Discussion on survey) on the problem with the word mandatory in a guideline, and my views on whether BLP-style citation requirements should be added to medical content. That is not the argument here, though, which is that they should be "mandated" (not a word found in any policy) in leads only, which does nothing to protect medical content from anti-vaxxers and quacks who add bullroar to the bodies of articles. Fuller discussion of that below.
You point out that Wikipedia abounds with problems where editors have failed to follow guidance, but the solution is to improve the content to fix the problems, not remove the guidance
. We are in violent agreement in principle. For example,
this removal of guideline text to accommodate student editing errors, rather than
correcting the wording to address the problem is not what I am advocating, and is a good indication that competence is required in editing guidelines.
In this case, we have repeatedly seen extreme application of the principles behind the guideline, and edits that impact clarity and accuracy of medical content. If editors aren't able to understand Wikipedia policy, and our guideline wording is facilitating poor editing, then we should work to clarify the wording to reflect policy and best practice. Instead, we see "I like it, per editor-so-and-so" !voting throughout WPMED discussions, and no attempt to refine the wording in the disputed guideline text to help assure the best possible understanding. The wording we have does not reflect policy, and we have experienced medical editors who do not follow policy. We need to make our guidelines clearer to deal with not only the anti-vaxxers, but to also provide clarity to our established editors. Please take a more careful look at the type of wordsmithing that is needed to improve MEDLEAD; that sort of wordsmithing was a key part of the drive that saw MEDRS and MEDMOS written so well a decade ago, and that gave us guidelines that served the project well until around 2015. WAID points out that some people are better than others at simplifying language, but we have less editors doing this than you can count on one hand; our guidelines should be written as well as the Wikipedia-wide guidelines are, to leave no doubt as to what we intend. When we end up with few competent editors willing to even engage medical articles, leaving editing to those who lack nuance, understanding of the topic, or adequate time to make sure edits are sound, the anti-vaxxers and quacks only get the upper hand. SandyGeorgia ( Talk) 02:04, 27 December 2019 (UTC)
CFCF reverted my additions of disclosures for himself and Doc James as members, officers, or founding members of the Wikimedia Project that has an interest in advocating for these changes. There may be other missing disclosures. SandyGeorgia ( Talk) 23:20, 25 December 2019 (UTC)
Please avoid threaded responses in the "Survey" section, and start a new sub-section in the "Discussion" section for threaded commentary. 22:10, 22 December 2019 (UTC)
It seems odd that these rules should apply to everyone but you..., I view that as an unhelpful comment of the type that promotes a battleground environment. The disclosures can be done here in this separate section if my adding them under signatures is a concern. SandyGeorgia ( Talk) 23:37, 25 December 2019 (UTC)
1. disagree. I feel function over form is more important here and the focus on global SDG's means we need to facilitate the work of the translation task force imo.
Ian Furst (
talk) 02:56, 26 December 2019 (UTC)
2. disagree. See previous discussion on the risk of non-MEDRS sourced statements by commercial interests and charlatans.
Ian Furst (
talk) 02:56, 26 December 2019 (UTC)
3. neutral. I don't think this change will have much impact. I have no opposition to it.
Ian Furst (
talk) 02:56, 26 December 2019 (UTC)
4. agree. Maintaining the same order, while great to ensure content is well summarized, disrupts the create of great prose. I favour form over function here.
Ian Furst (
talk) 02:56, 26 December 2019 (UTC)
5. no opinion. I saw the argument but would prefer to here from someone that actually translates. I'm suspect there is a word for mouth in most languages and I wonder how it translates.
Ian Furst (
talk) 02:56, 26 December 2019 (UTC)
6. disagree. We've built a section in infoboxes to handle this info. I'm surprised by your stance on the SandyGeorgia, the preambles ruin the flow of some articles. I prefer them in the infoboxes.
Ian Furst (
talk) 02:56, 26 December 2019 (UTC)
7. I don't understand the survey question in #7.
Ian Furst (
talk) 02:56, 26 December 2019 (UTC)
My list:
WP:MEDLEAD shows every mark of inexperienced guideline or policy writers, laying down absolutes in inflexible terms, with no consideration for whether the text in a guideline syncs with policy.
For example, mandatory is not a word associated with citation found in any policy or guideline page anywhere else on Wikipedia.
That medical content in general should have BLP-style required inline citation to high-quality sources is something I have argued repeatedly, for years, and that has been rejected. How, then can we impose citations specifically in the lead, when the lead is a summary of the body, and we don't require them in the body? Now, if you want to push (as I have, for years) for a BLP-style policy on medical content within articles, with content then summarized to leads, well I'm on board, but that is not what this lead guideline discussion is about. A BLP-style requirement for citation on medical text has never been endorsed by WPMED or by the community. We can't mandate it in a guideline about LEADs only, without an RFC on whether we can require inline citations to high-quality sources for medical content, as we do for BLPs. For those arguing that point (2) is acceptable, they would have a stronger argument if they argued same for the body of articles, and used the kind of language that is used in guideline and policy writing (eg WP:BLP, WP:V, WP:RS, etc.) For those who want us to have similar requirements on medical content as we do on BLPs, I have been on board for years, and would love to see that RFC. This is not that RFC, and if we have a lead guideline that goes beyond what policy pages on Wikipedia state, we have a problem of being out of sync with policy. SandyGeorgia ( Talk) 01:15, 27 December 2019 (UTC)
I've rephrased the second sentence using wording directly from MOS:LEAD.To facilitate broad coverage of our medical content in other languages, and to respond quickly to the need to make good medical content available in emergencies, the translation task force often translates only the lead. Adding citations to the lead then helps it stand on its own as a concise overview.
I've rephrased the second part using wording directly from MOS:LEAD. Overcitation can be problematical, but one well-chosen citation to support each fact stated is unlikely to lead to the issues described in WP:CITEOVERKILL. If the presence of citations in the wikitext makes editing difficult, then I've found that the use of WP:List-defined references goes a long way to keeping the text clear when editing.Medical statements are more likely than the average statement to be challenged, so editors are encouraged to add citations in the lead, particularly for complex or controversial topics.
Although that's not bad advice for any article, IMHO."When writing the lead, editors should ensure that they write a comprehensive summary of all of the main points of the article. One way to achieve this is to follow the order of the content in the body of the article."
See discussion at the talk page of this RFC. Sample responses on the RFC have ranged from "no change needed" to "delete the whole MEDLEAD section of MEDMOS", with many partial positions in between those two. This table presents a summary of the range of possibilities raised so far. It may assist those wanting to examine each point of the contested text, and facilitate responses such as Support 3A, or Oppose 5B, for example. SandyGeorgia ( Talk) 23:08, 30 December 2019 (UTC)
Current | Position A | Position B | Position C | Position D |
---|---|---|---|---|
1. To facilitate broad coverage of our medical content in other languages, the translation task force often translates only the lead, which then requires citations. | Translation is done from simplified forks of our leads, not the leads directly. Citation clutter makes our articles harder to read by our readers. Excess citations may be included in the wikitext inside HTML comments, which are hidden from our readers, and then surfaced in the simplified translation-fork page. | To facilitate broad coverage of our medical content in other languages, and to respond quickly to the need to make good medical content available in emergencies, the translation task force often translates only the lead. Adding citations to the lead then helps it stand on its own as a concise overview. Citations in the lead have no effect on readers, but are valuable to editors maintaining text integrity. | No evidence that translating leads of medical articles improves medical outcomes has been presented. Remove this and related text from MEDLEAD, and conduct a separate RFC on whether LEAD should be rewritten to accommodate article translation for all articles, not just medical. | Retain all text in points 1–7. * No change is needed. * MEDLEAD is in sync with LEAD. Translation is tremendously important. Wikipedia's mission is to provide "every single person on the planet... free access to the sum of all human knowledge". Translation helps achieve that. The medical translation effort has resulted in more than 6 million words of text being translated. |
2. Medical statements are much more likely than the average statement to be challenged, thus making citation mandatory. | No evidence that this is more true than in biographical, economic or political articles, for example. Claiming citations are thus generally mandatory is in direct contradiction to policy, which is case-by-case. | Medical statements are more likely than the average statement to be challenged, so editors are encouraged to add citations in the lead, particularly for complex or controversial topics. Any editor who regularly helps maintain medical articles knows that statements are not only more likely to be challenged, but also require a higher standard of sourcing than the average Wikipedia article. The leads of complex and controversial topics are the prime target for POV-pushing and subtle vandalism, where citations are most needed, cf WP:BLP. | Adding sources to the lead is a reasonable practice but not required in all instances if the text in question is supported in the body of the article. Editors are encouraged to add citations in the lead for direct quotes, hard data, or statements likely to be challenged." Vulvar cancer is a cancer of the vulva, the outer portion of the female genitals" is not likely to be challenged. No evidence that medical statements are more likely to be challenged has been presented. Overciting leads constrains the ability to craft an overall summary of the article's content. While BLP-style citation requirements may be appropriate for all medical content, even BLP does not mandate citations in the lead (see Donald Trump). A separate RFC about applying a BLP-style inline citation policy to medical content would be useful. |
It's fine to have lots of citations in the leads of medical articles. It's acceptable for medical content guidance to have some differences from general guidelines, because medical content risks misleading our readers to make bad decisions about their own health care. "First, do no harm" trumps "first, do not violate MOS". |
3. The lead of an article, if not the entire article, should be written as simply as possible without introducing errors or ambiguity. | No need to repeat existing policy or guideline, which does not say "as simply as possible" but "as understandable as possible". There is a difference, as the latter requires good writing more than it requires baby words. | The lead of an article should be written as simply as possible without introducing errors or ambiguity. I would not have a problem if the guidance were to focus on making the text as accessible as possible or as understandable/comprehensible as possible. | The lead of an article should be as understandable as possible without introducing errors or ambiguity.The clause "if not the entire article" extends beyond the cited quideline, which clarifies that there may be sections that have more technical aspects (pathophysiology comes to mind in medicine) and may not be written as simply as the lead. |
"The content in articles in Wikipedia should be written as far as possible for the widest possible general audience" is similar to saying "The lead of an article, if not the entire article, should be written as simply as possible without introducing errors or ambiguity." Wikipedia has received a lot of criticism, both in the academic [6] [7] and lay press, for being overly complicated. Wikipedia should try to approach a grade 12 reading level for the leads and has made progress towards this in the area of medicine. [8] |
4. It is also reasonable to have the lead introduce content in the same order as the body of the text. | Per WAID there is no justification for this for any article, let alone medical ones. | When writing the lead, editors should ensure that they write a comprehensive summary of all of the main points of the article. One way to achieve this is to follow the order of the content in the body of the article. This is a sensible practice and sufficient justification for the advice. | Editors should ensure that the lead is a comprehensive summary of all of the main points of the article. One way to achieve this is to follow the order of the content in the body of the article, although no specific order is required.Prescribing the order of the narrative is CREEPy; the additional yellow-highlighted text is needed to prevent the leads of articles, including Featured articles, from being diminished by imposing a particular order. |
|
5. The British National Formulary for example often uses "by mouth" rather than "oral". | Per notes on RFC, the BNF does not prefer "by mouth" to "oral" at all. This deceptive statement should be removed. | Examples should not be removed, but should be replaced by better ones. The present example is not deceptive, as the BNF actually does use "by mouth" as well as "oral". Most languages in the world translate "by mouth" exactly, including French, Portuguese and Romanian. | Remove. Problems have been raised with every example given of words that can be substituted. This information is not needed in the MEDLEAD section, as it is already covered in the same guideline at the sections on Writing for the wrong audience and Careful language. | |
6. Avoid cluttering the very beginning of the article with pronunciations or unusual alternative names; infoboxes are useful for storing this data. | No medical reason for this. Adequately covered by other guidelines. | Avoid cluttering the beginning of the article with pronunciations or multiple alternative names. | Remove here, this widespread information is already better covered at the guidelines on first sentences, alternate names and lead pronunciation. Avoid duplicating information across guideline pages that is already covered better elsewhere. | This is a matter of deep concensus within the medical community, and is due to the preponderance of alternative names, sometimes upwards of 10 (solved well by using the other names= -parameter in
Template:Infobox medical condition (new)). This provision has been included in WP:MEDMOS for years, and overturning it would disrupt readability and searchability of articles — and demand extraordinary efforts to enforce while only resulting in worse articles. I believe this justifies its inclusion despite contradicting suggestions from WP:LEADALT and WP:LEADPRON.
|
7. Miscellaneous: * Language can often be simplified by using shorter sentences, having one idea per sentence, and using common rather than technical terms. * It is useful to include citations in the lead, but they are not obligatory. * Around a third of readers of English Wikipedia, have English as a second language. * Most readers access Wikipedia on mobile devices and want swift access to the subject matter without undue scrolling. * File:2019 Wikipedia reader native language by language.png |
Remove. This is gratuitous agenda-pushing and has no place in any guideline. We have other guidelines to recommend writing style. | Retain | Indifferent, but support minimizing redundancy in guidelines over "one-stop shopping" that replicates other guidelines, and avoid repeating info here that is better covered elsewhere. Most of this information either is better covered elsewhere, or belongs elsewhere. | It is acceptable for medical content guidance to have some differences from general guidelines, because medical content risks misleading our readers to make bad decisions about their own health care. "First, do no harm" trumps "first, do not violate MOS". |
"... participants in a WikiProject cannot decide that some generally accepted policy or guideline does not apply to articles within its scope", but what generally accepted policy or guideline would not apply if a project decided to require citations for articles within its scope? -- RexxS ( talk) 09:57, 2 January 2020 (UTC)
"This guideline is a part of the English Wikipedia's Manual of Style."where "guideline" links to Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines. That makes it very clear that these guidelines "are developed by the community ...". It doesn't matter how ineffectual WikiProject:WAID or WikiProject:MED will be in enforcing anything; these guidelines carry the force of community consensus. I'm sorry but your argument beyond the first three sentences don't make sense to me. Have you missed the point that this page (MEDMOS) is one of the community's own global-consensus pages, not a subpage of WPMED? You could be forgiven for thinking we are still discussing at WTMED, given the amount of churn that is currently occurring.
"... best treated with common sense, and occasional exceptions may apply."Wikipedia is not a bureaucracy, and there is no genuine conflict to resolve.
SandyGeorgia ( Talk) 15:16, 31 December 2019 (UTC)
... generally oppose the notion that a primary purpose of enwiki medical article leads should be ease-of-translation. It's more important that we accurately and readably state the information in English than that we make it easy to translate that information into another language. I find the thought that people who speak a certain language are getting their medical information primarily from Wikipedia deeply frightening. We are not competent for that task. We are competent to write a tertiary source that summarizes secondary sources. We shouldn't even be trying to be some kind of WebMD.
It is easy to see that the goal of putting translated medical information in to the hands of people in developing countries is laudable, but do we actually have anything close to an outcome measure that reinforces the idea that giving people access to the lead of, for example, common cold, actually has any effect on overall health? SandyGeorgia ( Talk) 23:07, 27 December 2019 (UTC)
Per the discussions above, the suggestion that we need another example because there is not universal agreement that all of these changes are for the better, can we agree that
is a better guideline example than
Oral and renal are better word choices for translation to romance languages, and a guideline should not encourage bot-like editing of articles to alter carefully chosen language. Perhaps we can all agree that changing the word etiology in leads to causes is less likely to be disputed, and choose that as an example of wording to consider changing. SandyGeorgia ( Talk) 00:27, 28 December 2019 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Please avoid threaded responses in the "Survey" section, and start a new sub-section in the "Discussion" section for threaded commentary. 22:10, 22 December 2019 (UTC)
Collapsed and replaced below,
SandyGeorgia (
Talk) 23:06, 25 December 2019 (UTC)
|
---|
|
I have collapsed my original response and re-written it to hopefully address concerns about how the RFC is framed. Discussions at the WikiProject level have failed to resolve intractable disputes resulting from application of this local WikiProject guideline (or the items it encompasses even before they were added to the guideline page) for many years now, and broader examination of each of these sentences is needed.
The last uncontested version of WP:MEDMOS had no Lead section, because there was no information specific to medical articles thought necessary. It said only: "Adding sources to the lead is a reasonable practice but not required as long as the text in question is supported in the body of the article", which was in sync with Wikipedia policy and guideline.
See the discussion at the talk page of Featured article Schizophrenia for a sample of problems resulting from application of this guideline. I have highlighted in yellow phrases of particular concern, and prioritized from 1–7 the sentences from WP:MEDLEAD that I see as the most problematic, so that these numbers can be referenced in Survey and Discussion below.
1. To facilitate broad coverage of our medical content in other languages, the translation task force often translates only the lead, which then requires citations. Remove entire sentence.
This is the tail that is wagging the rest of this dog; transparency in this discussion would be aided by disclosure from participants and board members of this Wikimedia project in their responses here. Separate programs or products being advanced by Wikimedia Foundation projects with their own governing boards should not be constraining content in the English-language Wikipedia. Requiring citations—beyond what en.Wikipedia policy requires, for the purposes of a Wikimedia project—should be examined at the level of Wikipedia-wide guidelines, and not in one WikiProject guideline.
2. Medical statements are much more likely than the average statement to be challenged, thus making citation mandatory. Remove this sentence entirely and return to wording similar to the last uncontested version.
Influenza, commonly known as the flu, is an infectious disease caused by an influenza virus.
Because the lead will usually repeat information that is in the body, editors should balance the desire to avoid redundant citations in the lead with the desire to aid readers in locating sources for challengeable material. Leads are usually written at a greater level of generality than the body, and information in the lead section of non-controversial subjects is less likely to be challenged and less likely to require a source; there is not, however, an exception to citation requirements specific to leads. The necessity for citations in a lead should be determined on a case-by-case basis by editorial consensus. Complex, current, or controversial subjects may require many citations; others, few or none. The presence of citations in the introduction is neither required in every article nor prohibited in any article.
3. The lead of an article, if not the entire article, should be written as simply as possible without introducing errors or ambiguity. Remove the highlighted yellow and blue text, and replace the blue with wording along the lines of: while taking great care that clarity is retained and error or ambiguity are not introduced.
Some articles are themselves technical in nature and some articles have technical sections or aspects. Many of these can still be written to be understandable to a wide audience. Some topics are intrinsically complex or require much prior knowledge gained through specialized education or training. It is unreasonable to expect a comprehensive article on such subjects to be understandable to all readers. The effort should still be made to make the article as understandable to as many as possible, with particular emphasis on the lead section.
4. It is also reasonable to have the lead introduce content in the same order as the body of the text. Remove.
6. Avoid cluttering the very beginning of the article with pronunciations or unusual alternative names; infoboxes are useful for storing this data. Remove; alternates and pronunciation may be needed at times.
The lead should stand on its own as a concise overview of the article's topic." and "
The lead must conform to verifiability ... there is not ... an exception to citation requirements specific to leads." I remain convinced that the advice given in MEDLEAD is good advice, and has a good purpose behind it. I don't believe that removing the advice or attempting to make it say only what is in MOSLEAD is beneficial to medical articles or to their readers. -- RexxS ( talk) 03:03, 23 December 2019 (UTC)
other names=
-parameter in
Template:Infobox medical condition (new)). This provision has been included in WP:MEDMOS for years, and overturning it would disrupt readability and searchability of articles — and demand extraordinary efforts to enforce while only resulting in worse articles. I believe this justifies its inclusion despite contradicting suggestions from WP:LEADALT and WP:LEADPRON.
Carl Fredrik
talk 23:02, 25 December 2019 (UTC)
>>
BEANS X2
t
16:54, 6 January 2020 (UTC)
"There is no cure. Early in life constant supportive care is typically required. Treatments may include moisturizing cream, antibiotics, etretinate, or retinoids. It affects about 1 per 300,000 births. There is no difference in rate of occurrence between sexes. Long-term problems are common. Death in the first month is relatively common. The condition was first documented in 1750."
I added a second question to hopefully make the choice less binary. [5] Pokemon articles are quite different from medical articles; clarity in medical topics is undoubtedly more important than in Pokemon, and community-wide guidelines have been vetted to enhance clarity and accessibility. SandyGeorgia ( Talk) 23:04, 22 December 2019 (UTC)
For newcomers to the RFC, there are good examples of how to address the seven separate issues in the Discussion on survey section. SandyGeorgia ( Talk) 19:51, 26 December 2019 (UTC)
SandyGeorgia, it appears that WP:TECHNICAL says to "Use short sentences when possible. Comprehension decreases dramatically when sentence length exceeds 12 words. However, using too many short sentences in a row becomes monotonous; vary sentence length to maintain reader interest." This direction to use short sentences feels more restrictive than merely observing that "Language can often be simplified by using shorter sentences". WhatamIdoing ( talk) 05:14, 23 December 2019 (UTC)
The "greater evil" is that bad information is being left in articles as the Medicine Project has switched from a focus on writing quality content, to writing only leads for translation. This is a big problem, and we should all be worried about the amount of incorrect information that is in our medical content, as the Medicine Project no longer focuses on the kind of work it did five or ten years ago (weekly collaborations, improving article assessments, etc.)
On the guideline, we want people to actually read the page, rather than have it become bloated by repeating what is in Wikipedia's main guidelines. We should be adding at MEDLEAD only information which is specific to medicine and explains how to interpret the main guideline for medicine articles. If we think LEAD is insufficient, we should be addressing it. None of what you suggest is specific to medicine, and the problem we have seen is that an over-zealous application/interpretation of sentence length is negatively impacting clarity. SandyGeorgia ( Talk) 16:58, 23 December 2019 (UTC)
The goals put forward by the text at MEDLEAD are at odds with each other, and it is not surprising that the Medicine Project has not produced a Featured article since the trend set in, when the project once saw good annual growth in good and featured content ( sample, which as of 2019 shows a net decline). These (non-standard for Wikipedia) practices force less accessibility and readability, and less well written content in leads; that is why the Wikipedia-wide guideline does not restrict the writer in the ways MEDLEAD is now. IF we want to improve leads, LEAD and other guidelines tell us how. If we want leads only for translation, that project has their own content-forked pages anyway.
Thank you, at least, for engaging the topic, which was not happening when the discussion was local. SandyGeorgia ( Talk) 19:36, 23 December 2019 (UTC)
Regarding your point (1) on leads and readability: having read thousands (literally) of Featured article candidate discussions on leads during my tenure as FAC delegate, it is my opinion (and that of many others, according to LEAD) that overciting a lead can and does constrain writing, impeding the clearest possible narrative written at a higher level of generality. I will role this into separate sample discussions when I answer RexxS in his section below, because the CREEPy enforced order of content in the lead is also part of that problem.
On your point (2), I believe the idea that we need citations in the lead to help avoid quackery and commercial interest content being inserted into leads is a strawman: WP:MEDRS already gives us the sourcing tool to keep quackery and commercial content out of articles, so we don't need to change lead guidelines for that goal.
On your point (3), you will get no argument from me about the usefulness (or lack thereof) of the GA process, but most FAs most assuredly have what you call a "single champion", typically the WP:WBFAN nominator, but at times, someone else who took the article on after a Featured article review. This is so well understood that the FAR process requires notification of the original nominator when submitting an FA for review, and most FAs whose original nominator is no longer active on Wikipedia end up deteriorating. On this score, most of WPMED's FA writers are gone; that there has not been an FA from the Medicine Project since this trend set in, and that most FA writers are gone from the project, is not IMO coincidental. On a personal note, I once watchlisted every WPMED FA, but I removed most of them from my watchlist when their leads were negatively impacted by the trends evidenced in this guideline; to continue to watchlist them would mean I would need to take them to FAR, so I washed my hands generally. Whenever I do come back to look, I find deterioration (again, see the sample discussion at Schizophrenia; we can't expect Casliber to fix them all).
More significantly, whether we look at B-class or GA/FA level, WPMED in general has moved away from systematically improving content in the body of articles (as once was done in the now-defunct Wikipedia:WikiProject Medicine/Collaboration of the Month/History), to a focus on more exclusively editing leads, to support off-en.Wikipedia projects. Medical collaboration to improve content has been replaced in a project focused almost entirely on off-en.wikipedia ventures, altering leads of even Featured articles, and at a time when the effects of student editing require constance vigilance from competent editors. Gone are the times when we collaborated to bring an article to a higher standard.
As WPMED loses core content writers (including every one of its FA writers), how much has been lost in addressing content issues? Whether we care that no FAs have been produced by WPMED since this trend set in is not the issue: when we lose editors capable of writing at the FA level and replace them with editors who can offer little more than me, too, per-so-and-so in important discussions, where do we end up? This is being done in the belief that it helps "children in sub-Saharan Africa", but at a disservice to English-speaking readers who may read the entire article, or may be looking for information in one section of the article. On that score, we demonstrably have errors being introduced by editors who focus on leads only, and neglect significant errors in the body of articles. This should be a concern. We do not help anyone, in sub-Saharan Africa or otherwise, by focusing on leads to the exclusion of overall content, and relative to years past, that is where we are now. As you say, many of the top articles are already translated, and the translation project has its own content-forked pages for translations, so why should it be imposing guidelines that are not in accordance with Wikipedia-wide guidelines in order to facilitate translation? If an off-Wikipedia venture wants to force requirements into medical content to make translation easier, could they at least not do it in a way that assures that medical content cannot meet the requirements of Featured articles, so that our writers who are capable of producing that content are not chased off ? SandyGeorgia ( Talk) 20:36, 26 December 2019 (UTC)
Colin suggests that MEDLEAD is a content fork, which of course is a guideline about articles, and not project space. The relevant advice for guidelines is actually neither policy nor guidance and is at WP:GUIDELINEFORK, which recommends not to create a page "that conflicts with or contradicts an existing one". I maintain that MEDLEAD neither conflicts with or contradicts MOSLEAD, but supplements it for medical-related articles. It is common practice on Wikipedia for sub-topics to receive different, sometimes inconsistent guidance, and an obvious example is how WP:NPROF and WP:NSPORT differ from WP:GNG and from each other – the criteria in NPROF replace those in GNG; while those in NSPORT supplement GNG.
We are not a bureaucracy, with hide-bound rules, and the guidance given should reflect best practice, and if necessary, we have an RfC to determine what that is.
Turning to specifics: why shouldn't MEDLEAD have a chart of native languages? It helps editors understand the issues faced in making our content available to its readers. Our vision is "a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge" and that means we should be doing whatever we can to increase the availability of our content to every single human being, which includes improving its readability and accessibility, as well as making it easier to translate. This not "tail-wagging-dog"; it is a fundamental principle of writing Wikipedia – what Jimbo called "the nearest thing we have to a prime directive".
There is nothing sub-optimal about making the reading level of our leads (medical or otherwise) low enough to be accessible to the broadest possible audience. That means writing shorter, more direct and less complex sentences to aid comprehension. It means using the simplest phrase available, while still preserving meaning. Wikipedia is not the place for editors to show off their vast vocabulary by using "oral" instead of "by mouth" or "renal" instead of "kidney". I'll gladly sacrifice some of the joy of reading a lead of Shakespearean quality for having one that a 15-year old kid in sub-Saharan Africa can grasp immediately. That's the justification for what's in MEDLEAD, which makes it clear that our editors are pragmatists, not elitists, and write content for the whole world, not just the privileged few. -- RexxS ( talk) 14:39, 23 December 2019 (UTC)
"The lead of an article, if not the entire article, should be written as simply as possible without introducing errors or ambiguity"lead to an improvement in comprehensibility for the sentence "Neuroleptic malignant syndrome and QT interval prolongation may occur.?
But from my perspective as a Spanish-language interpreter in a free clinic for migrant farm workers without insurance, and as someone who is also conversant in Italian, and who lives in a household where fluent German exists, I think by focusing on specific words, we're missing the broader points we should be addressing in how to write the best possible content for any reader in any language. In romance languages, the more technical jargon (typically with a Latin root) is much more likely to lead you to directly to the translation. We don't speak of ear, nose and throat in Spanish: we speak of otorinolaryngología. We don't speak of kidney damage; since kidney = riñon, renal is a word commonly used (as in insuficiencia renal). Interpreting in Spanish means I am frequently using the technical jargon.
An appeal to the children in "sub-Saharan Africa" indicates to me we might try harder to hear/read the intent of those who argue a different point than our position.
When medical editors stop writing or improving content because the environment has become so toxic, then we'll end up with nothing left to translate for anyone in Africa or Venezuela, as well as articles that are inaccurate in the lingua franca, English. So, what is the approach here that will help us get better medical content in English, so we have content worthy of translation? Could those who believe that Wikipedia's content is helping that child in sub-Saharan Africa consider the possibility that, in spite of honorable intentions, they might be deceiving themselves, and weigh their concerns for that child in Africa against the possibility that deficiencies in English-language medical content may be impacting that child in inner city Detroit? If not, we will see an accelerated pace of deficient Wikipedia content in the body of articles, with leads written by editors who aren't necessarily topic experts and don't even know what they've gotten wrong in the leads they are putting up for translation. SandyGeorgia ( Talk) 19:16, 24 December 2019 (UTC)
I maintain that MEDLEAD does not supplement LEAD as a guideline should, rather extends beyond LEAD and even contradicts it (and other guideline pages) in several instances, and in ways that is affecting the precision and clarity so necessary for medical content. I also maintain that, if we are to extend our lead guidance in the way that MEDLEAD has done, that should be done in the main guideline page (LEAD).
Translating articles is not unique to medicine. If the broader community believes we should alter our LEAD guideline to incorporate the needs of a translation project, then we should address that in LEAD. Do we write leads for the English-language Wikipedia, or leads in a Wikipedia in English for the purpose of translators who may not be fluent in English? Further, considering the Translation Task Force implements its own static versions of articles for the purpose of translation (see Wikipedia:WikiProject Medicine/Translation task force/RTT(Simplified)L and example at Wikipedia:WikiProject Medicine/Translation task force/RTT/Simple Dementia with Lewy bodies), why is it necessary to alter the leads of every medical article? (A separate issue is that experienced medical editors should not be altering leads without also adjusting the body of the article.)
Some examples of how over-simplified wording, constrained by citations on each fragment and sentence length, are sub-optimal.
Schizophrenia is a mental illness characterized by ... strange speech ..."Strange" seems to have been chosen as a word that translates easily, but it does nothing to describe the kind of speech characteristic of schizophrenia. Mork had strange speech with Mindy.
Males are more often affected and onset is on average earlier in age.Here is a sentence constrained to 12 words. Does it tell the average reader what they need to know?
About 20% of people eventually do well, and a few recover completely.Again, a sentence constrained to 12 words. What does "do well" mean here? Don't end up hospitalized? Don't commit suicide? Don't need medication? Don't have impairment in certain realms of functioning? The reader is given no idea (and the reasoning given for that on talk page is related to over-citation: the desire to stick with what one simple source states).
This is the result of increased physical health problems and a higher suicide rate (about 5%).The suicide rate is 5% higher than the non-affected population or 5% overall ? A lack of clarity and specificity results from keeping sentences too short and overly simple, rather than when possible as suggested by the broader guideline.
That is surely an injunction to keep text simple, even more so than in the body of the article. MEDLEAD gives this corresponding advice:"It is even more important here than in the rest of the article that the text be accessible. Editors should avoid lengthy paragraphs and overly specific descriptions"
That seems to me to be the correct advice, and I don't think that the argument that editors sometimes fail to avoid "introducing errors or ambiguity" is a reason to remove the guidance. Wikipedia abounds with problems where editors have failed to follow guidance, but the solution is to improve the content to fix the problems, not remove the guidance."The lead of an article, if not the entire article, should be written as simply as possible without introducing errors or ambiguity."
Compare that with MEDLEAD's advice:information in the lead section of non-controversial subjects is less likely to be challenged and less likely to require a source; there is not, however, an exception to citation requirements specific to leads. The necessity for citations in a lead should be determined on a case-by-case basis by editorial consensus. Complex, current, or controversial subjects may require many citations; others, few or none. The presence of citations in the introduction is neither required in every article nor prohibited in any article.
Now, I believe that there is nothing in MEDLEAD that contradicts MOSLEAD. Medical advice is often far more complex and potentially controversial (consider the problems of fake information like the anti-vaxxers and of traditional cures, which can only be countered by citing good sources) than more mundane topics like pop culture and sport. Medical articles are demonstrably more often translated than the average article and so there is an increased requirement for citations in the lead.It is useful to include citations in the lead, but they are not obligatory. Two reasons for using them are: Medical statements are much more likely than the average statement to be challenged, thus making citation mandatory. To facilitate broad coverage of our medical content in other languages, the translation task force often translates only the lead, which then requires citations.
"Males are more often affected and onset is on average earlier in age."is that this example is not a simple sentence. If I were trying to write that information simply, it would look something like
Men are more likely to have schizophrenia than women. Men develop symptoms earlier than women, too."(assuming that's what the age of onset bit was trying to say). The example sentence fails to apply the "one thought per sentence" advice, and the article is poorer as a result. WhatamIdoing ( talk) 06:07, 25 December 2019 (UTC)
See discussion in the section below (Discussion on survey) on the problem with the word mandatory in a guideline, and my views on whether BLP-style citation requirements should be added to medical content. That is not the argument here, though, which is that they should be "mandated" (not a word found in any policy) in leads only, which does nothing to protect medical content from anti-vaxxers and quacks who add bullroar to the bodies of articles. Fuller discussion of that below.
You point out that Wikipedia abounds with problems where editors have failed to follow guidance, but the solution is to improve the content to fix the problems, not remove the guidance
. We are in violent agreement in principle. For example,
this removal of guideline text to accommodate student editing errors, rather than
correcting the wording to address the problem is not what I am advocating, and is a good indication that competence is required in editing guidelines.
In this case, we have repeatedly seen extreme application of the principles behind the guideline, and edits that impact clarity and accuracy of medical content. If editors aren't able to understand Wikipedia policy, and our guideline wording is facilitating poor editing, then we should work to clarify the wording to reflect policy and best practice. Instead, we see "I like it, per editor-so-and-so" !voting throughout WPMED discussions, and no attempt to refine the wording in the disputed guideline text to help assure the best possible understanding. The wording we have does not reflect policy, and we have experienced medical editors who do not follow policy. We need to make our guidelines clearer to deal with not only the anti-vaxxers, but to also provide clarity to our established editors. Please take a more careful look at the type of wordsmithing that is needed to improve MEDLEAD; that sort of wordsmithing was a key part of the drive that saw MEDRS and MEDMOS written so well a decade ago, and that gave us guidelines that served the project well until around 2015. WAID points out that some people are better than others at simplifying language, but we have less editors doing this than you can count on one hand; our guidelines should be written as well as the Wikipedia-wide guidelines are, to leave no doubt as to what we intend. When we end up with few competent editors willing to even engage medical articles, leaving editing to those who lack nuance, understanding of the topic, or adequate time to make sure edits are sound, the anti-vaxxers and quacks only get the upper hand. SandyGeorgia ( Talk) 02:04, 27 December 2019 (UTC)
CFCF reverted my additions of disclosures for himself and Doc James as members, officers, or founding members of the Wikimedia Project that has an interest in advocating for these changes. There may be other missing disclosures. SandyGeorgia ( Talk) 23:20, 25 December 2019 (UTC)
Please avoid threaded responses in the "Survey" section, and start a new sub-section in the "Discussion" section for threaded commentary. 22:10, 22 December 2019 (UTC)
It seems odd that these rules should apply to everyone but you..., I view that as an unhelpful comment of the type that promotes a battleground environment. The disclosures can be done here in this separate section if my adding them under signatures is a concern. SandyGeorgia ( Talk) 23:37, 25 December 2019 (UTC)
1. disagree. I feel function over form is more important here and the focus on global SDG's means we need to facilitate the work of the translation task force imo.
Ian Furst (
talk) 02:56, 26 December 2019 (UTC)
2. disagree. See previous discussion on the risk of non-MEDRS sourced statements by commercial interests and charlatans.
Ian Furst (
talk) 02:56, 26 December 2019 (UTC)
3. neutral. I don't think this change will have much impact. I have no opposition to it.
Ian Furst (
talk) 02:56, 26 December 2019 (UTC)
4. agree. Maintaining the same order, while great to ensure content is well summarized, disrupts the create of great prose. I favour form over function here.
Ian Furst (
talk) 02:56, 26 December 2019 (UTC)
5. no opinion. I saw the argument but would prefer to here from someone that actually translates. I'm suspect there is a word for mouth in most languages and I wonder how it translates.
Ian Furst (
talk) 02:56, 26 December 2019 (UTC)
6. disagree. We've built a section in infoboxes to handle this info. I'm surprised by your stance on the SandyGeorgia, the preambles ruin the flow of some articles. I prefer them in the infoboxes.
Ian Furst (
talk) 02:56, 26 December 2019 (UTC)
7. I don't understand the survey question in #7.
Ian Furst (
talk) 02:56, 26 December 2019 (UTC)
My list:
WP:MEDLEAD shows every mark of inexperienced guideline or policy writers, laying down absolutes in inflexible terms, with no consideration for whether the text in a guideline syncs with policy.
For example, mandatory is not a word associated with citation found in any policy or guideline page anywhere else on Wikipedia.
That medical content in general should have BLP-style required inline citation to high-quality sources is something I have argued repeatedly, for years, and that has been rejected. How, then can we impose citations specifically in the lead, when the lead is a summary of the body, and we don't require them in the body? Now, if you want to push (as I have, for years) for a BLP-style policy on medical content within articles, with content then summarized to leads, well I'm on board, but that is not what this lead guideline discussion is about. A BLP-style requirement for citation on medical text has never been endorsed by WPMED or by the community. We can't mandate it in a guideline about LEADs only, without an RFC on whether we can require inline citations to high-quality sources for medical content, as we do for BLPs. For those arguing that point (2) is acceptable, they would have a stronger argument if they argued same for the body of articles, and used the kind of language that is used in guideline and policy writing (eg WP:BLP, WP:V, WP:RS, etc.) For those who want us to have similar requirements on medical content as we do on BLPs, I have been on board for years, and would love to see that RFC. This is not that RFC, and if we have a lead guideline that goes beyond what policy pages on Wikipedia state, we have a problem of being out of sync with policy. SandyGeorgia ( Talk) 01:15, 27 December 2019 (UTC)
I've rephrased the second sentence using wording directly from MOS:LEAD.To facilitate broad coverage of our medical content in other languages, and to respond quickly to the need to make good medical content available in emergencies, the translation task force often translates only the lead. Adding citations to the lead then helps it stand on its own as a concise overview.
I've rephrased the second part using wording directly from MOS:LEAD. Overcitation can be problematical, but one well-chosen citation to support each fact stated is unlikely to lead to the issues described in WP:CITEOVERKILL. If the presence of citations in the wikitext makes editing difficult, then I've found that the use of WP:List-defined references goes a long way to keeping the text clear when editing.Medical statements are more likely than the average statement to be challenged, so editors are encouraged to add citations in the lead, particularly for complex or controversial topics.
Although that's not bad advice for any article, IMHO."When writing the lead, editors should ensure that they write a comprehensive summary of all of the main points of the article. One way to achieve this is to follow the order of the content in the body of the article."
See discussion at the talk page of this RFC. Sample responses on the RFC have ranged from "no change needed" to "delete the whole MEDLEAD section of MEDMOS", with many partial positions in between those two. This table presents a summary of the range of possibilities raised so far. It may assist those wanting to examine each point of the contested text, and facilitate responses such as Support 3A, or Oppose 5B, for example. SandyGeorgia ( Talk) 23:08, 30 December 2019 (UTC)
Current | Position A | Position B | Position C | Position D |
---|---|---|---|---|
1. To facilitate broad coverage of our medical content in other languages, the translation task force often translates only the lead, which then requires citations. | Translation is done from simplified forks of our leads, not the leads directly. Citation clutter makes our articles harder to read by our readers. Excess citations may be included in the wikitext inside HTML comments, which are hidden from our readers, and then surfaced in the simplified translation-fork page. | To facilitate broad coverage of our medical content in other languages, and to respond quickly to the need to make good medical content available in emergencies, the translation task force often translates only the lead. Adding citations to the lead then helps it stand on its own as a concise overview. Citations in the lead have no effect on readers, but are valuable to editors maintaining text integrity. | No evidence that translating leads of medical articles improves medical outcomes has been presented. Remove this and related text from MEDLEAD, and conduct a separate RFC on whether LEAD should be rewritten to accommodate article translation for all articles, not just medical. | Retain all text in points 1–7. * No change is needed. * MEDLEAD is in sync with LEAD. Translation is tremendously important. Wikipedia's mission is to provide "every single person on the planet... free access to the sum of all human knowledge". Translation helps achieve that. The medical translation effort has resulted in more than 6 million words of text being translated. |
2. Medical statements are much more likely than the average statement to be challenged, thus making citation mandatory. | No evidence that this is more true than in biographical, economic or political articles, for example. Claiming citations are thus generally mandatory is in direct contradiction to policy, which is case-by-case. | Medical statements are more likely than the average statement to be challenged, so editors are encouraged to add citations in the lead, particularly for complex or controversial topics. Any editor who regularly helps maintain medical articles knows that statements are not only more likely to be challenged, but also require a higher standard of sourcing than the average Wikipedia article. The leads of complex and controversial topics are the prime target for POV-pushing and subtle vandalism, where citations are most needed, cf WP:BLP. | Adding sources to the lead is a reasonable practice but not required in all instances if the text in question is supported in the body of the article. Editors are encouraged to add citations in the lead for direct quotes, hard data, or statements likely to be challenged." Vulvar cancer is a cancer of the vulva, the outer portion of the female genitals" is not likely to be challenged. No evidence that medical statements are more likely to be challenged has been presented. Overciting leads constrains the ability to craft an overall summary of the article's content. While BLP-style citation requirements may be appropriate for all medical content, even BLP does not mandate citations in the lead (see Donald Trump). A separate RFC about applying a BLP-style inline citation policy to medical content would be useful. |
It's fine to have lots of citations in the leads of medical articles. It's acceptable for medical content guidance to have some differences from general guidelines, because medical content risks misleading our readers to make bad decisions about their own health care. "First, do no harm" trumps "first, do not violate MOS". |
3. The lead of an article, if not the entire article, should be written as simply as possible without introducing errors or ambiguity. | No need to repeat existing policy or guideline, which does not say "as simply as possible" but "as understandable as possible". There is a difference, as the latter requires good writing more than it requires baby words. | The lead of an article should be written as simply as possible without introducing errors or ambiguity. I would not have a problem if the guidance were to focus on making the text as accessible as possible or as understandable/comprehensible as possible. | The lead of an article should be as understandable as possible without introducing errors or ambiguity.The clause "if not the entire article" extends beyond the cited quideline, which clarifies that there may be sections that have more technical aspects (pathophysiology comes to mind in medicine) and may not be written as simply as the lead. |
"The content in articles in Wikipedia should be written as far as possible for the widest possible general audience" is similar to saying "The lead of an article, if not the entire article, should be written as simply as possible without introducing errors or ambiguity." Wikipedia has received a lot of criticism, both in the academic [6] [7] and lay press, for being overly complicated. Wikipedia should try to approach a grade 12 reading level for the leads and has made progress towards this in the area of medicine. [8] |
4. It is also reasonable to have the lead introduce content in the same order as the body of the text. | Per WAID there is no justification for this for any article, let alone medical ones. | When writing the lead, editors should ensure that they write a comprehensive summary of all of the main points of the article. One way to achieve this is to follow the order of the content in the body of the article. This is a sensible practice and sufficient justification for the advice. | Editors should ensure that the lead is a comprehensive summary of all of the main points of the article. One way to achieve this is to follow the order of the content in the body of the article, although no specific order is required.Prescribing the order of the narrative is CREEPy; the additional yellow-highlighted text is needed to prevent the leads of articles, including Featured articles, from being diminished by imposing a particular order. |
|
5. The British National Formulary for example often uses "by mouth" rather than "oral". | Per notes on RFC, the BNF does not prefer "by mouth" to "oral" at all. This deceptive statement should be removed. | Examples should not be removed, but should be replaced by better ones. The present example is not deceptive, as the BNF actually does use "by mouth" as well as "oral". Most languages in the world translate "by mouth" exactly, including French, Portuguese and Romanian. | Remove. Problems have been raised with every example given of words that can be substituted. This information is not needed in the MEDLEAD section, as it is already covered in the same guideline at the sections on Writing for the wrong audience and Careful language. | |
6. Avoid cluttering the very beginning of the article with pronunciations or unusual alternative names; infoboxes are useful for storing this data. | No medical reason for this. Adequately covered by other guidelines. | Avoid cluttering the beginning of the article with pronunciations or multiple alternative names. | Remove here, this widespread information is already better covered at the guidelines on first sentences, alternate names and lead pronunciation. Avoid duplicating information across guideline pages that is already covered better elsewhere. | This is a matter of deep concensus within the medical community, and is due to the preponderance of alternative names, sometimes upwards of 10 (solved well by using the other names= -parameter in
Template:Infobox medical condition (new)). This provision has been included in WP:MEDMOS for years, and overturning it would disrupt readability and searchability of articles — and demand extraordinary efforts to enforce while only resulting in worse articles. I believe this justifies its inclusion despite contradicting suggestions from WP:LEADALT and WP:LEADPRON.
|
7. Miscellaneous: * Language can often be simplified by using shorter sentences, having one idea per sentence, and using common rather than technical terms. * It is useful to include citations in the lead, but they are not obligatory. * Around a third of readers of English Wikipedia, have English as a second language. * Most readers access Wikipedia on mobile devices and want swift access to the subject matter without undue scrolling. * File:2019 Wikipedia reader native language by language.png |
Remove. This is gratuitous agenda-pushing and has no place in any guideline. We have other guidelines to recommend writing style. | Retain | Indifferent, but support minimizing redundancy in guidelines over "one-stop shopping" that replicates other guidelines, and avoid repeating info here that is better covered elsewhere. Most of this information either is better covered elsewhere, or belongs elsewhere. | It is acceptable for medical content guidance to have some differences from general guidelines, because medical content risks misleading our readers to make bad decisions about their own health care. "First, do no harm" trumps "first, do not violate MOS". |
"... participants in a WikiProject cannot decide that some generally accepted policy or guideline does not apply to articles within its scope", but what generally accepted policy or guideline would not apply if a project decided to require citations for articles within its scope? -- RexxS ( talk) 09:57, 2 January 2020 (UTC)
"This guideline is a part of the English Wikipedia's Manual of Style."where "guideline" links to Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines. That makes it very clear that these guidelines "are developed by the community ...". It doesn't matter how ineffectual WikiProject:WAID or WikiProject:MED will be in enforcing anything; these guidelines carry the force of community consensus. I'm sorry but your argument beyond the first three sentences don't make sense to me. Have you missed the point that this page (MEDMOS) is one of the community's own global-consensus pages, not a subpage of WPMED? You could be forgiven for thinking we are still discussing at WTMED, given the amount of churn that is currently occurring.
"... best treated with common sense, and occasional exceptions may apply."Wikipedia is not a bureaucracy, and there is no genuine conflict to resolve.
SandyGeorgia ( Talk) 15:16, 31 December 2019 (UTC)
... generally oppose the notion that a primary purpose of enwiki medical article leads should be ease-of-translation. It's more important that we accurately and readably state the information in English than that we make it easy to translate that information into another language. I find the thought that people who speak a certain language are getting their medical information primarily from Wikipedia deeply frightening. We are not competent for that task. We are competent to write a tertiary source that summarizes secondary sources. We shouldn't even be trying to be some kind of WebMD.
It is easy to see that the goal of putting translated medical information in to the hands of people in developing countries is laudable, but do we actually have anything close to an outcome measure that reinforces the idea that giving people access to the lead of, for example, common cold, actually has any effect on overall health? SandyGeorgia ( Talk) 23:07, 27 December 2019 (UTC)
Per the discussions above, the suggestion that we need another example because there is not universal agreement that all of these changes are for the better, can we agree that
is a better guideline example than
Oral and renal are better word choices for translation to romance languages, and a guideline should not encourage bot-like editing of articles to alter carefully chosen language. Perhaps we can all agree that changing the word etiology in leads to causes is less likely to be disputed, and choose that as an example of wording to consider changing. SandyGeorgia ( Talk) 00:27, 28 December 2019 (UTC)