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How the MEDLEAD got added and why it is bad:
"The leads of articles, if not the entire article, should be written as simple as possible without introducing errors"added by James without prior discussion.
"Write the lead in plain English, especially the first two paragraphs. Avoid cluttering the very beginning of the article with a raft of alternative names and pronunciations; infoboxes are very useful for storing this data. Most of our readers access Wikipedia on mobile devices, and we want to provide swift access to the subject matter so that readers can move on or dig deeper without undue scrolling."added by Jytdog without prior discussion.
"To facilitate broad coverage of our medical content in other languages, the translation task force often translates only the lead; to facilitate that, it is useful to add citations to the lead, even though they not necessary as described in WP:LEAD."was " boldly" added by Jytdog without discussion. A subsequent discussion had opposition and it was removed.
"It is useful to include citations to the lead, even though they are not obligatory per WP:LEAD. There are essentially two reasons for this: 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."was added by CFCF despite opposition to it inclusion.
"Part of the reason for this [simple English] is that for around a third of readers of English Wikipedia, English is a second language."+ a chart added by James without prior discussion.
Looking at the talk pages, any attempt to control how the lead is written or cited meets significant opposition and there can't in good faith be regarded as any consensus for MEDMOS containing such advice. And yet such text is reverted back and retained, usually by those who support such deviations from MOS. Why is this asymmetrical? That we somehow require unanimity to remove contentious guideline changes but didn't in order to add them? That we some how require extensive discussion to remove guidelines in clear conflict with MOS and yet those are added without any previous discussion?
"should be written as simply as possible"This is not what Wikipedia:Make technical articles understandable which talks about the text being "as understandable as possible to the widest audience of readers who are likely to be interested in that material." and in particular "the lead section to be understandable to a broad readership". WP:MOSLEAD says "It should be written in a clear, accessible style with a neutral point of view" and "It is even more important here than in the rest of the article that the text be accessible". The key words are "understandable" "broad readership" and "accessible". Not "as simply as possible". En:wp is not Simple English.
"Many readers of the English Wikipedia have English as a second language (non-native language)."How is this medical?
"Language can often be simplified by using shorter sentences, having one idea per sentence, and using common rather than technical terms."How is this medical? Here is where the "short stubby sentences" that the rest of Wikipedia mock medical articles for. One idea per sentence is what makes our leads into a collection of six-word factoid sentences, rather than an introduction to the subject with natural idiomatic language structures. There is no medical justification why our leads should be written weirdly compared to the rest of Wikipedia.
"When writing the lead, editors should ensure that they write a comprehensive summary of all of the main points of the article"This contradicts MOS:INTRO which says "The lead section should briefly summarize the most important points covered in an article in such a way that it can stand on its own as a concise version of the article" There's a different focus on what to include.
"One way to achieve this is to follow the order of the content in the body of the article, although this is not required"Again, this is not medical and is not guidance found in MOS. We have the "get out" clause "although this is not required" which doesn't eliminate the problem: this text is used to justify arbitrary reordering of leads "per MEDMOS" when an editor may have written the lead differently in order to introduce and lead the reader through their summary of contents. For a lead that is not simply a jumble of factoids, this sort of reordering can be disruptive. The straightjacket here is further compounded by some editors insistence that the MEDMOS suggested sections ordering must actually be adhered to, despite MEDMOS saying it doesn't and should not be imposed on existing articles without prior agreement.
"Avoid cluttering the very beginning of the article with pronunciations or unusual alternative names; infoboxes are useful for storing this data. Most readers access Wikipedia on mobile devices and want swift access to the subject matter without undue scrolling."Nothing medical here. You know, we do have MOS:LEAD.
"It is sometimes useful to include citations in the lead, but they are not obligatory."Again, despite the "but they are not obligatory" this gets used to justify citation clutter in article leads, and is why paracetamol has 30 citations in its lead but donald trump has none.
"As in any content area, direct quotes, data and statistics, or statements that are likely to be challenged should be cited."This is in violation of the very guideline it links, because it neglects to include the important parts from the "When a source or citation may not be needed" which is: "Cited elsewhere in the article: If the article mentions the fact repeatedly, it suffices to cite it once. Uncontroversial content in the lede is often not cited, as it is a generalization of the cited body text." None of the lead of paracetamol is controversial, where as some of the lead of donald trump likely is, but they cope.
"When translating content to other languages, the translation task force often translates only the lead; their work is facilitated by citations."The translation task force translate from copies such as Simple Cellulitis and it appears those are now being taken off wiki. There was never any justification for medical articles to be made unreadable to justify simpler translation.
The lead section at MEDMOS has caused harm to medical articles on Wikipedia. There is nothing within it that has consensus, that is justifiably medical or that is not in some way an attempt to deviate from wider Wikipedia guideline and policy. -- Colin° Talk 11:01, 15 August 2020 (UTC)
Any edit that is not disputed or reverted by another editor can be assumed to have consensus.This means that while these parts of the guideline were in place without active on-wiki dispute, there was consensus for them. There is nothing in the Medicine ArbCom case stating that anyone's past contributions are somehow invalidated, nor that a couple of editors can retroactively declare a portion of a guideline to not actually have had consensus all these years. And this page is a guideline, same as MOS:LEAD is a guideline. Equal status - neither is more "local consensus" than the other. WP:MEDRS has stricter standards than WP:RS, so I'm not seeing why this page can't be stricter than MOS:LEAD.
This is in violation of the very guideline it links, because it neglects to include the important parts from the "When a source or citation may not be needed". Except that is not from a guideline at all; it is from an essay: Wikipedia:When to cite. The WP:Verifiability policy, WP:CITELEAD portion of the MOS:LEAD guideline, and this guideline supersede both the essay and your blanket claim that "a fact needs only be cited once". Sure, I have no authority to demand anything stricter here, but the pre-existing consensus guideline text does, and I explained why I oppose changing it in a certain direction. Crossroads -talk- 04:16, 16 August 2020 (UTC)
There is no consensus for MEDLEAD; it found
no consensus. There is clearly a numerical preference of opposes over supports, plus there are some people who doubt that the RfC was formulated in the best accessible way, on the other hand, the support arguments are stronger since the global consensus is stronger than the local one. Well, we are where we are, and, unless suddenly way more users would develop interest in the issue, MEDLEAD is not going to be fully replaced by MOSLEAD.(Bolding added.) As for Amphetamine, I don't see a serious issue. Combining all the citations at the end of each paragraph like that is uncommon, and I'd prefer it be sentence-by-sentence, but it is still miles better than 'a fact needs only be cited once, in the body', which is what I was replying to. Crossroads -talk- 16:50, 17 August 2020 (UTC)
I would suggest to try implementing changes one by one, identifying statements in MEDLEAD which the majority would perceive as problematic, and trying to change these.Crossroads -talk- 16:50, 17 August 2020 (UTC)
Never mind, collapsed request to merge this section above
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SandyGeorgia: Heh, funny thing is - and it’s kind of ironic - that I did that per complaints at FAC about citing the lead sentence by sentence, but now the issue is that I didn’t do so.
I actually have amphetamine’s current lead cited sentence by sentence somewhere in one of my sandboxes, but editing WP is really not a priority for me ATM. I can replace it with that version when I resume editing if you’d like. Don’t have the time to look for it and validate my edits right now tho.
Seppi333 (
Insert 2¢) 07:56, 19 August 2020 (UTC)
For whatever disagreeable process brought amphetamine to the state it is in, that policy requirement is not met. But neither is WP:V met by having three citations after every line. It is not met in the lead or in the body. Further complicating the difficulty in verification is that page numbers, chapters or section headings are required for lengthy journal articles, webpages or PDFs (something that oddly, we at WPMED have long ignored), resulting in an article that the average reader cannot verify. Then, the fourth complication is that leads don't need to be cited (I got complaints about the few citations I had at dementia with Lewy bodies, and I am pretty sure I got them by FAC because most FAC regulars understood there was some agida in the medicine project, and I had done my best). For examples of how to fix that, you can look at complete blood count, Buruli ulcer or dementia with Lewy bodies. For an example of correct citation in the non-medical realm, you can look at Coropuna. It won't be an easy fix, and I wouldn't want to subject you to a WP:FAR (when we have so many FAs in a similar state) until/unless you have time to deal with it, but FAR is the place to get a new look from current FA reviewers, and endorsement of whatever you end up with. Regards, SandyGeorgia ( Talk) 14:43, 19 August 2020 (UTC)In the English Wikipedia, verifiability means other people using the encyclopedia can check that the information comes from a reliable source.
The current version of MEDMOS says "The etymology of a word can be interesting and can help the reader understand and remember it." While anything might be interesting to some people, and some etymologies help people remember of understand the name (others, especially for older disease names, mislead), I don't think this is specific to medical content, and I suggest removing it. WhatamIdoing ( talk) 21:01, 14 August 2020 (UTC)
anatomy etymology
. There were 1300 hits.
Wikipedia:WikiProject Anatomy has tagged about 6,000 non-redirect articles. A quick semi-random sample of 10 high-priority articles found three that included the word etymology in them (one section name, and the title of a source in the other two). It may be more than 5%, but it's still a minority.
WhatamIdoing (
talk) 22:57, 17 August 2020 (UTC)Thanks for the ping. I have a fair amount of exposure to this through my work in the anatomy space. There are three mentions of etymology in this guideline, I think the first two are unhelpful and should be deleted. I only had involvement in the last part:
The etymology of a word can be interesting and can help the reader understand and remember it.) I think this should be removed. All parts of articles "can be interesting" to different readers. Whether a reader can "remember it" is not the point of Wikipedia. I don't see this adding any value to a guideline about how medical articles should be constructed.
Etymologies are often helpful, particularly for anatomy. Features that are derived from other anatomical features (that still have shared terms in them) should refer the reader to the structure that provided the term, not to the original derivation.this is very prescriptive and not followed in practice
For example, the etymology section of Deltoid tuberosity should refer the reader to the deltoid muscle, not to the definition 'delta-shaped, triangular'. The etymology in Deltoid muscle, however, should identify the Greek origin of the term.lengthy example describing what etymology means that I don't think is helpful
In articles that focus on anatomy, please include the Latin (or Latinized Greek) name of anatomical objects, as this is very helpful to interwiki users- this is not the mission of the EN WP -
and for people working with older scientific publications.- a good point but this has already been pretty completely integrated into our anatomy via our infoboxes and wikidata integration. Additionally we are now getting to the stage where very uncommon terms are being added (as Flyer mentions)
Many articles about eponymous diseases and signs include the origin of the name under the history section.- well, obviously.
History, describing the structure and the etymology of the word. Etymology may be included as a separate subsection, if sufficient information exists.This I think reflects current practice and would ask that this small statement is preserved. Usually etymology is described, and I describe it, within the "history" section. Occasionally we have a disproportionate amount of information that can justify a subsection
Maybe getting back to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines will give us a more positive framework for discussion.
Maintain scope and avoid redundancy. Clearly identify the purpose and scope early in the page, as many readers will just look at the beginning. Content should be within the scope of its policy. When the scope of one advice page overlaps with the scope of another, minimize redundancy. When one policy refers to another policy, it should do so briefly, clearly and explicitly.
Not contradict each other. The community's view cannot simultaneously be "A" and "not A". When apparent discrepancies arise between pages, editors at all the affected pages should discuss how they can most accurately represent the community's current position, and correct all the pages to reflect the community's view. This discussion should be on one talk page, with invitations to that page at the talk pages of the various affected pages; otherwise the corrections may still contradict each other.
At that page,
in December 2012, WhatamIdoing added: if two or more guidelines or two policies conflict with each other, then the more specific page takes precedence over a more general page of the same type.
(That is, in a dispute, the specific page MEDLEAD would take precedence over LEAD until the dispute is resolved.) That was immediately reverted and we have no such wording today. MEDLEAD cannot take precedence over LEAD, and the policy today states that a) guideline pages should minimize redundancy and not overlap, and b) differences between guidelines have to be resolved at both pages.
In many places (not only MEDLEAD), MEDMOS does not follow these two policy points; that is why the page has been in a continual state of dispute for about five years. By writing redundant non-medical guideline content here—that already exists elsewhere—we have often introduced error or ambiguity. That is why we can’t keep going down this same path, and need to resolve the dispute on this page, which unlike some have represented, goes well beyond a couple of editors. Throughout the medical guidelines today, there is redundant information that is explained less well than in policy or other broader guideline pages, and often even includes errors. Staying focused on scope may help us resolve this.
Wikipedia's policies and guidelines are developed by the community to describe best practices, clarify principles, resolve conflicts, and otherwise further our goal of creating a free, reliable encyclopedia.
Guidelines describe best practices; that is exactly what the framers were doing when we wrote the pages. The statement on this page that "It's because Wikipedia treats medical information so seriously and as a special case that we even have WP:MEDRS and WP:MEDMOS" is not true. We have MEDMOS and MEDRS because WPMED participants between 2006 and 2008 were describing best practices as demonstrated in our best articles, in an era when Google did not cough up Wikipedia first on a search, and we weren't focused on "medical information as a special case'. The framers of our guidelines who are still active exemplify the extent to which we were focused on reflecting best practices, guideline style, as the number of FAs written in medicine was escalating. Most of us wanted to help others produce top content ( Casliber, Colin, Fvasconcellos, Graham Beards, MastCell and Tony1 .. Eubulides and others active then are now gone). At one point, we all got busy/distracted and the MEDMOS guideline proposal page was marked historical (!?!?!?), so we got busy and got it done. But note the opposes along the way: (QUOTES)
So when you see editors who went through this process for months (years?) stating that the page has spun away from optimal guideline writing, it’s because we confronted those opposes.
Next, as we were going through the same process a year later for MEDRS, WhatamIdoing inquired about the process (which was a bit haphazard in those days), and moved forward with a proposal. There was no process in those days, so WAID got busy with an RFC (one of her strengths), and got wording about how to approve new Policies and guidelines put in place. Considering the opposition we faced, statements on this page like, “WP:MEDRS has stricter standards than WP:RS, so I'm not seeing why this page can't be stricter than MOS:LEAD” are wrong on multiple counts. Wikipedia:Verifiability is policy. Wikipedia:Reliable sources is a guideline that discusses various kinds of sources and how to use them generally to meet the WP:V policy. It doesn't extend policy or change policy; it explains how policy is applied in best practice. And MEDRS is guideline that cannot be any stricter than WP:V policy; it only extends WP:RS to explain what kinds of sources are considered reliable, primary, secondary, etc in medical content. WP:V is still the underlying policy, and MEDRS still can’t be any "stricter", no matter that the page has spun out of control and is often misapplied and misunderstood these days.
Some of our disagreement on this page might be lessened if we all factored in all of the points discussed above. But we have additional disagreements on who are audience should be. The initial framers of the pages were clear that we were defining best practices for how to write best content and what the best practices were, aka, this is what an excellent article on Wikipedia looks like. Later, the guidelines began to change focus to other-language Wikis and translation, which some editors found worthy and others felt diminished the quality of content on English Wikipedia. Hence, the disputes ever since. And we have another subset of editors advocating that the guidelines should be teaching materials for students, although between this Project and Wiki Ed, there is a proliferation of teaching materials already available for students. I remember a phase where we kept churning out one after another, hoping to stem the problems, yet nothing changed, because most of them are never read. And if we want them to be read, they had best be short and accurate!
So part of our disagreement is that this page has expanded and expanded to meet the perceived needs of different target audiences. I hope that by having a look at what Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines says about scope, and refocusing our discussion along those lines, and considering the history of how these pages came about, we can find mutual ground for less hostile discussion.
Consensus among a limited group of editors, at one place and time, cannot override community consensus on a wider scale.
This is another frequent matter of disagreement. The reminder that this page is a Wikipedia-wide page (since I launched the proposal, I expect I know that : ) is true, but overlooks the basic point. During the discussions about how to resolve differences between guidelines, SlimVirgin (who is as active on policy pages as WAID is) argued that "When two guidelines conflict, we have an established set of core guidelines", and WAID disagreed "I don't think it's possible to express the concept of 'core guidelines', and even if we could, it wouldn't be sufficient. The MoS regularly contradicts itself." The conclusion was simple: regardless if there are "core" guidelines, they can't say A and not A at the same time, and conflicts must be resolved.
But on the matter of limited versus wider consensus, even if this page can be edited and watched by anyone (it does not "belong to medicine") it is not edited and watched to the same extent that pages that enjoy broader consensus are. A limited group of editors participates at MEDLEAD relative to LEAD. That small group cannot override wider community consensus. Even if we could, WP:P&G tells us we need to resolve the conflicts.
Page | Watchers | Editors | Edits | Pageviews in 2019 |
---|---|---|---|---|
WP:MEDMOS | 232 | 177 | 899 | 31,000 |
WP:LEAD | 590 | 823 | 2,248 | 238,000 |
Those are discussion ideas intended to get us moving forward towards resolving disputes and on this pages, and helping us talk together about ways to re-focus these guideline pages so that, should we point a student at them, they might actually read them! Perhaps if we can discuss more civilly here, we can get this page back in shape and move next on the many more serious problems at MEDRS. The lengthy discussions a decade ago to get these pages passed as guidelines remained largely civil (with the exception of a couple of PHARM editors, IIRC), I believe we should be able to do this civilly today. As long as we have disputed sections, and a page so long no one will read it, we aren't doing any editor or student or article any good. SandyGeorgia ( Talk) 23:06, 16 August 2020 (UTC)
Colin, regarding this and this, what WP:Consensus is there for removing guidance about the lead? That we have a WP:Lead guideline does not mean that we cannot also have a section in this guideline about how to handle leads. In addition to medical articles, I sometimes work on film articles. And as you can see at MOS:FILM, we have a section there about handling leads. Different topics might require that leads are handled in ways specific to those topics. This is even the case regarding the WP:MEDMOS#Anatomy section. It mentions how we handle leads in anatomy articles. It doesn't mean that the guidance conflicts with WP:Lead, any more than WP:MEDRS conflicts with WP:Reliable sources or WP:Verifiability. It has often been the case that editors have wondered how to handle the lead of a medical article because it's a medical article. Pointing them to the WP:Lead guideline, the general guideline about leads, will show them how leads are generally written. But it won't give them an idea of how we generally write the leads of medical articles. And I've seen enough WP:Student editors who will write the lead of a medical article like it's the lead of a media topic or something else. It's because Wikipedia treats medical information so seriously and as a special case that we even have WP:MEDRS and WP:MEDMOS. Anyway, because of all of this, I reverted you. I reverted back to the WP:Status quo. We can re-craft the WP:MEDMOS lead section, but I see no valid reason to get rid of it entirely.
I also want editors' opinions on this bit you added. For example, I don't think we should state "low-literacy adults."
I'll contact WP:Med and WP:Anatomy to weigh in. No need to ping me when you reply. I only pinged Colin to get his attention. Flyer22 Frozen ( talk) 04:20, 13 August 2020 (UTC)
Part of the role of an encyclopaedia is to teach the reader new words and help them build confidence with harder ones.?
All of it is covered elsewhere and none is specific to medical articles. ... Minimising the wall of text is prudent.I also agree with what Colin wrote just above about the leads of Paracetamol and Ibuprofen being bad, and that "medical" is a broad category, probably too broad to have any particular guidance on writing a lead for a "medical" article. However, guidance about how to write a lead for an article about a pharmaceutical drug would be helpful (as would similar guidance a physician, medical school, surgical procedure, virus, disease, organ, etc.), so perhaps expanding those sections of MEDMOS with lead advice, rather than having one "lead" section in MEDMOS. Le v!v ich 02:55, 14 August 2020 (UTC)
Don't intend to get into a discussion since I don't really have any time for WP right now, but here's my 2 cents.
User:Colin wrote the following at
WT:MED People have noted that medical articles have unreadable leads. They are "unreadable" not because they are hard, but because you get past the first few sentences and lose the will to live. They are unreadable because although the sentences are short, they are just a collection of random facts presented without thought to developing or introducing concepts. And they often fail in an important part of our educational mission and encyclopaedic purpose, which is teaching our readers some of the difficult words that their doctor will use and are necessary to understand a topic. As an example, I've seen text saying when a drug was "discovered" changed to saying when it was "found", as though a chemist just came across it in the street, or perhaps had lost it the day before, and I've seen an article saying when a drug was first "synthesized" changed to saying when it was "made". But drug discovery and chemical synthesis are both terms a reader will expect to find in an encyclopaedia, and will be surprised by our choice of baby words instead.
I 100% agree with this sentiment. Nonetheless, I disagree with his removal of the lead guidance from MEDMOS; it should simply be reworded to incorporate this justification for using certain technical language. I also disagree with the removal of the assertion about lead citations; it's become a convention, and frankly, medical articles ought to cite the lead's medical content (or even all of it) for the same reason every medical statement ought to be to be cited in the body.
Given that the use of lead citations is based upon a value judgement about the utility of lead refs, I doubt anyone is going to change other editors' minds/opinions about whether they should be included simply by discussing their personal viewpoint or rationale for inclusion/exclusion. Seppi333 ( Insert 2¢) 05:28, 14 August 2020 (UTC)
There are some fundamentals that F&F wants to break. We don't repeat MOS just because it is handy to point students to a one-stop-shop for all advice on writing their article. If you want to write some essay, personal views on how to craft a medical article, aimed at students, be my guest and if it is really good, the project will link to it. But this page needs to focus on help that is specific to the challenges of writing medical articles. The lead is not that area. We all have personal opinions about language and citations but the big big point is those opinions are not medical. Go knock yourself out arguing at MOS:LEAD about it.
This section was created simply to allow deviation from MOS. To require leads contain "simplest possible" language, even though MOS doesn't say that. To require lead order to follow article order, even though MOS doesn't say that. To permit citation excess in leads, even though MOS doesn't say that. These were all just personal views about leads. The only aspect of leads that was ever claimed to be medical was that the translation task force used our leads as the basis of their translations, and therefore simple language and excess citations apparently helped them. This turned out not to be true. The TTF uses a copy of the leads held on project namespace (and now, it appears, copied to an external wiki which is deviating from Wikipedia policy and guidelines).
Let's not argue "it is useful" or "it helps students" or other vague reasons to retain material in a general area (lead) that has been a specific source of conflict on the project. I ask again: is there anything at all about medical leads that cannot be adequately covered at MOS:LEAD? So far, nobody has offered anything. We need to get lighter-weight, more wiki, about modifying this guideline in order to reflect best-practice and focus specifically on medical content. And we need to get better at realising we are part of en:wp and so if you feel strongly about article guidelines (for students, for newbies or for academics or whatever) then go to the wider guidelines and join in the discussion there. I think eliminating MEDLEAD and forcing any editors with strong views about leads to go argue with the wider community will be the healthiest thing for this project. -- Colin° Talk 09:12, 14 August 2020 (UTC)
One aspect of writing that is medicine specific, or at least a big challenge when writing a medical article, is how to handle the technical language and the jargon. That's why MEDMOS has long had various points of advice on how to deal with that. Above it is asked what the basis is for
Part of the role of an encyclopaedia is to teach the reader new words and help them build confidence with harder ones.
I'm actually rather surprised that is even questioned? Wikipedia isn't a patient information leaflet. Nor does it require a pharmacy degree to read a drug article. The point of all professional-level educational writing is to teach, not just explicitly, but also implicitly. We demonstrate how good-quality idiomatic English is written. People grow their vocabulary and their confidence with words by reading great quality prose, either in newspapers or factual writing or good fiction, and not by looking up dictionary definitions all the time.
A 12-year-old might not be able to tell you what a mortgage is and how it works, but might be aware that it's something their parents have to pay for the house. I'd expect a financial article on Wikipedia to talk about mortgages and not invent the term "house loan" instead. Similarly I'd expect an article on an anticonvulsant drug to include the words "anticonvulsant" early on, and not just "is a medicine". Because that's a concept "there are a class of drugs that treat epilepsy that we call anticonvulsants" that the reader should really know when reading about that drug. The reader's uncle might be taking anticonvulsants for his epilepsy, say. The reader might not be confident enough in that word to give you a definition or even to spell it but they know it or need to know it if they are to learn or say anything much about this drug. You looked up "carbamazepine" and learned the word "anticonvulsant" too.
The best writing on Wikipedia introduces these slightly advanced words to the reader in a way you don't even notice. We don't use advanced words gratuitously, and we avoid technical words that aren't necessary for the article subject, but the point of that sentence is to remind us not all hard words are the enemy to be eliminated, but are part of our educational mission. -- Colin° Talk 10:02, 13 August 2020 (UTC)
Wrt "Part of the role of an encyclopaedia is to teach the reader new words and help them build confidence with harder ones" - personally I find the assumption that Wikipedia's role is partly to "teach" people somewhat patronizing. At the same time, I do agree about its pertinence as a potential educational resource. I'd feel more comfortable with something along the lines of Part of the role of an encyclopaedia is to give readers an opportunity to understand relevant terms and gain familiarity with them. 86.190.132.140 ( talk) 12:46, 13 August 2020 (UTC)
Good encyclopedic writing will naturally teach the reader new words and help them build confidence with harder ones? SandyGeorgia ( Talk) 15:41, 13 August 2020 (UTC)
Good encyclopedic writing gives readers an opportunity to understand relevant terms and gain familiarity with them.SandyGeorgia ( Talk) 16:00, 13 August 2020 (UTC)
Are we wedded to the order in “provide a short plain-English explanation first, followed by the jargon in parentheses”? Is there a benefit to which is first and which in parentheses? Looking over “my” FAs, I see I have not been consistent within articles, and whichever is first should be throughout and I need to make adjustments. But I think I prefer the jargon first and the plain English in parens. Does it matter as long as we are consistent? @ Spicy: to check complete blood count. SandyGeorgia ( Talk) 15:55, 13 August 2020 (UTC)
Good encyclopedic writing... reading level gradeshould be trimmed substantially and maybe incorporated into the paragraph below. I understand that it's ok to labour points that are important and often misunderstood. But I don't think we need to wax poetic on the virtues of good encyclopedic writing either. Can we just note somewhere in the second paragraph that technical terms should be placed in a context that helps make their meaning clear? I most often see this violated in symptom lists, where writers expect the wikilinks to give the reader a medical education. Ajpolino ( talk) 18:41, 13 August 2020 (UTC)
[[renal|kidney]]
. I'm not sure that one-size-fits-all is the best approach we can recommend.
WhatamIdoing (
talk) 21:57, 17 August 2020 (UTC)
Well, that was fast. Contrary to MOS:JARGON, we have in the first paragraph of dementia with Lewy bodies
(a pipe to a medical term), which then forces another problem-- because the word prevalence is used repeatedly in the article, but is hidden in the lead via a pipe, and I believe is a useful medical term to introduce, I end up relinking the term later on, which creates another MOS breach-- duplicate links. And this occurs throughout because I was forced (by old and faulty guidance here) to pipe terms needed in the article. Suggestions? Introduce the parens in the lead? I have MUCH more of same ...
SandyGeorgia ( Talk) 17:18, 13 August 2020 (UTC)
Personally, I can envisage potential advantages and drawbacks to both those general approaches, which I fear are methodologically tricky to verify comprehensively by research. One important (and challenging) aim, imo, should be to provide reliable encyclopedic information while not scaring off our general readership. Yikes, easier said than done... 86.190.132.140 ( talk) 20:28, 13 August 2020 (UTC)
if helpful for readers, a link may be repeated ... at the first occurrence after the lead.", although I must admit, I don't see that exception being used much. Personally, if I'm working on a larger article that is made up of somewhat disconnected sections, I assume that a reader might want to jump in part-way through, so I'm more inclined to repeat a link that's a long way from the previous link. The counter-argument of course is "sea-of-blue", where high-value links are swamped by low-value ones, and getting a good balance is very much a matter for editorial judgement, rather than hard-and-fast rules. -- RexxS ( talk) 23:41, 14 August 2020 (UTC)
I have been involved in the navbox / template space for some years and as known just completed a sweep of many navboxes, a small amount of work still ongoing. I have updated the navigation boxes section ( Special:Diff/981707065/981737875) to reflect what I think is current practice and with one or two other changes:
More information about creating navigational templates can be found in the documentation of Template:Navbox., is not specific to the medicine guideline
A standardised list can be included in drug navboxes by adding |below={{
PharmNavFootnote}}
seeing as this is used frequently and it is probably useful to have stated.Medical navboxes should be placed on appropriately specific articles and satisfy the general criteria found in WP:NAVBOX. General navboxes such as {{ Medicine}} should not be placed indiscriminately on all articles. Conversely, specific navboxes such as {{ Bone, cartilage, and joint procedures}} should not be placed on general articles such as surgery.This is a huge problem relating to navboxes that I encounter very frequently and would like to directly state in the MOS if possible - {{ Medicine}} in particular is placed willy nilly on all sorts of specific articles it doesn't need to be, and often overview of topic articles contain a huge amount of specific navboxes that really don't need to be there. This is a significant cause of navbox creep and does not make articles easy to read or navboxes easy to use. From my understanding this reflects current consensus; please feel free to discuss / correct if this is not.
Do not insert meta or "index" navboxes that link only to other navboxes. [1], this discussion affected almost every one of our navboxes and is important to mention.
Please comment / discuss below. Cheers -- Tom (LT) ( talk) 04:30, 4 October 2020 (UTC)
The section as is:
- Graphs
Main page: Wikipedia:Graphs and charts Graphs are commonly produced off wiki and uploaded as images. Graphs can also be produced or linked to with several templates. See Wikipedia:Graphs for a list of some options. When uploading graphs as images, include sources on the file description page.
We already have two how-to pages that are linked from that subsection. This paragraph just duplicates those. Additionally it doesn't actually provide any stylistic advice that should be the purpose of a "manual of style". Existing advice elsewhere seems to be fine; I propose the whole section is removed. I don't see a particular need for it to be expanded to make it more relevant to medicine seeing as, to date, it hasn't been and it's not a very pressing problem. -- Tom (LT) ( talk) 04:11, 27 September 2020 (UTC)
There is a RFC on the use of "Committed suicide" language open at VPP, with the intention to add language to MOS:BIO on a consensus-based conclusion. The RFC is here: WP:VPP#RFC: "Committed suicide" language. Kolya Butternut ( talk) 15:39, 17 January 2021 (UTC)
I've reverted the
by
Brianbbad. I think it was well intentioned, but not a positive. Many of the edits removed the rationale, the explanation of why MEDMOS advises something. The "Writing for the wrong audience" is meant to be memorable and perhaps a little stinging, and so writing it as though it was a corporate memo loses its power. We want to avoid gratuitous jargon so adding "in vivo effects" goes against that. Lastly, the point about "some deaf and some autistic people" is that they want to be called "deaf" and "autistic" and so replacing that with "persons with a hearing impairment or some persons with an autism diagnosis" totally misses the point. I had a good look to see if there were any style improvements that were worth retaining, and I haven't found any. For example "Not all mainstream medicine is actually
evidence-based medicine" removes a word that perhaps a style guide might suggest removing for brevity -- the main fact is retained -- or notes that the word is used more often in spoken English than formal writing. Nevertheless, the grammatical role here is to mark unexpected information. Many editors on Wikipedia argue as though Western Medicine is "Evidence Based" and that it is all that other stuff that lacks evidence. That argument is, actually, not supported by the evidence. --
Colin°
Talk 11:26, 27 December 2020 (UTC)
This is a table showing selected text before and after Brianbbad's edits. These are the edits Brianbbad made that I think are good, meaning I believe they improve the prose by making it more clear, concise, and comprehensible. Let's discuss and reach a consensus.
Original | Brianbbad's edit |
1. * You emphasize or de-emphasize verifiable facts so that readers will make the "right" choice in the real world. ![]() |
1. * You emphasize or de-emphasize verifiable facts with the intention of influencing readers' choices. ![]() |
2. * You play down information that might discourage patients (for example, that a disease is typically fatal), or you give undue attention to individual success stories. | 2. * You play down potentially discouraging information (for example, that a disease is typically fatal), or you give undue attention to individual success stories. ![]() |
3. * Approved and indicated mean different things, and should not be used interchangeably. ![]() |
3. * Approved and indicated should not be used interchangeably. ![]() |
4. * Sometimes positive and negative
medical test results can have, respectively, negative and positive implications for the person being tested. For example, a negative breast cancer-screening test is very positive for the person being screened. ![]() |
4. * Positive and negative are often meant as favorable or unfavorable but in a medical context the terms typically indicate the presence or absence of something (symptom, pathogen, etc.). For example, negative results for a breast cancer-screening test suggest the absence of a malignant tumor, which is a desirable outcome. ![]() |
5. * The phrase psychologically
addictive has so many conflicting definitions that it is essentially meaningless. Replace the term with something specific. If you want to convey that a drug does not cause tolerance, or that its withdrawal syndrome is not life-threatening, then state that. ![]() |
5. * The phrase psychologically
addictive should be avoided in favor of more precise medical language. ![]() |
6. * The term drug abuse is vague and carries negative connotations. In a medical context, it generally refers to recreational use that carries serious risk of physical harm or addiction. However, others use it to refer to any illegal drug use. The best accepted term for non-medical use is "recreational use". | 6. * The term drug abuse in a medical context generally refers to recreational use that carries serious risk of harm or addiction. However, others use it to refer to any illegal drug use. The term![]() |
7. Not all mainstream medicine is actually evidence-based medicine ... | 7. Not all mainstream medicine is evidence-based medicine ... |
8. Many patient groups, particularly those that have been stigmatised, prefer
person-first terminology—arguing, for example, that seizures are epileptic, people are not. ![]() |
8. Many patient groups, particularly those that have been stigmatised, prefer
person-first terminology — arguing, for example, that seizures are epileptic, people are not. ![]() |
Thanks! Mark D Worthen PsyD (talk) [he/his/him] 15:32, 27 December 2020 (UTC)
SandyGeorgia ( Talk) 22:02, 27 December 2020 (UTC)
Key: Confirmed = The three of us all agree and the arguments are so sound that it's unlikely we will reverse course with additional input. |
- Leaning toward this option absent any persuasive objections. |
- Leaning toward this option, but with a change in the text that merits further discussion. |
= If the other option is Confirmed, then the red X indicates rejection.
Mark D Worthen PsyD
(talk) [he/his/him] 17:19, 28 December 2020 (UTC)
{{
WikiProject advice page}}
essay and moved to something like "WP:WikiProject Medicine/Style advice". —
SMcCandlish
☏
¢ 😼 15:21, 4 January 2021 (UTC)
{{
efn}}
and {{
notelist}}
for footnotes.)— SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 15:21, 4 January 2021 (UTC); revised: 02:58, 5 January 2021 (UTC)
PS: These concerns are not out of nowhere: in last the couple of years, two MoS pages have been demoted to {{
Rejected}}, one has been merged out of existence, and at least three topical claimants to MoS guideline status have been firmly labeled {{
WikiProject style advice}} essays and renamed to not imply they are guidelines or MoS pages. In most if not all of these cases, a significant factor was that the pages only seemed to represent the opinions of two or three editors. You'd all do well to attract a broader editorial audience to this page (even if just by notifying the main MoS page and WT:MED about proposals and other wording/intent discussions here). I seem to recall there was noise within the last couple of years about whether either MOS:MED or WP:MEDRS "really is" a guideline, too, though that might actually be back a little further. There are steps to take to thwart such things, to ensure continued consensus buy-in. Make the tent bigger, keep the community in the loop.
—
SMcCandlish
☏
¢ 😼 19:55, 4 January 2021 (UTC)
I'm not sure if I'm allowed to just edit a MOS article, so. The last point under the section "Careful language" directs the reader to the APA 6th style guideline re: disability. APA 7th has since been released, and the equivalent article is now https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/bias-free-language/disability (there's a few other bias-free language pages too, some of the other points may be worth considering for mos:med but that's a thought for later). The currently linked page itself says it is now outdated and redirects to the 7th article I have linked. There are some changes in their disability guidelines, but the in-article text doesn't actively conflict with it, so changing the link doesn't necessitate other in-article changes. NB: the title of the page is just "Disability", but I've included the superordinate category as part of the title to help the reader understand what the link will contain. Current text:
Proposed:
-- Xurizuri ( talk) 06:24, 16 January 2021 (UTC)
Re: point 4 starting with, "The term drug abuse". While it is defined here as referring to recreational use, which is how it is typically used, I am also used to it referring to substance use disorders or self-medication in a psych context. Given that MOS:MED also covers psychiatric articles, I suggest that this point be updated to include re-wordings for that context as well. An example sentence where it may not refer to recreational use per se, is "drug abuse is common in people with bipolar disorder". Typically, one would go with the form used in the source, but this is a term still used in literature which I'm guessing is why this point was added in the first place. -- Xurizuri ( talk) 12:33, 19 January 2021 (UTC)
Just wanted to mention that person-first language isn't preferred in every case. For example, autistic people tend to prefer being called autistic people to being called people with autism. Just about no one wants to be referred to as "differently abled," which ends up being stigmatizing.. RareDiseaseWikiFacts ( talk) 03:36, 12 January 2021 (UTC)
So maybe the best thing to do would be a minor edit: "Many, but not all..." RareDiseaseWikiFacts ( talk) 03:41, 12 January 2021 (UTC)
Unexpected gender neutrality probably shouldn't always be avoided. I don't know what the policy should be but it seems like a bad idea to make a rule against inclusivity even when it can lead to awkward wording. RareDiseaseWikiFacts ( talk) 03:39, 12 January 2021 (UTC)
Sorry for putting things in the wrong place. Still trying to figure out what is supposed to go where and I have a feeling I've probably made a number of dumb mistakes I don't realize I've made. You're right that it is implied as part of many.
I didn't mean to suggest everyone should start changing everything to say "people with uteruses" or anything. It just seemed like there are cases where this would be heavy-handed. I can see in retrospect that the fact that there is a rule saying you have to say "women with high levels of estrogen" rather than "people with high levels of estrogen" doesn't mean you can't mention a study on the effects of hormone therapy to describe how researchers differentiated between levels of estrogen and age/social conditioning (I'm obviously making this up). I was referring to the section about gender neutral language. Sounds like I was being a little too bold. I will tone it down. RareDiseaseWikiFacts ( talk) 06:21, 12 January 2021 (UTC)
Having the article on the drug commonly known in English as Tylenol or Panadol at the paracetamol title has always irritated me because from the perspective of both linguistics and cognitive psychology, it's hard to pronounce paracetamol and it's even more difficult to remember how to pronounce it. (I did not major in either field but I completed my bachelor of arts in history at a research university that is ranked in the top 10 globally in both fields as well as history, and had many classmates majoring in linguistics and cognitive science.)
Both names are obviously difficult to memorize, but acetaminophen has the benefit of being memorable, unambiguous, and melodious — it rolls off the tongue. Anyone who has worked or volunteered in a hospital can understand why the United States Adopted Name system does not use paracetamol because there are several "para-" words used in the health sciences (paraplegic, paramedic, etc.) for which paracetamol can be easily confused amidst the noise of a busy ER. Which probably explains why acetaminophen is the more common term in published English sources (according to Google) than paracetamol.
For years, efforts to move paracetamol to a more appropriate title have been resisted on the grounds that WP:MEDTITLE prefers the INN, which in this case is paracetamol. However, Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine was recently moved from Tozinameran on the grounds that WP:COMMONNAME prevails over WP:MEDTITLE.
I propose rewriting the paragraph dealing with drugs to clarify that as with anatomy, a common name should prevail over the INN where the common name is clearly used far more widely in published reliable sources (which would imply that acetaminophen is the more appropriate title). Any objections? -- Coolcaesar ( talk) 13:55, 17 January 2021 (UTC)
![]() | This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 10 | ← | Archive 13 | Archive 14 | Archive 15 | Archive 16 | Archive 17 |
How the MEDLEAD got added and why it is bad:
"The leads of articles, if not the entire article, should be written as simple as possible without introducing errors"added by James without prior discussion.
"Write the lead in plain English, especially the first two paragraphs. Avoid cluttering the very beginning of the article with a raft of alternative names and pronunciations; infoboxes are very useful for storing this data. Most of our readers access Wikipedia on mobile devices, and we want to provide swift access to the subject matter so that readers can move on or dig deeper without undue scrolling."added by Jytdog without prior discussion.
"To facilitate broad coverage of our medical content in other languages, the translation task force often translates only the lead; to facilitate that, it is useful to add citations to the lead, even though they not necessary as described in WP:LEAD."was " boldly" added by Jytdog without discussion. A subsequent discussion had opposition and it was removed.
"It is useful to include citations to the lead, even though they are not obligatory per WP:LEAD. There are essentially two reasons for this: 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."was added by CFCF despite opposition to it inclusion.
"Part of the reason for this [simple English] is that for around a third of readers of English Wikipedia, English is a second language."+ a chart added by James without prior discussion.
Looking at the talk pages, any attempt to control how the lead is written or cited meets significant opposition and there can't in good faith be regarded as any consensus for MEDMOS containing such advice. And yet such text is reverted back and retained, usually by those who support such deviations from MOS. Why is this asymmetrical? That we somehow require unanimity to remove contentious guideline changes but didn't in order to add them? That we some how require extensive discussion to remove guidelines in clear conflict with MOS and yet those are added without any previous discussion?
"should be written as simply as possible"This is not what Wikipedia:Make technical articles understandable which talks about the text being "as understandable as possible to the widest audience of readers who are likely to be interested in that material." and in particular "the lead section to be understandable to a broad readership". WP:MOSLEAD says "It should be written in a clear, accessible style with a neutral point of view" and "It is even more important here than in the rest of the article that the text be accessible". The key words are "understandable" "broad readership" and "accessible". Not "as simply as possible". En:wp is not Simple English.
"Many readers of the English Wikipedia have English as a second language (non-native language)."How is this medical?
"Language can often be simplified by using shorter sentences, having one idea per sentence, and using common rather than technical terms."How is this medical? Here is where the "short stubby sentences" that the rest of Wikipedia mock medical articles for. One idea per sentence is what makes our leads into a collection of six-word factoid sentences, rather than an introduction to the subject with natural idiomatic language structures. There is no medical justification why our leads should be written weirdly compared to the rest of Wikipedia.
"When writing the lead, editors should ensure that they write a comprehensive summary of all of the main points of the article"This contradicts MOS:INTRO which says "The lead section should briefly summarize the most important points covered in an article in such a way that it can stand on its own as a concise version of the article" There's a different focus on what to include.
"One way to achieve this is to follow the order of the content in the body of the article, although this is not required"Again, this is not medical and is not guidance found in MOS. We have the "get out" clause "although this is not required" which doesn't eliminate the problem: this text is used to justify arbitrary reordering of leads "per MEDMOS" when an editor may have written the lead differently in order to introduce and lead the reader through their summary of contents. For a lead that is not simply a jumble of factoids, this sort of reordering can be disruptive. The straightjacket here is further compounded by some editors insistence that the MEDMOS suggested sections ordering must actually be adhered to, despite MEDMOS saying it doesn't and should not be imposed on existing articles without prior agreement.
"Avoid cluttering the very beginning of the article with pronunciations or unusual alternative names; infoboxes are useful for storing this data. Most readers access Wikipedia on mobile devices and want swift access to the subject matter without undue scrolling."Nothing medical here. You know, we do have MOS:LEAD.
"It is sometimes useful to include citations in the lead, but they are not obligatory."Again, despite the "but they are not obligatory" this gets used to justify citation clutter in article leads, and is why paracetamol has 30 citations in its lead but donald trump has none.
"As in any content area, direct quotes, data and statistics, or statements that are likely to be challenged should be cited."This is in violation of the very guideline it links, because it neglects to include the important parts from the "When a source or citation may not be needed" which is: "Cited elsewhere in the article: If the article mentions the fact repeatedly, it suffices to cite it once. Uncontroversial content in the lede is often not cited, as it is a generalization of the cited body text." None of the lead of paracetamol is controversial, where as some of the lead of donald trump likely is, but they cope.
"When translating content to other languages, the translation task force often translates only the lead; their work is facilitated by citations."The translation task force translate from copies such as Simple Cellulitis and it appears those are now being taken off wiki. There was never any justification for medical articles to be made unreadable to justify simpler translation.
The lead section at MEDMOS has caused harm to medical articles on Wikipedia. There is nothing within it that has consensus, that is justifiably medical or that is not in some way an attempt to deviate from wider Wikipedia guideline and policy. -- Colin° Talk 11:01, 15 August 2020 (UTC)
Any edit that is not disputed or reverted by another editor can be assumed to have consensus.This means that while these parts of the guideline were in place without active on-wiki dispute, there was consensus for them. There is nothing in the Medicine ArbCom case stating that anyone's past contributions are somehow invalidated, nor that a couple of editors can retroactively declare a portion of a guideline to not actually have had consensus all these years. And this page is a guideline, same as MOS:LEAD is a guideline. Equal status - neither is more "local consensus" than the other. WP:MEDRS has stricter standards than WP:RS, so I'm not seeing why this page can't be stricter than MOS:LEAD.
This is in violation of the very guideline it links, because it neglects to include the important parts from the "When a source or citation may not be needed". Except that is not from a guideline at all; it is from an essay: Wikipedia:When to cite. The WP:Verifiability policy, WP:CITELEAD portion of the MOS:LEAD guideline, and this guideline supersede both the essay and your blanket claim that "a fact needs only be cited once". Sure, I have no authority to demand anything stricter here, but the pre-existing consensus guideline text does, and I explained why I oppose changing it in a certain direction. Crossroads -talk- 04:16, 16 August 2020 (UTC)
There is no consensus for MEDLEAD; it found
no consensus. There is clearly a numerical preference of opposes over supports, plus there are some people who doubt that the RfC was formulated in the best accessible way, on the other hand, the support arguments are stronger since the global consensus is stronger than the local one. Well, we are where we are, and, unless suddenly way more users would develop interest in the issue, MEDLEAD is not going to be fully replaced by MOSLEAD.(Bolding added.) As for Amphetamine, I don't see a serious issue. Combining all the citations at the end of each paragraph like that is uncommon, and I'd prefer it be sentence-by-sentence, but it is still miles better than 'a fact needs only be cited once, in the body', which is what I was replying to. Crossroads -talk- 16:50, 17 August 2020 (UTC)
I would suggest to try implementing changes one by one, identifying statements in MEDLEAD which the majority would perceive as problematic, and trying to change these.Crossroads -talk- 16:50, 17 August 2020 (UTC)
Never mind, collapsed request to merge this section above
|
---|
|
@
SandyGeorgia: Heh, funny thing is - and it’s kind of ironic - that I did that per complaints at FAC about citing the lead sentence by sentence, but now the issue is that I didn’t do so.
I actually have amphetamine’s current lead cited sentence by sentence somewhere in one of my sandboxes, but editing WP is really not a priority for me ATM. I can replace it with that version when I resume editing if you’d like. Don’t have the time to look for it and validate my edits right now tho.
Seppi333 (
Insert 2¢) 07:56, 19 August 2020 (UTC)
For whatever disagreeable process brought amphetamine to the state it is in, that policy requirement is not met. But neither is WP:V met by having three citations after every line. It is not met in the lead or in the body. Further complicating the difficulty in verification is that page numbers, chapters or section headings are required for lengthy journal articles, webpages or PDFs (something that oddly, we at WPMED have long ignored), resulting in an article that the average reader cannot verify. Then, the fourth complication is that leads don't need to be cited (I got complaints about the few citations I had at dementia with Lewy bodies, and I am pretty sure I got them by FAC because most FAC regulars understood there was some agida in the medicine project, and I had done my best). For examples of how to fix that, you can look at complete blood count, Buruli ulcer or dementia with Lewy bodies. For an example of correct citation in the non-medical realm, you can look at Coropuna. It won't be an easy fix, and I wouldn't want to subject you to a WP:FAR (when we have so many FAs in a similar state) until/unless you have time to deal with it, but FAR is the place to get a new look from current FA reviewers, and endorsement of whatever you end up with. Regards, SandyGeorgia ( Talk) 14:43, 19 August 2020 (UTC)In the English Wikipedia, verifiability means other people using the encyclopedia can check that the information comes from a reliable source.
The current version of MEDMOS says "The etymology of a word can be interesting and can help the reader understand and remember it." While anything might be interesting to some people, and some etymologies help people remember of understand the name (others, especially for older disease names, mislead), I don't think this is specific to medical content, and I suggest removing it. WhatamIdoing ( talk) 21:01, 14 August 2020 (UTC)
anatomy etymology
. There were 1300 hits.
Wikipedia:WikiProject Anatomy has tagged about 6,000 non-redirect articles. A quick semi-random sample of 10 high-priority articles found three that included the word etymology in them (one section name, and the title of a source in the other two). It may be more than 5%, but it's still a minority.
WhatamIdoing (
talk) 22:57, 17 August 2020 (UTC)Thanks for the ping. I have a fair amount of exposure to this through my work in the anatomy space. There are three mentions of etymology in this guideline, I think the first two are unhelpful and should be deleted. I only had involvement in the last part:
The etymology of a word can be interesting and can help the reader understand and remember it.) I think this should be removed. All parts of articles "can be interesting" to different readers. Whether a reader can "remember it" is not the point of Wikipedia. I don't see this adding any value to a guideline about how medical articles should be constructed.
Etymologies are often helpful, particularly for anatomy. Features that are derived from other anatomical features (that still have shared terms in them) should refer the reader to the structure that provided the term, not to the original derivation.this is very prescriptive and not followed in practice
For example, the etymology section of Deltoid tuberosity should refer the reader to the deltoid muscle, not to the definition 'delta-shaped, triangular'. The etymology in Deltoid muscle, however, should identify the Greek origin of the term.lengthy example describing what etymology means that I don't think is helpful
In articles that focus on anatomy, please include the Latin (or Latinized Greek) name of anatomical objects, as this is very helpful to interwiki users- this is not the mission of the EN WP -
and for people working with older scientific publications.- a good point but this has already been pretty completely integrated into our anatomy via our infoboxes and wikidata integration. Additionally we are now getting to the stage where very uncommon terms are being added (as Flyer mentions)
Many articles about eponymous diseases and signs include the origin of the name under the history section.- well, obviously.
History, describing the structure and the etymology of the word. Etymology may be included as a separate subsection, if sufficient information exists.This I think reflects current practice and would ask that this small statement is preserved. Usually etymology is described, and I describe it, within the "history" section. Occasionally we have a disproportionate amount of information that can justify a subsection
Maybe getting back to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines will give us a more positive framework for discussion.
Maintain scope and avoid redundancy. Clearly identify the purpose and scope early in the page, as many readers will just look at the beginning. Content should be within the scope of its policy. When the scope of one advice page overlaps with the scope of another, minimize redundancy. When one policy refers to another policy, it should do so briefly, clearly and explicitly.
Not contradict each other. The community's view cannot simultaneously be "A" and "not A". When apparent discrepancies arise between pages, editors at all the affected pages should discuss how they can most accurately represent the community's current position, and correct all the pages to reflect the community's view. This discussion should be on one talk page, with invitations to that page at the talk pages of the various affected pages; otherwise the corrections may still contradict each other.
At that page,
in December 2012, WhatamIdoing added: if two or more guidelines or two policies conflict with each other, then the more specific page takes precedence over a more general page of the same type.
(That is, in a dispute, the specific page MEDLEAD would take precedence over LEAD until the dispute is resolved.) That was immediately reverted and we have no such wording today. MEDLEAD cannot take precedence over LEAD, and the policy today states that a) guideline pages should minimize redundancy and not overlap, and b) differences between guidelines have to be resolved at both pages.
In many places (not only MEDLEAD), MEDMOS does not follow these two policy points; that is why the page has been in a continual state of dispute for about five years. By writing redundant non-medical guideline content here—that already exists elsewhere—we have often introduced error or ambiguity. That is why we can’t keep going down this same path, and need to resolve the dispute on this page, which unlike some have represented, goes well beyond a couple of editors. Throughout the medical guidelines today, there is redundant information that is explained less well than in policy or other broader guideline pages, and often even includes errors. Staying focused on scope may help us resolve this.
Wikipedia's policies and guidelines are developed by the community to describe best practices, clarify principles, resolve conflicts, and otherwise further our goal of creating a free, reliable encyclopedia.
Guidelines describe best practices; that is exactly what the framers were doing when we wrote the pages. The statement on this page that "It's because Wikipedia treats medical information so seriously and as a special case that we even have WP:MEDRS and WP:MEDMOS" is not true. We have MEDMOS and MEDRS because WPMED participants between 2006 and 2008 were describing best practices as demonstrated in our best articles, in an era when Google did not cough up Wikipedia first on a search, and we weren't focused on "medical information as a special case'. The framers of our guidelines who are still active exemplify the extent to which we were focused on reflecting best practices, guideline style, as the number of FAs written in medicine was escalating. Most of us wanted to help others produce top content ( Casliber, Colin, Fvasconcellos, Graham Beards, MastCell and Tony1 .. Eubulides and others active then are now gone). At one point, we all got busy/distracted and the MEDMOS guideline proposal page was marked historical (!?!?!?), so we got busy and got it done. But note the opposes along the way: (QUOTES)
So when you see editors who went through this process for months (years?) stating that the page has spun away from optimal guideline writing, it’s because we confronted those opposes.
Next, as we were going through the same process a year later for MEDRS, WhatamIdoing inquired about the process (which was a bit haphazard in those days), and moved forward with a proposal. There was no process in those days, so WAID got busy with an RFC (one of her strengths), and got wording about how to approve new Policies and guidelines put in place. Considering the opposition we faced, statements on this page like, “WP:MEDRS has stricter standards than WP:RS, so I'm not seeing why this page can't be stricter than MOS:LEAD” are wrong on multiple counts. Wikipedia:Verifiability is policy. Wikipedia:Reliable sources is a guideline that discusses various kinds of sources and how to use them generally to meet the WP:V policy. It doesn't extend policy or change policy; it explains how policy is applied in best practice. And MEDRS is guideline that cannot be any stricter than WP:V policy; it only extends WP:RS to explain what kinds of sources are considered reliable, primary, secondary, etc in medical content. WP:V is still the underlying policy, and MEDRS still can’t be any "stricter", no matter that the page has spun out of control and is often misapplied and misunderstood these days.
Some of our disagreement on this page might be lessened if we all factored in all of the points discussed above. But we have additional disagreements on who are audience should be. The initial framers of the pages were clear that we were defining best practices for how to write best content and what the best practices were, aka, this is what an excellent article on Wikipedia looks like. Later, the guidelines began to change focus to other-language Wikis and translation, which some editors found worthy and others felt diminished the quality of content on English Wikipedia. Hence, the disputes ever since. And we have another subset of editors advocating that the guidelines should be teaching materials for students, although between this Project and Wiki Ed, there is a proliferation of teaching materials already available for students. I remember a phase where we kept churning out one after another, hoping to stem the problems, yet nothing changed, because most of them are never read. And if we want them to be read, they had best be short and accurate!
So part of our disagreement is that this page has expanded and expanded to meet the perceived needs of different target audiences. I hope that by having a look at what Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines says about scope, and refocusing our discussion along those lines, and considering the history of how these pages came about, we can find mutual ground for less hostile discussion.
Consensus among a limited group of editors, at one place and time, cannot override community consensus on a wider scale.
This is another frequent matter of disagreement. The reminder that this page is a Wikipedia-wide page (since I launched the proposal, I expect I know that : ) is true, but overlooks the basic point. During the discussions about how to resolve differences between guidelines, SlimVirgin (who is as active on policy pages as WAID is) argued that "When two guidelines conflict, we have an established set of core guidelines", and WAID disagreed "I don't think it's possible to express the concept of 'core guidelines', and even if we could, it wouldn't be sufficient. The MoS regularly contradicts itself." The conclusion was simple: regardless if there are "core" guidelines, they can't say A and not A at the same time, and conflicts must be resolved.
But on the matter of limited versus wider consensus, even if this page can be edited and watched by anyone (it does not "belong to medicine") it is not edited and watched to the same extent that pages that enjoy broader consensus are. A limited group of editors participates at MEDLEAD relative to LEAD. That small group cannot override wider community consensus. Even if we could, WP:P&G tells us we need to resolve the conflicts.
Page | Watchers | Editors | Edits | Pageviews in 2019 |
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WP:MEDMOS | 232 | 177 | 899 | 31,000 |
WP:LEAD | 590 | 823 | 2,248 | 238,000 |
Those are discussion ideas intended to get us moving forward towards resolving disputes and on this pages, and helping us talk together about ways to re-focus these guideline pages so that, should we point a student at them, they might actually read them! Perhaps if we can discuss more civilly here, we can get this page back in shape and move next on the many more serious problems at MEDRS. The lengthy discussions a decade ago to get these pages passed as guidelines remained largely civil (with the exception of a couple of PHARM editors, IIRC), I believe we should be able to do this civilly today. As long as we have disputed sections, and a page so long no one will read it, we aren't doing any editor or student or article any good. SandyGeorgia ( Talk) 23:06, 16 August 2020 (UTC)
Colin, regarding this and this, what WP:Consensus is there for removing guidance about the lead? That we have a WP:Lead guideline does not mean that we cannot also have a section in this guideline about how to handle leads. In addition to medical articles, I sometimes work on film articles. And as you can see at MOS:FILM, we have a section there about handling leads. Different topics might require that leads are handled in ways specific to those topics. This is even the case regarding the WP:MEDMOS#Anatomy section. It mentions how we handle leads in anatomy articles. It doesn't mean that the guidance conflicts with WP:Lead, any more than WP:MEDRS conflicts with WP:Reliable sources or WP:Verifiability. It has often been the case that editors have wondered how to handle the lead of a medical article because it's a medical article. Pointing them to the WP:Lead guideline, the general guideline about leads, will show them how leads are generally written. But it won't give them an idea of how we generally write the leads of medical articles. And I've seen enough WP:Student editors who will write the lead of a medical article like it's the lead of a media topic or something else. It's because Wikipedia treats medical information so seriously and as a special case that we even have WP:MEDRS and WP:MEDMOS. Anyway, because of all of this, I reverted you. I reverted back to the WP:Status quo. We can re-craft the WP:MEDMOS lead section, but I see no valid reason to get rid of it entirely.
I also want editors' opinions on this bit you added. For example, I don't think we should state "low-literacy adults."
I'll contact WP:Med and WP:Anatomy to weigh in. No need to ping me when you reply. I only pinged Colin to get his attention. Flyer22 Frozen ( talk) 04:20, 13 August 2020 (UTC)
Part of the role of an encyclopaedia is to teach the reader new words and help them build confidence with harder ones.?
All of it is covered elsewhere and none is specific to medical articles. ... Minimising the wall of text is prudent.I also agree with what Colin wrote just above about the leads of Paracetamol and Ibuprofen being bad, and that "medical" is a broad category, probably too broad to have any particular guidance on writing a lead for a "medical" article. However, guidance about how to write a lead for an article about a pharmaceutical drug would be helpful (as would similar guidance a physician, medical school, surgical procedure, virus, disease, organ, etc.), so perhaps expanding those sections of MEDMOS with lead advice, rather than having one "lead" section in MEDMOS. Le v!v ich 02:55, 14 August 2020 (UTC)
Don't intend to get into a discussion since I don't really have any time for WP right now, but here's my 2 cents.
User:Colin wrote the following at
WT:MED People have noted that medical articles have unreadable leads. They are "unreadable" not because they are hard, but because you get past the first few sentences and lose the will to live. They are unreadable because although the sentences are short, they are just a collection of random facts presented without thought to developing or introducing concepts. And they often fail in an important part of our educational mission and encyclopaedic purpose, which is teaching our readers some of the difficult words that their doctor will use and are necessary to understand a topic. As an example, I've seen text saying when a drug was "discovered" changed to saying when it was "found", as though a chemist just came across it in the street, or perhaps had lost it the day before, and I've seen an article saying when a drug was first "synthesized" changed to saying when it was "made". But drug discovery and chemical synthesis are both terms a reader will expect to find in an encyclopaedia, and will be surprised by our choice of baby words instead.
I 100% agree with this sentiment. Nonetheless, I disagree with his removal of the lead guidance from MEDMOS; it should simply be reworded to incorporate this justification for using certain technical language. I also disagree with the removal of the assertion about lead citations; it's become a convention, and frankly, medical articles ought to cite the lead's medical content (or even all of it) for the same reason every medical statement ought to be to be cited in the body.
Given that the use of lead citations is based upon a value judgement about the utility of lead refs, I doubt anyone is going to change other editors' minds/opinions about whether they should be included simply by discussing their personal viewpoint or rationale for inclusion/exclusion. Seppi333 ( Insert 2¢) 05:28, 14 August 2020 (UTC)
There are some fundamentals that F&F wants to break. We don't repeat MOS just because it is handy to point students to a one-stop-shop for all advice on writing their article. If you want to write some essay, personal views on how to craft a medical article, aimed at students, be my guest and if it is really good, the project will link to it. But this page needs to focus on help that is specific to the challenges of writing medical articles. The lead is not that area. We all have personal opinions about language and citations but the big big point is those opinions are not medical. Go knock yourself out arguing at MOS:LEAD about it.
This section was created simply to allow deviation from MOS. To require leads contain "simplest possible" language, even though MOS doesn't say that. To require lead order to follow article order, even though MOS doesn't say that. To permit citation excess in leads, even though MOS doesn't say that. These were all just personal views about leads. The only aspect of leads that was ever claimed to be medical was that the translation task force used our leads as the basis of their translations, and therefore simple language and excess citations apparently helped them. This turned out not to be true. The TTF uses a copy of the leads held on project namespace (and now, it appears, copied to an external wiki which is deviating from Wikipedia policy and guidelines).
Let's not argue "it is useful" or "it helps students" or other vague reasons to retain material in a general area (lead) that has been a specific source of conflict on the project. I ask again: is there anything at all about medical leads that cannot be adequately covered at MOS:LEAD? So far, nobody has offered anything. We need to get lighter-weight, more wiki, about modifying this guideline in order to reflect best-practice and focus specifically on medical content. And we need to get better at realising we are part of en:wp and so if you feel strongly about article guidelines (for students, for newbies or for academics or whatever) then go to the wider guidelines and join in the discussion there. I think eliminating MEDLEAD and forcing any editors with strong views about leads to go argue with the wider community will be the healthiest thing for this project. -- Colin° Talk 09:12, 14 August 2020 (UTC)
One aspect of writing that is medicine specific, or at least a big challenge when writing a medical article, is how to handle the technical language and the jargon. That's why MEDMOS has long had various points of advice on how to deal with that. Above it is asked what the basis is for
Part of the role of an encyclopaedia is to teach the reader new words and help them build confidence with harder ones.
I'm actually rather surprised that is even questioned? Wikipedia isn't a patient information leaflet. Nor does it require a pharmacy degree to read a drug article. The point of all professional-level educational writing is to teach, not just explicitly, but also implicitly. We demonstrate how good-quality idiomatic English is written. People grow their vocabulary and their confidence with words by reading great quality prose, either in newspapers or factual writing or good fiction, and not by looking up dictionary definitions all the time.
A 12-year-old might not be able to tell you what a mortgage is and how it works, but might be aware that it's something their parents have to pay for the house. I'd expect a financial article on Wikipedia to talk about mortgages and not invent the term "house loan" instead. Similarly I'd expect an article on an anticonvulsant drug to include the words "anticonvulsant" early on, and not just "is a medicine". Because that's a concept "there are a class of drugs that treat epilepsy that we call anticonvulsants" that the reader should really know when reading about that drug. The reader's uncle might be taking anticonvulsants for his epilepsy, say. The reader might not be confident enough in that word to give you a definition or even to spell it but they know it or need to know it if they are to learn or say anything much about this drug. You looked up "carbamazepine" and learned the word "anticonvulsant" too.
The best writing on Wikipedia introduces these slightly advanced words to the reader in a way you don't even notice. We don't use advanced words gratuitously, and we avoid technical words that aren't necessary for the article subject, but the point of that sentence is to remind us not all hard words are the enemy to be eliminated, but are part of our educational mission. -- Colin° Talk 10:02, 13 August 2020 (UTC)
Wrt "Part of the role of an encyclopaedia is to teach the reader new words and help them build confidence with harder ones" - personally I find the assumption that Wikipedia's role is partly to "teach" people somewhat patronizing. At the same time, I do agree about its pertinence as a potential educational resource. I'd feel more comfortable with something along the lines of Part of the role of an encyclopaedia is to give readers an opportunity to understand relevant terms and gain familiarity with them. 86.190.132.140 ( talk) 12:46, 13 August 2020 (UTC)
Good encyclopedic writing will naturally teach the reader new words and help them build confidence with harder ones? SandyGeorgia ( Talk) 15:41, 13 August 2020 (UTC)
Good encyclopedic writing gives readers an opportunity to understand relevant terms and gain familiarity with them.SandyGeorgia ( Talk) 16:00, 13 August 2020 (UTC)
Are we wedded to the order in “provide a short plain-English explanation first, followed by the jargon in parentheses”? Is there a benefit to which is first and which in parentheses? Looking over “my” FAs, I see I have not been consistent within articles, and whichever is first should be throughout and I need to make adjustments. But I think I prefer the jargon first and the plain English in parens. Does it matter as long as we are consistent? @ Spicy: to check complete blood count. SandyGeorgia ( Talk) 15:55, 13 August 2020 (UTC)
Good encyclopedic writing... reading level gradeshould be trimmed substantially and maybe incorporated into the paragraph below. I understand that it's ok to labour points that are important and often misunderstood. But I don't think we need to wax poetic on the virtues of good encyclopedic writing either. Can we just note somewhere in the second paragraph that technical terms should be placed in a context that helps make their meaning clear? I most often see this violated in symptom lists, where writers expect the wikilinks to give the reader a medical education. Ajpolino ( talk) 18:41, 13 August 2020 (UTC)
[[renal|kidney]]
. I'm not sure that one-size-fits-all is the best approach we can recommend.
WhatamIdoing (
talk) 21:57, 17 August 2020 (UTC)
Well, that was fast. Contrary to MOS:JARGON, we have in the first paragraph of dementia with Lewy bodies
(a pipe to a medical term), which then forces another problem-- because the word prevalence is used repeatedly in the article, but is hidden in the lead via a pipe, and I believe is a useful medical term to introduce, I end up relinking the term later on, which creates another MOS breach-- duplicate links. And this occurs throughout because I was forced (by old and faulty guidance here) to pipe terms needed in the article. Suggestions? Introduce the parens in the lead? I have MUCH more of same ...
SandyGeorgia ( Talk) 17:18, 13 August 2020 (UTC)
Personally, I can envisage potential advantages and drawbacks to both those general approaches, which I fear are methodologically tricky to verify comprehensively by research. One important (and challenging) aim, imo, should be to provide reliable encyclopedic information while not scaring off our general readership. Yikes, easier said than done... 86.190.132.140 ( talk) 20:28, 13 August 2020 (UTC)
if helpful for readers, a link may be repeated ... at the first occurrence after the lead.", although I must admit, I don't see that exception being used much. Personally, if I'm working on a larger article that is made up of somewhat disconnected sections, I assume that a reader might want to jump in part-way through, so I'm more inclined to repeat a link that's a long way from the previous link. The counter-argument of course is "sea-of-blue", where high-value links are swamped by low-value ones, and getting a good balance is very much a matter for editorial judgement, rather than hard-and-fast rules. -- RexxS ( talk) 23:41, 14 August 2020 (UTC)
I have been involved in the navbox / template space for some years and as known just completed a sweep of many navboxes, a small amount of work still ongoing. I have updated the navigation boxes section ( Special:Diff/981707065/981737875) to reflect what I think is current practice and with one or two other changes:
More information about creating navigational templates can be found in the documentation of Template:Navbox., is not specific to the medicine guideline
A standardised list can be included in drug navboxes by adding |below={{
PharmNavFootnote}}
seeing as this is used frequently and it is probably useful to have stated.Medical navboxes should be placed on appropriately specific articles and satisfy the general criteria found in WP:NAVBOX. General navboxes such as {{ Medicine}} should not be placed indiscriminately on all articles. Conversely, specific navboxes such as {{ Bone, cartilage, and joint procedures}} should not be placed on general articles such as surgery.This is a huge problem relating to navboxes that I encounter very frequently and would like to directly state in the MOS if possible - {{ Medicine}} in particular is placed willy nilly on all sorts of specific articles it doesn't need to be, and often overview of topic articles contain a huge amount of specific navboxes that really don't need to be there. This is a significant cause of navbox creep and does not make articles easy to read or navboxes easy to use. From my understanding this reflects current consensus; please feel free to discuss / correct if this is not.
Do not insert meta or "index" navboxes that link only to other navboxes. [1], this discussion affected almost every one of our navboxes and is important to mention.
Please comment / discuss below. Cheers -- Tom (LT) ( talk) 04:30, 4 October 2020 (UTC)
The section as is:
- Graphs
Main page: Wikipedia:Graphs and charts Graphs are commonly produced off wiki and uploaded as images. Graphs can also be produced or linked to with several templates. See Wikipedia:Graphs for a list of some options. When uploading graphs as images, include sources on the file description page.
We already have two how-to pages that are linked from that subsection. This paragraph just duplicates those. Additionally it doesn't actually provide any stylistic advice that should be the purpose of a "manual of style". Existing advice elsewhere seems to be fine; I propose the whole section is removed. I don't see a particular need for it to be expanded to make it more relevant to medicine seeing as, to date, it hasn't been and it's not a very pressing problem. -- Tom (LT) ( talk) 04:11, 27 September 2020 (UTC)
There is a RFC on the use of "Committed suicide" language open at VPP, with the intention to add language to MOS:BIO on a consensus-based conclusion. The RFC is here: WP:VPP#RFC: "Committed suicide" language. Kolya Butternut ( talk) 15:39, 17 January 2021 (UTC)
I've reverted the
by
Brianbbad. I think it was well intentioned, but not a positive. Many of the edits removed the rationale, the explanation of why MEDMOS advises something. The "Writing for the wrong audience" is meant to be memorable and perhaps a little stinging, and so writing it as though it was a corporate memo loses its power. We want to avoid gratuitous jargon so adding "in vivo effects" goes against that. Lastly, the point about "some deaf and some autistic people" is that they want to be called "deaf" and "autistic" and so replacing that with "persons with a hearing impairment or some persons with an autism diagnosis" totally misses the point. I had a good look to see if there were any style improvements that were worth retaining, and I haven't found any. For example "Not all mainstream medicine is actually
evidence-based medicine" removes a word that perhaps a style guide might suggest removing for brevity -- the main fact is retained -- or notes that the word is used more often in spoken English than formal writing. Nevertheless, the grammatical role here is to mark unexpected information. Many editors on Wikipedia argue as though Western Medicine is "Evidence Based" and that it is all that other stuff that lacks evidence. That argument is, actually, not supported by the evidence. --
Colin°
Talk 11:26, 27 December 2020 (UTC)
This is a table showing selected text before and after Brianbbad's edits. These are the edits Brianbbad made that I think are good, meaning I believe they improve the prose by making it more clear, concise, and comprehensible. Let's discuss and reach a consensus.
Original | Brianbbad's edit |
1. * You emphasize or de-emphasize verifiable facts so that readers will make the "right" choice in the real world. ![]() |
1. * You emphasize or de-emphasize verifiable facts with the intention of influencing readers' choices. ![]() |
2. * You play down information that might discourage patients (for example, that a disease is typically fatal), or you give undue attention to individual success stories. | 2. * You play down potentially discouraging information (for example, that a disease is typically fatal), or you give undue attention to individual success stories. ![]() |
3. * Approved and indicated mean different things, and should not be used interchangeably. ![]() |
3. * Approved and indicated should not be used interchangeably. ![]() |
4. * Sometimes positive and negative
medical test results can have, respectively, negative and positive implications for the person being tested. For example, a negative breast cancer-screening test is very positive for the person being screened. ![]() |
4. * Positive and negative are often meant as favorable or unfavorable but in a medical context the terms typically indicate the presence or absence of something (symptom, pathogen, etc.). For example, negative results for a breast cancer-screening test suggest the absence of a malignant tumor, which is a desirable outcome. ![]() |
5. * The phrase psychologically
addictive has so many conflicting definitions that it is essentially meaningless. Replace the term with something specific. If you want to convey that a drug does not cause tolerance, or that its withdrawal syndrome is not life-threatening, then state that. ![]() |
5. * The phrase psychologically
addictive should be avoided in favor of more precise medical language. ![]() |
6. * The term drug abuse is vague and carries negative connotations. In a medical context, it generally refers to recreational use that carries serious risk of physical harm or addiction. However, others use it to refer to any illegal drug use. The best accepted term for non-medical use is "recreational use". | 6. * The term drug abuse in a medical context generally refers to recreational use that carries serious risk of harm or addiction. However, others use it to refer to any illegal drug use. The term![]() |
7. Not all mainstream medicine is actually evidence-based medicine ... | 7. Not all mainstream medicine is evidence-based medicine ... |
8. Many patient groups, particularly those that have been stigmatised, prefer
person-first terminology—arguing, for example, that seizures are epileptic, people are not. ![]() |
8. Many patient groups, particularly those that have been stigmatised, prefer
person-first terminology — arguing, for example, that seizures are epileptic, people are not. ![]() |
Thanks! Mark D Worthen PsyD (talk) [he/his/him] 15:32, 27 December 2020 (UTC)
SandyGeorgia ( Talk) 22:02, 27 December 2020 (UTC)
Key: Confirmed = The three of us all agree and the arguments are so sound that it's unlikely we will reverse course with additional input. |
- Leaning toward this option absent any persuasive objections. |
- Leaning toward this option, but with a change in the text that merits further discussion. |
= If the other option is Confirmed, then the red X indicates rejection.
Mark D Worthen PsyD
(talk) [he/his/him] 17:19, 28 December 2020 (UTC)
{{
WikiProject advice page}}
essay and moved to something like "WP:WikiProject Medicine/Style advice". —
SMcCandlish
☏
¢ 😼 15:21, 4 January 2021 (UTC)
{{
efn}}
and {{
notelist}}
for footnotes.)— SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 15:21, 4 January 2021 (UTC); revised: 02:58, 5 January 2021 (UTC)
PS: These concerns are not out of nowhere: in last the couple of years, two MoS pages have been demoted to {{
Rejected}}, one has been merged out of existence, and at least three topical claimants to MoS guideline status have been firmly labeled {{
WikiProject style advice}} essays and renamed to not imply they are guidelines or MoS pages. In most if not all of these cases, a significant factor was that the pages only seemed to represent the opinions of two or three editors. You'd all do well to attract a broader editorial audience to this page (even if just by notifying the main MoS page and WT:MED about proposals and other wording/intent discussions here). I seem to recall there was noise within the last couple of years about whether either MOS:MED or WP:MEDRS "really is" a guideline, too, though that might actually be back a little further. There are steps to take to thwart such things, to ensure continued consensus buy-in. Make the tent bigger, keep the community in the loop.
—
SMcCandlish
☏
¢ 😼 19:55, 4 January 2021 (UTC)
I'm not sure if I'm allowed to just edit a MOS article, so. The last point under the section "Careful language" directs the reader to the APA 6th style guideline re: disability. APA 7th has since been released, and the equivalent article is now https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/bias-free-language/disability (there's a few other bias-free language pages too, some of the other points may be worth considering for mos:med but that's a thought for later). The currently linked page itself says it is now outdated and redirects to the 7th article I have linked. There are some changes in their disability guidelines, but the in-article text doesn't actively conflict with it, so changing the link doesn't necessitate other in-article changes. NB: the title of the page is just "Disability", but I've included the superordinate category as part of the title to help the reader understand what the link will contain. Current text:
Proposed:
-- Xurizuri ( talk) 06:24, 16 January 2021 (UTC)
Re: point 4 starting with, "The term drug abuse". While it is defined here as referring to recreational use, which is how it is typically used, I am also used to it referring to substance use disorders or self-medication in a psych context. Given that MOS:MED also covers psychiatric articles, I suggest that this point be updated to include re-wordings for that context as well. An example sentence where it may not refer to recreational use per se, is "drug abuse is common in people with bipolar disorder". Typically, one would go with the form used in the source, but this is a term still used in literature which I'm guessing is why this point was added in the first place. -- Xurizuri ( talk) 12:33, 19 January 2021 (UTC)
Just wanted to mention that person-first language isn't preferred in every case. For example, autistic people tend to prefer being called autistic people to being called people with autism. Just about no one wants to be referred to as "differently abled," which ends up being stigmatizing.. RareDiseaseWikiFacts ( talk) 03:36, 12 January 2021 (UTC)
So maybe the best thing to do would be a minor edit: "Many, but not all..." RareDiseaseWikiFacts ( talk) 03:41, 12 January 2021 (UTC)
Unexpected gender neutrality probably shouldn't always be avoided. I don't know what the policy should be but it seems like a bad idea to make a rule against inclusivity even when it can lead to awkward wording. RareDiseaseWikiFacts ( talk) 03:39, 12 January 2021 (UTC)
Sorry for putting things in the wrong place. Still trying to figure out what is supposed to go where and I have a feeling I've probably made a number of dumb mistakes I don't realize I've made. You're right that it is implied as part of many.
I didn't mean to suggest everyone should start changing everything to say "people with uteruses" or anything. It just seemed like there are cases where this would be heavy-handed. I can see in retrospect that the fact that there is a rule saying you have to say "women with high levels of estrogen" rather than "people with high levels of estrogen" doesn't mean you can't mention a study on the effects of hormone therapy to describe how researchers differentiated between levels of estrogen and age/social conditioning (I'm obviously making this up). I was referring to the section about gender neutral language. Sounds like I was being a little too bold. I will tone it down. RareDiseaseWikiFacts ( talk) 06:21, 12 January 2021 (UTC)
Having the article on the drug commonly known in English as Tylenol or Panadol at the paracetamol title has always irritated me because from the perspective of both linguistics and cognitive psychology, it's hard to pronounce paracetamol and it's even more difficult to remember how to pronounce it. (I did not major in either field but I completed my bachelor of arts in history at a research university that is ranked in the top 10 globally in both fields as well as history, and had many classmates majoring in linguistics and cognitive science.)
Both names are obviously difficult to memorize, but acetaminophen has the benefit of being memorable, unambiguous, and melodious — it rolls off the tongue. Anyone who has worked or volunteered in a hospital can understand why the United States Adopted Name system does not use paracetamol because there are several "para-" words used in the health sciences (paraplegic, paramedic, etc.) for which paracetamol can be easily confused amidst the noise of a busy ER. Which probably explains why acetaminophen is the more common term in published English sources (according to Google) than paracetamol.
For years, efforts to move paracetamol to a more appropriate title have been resisted on the grounds that WP:MEDTITLE prefers the INN, which in this case is paracetamol. However, Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine was recently moved from Tozinameran on the grounds that WP:COMMONNAME prevails over WP:MEDTITLE.
I propose rewriting the paragraph dealing with drugs to clarify that as with anatomy, a common name should prevail over the INN where the common name is clearly used far more widely in published reliable sources (which would imply that acetaminophen is the more appropriate title). Any objections? -- Coolcaesar ( talk) 13:55, 17 January 2021 (UTC)