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I posted to Talk:Autism.
-- Rinadavitash ( talk) 19:52, 3 September 2019 (UTC)
I am reading this page in mobile view on a smartphone (Samsung S-6 Android). The second half of the introduction, starting from the line
"...about something? Make sure to look at our style and source"
extends beyond the margins of the highlight box and out past the edges of the screen. The above quote is all I can see of that line. I can scroll right to see the end of the line (struck through above), but not left to the beginning. The archive list has the same problem. The archive list may also have vertical format problems; I'm not sure what the layout is supposed to be.
Please {{Ping}} me to discuss. -- Thnidu ( talk) 15:07, 3 September 2019 (UTC)
Recently, I noted that some of the content about Medicaid estate recovery that was added to the following articles introduced neutrality and original research issues into these articles:
I brought this to the neutral point of view noticeboard at WP:NPOVN § Medicaid estate recovery and User:NormSpier, and the editor who added the content ( NormSpier) agreed to have it examined for policy compliance.
If you are interested in the topic of Medicaid estate recovery, or in United States healthcare laws in general, please help us review the newly added content at the noticeboard discussion or on the talk pages of these articles. Thanks. — Newslinger talk 20:20, 31 August 2019 (UTC)
NormSpier ( talk) 19:31, 2 September 2019 (UTC)
It has been proposed that Veterans benefits for post-traumatic stress disorder in the United States be renamed and moved to Veterans benefits for posttraumatic stress disorder in the United States. Please see my rationale for changing the title (removing the hyphen in "post-traumatic" is the only change proposed) at Talk:Veterans benefits for post-traumatic stress disorder in the United States#Requested move 27 August 2019. Please discuss on that Talk page too. Thanks! - Mark D Worthen PsyD (talk) (I am a man. The traditional male pronouns are fine.) 17:52, 27 August 2019 (UTC)
Congrats to all involved. Doc James ( talk · contribs · email) 07:39, 30 August 2019 (UTC)
Wikipedia like all encyclopaedias has articles that cover article subjects with a certain degree of comprehensiveness. When a reader has a question, they are likely to be offered an article on the general subject, rather than specifically dealing with the question itself. In an attempt to provide a video that doesn't strain people's attention span for text-to-speech narration, the VideoWiki version of Dengue fever has been condensed to 166 words and doesn't actually properly answer the question about treatment.
And this comes to how people seek information today. In the past, you put an article topic into Google and hoped for a list of web pages with information. Wikipedia was a good choice to click. But now we have natural language interfaces with Google and can talk normal sentences to our phones and other smart devices. We don't say "Alexa, I've got half an hour to kill, tell me all about dengue fever". We ask specific questions, and often get the reply spoken back to us. Consider a few such questions:
Ask your smart device. Ask Google. In my experiments, the results did not use Wikipedia. I got text from mayoclinic, webmd, pasporthealthusa, and webmd respectively. Each time I got a good quality, short but informative and totally on-topic answer to my question. Dengue fever is a featured article, one of our best, and yet the world's smart devices did not choose to use it. I know they do use Wikipedia lead sentences at times, but not for these questions. Why is Wikipedia not the first choice to answer these questions? Is there something about our article structure that prevents them being broken into chunks that answer questions? A 2-3 minute video trying to condense a whole article topic into 166 words is so condensed that it doesn't satisfactorily answer any specific question.
In 2019 people are asking their phones questions and don't want entire encyclopaedia articles as "answers". They don't want video summaries of those encyclopaedia articles as "answers" either. Venky, the security guard, just wants his phone to directly tell him how to treat dengue fever. If Venky speaks Hindi, then it is likely Google Assistant can already do this. -- Colin° Talk 12:58, 30 August 2019 (UTC)
Ian Furst, with respect, it really doesn't share the accepted guidance on when to seek professional care. To begin with the section is called "management" which reflects a healthcare professional point of view: how to manage your dengue patients. I can see this term reflected in the WHO reference. This isn't a "person who might have dengue"-focused article nor is it a general reader curious about dengue-focused article, but doctors writing to other doctors. The WHO reference assumes the person is a patient -- someone who is already visiting a health centre or hospital for advice/care. Because of this assumption, the writers of our article have neglected to mention that a person who suspects they have dengue should see a doctor. The article says "can be managed at home with daily follow-up and oral rehydration therapy". Both "managed" and "follow-up" are medical jargon. If I have a bad cold, I don't say I "manage it" by taking some paracetamol. The article doesn't say who does the "follow-up". Is it your mum, friend, GP, local nurse, neurologist? We know the term and it implies a return meeting with healthcare, in other words, that there has been an initial meeting. So you and I can sort of work out what it is saying, because we know the jargon and know the writer is a doctor who can't express themselves for the general reader. It needs rewritten for the general reader and the jargon avoided where possible. This is basic MEDMOS stuff. If you think you have dengue, should you see a doctor? Yes.
Same goes for the video which also uses jargon: "Treatment of mild or moderate dengue is supportive, and includes giving fluid either by mouth, or through an intravenous line." This is group A in the WHO document: people who should see a doctor but can go home if they are visited daily by a healthcare professional. Earlier the video it says severe dengue shock is an emergency requiring urgent hospitalisation -- this is group C in the WHO document. The video makes no mention of what group B, with severe dengue who are not (yet) critically ill, should do: they require hospitalisation for more specialist care. It doesn't say group A should see a healthcare professional and require daily monitoring. The conclusion from watching the video might be to stay at home, drink "fluid", and hope you can still phone for an ambulance if your critical organs start failing.
What is lacking from both these documents is any passion and care to educate the general reader. It is like random facts are sprinkled on the page in a perfunctory manner. Writing encyclopaedic articles for the general reader is Wikipedia's core mission, yet it seems WP:MED is focused elsewhere. -- Colin° Talk 19:46, 6 September 2019 (UTC)
I had a look to see if anyone is actually editing these videos. Looking at What links to Template:Videowiki I find 37 videos, nearly all of which were created by a few editors closely involved in the project, mostly in the spring when the project was first mentioned at WT:MED. The project was also presented at Wikimania in August 2019. New videos include:
Which were created by 3 editors. The total number of people people registered at Wikipedia:WikiProject Videowiki is 10, which pretty much lists everyone who has ever made any edit to such a video. The videos have been included in our articles for some months now and, outside of this core of 10 members, not a single Wikipedian has been inspired to edit them. This is despite the "script" for each video being linked-to on the article. Given that the videos could be charitably described as having "room for improvement", nobody has improved them. The claim that these videos are "easily editable" seem to be out of alignment with the facts that nobody is editing them. Videowiki is meant to be a collaborative editing project like Wikipedia is for text-based articles, but for video-articles. It is fair to say that nobody is collaboratively editing these videos. Videowiki is a failure. -- Colin° Talk 08:03, 3 September 2019 (UTC)
Are there any editors from this WikiProject willing to maintain Portal:Medicine? The Portals guideline requires that portals be maintained, and as a result numerous portals have been recently been deleted via MfD largely because of lack of maintenance. Let me know either way, and thanks, UnitedStatesian ( talk) 17:30, 6 September 2019 (UTC)
Vitamin E acetate has come up in the news quite a bit recent in regards to the FDA study on Vaping, can someone add that to the article? Naraht ( talk) 07:20, 8 September 2019 (UTC)
I've started a discussion on whether two articles on Safety of electronic cigarettes and Adverse effects of electronic cigarettes (created in Feb) are needed. See Talk:Safety of electronic cigarettes#Why two articles?. Fences& Windows 11:50, 8 September 2019 (UTC)
Have recently been implicated in deaths related to vaping. Are these the same as foam cells? Ian Furst ( talk) 15:59, 8 September 2019 (UTC)
Respiratory Medicine (2014) [2]:
"Alveolar macrophages (AMs) that become laden with lipid (predominantly cholesterol) are termed pulmonary foam cells or lipid-laden alveolar macrophages (LLAMs). These macrophages are more likely to undergo the process of programmed cell death and exhibit impaired phagocytosis [5], which may play an important pathogenic role in asthma. Furthermore, markers of lipid peroxidation measured in plasma are increased in asthma subjects [6] whilst erythrocytes and platelets exhibit alterations in membrane fatty acid composition [7].
A high fat content diet and the administration of a lipid emulsion in rats has been associated with the formation of LLAMs, leading to the view that the lungs may be a potential route of lipid excretion. However, it remains unclear whether such cells are derived from AMs ingesting lipids in the alveoli or from lipid-laden blood monocytes that migrate to the alveoli [8].
Lipid accumulation in alveolar macrophages appears to occur primarily through the phagocytosis of external lipoproteins. This process may be secondary to endogenous sources, such as lipoid pneumonia; where the presence of bronchial obstruction, chronic lung infection or a lipid storage disorder results in the accumulation of LLAMs; or an exogenous source, for example following aspiration or inhalation of lipid."
Annals of the American Thoracic Society (2017) [3]:
"The lung has a unique relationship to cholesterol that is shaped by its singular physiology. On the one hand, the lungs receive the full cardiac output and have a predominant dependence on plasma lipoprotein uptake for their cholesterol supply. On the other hand, surfactant lipids, including cholesterol, are continually susceptible to oxidation owing to direct environmental exposure and must be cleared or recycled because of the very narrow biophysical mandates placed upon surfactant lipid composition. Interestingly, increased lipid-laden macrophage “foam cells” have been noted in a wide range of human lung pathologies. This suggests that lipid dysregulation may be a unifying and perhaps contributory event in chronic lung disease pathogenesis."
SpicyMilkBoy ( talk) 17:51, 8 September 2019 (UTC)
There is a request for comment on the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act article. If you are interested, please participate at Talk:Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act § RfC: Recent additions. — Newslinger talk 06:02, 8 September 2019 (UTC)
I do not understand these reverts. 2 of the 3 sources are reviews (according to PubMed); 1 source is presented jointly with a review (according to WP:MEDRS). -- Saidmann ( talk) 18:06, 9 September 2019 (UTC)
As threatened, I'm back with another batch of articles which need expert attention. I am pleased to be able to report that these are all that remain of well over 100 articles I had bookmarked (though more still keep arriving). If you solve one of these puzzles, remove the maintenance tag and post {{ done}} here.
These contain links to DAB pages. Search for 'disam' in read mode, and for '{{d' in edit mode:
This one has a {{ clarify}} tag on what might be a circular definition:
This one contains several unsourced, possibly WP:WEASEL, phrases marked {{ citation needed}}:
Thanks in advance, Narky Blert ( talk) 21:31, 8 September 2019 (UTC)
We have a number of offline medical apps which have seen a few hundred thousand downloads from mostly the Global South. We used to have an English version that included videos. However as most medical videos on English Wikipedia were deleted more than a year ago that version is out of date and has been removed from the Kiwix library.
We were looking at using this template {{ OnlyOffline}} to have certain videos only appear within these specific ZIMs for offline use. Wondering what peoples thoughts are on this? Of course there are more complicated options that do not involve this template, but I do not have the technical skills to carry them out. Since there are efforts to delete the template will need consensus for such use. Doc James ( talk · contribs · email) 11:09, 1 September 2019 (UTC)
display:none
, it is rendered by the browser by removing it from the document. Whatever the content is, it cannot then request downloads of other content, such as a full media file. The MediaWiki software will supply a thumbnail, as you say, but an article like
Dengue fever is over 1,300kB, around a hundred times greater than the size of any small thumbnail. Nobody apart from you is going to worry about such a tiny amount. You might as well complain about the extra 16 bytes of text that the template requires when used. There is no team that I'm a part of, and as far as I know,
Kiwix and the medical app are each collaborations between Wikipedia editors, not "personal" projects. What are you going to find to whine about next? WikiProject Medicine?Template:OnlyOffline has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. -- Colin° Talk 13:39, 2 September 2019 (UTC)
Hi - I am teaching an upper-level course in endocrinology this fall with the help of the Wikipedia Education and learning alongside my students. I edited a single page years ago when I noticed an error, but I lacked the confidence to really dive in and learn about how to best interact with the community. Many of the students will work on topics related to medicine, but we will be continuing our training and peer-reviewing materials in our sandboxes before anything goes live. I have found myself wandering around different parts of Wikipedia almost every day this week, and I'm hoping it continues to be a regular part of my academic contribution even after the course is over this fall. UWM.AP.Endo ( talk) 21:03, 12 September 2019 (UTC)
About gun laws based on medical sources.
Talk:Overview_of_gun_laws_by_nation#RfC_for_last_sentence_in_lead
Doc James ( talk · contribs · email) 12:34, 10 September 2019 (UTC)
Does this count as a blatant hoax and/or promotion? If not, how are articles like this best handled? Thanks! Usedtobecool TALK ✨ 06:30, 14 September 2019 (UTC)
Thoughts here? Doc James ( talk · contribs · email) 17:40, 14 September 2019 (UTC)
The unsourced introduction to this dab page makes implicit clinical claims, presented in an authoritative, encyclopedic tone (concern/s raised at Talk:Constitution type - I wish to avoid edit warring). 86.190.128.52 ( talk) 11:30, 14 September 2019 (UTC)
Is this article cromulent? It was created from whole cloth by a WP:SPA who has been adding idiosyncratic views to articles related to Machiavelli for some time. Guy ( help!) 21:38, 15 September 2019 (UTC)
Hi all, just wanted to flag that we are going to again be running a Wikipedia in the Curriculum assignment with the Reproductive Medicine BSc course programme this month. Undergraduate students on the course will be shown how to research an article by our Academic Support Librarian colleagues and how to format a Wikipedia page before then working in groups to complete the research which can then be published on Wikipedia on 25 September 2019 all being well. The following topic areas are proposed for their group work:
Will be looking into these and ascertaining how well they are/aren't covered currently and appropriateness but would appreciate those with more medical-related knowledge of these to flag areas of concern, or any other issues for that matter. All best, Stinglehammer ( talk) 14:32, 10 September 2019 (UTC)
Some of the topic could maybe have better names like:
We have DAZ1 are there more?
Doc James ( talk · contribs · email) 02:01, 11 September 2019 (UTC)
One further suggestion they have for an article is on Ovum quality as they feel it is an interesting topic that doesn’t look like it has been covered before and would complement the Semen quality page. Stinglehammer ( talk) 11:42, 12 September 2019 (UTC)
Hello all,
I'm Steve Joordens, a Professor from the University of Toronto. Yes I am THAT Steve Joordens. In a recent chat I had with one of your editors I was told I was the source of the single biggest challenge that has touched Wikipedia since its inception when I had my extremely large class edit Wikipedia articles as part of their educational experience in 2011. Apparently I am quite well known, and not so much loved, by many of you as a result. I am not proud of any of that and it was never my intent.
At that time I did not understand the negative impact my actions would have. I didn't understand how sensitive Wikipedia was to the scale of editing, I actually thought it was a good thing. I thought I was providing a powerful learning experience for my students while also being of assistance to Wikipedia in the sense of increasing the quantity of psychology-related articles and potentially introducing new editors to Wikipedia. The firestorm my actions set off resulted in some negative and frankly hurtful comments on both sides of the fray and I think that part of things was totally unfortunate. I wish I had just presented my perspective and my motivations and refrained from anything else. But that was then, things were said, and on Wikipedia those things cannot be unsaid. I understand that.
I'm writing this now because I'd like to try again, 8 years further down the road. I've been through the introductory module and have created a course page for the History of Psychology course I am mounting this fall. The plan is to have 25 groups of 4 students each work on one article related to a major historical figure in Psychology. These are third year students, and their articles will be well vetted before they go live. Given my own history with Wikipedia, before I was allowed to go further I was asked to chat with Doug and Lane so they could get a clearer sense of my intentions. After a great chat they have given their OK for me to proceed with both of them in the shadows, there to help me and my students and, to some extent I'm sure, to make sure I stay well without the bounds of acceptable conduct. Again, so be it ... quite honestly after what happened last time I very much appreciate having them there ... thanks again guys!
It was further suggested that before going further, and for the sake of total transparency, that I should post this note here ... to let you all know that I am back with a new class. I hope, like Doug and Lane, you will all allow the past to be past as I really do see great value for all with respect to using Wikipedia in an educational context. In fact, for what it's worth, my research expertise is on the effective use of technology in education, and I love how Wikipedia editing gives students practice thinking critically and creatively, and communicating in thoughtful ways. It is something I would like to continue to do on occasion. I fully realize that some of you may view this skeptically. My only way of changing that is to show you that my classes and I can be an asset and that, now that so many things have improved with respect to the on-boarding of professors and students, that we can be model Wikipedia citizens. I ask you to allow me and my class the opportunity of providing you with such a demonstration this fall term.
I am happy to answer any questions you may have, and I assure you that I will remain nothing short of respectful in all subsequent interactions on this platform. I am in fact a big fan of Wikipedia and other forms of open knowledge dissemination, always have been. As one example I offer an Introduction to Psychology course on Coursera.org that over 200,000 students have experienced and seemingly enjoyed. Anyway, there it is ... I hope you will allow me the chance to be part of this great site.
Have a great end of week and weekend all, Steve
SteveJoordens ( talk) 21:05, 29 August 2019 (UTC)
Thanks everyone who's contributed here. I would like to make sure that people are comfortable, not just willing not oppose. In particular, I noticed that Iridescent's question seems to have slipped through the cracks. For me, this is a critical question, and I think we need to be sure that they are satisfied with the answer they received.
I also haven't heard anything from the people who were most involved in the past iterations, and I really want to make sure that they have a chance to weigh in. I don't want to add to anyone's stress by bringing up bad past experiences, but I want to include recently-active editors who were involved in the 2011 and 2013 iterations. @ Colin, Tryptofish, The Interior, Jbmurray, Mike Christie, Looie496, Fluffernutter, WereSpielChequers, OhanaUnited, Biosthmors, Sj, and WhatamIdoing: I want to make sure you're aware of this, and make sure that you have a chance to be heard. Guettarda/ Ian (Wiki Ed) ( talk) 21:50, 3 September 2019 (UTC)
If I may, I'd like to return to the issue of "what is different this time" and why did this happen twice ... as I think perhaps the two most important differences for understanding all the happened and why I think you can trust (but verify) me this time are (1) my now less naive understanding of Wikipedia and (2) my much better understanding of the you all, your perception of Wikipedia and "entrance level requirements" ... and your passion for Wikipedia. Let me try to unpack these.
First, I was one of the first educators to enter the world of Wikipedia, yes as an outsider to your world and culture. I had a very naive view of it. Specifically, I had repeatedly heard Wikipedia being help up as the "proof of concept" of an almost magical process called Crowd Sourcing. As I understood it at the time (and please know I don't think this way now) people wrote articles, and those initial articles could be thought of as part signal (the part that is accurate and presented appropriately) and part noise (inaccuracies, incompleteness, stylistic issues, etc). By simply writing the articles they attracted the attention of other Wikipedians, who then would see the article and make improvements ... perhaps adding more information, or correct inaccuracies, or fixing stylistic issues. So almost magically the signal to noise ratio would slowly become stronger and stronger all without any single individual needing to do a whole lot. Instead the "crowd" worked as a super powerful signal enhancer.
With this naive view in my mind, and not having it challenged as I waded further into your world, I sincerely felt that by having my students add a little more information to existing articles they would be part of the crowd ... they would be adding a little more signal. Yes there was also the possibility, and with the benefit of hindsight the likelihood, of them also adding noise. I did try to reduce that. I did have them go through training, I did introduce them to the desired qualities of good articles ... but given my naive view I also didn't feel that adding a little noise was a big deal. I thought the "crowd" would indeed clean the noise over time, and the article would be improved. I also thought some of my students might love the experience and thus might begin editing and reducing noise to other articles. So yes, I thought I was giving students a great learning experience AND helping Wikipedia at the same time. I truly and honestly did.
My naive view was wrong, but it took me a while to understand that and, in the process, understand the reaction from all of you. Honestly, when people here started to mention "you did this twice" ... I was like "huh? There was one major blow up that I recall" ... but the blow up I recall was 2013. In 2011, when the students posted, and when a number of editors expressed their ire, I honestly had no understanding of who these people were and why they were so upset. Let me return to this after another visit to my naive view. I had never interacted with the "other side" of Wikipedia or anything remotely like it. Another part of my naive view was the following. Wikipedia was powered by normal people. All of them, I assumed, sometimes wrote articles and sometimes improved articles written by others. I imagined literally millions of people all doing little things in little spaces of time and through this magic of crowd sourcing Wikipedia emerged. So when a seemingly small proportion of these people (to me) were expressing anger and saying things that I just did not understand, I reacted to them badly. They seemed a little like those proverbial "internet trolls", people that maybe just hate on things. Your anonymity (while my reputation was being directly hit) was part of that by the way, it made me angry. Because I did not understand where your emotion was coming from I misattributed it and did not respond correctly to it.
OK, now one other word about me and my life only for context (not an excuse, just an explanation). I am a BIG fan of using educational technologies (I use 7 in my current class). Each time a new technology is introduced we always run into some sort of unanticipated issues. We learn from them, tweak our approach to try to address the issue, then try again ... eventually this results in powerful learning experiences. This is my default way of evolving my use of technology, it often works well, and at the time I did not fully understand that Wikipedia was a different beast. I'll get to that ...
Right, so with this approach then, it seems I did indeed try again in 2013. I learned one thing from the 2011 experience, but I missed another important point. Specifically, what I took from it was "OK, apparently the signal:noise ratio of any edit needs to be higher ... that is we need to do a better job training students how to edit appropriately before asking them to edit articles. So I created an online training module intended to do just that, and all students were required to go through it. I hoped this would address the issue ... yes I assumed there would still be some noise, but again, crowdsourcing would correct that ... as long as it was much less noise it should be OK. I know, I'll return to that. But critically, what I had failed to appreciate was the relevance of the number of edits .. I was thinking about the quality ... I did not grasp why more edits (of now better quality) would be an issue.
Now you know why I wanted to do this all in a video! Well, both because its a long story and because I wish you guys were seeing and hearing my non-verbals as I explain all this because the non-verbals are where the deep communication ... things like honesty ... resonate. Anyway, onward ...
Obviously things REALLY blew up in 2013 ... and honestly it STILL took me a long time to understand the issue and, in so doing, to properly understand all of you. Let me first tell you the blow up from my side ... and this is the part that really stuck with me. I think the edits were due prior to a class. Sometime during that class a very high ranking university official literally called the phone in the classroom (it never rings, it's for calling out). When I answered it she said "I don't know what you're doing with Wikipedia Joordens, but we have been told that you must cease and desist immediately or there will be legal action against the university, and there may be anyway". I was stunned, a complete disconnect between my world and yours, I couldn't comprehend. But because it was now considered a potential legal issue I was also asked to brief people at the university and listen to their consultations.
So what has changed since then? I now think I have a better understanding. Not a total one I'm sure, but let me lay this out there and see if I'm much closer. It seems that the "crowd", especially that part of the crowd that improves articles, is MUCH smaller than I ever imagined. It is all of you ... you are the ones that make Wikipedia work, and there really are not that many of you. You devote your time to a relatively thankless and time consuming work because you believe deeply in Wikipedia ... you are very proud of it and your contribution to it (as you should be) and all of this comes with a slight sense of ownership and with that a desire to protect it. Also, because it is all of you who must fix inaccuracies, you have understandably come to a position where you would like even the very first article that anyone touches to edited with a pretty deep level of skill and understanding ... you want every edit to be very high in signal and very low in noise ... that's the only way you feel you can keep the articles high quality, and the quality of the articles are the source of the quality of Wikipedia. I sincerely hope I have that all right.
I will add as a sidepoint, this need for even initial articles to be very high quality, while completely understandable, does represent a fairly significant challenge when introducing new potential editors to the platform. It's hard to do things really well right out of the gate. Its clear my training module was not sufficient ... and I am truly impressed by all WikiEdu has done to up the game in that regard. As I mentioned, in this years class, groups of 4 or 5 students, all of whom have gone through all the training, will create a single article. Then each group's draft (sandboxed) article will be peer-reviewed by 4 other groups of 4 or 5 students each to try to reduce any noise further. We also have two TAs and a librarian that will watch all sandboxes ... they will also go through the training and they will be charged specifically with making sure the articles are high quality.
Overall then I want you to understand that I now understand Wikipedia better ... it is a "space" where immigrants need to know the culture extremely well before setting foot ... they must do so with high respect for the norms and with the proper intentions. Also, they need to tread lightly until they prove themselves, not trying to do too much too soon. I completely understand all of this and conveyed essentially all of the above to my students yesterday. They are excited by the project (I hope it can go forward) and we are all laser focused on producing fantastic articles.
Two final points I need to address. First, why did I not give all the usernames in 2013? As highlighted above, after the 2013 blow up there was a threat of legal action that was taken very seriously. Of course student privacy (and the privacy of their information) is something all universities take very seriously. Yes some of my students had "anonymous" usernames, but many did not ... and even for those who did some people weren't sure that their identities could not be discovered by savy internet users like yourselves. I had been told to cease and desist and the provision of usernames was considered part of that ... and yes I know that made the mess on your side worse yet. Second, some of you want me to prove myself as a Wikipedia editor before I use the platform in my class. I ask, can I prove myself as a Wikipedia educator instead ... that is, will you judge me by the quality of the edits my students make this term? That is the proper test, right? Can I shepherd a group of students through a process that ultimate results in quality articles and maybe some informed new editors. Once again, I humbly ask you to allow me (and my new great class) to prove ourselves to you this term.
Apologies for the novel! It just seemed some of this needed saying. I hope this allows us to move forward. What has changed? All of the previous things listed have changed ... my students will be much better trained, there will be much more oversight, the number of articles touched is much lower ... but perhaps more important that all of these things ... I have changed, my understanding of Wikipedia has changed, and my understanding and appreciation for what you all do as changed. I do not want to bring grief into your lives ... in fact I would like to be part of what makes Wikipedia better.
50.101.88.232 ( talk) 13:47, 5 September 2019 (UTC)
Man, I realize now that I was not logged in when I wrote the novel above. Apologies! Yes that was me, Steve
I also want to respond to two points I think I missed above. First, why did I not give all the usernames in 2013? By then things has strong potential legal overtones, and universities must protect student information under our Privacy Protection Act. Some usernames had identifying information and no-one was sure if the identity of the others could be sussed out in some way. So I simply could not share those ... and yes I understand that made a bad situation even worse, which sucks. I'm sorry.
Second, several of you have suggested I prove myself as a Wikipedia editor as a first step. I ask instead that I be allowed to prove myself as a Wikipedia Instructor. Yes I will edit some articles ... I will try to do so by the end of next week. I won't complain to you about how busy my life is, but time is very tight and isn't the real question whether I can shepherd a class of students through a process that results in a set of great articles? I ask you allow me to prove myself that way, this term, with this great class.
SteveJoordens ( talk) 14:01, 5 September 2019 (UTC)
Thank you to everyone for your comments here Truly hoping this will be a productive and successful venture. Helaine (Wiki Ed) ( talk) 03:16, 6 September 2019 (UTC).
Peoples thoughts Talk:Legionnaires'_disease#We_generally_write here? Doc James ( talk · contribs · email) 18:16, 16 September 2019 (UTC)
Me too. I looked at a handful of other articles about infectious diseases when forming my opinion and the language wasn't consistent at all. I am new here and curious about policies or templates for articles about human diseases. I know there are specific guides for appropriate source types, but what other medicine-related guides are available? UWM.AP.Endo ( talk) 18:43, 17 September 2019 (UTC)
Hi, We are looking to research and write a new article on Ovarian follicle dominance as the current one just redirects the Ovarian follicle. We have identified a number of section headings and want to check these will work:
So four sections really, and any assistance in the naming & content of these would be appreciated. Many thanks, Stinglehammer ( talk) 11:33, 18 September 2019 (UTC)
I am a new editor. I made a revision proposal. Would someone review it and publish - PLEASE./Thanks/Swozingram -- Swozingram ( talk) 23:06, 19 September 2019 (UTC)
Hi I am a new editor. I have an article draft for opioid tapering. Can someone please review and publish it. thanks so much!-- Wikieditor995995 ( talk) 00:08, 20 September 2019 (UTC)
There are some
Etc Doc James ( talk · contribs · email) 04:24, 20 September 2019 (UTC)
Should there be an article for vaping-associated pulmonary injury (VAPI)? [8] QuackGuru ( talk) 00:38, 24 September 2019 (UTC)
@ QuackGuru: Thanks for creating Vaping-associated pulmonary injury.
User:Willbb234 while examining this page as a part of our page curation process had the following comments:
Try to implement information from other sources, other than simply number 1 with a bit of number 2 & 3.
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Message delivered via the Page Curation tool, on behalf of the reviewer. (pinging @ Ozzie10aaaa:) Willbb234 Talk (please {{ ping}} me in replies) 15:39, 24 September 2019 (UTC)
@ Bluerasberry: please add your thoughts. Willbb234 Talk (please {{ ping}} me in replies) 16:10, 24 September 2019 (UTC)
Would a few of you review the recent edits on Vaping-associated pulmonary injury and give me (and anyone else as you deem appropriate) feedback or suggestions on how to proceed. A response from the other editor ( QuackGuru) took me aback and I'm not sure how to respond. I undid an edit he made that had removed an edit I'd made a few minutes earlier. I created a section on the article's Talk page, Lead paragraph, to discuss our different perspectives. In my edit note I wrote, "Let's discuss on Talk page. Thank you - Mark". QuackGuru's response, in their edit note, was "Let's not. CDC is a better source." Please see the ( Talk page discussion) for more. I am open to learning if I don't understand a policy, tradition, or better way to do things. Otherwise, I will let it go and take the article off my Watchlist. Thank you - Mark D Worthen PsyD (talk) (I am a man. The traditional male pronouns are fine.) 01:34, 25 September 2019 (UTC)
The resveratrol page is dated and does not include the most up-to-date information. IMHO, most of the authors reflect a bias not valid criticism based on the current NIH studies and results. The cited Medline reviews are singular, again, not reflective of current scientific knowledge. I am not a programmer or have enough experience to correctly post a response to this. But I have followed resveratrol studies for years. I am also alive due to taking resveratrol as are many others. My doctors were doubters but now believers. This page needs to be examined by a third party and correctly display to the public the scientific evidence. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Pranier ( talk • contribs) 18:58, 24 September 2019 (UTC)
If you're interested in content campaigns (like Wiki Loves Earth, to encourage photo uploads), then you might want to watch the project described in https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/glam/2019-September/001647.html They're working on a sort of guidebook for people who want to start new campaigns to encourage content creation. WhatamIdoing ( talk) 18:10, 25 September 2019 (UTC)
Talk:Chronic_obstructive_pulmonary_disease#RfC:_Redirects_of_"chronic_bronchitis"_and_"emphysema"
Doc James ( talk · contribs · email) 04:41, 27 September 2019 (UTC)
Hi!
Very rare editor here, but am working on a presentation about electrosurgical coagulation devices, which includes Argon Beam (or Argon Plasma) Coagulation. The article here on Wikipedia is ... missing some important things, because it implies that the technology is only used for endoscopic procedures. It's used for open surgical procedures, and laparoscopic surgical procedures, as well as the endoscopic procedures (and afaik, endoscopic came last of those three -- on my list to verify).
I'm happy to write it (after I finish the presentation next month), but wanted to get some feedback about what you experts think is appropriate.
Here's the link to the current article: /info/en/?search=Argon_plasma_coagulation
Thanks all! — Preceding unsigned comment added by GillisVanDenBerge ( talk • contribs) 03:53, 28 September 2019 (UTC)
There are two separate threads on the talk page that mention this, but there doesn't seem to be much discussion or established consesus beyond that. Should a picture of cotton swab be included in the article? Clovermoss ( talk) 02:07, 28 September 2019 (UTC)
In the article I've linked ′protein kinase C alpha′ to
Protein Kinase C Alpha. It may be associated with
Protein kinase c-alpha. Requesting folks who know exactly know what it is, to modify it accordingly. --Gpkp
u •
t •
c
16:15, 29 September 2019 (UTC)
mw:Wikimedia Research/Showcase#September 2019 talks about the possibility of identifying some sentences in Wikipedia articles that are currently unsourced, and would normally be sourced. It might be possible to produce a subject-specific report, to identify statements in articles that are currently not tagged with {{ citation needed}}. (The current list of WPMED-tagged articles using that template is in the main cleanup listing.)
BTW, medicine-related articles are called out as being among the most thoroughly sourced articles on the English Wikipedia. WhatamIdoing ( talk) 18:02, 20 September 2019 (UTC)
In the lede of Peanut allergy, this is written: Physical symptoms of allergic reaction can include itchiness, hives, swelling, eczema, sneezing, asthma, abdominal pain, drop in blood pressure, diarrhea, and cardiac arrest.
Asthma stands out to me, because asthma is a long-term inflammatory disease, at least according to the current article. So... do peanut allergy symptoms actually cause asthma? I think it's more likely that difficulty breathing may be a symptom, but that wouldn't be the same thing as asthma. If peanut allergies do cause asthma, shouldn't there be more than one source to back that up? Clovermoss ( talk) 21:21, 30 September 2019 (UTC)
This is a study that was published in Research & Reviews: Journal of Social Sciences from the predatory publisher Research & Reviews, which has some connections to OMICS Publishing Group. I'd nominate for deletion, but the study has gained coverage in press, so I'm not sure how to proceed. Headbomb { t · c · p · b} 17:23, 30 September 2019 (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 120 | ← | Archive 124 | Archive 125 | Archive 126 | Archive 127 | Archive 128 | → | Archive 130 |
I posted to Talk:Autism.
-- Rinadavitash ( talk) 19:52, 3 September 2019 (UTC)
I am reading this page in mobile view on a smartphone (Samsung S-6 Android). The second half of the introduction, starting from the line
"...about something? Make sure to look at our style and source"
extends beyond the margins of the highlight box and out past the edges of the screen. The above quote is all I can see of that line. I can scroll right to see the end of the line (struck through above), but not left to the beginning. The archive list has the same problem. The archive list may also have vertical format problems; I'm not sure what the layout is supposed to be.
Please {{Ping}} me to discuss. -- Thnidu ( talk) 15:07, 3 September 2019 (UTC)
Recently, I noted that some of the content about Medicaid estate recovery that was added to the following articles introduced neutrality and original research issues into these articles:
I brought this to the neutral point of view noticeboard at WP:NPOVN § Medicaid estate recovery and User:NormSpier, and the editor who added the content ( NormSpier) agreed to have it examined for policy compliance.
If you are interested in the topic of Medicaid estate recovery, or in United States healthcare laws in general, please help us review the newly added content at the noticeboard discussion or on the talk pages of these articles. Thanks. — Newslinger talk 20:20, 31 August 2019 (UTC)
NormSpier ( talk) 19:31, 2 September 2019 (UTC)
It has been proposed that Veterans benefits for post-traumatic stress disorder in the United States be renamed and moved to Veterans benefits for posttraumatic stress disorder in the United States. Please see my rationale for changing the title (removing the hyphen in "post-traumatic" is the only change proposed) at Talk:Veterans benefits for post-traumatic stress disorder in the United States#Requested move 27 August 2019. Please discuss on that Talk page too. Thanks! - Mark D Worthen PsyD (talk) (I am a man. The traditional male pronouns are fine.) 17:52, 27 August 2019 (UTC)
Congrats to all involved. Doc James ( talk · contribs · email) 07:39, 30 August 2019 (UTC)
Wikipedia like all encyclopaedias has articles that cover article subjects with a certain degree of comprehensiveness. When a reader has a question, they are likely to be offered an article on the general subject, rather than specifically dealing with the question itself. In an attempt to provide a video that doesn't strain people's attention span for text-to-speech narration, the VideoWiki version of Dengue fever has been condensed to 166 words and doesn't actually properly answer the question about treatment.
And this comes to how people seek information today. In the past, you put an article topic into Google and hoped for a list of web pages with information. Wikipedia was a good choice to click. But now we have natural language interfaces with Google and can talk normal sentences to our phones and other smart devices. We don't say "Alexa, I've got half an hour to kill, tell me all about dengue fever". We ask specific questions, and often get the reply spoken back to us. Consider a few such questions:
Ask your smart device. Ask Google. In my experiments, the results did not use Wikipedia. I got text from mayoclinic, webmd, pasporthealthusa, and webmd respectively. Each time I got a good quality, short but informative and totally on-topic answer to my question. Dengue fever is a featured article, one of our best, and yet the world's smart devices did not choose to use it. I know they do use Wikipedia lead sentences at times, but not for these questions. Why is Wikipedia not the first choice to answer these questions? Is there something about our article structure that prevents them being broken into chunks that answer questions? A 2-3 minute video trying to condense a whole article topic into 166 words is so condensed that it doesn't satisfactorily answer any specific question.
In 2019 people are asking their phones questions and don't want entire encyclopaedia articles as "answers". They don't want video summaries of those encyclopaedia articles as "answers" either. Venky, the security guard, just wants his phone to directly tell him how to treat dengue fever. If Venky speaks Hindi, then it is likely Google Assistant can already do this. -- Colin° Talk 12:58, 30 August 2019 (UTC)
Ian Furst, with respect, it really doesn't share the accepted guidance on when to seek professional care. To begin with the section is called "management" which reflects a healthcare professional point of view: how to manage your dengue patients. I can see this term reflected in the WHO reference. This isn't a "person who might have dengue"-focused article nor is it a general reader curious about dengue-focused article, but doctors writing to other doctors. The WHO reference assumes the person is a patient -- someone who is already visiting a health centre or hospital for advice/care. Because of this assumption, the writers of our article have neglected to mention that a person who suspects they have dengue should see a doctor. The article says "can be managed at home with daily follow-up and oral rehydration therapy". Both "managed" and "follow-up" are medical jargon. If I have a bad cold, I don't say I "manage it" by taking some paracetamol. The article doesn't say who does the "follow-up". Is it your mum, friend, GP, local nurse, neurologist? We know the term and it implies a return meeting with healthcare, in other words, that there has been an initial meeting. So you and I can sort of work out what it is saying, because we know the jargon and know the writer is a doctor who can't express themselves for the general reader. It needs rewritten for the general reader and the jargon avoided where possible. This is basic MEDMOS stuff. If you think you have dengue, should you see a doctor? Yes.
Same goes for the video which also uses jargon: "Treatment of mild or moderate dengue is supportive, and includes giving fluid either by mouth, or through an intravenous line." This is group A in the WHO document: people who should see a doctor but can go home if they are visited daily by a healthcare professional. Earlier the video it says severe dengue shock is an emergency requiring urgent hospitalisation -- this is group C in the WHO document. The video makes no mention of what group B, with severe dengue who are not (yet) critically ill, should do: they require hospitalisation for more specialist care. It doesn't say group A should see a healthcare professional and require daily monitoring. The conclusion from watching the video might be to stay at home, drink "fluid", and hope you can still phone for an ambulance if your critical organs start failing.
What is lacking from both these documents is any passion and care to educate the general reader. It is like random facts are sprinkled on the page in a perfunctory manner. Writing encyclopaedic articles for the general reader is Wikipedia's core mission, yet it seems WP:MED is focused elsewhere. -- Colin° Talk 19:46, 6 September 2019 (UTC)
I had a look to see if anyone is actually editing these videos. Looking at What links to Template:Videowiki I find 37 videos, nearly all of which were created by a few editors closely involved in the project, mostly in the spring when the project was first mentioned at WT:MED. The project was also presented at Wikimania in August 2019. New videos include:
Which were created by 3 editors. The total number of people people registered at Wikipedia:WikiProject Videowiki is 10, which pretty much lists everyone who has ever made any edit to such a video. The videos have been included in our articles for some months now and, outside of this core of 10 members, not a single Wikipedian has been inspired to edit them. This is despite the "script" for each video being linked-to on the article. Given that the videos could be charitably described as having "room for improvement", nobody has improved them. The claim that these videos are "easily editable" seem to be out of alignment with the facts that nobody is editing them. Videowiki is meant to be a collaborative editing project like Wikipedia is for text-based articles, but for video-articles. It is fair to say that nobody is collaboratively editing these videos. Videowiki is a failure. -- Colin° Talk 08:03, 3 September 2019 (UTC)
Are there any editors from this WikiProject willing to maintain Portal:Medicine? The Portals guideline requires that portals be maintained, and as a result numerous portals have been recently been deleted via MfD largely because of lack of maintenance. Let me know either way, and thanks, UnitedStatesian ( talk) 17:30, 6 September 2019 (UTC)
Vitamin E acetate has come up in the news quite a bit recent in regards to the FDA study on Vaping, can someone add that to the article? Naraht ( talk) 07:20, 8 September 2019 (UTC)
I've started a discussion on whether two articles on Safety of electronic cigarettes and Adverse effects of electronic cigarettes (created in Feb) are needed. See Talk:Safety of electronic cigarettes#Why two articles?. Fences& Windows 11:50, 8 September 2019 (UTC)
Have recently been implicated in deaths related to vaping. Are these the same as foam cells? Ian Furst ( talk) 15:59, 8 September 2019 (UTC)
Respiratory Medicine (2014) [2]:
"Alveolar macrophages (AMs) that become laden with lipid (predominantly cholesterol) are termed pulmonary foam cells or lipid-laden alveolar macrophages (LLAMs). These macrophages are more likely to undergo the process of programmed cell death and exhibit impaired phagocytosis [5], which may play an important pathogenic role in asthma. Furthermore, markers of lipid peroxidation measured in plasma are increased in asthma subjects [6] whilst erythrocytes and platelets exhibit alterations in membrane fatty acid composition [7].
A high fat content diet and the administration of a lipid emulsion in rats has been associated with the formation of LLAMs, leading to the view that the lungs may be a potential route of lipid excretion. However, it remains unclear whether such cells are derived from AMs ingesting lipids in the alveoli or from lipid-laden blood monocytes that migrate to the alveoli [8].
Lipid accumulation in alveolar macrophages appears to occur primarily through the phagocytosis of external lipoproteins. This process may be secondary to endogenous sources, such as lipoid pneumonia; where the presence of bronchial obstruction, chronic lung infection or a lipid storage disorder results in the accumulation of LLAMs; or an exogenous source, for example following aspiration or inhalation of lipid."
Annals of the American Thoracic Society (2017) [3]:
"The lung has a unique relationship to cholesterol that is shaped by its singular physiology. On the one hand, the lungs receive the full cardiac output and have a predominant dependence on plasma lipoprotein uptake for their cholesterol supply. On the other hand, surfactant lipids, including cholesterol, are continually susceptible to oxidation owing to direct environmental exposure and must be cleared or recycled because of the very narrow biophysical mandates placed upon surfactant lipid composition. Interestingly, increased lipid-laden macrophage “foam cells” have been noted in a wide range of human lung pathologies. This suggests that lipid dysregulation may be a unifying and perhaps contributory event in chronic lung disease pathogenesis."
SpicyMilkBoy ( talk) 17:51, 8 September 2019 (UTC)
There is a request for comment on the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act article. If you are interested, please participate at Talk:Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act § RfC: Recent additions. — Newslinger talk 06:02, 8 September 2019 (UTC)
I do not understand these reverts. 2 of the 3 sources are reviews (according to PubMed); 1 source is presented jointly with a review (according to WP:MEDRS). -- Saidmann ( talk) 18:06, 9 September 2019 (UTC)
As threatened, I'm back with another batch of articles which need expert attention. I am pleased to be able to report that these are all that remain of well over 100 articles I had bookmarked (though more still keep arriving). If you solve one of these puzzles, remove the maintenance tag and post {{ done}} here.
These contain links to DAB pages. Search for 'disam' in read mode, and for '{{d' in edit mode:
This one has a {{ clarify}} tag on what might be a circular definition:
This one contains several unsourced, possibly WP:WEASEL, phrases marked {{ citation needed}}:
Thanks in advance, Narky Blert ( talk) 21:31, 8 September 2019 (UTC)
We have a number of offline medical apps which have seen a few hundred thousand downloads from mostly the Global South. We used to have an English version that included videos. However as most medical videos on English Wikipedia were deleted more than a year ago that version is out of date and has been removed from the Kiwix library.
We were looking at using this template {{ OnlyOffline}} to have certain videos only appear within these specific ZIMs for offline use. Wondering what peoples thoughts are on this? Of course there are more complicated options that do not involve this template, but I do not have the technical skills to carry them out. Since there are efforts to delete the template will need consensus for such use. Doc James ( talk · contribs · email) 11:09, 1 September 2019 (UTC)
display:none
, it is rendered by the browser by removing it from the document. Whatever the content is, it cannot then request downloads of other content, such as a full media file. The MediaWiki software will supply a thumbnail, as you say, but an article like
Dengue fever is over 1,300kB, around a hundred times greater than the size of any small thumbnail. Nobody apart from you is going to worry about such a tiny amount. You might as well complain about the extra 16 bytes of text that the template requires when used. There is no team that I'm a part of, and as far as I know,
Kiwix and the medical app are each collaborations between Wikipedia editors, not "personal" projects. What are you going to find to whine about next? WikiProject Medicine?Template:OnlyOffline has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. -- Colin° Talk 13:39, 2 September 2019 (UTC)
Hi - I am teaching an upper-level course in endocrinology this fall with the help of the Wikipedia Education and learning alongside my students. I edited a single page years ago when I noticed an error, but I lacked the confidence to really dive in and learn about how to best interact with the community. Many of the students will work on topics related to medicine, but we will be continuing our training and peer-reviewing materials in our sandboxes before anything goes live. I have found myself wandering around different parts of Wikipedia almost every day this week, and I'm hoping it continues to be a regular part of my academic contribution even after the course is over this fall. UWM.AP.Endo ( talk) 21:03, 12 September 2019 (UTC)
About gun laws based on medical sources.
Talk:Overview_of_gun_laws_by_nation#RfC_for_last_sentence_in_lead
Doc James ( talk · contribs · email) 12:34, 10 September 2019 (UTC)
Does this count as a blatant hoax and/or promotion? If not, how are articles like this best handled? Thanks! Usedtobecool TALK ✨ 06:30, 14 September 2019 (UTC)
Thoughts here? Doc James ( talk · contribs · email) 17:40, 14 September 2019 (UTC)
The unsourced introduction to this dab page makes implicit clinical claims, presented in an authoritative, encyclopedic tone (concern/s raised at Talk:Constitution type - I wish to avoid edit warring). 86.190.128.52 ( talk) 11:30, 14 September 2019 (UTC)
Is this article cromulent? It was created from whole cloth by a WP:SPA who has been adding idiosyncratic views to articles related to Machiavelli for some time. Guy ( help!) 21:38, 15 September 2019 (UTC)
Hi all, just wanted to flag that we are going to again be running a Wikipedia in the Curriculum assignment with the Reproductive Medicine BSc course programme this month. Undergraduate students on the course will be shown how to research an article by our Academic Support Librarian colleagues and how to format a Wikipedia page before then working in groups to complete the research which can then be published on Wikipedia on 25 September 2019 all being well. The following topic areas are proposed for their group work:
Will be looking into these and ascertaining how well they are/aren't covered currently and appropriateness but would appreciate those with more medical-related knowledge of these to flag areas of concern, or any other issues for that matter. All best, Stinglehammer ( talk) 14:32, 10 September 2019 (UTC)
Some of the topic could maybe have better names like:
We have DAZ1 are there more?
Doc James ( talk · contribs · email) 02:01, 11 September 2019 (UTC)
One further suggestion they have for an article is on Ovum quality as they feel it is an interesting topic that doesn’t look like it has been covered before and would complement the Semen quality page. Stinglehammer ( talk) 11:42, 12 September 2019 (UTC)
Hello all,
I'm Steve Joordens, a Professor from the University of Toronto. Yes I am THAT Steve Joordens. In a recent chat I had with one of your editors I was told I was the source of the single biggest challenge that has touched Wikipedia since its inception when I had my extremely large class edit Wikipedia articles as part of their educational experience in 2011. Apparently I am quite well known, and not so much loved, by many of you as a result. I am not proud of any of that and it was never my intent.
At that time I did not understand the negative impact my actions would have. I didn't understand how sensitive Wikipedia was to the scale of editing, I actually thought it was a good thing. I thought I was providing a powerful learning experience for my students while also being of assistance to Wikipedia in the sense of increasing the quantity of psychology-related articles and potentially introducing new editors to Wikipedia. The firestorm my actions set off resulted in some negative and frankly hurtful comments on both sides of the fray and I think that part of things was totally unfortunate. I wish I had just presented my perspective and my motivations and refrained from anything else. But that was then, things were said, and on Wikipedia those things cannot be unsaid. I understand that.
I'm writing this now because I'd like to try again, 8 years further down the road. I've been through the introductory module and have created a course page for the History of Psychology course I am mounting this fall. The plan is to have 25 groups of 4 students each work on one article related to a major historical figure in Psychology. These are third year students, and their articles will be well vetted before they go live. Given my own history with Wikipedia, before I was allowed to go further I was asked to chat with Doug and Lane so they could get a clearer sense of my intentions. After a great chat they have given their OK for me to proceed with both of them in the shadows, there to help me and my students and, to some extent I'm sure, to make sure I stay well without the bounds of acceptable conduct. Again, so be it ... quite honestly after what happened last time I very much appreciate having them there ... thanks again guys!
It was further suggested that before going further, and for the sake of total transparency, that I should post this note here ... to let you all know that I am back with a new class. I hope, like Doug and Lane, you will all allow the past to be past as I really do see great value for all with respect to using Wikipedia in an educational context. In fact, for what it's worth, my research expertise is on the effective use of technology in education, and I love how Wikipedia editing gives students practice thinking critically and creatively, and communicating in thoughtful ways. It is something I would like to continue to do on occasion. I fully realize that some of you may view this skeptically. My only way of changing that is to show you that my classes and I can be an asset and that, now that so many things have improved with respect to the on-boarding of professors and students, that we can be model Wikipedia citizens. I ask you to allow me and my class the opportunity of providing you with such a demonstration this fall term.
I am happy to answer any questions you may have, and I assure you that I will remain nothing short of respectful in all subsequent interactions on this platform. I am in fact a big fan of Wikipedia and other forms of open knowledge dissemination, always have been. As one example I offer an Introduction to Psychology course on Coursera.org that over 200,000 students have experienced and seemingly enjoyed. Anyway, there it is ... I hope you will allow me the chance to be part of this great site.
Have a great end of week and weekend all, Steve
SteveJoordens ( talk) 21:05, 29 August 2019 (UTC)
Thanks everyone who's contributed here. I would like to make sure that people are comfortable, not just willing not oppose. In particular, I noticed that Iridescent's question seems to have slipped through the cracks. For me, this is a critical question, and I think we need to be sure that they are satisfied with the answer they received.
I also haven't heard anything from the people who were most involved in the past iterations, and I really want to make sure that they have a chance to weigh in. I don't want to add to anyone's stress by bringing up bad past experiences, but I want to include recently-active editors who were involved in the 2011 and 2013 iterations. @ Colin, Tryptofish, The Interior, Jbmurray, Mike Christie, Looie496, Fluffernutter, WereSpielChequers, OhanaUnited, Biosthmors, Sj, and WhatamIdoing: I want to make sure you're aware of this, and make sure that you have a chance to be heard. Guettarda/ Ian (Wiki Ed) ( talk) 21:50, 3 September 2019 (UTC)
If I may, I'd like to return to the issue of "what is different this time" and why did this happen twice ... as I think perhaps the two most important differences for understanding all the happened and why I think you can trust (but verify) me this time are (1) my now less naive understanding of Wikipedia and (2) my much better understanding of the you all, your perception of Wikipedia and "entrance level requirements" ... and your passion for Wikipedia. Let me try to unpack these.
First, I was one of the first educators to enter the world of Wikipedia, yes as an outsider to your world and culture. I had a very naive view of it. Specifically, I had repeatedly heard Wikipedia being help up as the "proof of concept" of an almost magical process called Crowd Sourcing. As I understood it at the time (and please know I don't think this way now) people wrote articles, and those initial articles could be thought of as part signal (the part that is accurate and presented appropriately) and part noise (inaccuracies, incompleteness, stylistic issues, etc). By simply writing the articles they attracted the attention of other Wikipedians, who then would see the article and make improvements ... perhaps adding more information, or correct inaccuracies, or fixing stylistic issues. So almost magically the signal to noise ratio would slowly become stronger and stronger all without any single individual needing to do a whole lot. Instead the "crowd" worked as a super powerful signal enhancer.
With this naive view in my mind, and not having it challenged as I waded further into your world, I sincerely felt that by having my students add a little more information to existing articles they would be part of the crowd ... they would be adding a little more signal. Yes there was also the possibility, and with the benefit of hindsight the likelihood, of them also adding noise. I did try to reduce that. I did have them go through training, I did introduce them to the desired qualities of good articles ... but given my naive view I also didn't feel that adding a little noise was a big deal. I thought the "crowd" would indeed clean the noise over time, and the article would be improved. I also thought some of my students might love the experience and thus might begin editing and reducing noise to other articles. So yes, I thought I was giving students a great learning experience AND helping Wikipedia at the same time. I truly and honestly did.
My naive view was wrong, but it took me a while to understand that and, in the process, understand the reaction from all of you. Honestly, when people here started to mention "you did this twice" ... I was like "huh? There was one major blow up that I recall" ... but the blow up I recall was 2013. In 2011, when the students posted, and when a number of editors expressed their ire, I honestly had no understanding of who these people were and why they were so upset. Let me return to this after another visit to my naive view. I had never interacted with the "other side" of Wikipedia or anything remotely like it. Another part of my naive view was the following. Wikipedia was powered by normal people. All of them, I assumed, sometimes wrote articles and sometimes improved articles written by others. I imagined literally millions of people all doing little things in little spaces of time and through this magic of crowd sourcing Wikipedia emerged. So when a seemingly small proportion of these people (to me) were expressing anger and saying things that I just did not understand, I reacted to them badly. They seemed a little like those proverbial "internet trolls", people that maybe just hate on things. Your anonymity (while my reputation was being directly hit) was part of that by the way, it made me angry. Because I did not understand where your emotion was coming from I misattributed it and did not respond correctly to it.
OK, now one other word about me and my life only for context (not an excuse, just an explanation). I am a BIG fan of using educational technologies (I use 7 in my current class). Each time a new technology is introduced we always run into some sort of unanticipated issues. We learn from them, tweak our approach to try to address the issue, then try again ... eventually this results in powerful learning experiences. This is my default way of evolving my use of technology, it often works well, and at the time I did not fully understand that Wikipedia was a different beast. I'll get to that ...
Right, so with this approach then, it seems I did indeed try again in 2013. I learned one thing from the 2011 experience, but I missed another important point. Specifically, what I took from it was "OK, apparently the signal:noise ratio of any edit needs to be higher ... that is we need to do a better job training students how to edit appropriately before asking them to edit articles. So I created an online training module intended to do just that, and all students were required to go through it. I hoped this would address the issue ... yes I assumed there would still be some noise, but again, crowdsourcing would correct that ... as long as it was much less noise it should be OK. I know, I'll return to that. But critically, what I had failed to appreciate was the relevance of the number of edits .. I was thinking about the quality ... I did not grasp why more edits (of now better quality) would be an issue.
Now you know why I wanted to do this all in a video! Well, both because its a long story and because I wish you guys were seeing and hearing my non-verbals as I explain all this because the non-verbals are where the deep communication ... things like honesty ... resonate. Anyway, onward ...
Obviously things REALLY blew up in 2013 ... and honestly it STILL took me a long time to understand the issue and, in so doing, to properly understand all of you. Let me first tell you the blow up from my side ... and this is the part that really stuck with me. I think the edits were due prior to a class. Sometime during that class a very high ranking university official literally called the phone in the classroom (it never rings, it's for calling out). When I answered it she said "I don't know what you're doing with Wikipedia Joordens, but we have been told that you must cease and desist immediately or there will be legal action against the university, and there may be anyway". I was stunned, a complete disconnect between my world and yours, I couldn't comprehend. But because it was now considered a potential legal issue I was also asked to brief people at the university and listen to their consultations.
So what has changed since then? I now think I have a better understanding. Not a total one I'm sure, but let me lay this out there and see if I'm much closer. It seems that the "crowd", especially that part of the crowd that improves articles, is MUCH smaller than I ever imagined. It is all of you ... you are the ones that make Wikipedia work, and there really are not that many of you. You devote your time to a relatively thankless and time consuming work because you believe deeply in Wikipedia ... you are very proud of it and your contribution to it (as you should be) and all of this comes with a slight sense of ownership and with that a desire to protect it. Also, because it is all of you who must fix inaccuracies, you have understandably come to a position where you would like even the very first article that anyone touches to edited with a pretty deep level of skill and understanding ... you want every edit to be very high in signal and very low in noise ... that's the only way you feel you can keep the articles high quality, and the quality of the articles are the source of the quality of Wikipedia. I sincerely hope I have that all right.
I will add as a sidepoint, this need for even initial articles to be very high quality, while completely understandable, does represent a fairly significant challenge when introducing new potential editors to the platform. It's hard to do things really well right out of the gate. Its clear my training module was not sufficient ... and I am truly impressed by all WikiEdu has done to up the game in that regard. As I mentioned, in this years class, groups of 4 or 5 students, all of whom have gone through all the training, will create a single article. Then each group's draft (sandboxed) article will be peer-reviewed by 4 other groups of 4 or 5 students each to try to reduce any noise further. We also have two TAs and a librarian that will watch all sandboxes ... they will also go through the training and they will be charged specifically with making sure the articles are high quality.
Overall then I want you to understand that I now understand Wikipedia better ... it is a "space" where immigrants need to know the culture extremely well before setting foot ... they must do so with high respect for the norms and with the proper intentions. Also, they need to tread lightly until they prove themselves, not trying to do too much too soon. I completely understand all of this and conveyed essentially all of the above to my students yesterday. They are excited by the project (I hope it can go forward) and we are all laser focused on producing fantastic articles.
Two final points I need to address. First, why did I not give all the usernames in 2013? As highlighted above, after the 2013 blow up there was a threat of legal action that was taken very seriously. Of course student privacy (and the privacy of their information) is something all universities take very seriously. Yes some of my students had "anonymous" usernames, but many did not ... and even for those who did some people weren't sure that their identities could not be discovered by savy internet users like yourselves. I had been told to cease and desist and the provision of usernames was considered part of that ... and yes I know that made the mess on your side worse yet. Second, some of you want me to prove myself as a Wikipedia editor before I use the platform in my class. I ask, can I prove myself as a Wikipedia educator instead ... that is, will you judge me by the quality of the edits my students make this term? That is the proper test, right? Can I shepherd a group of students through a process that ultimate results in quality articles and maybe some informed new editors. Once again, I humbly ask you to allow me (and my new great class) to prove ourselves to you this term.
Apologies for the novel! It just seemed some of this needed saying. I hope this allows us to move forward. What has changed? All of the previous things listed have changed ... my students will be much better trained, there will be much more oversight, the number of articles touched is much lower ... but perhaps more important that all of these things ... I have changed, my understanding of Wikipedia has changed, and my understanding and appreciation for what you all do as changed. I do not want to bring grief into your lives ... in fact I would like to be part of what makes Wikipedia better.
50.101.88.232 ( talk) 13:47, 5 September 2019 (UTC)
Man, I realize now that I was not logged in when I wrote the novel above. Apologies! Yes that was me, Steve
I also want to respond to two points I think I missed above. First, why did I not give all the usernames in 2013? By then things has strong potential legal overtones, and universities must protect student information under our Privacy Protection Act. Some usernames had identifying information and no-one was sure if the identity of the others could be sussed out in some way. So I simply could not share those ... and yes I understand that made a bad situation even worse, which sucks. I'm sorry.
Second, several of you have suggested I prove myself as a Wikipedia editor as a first step. I ask instead that I be allowed to prove myself as a Wikipedia Instructor. Yes I will edit some articles ... I will try to do so by the end of next week. I won't complain to you about how busy my life is, but time is very tight and isn't the real question whether I can shepherd a class of students through a process that results in a set of great articles? I ask you allow me to prove myself that way, this term, with this great class.
SteveJoordens ( talk) 14:01, 5 September 2019 (UTC)
Thank you to everyone for your comments here Truly hoping this will be a productive and successful venture. Helaine (Wiki Ed) ( talk) 03:16, 6 September 2019 (UTC).
Peoples thoughts Talk:Legionnaires'_disease#We_generally_write here? Doc James ( talk · contribs · email) 18:16, 16 September 2019 (UTC)
Me too. I looked at a handful of other articles about infectious diseases when forming my opinion and the language wasn't consistent at all. I am new here and curious about policies or templates for articles about human diseases. I know there are specific guides for appropriate source types, but what other medicine-related guides are available? UWM.AP.Endo ( talk) 18:43, 17 September 2019 (UTC)
Hi, We are looking to research and write a new article on Ovarian follicle dominance as the current one just redirects the Ovarian follicle. We have identified a number of section headings and want to check these will work:
So four sections really, and any assistance in the naming & content of these would be appreciated. Many thanks, Stinglehammer ( talk) 11:33, 18 September 2019 (UTC)
I am a new editor. I made a revision proposal. Would someone review it and publish - PLEASE./Thanks/Swozingram -- Swozingram ( talk) 23:06, 19 September 2019 (UTC)
Hi I am a new editor. I have an article draft for opioid tapering. Can someone please review and publish it. thanks so much!-- Wikieditor995995 ( talk) 00:08, 20 September 2019 (UTC)
There are some
Etc Doc James ( talk · contribs · email) 04:24, 20 September 2019 (UTC)
Should there be an article for vaping-associated pulmonary injury (VAPI)? [8] QuackGuru ( talk) 00:38, 24 September 2019 (UTC)
@ QuackGuru: Thanks for creating Vaping-associated pulmonary injury.
User:Willbb234 while examining this page as a part of our page curation process had the following comments:
Try to implement information from other sources, other than simply number 1 with a bit of number 2 & 3.
To reply, leave a comment here and prepend it with {{Re|Willbb234}}
. And, don't forget to sign your reply with ~~~~
.
Message delivered via the Page Curation tool, on behalf of the reviewer. (pinging @ Ozzie10aaaa:) Willbb234 Talk (please {{ ping}} me in replies) 15:39, 24 September 2019 (UTC)
@ Bluerasberry: please add your thoughts. Willbb234 Talk (please {{ ping}} me in replies) 16:10, 24 September 2019 (UTC)
Would a few of you review the recent edits on Vaping-associated pulmonary injury and give me (and anyone else as you deem appropriate) feedback or suggestions on how to proceed. A response from the other editor ( QuackGuru) took me aback and I'm not sure how to respond. I undid an edit he made that had removed an edit I'd made a few minutes earlier. I created a section on the article's Talk page, Lead paragraph, to discuss our different perspectives. In my edit note I wrote, "Let's discuss on Talk page. Thank you - Mark". QuackGuru's response, in their edit note, was "Let's not. CDC is a better source." Please see the ( Talk page discussion) for more. I am open to learning if I don't understand a policy, tradition, or better way to do things. Otherwise, I will let it go and take the article off my Watchlist. Thank you - Mark D Worthen PsyD (talk) (I am a man. The traditional male pronouns are fine.) 01:34, 25 September 2019 (UTC)
The resveratrol page is dated and does not include the most up-to-date information. IMHO, most of the authors reflect a bias not valid criticism based on the current NIH studies and results. The cited Medline reviews are singular, again, not reflective of current scientific knowledge. I am not a programmer or have enough experience to correctly post a response to this. But I have followed resveratrol studies for years. I am also alive due to taking resveratrol as are many others. My doctors were doubters but now believers. This page needs to be examined by a third party and correctly display to the public the scientific evidence. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Pranier ( talk • contribs) 18:58, 24 September 2019 (UTC)
If you're interested in content campaigns (like Wiki Loves Earth, to encourage photo uploads), then you might want to watch the project described in https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/glam/2019-September/001647.html They're working on a sort of guidebook for people who want to start new campaigns to encourage content creation. WhatamIdoing ( talk) 18:10, 25 September 2019 (UTC)
Talk:Chronic_obstructive_pulmonary_disease#RfC:_Redirects_of_"chronic_bronchitis"_and_"emphysema"
Doc James ( talk · contribs · email) 04:41, 27 September 2019 (UTC)
Hi!
Very rare editor here, but am working on a presentation about electrosurgical coagulation devices, which includes Argon Beam (or Argon Plasma) Coagulation. The article here on Wikipedia is ... missing some important things, because it implies that the technology is only used for endoscopic procedures. It's used for open surgical procedures, and laparoscopic surgical procedures, as well as the endoscopic procedures (and afaik, endoscopic came last of those three -- on my list to verify).
I'm happy to write it (after I finish the presentation next month), but wanted to get some feedback about what you experts think is appropriate.
Here's the link to the current article: /info/en/?search=Argon_plasma_coagulation
Thanks all! — Preceding unsigned comment added by GillisVanDenBerge ( talk • contribs) 03:53, 28 September 2019 (UTC)
There are two separate threads on the talk page that mention this, but there doesn't seem to be much discussion or established consesus beyond that. Should a picture of cotton swab be included in the article? Clovermoss ( talk) 02:07, 28 September 2019 (UTC)
In the article I've linked ′protein kinase C alpha′ to
Protein Kinase C Alpha. It may be associated with
Protein kinase c-alpha. Requesting folks who know exactly know what it is, to modify it accordingly. --Gpkp
u •
t •
c
16:15, 29 September 2019 (UTC)
mw:Wikimedia Research/Showcase#September 2019 talks about the possibility of identifying some sentences in Wikipedia articles that are currently unsourced, and would normally be sourced. It might be possible to produce a subject-specific report, to identify statements in articles that are currently not tagged with {{ citation needed}}. (The current list of WPMED-tagged articles using that template is in the main cleanup listing.)
BTW, medicine-related articles are called out as being among the most thoroughly sourced articles on the English Wikipedia. WhatamIdoing ( talk) 18:02, 20 September 2019 (UTC)
In the lede of Peanut allergy, this is written: Physical symptoms of allergic reaction can include itchiness, hives, swelling, eczema, sneezing, asthma, abdominal pain, drop in blood pressure, diarrhea, and cardiac arrest.
Asthma stands out to me, because asthma is a long-term inflammatory disease, at least according to the current article. So... do peanut allergy symptoms actually cause asthma? I think it's more likely that difficulty breathing may be a symptom, but that wouldn't be the same thing as asthma. If peanut allergies do cause asthma, shouldn't there be more than one source to back that up? Clovermoss ( talk) 21:21, 30 September 2019 (UTC)
This is a study that was published in Research & Reviews: Journal of Social Sciences from the predatory publisher Research & Reviews, which has some connections to OMICS Publishing Group. I'd nominate for deletion, but the study has gained coverage in press, so I'm not sure how to proceed. Headbomb { t · c · p · b} 17:23, 30 September 2019 (UTC)