Misplaced Pages

Well, that's quite a shouting match-- one whose outcome will surely alter the course of the planet. I'm thinking I'll take the side of anyone who can make their case in 40 words or less. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:37, 31 October 2013 (UTC)

On second thought, maybe I'll take the side of anyone who has a reasonable username. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:43, 31 October 2013 (UTC)

This is being discussed at Misplaced Pages talk:Identifying reliable sources (medicine)#Acupuncture and TCM --Guy Macon (talk) 16:59, 1 November 2013 (UTC)

Visual editor reference dialog

Although the visual editor has been disabled by default for now, work on it is ongoing. Just discovered this page here: a references dialog is currently being designed, which I think is particularly important for our project. --WS (talk) 20:07, 31 October 2013 (UTC)

"Coordinators"? "Bureaucracy"? "Organization"? Pride. Motivation. Incentives.

Hello all. I have been a bit disconnected from the raw editing of content lately, for better or for worse. But I've wondered for a while now if WP:MED might benefit from the structure that is used over at WP:MILHIST, which uses coordinators to help provide some "direction"/"leadership" to the project. My opinion is that, as I've done over at WP:Neutrality cabal it would help create a more sustainable online community if we did so. Why? Because when you have your name associated with a project publicly, it adds to the sense of one's responsibility, in a good way, I would argue. I think this is similar to the way getting a green plus sign or a bronze star on an article helps add a sense of pride over one's contributions. Best. Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 13:21, 1 November 2013 (UTC)

We are still a small number. Not sure if adding coordinators is needed until such time as we become larger. What are you thinking of? Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 15:58, 1 November 2013 (UTC)

I'm not sure. I haven't studied the military history example yet. I'd rather see what they say first, to see how it worked for their project. I just wanted to get the idea down at first I guess. =) Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 20:13, 1 November 2013 (UTC)

Hmm. Agree that we don't have enough members who are actively engaged. However, Biosthmors, something I feel this project lacks and would be very useful, is a pathway of small, incremental steps to bring a select group of articles to a higher quality. I feel that's one thing which distinguishes the MilHist project. Surfing through their project page it feels much easier to contribute a small amount in a significant way. Would you be so kind as to tax yourself for a week or two and think about how we might integrate such a thing into this Wiki project? I think the place to start would be to identify what we want to achieve (ie bring the quality of top-class articles up). LT910001 (talk) 11:32, 2 November 2013 (UTC)

That said, a regular (fortnightly or monthly) newsletter noting: contributors; major published secondary reviews during that period (could spur some edits); COTM and/or peer reviews or articles seeking help, might be very useful in spurring development. I also really liked how the MilHist had an editorial every month about how to improve an aspect of the project. LT910001 (talk) 11:32, 2 November 2013 (UTC)

Newsletter or update sounds interesting. I proposed something like this for progress in goals here. Update of progress of goals could of course be included in a short newsletter. Maybe monthly is too frequent... Bi monthly? Lesion (talk) 01:44, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

Bimonthly would be good. If it included some recently-released reviews or meta-analyses, we could spur editing on relevant pages. LT910001 (talk) 08:42, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

Jack Andraka

There seems to be some contesting of claims made by young scientist Jack Andraka about his Pancreatic Cancer test method by a new editor named User:CRBscientist. He has place in-line citations for third party sources, it would be appreciated if we had a few more eyes and edits/opinions on all this. Thanks! CaffeinAddict (talk) 18:47, 1 November 2013 (UTC)

Scrolly box for TOC

Could we please nix the scrolly box for the TOC? I like to be able to see all the threads and for my mouse wheel to scroll up and down on the page. Thanks. Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 20:11, 1 November 2013 (UTC)

Did it. Thanks for the effort though! Any thoughts? Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 20:23, 1 November 2013 (UTC)

I was trying to think of ways to make this page less daunting when first loaded. Also saved a block of white space, but for people who like to see all the TOC without scrolling this might be a disadvantage. Lesion (talk) 22:03, 1 November 2013 (UTC)

On a related note, whilst I agree we need fast turnover archiving for this page to prevent us getting swamped, I have noted that more comments/questions are going unanswered. I threw this problem out to the community Here but so far no solution. Lesion (talk) 22:12, 1 November 2013 (UTC)

Thanks. I've (hopefully) fixed this. There was a second archiving bot that had a duration of 10 days which I changed back to 5, which I recall was the number we concluded on about a month ago. LT910001 (talk) 00:43, 2 November 2013 (UTC)

I understand now why the archiving did not match the number of days in the header (5). Agree I thought this was the consensus, so switching to another archiving bot because another was down, OK no problem. I also limited the TOC to not display level 3 headings and below. If there are any problems with display for some users please post here and I will try to fix it. Lesion (talk) 12:29, 2 November 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the message on my talk, Lesion ... I had not seen this discussion, and I have restored the TOC limit to 2. I think it's goofy, but whatevs ... it just means we'll have more short sections. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:27, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

(From Sandy's talk page) " The rationale is to restrict the size of the page when loaded, it is getting out of hand because of the traffic. In a small way, I think this limit helps with this problem. Level 3 headings are not required for quick navigation since none of the level 3 headings are widely separated from their parent level 2 headings."

If consensus is for no TOC limiting, I will follow this. However I do not believe that navigation will be any slower with TOC limit to level 3 headings.

If anyone has any suggestions more ways we could make this page more compact and user friendly, please suggest. Lesion (talk) 01:41, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

I'm not fussed one way or another, Lesion ... too much big stuff with the effect of student editing to worry about the little stuff (but very glad that someone still has the energy for the day-to-day stuff :) My apologies for the change-- it's just that I hadn't read or seen this section. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:57, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

I generally get by ignoring the big stuff ;p Lesion (talk) 02:02, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

Scope - Companies & Organisations

Hello to all again! Wikiproject Med is increasingly being loaded up with organizations and charities. The majority of these are small and in local areas. I propose:

• Moving organisations (such as NGOs, charities) to Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Organizations
• Moving companies (such as providers of emergency services, manufacturers etc) to Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Companies
• Keep any particularly notable organisations/companies under this scope (eg large companies, transnational organisations/companies/charities).

The reasons for this are:

• (1) These articles aren't really to do with medicine
• (2) get some more realistic stats on articles that have promotional tone, spam, read like press releases etc. (significant amount of which are organisations/companies that operate in the field of medicine).
• (3) disambiguate GAN/RfC process... have had some company articles listed as Natural Sciences because of this. I also feel that the category you would list an article for GAN (Good article nomination) for is a pretty good indication of which Wikiproject it falls under.
• (4) would be handing over to two relatively active Wikiprojects.

Thoughts? LT910001 (talk) 23:23, 1 November 2013 (UTC)

Interesting suggestion as always LT and I can see the advantages. My first thought is what is the scale of this proposal? Roughly how many articles would we stand to move? Lesion (talk) 23:26, 1 November 2013 (UTC)

It's hard to tell. Having had a look at the spam list, and done some searches for 'charity' and 'organis/zation' and so on, I'd have to say at least 200+, but that's just a guess. LT910001 (talk) 00:41, 2 November 2013 (UTC)

This proposal has my support. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 03:30, 2 November 2013 (UTC)

I don't really care, so long as I don't have to do the work. However, WikiProject tags do not indicate any sort of "ownership". We're not "handing them over" to anyone. They aren't "ours" now, and they won't become "theirs" if we remove our tags. (Also, there are only a couple dozen people watching those projects' talk pages, compared to a few hundred here, so "relatively active" may not be an accurate description.)

We only get to decide whether we choose to be involved in the article. We can place our tag on the talk page, in which case we'll get article alerts if it's up for deletion or has problems and people with questions can consider contacting us for help (e.g., if an article about a healthcare company is making health-related claims). We can alternatively choose not to place our tag on the talk page, in which case we won't hear anything about what happens to it, and nobody (except a few hundred extremely experienced editors) with a question will have any idea that we might be able to help them.

Those are the two options: we are connected and informed and willing to help with the article—or we are not. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:07, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

If it were possible, I wish that medical organizations could be part of a medical task force so that they could still be part of this project but that no one would have to see them if they wished to not see them. I am not adept with re-tagging, but it is possible to automate this process. I have looked at the WikiProject categorizing and tagging schemes and there are some non-intuitive aspects to them. Also, I would expect that this would need to be maintained, because people tend to tag health organizations with the medicine tag.

If I were to vote for something it would be for procrastination in hopes of WikiProject infrastructure reform, which I hope would happen in a few years. The problem is not so great that it needs to be addressed now, even though I do agree that this is a serious problem. Also, any work put into this would not be a permanent solution, but rather just of shifting the problem elsewhere. The correct categorization really is a tag that they are medical organizations and of some interest both to projects managing medicine and organizations, and right now, that might not be worth setting up. I am not sure. Blue Rasberry (talk) 15:44, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

Everything that belongs to a WPMED task force also belongs to the main project. But I agree about wishing for infrastructure improvements. It's possible that WP:Flow might eventually be helpful that way. WhatamIdoing (talk) 07:01, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

Bluerasberry, segmenting seems like an excellent idea. One idea I have had previously would be to set up a "Society & Medicine" task force, and categorise these articles under that task force. This would provide some way of segmenting them from the rest of the articles. I proposed this earlier and consensus was to move everything to WP:Hospitals, but I think as a placeholder to hold these articles, it might be quite valuable. What do you think? LT910001 (talk) 22:22, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

It seems appropriate. Would biographies go in this group also? I do not think that WP:Hospitals is the best place, especially with so much interesting care being done in medical centers which are not hospitals as most people imagine them. Perhaps this group could be a catch-all for regional health care providers and related medical organizations, including individual physicians, companies, medical schools, health care legislation, and perhaps other things. I support the idea of this in practice, especially because I am interested in eventually setting up a way to collect traffic metrics on only health-related articles related to medicine. I am not sure how to articulate a distinction but there is one. Blue Rasberry (talk) 02:58, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

COTM - November 2013

Selected per consensus (of 3, more than Psoriasis). Last month's collaboration produced a B-class article. This month let's aim for a GA-class article. The layout of the article, Digestive diseases, will first need to be discussed. At the moment it appears to be filling the role of a category. Let the editing begin! LT910001 (talk) 23:36, 1 November 2013 (UTC)

(As a sidenote, it would be nice to have this box be blue like the new layout... not too sure how to go about this though.) LT910001 (talk) 23:37, 1 November 2013 (UTC)

At last, something I know how to do! Maralia (talk) 01:41, 2 November 2013 (UTC)

Thanks! Can I point out that this article (Digestive diseases) claims to refer to "any disease which involves the gastrointestinal (GI) tract... or the accessory digestive organs". Any opinions on reverse-redirecting this to point to Gastrointestinal disease? In contrast to GI disease, digestive disease would surely refer to pathologies affecting digestion, i.e. stomach, duodenum and SI. Yes there is a small role played enzymatically and in water absorption by other organs, and certainly an anatomical role played by the oesophagus and rectum, but it would seem to me this title is a little askew. LT910001 (talk) 11:51, 3 November 2013 (UTC)

I was thinking the same. Gastrointestinal disease sounds more precise. The definition is still unreferenced btw. I suspect a good source for a definition would be found in the prelude to a GI textbook, but I have yet to find a suitable one. Lesion (talk) 12:24, 3 November 2013 (UTC)

Infobox appearance makes me very unhappy

I know people don't seem to be able to agree on anything regarding the content of infoboxes, but what about changing the background color of the title field to anything but grey. E.g. would it look better if the infobox matched the style of the tables in Alzheimer's disease? Thoughts? Lesion (talk) 12:52, 3 November 2013 (UTC)

Oh wow, I made that table. I like the blue title but it is not compliant with WP:ACCESSIBLE and I was supposed to fix it some time ago.

There is a policy called Misplaced Pages:Don't edit war over the colour of templates so if we did propose to change colors, it should go through an RfC. Probably the color change should be thoughtfully done and intended to apply in many or all places. Like for example, all templates could be listed and an RfC could suggest changing the color for all of them.

I would also prefer light blue to light grey but I am not sure how others feel. There is a precedent for this - last year a Wikimedia fellow did a redesign of WP:HELP as described at Help_talk:Contents#RfC:_Redesign_of_Help:Contents. Color was not part of the discussion, but it was an attempt to make broad aesthetic changes to improve user experience. If we were to do this then I would propose the following scheme:

1. List all templates to be changed
2. Propose a stylistic change to apply to all templates
3. Get feedback from someone who can give a professional opinion on design
4. Once professional feedback is collected, solicit feedback from this board
5. Once this board gives feedback, solicit feedback from the general Misplaced Pages community
6. If everyone supports, implement the change

I think that managing this formally is the best way since this would affect so many articles. Blue Rasberry (talk) 15:36, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

Hang on, in defence of Lesion, there is indeed an active thread on this very talk page regarding the colour of the template. Also, by 'accessibility', do you mean that there is insufficient contrast? It is hard to deal with an identified problem that is not substantiated. LT910001 (talk) 00:48, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

May I ask how those tables are not accessible? Can I point out infobox procedure (right) which is exactly what I propose. There is nothing wrong with a tiny bit of color. To start a list of templates that could use some color: infobox:disease, infobox:symptom. I'm sure there are more. Lesion (talk) 01:34, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

Blue is talking about the "square" of information about the different stages of memory problems, not about the infobox. Infoboxes are generally pretty good for accessibility. For the one Blue is talking about, you'll find the conversation somewhere in the archives. WhatamIdoing (talk) 07:03, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

Interesting. I accessed this page on mobile and the infobox color appeared OK. Is this because the infobox is a transcluded template, and the table is wikimarkup in the article? I think I remember reading somewhere that tables of any sort are generally discouraged for accessibility. Does anyone have any opinions about making infobox disease and infobox symptom to look more like the this infobx? Not necessarily blue, this was just one with color I found. Anatomy infoboxes tend to be more colorful too. Lesion (talk) 09:48, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

The "square" table violates ACCESS because the columns and rows are meaningless. A thoughtfully constructed table can be an excellent thing for accessibility. Color is only an access issue if the color is meaningful and that meaning isn't given elsewhere (e.g., showing the colors of a flag, but not typing out the words "red and white"), or if it makes the text head to read (low contrast, including low contrast that looks fine to you but is low contrast for people with color blindness).

I've heard that anatomy templates follow some traditional color scheme. I think it's something like nerves are yellow, blood vessels are red, etc. WhatamIdoing (talk) 11:52, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

Large number of new medical BLPs need eyes

This is too much for one editor to handle.

The BLPs sometimes use independent secondary sources to discuss the physician's accomplishments, research, statement in the text, etc, but they too often are original research based on primary sources, with the author of the articles (Jinkinson) drawing conclusions or making statements about the subjects of the bio by citing only the subject's own journal articles (primary sources), rather than using independent secondary sources who discuss the bio subjects. (Jinkinson does that correctly many times, but there are enough misses that I'm afraid there is a cleanup task ahead.)

I don't know where to begin. There is also uncited text in BLPs (I cited a few I found, but it is bad practice to create BLPs with uncited text), and I've found examples of text that doesn't accurately represent sources. They also have "Select publications" lists where it's hard to see what is the selection criteria. As an example, see this version of Michael Pichichero before I edited, and my changes.

I am assuming that the new notification will ping Jinkinson to this discussion, but will also ping his talk. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 04:15, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

I've begun cleaning up from the top of the list (worked through about the first 10, some are fairly good with few problems, others are riddled with problems of all types), found many more issues including too-close-paraphrasing, but need help getting through all of these. I'm hoping Jinkinson will weigh in and receive some guidance on writing BLPs on Misplaced Pages, and correct sourcing. Also, none of his articles are wikilinked. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 04:48, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

Why does this name sound familiar? Lesion (talk) 09:23, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

It's a strange mixture of by-the-book strictness, and exposure of some decidedly fringe ideas and iffy sourcing, with a lean in the direction of material on controversial autism causes. I had raised Jose G. Dorea at WP:FT/N. Alexbrn 10:01, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

This is nice, insofar as people are actually noticing my work. I acknowledge that the articles I have created probably need more sources, and that I should make it clear that statements in articles are "according to" certain people (e.g. Brian Deer) rather than flatly stating that the statement is true. Thanks for your advice SandyGeorgia. Jinkinson talk to me 15:01, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

Are you sure all these persons are notable enough for a stand alone article? Lesion (talk) 15:06, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

No. However, I think most of them probably are, since they have published a number of highly cited papers. E.g. for Palmer see here, and for Pichichero see here. But determining whether they are or not is what AFD is for. Jinkinson talk to me 15:45, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

I'm concerned about notability on several of them, and a whole lot more. Jinkinson, I'm glad you've responded here, and I want to impress upon you that the particular combination of a biography of a living person and a medical topic requires some care, consideration and expertise, and I wish you would slow down, as every one of your BLPs needs attention in a serious way. The way you synthesized about Wakefield and Ashwood is as bad as it gets (I'm very happy to know that someone at MIND Institute was affiliated with Wakefield and hence may be a charlatan, which shows that you did a fine job of possibly impugning an innocent man, displayed on the mainpage of a top website via DYK, since nothing in your sources tells me anything more than he might have been in the wrong place at the wrong time and got paid for giving testimony, which sure isn't a crime).

Publishing a number of highly cited papers is not how we determine notability. Please stop creating BLPs unless you run a few of them by others on this talk page, and please help in the cleanup of all of your past editing, since these articles are more of a burden than we can all take on. I am very concerned that you don't understand the correct use of sources, either for BLPs, or for medical topics, and certainly not for the combination of the two. And your statement about determining whether these articles meet notability is what AFD is for is very troubling; it seems to indicate that you don't mind creating all of this work for other editors.

In case you will find these samples helpful, Donald J. Cohen and James F. Leckman are two medical bios about top researchers in TS-- note the use of secondary sources. I am troubled by the work you have created, and troubled by the cavalier attitude your response above shows, to the extent that if you create another BLP like those you've created so far, something will need to happen. You can convince me otherwise by helping cleanup the 100 articles you have already created, and countless others you may have edited.

Are you being paid to create these articles? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:14, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

Separate discussion on h-indexes refactored to new section below.

Thanks for your civil reply, Jinkinson. I'd like to ask SandyGeorgia if you've made any incivil remarks that have warranted these accusations? Sandy's made some legitimate remarks about citing and paraphrasing, but I would remark that we can't keep scaring away new editors with extremely strong language just because their editing is suboptimal! This is not conducive to a good atmosphere for current or prospective editors, and if Wikimed is to expand (and Misplaced Pages in general) then we will have to accept that editors come in lots of shapes and sizes and not go trolloping over all and sundry. LT910001 (talk) 08:40, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

I agree with LT in principle, but I am uncomfortable with the statement "I am not sure if these articles are all notable, that is what AfD is for" (paraphrase). I do not think that is not what AfD is for. AfD is a last resort for things which have fallen through the net. Please carefully consider the notability of the individual before creating a bio article. If there are doubts, dare I suggest that you utilize AfC for more opinions? Lesion (talk) 10:56, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

H-index

Refactored from section above. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:28, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

Harzing's Publish or Perish program calculates the h-index based on Google Scholar entries. In July 2011 Google trialled a tool which allows scholars to keep track of their own citations and also produces an h-index and an i10-index.

Perfluorooctanoic acid

There is a discussion on the Talk page of this article about whether WP:MEDRS applies to content (a lot of of content, many thousands of bytes worth) describing the relationship between this chemical and human health. More eyes would be very welcome. Alexbrn 06:24, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

Diarrhea in Developing Regions

We have a new article here. The problem with it is that it more or less overlaps the article on infectious diarrhea (also known as gastroenteritis). There is little special about infectious diarrhea in the developing world verses infectious diarrhea generally and that little bit can be and should be in the general article. The second issue with it is that much of it is based on primary sources. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 11:55, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

Is this an article coming from the class of Diana Strassmann, the chair of the new WP:WEF? Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 13:28, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

I think that there is quite a bit about the social, cultural, and logistical issues associated with infections diarrhea in the developing world that differs substantially from infectious diarrhea in the developed world. For example, where most of us live, it's not one of the leading killers of children and elderly people, and it's not usually exacerbated by a lack of sewer systems. The subject is clearly notable, and we need a {{main}} summary of the subtopic in the main article. A couple of sentences isn't going to cut it. If we've got sources like this book chapter wholly dedicated to the subject, then we can support an article on the subject. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:16, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

The topic is notable and a summary of that book chapter would be great. That kind of information is not what is there, though. It would be easier to judge the article if duplicated content were merged first and then people could see what is left. Blue Rasberry (talk) 15:46, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

I agree with you, WhatamIdoing. I agree that articles about prevalent diseases in the developing world warrant their own notability. Although the quality of the present article might not be GA or FA standards, I don't think that's a reason to carry out a merge. Lastly, I'd point out that this article now has discussions on the GA page, here (in at least 2 threads, one archived) on the article's talk page, and on the page of the creater. LT910001 (talk) 00:40, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

This Education business is going to chase me out of here yet (and I am not kidding). OK, so the topic may be notable, but the article is a mess and uses primary sources, and the class is wasting editor time by nominating it for GA. Who is going to deal with that? Why is a student article going from sandbox to GA in one swoop? And, as part of the ongoing Education mess, where does one find the prof and course page to understand if the prof is suggesting they go to GA? If students are nominating sandbox articles to GA, that needs to be stopped. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:49, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

I emailed the professor and pointed to WP:INSTRUCTORS, which deals with this... Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 17:11, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

I've previously emailed them to request students put the course page on their user page per WP:STUDENTUSER so that should get you there. And this professor does have all the materials up at the course page and transparent. They might be the only one that does this (at least for this semester). But still. We need quality content. And my impression here is that this work isn't cutting it. Misplaced Pages isn't a repository for undergraduate essays. Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 17:14, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

GrahamColm (our resident poop doctor) has weighed in at Talk:Diarrhea in developing regions/GA1 (a good read). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:03, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

I'm one of the online ambassadors for that class. I'd already engaged with this student on their talk page, and had suggested that they keep the work in user space since there seemed to be legitimate debate about the need for a separate article on this topic. I'm disappointed to see that they later moved it to article space without further discussion, and quickly nominated it for GA with no further review. I've emailed the professor to say that I think this was a mistake of judgement on the student's part. The professor and I have talked several times about GA and FA status, and we're in agreement that it should never be a required part of the course; this isn't something that the professor requires the students to do for credit. She does allow it as optional, but we have also discussed the fact that slow review processes often mean that the review won't take place till after semester end, so it should be done only by students who are willing to commit to follow up after grading is complete, or who will remove the unreviewed nomination at the end of the semester if they cannot follow up. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 03:04, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

I just spoke to the professor; she's not where she can look at her grading rubric right now, but she thinks Jpoles1 may have decided to move the article from user space because the rubric requires the students not to leave their articles in a sandbox. If so, she's going to change the rubric for next semester to make it clear that under some circumstances (such as this case), leaving the article in user space is the right thing to do, while discussion takes place.

I also talked to her about the difficulties that WP:MED has had with the education program. I think those difficulties are because WP:MED has (appropriately) high standards and an active and knowledgeable group of editors, and also because medical topics are difficult to write well about -- casual reading isn't likely to provide enough information to add anything useful to an article, and the topics are often inherently complicated. I've also heard it suggested that medical students are more likely to be bad writers, but that seems speculative. Anyway, I suggested that she let her students know that medical topics would be more of a challenge, and that if they were to write on those topics they should take additional care to get feedback from the community before making edits, and they should expect to engage with knowledgeable editors whose opinion should be taken seriously. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 04:52, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

NB that the student did discuss this idea at length on this page: Misplaced Pages talk:WikiProject Medicine/Archive 39#Diarrhea_in_Developing_Regions. WhatamIdoing (talk) 07:08, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

Where DocJames gave the editor the correct information, but it seems the student editor didn't listen, perhaps because of the noise in that thread ... we have editors who are more "expert" on given topics, we should attempt to know who those editors are-- as in the case of GrahamColm and diahrrea-- perhaps we need an update of our member list to remind others here who to consult on given topics ? Let's not continue to over-burden those editors who do know specific topics in favor of cheerleading for ill-prepared student edits. Doc James said early on what GrahamColm had to come in later to say, only because I pinged him. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:49, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

Mike, I owe you a WikiProject Medicine barnstar. Anthony deserves one too for his work on those recent changes (note for myself). WhatamIdoing deserves one for being wise. Sandy deserves one for their persistence, and I've given Doc James one before. I'm just rambling at this point, I guess! =) Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 21:26, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

Thanks! It really helps that the professor in this case is diligent, but even so I'm very sensitive to student articles in WP:MED areas as I know this Wikiproject has suffered more than almost any other area of the encyclopedia from poorly managed student edits. I know that one of the things Sandy looks for from the Education Noticeboard is a prompt and helpful response in cases like this; I hope this qualifies.

I can add that I spoke to the student, Jpoles1, on the phone this evening, and suggested to them that they move the article back to user space so that the content can be considered by other editors for inclusion in gastroenterology if they wish, without the controversy of leaving it in mainspace. As I thought, they were motivated to move it to main space because of the grading rubric, so now that's understood we can fix the rubric for next time round. As for the GA nomination, they told me that they didn't understand how big a commitment it was, and agree it wasn't a good move to nominate it. The professor has already sent me the latest version of the course design for review and asked me to help craft a wording for the GA option that makes it clearer to students that this is not something to be undertaken lightly. Perhaps the best approach would be to recommend to students that the OA should be asked if the article is ready for a GA nomination -- that would have prevented the problem in this case. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 03:42, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

Mike, you're the best. But you don't need a barnstar from me to know that I think that :) Your final suggestion depends on the OA-- depending on the course, remember, there are very few editors in general who understand the correct application of MEDRS relative to DUE WEIGHT. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:51, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

Student editing alert

Please browse topics at

• Education Program talk:Georgia Institute of Technology/Introduction to Neuroscience (Fall 2013)/Timeline (some are already in student sandboxes)
• Education Program:Rice University/Poverty, Justice, Human Capabilities, Section 2 (Fall 2013)#Summary_and_students
• Boston College Developmental Biology

SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:40, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

This last course, with the point structure, has quite an appealing way of marking that (I hope) will increase the quality of submissions. LT910001 (talk) 00:40, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

• Education Program:Case Western Reserve University/ANTH 302 Darwinian Medicine (Fall 2013)#Summary_and_students targets high-profile medical articles, and the course syllabus earlier suggested editing with a POV (a Darwinian perspective). The students have begun adding text from sandbox to articles. There are occasionally good sources, but more often there are not; there are sources I can't locate on Google Scholar or PubMed, and even when there is potentially one or two sentences that can be gleaned from a good source according to due weight, the text sometimes strays off-topic. Also, the students rarely link their sandboxes on talk, and don't always engage talk, so you have to browse the contribs of each student if you don't find the sandbox on article talk.

  As university term-end approaches, these articles (and classes listed above) will need attention! SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:37, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

Publishing articles

If people are interested in the idea of getting our medical articles published in the medical literature then please see User_talk:Alexbrn#By_the_way, where I raise some specific issues about the details of how to do this. I'm not sure how we should proceed. Thanks. Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 13:26, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

This project has a lot of work to do in terms of improving many articles rather than publishing the few articles of GA or FA status that exist. If these articles were published, there is the secondary problem in 5-10 years that a variety of sources will use which cite the original Misplaced Pages article. There is the additional problem of attribution in such publication. I think we may need to step carefully on this one.LT910001 (talk) 00:18, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

Calling a bluff

@SandyGeorgia: recently claimed, at Misplaced Pages talk:Did you know#Another plea for review and accountability, that "many editors at Wikiproject Medicine are available to help-- you only need ask". As DYK has a perennial backlog that makes pride impractical, below is a list of medical related nominations that could use a timely review:

• Template:Did you know nominations/Eastern Maine Medical Center SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:29, 4 November 2013 (UTC)
• Template:Did you know nominations/Sahara Hospital SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:29, 4 November 2013 (UTC)
• Template:Did you know nominations/Epsom General Hospital SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:41, 4 November 2013 (UTC)
• Template:Did you know nominations/Homologous Chromosome
  •  Not done Could a doc, or biologist, or someone with journal access look into this one? I left comments. Also, this is a student editing project. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:26, 4 November 2013 (UTC)
    • I took a look at the journal articles but I'm the OA for that course and therefore can't approve it. I left comments over at that page. Keilana| 23:25, 5 November 2013 (UTC)
• Template:Did you know nominations/The Sacred Twenty SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:15, 4 November 2013 (UTC)
• Template:Did you know nominations/Canada Fitness Award Program
  • Possible minor problem with health-related claims in the "Results" section-- I cannot access sources. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:00, 4 November 2013 (UTC)
• Template:Did you know nominations/Violence against doctors in China SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:44, 4 November 2013 (UTC)
• Template:Did you know nominations/Sex-selective abortion
  •  Not done Ugh ... I'm not touching this one. Anyone? User:MastCell? This is a student editing project. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:27, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

Those with limited exposure to DYK can find the criteria against which nominations are reviewed at Misplaced Pages:Did you know#DYK rules with additional explanations, clarifications, and interpretations available at Misplaced Pages:Did you know/Supplementary guidelines. --Allen3  19:02, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the list (you might want to adjust your heading). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:03, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

On a related note: Deep dermatophytosis could be a nice medical DYK if anyone has the opportunity to expand it sufficiently within the next few days. --WS (talk) 22:25, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

Work needed at Progeria

I have just reverted a large chunk of text about a newly-published paper on a promising clinical trial for patients with progeria. The disorder is so very rare that I can see a case for considering primary sources, but this was a clear copyvio of a Progeria Research Foundation press release—which happens to be a poor summation of the study (they didn't even get the number of participants correct). The full text of the paper can be found here; at present, there is a single sentence about this toward the end of the Treatment section, cited to an NPR article. Would appreciate it if anyone felt like taking this on; I'm a bit under the weather. Maralia (talk) 04:31, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

I'm totally fine with primary per WP:MEDDATE. Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 21:33, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

Your version is preserved at the moment, which is fine with me. Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 21:35, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

Related changes - up to date now

The "related changes" page is updated today. It has a new setup, so the link has changed. Here it is:

Template:RELC list

It is a very big list

• The page follows 28.391 pages, and these are just the WP:MED Articles. That produces more than 500 edits a day, so you cannot see them all in one go. Please say what suggestions you have to improve this. Split A-M and N-Z or even threeway, fourway (each with its own link)?

Possible extensions

• We can also add their talkpages to the same list, to track both: Psychiatric medication and Talk:Psychiatric medication

(This sure needs splitting the alphabet into four or so)

We can also add a list for the non-article pages (like the project pages and template pages). That would give you one more link to click on.

Put the link on your userpage or projectpage

• You can add the link to any page. Just copy-paste this code (as you see it) on a page:

{{RELC list|project name=Medicine}}

By the way, it is actually a table. In-line (regular text) is this:

{{RELC list|project name=Medicine|inline=yes}}

→ Some text here, then Template:RELC list and more text here.

Note: we made this a pilot task, we're thinking about setting it up this systematically for other projects. You are the first to enjoy. Any remarks? -DePiep (talk) 17:15, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

Wow! Thank you so much. That was very good of you. I'm happy with it just as it is. Would it be possible to change the label to "Recent changes"? --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 21:11, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

You're an angel User:DePiep. Will you fly away or stick around? ;-) Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 21:33, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

Wow, fantastic! Many thanks to the developers. I'm not too sure about the technology (ie if it is feasible and achievable), but sorting by task force may be useful. That'd let interested users view articles about their specialty of interest. Thanks again to the developers, this is wonderful. LT910001 (talk) 22:30, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

Have added this to the navigation tree for easy access. LT910001 (talk) 22:44, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

LT910001, couldn't find it. Can you point me to it? -DePiep (talk) 23:03, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

Thanks you all (including Biosthmors by request).

- In the near future, you can change the label text. But there will be a similar page "non-articles" soon, so you'll have two links. Then you'll want labels "Related changes (articles)" and "Related changes (other)". Near future for you.

A major question: how do you manage and use the huge overview list? Per day there are 1500 edits or more to show. If you wake up after 8 hours, the first edits are already off the list. Any ideas? A list split, but how? -DePiep (talk) 22:58, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

Presently, all of an article's edits are listed. Can you set it to only list the most recent edit to each article? Would that help with your last question? And can't the list be 1500 items long? --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 05:08, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

I believe that these are unfortunate limitations in the underlying software. I'd particularly like to have an option to see only the most recent change per article (with a link to the page history or a diff of all recent changes), but I don't think it can be done right now. Also, since there's no "updated since your last visit" feature (unless the page is on your personal watchlist), then you might miss anything except the most recent. WhatamIdoing (talk) 11:58, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

If you want to split the list, I suggest putting low-priority articles into a separate one. That's half the pages we're supporting (including all people, places, organizations, etc.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 12:00, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

Kombucha

Expert help is needed with this article - claims of health benefits, and downplaying of risks, using non-WP:MEDRS sourcing etc. AndyTheGrump (talk) 18:37, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

Related issue

Speaking of, can we please start tagging articles like this (or chocolate or whatever else) that has a "health" section with WP:MED, please? The content ends up being crap. We should take responsibility for it. I really don't care if it screws up the clinical look of WP:MED1500. I only care about good information. =) Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 21:30, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

Although I'm quite anti-expanding our scope, I think if they present a big issue they could be provisionally added (but not in batch!). And I do not believe that adding to our scope has any bearing on the quality of topics about non clinical-medicine. An alternative would be watchlist and add the delightful template {{Reliable sources for medical articles}} which could be placed on the talk page. LT910001 (talk) 22:27, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

Hmm. An alternate alternate solution would be something I proposed above. Such articles could be added to a new taskforce, Society & Medicine, so that they are categorised, and then removed at a later date. LT910001 (talk) 22:27, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

All of our taskforces are part of us. Putting something in your proposed task force will require tagging it with {{WPMED}}. The main problem with your taskforce proposal (which I otherwise like) is that a task force is editors, not a subject area. WhatamIdoing (talk) 12:02, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

Transcendental meditation, homeopathy, scientology, etc.

We have a template for primary sources in medicine, but not one for primary sources in faith-based or belief systems. Please review the discussion at Template talk:Religion primary. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:32, 6 November 2013 (UTC)