Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Medicine: Difference between revisions

Recent changes in WP:Medicine

Articles and their talkpages:

• In all Medicine articles (not talks)
• In articles with Top-, High-importance
• In articles with Mid-importance
• In articles with Low-importance
• In pages with NA, ???=unknown importance
• In the 1000 most popular articles (source)

Not mainspace:

• In all non-articles
• In all templates
• In Medicine navigation templates

Top	High	Mid	Low	NA	???	Total
101	1,074	11,572	39,010	3,140	1,302	56,199

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The bot is up and running and returning helpful results. There is still a relatively high rate of false positives that we are working to reduce. These fixes should be fairly easy. False positives to true positives is about 1 to 3. It is definitely worthwhile as I have been able to provide feedback to a number of users. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 07:33, 23 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• Hey All. I need to know if you support or oppose this bot running on medical content. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 12:11, 26 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• I think this is a fabulous idea. There's been a number of recent high-profile users whose edit count was largely based on difficult-to-detect plagiarism. JFW | T@lk 13:48, 26 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• This is a very good move, James. Thank you. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 14:14, 26 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Still requires work but it is a start. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 14:24, 26 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• I like running this bot to detect copy and paste. I looked through the list and it seems that the results (both true and false positive) are doable to manage. Sydney Poore/FloNight♥♥♥♥ 16:08, 26 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
• It's clearly a useful step forward, James. The false/true positive ratio is not bad for such early results - and there is little harm done when a false positive is reported, other than the time taken to check it out. Keep it going! --RexxS (talk) 17:34, 26 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
• Fully support trying it out. It's so very annoying how many sites copy Wikipedia content to try to drive search results their direction, resulting in false positives! Zad68 20:01, 26 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
• A step in the right direction, but we need to consider in a systematic fashion how WP should respond when we find our content mirrored, or even reverse copyvio'd in low-quality journals or even republished, as by Books, Inc. and its ilk. It's become far too common an occurence that threatens to undermine wp:V. There are a number of existing tools that should be made to play together better. The subpages of Wikipedia:Mirrors and forks and talkpage transclusions of Template:reverse copyvio could be part of the picture, but we really need a database tool that can track such instances with little or no human intervention, and an easy way to respond. WP:REUSE for free purposes is one thing, but this is something else, being exploited by AOL, Google, and other major corporations to the detriment of WP's quality and reputation. In some (or possible even most) cases what is going on amounts verges on clickfraud, with a reader driven to a google advert-laden page that only slightly resembles the WP page it was based on. In many cases the fraudsters hijack all the wikilinks except those for images, leaving the bandwidth burden on WP. LeadSongDog come howl! 21:47, 26 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Great idea using Wikipedia:Mirrors and forks. We will need to speak to Turnitin about this. User:Ocaasi? With respect to others copying from use, agree that is an issue but one this effort does not yet address. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 21:51, 26 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Hey folks. Great work James taking this project through to an actual working product!! I spent many days compiling a list of over 3000 mirrors and forks that we could 'whitelist' as non-infringing. There were two issues with this approach. One, the list of mirrors is ever-growing and changing. Two, Turnitin did not have a way for us to mass-add the sites on the whitelist. They would have to be entered literally one by one. It would take them a development cycle to prioritize this and it wasn't a high priority for them as it distracted their core developers. With Andrew and Madman, we pretty much decided that we should be doing the screening for mirrors. Turnitin gives us a list of 'positives' and then we remove any from our known whitelist during bot post-processing. That is something which we can certainly discuss with Eran or other coders involved. Turnitin, btw, whom I spoke with this afternoon, is very excited to see their software out in the wild on Wikipedia. Thanks again for the sustained effort and focus to make it happen :) Ocaasi ^{t | c} 22:14, 26 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• Good work. We need more bots to help out. I support the bot reviewing on medical content. QuackGuru (talk) 02:26, 27 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
• Support the end result I have only used the bot's work twice but the output it gave was so good and saved so much time that I was able to do tasks that I wished to do, but would not have otherwise had time to do. I am really pleased with the assistance that the bot provides.

I regret that the bot has to operate using the commercial Turnitin database. Turnitin is a commercial product, and while I am grateful for their giving us access to an API which permits us to check for plagiarism, I feel that also Wikimedia projects are acting as a kingmaker in this instance and the usage that we are giving to Turnitin has a value which will earn a large amount of money for their commercial products which they will not get otherwise. Although this seems like a free trade on its face, I also feel that we the Wikimedia community are positioning Turnitin to corner their market and perpetually make many millions of dollars which they would not be able to make with such certainty were it not for this relationship with Wikipedia.

I wish that it would be possible to raise a million dollars for this community to develop its own comparable in house non-profit project, so that this educational resource could be freely available to everyone in the world. I have tremendous respect for Turnitin and their commercial model, but also I fear the implications of a small segment of the Wikimedia community leveraging our community resources to empower and develop a particular commercial product. Undoubtedly the Wikimedia community benefits from this partnership, and undoubtedly what we are providing to Turnitin is of no value to this community, but a relationship with Wikipedia means something and can have a lot of value. I feel like in partnering with Turnitin, we are shaping the marketplace of the future to disallow any room for nonprofit checks on plagiarism and ensuring that this space will only be occupied by commercial services. Blue Rasberry (talk) 14:53, 27 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Hi @Bluerasberry: Turnitin is a commercial service, just like our Wikipedia Zero partners, and our Wikipedia Library Partners, and our t-shirt manufacturers, and our server hosts. There is simply not an optimal non-commercial solution to all of our needs. Turnitin, in my evaluation is the best available plagiarism-detection program that exists. Most importantly, our use of their services comes with no advertising and no agreement which prevents us from using other tools (paid or free) at any time for any reason. This is as lightweight as a donation gets. So, while I see your concerns, I have to admit that Turnitin has already cornered this market (at least in Education), and I don't see how we best serve our mission of sharing knowledge by refusing the donation with no strings attached. Best, Jake Ocaasi ^{t | c} 20:47, 27 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

This case is fundamentally different. The Wikimedia Zero and Wikimedia Library offers go to everyone; this is a much more exclusive arrangement. The merchandise and hosting are just services bought in the open market and do not obviously favor any one seller. Yes, I agree that Turnitin already has already captured this market, and perhaps they would keep it without Wikimedia community support. With support of the largest testbase in the world they are definitely in a better position now, though. The string they have attached to this is they want our usage data, and they are definitely getting the best usage data the world has to offer.

I confirm that Turnitin is the best available plagiarism-detection program that exists and that there is no better service available to meet this very pressing and urgent Wikimedia community need. I can only praise the value of the service we are getting. I only disagree that this is a lightweight donation - I am not aware of the Wikimedia community having such intimate exclusive ties with a commercial entity in any other context. I still support this project.

I think I feel this would be more in line with Wikimedia community values if I thought that the data we were giving to Turnitin were somehow made publicly available, so that conceivably other entities could develop competing products using the same data we are providing to Turnitin in exchange for access to their service. Blue Rasberry (talk) 21:04, 27 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I am completely grateful for Turnitin's help. I feel guilty for criticizing this gift. It is wholly beneficial to editors and provides a lot of benefit. Blue Rasberry (talk) 21:22, 27 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

What more data are we giving them that they do not already have? They have all of Wikipedia and likely every edit that has occurred to Wikipedia in their database. We at Wikipedia already provide this to everyone including Turnitin. Not sure how this bot that uses their API changes things? Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 05:54, 28 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I could be wrong, but yes, I was suggesting that this relationship gives Turnitin an inside track to information which is not available to others. If I am mistaken then that would relieve a lot of my worry.

I think I could ask the question like this:

Assume that there is some public bot which calls the Turnitin API, and the Wikimedia community promotes this bot.

• Where is the public log of every request that this bot delivers to Turnitin?
• Where is the public log of every response which Turnitin returns to the bot, even if it returns a null response?

My concern would be to make the actions and operations of the Wikimedia bot public to everyone. I know this is an unusual thing to ask because in almost any other case, no one would want the logs of these things because I expect they are 99.99% useless, but because I think Turnitin as a software company is in a unique position to improve its reputation with this relationship, I would like for all information managed on the Wikimedia side to be logged and available. I make no request for any information from the Turnitin side.

I have a lesser but still significant concern about Wikimedia projects being dependent on a third-party commercial partner, but in this case because the need is so great and the benefit so complete, I would want to find a way to make this work. Blue Rasberry (talk) 14:03, 28 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

You just want everything the bot sends to Turnitin and everything returned from Turnitin to the bot published? Much of it is here [1] I am not sure if there is more but I am sure Eran can provide everything if you want. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 05:32, 29 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I expect that the bot's operator has this information. What I do not see is the null results, which would be when someone asks about plagiarism and Turnitin says that there is none. A monthly or quarterly file listing all of that information would satisfy this. Blue Rasberry (talk) 13:30, 29 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

User:Eran or User:Ladsgroup could we produce this automatically for User:Bluerasberry? Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 04:58, 2 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The article Diet and cancer starts with, "Almost all cancers (80–90%) are caused by environmental factors,[1] and of these, 30–40% of cancers are directly linked to the diet.[2] By far, the most significant dietary cause of cancer is overnutrition (eating too much).[3]" Ref 1 is 14 years old. Ref 2 is 5 years old and is to a general page not a specific source supporting the content. I am not sure this information is really correct or that such overarching statements are supported by current medical consensus. As there are a number of editors here with extensive knowledge I thought someone might take a look. - - MrBill3 (talk) 11:37, 24 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Here is a 2008 review [2] that supports. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 11:47, 24 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The most recent UK data has [attributable to lifestyle and environmental factors] "an estimated 43% of all new cases of cancer in the UK (approximately 134 000 new cases in 2010), and about 50% of all cancer deaths." "The fraction of cancer attributable to lifestyle and environmental factors in the UK in 2010". Click Table of contents on the left for the whole thing, which is free access. You can't just say "100% minus (heritable) genetic = environmentally caused", there's a sizeable "don't know/just happened" as well. The CRUK pages, on a quick look, say "diet" "nearly one in ten UK cancer cases are caused by unhealthy diets.", "obesity" "more than one in 20 cancers in the UK are linked to being overweight or obese." and alchohol "causes 4% of cancers in the UK", see menu at here. Another one for the list. And 80% isn't "almost all" anyway. The detail of the article is poor too - no sections on red/processed meats or salt, for example. Wiki CRUK John/Johnbod (talk) 12:35, 24 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Yes different sources give different estimates. In such a situation it is best to use a range like 40 to 80%. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 13:12, 24 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

2014 World Cancer Report has a section on diet. It states that excess weight is responsible for 4.2% of cancer in men and 14.3% of cancer in women in the USA. Among non smokers this is an even greater proportion. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 13:19, 24 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• Reference 2 goes to the main page of the huge section at the AIRC/WCRF site, dated 2009. This seems the current equivalent, with figures about 50% of those quoted. For now I'll just remove these first two sentences, which clearly are not "supported by current medical consensus". Johnbod (talk) 16:50, 24 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

We go through this every year or two. You can 'just say "100% minus (heritable) genetic = environmentally caused"', because that's exactly how the specialists define it: in this worldview, the only options are genotype and phenotype, and if it's not the one, then it is (by definition) the other.

The description of the Nature paper is incorrect. It does not describe "The most recent UK data has [attributable to lifestyle and environmental factors]". It describes "The most recent UK data has [attributable to lifestyle and environmental factors] mostly choosing only things that that we, the researchers, have decided are both within the control of UK residents and not culturally inappropriate, and only as applies to 18 out of a couple hundred types of cancer." That's seriously different: They have excluded certain causes, like the number of breast cancer deaths that could be prevented if women chose to have more children, because it would not be socially "acceptable", not because choosing to have zero children is not a scientifically accepted cause of breast and ovarian cancer.

They did not look at all environmental causes, and therefore their numbers are automatically an under-representation. They claim to have looked at exactly 14:

1. tobacco,
2. alcohol,
3. consumption of meat,
4. consumption of fruit and vegetables,
5. consumption of fibre
6. consumption of salt
7. being overweight or obese,
8. lack of physical exercise,
9. occupation,
10. infections (hardly any in the UK, but about a quarter of cancer deaths worldwide),
11. ionizing radiation from (only) medical sources and two natural (radon and cosmic background) sources
12. UV exposure (which they calculate against people born in 1903, some of whom also got UV-induced melanoma),
13. use of "female" hormones (only as it affects "female" cancers), and
14. breast feeding.

At a glance, these controllable things appear to have been ignored: pesticides, smog and other forms of air pollution (except tobacco smoke and what you inhale at work), water pollution, number of children, age at which a first child is born, and your choice to take (or not) some drugs to reduce cancer risk. I'm sure there are more. They also omit non-controllable factors, like age at menarche (which at least gets mentioned) and menopause.

They also looked at only 18 of the most common cancers in the UK, and they only looked at specific factors for some of these cancers. This is mostly sensible, since we want them to be working with respectable data, but it systematically underestimates effects. For example, obesity increases the risk for many cancers, but they only looked at its effect on seven, so the cancers caused by obesity in another dozen cases (or more?) are omitted.

In other words, this paper does nothing to change the fact that worldwide nearly all causes of cancer are non-hereditary. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:53, 24 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

So this ref says 20-30% are preventable [3] which is close to 30-40%. Agree it needs updating. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 22:59, 24 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

"You can 'just say "100% minus (heritable) genetic = environmentally caused"', because that's exactly how the specialists define it: in this worldview, the only options are genotype and phenotype, and if it's not the one, then it is (by definition) the other." – This isn't quite my field, but I'd have thought it should actually go something like risk of getting cancer = genetic contribution + environmental contribution + interaction of genetic and environmental contributions. The final term is needed because genetic and environmental contributions to cancer susceptibility are not strictly additive. For example, particular genotypes might be more or less susceptible to particular environmental influences. Some genotypes might even be advantageous in one environment but disadvantageous in another – think skin pigmentation, UV levels, skin cancer risk, and vitamin D production. What I'm trying to say is, I wouldn't be comfortable with simply subtracting genetically caused cancers from 100% to get environmentally caused cancers. Adrian J. Hunter^{(talk•contribs)} 02:18, 25 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

This is how the sources operate. The one that John notes above, for example, explicitly refuses to count UV exposure on the job as an occupational cause of cancer. In this area, every cancer gets assigned exactly one cause. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:14, 25 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

First thanks for devoting some attention to this article. While I agree (to some extent) with WhatamIdoing's analysis it runs up against OR and V. I think it is an important analysis of the quality of sources which is entirely appropriate. I'd like to see some sources that make the same sort of evaluation and address cancer epidemiology. Unfortunately (or fortunately in most cases) on WP we are bound to represent "how the specialist's define it" and the mainstream academic consensus per WP:DUE. I'd think there are significant viewpoints that raise the issues presented by WhatamIdoing and if identified they might be evaluated for due weight. I do think some of the major reliable sources do not calculate environmental level of cause by 100% - hereditary = environmental some I have read clearly identify an area of we don't know. - - MrBill3 (talk) 04:37, 25 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I wouldn't want to see my comments in an article. However, I also wouldn't want to see "50% of all cancer deaths are caused by environmental factors" in an article when what the source actually says is that 50% of all cancer deaths in the UK and for only 18 types of cancer are caused by fourteen selected environmental (including lifestyle) factors.

There are a lot of cancers for which the cause is unknown. However, there are almost none for which the hereditary vs not issue is unknown. For example, with breast cancer, there is a sizable fraction of "unknown", but it is known (using US stats) it's about 10% hereditary and 90% environmental. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:59, 25 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

No one has suggested putting a 50% figure in. Instead a first sentence that was not sourced to MEDRS standards, was by no means necessary for the topic, and actually meant something a very long way from what the average reader was likely to think it meant, was removed. It should not be replaced with any alternative figure at all. There are too many such over-simple unexplained statements that are likely to mislead (even if up to date) in medical articles. The 2nd sentence has now been replaced, although its reference seems now unverifiable. Johnbod (talk) 20:35, 25 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The fact that a lot and maybe most cancer is "enviromental" (not inherited from one's parents) is excellent as that means that it can potentially be prevented. This means not smoking, improving chimneys, immunization against certain infections, improving ventilation in underground living spaces, covering ones skin from the sun, etc. All measure that are well in the means of most people globally.

If most cancer was "not environmental" (in other words inherited from one's parents) than gene therapy / after the fact treatment would be the only option. Something which is very expensive and out of the possible range of most people globally. The War Against Cancer concentrated mostly on treatment rather than prevention unfortunately for whatever reasons. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 01:02, 26 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The article is "Diet and cancer" and there is no need to widen beyond that topic in the first sentence, especially in a severely under-explained fashion. Johnbod (talk) 01:17, 26 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Not to be flippant, but two issues that I think are worth making explicit:

• The most important cause of cancer is not dying of something else. The risk doubles wtih every decade of life, and as recently as 50 years ago the number living into the highest risk decades was quite small.
• By this reasoning, statins inevitably "cause" cancer as do antibiotics. When the rate of cardiovascular deaths fall, the rate of other causes of death must go up, because everyone dies of something.

Also, while I don't have the references at hand, I don't think cancer has to be either "genetic" or "environmental" unless you consider your own body part of the environment. Any good molecular bio text will tell you than every cell replication is accompanied by transcrption errors, and normal metabolism produces a plethora of electrophiles such as formaldehyde and unsaturated ketones that are able to alkylate DNA. If "chemical" exposure where responsible for a large percentage of cancers, we should have seen a precipitous drop since the bad old days of the 1950s and 1960s when a large percentage of the population had occupational exposure in manufacturing jobs that where performed in the near complete absence of any sort of chemical hygiene measures. It hasn't really happened. Formerly 98 (talk) 19:51, 26 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

With regard to disease causation, "environmental" just means "not genetic". It's a tremendously broad term that includes everything from diet to infections and even somatic mutation, whether caused by external mutagens, ordinary metabolites, or replication errors. Adrian J. Hunter^{(talk•contribs)} 10:18, 27 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, and conveying this highly technical usage of the word "environment" to our general readership isn't straightforward. Environmental factors isn't really a helpful link imo; Environmental epidemiology may perhaps be more helpful, if suitably piped.

Leaving aside for a moment the broader considerations raised by WAID and others above, I feel this query illustrates the difficulties we almost inevitably come up against in communicating highly technical considerations effectively to our broad general readership. A somewhat analogous case is under discussion at Talk:Obesity#Genetics. The fact is that we endeavour to address a plethora of sensitive editorial tasks with a limited number of dedicated volunteers. We desperately need to multiply our human resources... But how? My own feeling is that we need more direct contributions from organizations whose aims overlap with our own (Cancer Research UK and Cochrane being just two prominent examples). For this sort of involvement to happen I think awareness needs to be raised across the scientific community (and general public) of the real-world role of Wikipedia's health-related content. 86.134.200.29 (talk) 15:09, 27 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I have formatted up the references and in doing so added links to free full text versions of quite a few of them. This may be useful in improving the article. I also added a possible ref I don't have access to on the talk page. I also added some material from 3 Cochrane reviews. I have Cochrane access if further information from those refs is desired. Thanks for the help and attention to this article. I think there are several sources already in the article that could be used to address some of the issues raised above. - - MrBill3 (talk) 11:28, 29 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks - it would be nice to see improvement throughout - putting factors that reduce and increase risk in different sections would seem one way. The present mixture reads rather confusingly. Wiki CRUK John (talk) 16:08, 1 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

A BLP of a fringe altmed practitioner at Ryke Geerd Hamer crosses several boundaries. Much of the sourcing is in German. The article contains many unpleasant statements about the subject person that are not as well cited as they should be to have a place on wp. Can someone please pitch in?LeadSongDog come howl! 03:15, 30 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Are there any specific souces and claims that you want to verify? -A1candidate (talk) 03:40, 30 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Any statements that could be construed as a BLP violation. Do we have RS for the assertions that he's said and done these vile things, or is this just an attack piece?

After taking a brief look at the article, I've noticed that:

• Many of the links are dead
• Bild is a tabloid that shouldn't be used for a BLP
• The assertion that the German Medical Association disagrees with Hamer is unsourced
• The fact that Hamer promotes anti-semitic views and is responsible for the deaths of several people is supported by an article published on the website of the German Cancer Society
• The BLP is generally accurate for the most part, but it should be reduced it size to summarize important points only.
• It should also be noted that some of his supporters view him as a "genius" and a role model. There have been public demonstrations in support of Hamer and he seems to be a popular lecturer too.

-A1candidate (talk) 01:40, 31 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you. I'm sure it is unpleasant work to do, but it is clearly necessary. LeadSongDog come howl! 04:05, 31 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• [4]. 188.28.130.189 (talk) 19:18, 30 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

From were do you think? Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 04:11, 31 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I see no reason to think it is plagiarism. The only question might be whether it is appropriate, since the editor who added it has the same user name as one of the authors of the paper that is cited. Looie496 (talk) 19:50, 31 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Opinions are needed on the following matter: Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2014 August 31#Gender dysphoria. WP:Med has been involved with the gender identity disorder vs. gender dysphoria issue before, and this WP:Redirect for discussion is the next phase of this matter. A WP:Permalink is here. The two WikiProjects that have been alerted to this discussion are this one (WP:Med) and WP:LGBT, as seen here. The gender identity disorder topic is a sensitive topic, and sometimes the Gender identity disorder article can be subject to WP:Activism, so more eyes on that article from neutral editors can also help this issue. Flyer22 (talk) 04:59, 31 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Do we want to keep these as separate articles? I'd like to hear other opinions about this because these two articles appear to have a rather significant amount of overlap and I'm of the mind that we could merge these two articles. Thoughts? TylerDurden8823 (talk) 05:23, 31 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

They are the same thing similar enough and need merging. Would merge to Frontotemporal lobar degeneration Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 05:29, 31 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

They are not the same. FTLD refers to a group of neurodegenerative disorders that includes FD. Other forms of FTLD are semantic dementia and primary progressive nonfluent aphasia. Please do not confuse the terms. -A1candidate (talk) 17:30, 31 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• Oppose - FD is a form of FTLD. There are other types of FTLD as well. -A1candidate (talk) 17:33, 31 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not disputing that A1, the FTD article mentions there are subtypes including the semantic and primary progressive confluent aphasia as you say. My point is that the frontotemporal lobar degeneration article doesn't really say much that's different from the FTD article. So, that's why I'm questioning the need for separate articles here. If they need to be separate, then it's important that the FTLD article is developed and has content in it that differs from the FTD article. Don't you think? No sense in having two articles say practically the same thing. TylerDurden8823 (talk) 18:05, 31 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Give me some time to improve on the articles. We can't merge two articles just because we do a poor job of writing them. That's not the path that WP Medicine should take and I hope you understand. -A1candidate (talk) 18:20, 31 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I did say in my last comment "if they need to be separate, then it's important that the FTLD article is developed and has content in it that differs from the FTD article." It's fine if you need time to improve the article, but I was raising the issue here because it just came to my attention. I'm not pushing for a merge this second. If you want to take it on as a project and develop the FTLD article so that it differs enough from the FTD article to merit being its own page, then by all means do it. TylerDurden8823 (talk) 19:47, 31 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Yes there are three types of FTLD per [5]. I would merge all three.

Per the ref FTLD is the broad category. We seem to have FTD playing that role. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 21:49, 31 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

FTLD should be written from a pathological viewpoint with focus on histology, genetics, and disease mechanisms. FTD should cover signs, symptoms, diagnosis and treatment -A1candidate (talk) 22:02, 31 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Disagree. Frontotemporal lobar degeneration is the overriding term it appears and all 4 can be discussed on the same page until such time that they need to be split off. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 22:19, 31 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

As long as FTLD doesn't get merged, I won't object to that -A1candidate (talk) 22:37, 31 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Hi everyone! I am new to whole wikipedia medical editing experience. However, I am really excited to get involved. Any ideas for a relatively simply page that I can help to work on? I'm sorry if this exists elsewhere, a point in the right direction would be much appreciated. Pishoygouda (talk) 16:57, 1 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Well, we add new sections to the bottom, so moved! There are really thousands of articles on medical conditions where the language needs to be simplified, and the WP:LEAD expanded to summarize the main points of the whole article. If you know anything at all about surgery, I find articles in this area especially in need of this, and often really unclearly expressed. Many epidemiology stats can be updated from the current version of the page already referenced - for example the US ones at Childhood cancer. Wiki CRUK John (talk) 17:41, 1 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I saw a number of editors had posted on your talk page and I suggest you go through the material they linked to, be it the MEDHOW–Medical How to guide, the MEDMOS–MEDical Manual of Style or the MEDRS–MEDdical Reliable Source guideline.

Once you've done that there are a large number of high-importance subjects that are in great need of improvement. A good start would be to tell us a little about your focus area/specialty or areas of interest. Finding something to improve in any area will likely be easy. -- CFCF 🍌 (email) 19:50, 1 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Welcome! Is there anything that you're interested in? I mean, if you're interested in anatomy, then I don't want to suggest a disease article, or if you're interested in heart disease, then I'd rather not suggest an article about cancer. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:34, 1 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Well I am a final year medical student from Ireland, so my interests are pretty broad. However, cardiology and medical education are my research interests! I'll give the WP:MEDRS a look! Pishoygouda (talk) 21:27, 1 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Welcome this is definitely the place you want to ask any questions medical. This page lists our articles by readership Wikipedia:WikiProject_Medicine/Popular_pages and is often useful to help pick something you want to work on. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 04:54, 2 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Pishoygouda,

Most of our cardiology content is struggling (surgery, too). If you'd like to write an article pretty much from scratch, then you might look at Vascular tissue neoplasm. This is very short and could be easily expanded. It could even become a WP:Did you know item on the front page, if you did all the work within a couple of days (not counting anything you did in a sandbox or test page). Look at WP:MEDMOS#Sections for ideas of what to add. I found this article by looking at the table at Wikipedia:WikiProject Medicine/Cardiology task force#Cardiology article assessment. It is "stub" class (very incomplete) but marked "top" priority for improvements.

If writing your WP:FIRST article seems too daunting a starting point, then perhaps you'd consider looking at cardiovascular-related anatomy articles, and adding a ==Clinical significance== section. Vein#Clinical significance has an especially large section, but most of them should have only a sentence or two (if anything). For example, Superior thoracic aperture should probably have a section on ==Clinical significance== that describes thoracic outlet syndrome.

Finally, since you're in Ireland, do you happen to speak Gaelic well (or any other language, for that matter)? We have a translation program to get good information into other language editions of Wikipedia. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:34, 2 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks WhatamIdoing

I think i am going to try to work on Vascular tissue neoplasm. Have a look in a few days and let me know what you think! Thanks Pishoygouda (talk) 21:35, 2 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Hi. I recently created a table with the number of FA and GA articles found on different Wikipedia medical projects and gathered under a TOP 20. It helped me to have a global view regarding the development of the projects. As far as I'm concerned, some of the results were surprising in a negative way, like the fr.wikipedia with a total of only 31 reliable pages. You can check the full list here, if you're interested. The AC and AB are the equivalent of FA and GA. Regards, Winter^eu (talk) 21:28, 1 September 2014 (UTC) P.S. Lists, templates and images were not included.[reply]

Interesting data. Many thanks. It is a little hard to compare across languages as the criteria for GA/FA are not equivalent between them. The data however do indicate which languages have active communities and yes this is sobering. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 04:45, 2 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Have added this to our stats data here Wikipedia:WikiProject_Medicine/Stats/Number_of_GAs/FAs_by_language Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 04:52, 2 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, very interestring. Thanks for this. Wiki CRUK John (talk) 12:42, 2 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Good to see you find it useful. Regards, Winter^eu (talk) 15:49, 3 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Hello Everyone,

Students 4 Best Evidence is planning a Wiki Week from September 15 to 19 to encourage students to add evidenced based content to Wikipedia health articles. http://www.students4bestevidence.net/s4be-wiki-week-15th-19th-september/

In addition to adding great content during the edit-a-thon, the aim of the campaign is to encourage the students to settle in long term and continue editing medical articles. To help guide the students contributions, we have identified a few tasks that are useful for the medical articles:

• add high quality references to health articles.
• rewrite health article leades to be a comprehensive overview of the topic in simple language with sufficient references.
• add maintenance templates to health articles that need further attention.
• remove duplicate content or excessive wording from existing health articles.
• fill in gaps in content in existing health articles using high quality sources.

For the Education Program:Students 4 Best Evidence/Students 4 Best Evidence, September editing campaign () this months, Ammar developed a crash course/beginners guide to help the students get started. http://www.students4bestevidence.net/wikipedia-medicine-newbie-crash-course/

We're encouraging the students to create an account and do practice edits before the day of the edit-a-thon, so we will likely see the new medical editors coming in over the next few weeks. Sydney Poore/FloNight♥♥♥♥ 22:04, 1 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Excellent. Hope it goes well Sydney. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 04:46, 2 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

With regard to this point, "rewrite health article leades to be a comprehensive overview of the topic in simple language with sufficient references", I believe that references in the lede generally are unneeded/discouraged. The lede summarizes the article, rather than introducing new moments. The references belong in the various subsections. --Hordaland (talk) 18:17, 3 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I disagree. I think referencing the lead is important and should be done routinely. Especially as we are just translating the leads of key medical topics. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 18:24, 3 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

That makes sense, but there's no mention at all of a lede section in wp:MEDMOS. Just overlooked? LeadSongDog come howl! 18:38, 3 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The policy on this is in WP:LEADCITE. There is nothing wrong with citations in the lead, if they are needed. There just tend to be fewer citations, as most of a lead will be a summarization of the rest of the article. Alternative names for a topic, for instance, may only be mentioned in the lead and may need a reference to back them. Stubs are often all lead and could certainly use citations. --Mark viking (talk) 19:01, 3 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• As Doc James says, the reason that medical articles include references in the lead is so that they can be translated to other languages with adequate references. And also if references are included in the lead, it can be taken from the article and used separately as a good plain language overview of the topic. Sydney Poore/FloNight♥♥♥♥ 21:46, 3 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Without citations in the lead the lead often fills up with "citation needed" tags. These are a pain to continually clean up and it is thus easier to reference the article. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 04:38, 4 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Started discussion here [6] Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 04:47, 4 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I have been following the readership of our articles for a long time. Data here shows a recent decline in views. This data however does not reflect the rise in mobile ( which has gone from less than 1% of overall Wikipedia readership to more than 30% of readership). I have done a correction of our data basically assuming that the fraction of readers by mobile for English Wikipedia as a whole is the same as the fraction of readers for medical content. Readership is down slightly but not a great deal. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 05:03, 2 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

To me this looks like a steady rising trend, interrupted in 2013 by a sharp drop - probably a combination of the introduction of Google's "infobox" things, hitting all content areas, plus what seems to have been an alteration to the Google algorithm (affecting medicine more than most areas?) costing us a place or 3 on google rankings. After that the steady increase resumes. Wiki CRUK John (talk) 12:47, 2 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Yes my bet aswell. People might simply be leaving google less often with google's infobox.Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 14:01, 2 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Sounds plausible... 86.134.200.29 (talk) 09:26, 3 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Seeing as the lede of articles is often copied onto the google infobox you'd think working on the ledes would become more important than ever? -- CFCF 🍌 (email) 10:52, 3 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Google uses the NIH for their medical content in infoboxes. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 10:54, 3 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure they do internationally. I don't get any infoboxes when searching for most medical content, but when I search for anatomy I get Wikipedia. (Don't know what to make of it?) -- CFCF 🍌 (email) 12:44, 3 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The source they use doesn't much matter in terms of the reduction in the number of people who click on - because they only wanted some very basic info. Wiki CRUK John (talk) 12:50, 3 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

There is a section in an existing article that I feel merits an article in its own right. The original article is John Travis (physician) and the section is the Illness-Wellness Continuum. This is a model that has been (and still is) widely used in relation to wellbeing and I feel it is sufficiently notable to move into its own space. I have expanded the original section - currently residing in my sandbox: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Fbell74/sandbox

As I have a connection to the creator of this concept I wanted to get the views of editors on this to see if it maintains neutrality. I originally posted this comment in the Teahouse but another editor (Roger (Dodger67)) suggested I post here, as it seemed to be relevant.

Any help would be gratefully received. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 112.205.139.48 (talk) 05:55, 2 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

It's all set out at Wikipedia:Splitting. I doubt the continuum would meet the WP:GNG requirement for a standalone article, but I haven't examined this in any depth. The guidelines at WP:COI offer sage advice. Personally, I think people with COIs are better off not editing on topics for which they have a conflict: this cleanly avoids many difficulties and so spares other editors' precious time resolving them. I would also recommend getting an account. Alexbrn ^{talk|contribs|COI} 06:19, 2 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I see - thanks for pointing me in the direction of the Wikipedia:Splitting information. I have an account but stupidly hadn't logged in before posting the comment.Fbell2 (talk) 03:47, 4 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

is there actually strict policy on editors with a conflict of interest in articles. noticed a few discussions on the NPOV noticeboard where editors have clearly had outside interests in medical related articles.Docsim (talk) 14:27, 4 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, conflicted interests fuel a high proportion of editing activity hereabouts. For general COIs I believe there is guidance, not policy (and typically a conflicted editor will even then read the guidance as somehow not relevant to them). For medical content, we have an essay: WP:MEDCOI. Alexbrn ^{talk|contribs|COI} 14:33, 4 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Was this a really notable area of medical research, or is this a really undue article? Alexbrn ^{talk|contribs|COI} 08:05, 2 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I have mixed feelings. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 10:51, 2 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

BlueRasberry started it with stuff from two other articles, where they were presumably TMI. This is legitimate. The actual WP:NOTABILITY of the topic is surely beyond question, but then notability as such is rarely an issue with any area of mainstream medicine, such is the volume of RS literature. At AFD it it is RS not MEDRS that applies, no? The page views are reasonably high at about 800 per month. Articles like this should carry a "last updated as at...." tag though. Wiki CRUK John (talk) 11:10, 2 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks John. Since we do not really have a space limit and their are lots of sources I do not see a issue. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 13:59, 2 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

What John says is so. I only made these articles as place to put content that I found elsewhere. The content is useful for what it is and it seems to have worked as a way to keep the glucosamine and chondroitin articles clean of primary sources. Check

• Chondroitin_sulfate#Clinical_trials_for_osteoarthritis
• Glucosamine#Clinical_trials_on_glucosamine_and_chondroitin

as both sections are short and seem to have been accepted by the community. Blue Rasberry (talk) 16:16, 2 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I find the title of this article a bit strange. Any article name with the word "and" in it is immediately suspect. As both glucosamine and chondroitin are apparently precursors of glycosaminoglycan, wouldn't it be better to replace "glucosamine and chondroitin" with "glycosaminoglycan"? Also "clinical trials" appears a bit narrow since at least glucosamine has been used clinically for a number of years. Perhaps it would be better to replace "clinical trials" with "treatment", which would cover both current use and clinical trials. Finally the main use appears to be the treatment of arthritis. Hence wouldn't a better name for this article be "glycosaminoglycans for the treatment of arthritis"? Boghog (talk) 19:07, 2 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Boghog How would you feel about the title Clinical trials on glycosaminoglycans for the treatment of arthritis? You suggested covering both clinical use and clinical trials. The clinical use part probably should go into the main article for the drugs. Right now, so far as I understand, these articles only contain information which is dubious with regard to treatment but good with regard to summarizing the history of the research. I was unaware that these two drugs could collectively be called "glycosaminoglycans" but if that is the case, and if the sources are using that term when they discuss "glucosamine and chondroitin", then it seems right to match the title to the sources. Blue Rasberry (talk) 19:57, 2 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Bluerasberry Per WP:CONCISE, I prefer the shorter name that I proposed above, but would accept the longer name that you propose. An even shorter tittle would be "Glycosaminoglycan arthritis therapy". Another possibility is "Glucosamine and chondroitin combination arthritis therapy". I agree that the available clinical evidence shows no benefit with this type of treatment. Nevertheless, at least in the US, glucosamine and chondroitin are sold as food supplements and not drugs. Furthermore at least a few physicians recommend this therapy to their patients. Hence this therapy is currently used by a number of patients who are not in clinical trials. Therefore I think it is appropriate that the scope of this article include both the clinical trials (it doesn't work) and its current "nutraceutical " (nevertheless patients continue to take it) use. Boghog (talk) 21:13, 2 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding the appropriateness of the page name: The lead currently regards efficacy, reviews and recommendations (ie "treatment" "use"?). It does not actually mention any "clinical trials". 86.134.200.29 (talk) 09:14, 3 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

@ IP - the text of the article does talk about clinical trials and primary research.

Boghog If the article's title were "Glycosaminoglycan arthritis therapy" or "glycosaminoglycans for the treatment of arthritis" then someone might be tempted to put useful health information in the article, which was something I was hoping to avoid. I was trying to use the term "clinical trials" as a signal to indicate that all the information contained in the article would be useless for guiding health decisions, and that this would be a good place to post sources which would be inappropriate outside the context of a discussion of research. I do not mean to press the issue about this article specifically, but I might like to hear any other thoughts you have about best practices for doing this generally. Do you want this article to contain both health and research information, or just research information? If this were just a research article, can you suggest a titling scheme to indicate that this or any like article is a review of the clinical trials on a topic, and ought not actually be the place to summarize the health conclusions of the research? Blue Rasberry (talk) 11:50, 3 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Bluerasberry I don't think it's feasible to split health research information from health information in the context of evidence-based medicine. The fact that the lead currently focuses (broadly in the spirit of WP:LEAD) on questions of efficacy, recommendations, etc is perhaps indicative of the intrinsic difficulties of such an approach. While I agree there is a case for Wikipedia providing more information than it does at present regarding the research history of major clinical trials, I'm not sure this is an appropriate way to do that (in preference, say, to summary style). Hum, perhaps Clinical research or evidence...? 86.134.200.29 (talk) 12:41, 3 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

We already have made commitments to have some separation of research and treatment. In MEDMOS there is a section for "research", and what happened in these glycosaminoglycan articles was that the research sections became so long and were being replicated in enough different places that it made sense to fork these sections from each article and merge them into one new article. Evidence-based medicine follows decades of outdated evidence, and for many drugs and procedures, this outdated or dead end research could be summarized in a clinical research article like this one. Especially in alternative medicine there is a community which likes to review the old research, and I was hoping that forking the research from the health information would circumvent controversy while creating a place for people to host information from medical journals which is noncompliant with WP:MEDRS but still aligned with WP:RS. Blue Rasberry (talk) 13:26, 3 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Hum, yes, it's a delicate question I agree. I suppose "Research" can be understood in two ways: as ongoing research (per the MEDMOS usage?); or as the history of the research, ie how the evidence-base was built (another legitimate topic, imo). 86.134.200.29 (talk) 18:11, 3 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

It's on their main page today. Subscription only, but if you google the title "Cancer Research UK Working to Improve Info on Wikipedia" you should be able to access it. Wiki CRUK John (talk) 13:21, 2 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, I am a somewhat new editor and had never encountered problems before. On Sensory Processing Disorder problems have surged concerning terminology. I followed some steps on Wikipedia:Dispute resolution but has not seemed to work. I would like some advice on how to proceed. Thanks Chibs007 (talk) 21:02, 2 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Hmmm. This is the first time I've become aware of that article, and my reaction is that it might not pay to get people from this WikiProject involved in it, because the article seems rather dubious in a number of respects. Looie496 (talk) 02:13, 3 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Hmmm indeed. See too these associated articles:

• Diagnostic Classification of Mental Health and Developmental Disorders of Infancy and Early Childhood (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch
• Zero to Three (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch

Thanks. Indeed the terminology I followed for the page comes from the DC:0-3R. Apparently the editor that wanted to create the changes opted undo a previous merge and create a full new page, Sensory Integration Dysfunction to avoid conflict. If I took many important resources from this project I apologize. I was suggested to ask for help here, maybe it was innadequate. Will try other options.

Chibs007 (talk) 16:19, 3 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, but what is the DC:0-3R? Alexbrn ^{talk|contribs|COI} 19:31, 3 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

It's mentioned above -- the Diagnostic Classification of Mental Health and Developmental Disorders of Infancy and Early Childhood. Looie496 (talk) 21:55, 3 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, I should have been clearer: is it a good, recognized source? Its current article doesn't make it appear so. Alexbrn ^{talk|contribs|COI} 01:03, 4 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

To answer my own quesion: yes - PMID 21142337. The article was just lacking backbone. Incidentally, there seems to be a link to a scan of the entire manual hosted on a US .gov domain. How's that work in copyright/permissions terms? Alexbrn ^{talk|contribs|COI} 02:39, 4 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Oh! Important question indeed. It is a good source. I don't think a link to a full scan is ok with copyright. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Chibs007 (talk • contribs) 03:14, 4 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Just came across this article. Interesting topic, but article is full of primary, etc and needs ProjectMedicine love. [Mesoamerican nephropathy]]. Jytdog (talk) 19:26, 3 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I just created Wikipedia:Wikicredit to keep a record of the ongoing byline for contributors trial started from the recent discussion in this forum and as a place to list any other projects to give more credit to Wikimedia contributors. Blue Rasberry (talk) 19:46, 3 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

WikiTrust, although defunct, is potential relevant to this discussion. Boghog (talk) 20:31, 3 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, I added that too. Blue Rasberry (talk) 20:50, 3 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Wonderful, thanks Blue. We are discussing the creation of a gadget to allow people to op-out. Hoping to get User:RexxS to build it :-) Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 04:34, 4 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Just a note, it is longstanding practice that wikipedia articles not have bylines and the place to change that practice is a discussion which is widely representative of community members, not a specific project. That discussion appears to be here and is ongoing. Protonk (talk) 13:52, 4 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

We have consensus to run this locally on a number of articles related to this project per the link provided by Blue Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 14:33, 4 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I think that pretty handily oversteps the bounds of what a project covers. Protonk (talk) 14:37, 4 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

While concerns were raised. We are now testing the concerns on medical articles to see if they are legitimate.Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 14:41, 4 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]