Talk:Menstrual cycle

Featured article review needed

This is a Featured article that was promoted in 2004 and last reviewed in 2008 that has not been maintained to WP:WIAFA standards. At the time of its last review, it was 3,200 words of readable prose, but is not at 6,000 words, so a good deal of the text in the article has not been vetted in a content review process. There is considerable uncited text, and sourcing that does not comply with WP:MEDDATE. There are maintenance and citation problems evident throughout: sample, in the "Mate choice" section, the same dated book is cited multiple times (repeated) with page ranges that are too broad for verification. In fact, that same book is used extensively throughout the article, again, with page ranges too broad for verification and raising concern about UNDUE. There are short stubby sections. Some of the content does not stay tightly focused (sample, birth control). Acronyms are defined multiple times throughout the article, but then not used. Why is the "Other interventions" section hanging out there alone? "Other" relative to what? The society and culture section could be a tighter summary of the main article. Sample problems are found throughout, suggesting a top-to-bottom review and rewrite is needed, sample: Studies investigating effects of the menstrual cycle on alcohol consumption have found mixed evidence.[79] However, some evidence suggests that individuals consume more alcohol during the luteal stage, especially if these individuals are heavy drinkers or have a family history of alcohol abuse.[73] The first sentence can be tightened and the second is cited to a 2010 theory. A Featured article review to re-assess this article should be initiated. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:40, 24 January 2021 (UTC)

Readability issues

Often readers don't go past the first few paragraphs. I'd like to see improvements to the first few paragraphs to appeal to the average reader. Hopefully, the answer to the question "What is a menstrual cycle?" is presented right away in a clear and concise manner. I see a "readability" problem and so ran the lead through the Hemingway App. The readability report was "post-graduate," meaning one needs more than a college education to be able to understand the information. Of the 16 sentences, 11 were categorized as "very hard to read." Two were categorized as "hard to read." That means only 3 of the sentences were written for the average reader. A "readability" edit could improve the whole article. What about starting with just the lead? Then the authors could see if they agree that a readability edit would help. The goal is to improve clarity and conciseness without sacrificing accuracy.PlanetCare (talk) 02:45, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

Thanks. I am a bit confused how the featured article review process work. Should any comments about the article be posted there rather than here for now? @User:SandyGeorgia, please advise? EMsmile (talk) 03:13, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

Generally, once a Featured article review is open, anything relating to the criteria at WP:WIAFA should go there to be addressed. That said, I don’t think it helpful for this comment to go there. That this lead is dreadful is one thing; but none of those canned programs that assess readability are worth the paper they are printed on. We’ve had many discussions about this at WT:MED, but I’m sorry to say I don’t know how to point you to that information. At any rate, the readability of this lead is not anywhere near the main issue at the FAR; unless this article is seriously upgraded, it is not anywhere near FA level (and never really has been). The amount of work to be done here is in the body of the article— fixing the lead is usually best left ‘til last. Regards, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:16, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

the discussion that you had in mind is probably this one here, found it in the archive of the WikiProject Medicine talk pages. It was a discussion that I had started. See here. I agree with you that the lead won't be the main problem of this article but I agree with PlanetCare that she points out a flaw. If she decides to look at the lead first, this is perfectly valid. I think leads are often left to last for improvement and often are not improved in the end - which is ironic because it's the first thing the readers read (and often the only thing). But yes, the featured article review looks at other things first, I understand that. Anyhow, if there are people watching this page who want to work on the readability of this article (or just the lead), I would welcome that. If they want to use tools to identify which sentences most likely need improvement then that's up to them. If the tools are used with the right amount of brainpower and own thinking they can be useful. If they are used blindly, they are not (of course). EMsmile (talk) 10:37, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

I understand the point that maybe the lead isn't part off the current review. I "write to be read" and believe that it doesn't matter how good the rest of the article is if the reader doesn't get that far. I will happily work on other articles if the concensus is that there shouldn't be any work done on the lead.PlanetCare (talk) 14:05, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

The lead needs work, and if that’s what you want to work on, please do ! I was only pointing out that the readability tools aren’t very useful, and that the problems in this article are apparent at any rate, and go beyond the lead. That is, re-writing the lead isn’t sufficient to save the bronze star (although it may help our readers), and when rewriting the lead, if not keeping it in sync with the body, the article actually moves further from featured status. I didn’t mean to discourage you— just to answer the question EMSmile asked about the FAR process. Any improvement during a FAR is a good thing! SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:29, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

The overlap/distinction between this article and menstruation needs to be sorted. Similar to menstruation, the flow in this article is all wrong, as they both approach menstruation/menstrual cycle as a pathology rather than a normal part of being a woman, and they each have disorders before discussion of the basics. I have tried to repair the leads, but the problem is throughout and I can’t do a lot from an iPad while my computer is in repair. I note that ejaculation is not written as a disorder. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:02, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

I can hardly say how good it is to have some women working on this article. I've had it on my list for years because I didn't like it one bit when I read it--though I just couldn't put my finger on just why... Now that it's been pointed out to me I understand that it is treating it like a disease. I never edited the article since all of these problems that women seem to be having were so foreign to me (even though I am a woman). All the jokes about women going completely off their rocker and how they could never be president because of their "monthlies" and such. Or saying she was "on the rag" (that's a really old one) if she acted in a perfectly normal assertive sort of way. You know, acted like a man is expected to act. OK, now to whether or not the first few paragraphs are too technical to understand. I don't like the idea of dumbing our articles down too much nor do I like the idea of catering our articles to those that have only enough interest to take them beyond less than a minute of time. Here for example of an excellent piece of information written for teens:

"A period happens because of changes in hormones in the body. Hormones are chemical messengers. The ovaries release the female hormones estrogen and progesterone . These hormones cause the lining of the uterus (or womb) to build up. The built-up lining is ready for a fertilized egg to attach to and start developing. If there is no fertilized egg, the lining breaks down and bleeds. Then the same process happens all over again."

For teens and many older adults this is. But I think that we have to keep in mind that we are an encyclopedia which IMO is here to stretch peoples knowledge a tad...or a lot. Unlike most informative articles we are able to link the more technical terms which makes the more difficult wording easily understandable. And if it is only for those willing to learn something, so be it. Gandydancer (talk) 17:16, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

Sheesh, the article reads like a disease. I can’t do much, and am making even more typos than usual because my computer is in repair (seems it did not want the full cup of coffee, cream and sugar I fed it), and I am iPad typing. I have tried to clear up some of the terminology by adding extra words here in there, but my editing is ineffective and more can be done. bst, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:34, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

I am not talking about "dumbing down" anything when I suggest we improve readability. Dumbing down implies your reader is dumber than you are. I don't believe that. I believe, instead, that Wikipedia readers have come for the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. They aren't as well read on the topic as authors are, but they want to be educated. I see it as our job to write so they can understand complex concepts. It's possible. I once helped a bunch of astrophysicists revise a grant so that someone who was not an astrophysicist could understand the proposal. I asked questions like "what did you mean by this sentence?" When they explained it to me, I wrote down an alternative sentence (using their exact words) and said "Is this what you meant?" Their problem was they were writing as if their audience was a bunch of astrophysicists. They DID know how to explain complex concepts to me. Eventually, they were open to questions like, "Is this relevant to the main point you want to make?" Often that was a "Yes, I just went off on a tangent there." The whole thing was shorter not because it was dumbed down, but because it was focused.PlanetCare (talk)

PlanetCare, copyediting is welcome, but it should be done in consultation with the sources. Re this edit, have you read the source? Why did you change “many” to “some”? I believe your edits have altered the source-to-text integrity where although and only are intended and reflect what the source says. This edit summary suggests you didn’t actually read the source to understand the distinction between the many and the few relative to severity. At any rate, this article overall is so dated and has so failed to reflect recent research and has so much undue content that I think we may just be shuffling the chairs on the Titanic. It might be more productive, rather than tweaking individual sentences, to go find some high quality recent secondary sources first. Again, in an article this bad and this dated, I hesitate to get into back-and-forth (like this) on individual wording based on dated sources anyway ... the article hasn’t even been edited to reflect DSM5 yet ! Copyediting an accurate updated article for readability would be more effective than tweaking up dated wording. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:50, 23 February 2021 (UTC)

Very good point. You are right. I didn't check the source. If you think "many" is more accurate, do revert. However, there might need to be more stats offered than just the 2-28% stat so that there isn't a contradiction between "many" and 2-28%. I found another source that studied "pain" in general. Not severe pain. It says that 84.1% of women do experience some pain. (That's closer to "many" than "some" but it's pain, no severe pain) Quoting: Menstrual pain was reported by 84.1% of women, with 43.1% reporting that pain occurred during every period, and 41% reporting that pain occurred during some periods.PlanetCare (talk) 19:40, 23 February 2021 (UTC)

It's most women, last time I checked. I've made comments below that differ from the medicalization assertions. LearnerB (talk) 16:57, 25 February 2021 (UTC)

Health effects

This section needs renaming, re-ordering and moving towards the bottom of the article. Menstruation is a normal biological function and this should not read as a medical article first and foremost. It is a biology article. I would cull as many of the "unhealthy" aspects of menstruation as we can, especially those that lack decent citations and are rare. Why isn't the importance of menstruation to women's health stressed? Quite a lot of this article reads like it was written by Queen Victoria's gynaecologist. Graham Beards (talk) 18:56, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

Yep :). I remain unconvinced that this article can retain featured status, as the problems are enormous and a top-to-bottom rewrite is needed— this article has been neglected for over a decade. And the boundary/overlap between menstruation and menstrual cycle needs to be defined. It requires more work than I can take on. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:01, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

I agree. Graham Beards (talk) 19:18, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

Could someone who has a working computer (not me) move the Cycles and phases section above Health effects, so we define the thing before we start talking about dysfunction? That will mean a lit of wikilinking repair. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:48, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

• This is what the structure of the article looked like when it was last vetted at a content review process; relative to now, it appears that a TON of content has been chunked in here that actually belongs at menstruation. 23:10, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

I have done the swap to put cycles first and then health effects (which I have now renamed as "impacts"), but we actually have a really similar section on health effects also in menstruation. How can we separate the two articles more clearly? Perhaps a solution is to actually merge the two articles?? Or to move everything on health effects across to menstruation? EMsmile (talk) 00:21, 23 February 2021 (UTC)

I haven’t formed an opinion yet because the content is so bad it’s hard to know where to start ... I guess it will become more clear as/if the content is cleaned up. Regards, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:41, 23 February 2021 (UTC)

Hi all, I have a different take on the medicalization thing. See my comments below. LearnerB (talk) 20:41, 24 February 2021 (UTC)

Society and culture content (and other content) moved

I have just culled the content that was under "society and culture" and moved it to menstruation. This article here should be purely about the biological/physiological aspects, right? And the rest should be in menstruation, or? EMsmile (talk) 00:24, 23 February 2021 (UTC)

That sounds right to me, but I defer to others like Graham Beards on biology versus medicine division. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:42, 23 February 2021 (UTC)

I think all of "impacts" and "Society and culture" does not belong here and should be covered in Menstruation, which is already linked as the main article. I see no need for anything here that cannot be sourced from a decent physiology or biology textbook.Graham Beards (talk) 19:54, 23 February 2021 (UTC)

This sounds reasonable to me. I have been searching PubMed for recent reviews, and I think the focus of this article is completely wrong, as it became “medicalized” over five years ago, converting a biological concept to a pathological one, and yet those very medical portions are outdated and don’t even reflect DSM5. I see little hope that this article can retain featured status unless someone with a textbook takes on a complete rewrite, but getting the biology separated from the medical would be a good start. That is, the route to fixing this article is to take a huge pair of scissors to it. Then we are only left with the mess at menstruation, which is as bad as this mess. (This is partly why I see little utility in spending time copyediting the mess that is currently here, although I do appreciate PlanetCare’s concerns.) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:01, 23 February 2021 (UTC)

@User:SandyGeorgia I agree with you and was bold today and basically cut out the whole section on "ovulation suppression". I have moved it for now to menstruation but it needs further work there now because there is repetition there. And probably far too much detail, given that there are good sub-articles on hormonal birth control etc. The paragraph on breastfeeding was duplicated exactly the same in both articles as well. I think this article on menstrual cycle should probably solely focus on the biological aspects of menstrual cycle and then everything else should be moved to menstruation. I would advocate for moving all that content about cramps, mood swings etc. to menstruation. Basically just leaving the content about the cycle itself here, plus short links to the other relevant articles (like I have done now for ovulation suppression). I even wonder if both articles should perhaps be merged to avoid this problem of overlaps. But would take it a bit too far? EMsmile (talk) 02:27, 24 February 2021 (UTC)

I suggest our division is found right here: “The uterine cycle has three phases: menses, proliferative, secretory”. Menstrual cycle is about the *full* cycle, while menstruation covers menses— they are separate articles. We use summary style for whichever parts of menses need to be mentioned here, but that’s not much. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:42, 24 February 2021 (UTC)

Furthermore, I wonder if this article should make it clear that it is about all female mammals (with an emphasis on humans) or that it is only about female humans? This doesn't come out clearly. The first paragraph of the lead is still general, but then it focuses only on humans. I noticed also that the sections "onset and frequency" is again duplicated across both articles. I suggest we move the content from here to menstruation and only leave a very short summary here, making it clear to the readers that more information is to be found in the other article. - I have just moved the section on "evolution" to here as it struck me as a "biological" content section, and also included some information about other mammals. EMsmile (talk) 02:46, 24 February 2021 (UTC)

I suggest the older vetted version here is the best guide we’ve got— maybe not perfect, but somewhere along the line, this article lost that focus and became not tightly focused on its subject. Perhaps spend some time studying the old version to help decide what goes where ? WhatamIdoing we need you in here. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:51, 24 February 2021 (UTC)

The more I look, the more I find the same content duplicated in both articles. For example this one about the supposed synchronisation: "Among women living closely together, it was once thought that the onsets of menstruation tend to synchronize. This effect was first described in 1971, and possibly explained by the action of pheromones in 1998. Subsequent research has called this hypothesis into question.". Again the question: does it belong here or in the other article? Surely not in both articles. Which article is a reader expecting to find this sort of information? In my opinion, it belongs only into the menstruation article, not here. But this kind of duplication is EVERYWHERE with these two articles... And I don't think it's so easy to say that "menstruation" is only about the bleeding phase. Some women might have cramps just a few days before their periods start (or around the time of ovulation). So strictly speaking not during the bleeding phase. Nevertheless they would look for this kind of information as part of an article on "menstruation". Could we remodel it so that "menstrual cycle" focuses on those aspects that related to all female mammals, whereas "menstruation" focuses on humans only? Perhaps that would work. EMsmile (talk) 03:04, 24 February 2021 (UTC)

And I don't think the older version from 2008 will help us much. I see the same problems there with overlapping content to menstruation as we have now. EMsmile (talk) 03:04, 24 February 2021 (UTC)

Sorry, now I just realised that in other mammals it is called estrous cycle! Didn't know that. So this article should only be about humans then.EMsmile (talk) 03:07, 24 February 2021 (UTC)

and there is an article called menstruation (mammal). Have added it in the hatnote now. I think such a clarification is useful. EMsmile (talk) 03:15, 24 February 2021 (UTC)

I think some non-human animals – all of the great apes (maybe most primates?) and a few other species – menstruate; most mammals have estrous cycles. I think your suggested division between biology here and everything-else-in-humans over there is a workable one.

@Gandydancer, do you have an interest in this article? (I still miss @Lyrl.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:02, 24 February 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for the ping. I've been following the brilliant work here on the talk page. It is so good to see the great collaboration going on here behind the scenes. Gandydancer (talk) 12:01, 24 February 2021 (UTC)

I agree that we shouldn't over-pathologize menstruation, but, at the same time, a lot of that comes from the literature. I just looked at the more recent sources on the topic. As expected, it's still is very medicalized, with many sources commenting on the causes of menstrual symptoms and treatments for them. I know that there was an objection here and here to using "symptoms" on the menstrual cycle and menstruation pages (and so "problems" and "issues" were used in its place), but look at the literature here and here. "Symptoms" is what is overwhelmingly used. Others sources say "signs" or "effects", and fewer sources say "impacts." Even when I Googled "menstrual health effects", the word "symptoms" was used in sources. That said, I also saw the terminology "period problems" when I Googled that.

I know how our Wikipedia article defines "symptoms", but I don't think of using "symptoms" for the effects of menstruation negatively. I think of it as just a matter of fact. I think substituting "problems" and "issues" in place of it is worse and is vague.

While menstruation is a natural, biological thing, it's also often a painful, and sometimes debilitating, process. This is why menstrual leave is a topic. Experiencing a period is often not a breeze. For example, when looking at this source from the article, I think it's safe to say that most women experience menstrual cramps (which some take medicine to deal with, while others don't or don't have access to it). Many women have been open about periods in the negative sense. This occurs a lot more often than framing it as positive. So we can't just pretend that menstruation doesn't come with various negative effects and that these effects aren't tackled as things needing treatment. Even rare disorders, especially those with a Wikipedia article, should be mentioned. Women come to these articles to read about those things too. The definition of "rare" can also vary. For the "health effects" heading, we could have used "clinical significance", but "impacts" works. As for any positive effects of menstruation, if we have good sources for it, we should include those too. LearnerB (talk) 20:41, 24 February 2021 (UTC)

This article is about the cycle. The rest belongs in Menstruation. Graham Beards (talk) 20:54, 24 February 2021 (UTC)

Yeah, and you removed information about the cycle. LearnerB (talk) 16:57, 25 February 2021 (UTC)

Evolution section moved

I disagree with the move of the evolution section. Menstrual cycle is about the cyclical aspects of it. I would not go looking for evolution of menstruation in the menstrual cycle article, it feels more natural for it to be in "menstruation", IMO. Dividing these two articles into "biology" and "not biology" feels artificial. Mvolz (talk) 12:44, 24 February 2021 (UTC)

It hasn't been moved.Graham Beards (talk) 12:56, 24 February 2021 (UTC)

Err- what do you call this diff, then? https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Menstruation&type=revision&diff=1008592204&oldid=1008591757&diffmode=source Mvolz (talk) 13:05, 24 February 2021 (UTC)

Err -you should discuss this at Menstruation. Graham Beards (talk) 13:07, 24 February 2021 (UTC)

This is the most relevant discussion. Mvolz (talk) 13:13, 24 February 2021 (UTC)

Both articles are a mess, that I think we can agree on. With regard to evolution, menstruation is a part of the menstrual cycle. I don't agree with dividing the articles into biology and "non-biology", but I disagree with treating the cycle or the related menses as an illness. Graham Beards (talk) 13:24, 24 February 2021 (UTC)

In the category of non-biology, I'm thinking about things like Menstrual taboos and Menstrual products, which might merit a namecheck here, but which I don't think need to be covered in any sort of detail in an article about the cycle. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:21, 24 February 2021 (UTC)

I have a different take on the medicalization thing.

The "Impacts" material was removed, with some explanation that it doesn't belong, but look at it. Those references are about the cycle. Why clutter up the menstruation page with information about the cycle when we have an article right here about the cycle?

How can you separate the biology from the medical when the biology brings about the medical in several cases? Most women get cramps and other negative symptoms during menstruation, and some of these correlate with certain times of the cycle.

Men have a habit of acting like menstruation isn't a big deal. So, for topics like these, they say how it's just a natural part of biology and women should suck it up, shouldn't get menstrual leave, etc. Sorry, but for many women, menstruation is no walk in the park. LearnerB (talk 20:44, 24 February 2021 (UTC)

This article is about the cycle. The rest belongs in Menstruation. Graham Beards (talk) 20:50, 24 February 2021 (UTC)

I don't think it's as easy as you make it seem, Graham Beards. I do share the concern that the anonymous editor raised before you did. I think having the two articles merged into one might actually be the best solution. But if not, then we have to make sure people can find what they are looking for. So if they're looking for stuff in "menstrual cycle" and it's not there then we need to point them across to the correct place. Over time, I think the article menstruation would actually become the main article, and menstrual cycle becomes its sub-article. Previously, it was the other way around or the two articles existed side by side. EMsmile (talk) 23:58, 24 February 2021 (UTC)

Wikilinks and hatnotes do point to the other relevant articles. I think menstruation by definition is a subset of the overall topic, and we use WP:SS to summarize sub-articles to the main topic. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:08, 25 February 2021 (UTC)

I think it's the other way around: menstrual cycle is a sub-article to menstruation (in practical terms, not in theory; yes, "in theory" menstruation is one part of the menstrual cycle). Maybe it's an academic question but I think in practical life interests, people will be going to the article on menstruation to find out what they need to know (how to manage it, what side effects there are, when it starts and stops, how women in developing countries have additional issues to grapple with, menstrual taboos and so forth). The article on menstrual cycle will be more for "nerds" who want to find out which hormone kicks in exactly when, and things like that. So over time, I think the article menstruation will become the bigger, more important one. This will also be reflected in the page views. I think we are on the right track now, having trimmed "menstrual cycle" right down to the bare minimum regarding the biology of things. EMsmile (talk) 00:30, 25 February 2021 (UTC)

Excuse me, but User:Graham Beards, I did talk about the cycle. You removed information with this edit, claiming that it doesn't belong in this article when the information and its sources are mostly about the menstrual cycle. It's correct to say that some negative symptoms correlate with certain times of the cycle. Sources talk about this. So it makes sense to talk about that in the article about the cycle. It makes sense to include information about menstrual cycle disorders in this article. How do you figure that information about menstrual cycle disorders belongs at the menstruation page instead of this one?

The effort to split hairs between the cycle and menstruation as far as symptoms go is completely artificial. So I agree with User:Mvolz, who, judging by their user page, is exactly the type of editor we want working on this article. It's my understanding, from seeing User:Clayoquot around, that User:Clayoquot is another who can help at pages like this one.

If someone is going to insist on putting information and sources about the cycle in the menstruation article when that material and those sources are specifically about the cycle, then I suggest the pages be merged. I believe that User:EMsmile is on to something when suggesting a merge. That's preferable to keeping menstrual cycle information that's medical out of this article because it's medical.

It seems that there is a little opposition to reporting on the fact that menstruation is commonly a medical problem and that this correlates with phases of the cycle in different cases. But we need to accept that it is and does, as illuminated by sources, and do what is best for this article. LearnerB (talk) 16:57, 25 February 2021 (UTC)

Where did all the content go?

I am a bit confused about the editing work that you, User:Graham Beards have done here yesterday. I agree that you have cut down the article menstrual cycle but I was expecting that the removed material would make its way to menstruation or that you would at least copy it to the talk page for discussion. Is the entire text that you removed worthless, is that what you are saying? (it's possible, I can't judge yet) I am normally hesitant to completely delete stuff with a few strokes. I fully agree with moving stuff but deleting? Unless you have assessed it and it's rubbish - like the part about mating behaviour might have been rubbish, I am not sure. EMsmile (talk) 23:56, 24 February 2021 (UTC)

EMsmile you can see the reasoning behind each deletion Graham made by stepping back through the diffs, starting here, and reading the edit summaries; he deleted a lot of marginally sourced, undue material. Both articles need to be rewritten from MEDRS sources, and because this article is featured, those need to be high quality and recent.

Separately, at some point, a goal here has to be established. If this article is to retain featured status, someone needs to get their hands on a textbook and start writing about this topic; with my computer out for repair, that is not going to be me, and even if I had my computer, I don’t feel I could rewrite the biology. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:06, 25 February 2021 (UTC)

SandyGeorgia I looked at all the edit summaries by User:Graham Beards and a few times he wrote "does not belong here, belongs to menstruation". So I would expect that he moved the text blocks to there but he didn't. He completely deleted them? Or expected someone else to rescue and re-insert them? I am not talking about the section on mating behaviour, that was probably pure speculation. But I am talking about the section on cramps and other health aspects. I thought that was meant to be moved & merged (and duplication removed). No? (regarding the featured article status we can worry about that later; let's get both articles into good shape first. They probably would not retain their featured article status - but to me that is a secondary consideration) EMsmile (talk) 00:21, 25 February 2021 (UTC)

I haven’t looked closely per iPad typing, computer in repair, but my recollection was that all the sourcing was so bad there was little salveageable. If you find anything that is correctly sourced, you can copy it over from the diff, but then you have to sort out the duplication, since most of that is already covered over there. Sometimes the fastest way forward with crap articles like this is to start over; but I haven’t looked closely, as I am more concerned about salvaging this article than trying to repair that one, which is even worse. At least this article was once in good shape ... SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:27, 25 February 2021 (UTC)

Ok, makes sense. I might just wait another day or so to see if User:Graham Beards replies again. Perhaps he has looked at it all carefully and decided deletion is the best way, rather than move & merge. I had the feeling there might have been some salvageable information on cramps and pain management but will wait a bit before trying to salvage anything. EMsmile (talk) 00:33, 25 February 2021 (UTC)

Remember, nothing is ever lost on Wikipedia; it’s in a diff :). But we really need to focus on the bigger picture here, with a top-to-bottom rewrite, which will generate faster and better results than trying to repair old, poorly sourced, UNDUE and off-topic text. It’s pretty clear that we had some students plopping pet theories in here, and there doesn’t seem to have been anyone maintaining the article who understood the standards required for Wikipedia’s top content. As a former WP:FAC coordinator, a practicing professional, and the author of multiple Featured articles, Graham does ! Bst, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:38, 25 February 2021 (UTC)

Blimey - one ping would have been enough! Please remember that we live on different continents and hemispheres and I am not going to immediately respond to pings sent in the middle of the night :-) Much of the text I removed was either already covered in Menstruation, or, and more frequently, was too poorly sourced and written to be of value. If anyone disagrees, content can be salvaged from the article history. I don't think this article is going to retain its FA status, but at least we can clear up some of the mess. We have an article on menstruation, which is about menstruation and this article which is about "an essential life rhythm governed by interacting levels of progesterone, estradiol, follicular stimulating, and luteinising hormones". (Draper et al. Nature Scientific Reports 2018). I am happy to work on this article using this definition, but I don't have the time or motivation to repair both articles. If you don't agree with my approach, no problem. I have loads of other stuff to be getting on with. Graham Beards (talk) 09:49, 25 February 2021 (UTC)

No worries, I won't ping you anymore, Graham Beards. :-) (a ping for me doesn't mean I would expect an immediate response; I never expect immediate responses on talk pages; I know we are all just volunteers here with all sorts of other work pressures). I just want to be sure about two of the major sweeps (deletions) that you made. This one, where you wrote in the edit summary: "that belongs in menstruation". Which makes it sound like we should move it there, or did I misunderstand? And this one where the edit summary said: "this does not belong here - see Talk Page". So in both cases you didn't say "this is rubbish/unsourced, needs to be deleted" but I read it as saying "move this to elsewhere". Did I misunderstand? I would be happy to do the moving and merging but don't want to waste my time in case you have assessed it as rubbish / low quality and then someone else deletes it straight away from the menstruation article. - Also, personally, I am not planning to go back to text books and work on the featured article criteria at this stage. My focus is on improving what's there and making it readable, accurate and understandable for people who are looking for information. A lot of them are probably women, perhaps younger women, who are wondering what's going on in their bodies. As we are working here as a team, it's great if others can dig into the text books and pull information from there. I am just saying, we all have different roles to play in Wikipedia editing; different things that we enjoy doing. I enjoy improving and restructuring articles, working with existing content, removing duplication and making content understandable for lay persons. Others enjoy digging into the text books and writing new content. That's great. Let's collaborate and not insist on what has to be done first and what second etc. That's just my two cents worth. EMsmile (talk) 10:09, 25 February 2021 (UTC)

WRT the two examples you give. The first belongs in Menstruation because it is about delaying/preventing menses by hormonal drugs. The second "Impacts" should be covered in Menstruation but not necessarily copied directly across because of poor sourcing or prose or both. I have sources available - well in front of me - that I can use for this article; the one you say is for nerds. I don't intend to add or alter anything in Menstruation (at the moment). I am not even watching that article. You suggested somewhere above that a merger might be a solution and this is worth considering, but we don't want to merge two bad articles. For now we can use hatnotes to direct readers to the information they are seeking.Graham Beards (talk) 10:26, 25 February 2021 (UTC)

OK, thanks for the clarification. I have gone through that culled content now and incorporated some stuff in menstruation. There was also quite a lot that I felt was too detailed and with primary sources only - that content I have put up for discussion on the talk page of menstruation to see if anyone sees anything valuable here (or maybe move it to some other article). If anyone is watching the menstruation article in parallel to this one: do take a look, I think it's starting to take better shape and its structure is slowly improving as well. EMsmile (talk) 13:28, 25 February 2021 (UTC)

Did you see my suggestion below? Graham Beards (talk) 13:44, 25 February 2021 (UTC)

You removed information that is specifically about the cycle. I disagree with removing content that is about the cycle and artificially splitting content. I think we need female editors working on these two pages all the way around. Preferably those who know what's out there on the topic or who are willing to learn about it all as they go, and won't obscure just how troublesome menstruation and its cycle often are. LearnerB (talk) 17:04, 25 February 2021 (UTC)

Thank you for registering an account LearnerB. Generally, Wikipedia articles are based on what sources say, and not what one’s gender is or one’s opinions are, and we judge contributions based on how they hew to sources, not whether they were written by a male or female. The damage to this suite of articles was done equally by both, so please refrain from generalizing about editor contributions based on their gender.

More to the point, sources specifically say that disruption to daily activities occurs in a minority, so I am concerned that there may be some WP:ADVOCACY in wanting to represent a normal biological reproductive cycle as a disease. The sources state clearly that most women do not experience interruption in daily activities from menstruation, and in those that do, that would be covered in one section of the medical article at menstruation (which right now is a mess because it has no structure to separate the normal from the complications, and that article could be served by having editors consult with WP:MEDMOS for a better organization, but that is there not here). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:14, 25 February 2021 (UTC)

Hi. I've seen comments about a need for for female editors at articles like these. One editor I've seen say so is User:Gandydancer. I also saw gendered comments at #Health effects and here (after I looked around to see how effort to improve this page came along). You said, "this is the most clear example of male editing a female topic I have ever encountered on Wikipedia) to make it sound like most women have problematic periods (holy hysterics !)." I didn't mean to imply that only men had damaged the article. Sorry about that.

Yeah, menstruation disrupting daily activities occurs in a minority, but cramps and sometimes other symptoms occur in the majority. I'm saying that women are typically not without any problems because of menstruation. I'm also saying that when the sources are specifically about the cycle and the focus is not just on menstruation, I don't think that belongs in the menstruation page only. LearnerB (talk) 17:28, 25 February 2021 (UTC)

How to deal with repetition regarding onset and duration

The content on onset and duration is duplicated in this article and the menstruation article. Proposed solution: We move the content from the section "onset and duration" from menstruation to here, remove repetition and then leave just a link from the other article to here so that people know where to find this information in one central spot. I think that would be fair since onset and duration are purely "biological" aspects, aren't they (with very practical implications). EMsmile (talk) 00:24, 25 February 2021 (UTC)

IN my mind, onset and duration are about menses and belong over there. At any rate, we should be working from sources. The first step should be to get a high quality recent text book and start building from there ... worrying about which content is where is premature, when both articles need to be entirely rebuilt. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:30, 25 February 2021 (UTC)

One could equally argue that onset and duration is about menarche and menopause, i.e. the start of the menstrual cycle in a women's life and the end. And also the information about 28 days as a typical length of a menstrual cycle. In that case, it would belong into the menstrual cycle article, right? Once again, this shows that our planned delineation of the two articles has flaws. - But OK, I then suggest to move the section "onset and duration" to menstruation and leave just a link from here to here. I don't mind either way, I would just be against having it in both articles with the same level of detail and content. EMsmile (talk) 10:13, 25 February 2021 (UTC)

Again, I was bold and have cut down the section about "onset and duration" (and also renamed it). I hope you like it. My approach was to leave only the bare minimum and important key terms, like menarche, menopause, but to shift all the additional details to menstruation. I think the article is starting to take shape: only focusing on all the stuff that goes on with the hormones, follicles, eggs, tubes etc.EMsmile (talk) 12:22, 25 February 2021 (UTC)

I think you handled that in an okay way. I would have asked: How can we remove information about the onset of menstruation from the menstruation page? It belongs there. It is not a good idea at all to not have that information covered there. It's one of the main things people will be looking for when wanting information on menstruation. We can't get rid of all duplication, and Wikipedia:Content forking#Related articles says we can expect that for related articles. LearnerB (talk) 17:06, 25 February 2021 (UTC)

Suggested page move

I think we should rename this page Human reproductive cycle. The reason is the the menstrual cycle and the ovarian cycle, although concurrent, are treated in my sources as separate events. The move would allow these cycles to be described separately and will further distance this article form the more focussed Menstruation. Note that ovarian cycle back-links to this article. Graham Beards (talk) 13:26, 25 February 2021 (UTC)

Hmmm, not sure. Isn't "menstrual cycle" correct as per WP:Commonname? Also it says: The menstrual cycle comprises the ovarian and uterine cycles. How would you thus describe them separately? I am a complete lay person though, don't have much of a clue about the different terms. Would consult Wikipedia to educate myself. :-) There's an article called Female reproductive system - sounds similar but it's system, not cycle. EMsmile (talk) 13:53, 25 February 2021 (UTC)

Strictly speaking the uterine cycle is the menstrual cycle. The article already separates the two. We can leave a redirect from Menstrual cycle. Graham Beards (talk) 14:04, 25 February 2021 (UTC)

And Female reproductive system is an anatomy article. Graham Beards (talk) 14:07, 25 February 2021 (UTC)

As a source-based solution, I agree with Graham’s proposal (noting that very little of the other discussion on this page is based on how sources treat the topics). However ... Graham ... as a non-biologist, that means I am not entirely clear on the scope of the new article and would need you to be better spell out what goes here and what goes there ... SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:55, 25 February 2021 (UTC)

@Tom (LT): for another anatomy opinion ... Tom, would you mind having a glance at the entire talk page (sorry :) as we attempt to sort out this article (which had become medicalized in a negative way) from menstruation, in terms of anatomy relative to medicine? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:57, 25 February 2021 (UTC)

The article should remain titled "Menstrual cycle." That's what it's about and it's what the sources call it. Renaming can only lead to confusion and mix in things that don't need to be here. The Human reproductive system and Female reproductive system pages already exist. At this point, we should just merge the menstrual cycle and menstruation pages. LearnerB (talk) 17:11, 25 February 2021 (UTC)

Which sources are you referring to, specifically? Have you consulted textbooks? Because my searches on that topic were not very fruitful, and Graham is consulting textbooks. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:16, 25 February 2021 (UTC)