User talk:Bon courage

“The thing that it's about for me – what it's really about, is just ... really sweet people, er, there are all these really sweet people who are ... they just get online and they are typing and instead of yelling at each other or just having a conversation or reading about gossip or whatever, they're trying to build something that everybody else will find useful. I just think it's really sweet. Really nice people.” — Jimbo Wales

Massive deletion of long-standing section on major article

Hello Alexbrn. You recently performed a massive deletion of t'ai chi ch'uan's health section without any discussion. Your action is likely to result in an edit war, which is already starting between you and OtterSmith. I would thus request that you revert such a volatile edit & open discussion(s) on t'ai chi ch'uan's talk page and/or the WP:WPMA talk page in reference to your opposition of what is written. Thanks. ~ InferKNOX (talk) 12:07, 28 December 2013 (UTC)

Hi! There's a section at WP:FT/N on this. The removed content was out-dated, superseded, or poorly-sourced health information by the criteria of WP:MEDRS (and so making some dubious claims) so I don't believe there's anything controversial in removing it is there? Alexbrn ^{talk|contribs|COI} 12:20, 28 December 2013 (UTC)

I will take my discussion there then. ~ InferKNOX (talk) 12:46, 28 December 2013 (UTC)

Re: Brownie Mary

You recently deleted a large block of text from Brownie Mary, writing in the edit summary, "rm. irrelevant / SYN / non-WP:MEDRS".[1] That's odd as the source clearly says, "Susan Bro, an agency spokeswoman, said Thursday's statement resulted from a past combined review by federal drug enforcement, regulatory and research agencies that concluded "smoked marijuana has no currently accepted or proven medical use in the United States and is not an approved medical treatment"...The Food and Drug Administration statement directly contradicts a 1999 review by the Institute of Medicine, a part of the National Academy of Sciences, the nation's most prestigious scientific advisory agency. That review found marijuana to be "moderately well suited for particular conditions, such as chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting and AIDS wasting."[2] Could you please explain how this is, as you claim, "irrelevant" synthesis? More to the point, could you explain how this has anything whatsoever to do with WP:MEDRS? Finally, why did you remove the sourced contradiction but leave in the FDA's statement? I think we both know the answer. The answer is, you did not read the source, you simply deleted it without even looking at it. But let's review the points under consideration:

• The U.S. Food and Drug Administration does not currently recognize any medicinal use of cannabis and it remains classified under Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act. According to the FDA, "smoked marijuana has no currently accepted or proven medical use in the United States and is not an approved medical treatment".
  • Verified, unambiguous fact attributed to the FDA and the NYT.
• However, the FDA's position contradicts the findings published by the Institute of Medicine of the United States National Academies. The Institute of Medicine published a review of the evidence in 1999 and found that cannabis was "moderately well suited for particular conditions, such as chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting and AIDS wasting."
  • Verified, unambiguous fact attributed to the IOM and the NYT.

Now, what's so odd about this, is that you have included the FDA's position while ignoring the position reflected by the IOM. Both the FDA and the IOM position (and their contradiction) are cited by the NYT. In what appears to be a disingenuous attempt to remove this information, you claimed that it was "irrelevant". That's odd, since the material is entirely relevant to Brownie Mary's position, her legal battle, and her political campaign to legalize cannabis for medical purposes. Further, the sources on this subject have noted the relevance (Werner, C. A. (2001, March 4). "Medical Marijuana and the AIDS Crisis". J Cannabis Ther. (3/4): 17–33) According to the timeline evidence presented by Werner, the IOM study itself appears to have been funded in response to the public's anger against the federal government's attempted crackdown on medical cannabis after California passed prop. 215. The DEA and other agencies threatened to go after any physician who prescribed a Schedule I drug like cannabis. When a class action lawsuit was filed against the government in response to their draconian pronouncement, a million dollars suddenly appeared to fund IOM study that looked at the scientific evidence for medical cannabis (contrary to what the FDA claimed), the results of which are cited. The NYT cites this material in full, there is nothing synthesized. Finally, nothing here goes against WP:MEDRS. One must wonder what you were hoping to achieve by deleting relevant, reliably sourced historical facts about the FDA, the IOM, and the history of medical cannabis. Viriditas (talk) 10:48, 30 December 2013 (UTC)

Yes, nice coat rack! I've explained it on the article Talk page. Your conspiracist "wonderings" are, as usual, a waste of time for everybody. Alexbrn ^{talk|contribs|COI} 10:59, 30 December 2013 (UTC)

There is no "coatrack" and there is nothing "conspriacist" at all in the above. Perhaps you should quit stalking other editors and making false accusations. What you refer to as "conspiracist" is a paraphrase of the documented history of medical cannabis from Werner's 2001 article in the Journal of Cannabis Therapeutics. Once again, you are adept at making baseless accusations but completely unable to review and read the sources. Viriditas (talk) 03:52, 31 December 2013 (UTC)

Your conspiracism is about me, and you're doing it again ("stalking")! Anyway, I'm glad to see you've reduced the coatrack material a bit, despite the blast of hot air protesting nothing was wrong. Keep going. Alexbrn ^{talk|contribs|COI} 08:14, 31 December 2013 (UTC)

(Total stalker) Like the time, Alex, when you removed MEDRS material from the Lede to "Effects of Cannabis" because it wasn't covered in the body, while leaving stuff about liver damage from cannabis in the Lede, which also was not in the body. Then in a frantic maneuver, you inserted something about liver damage to the body in order to justify your move. You also made a lot of hot air and even threatened me with a 3RR violation, like we're in playschool or something. I had to speak up here, as I watch you accuse Viriditas while actually describing you own behaviour. NPOV is the biggest rule here, it trumps all others. I think it is important to point out that in the cannabis articles that you and Project Medicine have obsessed over for the past month, NPOV is sorely lacking and that fact should be a great concern to any Wikipedian. petrarchan47tc 21:51, 31 December 2013 (UTC)

I'm sure you're sincere. But unfortunately you're wrong. If you think something in the cannabis articles needs attention there are very many avenues to use (Talk pages, noticeboard, DR of various kinds). So why not use them? Alexbrn ^{talk|contribs|COI} 02:40, 1 January 2014 (UTC)

Please comment on Talk:Electronic cigarette

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TCM article

FYI, your comment reflects an innaccurate reading of this source.

the accurate reading
Dr. Yu (20th century) decided to do cold extraction after reading Dr. Ge (4th century) saying Artemisia shouldn't be boiled (unlike most TCM herbs). (See other two sources that clarify. [3][4])

As with GERAC (which you thought was a pro-acu coatrack) and the Howick source there (that you thought was a legitimate indictment of GERAC), you're missing details and jumping to false conclusions. Slow down a little, OK? Nobody's forcing you to comment on stuff, so there's no rush. Besides, QuackGuru gets confused enough on his own, and doesn't need help (he cited your diff above). --Middle 8 (talk) 05:22, 7 January 2014 (UTC)

I don't think I've commented on this extraction method question for a couple of weeks (I've decided it's a trivial detail not worth huge debate). I'm not sure your reading is "accurate" while mine in "inaccurate". The cited source says that after reading a description in a book she decided to try another approach after finding that "traditional methods" were damaging the actual ingredient; the other salient points here (that modern purification and detoxification processes are needed) further show different this process is from folk medicine (and I see you've been removing these details). From the Science piece you link this is perhaps pertinent too:

This insight is considered a breakthrough step toward the discovery of artemisinin by her supporters. Tu's detractors, however, point out that using ether and other low boiling point solvents to extract active ingredients from plants is standard phytochemistry.

Because - it is kind of lame propaganda to suggest that it is only because of the ancient wisdom of TCM that a researcher would think to try low-temperature extraction! The whole thing is rather ridiculous (and you have hinted with your "TCM ROX" comment). However, if you've found other sources which clarify the point then - great!

As to GERAC, the concern there (and in fact other editors raised the coat rack issue more than I did at the AfD) was the picking out of impressive-sounding details from the primaries to construct a coat rack of undue details: something which is still happening (but not for long?). Again, I've said my piece on this but decided to let it run because - nobody reads that article. Howick is good secondary commentary on GERAC and I think you misrepresent him by saying he dismisses sham controls. He does however say they are unlikely to have been useful for GERAC, as WP relates. I've been looking at his work more widely and his schtick seems to be that conducting effective trials (of any kind) is really hard in general. For GERAC Ernst, of course, also says the placebo methods used were problematic. Alexbrn ^{talk|contribs|COI} 06:39, 7 January 2014 (UTC)