User talk:Middle 8

This user is a scientist.

This user is an acupuncturist.

This user is a humanist.

This user supports the rights of autistic people to speak for themselves.

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Archives (as yet incomplete; check the history)

Acupuncture and Biomedical Correlate

Review request for a review on the acupuncture page, first paragraph. See the Talk page, "Physical correlates of acupoints" section and "Physical correlates of acupoints, Part Two." I am concerned that an ethnocentric bias on the part of editors has prevented a simple edit. The editors stand by some very shaky references and will not accept references from the most prestigious universities in the world, including those in China. At issue, the current article reads inaccurately, "Scientific investigation has not found any histological or physiological correlates for traditional Chinese concepts such as qi, meridians and acupuncture points," and yet I have sourced numerous peer reviewed studies from reputable sources showing MRI brain activity, hemodynamic and oxygen pressure correlates. Please review, I think you will find the research interesting. TriumvirateProtean (talk) 13:33, 22 May 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the note; I've been very busy and only read it just now. I will have a look, but can't get into anything very intense for another week or so. But I will have a close look. This is an important area and we need to get it right. --Middle 8 (talk) 16:46, 27 May 2013 (UTC)

Note to self and Acuhealth aka TriumvirateProtean: believe it or not, I haven't forgotten about this, which is why I didn't archive it. Besides being occupied elsewhere, I've been waiting for good sources: not just studies, but reviews (per MEDRS). Looks like we have some now. --Middle 8 (leave me alone • talk to me • COI?) 20:09, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

Note to self re refs

Some stuff from Puhlaa to follow up. An ICON Overview on Physical Modalities for Neck Pain and Associated Disorders

And, from Puhlaa's post to TriumvirateProtean's talk page:

If you feel so inclined, here are some secondary sources that could be used to add relevant text to this section of body of the article:

• Electrical PropertiesofAcupuncture Points and Meridians: A Systematic Review
• Electrical Characterization of Acupuncture Points: Technical Issues and Challenges Ahn 2007
• Characterizing Acupuncture Stimuli Using Brain Imaging with fMRI - A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of the Literature Huang et al 2012
• How do acupuncture and moxibustion act? - Focusing on the progress in Japanese acupuncture research Kawakita et al. 2006
• Neuroanatomical basis of acupuncture treatment for some common illnesses Cheng 2009

--Middle 8 (leave me alone • talk to me • COI?) 20:15, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

Hi Middle8, I think that you would also be interested in the Evidence Map of Acupuncture that was recently published by the US Dept. of Veterans Affairs Health Services Research and Development Service. Best regards Puhlaa (talk) 22:43, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

Very interesting; it's a first-rate MEDRS and some if its findings diverge considerably from Cochrane's, usually but not always in the (+) direction, but also with more detail: they chart evidence according to both magnitude of effect and strength of evidence. Naively, I guess the different conclusions are no more and no less than results of different approaches to meta-analysis; I see no reason to suspect bias from this group (as opposed to, e.g., the NCCAM). Surprising. I'm sure some of the anti-acu POV-pushers will freak (yes, POV-pushing occurs from more than one side with alt-med, imagine that), but we follow the sources, wherever they take us. Thanks, this is a really good and interesting source. --Middle 8 (leave me alone • talk to me • COI?) 08:32, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

There were several reviews I posted last year at acupuncture and DJ was blocking any attempt at including reviews that showed efficacy with QG being the henchman. This source is authoritative and excellent presents the data. While considering the sources, we should also consider if there are 'outlier' findings, i.e. conclusions that haven't been reproduced elsewhere. Ernst, Colqhoun, Novella and other sources come to mind. I'll add a few reviews to your list when i have some time. I agree, we should follow the sources, but we also need to discern the noise from the signal. DVMt (talk) 02:09, 14 May 2014 (UTC)

ANI

There is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. Thank you. QuackGuru (talk) 04:00, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

Discretionary sanctions

Please carefully read this information:

The Arbitration Committee has authorised discretionary sanctions to be used for pages regarding pseudoscience and fringe science, a topic which you have edited. The Committee's decision is here.

Discretionary sanctions is a system of conduct regulation designed to minimize disruption to controversial topics. This means uninvolved administrators can impose sanctions for edits relating to the topic that do not adhere to the purpose of Wikipedia, our standards of behavior, or relevant policies. Administrators may impose sanctions such as editing restrictions, bans, or blocks. This message is to notify you sanctions are authorised for the topic you are editing. Before continuing to edit this topic, please familiarise yourself with the discretionary sanctions system. Don't hesitate to contact me or another editor if you have any questions.

This message is informational only and does not imply misconduct regarding your contributions to date.

The use of this particular template is required as a condition to arbitration enforcement. Text cannot be used in its place. Robert McClenon (talk) 14:30, 4 July 2014 (UTC)

Thanks; I meant why template a regular, not why template a regular. But let's keep further discussion on your page if you don't mind -- much easier for me to keep track of it that way. --Middle 8 (leave me alone • talk to me • COI?) 22:09, 4 July 2014 (UTC)

Slow edit war

1. 11:55, 12 May 2014
2. 5:40, 25 June 2014
3. 01:09, 4 July 2014
4. 23:57, 4 July 2014

It's readily apparent that you don't have consensus for this change. Don't keep inserting it. The next time you change that sentence without having sought and gained a consensus on the article talk page, you will be blocked from editing.—Kww(talk) 05:18, 5 July 2014 (UTC)

Hi Kww, thanks for the feedback. (I was in fact going to seek some for the issues QuackGuru posted yesterday at ANI, and I'll probably follow that up with you or somebody later. QG omitted a detail or two, but I may have covered them in my comments.)

Anyway, looking at the these edits:

1) 11:55, 12 May 2014:

This was about WP:ASSERT, i.e. whether to assert something as fact or attribute it. Hence "TCM is "fraught with pseudoscience"..." ==> "TCM has been described as "fraught with pseudoscience." Lots and lots of discussion about this happened at the TCM article and some at Acupuncture. I posted a detailed argument for the edit here:

Talk:Acupuncture/Archive_13#More_re_TCM_.26_pseudoscience_wording

There was no response and no reversion, so WP:SILENCE was a fair inference. The edit stuck, and attribution wording persisted to edit #2 below, and remains in the current version of the article. (I don't remember why I also deleted the "with no valid mechanism of action for the majority of its treatments", but as you can see, somebody else restored it, which I didn't contest.)

2) 5:40, 25 June 2014:

Like the ES says, better prose - "characterized" as opposed to usual fallback "stated. Start of a WP:BRD cycle. Stuck until (I just discovered) QuackGuru's edit of 03:06, 29 June 2014. I don't think anyone discussed either my edit #2 or QuackGuru's reversion of it on talk; we were occupied with other matters.

3) 01:09, 4 July 2014:

Rebooted BRD cycle from #2, having seen no objection on talk. Had no idea when or why it had disappeared at the time. I don't think this was disruptive in the least.

At this point the "revert" part of the BRD cycle does kick in, with [1] from Roxy the dog. He leaves a vague ES (basically, "because NPOV"), and since he typically responds minimally if at all on talk, I go to his talk page. His ES is vague (basically, "because NPOV"), and he reveals nothing more when asked. I then go to Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Words to watch to get some idea about WP:WTA (which discussion I later move to Talk:Acupuncture, and then....

4) 23:57, 4 July 2014:

I make my best guess at a second round of BRD. Discussion continues apace at Talk:Acupuncture#"Stated it is X", "described it as X".

I am not without clue, Kww. All this is good, proper stuff...

Wikiquette suggestion: Instead of saying what you said (which was curt to the point of rudeness as an introduction), say something like: "These look like persistent low-level edit warring. This is exactly the kind of thing that editors get banned for per discretionary sanctions. Please don't make further such edits without making sure you have consensus." We're all mature, reasonably intelligent adults until proven otherwise, and FWIW (not to advocate ageism, just a bit of perspective), I'm about your age, with a good level of education and life experience. I would never speak this way to someone in real life, nor online unless I were having a bad day. Which I realize you may be having, in which case don't worry about it. :-) --Middle 8 (leave me alone • talk to me • COI?) 16:51, 5 July 2014 (UTC)

I do not need a lecture on Wikiquette. From experience, I have found that polite warnings can be misconstrued as suggestions. I was making a warning. I will repeat it: if you change that sentence again without having sought and gained consensus on the talk page for your change, I will block you from editing.—Kww(talk) 19:33, 5 July 2014 (UTC)