Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Medicine

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List of archives

Merged Archive WikiProject Preclinical medicine: 1 Merged Archive WikiProject Clinical medicine: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 WikiProject Medicine Archives: Index, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97, 98, 99, 100, 101, 102, 103, 104, 105, 106, 107, 108, 109, 110, 111, 112, 113, 114, 115, 116, 117, 118, 119, 120, 121, 122, 123, 124, 125, 126, 127, 128, 129, 130, 131, 132, 133, 134, 135, 136, 137, 138, 139, 140, 141, 142, 143, 144, 145, 146, 147, 148, 149, 150, 151, 152, 153, 154, 155, 156, 157, 158, 159, 160, 161, 162, 163, 164, 165, 166, 167, 168, 169, 170, 171

Urolithin A

Urolithin A

Assessment and comments for this article and its Talk page. If basic-stage phytochemical research is published in Nature Medicine here, does that elevate it as MEDRS? --Zefr (talk) 23:59, 13 September 2017 (UTC)

Nope. The quality of the journal publishing is just one factor that makes a source MEDRS-compliant. Primary studies (such as "Urolithin A induces mitophagy and prolongs lifespan in C. elegans and increases muscle function in rodents") are not really what we need for biomedical claims. Nor for that matter would it be a good idea to extrapolate studies in roundworms and rats in order to draw conclusions in other lifeforms. On the plus side, the research is indexed at pmid:27400265, and it is cited in other works such as PMC5054377, but my advice would be to wait for a sober review to do some analysis before trying to use it. There's likely to be just too much hype around the idea of using pomegranates to extend lifespans. --RexxS (talk) 00:34, 14 September 2017 (UTC)

Do we actually want to make "biomedical claims" about this? Or can we give WP:DUE attention to this collection of research by saying something in a ==Research== section like "Some of the basic research around this compound has been focused on its role in mitochondria and muscle development" (or whatever that source says, when it's been reduced to plain English)? WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:55, 17 September 2017 (UTC)

agree best if mentioned in research--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 10:54, 25 September 2017 (UTC)

List of youngest birth fathers

Trimmed a bunch of really poorly source items from here. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 03:56, 23 September 2017 (UTC)

might be useful to expand the lede to this article/list[1]...IMO--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 11:13, 24 September 2017 (UTC)

Noting that I started discussion section about it at Talk:List of youngest birth fathers#Existence of this article. Permalink is here. I'm really not seeing why this article exists other than to serve as the male version of List of youngest birth mothers. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 03:03, 28 September 2017 (UTC)

Potential new articles log

Hello again. This post contains multiple questions so I have numbered them.

1. Does anyone currently use these: User:AlexNewArtBot#Biology_and_medicine (specifically, User:AlexNewArtBot/MedicineSearchResult or User:InceptionBot/NewPageSearch/Medicine/log which are filled using articles matching the regexp patterns at User:AlexNewArtBot/Medicine?
2. Has a better tool replaced it? I'm wondering because the only WikiProject Medicine page I saw linking to it (other than archives) (User:AlexNewArtBot/MedicineSearchResult) appears to be Wikipedia:WikiProject Medicine/Tasks (which itself, or part of it is reported to be transcluded at Wikipedia:WikiProject Medicine/Tools, which is what the main project's menu links to (but I still failed to see the link in the latter, interestingly)).
3. If this is still considered useful, perhaps links to these could be made more prominent (or the results transcluded on a more prominent page)?
4. I'm wondering if the project would also be interested in tracking alternative medicine using this tool. Various reports I have made here were as a result of pages reported by the WikiProject Skepticism filters which includes some alternate medicine terms (User:AlexNewArtBot/Skepticism). While that project also deals with other fringe topics and pseudoscience, it would be possible to create a rules list specific and specialized to finding new articles related to alternate medicine (alternatively, it would be possible to add related terms to the existing main medicine rules). Of course, this also depends on if the project is interested in tracking new alternative medicine article creations.

Thanks, —PaleoNeonate – 09:04, 24 September 2017 (UTC)

tracking alternative medicine using this tool... might be useful, though you'd need more opinions--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 10:49, 25 September 2017 (UTC)

I have used those lists in the past, but not for more than a year. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:11, 25 September 2017 (UTC)

Rajesh Shah

This article about a homeopath has seen its fair share of deletion discussions and controversial editing. The article contains several unsourced claims and other possibly controversial medical statements, that are solely based on Shah's own research and publications. It would be great, if an interested topic expert could look through the article to evaluate its claims and the used sources. GermanJoe (talk) 20:27, 24 September 2017 (UTC)

I have AfD'd it with a request to salt. Alexbrn (talk) 05:47, 25 September 2017 (UTC)

Draft:Anita Madnani

• Draft:Anita Madnani (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

Recent altmed BLP draft: "color therapist, homeopathic practitioner and a motivational speaker". —PaleoNeonate – 07:22, 25 September 2017 (UTC)

barely meets Wikipedia:Notability--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 00:29, 26 September 2017 (UTC)

Link to the site "drug-key"

Is anyone familiar with this site? I just noticed that an editor added it as an external link to one of the articles. http://www.drugskey.com/gabapin-nt-tablet-uses-side-effects-interactions-dosage/

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Gabapentin&type=revision&diff=802353199&oldid=801462474

Thanks, JenOttawa (talk) 17:01, 25 September 2017 (UTC)

Sets off a few warning alarms: "The tablet shows its effectiveness in a period of one week and one month", "Gabapin Nt Tablet can be interacted with the following drugs", "Keep the medicines reach out of children". So a bit short on proofreading. The page was created on 29 September 2016, so it's rather new, but old enough for someone to have caught the typos if it was well used. The publisher points to some messed-up facebook page. The generator is "WordPress 4.7.3". All of it is on http: rather than a secure protocol. Taken together, it doesn't inspire me to view it as a site that has "a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy" as WP:RS would wish us to use. --RexxS (talk) 19:02, 25 September 2017 (UTC)

User:JenOttawa good catch. Typical spamming by a user with a COI. Delete and warn. If continues let me know. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 22:48, 25 September 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for the feedback User: Doc James and User: RexxS. Was reverted by another dedicated editor a few hrs later. I enjoy learning and being part of this community. JenOttawa (talk) 14:13, 26 September 2017 (UTC)

Women in Red: October focus on healthcare

		Welcome to Women in Red's October 2017 worldwide online editathons. New: [[Wikipedia:WikiProject Women in Red/Meetup/57|"Women and disability"]] [[Wikipedia:WikiProject Women in Red/Meetup/58|"Healthcare"]] [[Wikipedia:WikiProject Women in Red/Meetup/59|"Geofocus on the Nordic countries"]] Continuing: [[Wikipedia:WikiProject Women in Red/Meetup/00|#1day1woman Global Initiative]] Begin preparing for November's big event: [[Wikipedia:WikiProject Women in Red/The World Contest|Women World Contest]]
		(To subscribe: Women in Red/English language mailing list and Women in Red/international list. Unsubscribe: Women in Red/Opt-out list)

--Ipigott (talk) 18:39, 25 September 2017 (UTC)

good info, thank you--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 19:38, 25 September 2017 (UTC)

MACI and Maci

Hi all! Does anyone have a clue whether MACI and Maci (medical treatment) might not perchance be about the same thing? Their unpronounceably long names (when not abbreviated) are different but the topics look suspiciously similar. – Uanfala 18:48, 25 September 2017 (UTC)

And than we have

• Autologous matrix-induced chondrogenesis
• Autologous chondrocyte implantation
• Knee cartilage replacement therapy
• Microfracture surgery

Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 22:46, 25 September 2017 (UTC)

Medical identification tags

Can anyone get a photo of a typical/metal medical alert bracelet for Medical identification tag? WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:59, 27 September 2017 (UTC)

Note: If finding one of a common MedicAlert one, it could serve for both . I have searched on commons without success. —PaleoNeonate – 06:15, 27 September 2017 (UTC)

We're a pretty big group. I figure that there's got to be someone here who owns such a tag, or who has a friend or family member who wouldn't mind a quick snapshot of theirs (the non-personally-identifying parts, please). WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:07, 27 September 2017 (UTC)

I have a friend who has a bracelet, so I've photographed that and uploaded three images to Commons. It's really hard to stop the light from reflecting and bleaching out part of the engraving, but these are hopefully readable at a useable size:

See what you think. --RexxS (talk) 17:37, 27 September 2017 (UTC)

Thanks! I've added the first to Medical identification tag.

I've also checked the refs, and 100% were either links to websites selling these or obviously unreliable (e.g., the link to an Amazon product review by someone claiming to be a nurse), so I've removed them all. The content itself doesn't look wrong or promotional, but now it needs WP:Independent sources. User:Bluerasberry, do you know whether Consumer Reports or a similar independent group has written anything about this subject? I don't realistically expect it to be a hot topic in biomedical research. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:37, 27 September 2017 (UTC)

Answer: Yes, they did: PMID 27197313. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:34, 28 September 2017 (UTC)

Novel substance use disorders?

Alxlopz1999 has created several new pages on substance use disorders. Are these actually diagnosable conditions?

• Sedative, hypnotic, or anxiolytic use disorder
• Phencyclidine use disorder
• Other hallucinogen use disorder

Sizeofint (talk) 06:42, 27 September 2017 (UTC)

Yes, they are categories taken from the DSM-5. But the articles don't even say that -- I suspect they were created for the purpose of advertising a particular web site (which is not a WP:MEDRS source). Looie496 (talk) 17:09, 27 September 2017 (UTC)

And the website currently does not appear to work. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 22:02, 27 September 2017 (UTC)

It does, but not when accessed using those links. Looie496 (talk) 00:18, 28 September 2017 (UTC)

Given the small amount of content, should we redirect to substance use disorder? Sizeofint (talk) 05:51, 28 September 2017 (UTC)

Yes I think that is the best approach Sizeofint.Charlotte135 (talk) 08:42, 28 September 2017 (UTC)

 Done Sizeofint (talk) 00:05, 29 September 2017 (UTC)

Posterior ischemic optic neuropathy

have been doing MEDMOS, MEDRS, infobox etc, (mainly stubs)... however stumbled upon above article and would prefer some assistance w/ it, thank you--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 18:58, 28 September 2017 (UTC)

WOW Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 06:31, 29 September 2017 (UTC)

Meg's Patterson's Neuro-electric Therapy

• Meg Patterson (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

Some debate about the legitimacy of this electric shock treatment to cure drug addiction, whether it is ensdorsed by the NHS, is pseudoscience, quackery, etc. More eyes would help. (Also posted at WP:FT/N). Alexbrn (talk) 10:13, 30 September 2017 (UTC)

[2]is what came up(1995)--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 09:42, 1 October 2017 (UTC)

Thanks! Commented on the article's Talk page ... Alexbrn (talk) 08:35, 3 October 2017 (UTC)

Sources for lack of evidence

Unfounded health claims are regularly made, and people come to Wikipedia to check them. Most discussions of fads suffer from a lack of of genuine scientific evidence, which is bad for the public understanding of science, and some fads even harm public health. It would be good to have reliable sources for statements like "As of January 2017, no good clinical evidence for this claim has been published" or "The two studies frequently cited in support of this claim both had major flaws, which...". Could we as ask the Cochrane Foundation (Wikipedia:Cochrane, Wikipedia:Cochrane_Collaboration/Cochrane_UK) to publish such statements? For a researcher in a field, an authoritative statement that there is currently no adequate evidence of X would presumably be fairly easy to make. In some cases, they might even be able to give an expert view of the plausibility of claims. HLHJ (talk) 16:05, 30 September 2017 (UTC)

This is a very important question The short answer is yes. EBM language has a lot of false friend vocabulary which readers mistake: see recently at Talk:Meg Patterson for the common misconception that "more research is needed" is a phrase that offers some kind of validation. I'm a big fan of the way Edzard Ernst glosses EBMeze, for example saying the text[3]

the notion that CST is associated with more than non-specific effects is not based on evidence from rigorous randomised clinical trials

is

... a polite and scientific way of saying that CST is bogus.

With the Web of today, lay readers now read EBM materials. I wish the authors would consider their conclusions are sometimes read by scared people with credit card in hand wondering whether to pay for a fringe "therapy". Alexbrn (talk) 16:22, 30 September 2017 (UTC)

Thanks, Alexbrn. I made you an article on more research is needed. Abstruse academic language is a separate issue, but I remember once reading a sentence in a published and presumably peer-reviewed case study three times before realizing that it meant "The patient died". The authors were clearly not happy that their patient had died. Your example, on the other hand, retreats into dry, detached, unemotional, abstruse language to deal with conflict. I think open access will make the ability to read academic English much more common. Sadly, marketing dressed up in academic language will probably become more common, too. — Preceding unsigned comment added by HLHJ (talk • contribs) 18:22, 1 October 2017 (UTC)

Oh, I love this new article. HLHJ, is there any chance that there's more to be said on the subject? If we can get it up to 1,500 (readable) characters, which would be about a 50% expansion, then it could be sent to WP:DYK and run on the Main Page. It's really a "hooky" subject, so it might be fun. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:46, 1 October 2017 (UTC)

Thank you, WhatamIdoing. I'll reply on Talk:Further research is needed. HLHJ (talk)

At Jytdog's request I am removing the RfC as clutter. I hope you won't pity me for feeling fallible, Jytdog. HLHJ (talk) 23:02, 1 October 2017 (UTC)

Sources about PTSD and abortion

Which of these two refs should we be citing about the risk of PTSD for women who have abortions?

• Bellieni, CV; Buonocore, G (July 2013). "Abortion and subsequent mental health: Review of the literature". Psychiatry and clinical neurosciences. 67 (5): 301–10. PMID 23859662.
• Horvath, S; Schreiber, CA (14 September 2017). "Unintended Pregnancy, Induced Abortion, and Mental Health". Current psychiatry reports. 19 (11): 77. doi:10.1007/s11920-017-0832-4. PMID 28905259.

Please read them both (I can send them to you - just email me), and please note that Bellieni is a member of the Pontifical Academy for Life, who has also published on fetal pain, arguing that it starts at 20 weeks (PMID 22023261) a date that has become a focal point for anti-abortion state legislation drafted by the National Right to Life Committee and passed in around 12 states as of 2013 as described in this NYT article and PMID 22976403.

-- Jytdog (talk) 08:26, 1 October 2017 (UTC)

• The Horvath/Schreiber one is more recent, so that's an argument for preferring it, as is the history of bias on the part of the lead author of the other one. Some other recent reviews on this subject include this recent review with a negative conclusion and this older one (from 2013) with a more mixed conclusion (though there were some critical letters published in response to this latter review). Everymorning (talk) 20:09, 1 October 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for those refs! Have requested the Clinics one; am looking forward to seeing what it says. 2 reviews from this year would be great. Jytdog (talk) 07:00, 2 October 2017 (UTC)

• Two thoughts:
  1. First, before looking at the papers: Is there some reason not to cite both, even if most individual editors disagree with the POVs in one or both of the reviews? I thought that the mainstream consensus was that there are no simple answers. The rate of PTSD presumably depends not just on the procedure, but also on cultural factors, your social situation, and individual issues, such as whether your mother-in-law wants to murder you because she unfairly blames you (and not her son) for conceiving a girl. Which reminds me: In keeping with the educational needs of a global encyclopedia, most of our articles related to this subject should probably be pointing out that the sex of a baby is determined by the father rather than the mother. That's almost "the sky is blue" for those of us who know a thing or two about genetics, but maybe making this fact easier to find could result in fewer murdered mothers. (And if you know any lawmakers in India, then maybe those ubiquitous signs at ultrasound clinics could be updated to say "Sex determination testing is illegal, and, anyway, it's entirely your husband's fault if you conceived a girl.")
  2. After, looking at the papers: I went into this biased in favor of the newer one, but is that second one actually a review? PubMed's labels aren't perfect. The abstract says, "The Turnaway Study prospectively enrolled 956 women seeking abortion in the USA and followed their mental health outcomes for 5 years. The control group was comprised of women denied abortions based on gestational age limits", which sounds very much like an original experimental study. I'm sure that scientists will argue over whether the kind of woman who sought an abortion at >20 weeks is sufficiently similar to a woman who had the money, resources, organizational skills, prompt recognition of pregnancy, decisiveness, etc., to be able to obtain an abortion at a median of 7 weeks, but for our purposes, comparing a thousand individual women over the course of five years doesn't sound like a review article. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:11, 1 October 2017 (UTC)

Yes there is a reason not to use pro-life propaganda in Wikipedia. There are discretionary sanctions on abortion topics. Yes, the second is a review; it discusses the 19 primary sources in Table 1 from the Turnaway study. Jytdog (talk) 21:15, 1 October 2017 (UTC)

Summarizing all the publications from one (1) clinical trial is not exactly what we mean by "a review". The point behind a review is to combine multiple, unrelated studies – ideally even sources that happen outside of the US. Following the Least publishable unit theory and then collecting all of your own previously published work into a single report doesn't really meet the spirit of MEDRS' call for relying on secondary sources. I'm not saying that it's unreliable for all purposes, but you couldn't really use it to say "the rate of PTSD after an abortion is X%"; you could only use it to say "In one study, the rate of PTSD among American women who sought abortions but were denied because the clinic said the pregnancy was too advanced was X%, compared to American women who sought abortions at those same clinics at an earlier stage in the pregnancy."

Are there no other sources on this subject? WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:43, 2 October 2017 (UTC)

WAID. That source and the higher quality older ones talk about the difficulty of confounders and how conclusions drawn from studies done in the past are tenative at best due to the confounders; the Turnaway study is the first study that was designed to actually address them and was very well powered. It is immensely important. The Horvath paper is a review that discusses the older studies as well as that one. If you need the source I can send it to you; it is not clear to me that you have actually read it yet. Jytdog (talk) 22:30, 2 October 2017 (UTC)

Creating a Public Domain tag for medical images taken in the US

As per Compendium: Chapter 300 by the US Copyright Office, "the Office will not register works produced by a machine or mere mechanical process that operates randomly or automatically without any creative input or intervention from a human author." including "Medical imaging produced by x-rays, ultrasounds, magnetic resonance imaging, or other diagnostic equipment." I've updated the Meta:Copyright of X-Ray Images page with this information, and I've also made a request at Wikimedia Commons to make a Public Domain tag specifically to mark such works: Commons:Village pump/Copyright#Creating {{PD-US-Medical imaging}}. Please add your opinion there. Mikael Häggström (talk) 18:38, 1 October 2017 (UTC)

more opinions(gave mine[4])--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 10:49, 3 October 2017 (UTC)

There are two separate issues, copyright and consent. We should not be mixing them. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 23:46, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

Ear pain

This article came to my attention because of a discussion on the Science Reference Desk. It is full of unsourced and rather dubious claims. What is worse, this is the sort of article I can easily imagine readers who experience the problem turning to for information. Unfortunately it's not a topic I know much about. Looie496 (talk) 15:21, 2 October 2017 (UTC)

will look--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 22:54, 2 October 2017 (UTC)

To mouse or not to mouse

In the spirit of a bar bet, if you're editing remotely (e.g., if you take your laptop to a café), do you take an external mouse and mousepad with you?

I'm hearing that Wikipedia editors in at least some countries do this, but I can't remember the last time I saw someone using a mouse (away from a desk), much less taking a mousepad along. What do you think? Am I just not going to the right places? WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:18, 2 October 2017 (UTC)

Because touchpads are suboptimal, I do bring a small portable mouse around, but no pad. This reminds me that I should replace my dead trackball which is even better (small, no need for a surface, more efficient than touchpads). But I don't think that I really see people with a mouse and pad in cafes. Even netbooks and laptops are rare versus pads and phones. —PaleoNeonate – 22:55, 2 October 2017 (UTC)

Always mouse. I usually find myself using my laptop at events I'm training at, so not only do I take a wireless mouse for my laptop, I take a spare wireless mouse + dongle because there's always one new editor who has borrowed a laptop and finds they can't work the touchpad (or worse, the tiny joystick that some have). --RexxS (talk) 02:26, 3 October 2017 (UTC)

Generally I use a touchpad with a laptop, but if I'm travelling with my laptop I take a wired mouse. Sometimes at home when something is Really Wrong with Wikipedia, I need to decamp to the desktop machine (3 screens & big clicky keyboard) ;-) Alexbrn (talk) 08:40, 3 October 2017 (UTC)

When I was in grad school (a few years ago) some of my classmates used wireless mice with their laptops (no mousepads), but that was most common among the second-career folks. I've occasionally carried along a wireless mouse when I knew I'd be doing a lot of graphics work (especially after I bought a Magic Mouse) or when the switch(es) for clicking started to get flakey on an older laptop—the tap-to-click thing has never consistently worked for me. —Shelley V. Adams ‹blame
credit› 16:40, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

Who doesn't use a wireless mouse when working on a laptop nowadays? Also, I hate mouse pads. Seppi333 (Insert 2¢) 22:19, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

Laetrile in userspace

User:Paul61485 is a single-subject editor who has not edited since 2010; he has left a couple of draft articles in his userspace about laetrile and a biochemist who promoted it. I know nothing of this topic and its history on Wikipedia; would anyone here know if Db-repost would be appropriate? HLHJ (talk) 01:11, 3 October 2017 (UTC)

[5]and [6]--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 01:18, 3 October 2017 (UTC)

• Ernst T. Krebs exists, so I see no need for User:Paul61485/Krebs
• Amygdalin#Laetrile exists so there is no need for User:Paul61485/Laetrile Jytdog (talk) 01:22, 3 October 2017 (UTC)

Merge Phytomedicine with Herbalism?

Review and comments here. --Zefr (talk) 19:44, 3 October 2017 (UTC)

• more opinions(gave mine)--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 10:53, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

Too technical (perhaps)

This article is only one sentence long and has been tagged as too technical. I've noticed that tag a lot just lately but anyway I digress because my main concern is that the subject title is a phrase coined by the authors of the supporting ref (PMC4451469); "This makes the present case the first of its kind in the literature, and it has resulted in the coining of the term Dahan's syndrome." I am not sure what to make of that, unless there is a special case that I am not aware of, I would think it might not pass notability. CV9933 (talk) 21:46, 3 October 2017 (UTC)

[7]editor worked only on that article...SPA?--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 22:28, 3 October 2017 (UTC)

Health in Cuba vs Healthcare in Cuba

Hi! I had someone ask me about the articles Health in Cuba and Healthcare in Cuba. They were worried that the articles need to be merged, since they discuss almost the same topic. I wanted to ask about this here since I didn't know if there was a difference between the two articles that I didn't pick up on. I know that health could be more about the general health and healthcare be more about how health is treated, but I wasn't sure. Shalor (Wiki Ed) (talk) 14:37, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

Yes, I would expect Health in Cuba to be about the health of the population, notable health issues, life expectancy, etc. Healthcare in Cuba should be able the healthcare industry. Natureium (talk) 15:36, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

Should MDMA state it has no medical uses in the lead paragraph?

MDMA

Please offer your thoughts.

• Talk:MDMA#Non-use_in_first_paragraph
• Talk:MDMA#Coherent_article_prose

Sizeofint (talk) 20:15, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

opinions needed(gave mine[8])--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 10:47, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

Research

On Wikipedia and medicine published by someone here[9] Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 23:07, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

very useful information obtained--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 10:35, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

Mahendra Shah

• Draft:Mahendra Shah (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

Shah is the President and founder of Zen Resort Bali, established in 2004. The resort is renowned for its authentic ayurveda, yoga, meditation, harmony diving all adapted and relevant to the health and wellbeing challenges of modern lifestyles.. —PaleoNeonate – 23:17, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

Typical paid for spam / COI editing. Most likely a sock. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 00:06, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

Anonymous edits to psychiatry-related articles

An anonymous editor added the same (or very similar) text to several psychiatry-related articles in the last couple days. Very similar, but much smaller, anonymous edits to Psychiatric rehabilitation earlier this week came from a different IP. The edits are occasionally WP:COATRACK, but mostly WP:SPAM. Not sure if this is reason enough to protect these articles, but an admin might want to take a look. I'd also like to find out if more edits like these are coming from nearby IP addresses, so I'd appreciate advice from folks experienced at checking out IP edits. Thanks! —Shelley V. Adams ‹blame
credit› 14:28, 5 October 2017 (UTC), edited 16:17, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

they seem to be advertising BU Center for Psychiatric Rehabilitation/Boston University--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 21:24, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

Wikipedia's effects on science

This research presentation might interest some of you: youtu.be/VR5JwqyVGSk?t=1614 (Yes, you're going to have to copy that. The "URL shortener" is on the blacklist, and I don't know any other way to get the relevant timestamp in the URL.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:26, 21 September 2017 (UTC)

Or this link [10] Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 18:28, 21 September 2017 (UTC)

Most of this is about scientists reading Wikipedia articles but not citing it.

Two quick details that will interest editors:

• Journals with below-median impact factors are more likely to plagiarize Wikipedia's text (but it's still very uncommon).
• Citing a scientific paper in Wikipedia does not seem to change the rate at which it's cited in the literature. (So REFSPAM is a waste of time.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:50, 21 September 2017 (UTC)
  • Citing a scientific paper (or any other source, particularly if it's online) on Wikipedia does have a measurable effect on the number of readers of whatever's being cited, even if people don't go on to cite it elsewhere. (Whether this is through people directly following links from the reference section, or through links on Wikipedia being used by PageRank to push the source higher up search results, I leave as an exercise for someone who actually gets paid to investigate these things.) The spammers can rest easy in their beds. ‑ Iridescent 20:44, 21 September 2017 (UTC)
  • Refspam is unfortunately not a waste of time for some folks trying to get a job, to get tenure, or to stroke their ego (Look--I'm cited in Wikipedia. I'm somebody!). See, for instance, people taking this seriously in Are Wikipedia Citations Important Evidence of the Impact of Scholarly Articles and Books?. --Mark viking (talk) 20:54, 21 September 2017 (UTC)
    • Two things: First, that's what this research project found, so if you think they're they're wrong, then User:DarTar can put you in touch with the researcher, and you can figure out what the data says. Second, when you reply to a discussion with mixed list formatting, it's <whatever the other guy wrote> followed by <your choice of additional punctuation>. The beginning of your line needs to exactly match whatever comes before it. Following ::* with :::* is always wrong. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:33, 22 September 2017 (UTC)

      Did I say something to offend you? If so, it was not intended and please accept my apologies. I never said the study or your assertions were wrong. I think both studies probably have some truth to them. Even if WP citations don't alter literature citation rates, some people consider WP citations themselves as an adjunct to literature citations and a useful proxy for the educational or societal impact of an academic's research for the purposes of hiring, tenure, etc. Thanks for trying to fix my formatting typo, but what I intended was ::*:, as my reply was not semantically part of a bulleted list. --Mark viking (talk) 22:41, 22 September 2017 (UTC)

• I've been calling out refspammers on their talk pages, like this User_talk:Daviesw#Use_of_Wikipedia_for_self-promotion Jytdog (talk) 21:24, 21 September 2017 (UTC)
  • Appreciate it as always User:Jytdog
  • Many "experts" are hear just to promote themselves :-( Not as bad of an issue as undisclosed paid promotional editing, but still not good. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 21:44, 21 September 2017 (UTC)

• de-archived... Jytdog (talk) 18:23, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

• I am just catching up on this and am very dismayed. The community has been trying to figure out what was going on with the account adding this content since October 2015:

• Carolineneil (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) (do look at their talk page -- so much effort to talk with them)

• October 2015 discussion at WT:CHEM, the only time Carolineneil used a talk page.
• December 2015 (trying to figure out what is going on)
• June 2017 (trying to figure out what is going on)
• September 2017 (where we indefinitely blocked them and people also expressed disdain for the experimental design and noted the poor quality of the content that was created)

There is a discussion going on at WT:NOT now about setting up a NOTLABORATORY policy. There is also a discussion at VPM here.

These people abused their editing privileges and wasted a bunch of volunteer time, while we tried to figure out what was going on with the content they were creating. The scientists and whoever they had doing the grunt work never talked to us. People at the WMF apparently knew about this, and didn't say anything to us. Ugly shitting on the editing community and on this project all around. Jytdog (talk) 18:55, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

Thank you for the links. I confess to not understanding the extent of the problem before reading those. Abusing AfC editors without consent is unethical, in addition to being a big waste of time. Some of the stats articles submitted were of poor quality. I'd say this deserves letters to the Pittsburgh and MIT IRBs. Maybe WMF, too. --Mark viking (talk) 19:57, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

How is following the directions in the Article Wizard, to create missing articles on highly technical scientific subjects, "Abusing AfC editors"?

I see a lot of emotion here (and a lot of semi-automated messages on that talk page), and I understand that the articles weren't perfect (some far from it, but what should we expect from brand-new editors?), but I don't see anything that looks like abusing AfC. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:36, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

Well open your eyes. Here I will paste what I put at VPM -- there was:

a) the tremendous waste of the editing community's time trying to figure out what was going on, and its time dealing with the articles (many of which were poor, and were uploaded multiple times)

b) the blowing off of the editing community by the people running the experiment. I checked the edit count for Carolineneil, and they used a talk page exactly once back in November 2015, here at WT:CHEM, and they wrote These articles aren't class assignments. They're part of a project, with Dario Taraborelli at Wikimedia, to bring more advanced scientific content to Wikipedia. There were extensive discussions with Dario before the creation of these articles. -- User: Carolineneil. That is the definition of NOTHERE not to mention arrogant as hell. If they would have taken a different approach, a bunch of the time of the editing community would not have been wasted, and their contribs would have been more productive. (the whole section that snippet is from, is here)

c) that per this note from User:Dario (WMF) which includes As a general rule, the Foundation is not in a position to "approve" or "decline" individual research proposals, unless there are security or legal reasons to escalate them. Editorial decisions about content, in particular, are not an area the Foundation has any say about. The authors reached out at the time of the proposal to ask about best practices to follow in setting up the proposal and two WMF staffers (User:Halfak (WMF) and I) advised them on discussing and documenting it in the appropriate spaces.... -- the WMF was indeed aware of this. What Dario wrote in that note is pretty different from Carolineneil wrote, but .. whatever. Whatever was said in those "extensive discussions" didn't translate to any kind of respect for the editing community's time and work, nor any effort to get prior consensus, and Dario didn't communicate the information to the editing community either.

What happened is frankly stupid and completely avoidable (and in my view, another expression of WMF staffers' apparent lack of understanding of the work the editing community does maintaining content and of the importance of consensus here). I am hopeful that the effort to establish WP:NOTLABORATORY will succeed, but we also need to communicate clearly to WMF what it should do with this kinds of requests, and what they should do with information they have about people's intentions. (It kills me that the people doing the experiment tried to reach out to what they thought was someone "here" but it took two years, three ANIs, and the paper being published for the editing community to finally understand on its own what had been happening. I don't know what "appropriate spaces" Dario advised them to post in , but we didn't know about it. Jytdog (talk) 22:10, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

Did we need to know about it?

Really. Please think about that for a minute. Someone who actually knows something about chemistry wrote some articles. Sure, some of them had problems. Some of them were things that we'd have merged to larger topics (maybe because 99.99% of know less about chemistry than the person writing the article). But still: an actual content expert wrote non-promotional articles about chemistry. We don't see that very often. So why didn't we welcome them with open arms? Why was our instinct "What kind of scam this?!" instead of "Finally, some chemist figured out where the 'Edit' button is on Wikipedia?"

IMO we wasted a lot of time "trying to figure out what was going on" solely because that's what some editors personally choose to do with their WP:VOLUNTEER time. I can't find it in me to blame a subject-matter expert for our cynicism and suspicion. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:38, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

The three ANI threads were generated because everyday editors were not aware of the experiment and weird shit was happening, and the person implementing it wasn't given enough training to understand that dealing with other editors isn't optional. Issues get raised because weird shit is happening, not vice versa. I am done responding to you on this. Jytdog (talk) 22:50, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

The real tragedy is that much potentially useful content was written by subject experts and lost because the subject experts had almost no skills in Wikipedia editing. I find it astonishing that Dario Taraborelli didn't direct them to WikiProject Chemistry, or to any experienced Wikipedia editor who could spend some time teaching them how to use talk pages and explaining that editing Wikipedia is a holistic process requiring more than just subject expertise. What a shame. --RexxS (talk) 22:58, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

Yes, we did need to know about it. Two reasons: (1) Articles were posted under false pretenses using a fake account. Academic projects don't get a free pass for violating TOS. (2) AfC is a collaborative process. AfC editors donate their time to help out new editors learn WP editing and get up to speed. That teaching process is two-way. This project subverted that by using AfC editors as some sort of fire and forget, Mehanical Turk QC process to give a "mainspace"rubber stamp to their articles. No wants to put effort into reviewing and teaching, only to be completely ignored. It was clear abuse of AfC editors under false pretenses. --Mark viking (talk) 23:03, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

Hey folks, I'm Halfak (WMF), but I'm wearing my volunteer hat right now because supporting other researchers like Carolineneil is not something I do in a staff capacity. I had to use my email archive to jog my memory of what happened here. I was hardly involved. Based on those emails, it seems Dario was even less involved. These researchers were acting entirely independently of the WMF Research Team and contrary to the advice I'd supplied in my volunteer time.

At any given moment in time, I'm advising 5-10 research projects taking place around Wikipedia/Wikidata/etc. I did talk to Caroline and Neil about their study. I requested them to publicly describe their project and goals. They produced m:Research:Impact of Wikipedia on Academic Science and then did not respond to any of the concerns raised on the talk page. I repeatedly requested that they respond to these concerns via email and to follow the advice of editors at AFC who were strongly advising them to slow down. Once they stopped emailing me requesting that I solve their problems for them, I lost track of the project. I'm surprised to now find that they had been continuing their activities and not responding to warnings. I think that blocking the researchers was the right call and I regret that had not happened sooner. At the time, I suppose it seemed to me that Wikipedia's quality control system was tracking their activities and supplying the right warnings (which usually lead to a block if the behavior doesn't stop) so I saw no cause to raise a parallel alarm. Honestly I expect that researchers will generally stop before they cause such an obvious problem.

Process-wise, I have no authority over independent researchers, but I have been pushing for a more formalized process for approving research projects on-wiki. Usually I meet resistance from people who feel that the proposed processes are too restrictive and those who think they aren't enough (like Jytdog). Regretfully, these two groups don't work out their differences and I don't have the time or energy to fight both sides. See Wikipedia:Research, Wikipedia:Subject Recruitment Approvals Group, and Wikipedia:Research recruitment for examples of my past efforts on English Wikipedia (usually researchers are most disruptive in their recruitment strategies -- everyone wants to ask the top editors why they edit for some reason). Because these process proposals have failed, I've largely just been trying to advise researchers when they show up. Happily, many Wikipedians know me for doing this work, so researchers often get routed to me. Roughly here's what I suggest researchers do: (1) talk to me and let me shoot down things that obviously won't work, (2) create a project description page on meta (using m:Research:New project -- note the focus on ethics, policies, and data privacy), and then (3) reach out to the communities that will be affected (e.g. AfC would have been a good one here) and don't proceed without either consensus or indifference WRT the proposed activities. In my experience, this almost always proceeds just fine. So I've given up on formal review processed for studies. But, Jytdog, if you wanted to pick that effort back up, I'd support you! In the meantime, I'm always looking for help reviewing and raising potential issues WRT researchers' proposed projects. I'd be very happy to have a hand with that.

In the end, I agree with WhatamIdoing. These researchers were not doing anything that was obviously harmful to the encyclopedia. Their primary mistake is not engaging with editors in the process of their work. I regret that this was the case, but it doesn't seem like much damage was done here. After all, if more damage were being done, I'm sure they would have been blocked sooner. --EpochFail (talk • contribs) 23:07, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

Internet-in-a-Box

A box of the alpha version of Internet-in-a-Box ready to be shipped.

Internet-in-a-Box (Offline Medical Wikipedia) is launched and ready to ship as of today. The device is basically a mini server that creates a wifi signal that up to 32 people can simultaneously log onto and access all of Wikipedia's medical content in English, Spanish, and Arabic (also includes some others stuff). One can also download and install the offline medical apps to your phone. Content is stored on the uSD card within the device. We are selling them at the cost of the hardware, which is 27 USD, plus shipping. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 20:52, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

From content to hardware! dang. Jytdog (talk) 21:24, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

excellent--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 21:26, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

That's excellent news, James. For those who aren't familiar with the Internet-in-a-Box, it is a micro pc running linux with a web/file server and its own wireless network that wireless-connected devices can connect to, and that does not rely on an external internet connection. That allows people (and especially peripatetic physicians) in parts of the world without any internet access of any sort to still use WiFi-enabled devices to access all of our medical content and more. It runs off 5 volts and can work for many hours powered from the sort of battery packs that we use to re-charge mobile phones when there's no mains power available. Making these available is a milestone in our mission to make our knowledge available to every single human on the planet. --RexxS (talk) 22:16, 5 October 2017 (UTC)