User talk:JoelleJay

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(grins)

We do agree on a good bit, don't we? But yeah ... obviously we're on the opposite side of the line from BeanieFan, and I expect that he pisses you off at least as much as he does me. And since we're all periodically active at AfD, the tong war spills over there as well. But it'd occur to neither of us to insult him gratuitously, nor to track down his contribution history so as to oppose him at every step of the way. Life's too short. (Don't mind me; the things one rambles about at midnight when one hasn't slept in over a day and a half ...) Ravenswing 04:08, 18 August 2023 (UTC)

@User:Ravenswing, yes he's definitely one of my main antagonists at AfDs, standing for pretty much everything I am against WRT notability. Nevertheless his !votes at least make an argument toward GNG/BASIC (I can't tell you how much I hate BASIC, what an awful idea that is...), even if I think his standards for SIGCOV are way too low, and they're are nuanced enough that agreeing with him or even changing my !vote because of coverage he found isn't too painful. And he does sometimes give me a reality check on the outrageous amount of effort I put into rejecting some sources (even if I'm obviously right at the end...). There are like 8 other users whose !votes I hold in much lower regard. So I agree with you there's no impetus to add more negativity to that thread. And anyway sports AfDs have taken a bit of a backseat to the "academic journals are inherently notable" debate, especially after this ridiculous discussion. JoelleJay (talk) 17:28, 18 August 2023 (UTC)

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Thank You

Thank You for providing me guidance related to WP Football and Notability Demt1298 (talk) 13:21, 22 August 2023 (UTC)

@Demt1298, no problem, thank you for being so receptive! JoelleJay (talk) 18:19, 22 August 2023 (UTC)

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PRIMARY

I saw your comment "WP:PRIMARY is overruled by our higher requirements in MEDRS for biomedical claims" at RSN. Perhaps you were simplifying reality to help our questioner understand, but I get nervous when people start claiming that MEDRS somehow exceeds or overrules policy. I've always thought that MEDRS was simply the application of our various policies (and other guidelines) for the biomedical domain. Mostly whenever I've had someone challenge MEDRS, I point at WP:DUE. A primary research paper cannot itself establish its weight in the body of literature on the topic. So if someone thinks that research was important, then I say show me the secondary sources that confirm that, because we're a tertiary source that should largely be built from what the secondary sources say.

And I have a hard time seeing how any other evidence-based topic might behave diferently? Would we really see someone citing a research paper that taught a class of 30 children how to read in a certain way and boasting that they thought the children learned faster? Or would someone insist that we go with what the weight of secondary literature on reading teaching methods think about the various approaches. Someone at RSN mentioned "sociological" as though that might be different. Imagine someone wrote a paper that studied the effect of the US election cycle on agenda pushing at Wikipedia and concluded that the US should shift to an eight year cycle in order to minimise disruption to the project. The paper could well be entirely accurate and reliable in so far as the pattern it saw. And we could avoid Wikivoice by attributing the suggestion to change the US election cycle to the research authors. But we all know such an idea is ridiculous and if the secondary literature picked it up at all, it would be to mock it. Citing such a study and the authors conclusions meets WP:V but overal the study and its conclusions have no weight. I think the same is pretty much so for how we deal with biomedical issues in MEDRS.

Perhaps the problem is that the name MEDRS makes people think it is a "reliable sources" issue, and for sure, primary research in big journals are reliable in most people's eyes. But I think it matters what we think it is reliable for (not that the research happened, and it got those results, but whether a drug is safe and effective, say). And for that, we have a hierarchy of evidence quality. And secondly the MEDRS hierarchy shifts editors towards sources that make establishing the WEIGHT of an issue straightforward. If an international consensus guideline says X then that's almost certainly what the body of literature is pointing towards being true and important. -- Colin°^Talk 09:07, 6 September 2023 (UTC)

Yes, I realize PRIMARY re: MEDRS is more nuanced than what I said at RSN, however I also think MEDRS is clear that the restriction on use of primary research articles goes beyond the general policy recommendation that articles be based on secondary/tertiary sources. This is also supported by WP:OR: However, note that higher standards than this are required for medical claims. I do believe that articles on any academic topic, not just biomedical ones, should refrain from citing primary research, and that this is supported to some extent by DUE and BALANCE. Although, DUE unfortunately reads as if it only applies to controversial claims where opposing views already exist, and is less than clear on what to do with novel research findings that aren't or (or aren't clearly) controversial (due to fitting in with established models) but haven't yet been discussed in independent secondary sources. I think MEDRS addresses this by explicitly stating Primary sources should NOT normally be used as a basis for biomedical content, which leaves a lot less room for primary citations than an isolated reading of just WP:PRIMARY or WP:DUE would provide. JoelleJay (talk) 17:30, 6 September 2023 (UTC)

That line in OR was only added in April 2022. I wonder what User:WhatamIdoing thinks about whether it is actually useful.

When MEDRS is giving its advice about primary research papers, it isn't overruling WP:PRIMARY which is a section in WP:OR. If someone wrote "A study in 2003 found that half the patients talking wonderpam felt better and had longer thicker hair" citing some study in The Lancet, none of that is original research and The Lancet is utterly reliable (as far as such things go) that that research took place and got those results. Both OR and V are amply served. We would stray into OR territory and classic "avoid primary sources" territory, if someone cited that study for the claim "If everyone took wonderpam daily, the world would be a happier place, with no wars, and great hair" because the editor is interpreting the primary source and frankly fantasising. But it turns out there are lots of studies of wonderpam and most of them found it was useless and none of the others even mention hair quality. Or alternatively, there weren't any further studies of wonderpam since 2003, and this pilot study was not followed up. The drug got ignored after its company went bust. So to handle NPOV, we demand editors use the secondary literature. And that literature in 2023 doesn't give the time of day to the one pilot study on wonderpam that showed promising results.

So although we are using terminology like "primary" that perhaps sounds more like WP:OR and WP:V territory, I think the real issue is how to determine WP:NPOV in medical articles, and MEDRS isn't in conflict or overruling any general policy at all.

Where one could argue MEDRS is special is the specific calling out of newspapers as being unreliable for medical facts. But then I think too much people think about "reliable sources" without thinking "for what subject" and "for what claim". I don't think many people would think newspapers are reliable sources for computer algorithms or maths proofs or quantum physics either, but our newspapers don't have daily articles on these topics by journalists who are out of their depth, so probably editors in those domains don't have the same battle to fight out the silly stuff. It is more the other way around, that quality newspapers are reliable for a certain set of subjects and events, but not for anything else. Just like one wouldn't think The Lancet was a reliable source on the Second World War.

I think a lot of Wikipedians think we do hold medical sourcing to a higher level and a lot think we should, but I don't think it actually requires any special exceptions or rules. Just for folk to sit down and think ok, how do we apply all these policies to writing medical articles and how might that influence how we pick which sources to use. Oh, wait, if we select X, Y and Z and reject V and W, then we end up solving all our core policy issues in one go. -- Colin°^Talk 09:11, 7 September 2023 (UTC)

Quick reply: I think it is damaging and dangerous to describe MEDRS as a "higher" standard. It is a more specific standard, but telling people how to understand which sources are actually reliable ("reliable" even within its basic meaning, of something well-informed people would choose to rely on) within a particular subject area is not a "higher" standard. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:03, 7 September 2023 (UTC)

I've proposed it be removed, at the talk page of WP:OR. -- 16:38, 7 September 2023 (UTC) Colin°^Talk 16:38, 7 September 2023 (UTC)

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