User talk:MastCell

Welcome to Wikipedia!

Dear MastCell: Welcome to Wikipedia, a free and open-content encyclopedia. I hope you enjoy contributing. To help get you settled in, I thought you might find the following pages useful:

• Five Pillars of Wikipedia
• Community Portal
• Frequently Asked Questions
• How to edit a page
• How to revert to a previous version of a page
• Tutorial
• Copyrights
• Shortcuts

Don't worry too much about being perfect. Very few of us are! Just in case you are not perfect, click here to see how you can avoid making common mistakes.

If you are stuck, and looking for help, please come to the New contributors' help page, where experienced Wikipedians can answer any queries you have! Or, you can just type {{helpme}} on your user page, and someone will show up shortly to answer your questions.

Wikipedians try to follow a strict policy of never biting new users. If you are unsure of how to do something, you are welcome to ask a more experienced user such as an administrator. One last bit of advice: please sign any dicussion comment with four tildes (~~~~). The software will automatically convert this into your signature which can be altered in the "Preferences" tab at the top of the screen. I hope I have not overwhelmed you with information. If you need any help just let me know. Once again welcome to Wikipedia, and don't forget to tell us about yourself and be BOLD! -- Psy guy ^Talk 04:30, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Praise

Hey there. I just noticed your edits pop up on the recent changes page, and I have to say, this is some very good stuff.

Not only is it good, useful information, it's well-written.

We need more contributors like you. Keep at it! DS 22:44, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

ABC article

Thanks. It sure wasn't/isn't easy. - RoyBoy ⁸⁰⁰ 01:52, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

You are a scholar and a gentle(person). While indeed sometimes I can get annoyed at things getting inaccurate, after I calm myself it is obvious things were inaccurate to begin with. And only by continuing to bounce opinions and ideas off each other can we arrive at a truly superior article. Quite frankly you are the best person to work with on this article; as we disagree on the conclusion of the ABC issue, but we both see there is enough ambiguity in the evidence for us both to be somewhat wrong. - RoyBoy ⁸⁰⁰ 03:19, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Hi MastCell

Wow, you've certainly made a productive start here this month! You're additions have been great! I've had fun putting up endoscopy images, but the hard part is getting consent from patients for their release. You should join us at WP:CLINMED, the Clinical Medicine Wikiproject, and at WP:GI, WikiProject Gastroenterology where we have fun bouncing article ideas off each other. If you haven't met User:Jfdwolff, he's a fabulous editor and administrator to work with, and laid the foundations for a tonne of the medical articles here. Take care -- Samir धर्म 05:52, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

Hi once more, and welcome to WP:CLINMED! Keep the histamine flowing and hope to see you around! PS: If you're interested, we're working on Wikipedia:Manual of Style (Medicine-related articles): have a look!--Steven Fruitsmaak (Reply) 14:56, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

K Harris discussion

Thank you for stepping in to the discussion and helping to hopefully diffuse the situation between ThuranX and myself. I don't know what exactly set him off, but by reading his user talk page, I'm starting to understand I'm not the only editor that he does not work well with (even resulting in some warnings against him for incivility to others). I'd like to leave it to you and other editors to work towards a consensus on the Trivia section issue. I will still voice my opinions but will not be responding to ThuranX and I've made as much clear on his user talk page. Thanks again, and have a good day. ju66l3r 04:58, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Ischemic colitis

Great job! It looks fabulous. I had a couple of things I wanted to add, one of which is a picture that I have but need to get patient consent for its release -- Samir धर्म 04:37, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Melanoma edit

I liked your edit of my contribution to the Moh's section under melanoma. Much more fluid now. Cheers. RobDroliver 15:59, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Featured Article: AML

Kudos on the AML article accolades--well-deserved after your hard work on it. Keep up the quality contributions.

Chavoguero 01:58, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

Thank you

MastCell, thanks for taking the time to make this comment. It means so much more coming from you and I really appreciate your 2 cents;) And yes, your right, we use little CT anymore with MRI available, but most of us don't even order them until they have failed to respond, that is if we don't just send them to the surgeon. Most xrays are to rule out contraindications to spinal manipulation which means two or three views. It's nice to know that someone understands that is a necessary risk to prevent iatrogenic injury. --Dematt 04:24, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

MastCell -- a fellow Dr Strangelove fan I presume! In any case, if the profanity on the pseudoscience talk page offended you, I apologise, but you're really need to read the archives from three or four days ago to see how we got to that point. Also, Krishna commented to your post here. You may wish to reply (or not). But, if you stick with it for a few days (if you have the time) you might see the dynamic of the page and might even feel tempted to use profanity as well. Also, I echo Dematt's thanks. •Jim62sch• 19:55, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

orthomed

My reply yesterday was hot under the coller because I only read the OM article's dif on an old screen and read it as *commenting out* the entire second paragraph that you had formed instead of just the one sentence that you commented out. So my apologies in another hot zone where small communications errors could cause wider misunderstandings.--TheNautilus 18:59, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

No problem. MastCell 21:26, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Why?

Do you have to give sources for a category? No one seems to treat them that way, but my impression was that categories were there to say there is a connection. If there is a connection with science, as there is in the case, say, of John Edward, why shouldn't I put it there? And if, as is seemingly the case, no one has to give sources for a category, why should the ones I think are good be reverted, while the ones other people think are good stay? More to the point: How do I put a citation request on a category??? Martin^phi _{(Talk Ψ Contribs)} 02:35, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Please do answer that question about sourcing categories. Because normally you can get rid of an unjustified thing by putting in a citation request, or put what you want in if you can source it. I don't know how to do this with categories. Martin^phi _{(Talk Ψ Contribs)} 02:37, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

The best way to do it is to raise the issue on the article talk page and explain why you think the category is justified or unjustified. I'm not familiar with John Edward, so I'm speaking from ignorance, but generally psychic mediums (media?) are not considered to be within the realm of "science" as it's classically defined. But again, the best way to approach it is to raise the issue with the involved editors on the article talk page. If that doesn't work to your satisfaction, you may wish to pursue some of the steps in dispute resolution (e.g. request outside input via a request for comment). MastCell ^Talk 02:42, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Oh dear, there really is no WP:RS check here? It is just a pure vote? That is really bad, because Cats are used as weapons, as ways to put down or uphold pages. Martin^phi _{(Talk Ψ Contribs)} 02:52, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

And thanks for the reply (= Martin^phi _{(Talk Ψ Contribs)} 02:53, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

It's not really a vote... if you firmly believe you're correct on the basis of policy but are being "outvoted", then it's best to follow the steps outlined in Wikipedia:Dispute resolution. Specifically, a third opinion or request for comment can bring in outside, uninvolved editors to give their opinions. Unfortunately, if you still find that the consensus is against you, then you'll probably have to live with it as disputes are ultimately resolved (ideally) by WP:CONSENSUS. In general, the use of categories to make a point is frowned upon - they're intended to make Wikipedia easier to navigate, not to make a statement about the subject. MastCell ^Talk 03:04, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Oh, I don't mind mediation- it tends to go well for me (: I don't argue things that a neutral would say are POV. In other words, for instance on the parapsychology page, the Parapsychological Association is an affiliate of the AAAS; so it is, to a neutral, a scientific field (the only half-way decent source to the contrary is a Russian Academy of Science statement from 1998). Even parapsychology's best/worst critics say so it's science. But they just deleted it as a science, and put it in as a pseudoscience saying "this is manifestly not science", and called me silly- well, on one of the summaries.

Well, anyway, you don't want to hear all this! Thanks for explaining things (= I guess I really should take more advantage of the official channels. You're good at being an admin. Martin^phi _{(Talk Ψ Contribs)} 03:57, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Er... thanks, I'm flattered, but in fact I'm not an admin. MastCell ^Talk 04:05, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Maybe you should be. I thought you were because you responded to the template. Well, templates must show up on some page, and people must monitor them. Martin^phi _{(Talk Ψ Contribs)} 05:39, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

FDA

Is it a futile game we play? Does it eventually get easier?--Dr.michael.benjamin 05:29, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

I was just feeling the same way. In general, when a single-purpose editor with an axe to grind settles in, it can be a frustrating haul. Generally, such people either get tired, or the other option is to bring in outside members of the Wikipedia community (via a mechanism such as a request for comment) to chime in. I think that the editor in question is pushing a point-of-view in a way that won't be palatable to most of the community. The best approach is probably to continue insisting on following Wikipedia's policies (on reliable sources, neutrality (particularly the avoidance of undue weight), etc). The problem is that you and I, who have interests here other than the FDA, will end up spending most or all of our time dealing with said single-purpose editor - I've encountered similar problems on AIDS reappraisal and many alternative medicine topics - to the detriment of adding useful content to the encyclopedia. Another approach is actually to walk away from the article for awhile, rather than contesting every edit, let him do what he wants, and then come back in a week or two to survey the damage and start fixing it. That can be useful for one's sanity. MastCell ^Talk 17:42, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

A reasonable approach, as usual. Thanks.--Dr.michael.benjamin 02:47, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

not really

I'm not really back, but I have been really impressed with your edits and postings. I think you show an open mind and sense of fair play. I did want to thank you for your email and wanted to let you know that the last thing I did before I cleaned off my page was read your user page. I absolutely love it. You are obviously a quality individual and I would have enjoyed working closer with you. Where were you when we needed you;) -- Dēmatt (chat) 00:52, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

That's very kind. I can understand if this was the impetus for you leaving - it was just an unpleasant situation all around. Anyhow, thanks for the kind words, and your presence is definitely missed. The whole Quackwatch thing is a little too exhausting, and it's actually not something I care that deeply about, so I've been trying to cut back my input there and spend my Wikipedia time elsewhere. I hope that after you have a well-deserved break and some time away from this contentious alternate universe, our paths cross again. MastCell ^Talk 03:09, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Fan Club

Just found this while googling, [[1]] Shot info 01:16, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Hmm... so that's why my ears were burning. MastCell ^Talk 03:04, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Featured Article

Hey, MastCell. I added your Featured Article Candidate to the Collaboration Dashboard at Wikipedia:WikiProject Medicine. I hope that this helps to draw more people to the review! -Severa (!!!) 03:30, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your comments. I gave the table thing a shot - take a look and see what you think. Thanks for taking the time to look at the article and make suggestions for its improvement. MastCell ^Talk 16:46, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

You're welcome. It's good to get break away from the all-consuming abortion circuit and I learned some new things from the article. The table contributes well to the informativeness of the article. I'm glad that my suggestions were helpful. :-) -Severa (!!!) 23:24, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Congratulations on the success with the FA nomination! -Severa (!!!) 22:01, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Cholangiocarcinoma

Just noticed the article's promotion to FA. Congratulations! Fvasconcellos 20:48, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks... I hadn't noticed it went through till you mentioned it. Awesome. MastCell ^Talk 21:00, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Well done, MastCell. I'll e-mail you an MRCP and CT scan tonight, approved for release under GFDL 74.12.77.59 03:30, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Repeated Vandalism by Navychaps and UCMCPadre

Dear Newyorkbrad and MastCell, request your follow up to discipline or block two vandals NavyChaps and USMC Padre who repeatedly violated the Bio of Living Persons rules by disparaging and posting private information about Gordon James Klingenschmitt, leading to deletion of his entire article. The Checkuser report (which you requested) suggests they also routinely violated Sockpuppet rules. Read here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_checkuser/Case/USMC_Padre Suggest using your "admin powers" to block these two users, and also Commanderstephanus and MiddleLinebacker who routinely used foul language. I'm not informed of proper procedures after Checkuser confirms the identity of abusers. ChaplainReferee 19:58, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, I have no admin powers. Newyorkbrad may be able to take care of it for you. It looks like neither account has been particularly active since that article was deleted. MastCell ^Talk 23:54, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

WP:SARCASM

You know, I really enjoyed that essay, you know. Heh. JFW | T@lk 06:40, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Victor A. Marcial-Vega

Hi, I don't see why you're trying to eliminate the article about this person. He's achieved quite some notoriety in North America and elsewhere as well due to the Internet, particularly as regards his popularization of the blood pH theory. Are you asserting that I am promoting this theory by editing articles about him here? I assure you that I am not. But it is absolutely certain that he is a notable individual, if only from his publications and current notoriety. Badagnani 17:16, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

I'm not implying anything about your intentions. I'm saying that I don't see the evidence that this guy is notable according to Wikipedia's definition of the term. If he has truly acheived the notoriety, notability, etc you describe, then it should be straightforward to produce evidence of this, in the form of non-trivial coverage in reliable, independent secondary sources. If such sources don't exist, then the article should be deleted. I notified you as a courtesy, instead of sending it directly to AfD, since you had created the article fairly recently and perhaps you just haven't had time to add such sources yet. MastCell ^Talk 17:59, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Why delete things you know nothing about!

You marked my entry on Neuro Emotional Technique for deletion. Your reasons for doing so do not fit the deletion criteria as you claim. It has now been deleted and I am blocked from putting it back. I spent several hours working on that entry and very carefully documented it with links and references. Why mark it for deletion? To me that’s just vandalism. I now no longer care about Wikipedia and will no longer be contributing to it as I feel there is no point to it if any one can delete your hard work just because they feel like it.

Thanks very much for ruining my Wiki experience. Maybe someone will have the decency to delete all of your entries for no good reason. If all Wiki articles were marked for deletion based on such flimsy reasoning then there would be no Wikipedia. NegMan April 27th 2007

I'm sorry for the hard feelings. The article clearly did not appear, to me, to meet Wikipedia's notability guidelines; specifically, there were no reliable secondary sources cited, and I could find none in my searches of Web-based content. I proposed its deletion and notified you on your talk page as a courtesy. As no one stepped forward to either contest the deletion or improve the article, it was deleted.

I see you've already contacted the deleting administrator, which is the first step if you feel a mistake was made. However, I agree with his response; the article did not meet Wikipedia's guidelines for inclusion. If you continue to feel the deletion was in error, you can bring up the subject at deletion review. You can also create a new article on the topic, but such an article would be likely to be speedily deleted unless it provides reliable, independent secondary sources establishing notability, as Wikipedia defines those terms.

It sucks to lose a page you've worked on, but when we release our contributions here, we open them up for others to read, edit, alter beyond recognition, and sometimes even delete. I hope that this episode doesn't lead you to leave Wikipedia; unfortunately, however, a fact of life here is that we can't exercise complete control over our contributions once we've made them. MastCell ^Talk 20:56, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the welcome

I am having fun learning the ropes of Wikipedia. Currently adding things related to my fellowship in hematopathology. I have a mindmap of hematopathology and an XML schema for pathology that I will post at some point. Appreciate the feedback.Jdln 15:31, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Parenzee

I don't feel strongly about the title, but there probably should be only one article. It may be simplest just to name it Andre Chad Parenzee, even though it will wind up mostly about the trial (it's easier than thinking of a title that makes sense ([[The Andre Chad Parenzee appeal trial]])). - Nunh-huh 18:22, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

I made a start and moved your reference list there. Please revise/rewrite unmercifully. - Nunh-huh 18:59, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

Checkuser case completed

Hi, A checkuser IP Check case you filled has been completed by a CheckUser, and archived. You can find the results for 7 days at Wikipedia:Requests for checkuser/IP check/Archive. -- lucasbfr ^talk, checkuser clerk, 08:04, 2 May 2007 (UTC).

Getting my feet wet? More like just testing the water

Hi MastCell,

Thanks for the feedback. I am so far mostly lurking, trying to learn a bit about wiki before editing anything more than a talk page. Can you tell me anything about other wikis that "tap into" the wikipedia? Specifically, I note that the "AIDS wiki" which would more accurately be called the AIDS denial wiki, uses links to wikipedia for nearly all of its non-denialist content.

I went to metawiki and looked in wiki projects to see if it was listed as an official wiki project, and could not find anything.

user:Nocontroversy^talk 19:31, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

It's not "official" in the sense that it's related to Wikipedia in any way. But actually, there are lots of small wikis out there, unrelated to Wikipedia. With a little technical know-how and access to the software, pretty much anyone can set one up on the topic of their choice. As far as linking to Wikipedia, again, anyone is welcome to link here. The AIDSWiki makes use of Wikipedia links pretty heavily, as it was developed as a "fork" to avoid Wikipedia's requirements for neutrality, verifiability, and undue weight by an editor who used to be active here (and still edits from anon IP's from time to time). MastCell ^Talk 19:44, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Criticism of the FDA

The page has been temporarily restored so we can reach a consensus on the fate of the content. I've suggested we keep the vote open for five more days.-Rustavo^{Talk/Contribs} 00:30, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the heads-up. MastCell ^Talk 03:10, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Bilfilm Sinusitis Edits Violate NPOV

The artical on Biofilm Sinusitis was about 1/10th of the artical when I posted it. Now it has been so diminished as to violate NPOV and as edited it left a factually incorrect impression.

I would think that rather than deleting the biofilm section, which had all working links until David deleted it a couple of times, that you might beef up the rest of the artical into something useful, rather than the hack job that you just preformed.

Work on Biofilms was done at the Centers for Disease Control up to 2002, but the work was never well known. Have you ever run across the paper below before?

Biofilms: Survival Mechanisms of Clinically Relevant Microorganisms Rodney M. Donlan1* and J. William Costerton2 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, Georgia 30333,,1 Center for Biofilm Engineering, Montana State University, Bozeman, Montana 597172

• Corresponding author. Mailing address: Biofilm Laboratory, Epidemiology and Laboratory Branch, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 1600 Clifton Road, N.E., Mail Stop C-16, Atlanta, GA 30333. Phone: (404) 639-2322. Fax: (404) 639-3822. E-mail: rld8@cdc.gov.

This article has been cited by other articles in PMC.

http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pubmed&pubmedid=11932229

If your name is not Palmer, or Costerton, or Hutlgren or Lewis you are not an expert in this feild. And that is the a problem. You need to get your head out of your textbook and over to the SEM lab and ask them about biofilms. Then go to the confocal microscope lab and ask them. Then drop some live dead stain on "sterile mucus" and put it up on a scope which has a floresent power supply. Do that and you will be a changed man.

Medicine is an observational science, at the moment all kinds of wild speculation about inapproperte immune response and genetic defects are in your text books simpally because it was easier to speculate than devise the probes and do the work to find out what the immune system was reacting against. When probes were developed that showed engufed bacteria, and bacterial DNA in human epithial cells under attack, and biofilms are found on the surface you would think the text books would get rewritten. Well have they? Now, The only people who havn't found biofilms on materials removed from CS patients are those that havn't looked for them. If the kind of repression of information that you are trying to practice continues then Chronic Sinusitis and many other chronic diseases will remain incurable for lack of the correct approach.

That is just unacceptale. Truehawk 23:22, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

As I've mentioned elsewhere, please take this discussion to the sinusitis article talk page. It may be useful to look at the discussion of your edits there, if you haven't already. Briefly, Wikipedia articles are ideally based on verifiable, reliable secondary sources (here that means medical texts, review articles, NIH workshops, panel recommendations, etc). It's fine (encouraged, even) to also cite primary sources (journal articles), but we cannot draw conclusions that overstep what the authors themselves report.

Citing a bunch of primary studies and synthesizing our own conclusion about "what it means" violates Wikipedia's policy on original research and synthesis. This is particularly important as you're synthesizing the primary data to reach a conclusion which is not found in any secondary sources I'm aware of. The mention of biofilm in sinusitis should mirror its representation among experts in the field, as detailed via secondary sources - to do otherwise would violate the "undue weight" section of NPOV. The fact that review articles and medical/infectious disease textbooks don't mention biofilm in their chapters on sinusitis leads me to believe that we, also, should mention it briefly or not at all.

I get the sense, from your edits, that you're here to advocate for what you consider a neglected area of research. However, Wikipedia is not an appropriate venue for such advocacy. Nor does Wikipedia set the scientific agenda; it only reflects it. If you look through the things I've mentioned and want to contribute, please do. But if your goal here is to use Wikipedia to promote a minority hypothesis unsupported in the expert secondary-source literature, in a manner which gives it undue weight, you're bound to be disappointed. MastCell ^Talk 23:11, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Obviously you don't mean review articals such as:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=pubmed&cmd=Retrieve&dopt=AbstractPlus&list_uids=14567521&query_hl=2&itool=pubmed_docsum

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=pubmed&cmd=Retrieve&dopt=AbstractPlus&list_uids=17040016&query_hl=2&itool=pubmed_docsum

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=pubmed&cmd=Retrieve&dopt=AbstractPlus&list_uids=17040016&query_hl=2&itool=pubmed_docsum

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=pubmed&cmd=Retrieve&dopt=AbstractPlus&list_uids=16089234&query_hl=2&itool=pubmed_docsum

http://www.jci.org/cgi/content/full/112/10/1466

And had I not read your comments on the discussion page, I would not be leaving my comments on your talk page, a courtsey you did not show me. Truehawk 23:37, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Also MastCell, I think if you look in you microbiology text book it will have some comments at the begining about the limitations or culture technique and some cavete about 99% of bacteria being unculturable. I have seen several such statements in Micro texts, so I know they are pretty standard. If you don't find it there, just do a web search on unculturable bacteria. Seems that you don't want even well settled facts published because they are not "common knowledge". Truehawk 00:06, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

I'm going to respond to you at Talk:Sinusitis. Please don't interpret it as discourtesy; I'd just prefer to centralize discussion at the article you're suggesting we edit. MastCell ^Talk 14:49, 5 May 2007 (UTC)