Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Alternative medicine

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Thanks. — Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 08:46, 15 March, 2009 (UTC)

Request for input in discussion forum

Given the closely linked subjects of the various religion, mythology, and philosophy groups, it seems to me that we might benefit from having some sort of regular topical discussion forum to discuss the relevant content. I have put together the beginnings of an outline for such discussion at Wikipedia:WikiProject Religion/2011 meeting, and would very much appreciate the input of any interested editors. I am thinking that it might run over two months, the first of which would be to bring forward and discuss the current state of the content, and the second for perhaps some more focused discussion on what, if any, specific efforts might be taken in the near future. Any and all input is more than welcome. John Carter (talk)

_{Automated message by Project Messenger Bot from John Carter at 15:44, 5 April 2011}

Support Wikiproject Traditional Medicine

The goal of wikiproject traditional medicine is solely anthropological, differentiating it from alternative medicine. Something cannot be the alternative when it is the traditional. Further more many of the topics covered by this project would be of no interest to an anthropologist as they are entirely modern. Coverage on Aztec, Mayan and even Korean medicine is far less than encyclopedic. Such pages should meet a standard of review and feature information on an assortment of organisms found within a cultures traditional territory. Only two actual species of plants are mentioned in the article for Korean medicine. — Preceding unsigned comment added by CensoredScribe (talk • contribs) 22:46, 3 September 2013 (UTC)

Merge proposal

I have proposed to merge this wikiproject and 12 others to a new wikiproject. Please see the proposal. IRWolfie- (talk) 19:41, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

The others on his list are:

• Astrology (basically dead)
• Parapsychology (only 1 member)
• Paranormal (not very active)
• Alternative views (not very active)
• Skepticism (not very active)
• Homeopathy (dead)
• Creationism (not very active)
• Cryptozoology (not very active)
• Pseudoscience (dead)
• Mind-Body (never got off the ground, 1 member)
• Occult (redundant with respect to wikiproject paranormal, not very active)
• NLP (dead)

It is not obvious to me that alt med belongs in a group with pseudo-religious stuff, but perhaps other people will feel differently. The Homeopathy and Mind–Body groups might be good candidates to merge here, though.

What's needed is for people who are interested in this subject to add their personal opinions at the other page. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:20, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

Pseudoreligious? Cryptozoology? Astrology? Skepticism? IRWolfie- (talk) 20:09, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

Astrology: believing that the location of the stars affects your life. Paranormal: believing in ghosts and ESP and the life. Occult: believing in magic.

I am not saying that all of these items are religious, but that some of them are, and that it doesn't make sense to merge AltMed (e.g., whether herbs like St. John's wort treat depression) with projects that are interested in fortune telling, ghosts and magic. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:36, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

Alt Med covers a lot of pseudoscientific medicine topics. Perhaps this project could re-purpose in some way to avoid that overlap, say Herbalism? IRWolfie- (talk) 00:08, 13 September 2013 (UTC)

Overlapping scopes are not your enemy. Successful projects tend to have a 'natural' scope. Putting herbalism and homeopathy together is a natural scope, even if homeopathy is pseudoscience and herbalism is not (a grouping that is routinely made by reliable sources, even). Putting homeopathy and ghost hunting together is not natural, even if they're both pseudoscience (and a grouping never made by reliable sources). Unnatural scopes don't promote working together as a team. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:21, 13 September 2013 (UTC)

I agree with WhatamIdoing. Some items can be merged together, but others are completely different subjects. Homeopathy doesn't belong in this grouping. Creationism needs to be merged into a religious wikiproject, not with these others. - Sidelight12 ^Talk 22:17, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

On the contrary WhatamIdoing, you will find that grouping in books that give lists of pseudoscience, or books in relation to skepticism etc, IRWolfie- (talk) 09:39, 18 September 2013 (UTC)

AfD discussion Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Association_of_Accredited_Naturopathic_Medical_Colleges

Article for deletion discussion that may be of interest to Wikiproject Alternative Medicine for article Association_of_Accredited_Naturopathic_Medical_Colleges at Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Association_of_Accredited_Naturopathic_Medical_Colleges. - - MrBill3 (talk) 10:09, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

Fasting spittle

This poor article is need of a lot of attention if anyone is interested. I took the liberty of tagging it with this wikiproject. Thank you, Lesion (talk) 19:09, 2 November 2013 (UTC)

AFD

The following AFD is of interest to this project, and could use additional eyes as only two editors have !voted. Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/TM-Sidhi_program Gaijin42 (talk) 15:38, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

AFD: Cymatic therapy

I stumbled across an AFD for Cymatic therapy, and with all the sub categories involved I couldn't figure out if the alternative medicine project was getting notified... so here you go. Krushia (talk) 23:48, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

Human body

Hi, there has been significant restructuring of the human body, human physiology and human anatomy articles over at WP:Anatomy, making the Human body article the main, offering opportunities for future expansion once significant information is available.

There is currently not anything on alternative views of the human body, such as those from TCM, if you are willing to add a section that doesn't make any medical claims (as per WP:MEDRS), only giving views of the human body that would be most helpful. CFCF (talk) 11:50, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

What kind of alt-med beliefs about the human body would bypass the need for WP:MEDRS? bobrayner (talk) 06:21, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

Notability guidelines for Alt-Med / CAM topics

Is anybody aware of some specific pages of notability guidance for Alt-med topics? In the few years I've been involved with WP I've seen a lot of new editors wishing to contribute articles about CAM topics. Often they find the WP:MEDRS guidelines difficult to apply, sometimes even questioning the applicability of "medical" guidelines to something they see as a non-medical intervention. I've also noticed a lot of difficulties in evaluating sources, in particular which sources might count as high-quality. --Salimfadhley (talk) 11:08, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

WP:MEDRS will apply where medical claims are made either in terms of therapeutic benefit or mode of action or where any biomedical content is included. For medical sources, go to pubmed and search for review articles (meta-analyses, etc) published in the last five years or so on your chosen topic. Read WP:MEDRS as this guideline applies to all medical content on WP whether alternative or not. As regards notability, that should follow the general notability guideline and will require significant coverage in reliable and independent secondary sources. Many alt med topics will also fall under WP:FRINGE. FiachraByrne (talk) 12:21, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

Thanks FiachraByrne, that's the advice I usually give to editors. I was just wondering if there's a way we can be more helpful. I've spent many hours explaining WP:GNG and WP:MEDRS to Alt-Med/CAM proponent editors. --Salimfadhley (talk) 12:40, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

You have my deepest and sincere sympathies. Maybe for notability, you could direct them to search [0=im_field_terms_archie_topics%3A948&f[1]=im_field_stage%3A3 here] and here. But there's no short-cut to proving notability and alt med isn't different in that respect from anything else - you need reliable secondary sources that give decent coverage and google news, books, scholar or a bricks and mortar library will really work as well medical databases to establish notability. If it's not covered in pubmed, however, there will be no basis for the inclusion of any medical related content (although sociological, historical, anthropological and religious aspects, etc, could be covered). FiachraByrne (talk) 12:54, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

What are the definitions of "alternative medicine" by "major world health organization[s]"?

At Talk:Alternative_medicine#Reddit_discussion_on_Wikipedia:_Alternative_medicine_article I responded to a query from a user on Reddit about the state of the article. He says that the article's definition of alternative medicine does not reflect the definitions of alternative medicine from "major world health organization[s]".

I don't specialize in science-related articles, but I would like to know what these definitions are, and if there is a need to tweak the definition in the article. WhisperToMe (talk) 07:53, 22 December 2013 (UTC)

{{Traditional Chinese medicine}}

FYI, a cleanup request for Template:Traditional Chinese medicine (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has been filed at WT:CHINA -- 65.94.78.9 (talk) 22:55, 23 December 2013 (UTC)