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, 172

This group's scope

I'm looking at WP:MED? (where we list what kinds of articles we want to support, and what we don't), and I'm wondering whether that list is still accurate. Do we want to support:

1. Biographies (e.g., patients, researchers, healthcare workers) – overlaps with .Wikipedia:WikiProject Biography/Science and academia
2. Businesses and organizations – hospitals currently sent to Wikipedia:WikiProject Hospitals; pharma companies currently tagged for Wikipedia:WikiProject Pharmacology; medical device manufacturers currently tagged by us. Wikipedia:WikiProject Business and other WikiProjects also work in this area.
3. Schools (e.g., medical schools) – overlaps with Wikipedia:WikiProject Higher Education.
4. Dentistry – Wikipedia:WikiProject Dentistry has never been very active.

As a group, we get to decide what we want to work on. We haven't had a discussion about what should/shouldn't be brought to us for a long time. My impression is that people aren't very interested in biographies or businesses. If we don't want to support those articles, it's okay. We should just make that decision and adjust our documentation and templates accordingly.

What do you think? WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:50, 4 March 2020 (UTC)

While the Dentistry project has not been very active, there is nevertheless a lot of continuing edits to Dentistry articles. Furthermore the field of Dentistry has a high degree of overlap with Medicine, therefore I think there is a strong argument that the Medicine WikiProject should support Dentistry. Boghog (talk) 19:04, 4 March 2020 (UTC)

This list is quite active and there are large groups of students in the UK and U of Toronto that I am aware of that are active through the Wikipedia Collaboration of Dental Schools: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Dentistry/Participants. JenOttawa (talk) 13:20, 5 March 2020 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Directory/Description/WikiProject Dentistry lists the names of just three editors who have participated on the group's talk page during the last three months. This is an improvement compared to this time of year for any previous recorded year (2015, zero; 2016, zero; 2017, one; 2018, one; 2019, one). WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:27, 5 March 2020 (UTC)

• Mixed support. I am in favor of setting standards for appropriate and in-scope discussions on this talk page to maximize new user engagement. I agree, we are here for development of medical content and not directly biographies. I think this WikiProject should get news of any kind of medical themed programs in this space, including for biographies or schools, but our best response to requests for non-medicine support is having a plan to refer people elsewhere.

I think that the future of managing all this is in D:Wikidata:WikiProject Medicine. I contribute to the meta:WikiCite project and Scholia which both seek to generate profiles of people, medical schools, and hospitals. This has lots of applications, but the one which I think English Wikipedia WikiProject Medicine should watch is the significant media criticism Wikipedia gets for claims of discrimination against women in creating biographies. We should keep our stake in such controversies by being aware and having conversations here, even if we do not actually organize the editing. Here are some examples of automated profiles. I think that eventually we will have something like this for every person, school, and hospital. Wikipedia Infoboxes are part of this also.

• person
• organization

I develop this project as staff meta:Wikimedian in Residence at the University of Virginia.

Blue Rasberry (talk) 15:14, 5 March 2020 (UTC)

WPMED should support all of the above; we don't restrict posts to projects on topics that are within our knowledge base. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:20, 5 March 2020 (UTC)

Yes, being inclusive is better than being exclusive. Also, the question of anatomical articles. I'd say include but there was an idea to separate out to Wikipedia:WikiProject Anatomy some time ago. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 19:15, 5 March 2020 (UTC)

Unfortunately there are fewer and fewer long term editors which are the life blood of Wiki Projects. One solution to re-establish project critical mass is to merge closely related projects. A recent example was to merge a variety of molecular biology projects (see Merger discussion Wikiproject:BIOL) which I think succeeded. In a similar spirit, I think it may make sense to merge WP:DENTISTRY into WP:MED. Boghog (talk) 20:20, 5 March 2020 (UTC)

As a related note, WP:Molecular Biology recently merged WP:GEN, WP:MCB, WP:COMPBIO, WP:BIOP, WP:RNA, WP:WPMP and WP:CELLSIG. T.Shafee(Evo&Evo)^talk 08:43, 7 March 2020 (UTC)

I would be supportive of removing biographies. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 15:12, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

Like Doc James, I don't really think biographies are very relevant to our everyday work. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:09, 21 March 2020 (UTC)

Featured article removal candidates

Featured article removal candidates
Letters Written in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark	Review now
Rudolf Vrba	Review now
Michael Tritter	Review now
Middle Ages	Review now
Emmy Noether	Review now
The Notorious B.I.G.	Review now
Isaac Brock	Review now
Mariah Carey	Review now
Pokémon Channel	Review now
Concerto delle donne	Review now
The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask	Review now

Two medical Featured articles are candidates for removal, with four more in the pipeline (notification has been given that a Featured article review is needed).

WPMED has the resources and knowledge to update and maintain these articles but unfortunately that has not been done, even with notifications given on talk.

FA Dengue fever and others are also in need of updates, but only those that have been formally noticed on talk per the instructions at WP:FAR are listed in the FAR template.

I see a long listing of GA reviews needed as well; a reminder that GA is a one-person process, not a wider community process as FA is (that is, GA status reflects the impression of one editor only so can never carry the same weight as an FA). It is unfortunate for articles that have been maintained to FA status for at least a decade to lose their bronze star, when these could be saved with a bit of elbow crease and collaborative effort. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:28, 7 March 2020 (UTC)

I think this is about members here not prioritizing FA, in part because the process has become needlessly bureaucratic – and lacks understanding of what concessions need to be made for medical articles. I'm inclined to posit that whereas WPMED may have the knowledge, the resources are severely lacking; and not only on WPMED's side. I have no issues with stripping all medical articles of FA-status. Carl Fredrik ^talk 20:49, 7 March 2020 (UTC)

The process for retaining a star is no different than we should expect of our medical content anyway-- that is, it should not be ten years outdated, regardless of article status. And featured articles have the benefit of a bit more protection from uninformed edits because of their community review. I am unware of any "lack of understanding of concessions" that need to be made for medical articles, and I suspect if something like that existed, I'd know about it. And finally, there are plenty of resources for maintaining important articles current, albeit focused in other directions. I'm not aware of you ever having worked on articles at the FA level,[1] so it would be helpful if you refrain from discouraging others who might be willing. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:57, 7 March 2020 (UTC)

I deter your ad hominem regarding my contribution SandyGeorgia. It is both false and not to the point.

What we see may likewise be the article FA status on... acting as a brake on article improvement. While I can’t point to any study, my personal experience is that FAs are often so zealously guarded that editing them is a pain. I’m quite well aware that I am not alone in feeling this, even if others avoid voicing their opinion.

Being a general editor, having worked in different capacities over thousands of medical articles — it is simply not worth the consternation of working on either an FA, FAC or FAR for the extremely modest reward of being featured on the main page.… Why care about a one-time jump in readership of 200k, when I know my efforts on 10 different articles can be seen by upwards of 10,000,000 readers in a month?

I would prefer we had fewer FAs in order to avoid them falling into disrepair because people think they can't edit FAs. Carl Fredrik ^talk 15:46, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

The number of medical FAs and GAs up to 2017 (doi:10.1136/jech-2016-208601).

A bit late to this thread, but I agree with Sandy. Keeping FAs up to scratch, and promoting new GAs and FAs is a logical high priority for the Med community. Although FA and GA focus quite a bit on style and formatting, the checks on readability, up-to-dateness, and references are very valuable quality assurance procedures. It also serves as a commitment of the community to nurture even well-developed and established pages. The challenge (as always) is having a large enough editor community, but it's an area that many newcomers find themselves drawn to if given opportunity and support. T.Shafee(Evo&Evo)^talk 11:09, 13 March 2020 (UTC)

But combining the two in a graph is misleading, because GAs are not community reviewed, and GA status has no meaning beyond one editor's opinion. Considering the very bad shape that the medical FAs are in, I shudder to think of the state of the GAs; most of those that I've checked shouldn't be GAs at all, but I don't engage to have them re-assessed because GA has no meaning beyond one editor, and the time spent to delist them is better spent in generating FA content, IMO.

Also, although surprisingly no one here noticed it the first time that publication was posted here, the conflict of interest in that publication is shocking, considering that those articles are self-assessed as "Good articles", often by the same group of editors who then published the results. We wouldn't accept that level of conflict of interest in our medical content sources; why do we accept it here? That is a seriously flawed publication, whose author did not seem to understand that GA is not a community-wide assessment and has no useful meaning for this context. Simply put, whatever that publication claims about quality content at WPMED is based on flawed data and quite the opposite is demonstrably true. Measuring quality by self-assessed status (GA or B-class) is misleading, and that those results were published with such a glaring error is surprising.

Medical FAs in medicine have flatlined since 2015, and the Medicine group has not kept pace with other Project production of FAs; the good news is that by bringing these outdated articles to FAR, they are now receiving attention from the broader community. Please join in to maintain our top content. There was a time when our Featured content was on the main Project page here; how little regard this Project has for producing top content is evidenced in the focus of the project page. A good comparison can be made to Wikipedia:WikiProject Military History, where producing top content is truly a goal, which they achieve quite well. Looking at the focus and processes of that group is instructive.

FAs are the standard by which other articles should be judged, and a guide for new editors as to what they should aim for; we should be concerned that our top content serve as an adequate model for other articles. As of now, almost none of the medicine project articles do that on any level. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:28, 13 March 2020 (UTC)

Percentage Growth in FA Categories, 2008–2019, Legend:

Considerably above average, Above average, Average

Below average , Considerably below average, Disastrous

Featured Article Category as of	Feb 23, 2008	Sep 16, 2008	Sep 16, 2010	Dec 1, 2011	Jan 1, 2015	Jan 1, 2020	Pct chg Feb 2008 to 2011	Pct chg Feb 2008 to 2020
Art, architecture and archaeology	65	72	117	128	175	271	97%	317%
Awards, decorations and vexillology	24	26	28	27	26	24	1.3%	0%
Biology	130	155	261	326	456	625	151%	381%
Business, economics and finance	16	19	22	44	73	116	175%	625%
Chemistry and mineralogy	29	31	34	37	40	46	28%	59%
Computing	17	17	17	18	16	14	5.9%	−18%
Culture and society	40	48	61	65	77	104B	63%	160%
Education	30	34	36	38	40	40	27%	33%
Engineering and technology	35	37	38	40	43	49	14%	40%
Food and drink	11	11	9	13	17	21B	18%	91%
Geography and places	148	158	181	185	213	232	25%	57%
Geology and geophysics	9	12	18	20	23	29	122%	222%
Health and medicine	31	36	42	43	51	52	39%	68%
History	146	154	189	201	239	308	38%	111%
Language and linguistics	17	15	13	13	12	15	−24%	−12%
Law	29	34	41	49	65	72	69%	148%
Literature and theatre	108	134	161	191	258	316B	77%	193%
Mathematics	13	14	19	17	18	18	31%	38%
Media	159	171	221	231	324	424	45%	167%
Meteorology	61	78	111	126	147	168	107%	175%
Music	153	182	232	254	331	398	66%	160%
Philosophy and psychology	12	13	12	12	12	14	0%	17%
Physics and astronomy	67	82	98	101	127	153	51%	128%
Politics and government	62	67	98	117	166	217	89%	250%
Religion, mysticism and mythology	36	44	73	84	105	121	133%	236%
Royalty, nobility and heraldry	75	90	94	108	124	173	44%	131%
Sport and recreation	119	162	268	298	365	449	150%	277%
Transport	47	74	107	128	171	213	172%	353%
Video gaming	72	96	127	137	180	222	90%	208%
Warfare	145	173	318	366	537	729	152%	403%
Total	1,906	2,239	3,046	3,417	4,431	5,695 A	79.3%	198.8%

• Note A: Total is off by one; not worth looking for the error.
• Note B Three food biographies moved [2] per discussion at WT:FAC
• Note: The very odd dates used in earlier years result from pulling old data from the talk page at WP:FAS.

SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:11, 13 March 2020 (UTC)

I don't want to side-track this conversation or escalate, especially since I agree with the majority of your points. Minor clarifications: I agree that separating GA and FA would have been better for the graph and have now done so for the version on commons; The paper it's adapted from had multiple authors, not just one; I wasn't sure whether you were saying that GA has shocking COI, or the JECH publication, but the JECH paper included a competing interests section and includes a sentence summarising the reviewer number difference between FA and GA reviews; I agree that we'd not accept GA review for medical content sources, though FA review wouldn't either (but FA is clearly the superior process, and actually has some facets that are superior to traditional academic peer review); . T.Shafee(Evo&Evo)^talk 03:10, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

I like the new graph; it demonstrates the problem we've had since 2015. At any rate, moving forward to solutions ... I have separated your posts to continue below. Next, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:20, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

MilHist successes

I agree that FA is a far more valuable process than GA. Though that don'est necessarily mean that GA is valueless as a checking mechanism. It has been pretty common for articles submitted for FA to go through GA first as a screen for obvious issues. However I'd definitely support a focus on FA content (both maintenance of existing and promotion of new). Is anyone able to provide a short summary on how & why Milhist has been so successful in its content quality focus? It might be good to invite a few of them to write a post here summarising learning points that could be applied to medical content. Were there any significant changes around 2009 (other than the changes observed wikipedia-wide) within the MED community focus that lead to the FA plateau? T.Shafee(Evo&Evo)^talk 03:10, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

I will next put up some examples of things MilHist does right, and invite some of the MilHist FA people to comment, but separately for now ... there is a problem with ALL medical assessments being done (whether FA, GA, B-class or this alleged external peer review ... and that is that none of them are maintained. A GA pass five years ago on an article that is not maintained transmits potentially dangerous implications about the accuracy of medical info on Wikipedia. Ditto for all classes. Many (not all) MILHIST FAs are somewhat static and don't require ongoing updates and assessments as medical articles do. As a Project, WPMED has lost focus on the importance of maintaining information in the bodies of articles current, as it has shifted focus to leads only. And yes, I can provide for you a history of the changes that occurred at WPMED that led to this decline. Give me half an hour to put all this together. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:26, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

Here are some of the things MILHIST does right (as an explanation of why they dominate top content production at every level on Wikipedia):

• Look at what they highlight on their project page: Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history (eg, goals towards FA content)
• They also run their own A-class review (ACR), and most MILHIST articles go through an A-class review before coming to FAC: this is MUCH more useful than GA status: Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Assessment/A-Class review
• They keep up with assessments: Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Assessment
• They have Coordinators running these processes.
• They also have contests and give awards.
• Perhaps they can give us some feedback as to how WPMED can do better. One can see my next section here (WPMED history) to see that this Project has moved in opposite directions as MILHIST. @Ian Rose, Peacemaker67, Gog the Mild, Hawkeye7, Parsecboy, and Sturmvogel 66: the most active MILHIST FA participants.

What is most obvious is that they set goals for top content production, and have processes in place to track those goals and help achieve them. While WPMED has removed from its Project pages any pretense of aiming at top content production, replacing it with an almost exclusive external focus. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:47, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

SandyGeorgia, speaking as just one editor, I don't think that anyone at MilHist pays much attention to the targets and I believe that they play little or no role in MilHist's relative success. I think that a working ACR system is a key component of it though, so far as the better quality articles are concerned. So is the contests and awards thing; partly in the way they incentivise newer and/or less prolific editors. This may be part of what I think is a second key component (alongside ACRs) of its success: the way the project welcomes, fosters and encourages newcomers. In my possibly biased opinion MilHist is an area which actually lives up to (mostly) those good old-fashioned Wikipedian values. As I wrote in this month's Signpost "Members of the Military History Project have collegially made the project a comfortable place to work in such a natural, even graceful, way that what they have achieved seems normal." Which brings me to thirdly: there is an esprit de corps.

I am not in any way attempting to suggest that these do not apply to WikiProject Medicine. This is my first visit here and I would not know. Although I note that hard-nosed external commentators speak well of the project.

I think that the major difficulty in comparing is that this project deals with information which changes in real time. MilHist deals with things where changes to the established "facts" usually evolve quite slowly, if they evolve at all. Once I have a FAC promoted, it is done. I suspect that this is rather less the case around here. Which will inevitably mean that editor time is taken away from working on new topics to maintaining the currency of the existing articles. I don't think that this is a fault or a flaw or a problem. To a large extent it is an inevitable outcome of the different subject areas.

Gog the Mild (talk) 18:33, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

Addendum. It was only last October that I gave a little help to Almaty in heaving Digital media use and mental health over the line to FA status. (I realise that this is not tagged as of interest to this project.) So the occasional article in the broad area of health is still being promoted, even if not medicine ones. Gog the Mild (talk) 19:26, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

I echo Gog's comments. To me, our A-Class review process (and its associated awards system) is what really sets us up for high achievement at FA, but it also reinforces the collegial attitude within the project. Our A-Class is close to FA, but there is a focus on the technical content rather than MOS and readability issues, something that would be of obvious benefit for WPMED. One relatively recent innovation of our ACR process is to include an explicit source review, where sources and controversial statements are challenged and discussed. This has resulted in a step change in the quality of our A-Class articles, and if you were going to adopt a ACR process, I would recommend including that. The fact that at least three people with a strong interest in and generally good knowledge of military history have looked over the article before FAC is a major advantage. But Gog is right, to my mind, medical matters are much more subject to changes via the publishing of new research than historical subjects, where change is rarely rapid except with current events. So the effort required in maintaining FAs in the WPMED space is naturally going to be greater than for most Milhist articles. Cheers, Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 00:22, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

Thanks to both of you for weighing in! I think we must also mention that what makes the MILHIST ACR successful is that many editors reviewing there are also accomplished FA writers. The Medicine Project, on the other hand, has not prioritized feedback from those who have experience writing FAs; it has instead opted to go other directions, which at times has meant explicitly ignoring best practice on FAs. Unfortunately, external reviewers don't always understand the ins and outs of writing for an encyclopedia, and even some internal reviewers aren't well versed on FA requirements. MILHIST brings experienced FA reviewers to collaborate on all of its articles. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:31, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

In addition to what Gog and Peacemaker have said, obviously one of the things that work in Milhist's favor is the number of participants in the project. I don't know if anyone is keeping track, but I'd bet a not insignificant sum that we're the largest project, which is probably the single most important factor in how we're able to maintain our A-class system. Like any project, we have a core group that produces most of the higher-quality content, but because of our size, it's a large enough group that it's capable of sustaining the review process if we all help review other articles. In addition to the fact that military history tends to be the most popular historical genre, history in general also a significantly lower barrier of entry compared to other areas of study. I'd wager it took a bit more expertise to write Alzheimer's disease than it does for me to write articles about old warships.

One idea to help a MED review system get off the ground would be to partner with us (or any other project) to generate outside interest. I know we did that with WP:VG years ago. Parsecboy (talk) 12:21, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

Sorry that I've just noticed this, having been off in my own little world these last couple of months. I'd like to say that I think that getting your own ACR process up and running is probably the most important thing that y'all as a project can do as editors can focus on getting the details right, in reasonably well-written English without sweating the steep-learning curve portions of the MOS or diving deep into cite formats, etc. I'm not sure how that could be accomplished, as ours was already active when I began to get serious about Wikipedia. Electing coordinators might be one way to do that, as ours have always had an informal brief to keep the process moving, but maybe not. What is needed is a cadre of people who can come together to devote time to getting the articles up to a set standard of technical reliability, perhaps with social and human costs of the disease/syndrome/condition covered in a section that isn't scrutinized as heavily? And then transferred to its own page if the section gets deep/large/comprehensive enough with a summary left behind? As a newbie I was attracted to our on-going ACRs as I could easily see the value added by the review process and I wanted some of that for my own articles, which definitely needed outside perspectives. And if I was going to consume some reviewer's time to get my own articles improved, it seemed only fair that I do the same for other people. Perhaps y'all can revive your ACRs with as few as three dedicated people all reviewing each other's articles, with the hope that your example will encourage other editors to participate. If you do that publicize it, make it prominent on the project page and invite editors from other projects to help out. They probably won't have the technical expertise, but they can at least help relieve the burden on the prose.

I'd be lying if I didn't say that the awards and contests were sometimes a motivator, but I don't think that they're a big factor in participation. I myself have been known to put lots of extra effort at times in contests to just assure victory, if you can believe it! I mean there's usually less than a dozen editors in our monthly writing contests, but our yearly assessment contests get quite a few more than that. I'm uncertain if that's because they consist mostly of gnoming work or not; it's quite possible that some editors are intimidated by the volume of work put out by our more prolific editors and chose to help out in some other way that requires less dedication.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 02:37, 28 March 2020 (UTC)

I want to say here there's a societal/professional expectation of historians to write. For them, writing an encyclopedic article is fairly second nature. This is pretty much what they specialize in. The end goal is the promulgation of historical knowledge. For pretty much every other topic, this societal/professional incentive isn't there. As a scientist, the skills required for me conduct research and publish scientific papers is fairly different than the skills required to write an encyclopedic article. While there is some overlap with my background as a science educator, there's still a huge difference between how/what I teach and what is needed for a Wikipedia article. Writing Wikipedia articles is harder. Much harder.

I also suspect that is true in medicine. The skills you have as a medical practitioner are (presumably) not easily transferable to that of a general encyclopedia writer. You could be the best damned physician in the world, and be just as stumped as anyone else when it comes to writing a general encyclopedic article. And while writing an article is relatively easy, writing one to the standards of an FA is a significant effort. And for many, they're just happy to write 'good enough' articles useful to most medical professional and students alongside scientifically literate people, and not worry about doing having to do a review of reviews and polish everything so everything is understandable to everyone in their extended family. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 00:54, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

What User:Gog the Mild said about history being "done", and science not, resonates with me. I think that the FA process is tuned for content that is fully understood, rather than content that is half-known and changing.

Two FACs stand out most in my memory. One was Thyrotoxic periodic paralysis in late 2010. It's moderately technical, and none of the reviewers knew anything about the subject matter, so it sailed through in three weeks without any significant difficulty. The other is Acne in early 2017. Everybody showed up with their personal POVs (e.g., is this a 100% medical subject, or does it matter than people with severe acne have trouble getting jobs?) and pet peeves. Everyone was convinced that their POV and pet peeves were the right ones, and nobody's mind was changed. Much of it was more painful than it should have been. We saw a bit of this idea that it's more important to have The Right™ sources (which almost nobody reads) than to write the sentences that precede them. Some of it was absurd, to the point of someone thinking we needed MEDRS-style sources to support a statement that Concealer exists. Our approach to this dispute was mostly 'tis/'tisn't arguing, and not by developing a shared understanding of whether Cosmetics are biomedical products. After more than two months of this kind of stuff, someone sensibly archived the FAC. In neither case do I see the FAC process contributing much in the end. Acne was moderately improved by it (especially if you count changes made after the FAC was closed), but the cost of those improvements to individual editors may have been higher than the benefits. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:04, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

Just to clarify, Thyrotoxic periodic paralysis did not "sail through without any significant difficulty". Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Thyrotoxic periodic paralysis/archive1 had quite a time, and came close to failing on good grounds. Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Tourette syndrome is what "sailing through with no difficulty" looks like, and that was on the heels of MONTHS of medical and non-medical editors reviewing, fine-tuning and pointing out areas that lacked clarity. That is what is needed pre-FAC for medical topics, and it is similar to what happens at MILHIST A-class review.

I was not participating at FAC when Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Acne vulgaris/archive2 happened, but I would have argued for it to have been withdrawn sooner. Ill-prepared articles cannot be fixed at FAC; withdrawing them sooner helps avoid the unnecessary. FAC is not the place for sorting out the ill-prepared, and WAID is right that the pain in those cases is unnecessary and unhelpful. In all such cases, extended high-level review from WPMED in advance is helpful, but it should be complemented by bringing in non-medical FA writers for review as well, as those people can point out where there is too much jargon or a lack of clarity for non-medical writers. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:25, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

Ok, my FAC experience is now a decade old but the principles are the same. I don't think you should view the FAC nomination process as a place to work on an article till it passes. Preparation is the key and if you are getting significant knock-back at FAC then you've failed. The ketogenic diet article passed without difficulty. I'm not the fastest writer and it took me a long time to gather the necessary sources and finish something comprehensive that I was happy with. I got some early talk page review comments from Graham Colm. Then I put it through GA and was lucky to get Tim Vickers to review. Then I put it up for peer reivew and got Eubulides, Maralia, Awadewit, Graham Colm, Fvasconcellos and Mmagdalene722 to comment and edit. I asked Awadewit to copyedit it for me. She was one of our finest article writers and much in demand, so I had to be patient. Then I asked the lead researcher in the field, Eric Kossoff from Johns Hopkins Hospital, to review it and he gave helpful comments (offline) that I incorporated. Then, only after thousands of words of review and hundreds of edits by a team of editors each talented enough to produce their own FAs, did I nominate it at FAC. So I agree with Sandy, it is months of teamwork that will get a FAC, of editors who wouldn't dream of revert warring with each other, who respect each other and show that by being critical of the text and encouraging of the person.

The cares more about having citations to the right sources than having the right sentences preceding them comment is so so true but not restricted to FAC at all and quite deeply embedded here today. FA was originally called "Brilliant Prose". Who wants confused, barely literate prose with MEDRS-compliant citations? Not our readers, who can find high quality professionally written medical content elsewhere in 2020. Don't you want to write brilliant prose? If you love a subject, aim to get an FA in it. -- Colin°^Talk 17:15, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

WPMED History

Last year, WhatamIdoing said:

We used to be focused on writing brilliant articles filled with precisely delimited claims and superb sources. Then we went through an anti-woo phase: almost anything's okay, as long as it hurts the spammers and alt-med proponents ... Now we seem to be talking more about issues of health policy, which is a more approximate subject area with a focus on practicalities, like approximate prices. Which is naturally going to frustrate both of the previous groups, because it's not up to the standards of the first group, and practicalities sometimes don't produce the proper anti-woo signals.

But the "anti-woo" focus is not the only factor that led to a decline in participation by WPMED at the Featured article level. Other issues can be explored by the other frequent medical FA writers and reviewers (@Colin, Graham Beards, and Jfdwolff:).

WikiProject Medicine History

• 2004, WikiProject Clinical Medicine started by Jfdwolff
• 2005, November, WP MED started by Knowledge Seeker (talk · contribs · logs) [3]
• 2006, by year-end,[4] WP MED has an active list of members tasks, stub sorting, a portal, a weekly collaboration {{CurrentMCOTW}}, news & announcements {{MCOTWannounce}}, and a very active [5] Featured content and GA page. {{Medicine trophy box}}
• 2006, Summer, Manual of style (MEDMOS) started and refined by Stevenfruitsmaak (talk · contribs · logs) and Davidruben (talk · contribs · logs)
• 2006, November, Identifying reliable sources in medicine (MEDRS) started as a proposed guideline [6] by Colin (talk · contribs · logs)
• 2007, Spring, MEDMOS is accepted as a guideline [7] with efforts by Colin (talk · contribs · logs), SandyGeorgia (talk · contribs · logs), Fvasconcellos (talk · contribs · logs) and copyediting by Tony1 (talk · contribs · logs)
• 2007, Refinements to MEDRS [8] by Colin (talk · contribs · logs), Nbauman (talk · contribs · logs), SandyGeorgia (talk · contribs · logs), MastCell (talk · contribs · logs), Davidruben (talk · contribs · logs)
• 2008, Nmg20 (talk · contribs · logs) and Eubulides (talk · contribs · logs) join in [9]
• 2008, September, WP:MEDRS, promoted to guideline [10]
• Around 2012, beginning with student editing drives by WMF,[11] a switch to an external focus, away from focus on article improvement on English Wikipedia. A once vibrant community, WPMED has not produced a featured article since 2015, and most of the current FAs are out of compliance with WIAFA, no longer well maintained. Guidelines MEDRS and MEDMOS began to be used as bludgeons to force a certain structure into articles and leads, and to whack alt-med proponents, alienating some of the very people who helped write those guidelines. When these trends started, many FA writers stopped trying to produce top content.
• By 2018, WPMED's switch to external focus, away from development of English Wikipedia content, was more noticeable: no more collaboration of the week, no article improvement drive or tracking, FA and GA box completely gone, internal content improvement drives replaced by partners, translations, offline apps, and Off-Wiki partners [12] with focus on only the leads of articles, while content in the bodies of articles is extensively neglected.
• 2020, WPMED focus is noticeably external, leads and articles forced to a certain structure (via misapplication of the very guidelines developed by most prolific FA writers) and maintained at the expense of developing content in the bodies of articles: Medicine#Partners
  In the curent environment, MEDMOS and MEDRS guidelines are applied as if they were policy, and policies (WP:NOT and WP:V on pricing) are ignored as if they were guideline. Since FA writers must uphold policy and guideline correctly, this has led to alienation of FA writers and no more featured content. Almost all of the current medical FAs were written between 2008 and 2015; almost none are currently maintained. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:39, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

A personal history

SandyGeorgia — This is very clearly your history of WPMED, and one I which I feel a need to strongly distance myself from. The end-goal of WP:MED is certainly not the production of Featured Articles, but the production of an entire corpus of articles which are "decent". I'd much rather have 1000 articles that we can be reasonably certain aren't full of holes and erroneous statements than 100 which are "Featured"-quality.
I find it is utterly important that this be communicated — because I don't think it's a good idea to promote work towards FAs to new editors, or frankly anyone apart from those who are already involved in the process. I'd prefer as few WP:MED editors as possible engaging in the process. Carl Fredrik ^talk 15:52, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

I appreciate your confirmation that you and a small handful validate the history as I present it: WPMED is no longer focused on quality content. I would be so pleased if our GAs were not as full of holes as our neglected FAs are. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:57, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

"WPMED is no longer focused on quality content", that's trolling behaviour at best @SandyGeorgia:. WPMED is focused on quality content, just not FA-tracked content. Taking 100 articles from Stub to C, Start to B, C to B, etc... is arguable a more substantial improvement to the quality of Wikipedia, than bringing an article from B to FA. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 16:02, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

Seconded, and if there has been any shift in focus I can only applaud it, because it is more likely to be useful to humanity writ large.

What on the other hand seems clear to me from your list of editors SandyGeorgia is that you represent a very small minority of editors, many of which don't engage the medical community at all.

There is nothing stopping you from workings on FAs, as long as it is not to the detriment of other content. But it must be accepted as a valid position to simply ignore FAs, and not be smeared for it. Carl Fredrik ^talk 16:07, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

Do I need three pings to a page I follow? I would invite both of you to work up the quality of some of our GAs, since FA does not appeal to you. Improving ANY article is A Good Thing, and there are holes at every level. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:11, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

SandyGeorgia — What I don't understand is how you seem to be implying that improving content isn't what each and every WP:MED-editor is doing already. We're working to improve quality of articles and remove holes in our coverage all the time. I'm still strongly supportive of the idea that what is most useful is to work on articles without regard to any FA or GA-processes at all.

That you find the FA-process important does not give you the right to denigrate others who don't. You're going into this with the attitude that "what I'm doing is the only thing that matters", and that a collective move to ignore that process while still trying to improve content is de facto a deterioration. I'm saying that it isn't, and trying to argue that the process in fact locks articles away from being improved by more than 1-2 very experienced editors. The FA-process is elitist and makes Wikipedia worse, and you attitude is making that abundantly clear. I would go so far as to posit that the lack of maintenance on medical FAs is symptomatic of their elitist nature. While it might work in a non-changing field, FA-status actively harms medical articles. Carl Fredrik ^talk 16:20, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

Evo asked: However I'd definitely support a focus on FA content (both maintenance of existing and promotion of new). Is anyone able to provide a short summary on how & why Milhist has been so successful in its content quality focus? It might be good to invite a few of them to write a post here summarising learning points that could be applied to medical content. Were there any significant changes around 2009 (other than the changes observed wikipedia-wide) within the MED community focus that lead to the FA plateau? T.Shafee(Evo&Evo)talk 03:10, 15 March 2020 (UTC) You seem to be taking an answer to a direct query farther than helpful. Meanwhile, there is non-MEDRS content prominently placed over at 2019–20 coronavirus pandemic, so I suggest it is a strange time for this undue concern. There is work to be done here, and obviously I am not going to address a comment like "FA-status actively harms medical articles", because you are entitled to your own opinion, but not your own facts. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:52, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

That is once again a fallacious argument, and further whataboutism wrt that article (which I am currently engaged in).
That FA-status can harm articles by deterring editors is not solely opinion, but something I can back by argument and which is testable. It is certainly not "my own facts", that is gaslighting.
While we can't put it to the test in a double-blind trial, but we can look retrospectively and see if FAs are edited less. Your take of the opposite being self-evidently true is no more "fact", and is frankly more opinionated than what I said because you're not even presenting counterarguments (spare the 'ad hominem'). Carl Fredrik ^talk 17:07, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

You may have the last word. (Be sure to have a look at how many of WPMED's FAs AND GAs are unnecessarily semi-protected ... I recently questioned one, for example.) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:11, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

Very interesting point, something that should certainly be looked into. I would support a review of all of those protects. Carl Fredrik ^talk 17:17, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

I'd be more than happy to remove protection from any of those medical articles on simple request from either of you, on the understanding that you would let me know if vandalism suddenly increased, so that I could restore protection. --RexxS (talk) 02:04, 21 March 2020 (UTC)

I'd love for all of us to have a conversation about what the group would like to accomplish during the next couple of years, but I question whether this is the month to be having that conversation, with all of the coronavirus articles needing extra attention.

If you're interested in the subject, then please do think over the subject. I could suggest a few questions (e.g., Is it more important to get potentially good content in, or to get potentially bad content out? Do we add biomedical information and leave the rest [e.g., content about how disabilities affect school or work experiences] for someone else, or do we want to write comprehensive articles ourselves? Many okay-ish articles or fewer excellent articles? Which articles?), but I think the thing to do is to think about what you want for a few weeks, and be ready to share your vision later. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:07, 21 March 2020 (UTC)

Top level anti-woo articles

Another thing I would add about the "anti-woo" factor. Bringing delusional parasitosis to the best level attainable is a FAR MORE EFFECTIVE way of dealing with the woo factor [13] than endless and unproductive discussion at Talk:Morgellons. The best defense is a good offense. I saw this very clearly a decade ago when talk page brawls were all the norm at MMR vaccine controversy. I ignored the mess on talk and set about to make the article as tightly written and sourced as possible. Expanding that article accomplished much more than arguing on talk with quacks and trolls can. [14] These days, WPMED is more focused on anti-woo battleground than simply producing the best content possible, which generally answers the woo factor. Hint, hint. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:00, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

Different strokes for different blokes, as they say. Both are needed and contribute to improvements. It's good if both styles are in the same person. But there's nothing wrong with focusing on removing woo either. If you want to know why some people are more focused on removing woo than writing articles, it's simply that it's much easier to identify and remove woo. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 00:59, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

True, but ultimately, arguing anti-woo takes more time than writing a quality article. I rewrote delusional parasitosis to updated sources in one day, and in the process, found answers to some of the Woo arguments at Morgellons. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:04, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

Not in my experience. Remove the woo and that takes care of 80%+ of it with a link to WP:RS/WP:FRINGE or similar. If people re-introduce it, ask people to follow WP:RS/WP:MEDRS and to take it to the talk page/WP:RSN/WP:FRINGEN if they disagree. That takes care of another 15%. That leaves a 5% that requires heavier engagement.

As for how much time it takes, that all depends on how you measure your time, but especially how you measure your return on invested time. I'm entirely fine spending half an hour to purge content cited through Pacific Journal of Energy Medicine or some other nonsense journal. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 01:38, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

In the cases of Morgellons or anti-vaxxers, I measure it in "did I give them the information that might sink in some day and help address their delusion". That is priceless and immeasurable. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:46, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

Milestones and targets

Although the MILHIST milestone targets might not necessarily translate completely, there are a couple of things from other projects that might be useful: The /Article alerts summary (collapsed below) has been quite useful in WP:MCB and WP:GEN for heeping ppl informed on current items. We had it on the main wikiproject pages but for WP:MED, it might be more logical at the top of the talkpage?

Extended content

Did you know 01 Nov 2024 – Adrenal crisis (talk · edit · hist) was nominated for DYK by IntentionallyDense (t · c); see discussion 23 Oct 2024 – Abortion in Gabon (talk · edit · hist) was nominated for DYK by Vigilantcosmicpenguin (t · c); see discussion Articles for deletion 04 Nov 2024 – Sonoran University of Health Sciences (talk · edit · hist) was AfDed by Jdcooper (t · c); see discussion (2 participants) 03 Nov 2024 – Gerónimo Lluberas (talk · edit · hist) was AfDed by Sink Cat (t · c); see discussion (2 participants) 03 Nov 2024 – Adelle of the Saracens (talk · edit · hist) was AfDed by Surtsicna (t · c); see discussion (3 participants) 01 Nov 2024 – Priti Adani (talk · edit · hist) was AfDed by Ratnahastin (t · c); see discussion (5 participants) 24 Oct 2024 – Implant bars (talk · edit · hist) was AfDed by JMWt (t · c); see discussion (1 participant; relisted) 18 Oct 2024 – Şifa University (talk · edit · hist) was AfDed by Chidgk1 (t · c); see discussion (3 participants; relisted) 10 Oct 2024 – 232d Medical Battalion (talk · edit · hist) was AfDed by I dream of horses (t · c); see discussion (9 participants; relisted) 04 Nov 2024 – XW10508 (talk · edit · hist) AfDed by Toadspike (t · c) was closed as keep by Toadspike (t · c) on 06 Nov 2024; see discussion (3 participants) 01 Nov 2024 – Musawo Julie (talk · edit · hist) AfDed by I dream of horses (t · c) was closed as delete by Justlettersandnumbers (t · c) on 04 Nov 2024; see discussion (5 participants) 29 Oct 2024 – Susanna Gibson (talk · edit · hist) AfDed by Hemiauchenia (t · c) was closed as redirect by Asilvering (t · c) on 30 Oct 2024; see discussion (6 participants) (4 more...) Proposed deletions 01 Nov 2024 – Musawo Julie (talk · edit · hist) PRODed by MPGuy2824 (t · c) was deproded by Matotech256 (t · c) (author) on 01 Nov 2024 Templates for discussion 25 Oct 2024 – Template:COVID-19 pandemic data/United States/California/Sonoma County medical cases chart (talk · edit · hist) was TfDed by Jonesey95 (t · c); see discussion 25 Oct 2024 – Template:COVID-19 pandemic data/United States/California/Solano County medical cases chart (talk · edit · hist) was TfDed by Jonesey95 (t · c); see discussion 25 Oct 2024 – Template:COVID-19 pandemic data/United States/California/San Mateo County medical cases chart (talk · edit · hist) was TfDed by Jonesey95 (t · c); see discussion 25 Oct 2024 – Template:COVID-19 pandemic data/United States/California/San Francisco County medical cases chart (talk · edit · hist) was TfDed by Jonesey95 (t · c); see discussion 25 Oct 2024 – Template:COVID-19 pandemic data/United States/California/Napa County medical cases chart (talk · edit · hist) was TfDed by Jonesey95 (t · c); see discussion 25 Oct 2024 – Template:COVID-19 pandemic data/United States/California/Marin County medical cases chart (talk · edit · hist) was TfDed by Jonesey95 (t · c); see discussion 25 Oct 2024 – Template:COVID-19 pandemic data/United States/California/Contra Costa County medical cases chart (talk · edit · hist) was TfDed by Jonesey95 (t · c); see discussion 25 Oct 2024 – Template:COVID-19 pandemic data/United States/California/Alameda County medical cases chart (talk · edit · hist) was TfDed by Jonesey95 (t · c); see discussion 25 Oct 2024 – Template:COVID-19 pandemic data/United Kingdom/Scotland medical cases 2020 (talk · edit · hist) was TfDed by Jonesey95 (t · c); see discussion 25 Oct 2024 – Template:COVID-19 pandemic data/Thailand medical cases (talk · edit · hist) was TfDed by Jonesey95 (t · c); see discussion (36 more...) Redirects for discussion 03 Nov 2024 – United Rapes (talk · edit · hist) →Rape in the United States was RfDed by LR.127 (t · c); see discussion 30 Oct 2024 – Koal (talk · edit · hist) →Potassium was RfDed by Cogsan (t · c); see discussion 26 Oct 2024 – Chaotolerance (talk · edit · hist) →Chaotropic agent was RfDed by Utopes (t · c); see discussion Featured list candidates 01 Oct 2024 – List of chronic pain syndromes (talk · edit · hist) was FL nominated by IntentionallyDense (t · c); see discussion Good article nominees 16 Oct 2024 – Benjamin Sheares (talk · edit · hist) was GA nominated by Actuall7 (t · c); start discussion 16 Oct 2024 – Abortion in the Gambia (talk · edit · hist) was GA nominated by Vigilantcosmicpenguin (t · c); start discussion 16 Oct 2024 – Abortion in Zambia (talk · edit · hist) was GA nominated by Vigilantcosmicpenguin (t · c); start discussion 10 Oct 2024 – Vitamin E (talk · edit · hist) was GA nominated by David notMD (t · c); see discussion 09 Oct 2024 – Paulina Luisi (talk · edit · hist) was GA nominated by Spookyaki (t · c); start discussion 03 Oct 2024 – Fred Binka (talk · edit · hist) was GA nominated by Vanderwaalforces (t · c); start discussion 11 Sep 2024 – Kawa model (talk · edit · hist) was GA nominated by Significa liberdade (t · c); see discussion 09 Jun 2024 – Walter W. White (talk · edit · hist) was GA nominated by B3251 (t · c); start discussion Requests for comments 29 Oct 2024 – List of common misconceptions (talk · edit · hist) has an RfC by WhatamIdoing (t · c); see discussion 17 Oct 2024 – Neal D. Barnard (talk · edit · hist) has an RfC by Mark0vPedro (t · c); see discussion Peer reviews 22 Oct 2024 – Crohn's disease (talk · edit · hist) has been put up for PR by AdeptLearner123 (t · c); see discussion Articles to be merged 27 Oct 2024 – Diet and longevity (talk · edit · hist) is proposed for merging to Longevity#Diet by Psychologist Guy (t · c); see discussion 21 Oct 2024 – Primary juvenile glaucoma (talk · edit · hist) is proposed for merging to Primary congenital glaucoma by Klbrain (t · c); see discussion 02 Oct 2024 – Global spread of H5N1 in 2007 (talk · edit · hist) is proposed for merging to Global spread of H5N1 by Klbrain (t · c); see discussion 02 Oct 2024 – Global spread of H5N1 in 2005 (talk · edit · hist) is proposed for merging to Global spread of H5N1 by Klbrain (t · c); see discussion 25 Sep 2024 – Splint (medicine) (talk · edit · hist) is proposed for merging to Orthotics by Rui Gabriel Correia (t · c); see discussion 16 Sep 2024 – Pediatric environmental health (talk · edit · hist) is proposed for merging to Environmental health by IntentionallyDense (t · c); see discussion 15 Sep 2024 – Psychogenic non-epileptic seizure (talk · edit · hist) is proposed for merging to Non-epileptic seizure by Slothwizard (t · c); see discussion 04 Sep 2024 – Volume CT (talk · edit · hist) is proposed for merging to Rotational angiography by Quantling (t · c); see discussion 20 Aug 2024 – Hydnocarpus wightianus (talk · edit · hist) is proposed for merging to Hydnocarpus pentandrus by Canyq (t · c); see discussion 08 Aug 2024 – Amorphinism (talk · edit · hist) is proposed for merging to Opioid withdrawal by Klbrain (t · c); see discussion (9 more...) Articles to be split 11 Oct 2024 – Alcohol (drug) (talk · edit · hist) is proposed for splitting by EducatedRedneck (t · c); see discussion 08 Jul 2024 – List of common misconceptions (talk · edit · hist) is proposed for splitting by WhatamIdoing (t · c); see discussion 22 Apr 2024 – State health agency (talk · edit · hist) is proposed for splitting by GobsPint (t · c); see discussion 20 Apr 2024 – Health department (talk · edit · hist) is proposed for splitting by GobsPint (t · c); see discussion 28 Mar 2024 – United Network for Organ Sharing (talk · edit · hist) is proposed for splitting by 45.26.61.142 (t · c); see discussion 03 Jan 2024 – Anisakis (talk · edit · hist) is proposed for splitting by Artoria2e5 (t · c); see discussion 17 Nov 2023 – Mycoplasma (talk · edit · hist) is proposed for splitting by Artoria2e5 (t · c); see discussion 27 May 2023 – Health advocacy (talk · edit · hist) is proposed for splitting by Felix QW (t · c); see discussion 31 Mar 2023 – Range of motion (talk · edit · hist) is proposed for splitting by Urbourbo (t · c); see discussion 02 Oct 2022 – Soft diet (talk · edit · hist) is proposed for splitting by AngusWOOF (t · c); see discussion (6 more...) Articles for creation 05 Nov 2024 – Draft:Shub Debgupta (talk · edit · hist) has been submitted for AfC by UpWriteGhost (t · c) 03 Nov 2024 – Draft:Alcohol and society (talk · edit · hist) has been submitted for AfC by 94.255.152.53 (t · c) 01 Nov 2024 – Draft:Roberto G. Carbone (talk · edit · hist) has been submitted for AfC by Ionospeakenglish88 (t · c) 01 Nov 2024 – Draft:Jan Poolman (talk · edit · hist) has been submitted for AfC by Wikicluck44 (t · c) 30 Oct 2024 – Draft:Amit Thapa (talk · edit · hist) has been submitted for AfC by SBData (t · c) 18 Oct 2024 – Draft:University of Texas Education and Research Center at Laredo (talk · edit · hist) has been submitted for AfC by JoeSanch1105 (t · c) 16 Oct 2024 – Draft:Deep Breathe (talk · edit · hist) has been submitted for AfC by Pennepasta12345 (t · c) 13 Oct 2024 – Draft:Jaime Claudio Villamil (talk · edit · hist) has been submitted for AfC by JeanetteMartin (t · c) 10 Oct 2024 – Draft:Kotra Pharma (talk · edit · hist) has been submitted for AfC by Wolfiewhite (t · c) 05 Oct 2024 – Draft:Khashayar Farzam (talk · edit · hist) has been submitted for AfC by 2605:B100:34A:23D4:39C5:43E4:333F:40CB (t · c) (13 more...)

I've not seen much info on best ways to attract new users to submit and review FAs, but growing that community may be more effective than trying to refocus existing editors who have their own valuable specialisations (e.g. readability, lead optimisation, partnerships, accessibility, dissemination, translation).

Again at WP:MCB and WP:GEN, one of the most productive periods was a pair of blitzes on enzyme than gene pages which saw 3-10 editors go through those articles top-to-bottom. The GA/FA framework was useful for front page visibility as well as keeping better track of them as high-quality articles. However it's been difficult to recapture that energy with subsequently floated ideas (e.g. genetic engineering and CRISPR-cas9, but I don't have a good explanation for why.

Another GA/FA-focused community is WP:WikiProject Tree of Life. They've got a great newsletter organised by Enwebb that includes highlighting these and raising their profile and awareness within that editor community. T.Shafee(Evo&Evo)^talk 10:39, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

New medical FAC

• Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Leptospirosis/archive2

This article appeared at FAC last month. Noting the conversations above about MILHIST collaboration, when this article appeared last month, [[Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Leptospirosis/archive1, it did not appropriately use recent MEDRS sources. It has again appeared at FAC without, as far as I can tell, being vetted by WPMED. This is an example of where better WPMED collaboration might be helpful. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:00, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

It could also be taken as an example of WPMED resignation because it is extremely unlikely to be promoted — and getting involved is seen as a waste of time……
I wrote this before seeing that the discussion had been closed and archived a few days ago
Carl Fredrik ^talk 15:48, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

WP Medicine praised in Media

Nice to see some public acknowledgement of this WikiProject's great work on Wired. Thanks for your vigilance! Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 20:51, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

very nice--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 20:05, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

I was just catching up on my news feed outside of editing and I just want to say a big thank you to everyone at WikiProject Medicine for all the hard work you all do both here at Wikipedia and in RL! I honestly didn't realize the extent of what this WikiProject did for the articles it supports until I read the Wired article and I'm very appreciative of this WikiProject especially during these trying times. If there is ever anything I can do or something I need to know to improve upon to support your project while working in other areas like WP:NPR just let me know. Alucard 16_{❯❯❯ chat?} 07:40, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

• Cohen, Noam (15 March 2020). "How Wikipedia Prevents the Spread of Coronavirus Misinformation". Wired.
• Qaiser, Farah (18 March 2020). "Like Zika, The Public Is Heading To Wikipedia During The COVID-19 Coronavirus Pandemic". Forbes.
• Harrison, Stephen (19 March 2020). "The Coronavirus Is Stress-Testing Wikipedia's Systems—and Editors". Slate Magazine.
• Majumdar, Roshni (20 March 2020). "Looking for information on Coronavirus? Wikipedia it". www.dailyo.in. India Today.

Blue Rasberry (talk) 15:58, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

Bluerasberry — Amazing! It's fun to see our work being appreciated. I think we could do more to coordinate the COVID-efforts and to bring editors here, see my post Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Medicine#Many_new_editors_in_the_wake_of_the_COVID-19_pandemic
Carl Fredrik ^talk 16:26, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

Is it OR to state that novel Coronavirus can be transmitted by common communion cup?

• Pls see refs and discussion at Wikipedia:No original research/Noticeboard. Cinadon36 16:19, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

commented--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 22:16, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

Leo Galland notable?

This seems to be some quack HuffPo writer which boats to have been recognized as one of "America's Top Doctors" (a listing by Castle Connolly [15]). Extra eyes are needed there, I think. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 21:39, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

trimmed[16]--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 02:25, 21 March 2020 (UTC)

Red light therapy

I noticed Red light therapy because it appeared in the robot report for new physics-related articles. It looks like it could use better sourcing, at the very least. XOR'easter (talk) 20:54, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

• Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Red_light_therapy--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 12:08, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

Angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 & Talk:Angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 require review

Thanks, folk. I don't have too much time to do so and it's somewhat beyond my knowledge. --Reciprocater (talk) 13:23, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

I've pinged Graham Beards to the question about whether ACE2 and ACE2 receptor are the same thing. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:50, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

Thank you!! --Reciprocater (talk) 16:05, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

Continued II

the encoded protein (ACE2) is a functional receptor for the spike glycoprotein of the human coronavirus HCoV-NL63 and the human severe acute respiratory syndrome coronaviruses, SARS-CoV and SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19 virus). -NCBI.

Human coronavirus NL63：

Human coronavirus NL63 or HCoV-NL63 is a species of coronavirus that was identified in late 2004 in a seven-month-old child with bronchiolitis in the Netherlands. The infecting virus is an enveloped, positive-sense, single-stranded RNA virus which enters its host cell by the ACE2 receptor.

---

I saw ACE2 receptor had been redirected to Angiotensin_II_receptor. Is it a correct redirection? Regards,

References

--Reciprocater (talk) 14:21, 21 March 2020 (UTC)

@Reciprocater: btw, Bentham Open journals are dodgy. Best to avoid, unless something like a discovery source who was confirmed/endorsed by others. Which may well be the case here. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 02:55, 29 March 2020 (UTC)

@Headbomb: Thank you for the reminder! --Reciprocater (Talk) 04:38, 29 March 2020 (UTC)

Many new editors in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic

While it certainly isn't positive for anyone, the coronavirus pandemic has brought in many quite active new editors. I have created the following text for use on new editors pages. Feel free to use it!

{{COVID invite}}

Carl Fredrik ^talk 15:24, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

• @CFCF: great idea our time is now

Carl you seem like a fun guy for outreach. How would you feel about doing more online live and recorded events? There is

• meta:WikiProject Remote Event Participation

but in general I think now is the time for wiki medicine to plan and make video for lots of things, and to do online events. I have sort of done a lot but in some way I think it is timely to make plans for outreach through video at scale. COVID-19 is one path, disaster management is the big picture as is massive global shift to online collaboration. Not sure how to connect, but when you talk of welcoming people with this template, I am thinking of more organization to onboard. Blue Rasberry (talk) 16:59, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

• One way to encourage WPMED participation is to ... actually allow new editors to edit.[17] Obviously, WPMED covers many topics that need to be semi-protected, like vagina, penis, sexual intercourse and other fuckity-fuck-fuck coprolalia-related topics. But the trend here seems to have been to push an article to the GA or FA level, and then semi-protect it. I recently noticed an FA that was ten years outdated, not being maintained by WPMED, and yet was semi-protected so that IPs were discouraged from editing or improving it. A good step towards encouraging new editors would be a review of all of our semi-protected articles, as to whether protection is necessary, or just protecting someone's idea of good content, even when that content is considerably outdated and incomplete. (I did a small review weeks ago, and am not convinced by the level of protection found among WPMED articles; when I questioned one many weeks ago, the protection was removed, and the article is faring just fine). IF we want more editors-- particularly during this time when so many people are trapped at home-- perhaps we should start letting them edit. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:32, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

You're certainly right about much of that, but we can do several things at once. Carl Fredrik ^talk 18:15, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

Creating New Page COVID-19_Drug_Repurposing_Research and updating Drug Repurposing Page

SARS-CoV scanning electron microscope image

Hello, I've created a draft for COVID-19 Drug Repurposing Research as it is:

• A specific and very important research direction of great public interest.
• Would enable the Wiki community to understand what medicine pages may soon have a lot of traffic / need editing attention.
• Potentially a place to track high-level COVID-19 related updates (such as legal) for research concerning repurposed medicine.

Can someone help me make the draft better? Then potentially get it reviewed? I've done my best as a graduate student to link very credible sources, but at some point things need more than my (tired) eyes.

I'm also currently trying to update the Drug Repurposing page since it seems quite bare.

I've posted in the WikiProject COVID-19 as well, but I figured editors here could guide me to other medical articles that are similar to my draft or the Drug Repurposing Page. Thanks so much.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draft:COVID-19_Drug_Repurposing_Research

ProbablyAndrewKuznetsov (talk) 21:17, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

It has since been moved out of draft ProbablyAndrewKuznetsov (talk) 23:20, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

thank for keeping us posted--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 13:04, 21 March 2020 (UTC)

Follicular cell

Hi guys, if you're interested in cells, could you please have a look at the proposal here ? Your opinion would be appreciated. Thanks! Dr. Vogel (talk) 14:17, 21 March 2020 (UTC)

commented--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 13:08, 23 March 2020 (UTC)

RfC

On summary of spread of COVID19 Talk:2019–20_coronavirus_pandemic#RfC_on_first_sentence_on_spread_of_the_disease Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 15:16, 21 March 2020 (UTC)

commented--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 22:50, 21 March 2020 (UTC)

Huntington's disease FAR

I have nominated Huntington's disease for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Delist" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. buidhe 22:12, 21 March 2020 (UTC)

Buidhe, thank you--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 20:19, 24 March 2020 (UTC)

MEDRS in a time of pandemic

Can I solicit input at Talk:Coronavirus_disease_2019#Forks_focusing_on_early_research? Bondegezou (talk) 10:56, 22 March 2020 (UTC)

Also of interest to this wikiproject may be this FTN thread: WP:FTN § Hydroxychloroquine and Azithromycin. Thanks, —PaleoNeonate – 15:37, 23 March 2020 (UTC)

Another RfC on COVID transmission

Thoughts Talk:2019–20_coronavirus_pandemic#RfC_on_second_sentence_regarding_spread

Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 18:14, 23 March 2020 (UTC)

commented--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 13:50, 24 March 2020 (UTC)

RfD notification: NCoV (SARS)

Dear project members, your input at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2020 March 23#NCoV (SARS) would be appreciated. --BDD (talk) 18:42, 23 March 2020 (UTC)

• give opinion(gave mine)--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 20:17, 24 March 2020 (UTC)

Draft:Hyperbolastic Functions

The page Draft:Hyperbolastic Functions seems purely mathematical but it suggests the topic has a wide range of applications, mostly in medicine. Please see if it possibly is in the scope of this WikiProject. --CiaPan (talk) 19:06, 24 March 2020 (UTC)

was declined[18]--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 14:13, 25 March 2020 (UTC)

User:Robert McClenon, regardless of whether it's notable (=gets a separate article), that content belongs somewhere on Wikipedia. If you don't think it deserves its own separate article, could you please see about merging it to a larger subject? Good content shouldn't be left rotting in the draft space, where readers can't benefit from it. (Of course, at this stage, User:Dwilus could just WP:MOVE the page to the mainspace without bothering WP:AFC anyway, and then anyone who thought it wasn't notable would have to prove it at WP:AFD.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:29, 25 March 2020 (UTC)

User:WhatamIdoing - Hmmm. If the content ought to be in article space, then the least complicated way that an editor can do that is to move it to draft space, either by accepting it or just by moving it, and the script performs some useful services. In that case, a discussion about whether to merge into another article can take place afterwards. The argument that it belongs in article space somewhere is an argument for acceptance, and wasn't previous taken into account. I think that I will resubmit it and accept it shortly. This is a consideration for reviewers to take into account. Robert McClenon (talk) 15:55, 25 March 2020 (UTC)

Accepted. If it should be merged into other articles, it can be merged into other articles. Robert McClenon (talk) 17:34, 25 March 2020 (UTC)

I just tried to suggest you, participants of the WikiProject, might want to consider putting the template {{WikiProject Medicine}} at the page's talk. CiaPan (talk) 20:04, 26 March 2020 (UTC)

New feature - pageviews - now can include redirects

Wikipedia is important for sharing health information because lots of people read Wikipedia. Everyone here please remember that, because people who are not Wikipedia editors do not know this!

At meta:traffic reporting there is documentation about how Wikipedia can measure pageviews. meta:Pageviews Analysis is the tool which is available through the "history" tab of any page. A shortcoming of this tool is that previously, it could not count redirects. "Pageviews" has several variations for running variations of the one-article report. Previously, "redirect views" was a tool for counting redirected views, but there has always been a demand for people to search for one article and simply get a total.

Now we can get easy reports of total traffic to a given Wikipedia article including redirects. Thanks user:MusikAnimal (WMF) for adding this feature.

Everyone check it out, applied to 2019–20 coronavirus pandemic for the period 1 January - today

• Old Pageviews, without adding redirects - 13 million views (as of 24 March)
• New option, click the "add redirects" button 36 million views (as of 24 March), the actual number of people arriving at this article

In the context of COVID-19 people are going to have all the usual criticism of Wikipedia, saying in various ways that Wikipedia does not matter. If you hear this, the response is that we have the data to demonstrate that Wikipedia is a low cost way to deliver information to large numbers of people who need it. All the other communication options rely on global-scale investment in commercial communications or the extraordinary cost of negotiations to get special access to unique communication channels. Wikipedia also has the advantage of transparency when various governments around the world are right now behaving badly and themselves promoting misinformation.

Advocates of high quality source material have a great ally in Wikipedia and we have the evidence to show that our content reaches a large part of the informatio-seeking public. Blue Rasberry (talk) 23:24, 24 March 2020 (UTC)

Thanks User:Bluerasberry. This is so much easier :-) Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 00:19, 25 March 2020 (UTC)

Glad to hear this feature is well-received! Re ...the actual number of people arriving at this article: I should clarify the definition of a pageview. This is basically each request to the page, not the number of people. In most cases editors are going to trigger at least 2 pageviews -- once on the first view, and again after saving. 36 million is still a lot, though! :) — MusikAnimal ^talk 02:41, 26 March 2020 (UTC)

Non-wikipedian epidemiologist/virologist input for COVID19 articles

Hi, A question came up within WikiJournals about if/how we might assist with the COVID articles on Wikipedia. Some possible points:

• Could invite external peer reviews of core COVID articles (would be of a specific oldid but would likely be relatively rapid - would that be useful?)
• Could invite external authors to contribute articles on corona-related topics that are still stub/start (any topic ideas)?
• Could invite external contributors to help out on the core covid articles (but they'd need significant MEDMOS guidance)
• We've previously experimented with 'partner articles' that go into more detail than appropriate on a WP page (similar to Gene wiki reviews, example) would one be useful for any covid-related topics?

We're having a meeting at 7pm UTC 25 March 2020. Let me know if you'd like to drop in on the meeting itself and I'll also check back here to raise any points discussed here. T.Shafee(Evo&Evo)^talk 00:03, 25 March 2020 (UTC)
Also posted at Talk:COVID19 and Talk:WikiJournal_User_Group. T.Shafee(Evo&Evo)^talk 00:03, 25 March 2020 (UTC)

thank you Thomas,I believe this would be helpful(however as you know more opinions are needed from other medical editors) thank you as always--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 14:15, 25 March 2020 (UTC)

I hope some WP Medicine folks could participate in this. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 16:13, 25 March 2020 (UTC)

We just had the WikiJournals meeting regarding this and people seemed keen to be able to assist with the parts we have experience in (academia-wikipedia interactions). I'll put the minutes on-wiki at this link the next 48 hours. An additional idea that was raised was hosting translations of journal articles (and getting those translations checked for accuracy) since such items wouldn't necessarily have a logical hoe on Wikipedia itself. Is the translations taskforce of WP:MED still very active? T.Shafee(Evo&Evo)^talk 02:11, 26 March 2020 (UTC)

I have started the article on COVID-19 in pregnancy, and would like to co-ordinate with an expert in obstetrics. The translation task force for COVID-19 has been started here. --Netha (talk) 14:21, 27 March 2020 (UTC)

Biopsychosocial model and possible undue weight, puffery, and non-MEDRS sourcing

Hi everyone,

I saw this come up at the fringe theories noticeboard and felt I should mention it here. Here is the discussion. Crossroads ^-talk- 15:36, 25 March 2020 (UTC)

I just want to point out that when the first sentence of an article includes the word "interdisciplinary", then using some non-MEDRS sources is entirely appropriate. Medical journals and medical textbooks are not the only possible sources of good information, especially when the subject is, according to its own definition, not entirely medical. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:04, 25 March 2020 (UTC)

I made or improved wikidata queries of endocrinologists.

• Gerald Swyer (d:Q88262504): Swyer syndrome
• S. Douglas Frasier (d:Q88559284): Frasier syndrome
• Pierre Denys (d:Q88246461): Denys–Drash syndrome

They are dicoverers of named syndromes. In Wikidata, there are many queries about their academic articles. Please link these queries about their academic articles to these authors. --Sharouser (talk) 17:02, 25 March 2020 (UTC)

@Sharouser: Thanks for showcasing Wikidata. Right now there is not much overlap in participation between English Wikipedia WikiProject Medicine and d:Wikidata:WikiProject Medicine. If anyone wants to engage in Wikidata I am down to join.

What you are discussing is "author disambiguation" and there are tools for that.

If you resolve this one then the example is less powerful, but look at

• https://tools.wmflabs.org/scholia/author/Q88246461/missing

I am happy to talk this through but probably Wikidata is the better place. There is no documentation for this to read. Someone has to tell you. Blue Rasberry (talk) 17:09, 25 March 2020 (UTC)

current outbreak

• Hick, John L.; Biddinger, Paul D. (25 March 2020). "Novel Coronavirus and Old Lessons — Preparing the Health System for the Pandemic". New England Journal of Medicine. 0 (0): null. doi:10.1056/NEJMp2005118. ISSN 0028-4793. Retrieved 25 March 2020....interesting read--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 23:06, 25 March 2020 (UTC)

Help:Wikipedia editing for medical experts

Hello, I have moved a medical editing cheat sheet that a few from this group collaborated on to the help section (linked in the title of this section). If anyone has any more ideas, wants to help improve this, or wants to share this, that would be great. JenOttawa (talk) 23:59, 25 March 2020 (UTC)

very well done, thank you--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 14:55, 27 March 2020 (UTC)

Wow! That is an excellent guide Jen. Thank you. :0)   - Mark D Worthen PsyD (talk) (I'm a man—traditional male pronouns are fine.) 15:04, 27 March 2020 (UTC)

Useful table, too difficult to edit

See Talk:List_of_countries_by_hospital_beds#Useful_data_from_WHO/WB. I found a reliable source (WHO/WB statistics) but editing this table seems like a pain. I tried code and visual editor and neither makes it easy. Is there any way to make it friendly? (I tried adding data for India from 2011 but I cannot figure out how to easily add a row, need to edit 40+ lines of code separately...). --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 02:02, 26 March 2020 (UTC)

Piotrus, the reason you're having difficulty with editing it is because it's not a plain old table, which would work well in the visual editor. Instead, it's a stack of {{LCHB}} templates wrapped inside a wikitext table. I think the "easy" way to add information to that table-template hybrid will be to ask User:Bungle (who wrote the template) to do it for you. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:56, 26 March 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for ping. I'll reply on the article talk page. Bungle ^{(talk • contribs)} 12:56, 27 March 2020 (UTC)

New medical editors

Please join me in welcoming WhinyTheYounger to editing medical topics; they have their hands full with HIV/AIDS in China, per this Teahouse thread. Regards, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:42, 26 March 2020 (UTC)

Thank you! I've tried to stay away from really any medical details on HIV/AIDS in particular, apart from epidemiological stuff I could find. I'm no expert (I focus more on public policy and history), but as that Teahouse thread and the Talk page for HIV/AIDS in China mention, I discovered the article was almost wholly plagiarized when editing it and decided someone had to rework it. Any tips, suggestions, corrections, etc. of course much appreciated! WhinyTheYounger (talk) 21:04, 26 March 2020 (UTC)

Welcome aboard WhinyTheYounger! :0)   - Mark D Worthen PsyD (talk) (I'm a man—traditional male pronouns are fine.) 15:06, 27 March 2020 (UTC)

Covid-19 & ibuprofen: we can neither confirm or deny...

Wow, there is a lot of social misinformation about the status about covid-19 & ibuprofen. I expect that some of it is seeping into Wikipedia right now. I know it is tough to stay on top of the current pandemic, & I thank you all for your work.

I would ask that medical editors please be on the lookout for MEDRS about covid-19 & ibuprofen. Right now, the following seem apropos, at least in response to those citing something like 10.1136/bmj.m1086:

• "EMA gives advice on the use of non-steroidal anti-inflammatories for COVID-19". European Medicines Agency. 2020-03-18.
• Day, Michael (2020-03-23). "Covid-19: European drugs agency to review safety of ibuprofen". BMJ. BMJ: m1168. doi:10.1136/bmj.m1168. ISSN 1756-1833.

But there is also this source, which to this non-medical person seems to say, "it depends" & "it's complicated".

• "Managing Fever in adults with possible or confirmed COVID-19 in Primary Care". Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine. 2020-03-18.

Peaceray (talk) 23:43, 26 March 2020 (UTC)

I think the NHS sums it up well.[19] Alexbrn (talk) 02:39, 27 March 2020 (UTC)

Thank you Alexbrn, that's a nice pithy summary from NHS. I added it to Coronavirus disease 2019#Management. I made some other edits in the same section (diff) if you all have time to review my edits I would appreciate it. Thanks!   - Mark D Worthen PsyD (talk) (I'm a man—traditional male pronouns are fine.) 23:48, 27 March 2020 (UTC)

Here's an interview with an epidemiologist and drug safety expert from the University of British Columbia that corroborates the NHS and offer an explanation of where this information came from. https://www.med.ubc.ca/news/myth-busting-setting-the-record-straight-on-ibuprofen-and-covid-19/. I also saw a TikTok video (don't judge) of a physician explaining that the advice on avoiding ibuprofen is based on a theory derived from an understanding of how the drug works on a cellular level (something about ACE2... forgive me, i'm a medical librarian with a humanities background). Here's an explanation from VICE: https://www.wired.com/story/the-ibuprofen-debate-reveals-the-danger-of-covid-19-rumors/ Mcbrarian (talk) 13:34, 28 March 2020 (UTC)

PUI on AfC

Hello. I created a draft about PUI (Person or Patient Under Investigation). There's no entry about it so I made one. Is it worthy for Wikipedia? I don't know... yet. So feel free to comment or edit. Cheers! —Allenjambalaya (talk) 02:46, 27 March 2020 (UTC)

have approved review--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 14:29, 28 March 2020 (UTC)

Dire need for centralized references to open-source ventilator technology and projects

I begun this page (draft), and have several people willing to help me advance its content. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draft:Open-Source_Ventilator

The main text is taken directly from the open-source ventilator section of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ventilator

When/if the draft is approved, we can appropriately edit the Ventilator page to link to the opensource page.

Whatever assistance/editing you can provide would be greatly appreciated, since my time is limited as I'm actually taking care of a patient on a ventilator. :)— Preceding unsigned comment added by Brandingularity (talk • contribs)

Open-source ventilator (however on a prior occasion the it was deleted per page info)--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 01:48, 29 March 2020 (UTC)

RFC on pharmaceutical drug prices

The RFC has concluded. Here is my interpretation. Drug price information should nearly always not be included in the lead. The method used, of creating drug prices from raw database sources fails Wikipedia:Verifiability. The presentation of the price for one particular formulation of the drug, often from very few suppliers, claiming this to be generally representative of all formulations of a drug, an entire world region (e.g. developing world), and all possible indications of use of the drug is false and misleading to our readers. Were those claims to be reworded to be specific, they would fail WP:WEIGHT. This applies no matter where a price appears in the article. The inclusion of price in the body, should that even be necessary to make a point, requires extensive discussion in secondary sources, which is what WP:NOTPRICE has always insisted. Prices should not be added to info boxes.

I see there has been discussion at {{Infobox drug}} about including GoodRX prices and/or links. There is no consensus for this, and I'm sure the wider community would be against infobox links to a commercial US-only price-comparison service. From what I understand, there are approximately three people in a population of 300 million in the US who have not heard of or use GoodRX, so there lacks any encyclopaedic value in an international project. Finding the cheapest local price for your medicines is not the job of an encyclopaedia.

I would be interested to know what plans those editors who added drug prices to our articles... Doc James ... have for their removal in compliance with the RFC conclusion. I hope they will acknowledge the community result and desist from adding prices to medical articles except in the most unusual and non-controversial cases. -- Colin°^Talk 18:42, 28 March 2020 (UTC)

Colin, I agree this is the best place to hold a discussion, but before continuing the discussion here, it would be wise to hear from Barkeep49 if the restriction that all discussion of drug pricing was confined to a single remit, WT:MEDMOS, is relaxed now that the RFC is closed. Can drug pricing RFC followup be discussed here instead, or does it have to stay back at WT:MEDMOS ? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:17, 28 March 2020 (UTC)

Yes now that the RfC is complete I don't think the moratorium or requirement of discussion at a single venue apply though MOSMED discussion is still probably best held there, but that's just my personal opinion. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 20:36, 28 March 2020 (UTC)

Barkeep49, the only reason the price discussion was ever on WT:MEDMOS was because a, now blocked, editor added price advocacy statements to WP:MEDMOS and edit warred over them. The inclusion of price in an article isn't a MOS issue, and though the prices had been inserted into the lead (without any mention of cost in the body) in violation of WP:LEAD, what goes in the lead or the body isn't a medical matter. Drug prices have previously been discussed on this page, and most of the issues that led to the RFC result are general core policy matters, not a question of style (i.e how to format text). The discussion is over anyway, and what matters now, is what members of this project are going to do about the result. Hence, it's a project matter. -- Colin°^Talk 20:48, 28 March 2020 (UTC)

Wrong time to be having this debate (COVID-19 pandemic)

• I don't think this discussion will be given much attention right now in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic. It would be wise to avoid drastic actions of any kind until WP:MED-editors are able to return to their normal duties and interests. The pandemic is currently, and quite understandably, taking a disproportionate amount of time from editors here.
  Carl Fredrik ^talk 19:22, 28 March 2020 (UTC)
  • I'm not sure that is broadly true; some editors have more time than usual right now, because of stay-at-home, and others have given up on the COVID articles, as most of them are being edited in irretrievably hopeless ways, MEDRS out the door, and mostly politics. They are being mostly edited by non-medical editors. That is, I don't see the need to hold off this discussion, which is not likely to be very complicated considering the RFC close. But I am worried about where to hold the discussion. CFCF, could you please refrain from adding excess markup to your talk page posts? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:28, 28 March 2020 (UTC)
    • I think there is going to be a wide variation on the impact of the pandemic on different editors, ranging from folks like Soupvector (who I know has been the Covid-19 inpatient attending for some time and expects not to be relieved until sometime next week) to many students who will have time on their hands for the rest of the academic year. Jenny is managing to do some editing, despite having to home-school her three kids and work at the same time. James is getting ready for a massive upturn in his work demands for obvious reasons. I'm really lucky in that it hasn't affected me much, but I think we'll have to accept that not all of the regulars will be responding quickly to on-wiki events. --RexxS (talk) 21:09, 28 March 2020 (UTC)
      • I have to second RexxS's observation here: most clinicians will be preparing for a massively increased work-load, with many non-clinician MDs and nurses likely also facing having to care for COVID-19 patients. So your point, SandyGeorgia, about it not being "broadly true" is all the more reason to avoid discussion right now. MD/RN-editors are less likely to respond and the outcome might therefore be severely biased, discounting their views.
        My initial point was more about how this discussion wouldn't be prioritized in the current editing climate which is focused towards COVID-articles, but the above is an even more pressing reason to shelve the issue for the time being, in order to avoid disruption.
        Carl Fredrik ^talk 21:34, 28 March 2020 (UTC)
      • I agree with RexxS that there will be a wide variation, and that "not all of the regulars will be responding quickly". That will be the new normal for, likely, a long time to come, so while it is good reason to allow more time for discussions to unfold, and wait longer for responses, it doesn't mean we stop discussing or stop editing. Many will recall that quite a few participants in the formulation of the RFC were absent for days to weeks at a time, even before the pandemic; we don't stop regular editing because some editors are less available, although I agree we need to allow much more time for responses, and before implementing anything. No, people carrying on with their regular editing, as they always have, do not have to stop doing so.
        At any rate, Seppi333 was asking on James' talk page what to do about the infobox for drug prices, and it seems that we can give them that answer (no prices in infoboxes). The database sources are not supported per WP:V. What else needs to be decided now, besides who is going to get all of the 530 database prices out of the articles? Can someone do that by bot, or do we need to manually go through all 530?
        CFCF, could you please stop adding excess markup to your posts? Most of us can read without the added emphasis. (do you see how irritating it is to be Told We Must Pay Attention To Certain Text Because It Is Bolded, Underlined or All Capped?) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:48, 28 March 2020 (UTC)

I ask you not to comment on the format of my discussion where I highlight the most salient points, a practice which I believe to be very much in line with the WP:Talk page guidelines. Carl Fredrik ^talk 10:53, 29 March 2020 (UTC)

Implementing RFC conclusions

I'm not sure what sort of bias could be produced by not having people with a physician's or nursing license involved. The result of the RFC begins with the sentence "Editors are generally opposed to inclusion of prices in the lede." I can't really think of how, e.g., a good editor who is a nurse and an equally good editor who is not a nurse would interpret that sentence differently. AFAICT the only "discussion" to be had at this stage is whether any editors want to WP:VOLUNTEER to implement the RFC's conclusion in a systematic, organized manner, or not (NB: "or not" includes letting any interested individual volunteer do it all himself/herself, doing it haphazardly, doing it when a given page is being overhauled anyway, etc. It doesn't include rejecting the RFC's conclusions or trying to have the discussion about whether it's a good idea all over again).

As for my own opinion on Colin's actual question, the RFC's conclusions ought to be implemented in the affected articles. Separately, someday I'll take them into account when I propose some content about prices for MEDMOS (and maybe also a sentence or two for MEDRS). But I don't actually care whether we organize the process of updating these articles. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:09, 29 March 2020 (UTC)

WhatamIdoing, I'm not implying that you would be intentionally biased in any way. But the very nature of systemic bias ensures that we do not know how it would affect us. I am pointing out that the current time is very exceptional, and that large-scale edits or discussion on other topics should be avoided, if there is likelyhood a large portion of ordinary editors will not be able to engage in discussion. Wikipedia isn't about "snagging consensus" as soon as one sees the opportunity, and we would certainly be better off if we did not have to redo any discussion because of even the accusation of a one-sided consensus. Carl Fredrik ^talk 09:30, 29 March 2020 (UTC)

WhatamIdoing, I think we should create a list of drugs that have notable high-cost issues and we can together all examine if there are problems surrounding the presentation or sourcing of prices on those drugs that need MEDMOS/MEDRS guidance. It may be that editors are doing a reasonable job with that, or existing general guidelines already inform, or the few problematic articles can be resolved without the need for further legislation in a guideline page. As I noted at the RFC, I think we have focused too much on a dollar.cent price figure and not enough on providing encyclopaedic information to our readers about general comments on affordability, availability and relative cost vs other treatments, which are probably best made at the disease article's treatment section. So I'd caution against specifically dealing with "price" at MEDMOS. The word "price" has us reaching for the $ symbol on the keyboard, and perhaps mostly we don't need it to inform our readers.

As for volunteering, someone once said "If you want a job done well, do it yourself". So I guess... -- Colin°^Talk 09:04, 29 March 2020 (UTC)

And Colin — I would point out that regardless of the outcome, major editing across many articles, should be avoided if there is any suspicion that it would be controversial. This isn't about "restricting" what people can edit about, but more about advanced warning that major revisions at a time when consensus is difficult to gauge, can be very disruptive if we later have to revert all of it: because it went too far; or because it was judged to misinterpret consensus at a later stage.
We should always strive for the broadest possible consensus, which is not possible at the moment, and this issue being a non emergency, it can clearly wait — whereas a lot of other things can't.
I implore you to be cautious and avoid major changes across multiple articles right now. It looks like you're going to get what you wanted, but without room for discussion right now, there is serious risk of overshooting. This is directed to you, or to anyone involved, because I don't want anyone to come back and say "no one said anything" or "I didn't know". The COVID-pandemic is an exceptional situation for WP:MED, and major changes to our body of other articles would benefit from being put on hold. Carl Fredrik ^talk 09:41, 29 March 2020 (UTC)

Carl, the RFC, in which you chose not to participate, is over and there is already a clear conclusion of community consensus weighed by two uninvolved admins. The only "discussion" now is about who wants to do the work, and a request that those who have previously edit warred over this matter acknowledge the consensus. The prices will be removed from the lead of nearly all drug articles, and prices sourced to raw database sources will also be removed from the article body. Carl, it is clear what you are doing here. Get over it, move on. I do not intend to discuss the matter further with you. -- Colin°^Talk 10:14, 29 March 2020 (UTC)

Back on topic. I think we should create a list of drugs that have notable high-cost issues and we can together all examine if there are problems surrounding the presentation or sourcing of prices on those drugs that need MEDMOS/MEDRS guidance. Colin, unless I am misunderstanding, you are proposing here that we should separately do something to examine those cases where our drug articles do have notable high-cost issues that should be covered? During the RFC formulation, we did find that in many instances where articles should be discussing pricing as a V, WEIGHT, reliably sourced issue, they were not.

In the rest of the case, on implementing the RFC, there are several things I think we need to have feedback on:

• First, we should hear if the people who made the edits to the 530 articles have a plan to remove them themselves. That would solve the implementation problem with no further need for discussion or a lot of work from other editors.
• Second, if not, then we can discuss how to approach the 530 articles. Can that list be edited down to include just the articles and the text?
• Then third, we need an approach to doing the work. Because many people are under stay-at-home orders, I don't think it will be difficult to find volunteers, but we should not initiate work until there is an agreed approach. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:03, 29 March 2020 (UTC)

RFC interpretation

Colin — Those accusations are to me a clear rejection of WP:assume good faith. You rightfully point out that I chose not to participate in the RfC, but there is no reason why that would matter.
I am not rejecting the RfC — but pointing out that large-scale major edits over many articles, which may be controversial — are not appropriate at the moment, and are not supported by the RfC.
As anyone is able to see upon reviewing the link at the very top here: The closing message of the RfC is not as straight forward as you make it.
There is mention of "no consensus" in several places and the phrase "unlikely to find consensus", not "consensus against". There are also use of phrasing such as "in most cases", which imply a need to go through articles on a case-by-case basis. Each article that is assessed must of course take into account the RfC-result, but from what I understand you were suggesting a quick run-down of all articles in one fell swoop.
What I'm saying is for those cases where consensus isn't 100% clear (quite a substantial number where secondary sources are included): don't go overboard.
For example, how should we treat secondary sources discussing medication prices, such as those from the World Health Organization? Those things aren't simple and we need to properly discuss them, taking time in expense that we simply don't have right now.
I can't debate this further now, because it is a complicated issue and one that requires quite a lot of reading and familiarizing with sources.
The reason why I'm saying this is because the RfC didn't come with a clear "Do this" result, and even if that is not your intent: using the current timing may be perceived as an attempt to avoid scrutiny by a sizable proportion of those editors who did not agree with your take in the RfC.
TL;DR: The RfC resulted in a mixed consensus, not a ratification of Colin's position.
Carl Fredrik ^talk 10:45, 29 March 2020 (UTC)

Perhaps you will consider re-reading the RFC after a few days; let's not re-litigate it post-closing. The time to enter an opinion was during the RFC, not after. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:08, 29 March 2020 (UTC)

GoodRx link

@SandyGeorgia: To clarify: my question is about whether linking to a price comparison website in the infobox is supported (or at least just not contested) by the community; I never intended to list GoodRx's prices for reasons I stated on the drugbox talk page. Seppi333 (Insert 2¢) 00:20, 29 March 2020 (UTC)

The previous discussions have mostly been about putting a link in the ==External links== section. The main problem with a site like GoodRx is that it's limited to a single country, which WP:ELNO dislikes. Editors have discussed adding the International Medical Products Price Guide website as an external link (if it weren't basically a big "Under Construction" sign right now). WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:12, 29 March 2020 (UTC)

The idea was to implement it with the functionality to add links to external sites for other countries if any are available, analogous to how the pregnancy and legal status categories are implemented (i.e., by listing the RHS with a prepended country code). That field is not intended to be exclusive to the United States; there merely happens to be a use case for linking GoodRx in the US (namely, drug coupons for high cost drugs) beyond the provision of pricing information, hence why I proposed that first. If other countries for which the drugbox provides pregnancy-cat/legal-status parameter support have accurate and up-to-date price trackers, a parameter can/may just as well be created for them IMO. The drugbox already contains parametrized ELs to websites that provide country-specific information (i.e., all of the licensing info parameters), so I don't really see how the creation of this field can be construed as being problematic on the basis of the US being the first country to be parameterized or that the parameter would link to country-specific information. That's just my 2 cents anyway. I'm going back on my wikibreak. Seppi333 (Insert 2¢) 07:42, 29 March 2020 (UTC)

I don't think GoodRX is comparable to details such as pregnancy and legal status which are stable and encyclopaedic. A site offering the current price, after coupon discount, in your local area of the US only, from partner retailers, is not encyclopaedic, and fails WP:EL. If folk think linking to price comparison websites (of which drugs is one but many - mortgages, insurance, consumer goods, savings accounts, pension plans, etc, etc) then you should really go for a site-wide RFC on it, and not raise your hopes. -- Colin°^Talk 08:42, 29 March 2020 (UTC)

Fair enough. That was my plan anyway; I just don't have time to do it right now. Don't really have any expectations at this point. Seppi333 (Insert 2¢) 09:28, 29 March 2020 (UTC)

Seppi, I think WhatamIdoing has well summarized the issues and concerns but I wanted to recognize your work that went before at any rate. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:05, 29 March 2020 (UTC)

Home baking respite

Parma Violets cupcakes

Over on Commons, the admin noticeboard got busy with the fallout from a controversial indef block of a long-term user. A load of admins wheel-warred, blocked each other, proposed de-admin requests, and retired. All probably a bit crazy cabin-fever induced. User:Rhododendrites proposed we upload some pictures of home cooking or baking to share. I think that great idea can be extended from Commons to the WP:MED editors on Wikipedia. Many are busy doing great work on virus articles at this time, but all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy, and isn't healthy.

So if you or your family bakes or cooks some delicious food, take a picture and share it with us. No need for anything fancier than your smartphone and some decent light. Help yourself to come cupcakes. Be quick, there are only four left... -- Colin°^Talk 11:19, 29 March 2020 (UTC)

Yummy, thank you Colin. Graham Beards (talk) 11:32, 29 March 2020 (UTC)