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WikiProject Medicine


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Welcome to the WikiProject Medicine talk page. If you have comments or believe something can be improved, feel free to post. Also feel free to introduce yourself if you plan on becoming an active editor!

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Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/WikiProject used

Wikipedia & pathology

Is there a way to gauge the number of pathology-related articles in Wikipedia?

I am doing a little project on Wikis and trying to get an estimate... such that I can compare it to the tiny wiki sites devoted exclusively to pathology.

The Pathology Taskforce template appears to link to 128 articles:

The number of links to the Pathology Taskforce is approximately 300.[1]

The totals (128? 300?) seem quite low, when one considers the estimate in Heilman et al.[2]; it pegs the number of medical articles in Wikipedia at around 20,000. Which brings me to the question... does any one know how they got the 20,000 number in that article?

"CatScan"[3] looked like it might give me the answer... but I seem too dense to use it or don't have enough patience.

As an aside, in my research, I came across this:

Wood, A.; Struthers, K. (2010). "Pathology education, Wikipedia and the Net generation". Med Teach. 32 (7): 618. doi:10.3109/0142159X.2010.497719. PMID 20653388. {{cite journal}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |month= (help)

It compared Wikipedia entries with information in Robbins (Kumar V, Abbas AK, Cotran RS, Fausto N. "Robbins and Cotran pathologic basis of disease". Saunders/Elsevier (2010) ISBN 1416031219.), a standard text used in medical school and by pathology residents, and has this to say about Wikipedia:

"We have identified Wikipedia as an informative and accurate source for Pathology education and believe that Wikipedia is potentially an important learning tool for of the ‘Net Generation’."

Nephron  T|C 03:21, 22 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Here is all the info for you in an easy to digest format [4] The only task force which has been active is "dermatology" with User:My Core Competency is Competency leading it. Would be great to see other task forces become this active. Would also be interesting to see Wikipedia:Books for each medical specialty which would put together all articles in a specialty into a textbook format.Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 03:51, 22 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the link Doc James. I don't think the assessment stats are an accurate picture of how much pathology is presented in Wikipedia.
Is it possible to search Wikipedia for frequency of keywords? I would like to search for the presence of "micrograph", "histomorphology", "microscopic appearance", "pathology" within articles.
I have done micrographs of approximately 300-400 cases (~1100-1200 images - count, gallery of images) and most of the cases have a picture or two in the relevant Wikipedia article. Looking at pages I've recently added images for (Endosalpingiosis (no), Strumal carcinoid (no), Struma ovarii (no), Atypical ductal hyperplasia (no) and Salpingitis (no), Glassy cell carcinoma (yes)) -- only Glassy cell carcinoma is contained within the Pathology WikiProject assessment.
More generally, I am not really sure where to draw the line for the WikiProject. Pathology seems a bit unique to me in that almost all (non-psychiatric) disease has a component of pathology. In other words, there isn't a neat separation between "medicine" and "pathology" like one could make for, say dermatology and medicine or cardiology and medicine. Nephron  T|C 16:21, 22 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Generally speaking, a WikiProject (or a taskforce within it) defines its own scope in a way that includes articles that its members are interested in maintaining. You seem to be a key editor in the area and there really is little reason why you shouldn't mark articles as part of the Pathology WikiProject, as you seem likely to want to work on them. Searching wikipedia can be done using a Google search – for example: 'site:en.wikipedia.org micrograph' returns about 2,840 results, but that includes all namespaces. Using our internal search on article space only gives 949 results, but that includes articles like Scanning electron microscope and Andrew Paul Leonard. If you want to discuss how to get better targeted results, I'd recommend dropping a note at User talk:MZMcBride who is very savvy about what the toolserver can do and can be extraordinarily helpful if you ask nicely :) --RexxS (talk) 18:22, 22 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Left a message for MZMCBride.
It would be interesting if one could run SQL queries on the database underlying Wikipedia. Any hoo, I added a few more articles to the WikiProject Pathology. Thinking very ambitiously, Wikipedia ought to have an image of every pathology that can be diagnosed from an image. Nephron  T|C 17:12, 24 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yes that is what I am trying to say. The only taskforce which accurately reflects a sub specialty is dermatology due to the hard work of a single editor.Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 20:45, 22 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, the numbers at WP:MEDA#Statistics are only as accurate as some individual human chooses to make them. My Core Compentency did a lot of manual work to get the derm articles tagged. To do the same for the path articles, you just need to paste |pathology=yes into the {{WPMED}} banner on the article's talk page. As a starting point, you might look at the stuff tagged for |hemonc=yes, because there's probably a lot of overlap. As for which articles to tag: start with the obvious ones, and proceed from there. On borderline cases, you might consider whether the current version of the article actually contains path information, rather than merely whether it's possible.
Also, compared to a plain text search, you might be happier with a list of articles that link to relevant subjects, which you can get from Special:WhatLinksHere/Micrograph (for example). WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:55, 24 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I think a good deal of the things could done automagically. We have standard set of section headings, e.g. Signs and symptoms, Diagnosis, Pathophysiology, Treatment, See also, References. If it doesn't exist already, it would be nice if we had a tool that scanned the articles for these headings and generated stats on compliance. I am sure such a tool could be created. Nephron  T|C 17:12, 24 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Disease Wikiproject/taskforce

That is a great idea. The first thing we need to do however is generate a list of disease articles. Right now Wikiproject medicine covers more than just diseases. Thus I am not sure without tagging all articles as disease how we would run a bot. There are I guess a couple of ways we could do this. One would be to create a disease Wikiproject or taskforce. The other would be to create a category. Would be interested in doing this if others think it reasonable.Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 22:11, 24 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

If we can get a list, then we can filter it manually. The steps would look something like:
  • Make list (automated)
  • Remove unwanted stuff from list (by hand)
  • Tag all items remaining in the list for the task force.
User:MZMcBride did some work for me a while back on making lists filtered by WPMED banner info (to identify items that are redirects, but aren't tagged that way by us). You can see the list at User:WhatamIdoing/Med redirects. It has a snip of code at the top that could probably be adapted to identifying pages that are tagged by WPMED and include <some word>, but are not tagged for the Path task force. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:10, 24 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The vast majority of WPMED articles are about diseases. I think this is completely the wrong move. We already group articles by the relevant branch of medicine (e.g. cardiology, dermatology) and I believe that is quite sufficient. JFW | T@lk 10:33, 25 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
For a list of medical conditions, use this: Special:WhatLinksHere/Template:Infobox_disease. --Arcadian (talk) 17:33, 25 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I tend to think it makes sense to have some metadata that allows automatic searching. If you look at something like MEDLINE -- they have people define keywords for the the articles. As the medicine content in Wikipedia has gotten so big... it makes sense to have something like this to help categorize and subdivide content and into groups. Categories capture this to some degree... but I feel I can't get an overview of the structure. Based on comments MZMcBride made, I suspect one cannot automagically construct a (limited) hierarchy of the categories automatically. I think this would be interest to get the technical people to think about. Stated in other words, if you go to liposarcoma... and click on Category:Sarcoma it ought to be evident it is a cancer, i.e. sarcoma is in Category:Cancer (Category:Oncology). It is possible to figure this out-- if you click a couple of times at the bottom... Category:Connective/soft_tissue_tumors_and_sarcomas ... Categories: Types of neoplasia.
If the Special:WhatLinksHere/Template:Infobox_disease list is complete... a bot could be created to automatically mark all the articles... but I'm not sure if that in itself would be of additional value.
I think expanded infoboxes would be interesting to consider... that summarize and group diseases. With time... I think the articles are getting so long you start losing the context. Nephron  T|C 05:25, 26 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Template:Infobox disease appears in about 5500 articles, which is about a fifth of our current articles. Is the path task force really interested in supporting every single article about diseases? WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:22, 26 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Ideally, everything that has pathology in it ought to see support. Also, if it is diagnosed by a pathologist... it ought to have an image. A significant number of entities are named after their histomorphologic appearance... these especially should have an image. At the moment, I don't think there are enough editors... but I'm optimistic that will change and I don't think it takes very many. Nephron  T|C 01:53, 28 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Your previous post has placed this talk page in the oncology category. I don't know if that was the intention? Hidden in () behind sarcoma is in Category:Cancer DS Belgium (talk) 19:13, 2 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I've fixed that by supplying the missing ':' - maintenance edits of this kind are usually acceptable, although the general rule is not to refactor other editors' comments. (Hope you're ok with that, Nephron.) --RexxS (talk) 20:09, 2 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

External Editor

Can anyone recommend a good external editor that works well for you. Going through these pages with large numbers of references with extensive metadata is tedious. Kallimachus (talk) 04:03, 29 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

What do you mean by "external editor"? Axl ¤ [Talk] 09:51, 29 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, was talking about a wikipedia editor that did particularly well with extensive references that are in a lot of our medical pages. It's somewhat painful to try and edit pages with extensive in-line references. Wanted to make sure I was making it as painless as possible. Kallimachus (talk) 05:50, 30 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Like Notepad on Windows OS = a text editor. Notepad is obviously poor for editing Wikipedia pages because it's so basic. @Kallimachus: You don't tell us what operating system you are using, so it's hard to make recommendations, and everybody will have their favourites. I've used Programmer's File Editor for Windows NT for many years, but it's obsolete now as it doesn't handle unicode. Have you looked at WP:wikEd that works inside a browser and is OS-independent? --RexxS (talk) 12:48, 29 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Windows 7 Kallimachus (talk) 05:50, 30 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Just tried wikEd, love it! thx Kallimachus (talk) 05:59, 30 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Notepad 2 is a bit better, and can handle all sorts of programming code (though not Wiki code). For Mac OS X, try TextWrangler. vi also works well on a Mac, too. ;-) WTF? (talk) 13:23, 29 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Anything for linux (Ubuntu)? DS Belgium (talk) 21:07, 1 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
At least Kate, Eclipse, Emacs, Vim and gedit can be configured to do nice things with mediawiki syntax, so if you are familiar with one of these editors give it a try. Richiez (talk) 21:09, 2 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
As far as I know Ubuntu uses gedit, since Ubuntu uses GNOME (although the recent Unity change might have changed that), but gedit is a pretty simple editor that has tabs and allows plugins, as it would already be on the Ubuntu system, I'd recommend giving it a try. - SudoGhost 21:52, 2 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Also see Wikipedia:Text editor support. --WS (talk) 17:42, 9 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Cause of Alzheimer's Disease

In re: discussion of simple statement on Alzheimer's causation at Talk:Alzheimer's disease#Causation. Update: There's a 2011 date on the page http://www.med.nyu.edu/adc/forpatients/ad.html#causes and I'm sure NYU Medicine is a reliable source. The page has this:

The cause of Alzheimer's disease is not yet known, but scientists are hoping to find the answers by studying the characteristic brain changes that occur in a patient with Alzheimer's disease. In rare cases when the disease emerges before the age of sixty-five, these brain changes are caused by a genetic abnormality. Scientists are also looking to genetics as well as environmental factors for possible clues to the cause and cure of Alzheimer's disease.

I plan to update the Alzheimer's disease page to say that the cause is unknown except for 1% to 5% of cases where genetic differences have been identified. Please respond at Talk:Alzheimer's disease#Causation if you see problems with this. (Cross-posted at WikiProject Neurology) -- Jo3sampl (talk) 19:16, 30 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yes I think it is fair to say the cause is unknown except for a few cases. The pathophysiology is fairly well understood though but not the cause. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 19:26, 30 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Agree Kallimachus (talk) 21:53, 2 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Methamphetamine-induced delusional parasitosis

There's a bit of a dispute brewing in regards to the wording in Faces of Meth. One user removed what he saw as a disputed etiology[5] and another user (myself) restored it based on the preponderance of sources supporting it.[6] A small discussion about the problem can be found here. I would greatly appreciate it if someone knowledgeable about methamphetamine-induced delusional parasitosis could review the two diffs listed above and the discussion, and then boldly solve the problem. Thanks. Viriditas (talk) 00:54, 2 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Find a good ref. --Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 13:09, 2 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I've listed six on the article talk page. This dispute is about the concept of "meth bugs", which is covered by the sources. The other editor claims it is propaganda, yet there is nothing indicating it is such, other than their personal opinion. The sources support the idea of "meth bugs" (delusional parasitosis). The article says that the facial scarring from picking scabs depicted in the Faces of Meth images is "caused by the delusion that there are "bugs" under the skin". This is supported by the source cited: "For doctors like Tom Barrett of the Howard Brown Health Center, who treats a dozen meth patients a week, the pictures reveal meth’s punishing effects: Facial scarring, for instance, as users scratch at the bugs they think are under their skin."[7] This is also supported by five sources on the talk page, three peer-reviewed journal articles and two textbooks. The user is questioning whether meth users in general experience delusional parasitosis, but that kind of questioning and dispute is outside the scope of the article. Viriditas (talk) 14:35, 2 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
My propaganda remark was about the difficulty of finding sources, the meth bug thing has been taken up by the media, quoted in so many news articles, blogs, on anti-drug sites etc. that any google search returns loads of results saying the same thing, making it hard to find other sources that specifically deal with skin picking and methamphetamine. DS Belgium (talk) 18:06, 2 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I'm questioning that most meth users who pick their skin do it because of delusional parasitosis. Drug induced repetitive behavour, itchting, increased OCD behaviour, impulse control disorders are all causes that do not involve the user believing there are bugs under their skin. DS Belgium (talk) 18:12, 2 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
But are you the one who's questioning that, or is it also to be found in a reliable source? It may be true that "Drug induced repetitive behavour, itchting, increased OCD behaviour, impulse control disorders are all causes", but without a reliable source that says so, we have no right to bring forward that argument ourselves. To do so would elevate our analysis to the level of a reliable source, and unfortunately none of us are reliable sources. Without a source that makes your argument, we have to go with what is said in the sources that Viriditas quotes. --RexxS (talk) 20:00, 2 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

(outdent) DS Belgium, you may be right (although you might be wrong to ;-P), it might be a similar repetitive behaviour to 'face pulling' or 'teeth grinding' (which are not delusion driven) that is very common in meth and XTC users, (and why meth and XTC users often use chewing gum when they are high) but wikipedia is not about the truth, it is about reliable sources. If sources say the behaviour is due to delusions then that is what we must write in wikipedia. When you believe you are correct but no good quality sources say 'the truth' it can be frustrating but it is the way wikipedia works. If you feel very strongly about it you could do a short review of the medical literature and get it published in a peer reviewed medical or such like journal and then seek consensus on talk page for its inclusion. Ok this is getting a bit wordy, but just trying to explain that editors here aren't trying to be annoying but are just trying to follow wikipedia policies and guidelines (which occasionally are annoying lol). :-P--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 22:22, 3 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Face pulling is like where a person tugs and pulls at their face with their fingers and unintentionally keeps pulling 'funny faces', just for those who do not understand what I mean. :-)--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 22:38, 3 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Prolymphocytic leukemia

Assessed as Mid importance, but still unreferenced. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 00:28, 4 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Pubmed is a good place to find review articles if you want to give it a try... --Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 00:35, 4 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Not my sphere of interest unfortunately. I was just pointing out that although the med project has assessed the article as Mid importance, it still has no references.--Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 02:42, 4 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I'll take a look as time allows. Because PLL is a close relative/subset of CLL, it's hard to write a detailed standalone article without duplicating a lot of material from the CLL article. It's tempting to just merge the article into CLL, but I'll see what I can turn up. MastCell Talk 03:14, 4 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
PLL is only one of about a thousand articles tagged as being in the project but unreferenced, including a couple hundred mid-importance and even a few tagged as high importance (Eye chart, Electrical conduction system of the heart, Graft (surgery), Uroscopy, Specific developmental disorder, and Tuberculosis vaccines: I'm not convinced that the priority ratings are correct on all of these). Unlike a few projects with much smaller scopes, "Mid" importance does not mean "something we'll get to GA status this year". WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:52, 10 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

TeenScreen merger proposal

For anyone who is interested: I've proposed a merge between TeenScreen and Columbia University TeenScreen Program, because they are duplicative. Because the former is the more common name, while the latter is not actually correct, the resulting article should be TeenScreen.

Meanwhile, because neither article is very good, I've written a new draft combining the best of both, scrupulously cited, and following all relevant Wikipedia policies and guidelines. You can see it here: User:WWB_Too/TeenScreen. I need an administrator's help with the merge because I am not an admin, and I would like another editor to consider my replacement draft because I am engaging these pages on behalf of TeenScreen, so I have a potential COI issue with the topic.

A similar version of this explanation can be found on the TeenScreen Talk page, where the merger proposal lives. Note also, I'm posting this same request to WikiProject Psychology, because the primary article is also listed within its scope. Cheers, WWB Too (talk) 02:32, 5 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia and its relationship to the outside world

This is intended as my concluding post on a discussion about ELs, now archived (External links). Sorry I was unable to get back to this till now. In a nutshell, I made a case for acceptance of ELs to MedMerits. MedMerits, to which I am a medical advisor, is a new company, whose business model is to bring high-quality medical content into the public arena and make it freely available. MedMerits licenses its content, currently limited to neurology, from MedLink, which is an established ACCME accredited medical publisher, well known and respected in the neurologic community. Suffice it to say that I received some well-thought out support, but also strong opposition. I am writing now because the discussion led me to a new take on the issue of ELs and on the relationship of WP to the outside world, and it reaches beyond MedMerits to issues that we in medicine and those in other disciplines should really grapple with. I apologize for another lengthy post, but please bear with me. I hope to make it worth your while. Then I’ll hold my peace.

How to think about ELs

The previous discussion led me to believe that the informed opposing views reflect different visions of the relationship between WP and the outside world. WP policies and guidelines recognize that aside from supporting information presented in the text of WP articles with inline citations, it is appropriate to link to external resources (ELs). WP policies and guidelines provide criteria and examples of what is suitable as a WP EL, but they have not presented a carefully considered rationale for the inclusion of ELs, thereby opening the door to disagreement. In order to arrive at a clearly formulated rationale for ELs, it would be useful to consider the various constituencies that make up the audience for WP, their reasons for coming to WP, how the ELs can benefit each constituency, and how all this fits into WP’s strategic plan and responsibility to society.

Who comes to WP? There are three basic constituencies for WP content. By far the largest and most important is the general public. Then there are “students,” by which I mean people who desire to acquire more than casual acquaintance with a subject area, whether they are enrolled in an educational program or not. In the area of medicine, they include patients, caregivers, and their service providers, including doctors and nurses, who have a great desire to learn more about a particular symptom or disease or have questions about the accuracy of a diagnosis or a treatment they heard about elsewhere. Finally, there are experts, people who by virtue of their formal or informal education and experience have mastered a particular subject area. We may be experts in some subject areas, students in some others, and just part of the general public in most. We may become students after reading a WP article in a subject area we previously knew nothing or little about. Or we could become experts in the process of writing or editing WP articles. We might add some special groups, such as children of various ages, and the intellectually or physically challenged, including those with visual impairment or dyslexia, but they are not relevant to this discussion.

Why do they come? I think that most people in the general public come to WP to get some basic information about something they have a curiosity about or a need for, regardless of how that came about. Some people come directly to WP, because they already know that WP is a vast storehouse of information on virtually any notable person, organization, fact, idea, or creative work, and the information is nearly always trustworthy. Others come because a WP article came up high on an organic search, or because someone linked to it in another article on another site. Students may come to WP because it’s a good starting point for (or a place to continue) their education on a subject. Experts may come for the same reason, ie, to learn, or to look up something they need for a professional reason, like an ICD code in the case of medical practitioners. Any of these constituencies can also come in order to participate in the WP project or decide to participate after coming for some other reason.

What do they look for? Most people probably just want some basic information about their subject and will be satisfied by a high-quality WP article or sometimes even by a sketchy article or even a stub. If they don’t find what they want, they will want to go elsewhere. The general public is most likely to look for external referrals when a subject is entirely missing or is represented just by a stub. Students and experts are likely to want such referrals to a much greater extent, although experts might already know where to go. Some of their needs might be met by inline citations, especially if they have access to them. However, if a subject is not covered in WP, is represented just as a stub, or if relevant citations are not freely and easily available, they will want secondary (or tertiary) reference sources.

Why should WP (or rather the participants in the WP project) care? WP’s vision statement proclaims, “Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge. That's our commitment.” To achieve that goal, the Wikimedia Foundation set some ambitious strategic goals through 2015, including increase WP’s reach and participation. In my opinion, there is no better way to attain these goals than by improving user experience. WP was hardly more than a vision in the rough a decade ago. It is now the dominant content platform on the web. As such WP has a serious responsibility to society. In my opinion it has a moral obligation to direct its users to other legitimate sources of information, when its own content is lacking in some way and even when it isn’t. Consider that as we drill down into greater and greater detail on a well-known disease or turn over every stone to find the rarest of rare diseases, the people who have the ability or inclination to write about them become fewer and fewer. So WP may have to realize the vision of sharing in the sum of all knowledge by including other legitimate sources. More importantly, perhaps, truth cannot be guaranteed by verifiability, neutral point of view, and common sense alone, even in an open platform like WP (which is not exempt from control, as this discussion illustrates, and is therefore subject to selection bias). It is guaranteed only by the availability of independent sources. Each WP writer/editor should feel obligated to review and publicize legitimate competing sources. There is really nothing against that in the WP vision. That does not mean opening the floodgates to external links but does, in my opinion, mean an obligation to identify and place valid ELs that meet this objective.

A rational approach to ELs: Consider each WP constituency and how it can best benefit from ELs. The general public, students (as defined herein), and experts each have unique although overlapping needs. Each constituency should all be accommodated. Let’s look at what ELs are actually placed in medical articles with any degree of regularity. I reviewed the ELs in a dozen haphazardly selected WP articles. I came up with the following ELs: ICD codes, Diseases database, MedLinePlus, eMedicine, PubMed, MeSH, OMIM, Gene Reviews, Open Directory Project, disease focused organizations, referral centers, clinical trials, and abstracts of the Cochrane library. Some of these ELs are actually considered inappropriate by WP EL guidelines or are improperly cited but have merit, in my opinion. (I also found instances of inappropriate links, which have little merit, but that’s for another day.) I’ve read some negative comments in this discussion about several of these resources. For example, two editors pointed to MedLinePlus as a weak source. It is weak for an expert and even for a student, yet it’s an excellent resource for the general public, including patients and caregivers. Of these EL’s, which are hardly excessive in number, only eMedicine, GeneReviews, and OMIM have a substantial amount of content of any substance. The others are tools or have content limited to abstracts. I invite anybody to compare corresponding articles in each of these resources and MedMerits. I am sure that that MedMerits would fare well in any such comparison.

Summary of new comments and my replies for the period 18SEP2011-1OCT2011

- In favor of adding MedMerits as an EL

  1. “Whether EL's drive traffic to a commercial site should not be a consideration”
  2. “i would question the "commercial" character of MedMerits”
  3. “I do agree with the statement that ‘there is no conflict-of-interest issue here’”
  4. “I haven't seen any policy-based arguments against having ELs to this site”
  5. “There is content on that site that meets WP:EL and contains material that would be absent from any FA-class WP article.”
  • First, I want to thank everyone for participating in this discussion and Colin, DerekvG, and Scray for their outspoken support.

- Against adding MedMerits as an EL

  1. “Encyclopedia articles are meant to be self-contained.”
  • The immediate reason to list MedMerits as an EL is that it contains information on relevant disorders that may not be WP topics and may go into greater depth than is desirable in articles that are WP topics. (See the “Original” sections in the archived discussion for examples. Then there is the vision issue, discussed above.)
2. “If you need to go elsewhere to get a comprehensive view, then obviously the article itself is flawed and needs improving.”
  • Not necessarily. Other resources may have a broader or more comprehensive scope.
3. Why should we direct to MedMerits and not to recent peer-reviewed reviews in mainstream journals, which are by far more authoritative in the end of the day.”
  • By all means, do cite reviews in the primary literature. However, keep in mind, that many people may not have free access to journals, that journal reviews on major disorders are usually limited to specific issues or recent developments, whereas minor disorders may not have reviews published in the previous few years. Moreover, as an editor, you will be saddled with regularly replacing aging reviews. MedMerits, eMedicine, and Gene Reviews take care of that problem for you. I would dispute the remark about journal reviews being more authoritative. More comprehensive perhaps. MedMerits articles aim to balance the needs for detail and brevity. They draw on the same author pool from which authors of journal reviews come and are peer reviewed. See the “Original” subsections in the archived discussion or go to MedMerits and judge its quality for yourself.
4. “long external link sections rarely add anything to a good article.”
  • Maybe so, but let’s be reasonable about what you mean by “long” lists. There are only a handful of encyclopedic medical resources of a scholarly nature freely available on the web.
5. If the free content has been online only since July this year, it is clearly far too early to have such a discussion.” “The site is new and has not stood the test of time.”
  • MedMerits content is produced by MedLink, which has been around for longer than eMedicine but is a site restricted to paying subscribers. WP has achieved immortal status or as close to it as one can get. No other content platform can guarantee its longevity.
6. “There is indeed conflict of interest.” “I would agree the there is a COI here.” “if you are connected to a website, then promoting links to it is considered a conflict of interest on Wikipedia”
  • I don’t think that we are talking about the same thing. Neither I nor, presumably, the other editors who don’t see a COI issue fail to perceive the COI aspects of my posting ELs to a company to which I have ties. That is why I started this discussion by disclosing my ties. I have not posted any ELs. This is a discussion page. I don’t see any problem with informing WP editors of a new site that they might find useful and that they might want to link to, and I see nothing in WP policies and guidelines to the contrary. Having been given notice of my ties, I believe that all members of this group are sufficiently sophisticated to judge the issue on its merits.
7. “A good external link, by definition, provides more information than the article ought to… I suspect that MedMerits [may sometimes do so but not consistently.]”
  • There is going to be some variability in any multi-authored compendium, but I invite anybody to conduct a head-to-head comparison of any MedMerits article with its counterpart in WP and see how MedMerits measures up.
8. “a small medical website owned by a private company focused only on neurology...”
  • I don’t think that private ownership in itself disqualifies a publisher. MedMerits content is controlled by MedLink's independent editorial board. The focus on neurology would not be regarded as a shortcoming by the millions of people afflicted with neurologic diseases. If you look at the volume of content freely available on the website, you can hardly characterize it as small for a single specialty site.
9. “I have not heard this discussed in professional circles as a trusted source of information”
  • MedLink, the producer of the content on MedMerits, is an ACCME accredited organization. Have you actually asked neurologists about MedLink? Regardless, I suspect you have the sophistication to judge for yourself, rather than rely on hearsay.
10. “it is not clear that the material on this site is a ‘unique resource beyond what the article would contain.’"
  • You can look at the example in the “Original” subsections of the archived discussion or judge for yourself.
11. “I am not clear how valuable it is to link directly to what is essentially another encyclopedia entry on the same topic.”
  • Discussed in the preceding subsection.
12. “I'm not seeing what this ‘material that would be absent from any FA-class WP’ article would be. Medical advice, I guess?
  • Examples are given in the “Original” subsections in the archived discussion and you can always go to MedMerits and judge for yourself. MedMerits and its (MedLink’s) authors do not give medical advice as a matter of policy, but authors do provide evidence-based discussions of diagnostic and treatment options.

In my own defense

I have been characterized in the now archived portion of this discussion as boring, conflicted (as in COI), irritating, premature, superfluous, uninformed, time-wasting, and verbose. It’s futile to address these characterizations directly, but I do want to explain how this discussion came about and evolved. Just to repeat in this context, I am a medical advisor to MedMerits, a one and a half year old company, whose business model is to bring high-quality, restricted medical content into the public arena and make it freely available.

It came to my attention in August 2011 that someone placed external links to MedMerits in 2 WP articles. That’s the first I heard about this. It never dawned on me to place such links in WP, but I immediately saw the mutual benefit of doing so. I took a look and noticed that the explanatory note associated with the EL was not very helpful. So I did some background reading and edited the explanatory text for one of the links. That was the one and only time I edited anything in a WP article. I was (naively) surprised that within a couple of days both links were gone. That prompted me to read WP policies and guidelines and everything else related to ELs, COI and dispute resolution that I could find. I learned for the first time that ELs were a third rail in WP. I learned about EL spamming and other abuses, which is no doubt a major nuisance and, indeed, a time waster for editors. Nevertheless, I believed that MedMerits was a legitimate external source and that ELs to it would benefit both MedMerits and WP, so I followed the recommended procedure and contacted the editor who deleted the links—or maybe it was the other way around. Regardless, he mentioned that I can try to get a consensus by posting on this page. I did so quite innocently, not yet realizing that I stepped on the third rail, and got quite a jolt by the less than welcoming comments I referred to above. I took to heart the vehemence of my opposition and thought about it long and hard. At first I thought it was just a reflex reaction to what they thought was another self-promoting EL nut, but some of the comments indicated that it was more than that. Not doubting the motives of the opposition, and knowing that my own motives were proper and that WP policies, guidelines, practices and common sense favored MedMerits as an EL, how could there be such vehement opposition? That’s what led to the considerations expressed under the first subheading, above.

The loudest and most unwavering voices against me have been those of the most active and committed editors, who are justifiably fed up by EL spammers. I harbor no grudges against them or anyone else who may have misconstrued my motives or disagrees with me on principle. There was no reason, a priori, for them to view me any differently from the many spammers and troublemakers they must have encountered over their years of service. The original editor to delete these links has, in fact, demonstrated openness to engaging on this issue. The burden is on me to convince them and the rest of this group that I have a legitimate case that deserves a fair hearing—not for my benefit or MedMerits’ but for improving WP. I believe that I acted responsibly and appropriately by pointing to MedMerits’ existence and to its benefits for this group and for the public and for choosing this forum for this discussion. I also believe that this discussion has been constructive in that it led me to identify issues that WP should really grapple with, namely whether it should be self-contained or integrated into the universe of knowledge, whether it should limit itself to scholarship or to serve the public’s need for other kinds of information (eg, in medicine, the names of legitimate patient support organizations, centers of excellence, relevant clinical trials, etc) and, in general, whether WP has an obligation to society and what that might be. (Perhaps these issues have been considered, but I haven’t encountered anything about them.)

Where do we go from here?

I‘ve been asked what I’m really proposing. I’d like to see an EL to MedMerits in every WP article on a neurologic topic that has an EL to eMedicine. But that’s not for me but for the community to say. If there is a consensus to do anything at all, I’ll be happy to do whatever it is I’m asked or authorized to do. I expect that there will follow new comments from people already involved in this discussion and from others who have not followed it previously. I’ll reply to specific comments if that seems to be called for. Otherwise, I’d just as soon leave further discussion to others. Presto54 (talk) 06:34, 5 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Comments

It might be better if the reader looked further below for my concluding statement before reading any individual replies. Presto54 (talk) 15:05, 12 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

No offense taken. I concede that PR is not my strong suit. I can see why people would not welcome an unsolicited and relatively lengthy intrusion, if they see it as self-serving or old hat. I'm sure I would have received a more sympathetic hearing if I had first built a good track record. But that takes time, and I didn't think it was too much to ask to get a reading on a few paragraphs, especially after being encouraged to try to seek a consensus here. (That recommendation did not specify the number of words to be used. I did it as succinctly as I could.) Please point out what's circular about my argument. Actually, I got the point pretty quickly. Did you get mine? Presto54 (talk) 15:05, 12 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • If you wish to win the hearts and minds of the people here what you need to do is bring a neurological article to good article status which is not currently there. For each one that you do I would at that point support adding MedMerits as an EL. Others however may still disagree. The continued denial of COI with respect to Medmerits I find strange. With respect to "should Wikipedia be self contained" I would answer yes as much as possible. We are here to provide the sum off all human knowledge free. Linking to MedMerits which is not free in that it is not freely reusable and under a similar license as us does not advance our ultimate goal. --Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 14:02, 5 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I understand what you mean about hearts and minds, but shouldn't a proposition stand on its own merits? I have not denied COI. I just don't think it's an issue here for reasons already stated by me and others. COI should raise the flag of skepticism but, to mix metaphors, don't throw out the baby with the bathwater. And (for those who were less than eager to hear me on the previous round) don't shout me down just because you didn't like my approach. (You didn't in the end--thanks for listening.) I have a slightly different vision of WP, described above. It is not very realistic to think that WP will ever contain "the sum of all human knowledge." Of course, it all depends on what you mean by "all." It's probably a good idea to try to define that in the context of the various consituencies we serve, their motives and needs. If "all" is less than everything, you might want to consider how the various consituencies can be best served with respect to what's not there. Nor is it very imaginative to view an open web-based information platform as an island that's cut off from the lands beyond it like a printed encyclopedia. WP already is a gigantic information platform and it will grow to be much larger, but that's still a far cry from having everything. WP could also serve as a very powerful tool by anticipating user needs and providing context-specific validated guideposts that would be very difficult for a user to duplicate via search engines. I don't think that any of this contradicts WP's vision, policies, guidelines, or practices.

I'm not an expert on intellectual property, but I don't see what the problems is with a free source that's copyright protected. You can quote from it, you can paraphrase key points, and you can get permission to reproduce tables or figures--but, if you have to, you can avoid those and still benefit from the rest. If it's more of a philosophical problem, ie, it's a commercial site, I think you should make a distinction between a medical publisher with an independent editorial board and say a car dealer. Haven't you used any medical textbooks and don't you read any journals? Presto54 (talk) 15:05, 12 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

  • You have asked for a fair evaluation, and honestly, we've talked about this for quite a while now, but that doesn't change the basic problem: we shouldn't be linking an encyclopedia article to another encyclopedia article. You can say "judge for yourself" and I have - almost all of the content that you describe is just articles and subsarticles that could be here or haven't been written yet. Wikipedia doesn't exist to direct people to sources of information (it's not a search engine), so that we're not linking to your site isn't a failure at a "moral obligation." Are there individual cases where it might be a useful external link? I'm sure there are, but as far as a carte blanche "let's add this to every possible Wikipedia article" the answer in my mind is a clear "no." SDY (talk) 15:12, 5 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
You've given MedMerits a fair evaluation, and you're entitled to your opinion. That's all I asked for. Whether WP has any moral obligation to society and what that might be is debatable but should not be dismissed out of hand. I predict that within 5 years WP will become so dominant on the web that many people will think of it as the first and last stop in their search for information. As much as I am true and longstanding user and fan of WP, I think that would be highly undesirable and unfortunate. Presto54 (talk) 15:05, 12 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • My colleagues' points above are well-made and I won't disagree with them. I read what you wrote, Presto, and I would have to say that if your argument is based on revising the general established consensus on ELs, them you probably ought to be making your case at the Village Pump. However, I'd like to give you the same consideration that everyone who has COI issues should receive. If you find a stubby, underdeveloped article that you feel would benefit from an EL to MedMerits, make your case concisely on the Talk page of the article. If you convince others, then they will place the EL in the article. You may choose to write up a generic argument and a COI disclosure on your user page (or a sub-page) and link to it when discussing ELs on article talk pages. At present, that's the best I can suggest if you want to move forward with your goals. Demonstrate what good you can bring; build yourself a reputation for positive contributions. On Wikipedia there is no deadline, and I hope you're not afflicted with one either. Cheers, --RexxS (talk) 15:16, 5 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Those are good and constructive suggestions. Thank you. Presto54 (talk) 15:05, 12 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Medmerits focuses on a dozen or so major neurological areas. It does not cover all of neurology because of licensing restrictions MedLink, which is the source of MedMerits articles has broader coverage but is restricted. So it's true that there will be WP articles that don't have corresponding articles in MedMerits. The reverse is also true--I checked. There are nevertheless many topics that are covered in both and MedMerits has more in-depth coverage. It's also fairly common that on a topic in common, WP covers certain aspects and MedMerits covers others. MedMerits nearly always covers the essentials. That's not always the case in WP, although WP often has some very interesting stuff, including controversies that concern the public but not necessarily neurologists. Presto54 (talk) 15:05, 12 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Presto54, firstly, thank you for your frank and honest declaration regarding your aim and affiliation. Much of your generic statement "How to think about ELs" isn't directly relevant to your aim; rather it is a build-up to your justification.

"It [Truth] is guaranteed only by the availability of independent sources. Each WP writer/editor should feel obligated to review and publicize legitimate competing sources."

I don't agree with either of those statements. "Truth" is not guaranteed by the presence of independent sources, even "reliable ones". This is even more pertinent in the field of medicine where "Evidence" is really only evidence, not truth. Nor do I believe that WP editors should be publicizing competing sources. This is not the intent of Wikipedia.

"Let's look at what ELs are actually placed in medical articles with any degree of regularity. I reviewed the ELs in a dozen haphazardly selected WP articles. I came up with the following ELs: ICD codes, Diseases database, MedLinePlus, eMedicine, PubMed, MeSH, OMIM, Gene Reviews, Open Directory Project, disease focused organizations, referral centers, clinical trials, and abstracts of the Cochrane library."

In my opinion, Wikipedia already has too many external links of this nature, including the ones that you list above. If those external links contain information that would be relevant to the article, they should be included as in-line citations.
Several people (during both discussions) have referred to point 1 here: "Any site that does not provide a unique resource beyond what the article would contain if it became a featured article." However this does not mean that the converse statement applies.
Point 3 here: "Sites that contain neutral and accurate material that is relevant to an encyclopedic understanding of the subject and cannot be integrated into the Wikipedia article due to copyright issues, amount of detail (such as professional athlete statistics, movie or television credits, interview transcripts, or online textbooks), or other reasons" could possibly apply to MedMerits' multiple sclerosis article.
In summary, some of MedMerits' articles could be justified as ELs under Wikipedia's guidelines. However in my opinion, Wikipedia already has too many ELs and I'm not convinced that adding more would help readers. Axl ¤ [Talk] 18:37, 5 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the extensive and thoughtful comments. I concede the distinction between "truth" and "evidence." I was using "truth" loosely, ie, as best as a prudent and educated person can deduce from the available evidence. I also concede that the existence of competing sources is no guarantee of truth. The benefit competing sources provide is an independent assessment of the evidence, especially for non-experts. In the best of all possible worlds competing sources would be in agreement with each other. But authors/editors are imperfect human beings who can err, overlook, or have biases. WP is self-correcting so should in theory overcome these shortcomings, certainly errors and omissions. But WP's operations aren't perfect either. Regardless, biases are be more difficult to eliminate. Our whole society is subject to bias, as we have seen repeatedly, including refusal to accept innovative ideas by denial of the validity of evidence or its interpretation. The serious student will consult multiple sources. Whether WP should publicize competing sources is debatable. That proposition is worthy in my opinion of careful consideration.

I've read the EL rules carefully. I think as well as a few other here that MedMerits passes on that count. I and others have already elaborated on this, so I doubt that we can convince you. I'm certainly happy to debate this further if anyone is so inclined. Whether WP has too many links is also debatable. I think each article should probably have 10-20 ELs. It's easy enough to scan through such a list and one can help out further by subclassifying them by type. There is no practical space limitation. It's a disservice to users not to provide all relevant and valid ELs for those who might want information WP does not provide or just happened not to. I would even extend that to valid redundant sources. Presto54 (talk) 15:05, 12 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

  • Sorry, we on the internet have a short attention span; I have not read your long note. We have an external links policy, and we've had a long discussion already about the merits of MedMerits links. Consensus is essentially against. Please try to become a productive editor of Wikipedia content. JFW | T@lk 21:23, 5 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I recommend Adderoll. Sorry, that was a joke. I think you're doing plenty of stuff already and most other people are probably overcommitted as well. So I have no expectation that everyone is going want to take the time to listen. I think I actually got a fair hearing and now have a good sense about where the group stands. Nevertheless, I hope that at some point you'll find the time to consider the main points. Presto54 (talk) 15:05, 12 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Just adding to Axl's last point: My interest is pain, so I looked at MedMerits' article and found one page has a seemingly comprehensive list of analgesics and adjuvants. Pain management presently does not contain such a list, and probably won't, even when it's an FA. It would be, in my opinion, entirely appropriate for Pain management to link to that MedMerits page. If someone from MedMerits chooses to add links to the EL section at the bottom of a lot of Wikipedia articles, provided they are linking to content that is relevant but too detailed for the article, there should be no problem. In fact, that would be a very good thing. But please make absolutely sure they have fully grasped the WP:EL guideline. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 10:36, 7 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for your comments and support. Presto54 (talk) 15:05, 12 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
There is a division of opinion here on whether MedMerits passes muster on these counts. My sense is that the people who looked at MedMerits carefully agree that it does. I do understand that there are other reasons why one might not want to link to it, although there might be exceptions.
  • Life's too short to read all that. Like most editors, I lead a full and busy life outside Wikipedia. We already have a policies and guidelines on this, which I see no reason to revise. I detest Wikipedia's being used as a conduit to other websites that are found wanting. Why not contribute directly to Wikipedia? Graham Colm (talk) 21:27, 8 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I'm glad you have a life, but it's not desirable to go over ground already covered. How about just reading the

subsection, "How to think about ELs," above? Presto54 (talk) 15:05, 12 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

  • I am new to this discussion, but my feels are broadly in line with those above. Why link one encyclopaedia article to another encyclopaedia article? Links should be to primary sources. This is contrary to the stated aims of Wikipedia. --Gak (talk) 08:10, 10 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for chiming in. Same reply as above. Presto54 (talk) 15:05, 12 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Conclusion

  • I concede that after having a fair opportunity to make a case for MedMerits there is a preponderance of opinion against placing blanket ELs to it, but ELs under limited circumstances and conditions might be acceptable. Some of the opposition is not solidly grounded, leaving open the door to reconsideration. I urge all of you who did not have the time or inclination to read this discussion and to visit MedMerits to do so at your leisure. In the meantime I consider this discussion closed. I will use the approach suggested above by RexxS, ie, post proposals to the discussion pages of candidate articles with a link to a statement and disclosure on my Talk page. I will return soon with some brief forwardlooking comments. I'll take the ideas I raised here that are not specifically this group's concern to the Village Pump and, maybe the EL board (before too long). You're welcome to follow discussions that may result and comment. Thank you all for your patience. Presto54 (talk) 15:05, 12 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Links to online lectures

Links to online lectures are being added to a number of pages by User:Orangutans. Here is an example of one added to virus [8] What are people feelings on this?Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 04:47, 7 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I have been adding the links to the online seminars in the External Links sections of relevant pages. I think these seminars are useful for continuing education and learning more about a person or scientific field. The online lectures are all free, publicly funded, and are given by leading scientists (including Nobel Laureates and National Academy of Sciences members) who are talking about their area of expertise or their own discoveries. I will go with whatever the Wikipedia community feels, but the whole point of Wikipedia is to disseminate free and accurate knowledge and I believe these seminars are a useful education resource. Orangutans (talk) 04:52, 7 October 2011 (UTC)Orangutans[reply]
I have added a few online video External links as well as references, and they've been allowed to stand for months. Carefully chosen, they should be allowed IMO. --Hordaland (talk) 07:20, 7 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I'm a little skeptical that we should be encouraging these kinds of links. Again, from a WP:ELNO standpoint, what do they include that the article should not or cannot? Text or speech, the same ideas should apply. It might be useful to have these as links in the articles about the scientists in question, since there it's a little clearer why they're relevant. I'm not saying "no" in general, but Wikipedia is not a link farm, however worthy the content might be. SDY (talk) 07:26, 7 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Per WP:EL, an article can link to a site that contains neutral and accurate material that cannot be integrated into the Wikipedia article due to the amount of detail. If a lecture goes into more detail than the Wikipedia article can include, I see no problem with linking to it, provided it is neutral and accurate.
If a site does not provide a unique resource beyond what the article would contain if it became a featured article, then a straightforward reading of WP:ELNO rules it out as an external link. Personally, I'm in favor of linking to neutral and accurate videos, sparingly and judiciously, when they can be found, in all articles, for the benefit of people with reading problems, even if they contain nothing more than what the article says. But I gather the present consensus at the external links noticeboard opposes such inclusion. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 09:48, 7 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I have watched a significant number of these online lectures and I really do believe they add a unique resource/aspect to a particular subject or person. For example, I added a link to a talk by Martin Chalfie discussing his discovery and use of GFP in model organisms, which he won the Nobel Prize for, on the Martin Chalfie page. The links cited above on the virus page were links to talks by David Baltimore, who won the Nobel Prize for his work on virus replication, and Ari Helenius, who is a leading scientist in the field of viruses (both were talks on viruses and research on viruses). I was however, adding a fair number of links to this source of online lectures, but it is because in my opinion they are high quality, given by well-known/leading research scientists, and went into a nice level of detail about a subject. I'm not sure if anything else like this exists, at least as a free educational resource. Frank Schulenburg, Wikipedia's Head of Public Outreach, even gave a talk on this site [9] encouraging scientists to edit Wikipedia. Anyway I will stop here. I'm happy to be more sparing in adding links if the consensus is that too many links is a bad thing, but hopefully there is also consensus that free online lectures (that are in agreement with WP:EL) are a useful addition to appropriate External Links sections. Orangutans (talk) 17:13, 7 October 2011 (UTC)Orangutans[reply]
Video links, especially very long videos like these, are discouraged at WP:ELMAYBE #2. They should only be added case-by-case (e.g., not links to most of the videos offered by one group), and only after very carefully considering the benefits and the problems they create. Additionally, they must be properly labeled as being large pages.
These kinds of questions can also be discussed at WP:External links/Noticeboard. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:59, 10 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Not having viewed the videos, they sound like a rare and wonderful resource. It's hard to imagine how they would have nothing to add to a WP article to which they have relevance. Even if they don't, the stature of the speaker would increase the credibility of the WP article. There is also merit to the view that videos might be very helpful to people with certain kinds of disabilities. There is logic in linking to these lectures in the articles about the lecturer's in question, in which case internal links could be placed to them. Regardless, it would be easier to find such links if they were grouped together in a customary location rather than buried in text. Presto54 (talk) 05:15, 13 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Scope

Does this WikiProject support biography articles of physicians, e.g. George Canellos? Thanks. Jweiss11 (talk) 00:40, 8 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Hippocrates and Avicenna have WP:MED tags, so it's not outside the realm of possibility, but while those articles may be in scope, I've never seen a discussion about biography on this page other than a request for input on an AfD, so I don't know if I'd say we really support them. Given that "the father of modern medicine" (kind of a big deal) is of low importance, that might give you an indication... SDY (talk) 01:00, 8 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The guidance says "Physicians or other healthcare workers: {{WikiProject Biography |s&a-work-group=yes}}. Add WPMED only if the person is notable for substantial contributions to medicine, and set | importance=Low.". Hippocrates is down as "High importance", if Avicenna is rated incorrectly then that can be fixed. Fences&Windows 19:14, 10 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I have fixed the priority rating for Hippocrates. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:02, 10 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Health effects from noise

The article on health effects from noise reads like a fork from noise pollution, and considering that the noise pollution article is only 15,210 bytes, it seems reasonable to merge the former into the latter. Are there any objections to this merge? Viriditas (talk) 09:26, 8 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Seems reasonable. JFW | T@lk 20:03, 8 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I think it's better to keep them separate. Occupational health involves noise problems that aren't really "pollution." SDY (talk) 20:43, 8 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Which occupational health problems caused by noise are not classified as "noise pollution"? More specifically, what is the difference between the two articles? Noise pollution is a topic about the health effects from noise. That's what the "pollution" refers to in the term. Viriditas (talk) 00:12, 9 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
For example, this article here refers to noise and worker safety in the construction industry and never uses the term "pollution." I'm doing google searches for "noise effects worker safety pollution" and not seeing "pollution" in any of the snippets that google is putting together where "workers" also appear. It may be dogmatically correct, but it doesn't appear that that's the term that's used. Noise pollution isn't just health effects, it's also environmental (i.e. disrupting ecosystems, animal behavior, etc...). I agree that the current content of that article should probably be merged, but I disagree that the two terms are synonymous. SDY (talk) 00:44, 9 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Having thought about it, this also sounds separate to me. Some natural noises (e.g., volcano eruptions) can have health effects, but they wouldn't normally be considered "noise pollution". WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:07, 10 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Brain is now at FAC

The title says it all -- any opinions are welcome at Wikipedia:Featured article candidates. Looie496 (talk) 02:00, 10 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Dry needling

Dry needling is a therapy used by chiropractors and others that was developed in the 1970s - it involves putting a needle into what are called trigger points in muscle to relieve pain. Because of the similarity to acupuncture, acupuncturists often say it is the same and there's a dispute at the article at the moment over this issue. I revamped the article last year and I'm trying to make sure that the text is neutral. The recent dispute in particular involves a court case about whether dry needling=acupuncture in Oregon, but the sources aren't good at all. I can't find decent secondary sourcing. User:Compchiro is engaging with me and on the talk page, User:BenjaminPO11 seems to be pushing the acupuncture POV and I've warned them for edit warring. Help with sourcing and keeping advocacy out of the article would be appreciated. Fences&Windows 18:53, 10 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Phytolacca americana

Does Phytolacca americana really have all the medical uses and/or promising pharmacology claimed in the article? Or is it just another case of overuse of primary sources and/or non-WP:MEDRS-compliant sources to make speculative claims? Deli nk (talk) 20:50, 10 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

A typical example of primary source overuse. I'd move the whole lot to the talkpage. JFW | T@lk 20:58, 10 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
OK, I moved it to the talk page for discussion. Deli nk (talk) 14:46, 11 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

DYK

This rather disastrous article appeared on the main page at DYK: Stab wound. Maybe someone can do something to fix it up (other than blank it). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:11, 11 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

How much detail should be in the main ADHD article

Wondering if people could comment here [10] Should the comparison to cocaine for methyphenedate be in the main article? Supported by an alternative medicine paper from 2000? --Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 14:32, 11 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Rationing

I started Health care rationing off of a redirect to a U.S. centric article. I'd like for it to become a DYK, so I plan on expanding it some but I don't care if I get credit or not. Contributions welcome. Jesanj (talk) 16:56, 11 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

User:Ks0stm/Discourse Community 1

This is a quick interview intended for participants in this WikiProject; one of the people in my Principles of English Composition class is doing her essay over Wikipedia and it's medicine community. If anyone would like to take a look and answer some questions that would be much appreciated. I will be leaving a message on participant's talk pages tonight, so if you get another notice then I apologize in advance. Ks0stm (T•C•G•E) 18:39, 11 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Input

Wondering if I could get some more input here Escitalopram? --Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 23:01, 11 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Zoosexuality

What about this as a sexual orientation? You all want to support its inclusion at the Sexual orientation article? Homosexuals and zoosexuals, in the same boat. You can come in and comment on the talk page. 120.203.215.11 (talk) 01:26, 12 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

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