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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Coreyemotela (talk | contribs) at 19:44, 19 June 2014 (→‎First sentence). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Former featured articleHIV/AIDS is a former featured article. Please see the links under Article milestones below for its original nomination page (for older articles, check the nomination archive) and why it was removed.
Good articleHIV/AIDS has been listed as one of the Natural sciences good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do so. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can reassess it.
Main Page trophyThis article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page as Today's featured article on June 15, 2006.
Article milestones
DateProcessResult
March 12, 2006Peer reviewReviewed
April 8, 2006Featured article candidatePromoted
May 18, 2008Featured article reviewDemoted
August 6, 2012Good article nomineeListed
Current status: Former featured article, current good article

Template:Maintained

Template:Vital article

Congenital HIV/AIDS infection

No article on it. Surprised. Anyone smart?

How, exactly, does a newborn with HIV differ substantially from someone who contracts the virus later in life? Can you refer editors to reliable, third-party sources that detail the differences? TechBear | Talk | Contributions 22:16, 12 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]
It's described in the article, I don't see why it should be a separate article, and your comment is unsigned. Χρυσάνθη Λυκούση (talk) 19:57, 26 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Red ribbon

Consider it a better image for the lead. Thus restored. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 19:02, 27 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Looks appropriate. Χρυσάνθη Λυκούση (talk) 20:06, 26 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Requested move

Template:Requested move/end must be substituted

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: Not moved (non-admin closure) DavidLeighEllis (talk) 04:53, 25 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

HIV/AIDS → AIDS – WP:MEDMOS#Article titles states that "The article title should be the scientific or recognised medical name that is most commonly used in recent, high-quality, English-language medical sources, rather than a lay term." Therefore it seems apparent that AIDS should be the title of this article, since the number of PubMed hits for AIDS far exceeds that of HIV/AIDS (219,347 vs. 23313). [1] [2] Jinkinson talk to me 03:04, 18 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Note: See these two past discussions about the HIV/AIDS title: Talk:HIV/Archive 6#Merge of HIV and AIDS article into a single article called HIV/AIDS and Talk:HIV/AIDS/Archive 21#Article title. I'm weighing out of this discussion; I don't care as much as I used to about whether this article is titled AIDS or HIV/AIDS. The HIV/AIDS title has grown on me. Flyer22 (talk) 04:11, 18 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Information: The searches above are inaccurate in that
A: the AIDS search contains all HIV/AIDS results. The following searches produced the listed number of results:
B:The second inaccuracy is that the search for "AIDS" is definitely picking up a large quantity of articles where the text "AIDS" is only found in either a category or a reference. Without significant further limitation, the numbers are inappropriate to use as a basis to compare the prevalence of usage levels between AIDS and HIV/AIDS. Filtering for use of the terms only in the title or abstract provides the following results:
The numbers when filtered for only searching for the text in the title or abstract show a much less lopsided usage of the two terms. Further, the numbers show a significant shift towards the use of HIV/AIDS instead of just AIDS on a percentage basis.
— Makyen (talk) 08:13, 18 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Yes we must make sure we do not let google countitis infect us. Having made 604 edits to this article [3] and having read all the major guidelines while bringing this page to GA it is clear what is the most commonly accepted term. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 08:36, 18 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Very strong oppose WHO uses HIV/AIDS. Thus I oppose. AIDS is the older term. HIV/AIDS is the newer term. This article is NOT just about AIDS which has a specific definition. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 03:46, 18 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
This is the leading global publication on the subject [4] Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 08:39, 18 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Ironically, Jmh649, the WHO report linked above uses "AIDS" 249 times and "HIV/AIDS" only 185--which seems to provide more support for my proposed move than support for keeping the current title. IOW, "WHO uses HIV/AIDS" is a bit misleading, since while the report is entitled Global HIV/AIDS Response, the document seems to prefer dropping the "HIV/" to using it. Jinkinson talk to me 19:24, 18 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Have you looked at the terms in question? What terms are picked up for AIDS? UNAIDS is one that occurs on nearly every page. But most importantly AIDS is a subgroup of HIV/AIDS which is the continuum of disease caused by HIV. This article is not about just the one part, AIDS it is about the whole continue of disease. We need to use an understanding of the literature and a reading of the sources not a simple counting of terms. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 23:18, 18 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Do you have a reliable source that supports your argument, which seems to be that HIV causes a continuum of disease, HIV/AIDS, of which AIDS is but one part? Also, while the argument that major medical bodies refer to it as HIV/AIDS definitely has merit, I still think it's a bit confusing to have an article whose title consists of the name of a virus and a "continuum of disease" caused by it. Since I am now on the fence about what this page's title should actually be, I will let the rest of this RM play out until a consensus is (or isn't) reached. Jinkinson talk to me 23:54, 18 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Read the "signs and symptoms" section of the article. When we state the number of people with HIV this is different than the number of people with AIDS. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 23:58, 18 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

"Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) causes HIV infection and AIDS."[5]. We could change the title of the article to HIV infection and AIDS but the current title is a more common abbreviation. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 00:19, 19 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose. The article treats two related syndromes, HIV infection (before it manifests as AIDS) and AIDS. You can't replace the current title with the name of just one of those things. I would have no objection to Doc James's HIV infection and AIDS, however. But HIV/AIDS is widely used, and I don't think it causes any confusion.- Nunh-huh 01:02, 19 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose The name HIV/AIDS is used by some reliable sources so it is appropriate. Beyond that, PubMed hits alone do not constitute enough of an argument for change. Blue Rasberry (talk) 03:59, 19 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose there is a specific definition of AIDS, which refers to a subset of people who have HIV. A sentence incorporated into the lead explaining this difference may address Jinkinson's concerns/confusion, such as "AIDS is used to refer to individuals affected by HIV based on their symptoms or the levels of virus found in their blood". --LT910001 (talk) 07:24, 19 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose There does not appear to be a good argument for moving the page. The current article name is "the scientific or recognised medical name" for what is covered in the article. AIDS is a subset of that. Which of the two "HIV/AIDS" and "AIDS" is actually most common in articles at this time has not been clearly determined. The numbers above indicate that it is reasonably close. "AIDS" is too short of a search term to be able to indicate solely by the numeric quantity of results for a search that it is more prevalent. Further, given that it is a subset of HIV/AIDS, it is quite possible that substantial quantities of articles are using the term to accurately describe just the subset. In addition, it is clear the trend is toward increasing use of the "HIV/AIDS" term. — Makyen (talk) 23:34, 24 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose The term AIDS was around for almost a decade before HIV was accepted as its causative agent, and it is only in the last 15 years that HIV/AIDS has begun to supplant AIDS; that is why there are so many more references to AIDS. HIV/AIDS is the correct name and should remain the name of this article. TechBear | Talk | Contributions 03:52, 25 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Edit suggestion

In the "acute infection" section, "a rash, headache, and/or sores of the mouth and genitals" can be improved in its English language usage by changing it to "a rash, headache, or sores of the mouth and genitals". (see also Swan's book Practical English Usage for the correct use of and and or). Χρυσάνθη Λυκούση (talk) 20:05, 26 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Sure Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 20:19, 26 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Conspiracy theories etc edit

Editor ShawntheGod added "Some people dispute the scholars consensus about the origins of HIV" to the page (see this edit for its context) without adding any references, in what appears to be a sentence where it makes no sense. I reverted, thinking it was vandalism, and wrote in my edit summary "rv point that made no sense in that locatino and is already made at the start of the para". The editor reverted my revert, saying "no it doesn't, it says "a small group of people continue to dispute the connection between HIV and AIDS", not the same thing", which seems to me to miss the point. Anyway, I have reverted them a second time, and suggested they take it up here. If anyone else has a different view, please raise it. Thanks. hamiltonstone (talk) 06:12, 12 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I was just about to make a section. As we all know some people out there aren't adherents of the scholar consensus of origins of HIV/AIDS. Even the Soviets themselves weren't believers of the scholarly consensus. I simply added some information in front of that to go along with that part and no citation was needed because one is already there to substantiate my sentence that says "Surveys show that a significant number of people believed – and continue to believe – in such claims." which affirms my editorial about how some people dispute the scholar consensus of HIV/AIDS. ShawntheGod (talk) 06:17, 12 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The edit in that location does not make sense, and a new section would represent undue weight on fringe views. But you could post a proposal here and see what others think. hamiltonstone (talk) 06:43, 12 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

How does it not make sense? Seems completely harmonious with the conspiracy section. ShawntheGod (talk) 07:00, 12 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The edit in question is ungrammatical and a little vague, but it does raise the issue that this article does not discuss or link to Discredited HIV/AIDS origins theories, as distinct from AIDS denialism. Based on that article, there have been multiple conspiracy theories independent of the Soviet propaganda. Perhaps the section hatnote should be changed to
Main articles: AIDS denialism and Discredited HIV/AIDS origins theories
and a short summary sentence could be added before the sentence about INFEKTION, something along the lines of "Several discredited conspiracy theories have held that HIV was created by scientists, either inadvertently or deliberately." Adrian J. Hunter(talk•contribs) 10:58, 12 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Come to think of it, the survey mentioned at the end of HIV/AIDS#Denial, conspiracies concerns conspiracies, not denial. It might be clearer to split the section into two paragraphs – the first about denial, the second about conspiracies. Adrian J. Hunter(talk•contribs) 11:10, 12 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Happy with Adrian's suggestion. People do not believe all sorts of stuff. Not sure the extra text is due weight on this page. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 11:35, 12 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

"concerns conspiracies, not denial."

Seems like it could be focusing on both, the denial of HIV's true genesis and a belief against the scholar consensus, a conspiracy theory belief or whatever. I think it's not necessary to split the denials and conspiracy theories into two separate sections because they can kinda be quite cognate with one another. ShawntheGod (talk) 12:17, 12 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

To clarify, I'm suggesting two short paragraphs within one section. It would look like this:
Extended content

Denial, conspiracies

Main articles: AIDS denialism and Discredited HIV/AIDS origins theories

A small group of individuals continue to dispute the connection between HIV and AIDS,[1] the existence of HIV itself, or the validity of HIV testing and treatment methods.[2][3] These claims, known as AIDS denialism, have been examined and rejected by the scientific community.[4] However, they have had a significant political impact, particularly in South Africa, where the government's official embrace of AIDS denialism (1999–2005) was responsible for its ineffective response to that country's AIDS epidemic, and has been blamed for hundreds of thousands of avoidable deaths and HIV infections.[5][6][7]

Several discredited conspiracy theories have held that HIV was created by scientists, either inadvertently or deliberately. Operation INFEKTION was a worldwide Soviet active measures operation to spread the claim that the United States had created HIV/AIDS. Surveys show that a significant number of people believed – and continue to believe – in such claims.[8]

Denialism and conspiracy theories are certainly related, but I think this structure makes it clearer that the examples we mention have distinct foundations. (The South African deaths were the result of denial that HIV causes AIDS, whereas INFEKTION concerned HIV's origin, and wouldn't even make sense if HIV did not cause AIDS.) Adrian J. Hunter(talk•contribs) 14:30, 12 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Looks good. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 14:37, 12 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]


I concur, looks good, no problem here. ShawntheGod (talk) 15:08, 12 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks Doc James and ShawntheGod. I've edited the article accordingly. Adrian J. Hunter(talk•contribs) 12:25, 15 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Looks good, likewise, thanks. hamiltonstone (talk) 00:23, 16 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Origins

I read an interesting book, 'Elephants on Acid: And Other Bizarre Experiments', part of which is given up to the history of transplant, transfusion and hybridization. A great deal of this work was carried out in the early half of the 20th century. Once such case being that of Ilya Ivanovich Ivanov, who saw possible benefits to the creation of a human / ape hybrid. The alleged date and location of his attempts to create his hybrid correspond relatively well with those identified as the origin of SIV's crossover into humans. With crossover being so unlikely from the consumption of SIV infected meat alone, there being such a high risk during transfusion, the level of interest in transfusion and lack of knowledge regarding it during this period, it seems at least plausible that crossover may have occurred as the result of such research efforts. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 157.228.206.161 (talk)

Perhaps, but please be aware that Wikipedia cannot publish original research. (New threads go down the bottom of the page.) Adrian J. Hunter(talk•contribs) 22:58, 16 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

First sentence

I think it is better not to confuse HIV and AIDS, and to explain it clearly in the first sentence. Rather than "Human immunodeficiency virus infection / acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) is a disease of the human immune system caused by infection with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV).", I suggest "The acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) is a disease of the human immune system caused by infection with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)." to make it shorter and clearer. Coreyemotela (talk) 04:47, 28 May 2014 (UTC).[reply]

This article is not just about AIDS. Thus your suggested changes introduce an error. The disease we are discussing is a spectrum from 1) acute HIV infection 2) HIV infection 3) AIDS. All three of these are referred to as HIV/AIDS. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 10:30, 28 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Was discussed here [6] and before Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 10:34, 28 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
My suggestion does not introduce errors. It simply simplifies the first sentence. I do think that most people arriving on this page are looking forward to information about AIDS, more than about early acute HIV infection symptoms. It is not a problem to keep the introduction very broad, but it is likely to be less clear. Coreyemotela (talk) 06:30, 29 May 2014 (UTC).[reply]
I really have no objection to the current intro, but given that this has come up more than once, it may be useful to address it. It's difficult to be both concise and accurate, but perhaps something like: "The human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) causes a disease of the human immune system that has been divided into two clinical stages, the first described simply as HIV infection, and the second as acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS). The disease is often now referred to as HIV/AIDS in order to include the entire spectrum of pathology caused by HIV without specifying the clinical stage of the disease." - Nunh-huh 07:10, 29 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
HIV/AIDS is a single spectrum of disease. Rather than two separate diseases. We see this in many conditions. You have sepsis and septic shock, you have dengue fever and severe dengue fever (new name for dengue hemorrhagic fever) Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 10:33, 29 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Added the line "The term HIV/AIDS represents the entire range of disease cause by the HIV virus from early infection to late stage symptoms." More detail is found in the body of the article on this topic. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 10:38, 29 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I still think that the first sentence need to be improved as Nunh-huh or I suggested. User:Jmh649, could you suggest something else if you think that our suggestions are not good enough? Coreyemotela (talk) 16:35, 1 June 2014 (UTC).[reply]

Format of references

In a recent edit, Boghog changed data within a large number of citations well beyond what he claimed in his edit summary. The substitution of {{Cite pmid}} and {{Cite doi}} for the contents of their respective {{cite journal}} which were automatically built and are contained in the Template:Cite pmid and Template:Cite doi page hierarchy. In total there were 3 {{Cite pmid}} and 1 {{Cite doi}} in this article. I don't have a problem with the substitution of those templates. In fact, I support it and have re-inserted those substitutions without loss of any data already contained in them.

The problem is that under the color of the authority of that consensus, and in the same edit, Boghog changed the format of many other references. His edit summary claimed two additional things. The first was that he was replacing the deprecated |coauthors=. I also agree that is a good idea, there is a bot which is going through and doing that. I have implemented that change.

In addition, he claimed "per WP:CITEVAR restored originally established style". As best I can determine, that is a complete fabrication. In reality, it appears he was taking the opportunity to change the citation style to his preferred Vancouver system under the color of saying that it was because of a consensus for change. At the same time he took many references which were separated out into individual parameters for each author and combined them all into a single |author=. This has the detrimental effect of corrupting the COinS reference data generated by the citation templates. In the process he discarded all first name information leaving only the first and middle initial and changed any such initials which already existed from "A. B." to "AB".

There is an issue that the citations on this page are not in a uniform format. Do we want to address this at this time?

Because the guidelines are that we should retain the original format unless there is consensus for change, I did some research in the page history to find out what was initially used. What was actually first used for references in this article was a separate page of references. That page is preserved at Talk:HIV/AIDS/Archive 14. These appear, even in the first version, to be in a somewhat mixed format, but none of them are in Vancouver system. In looking through the history of this page, I did not see any citations on the page until they began to be inserted in parenthetical style at 22:15, 6 December 2005 (UTC). This was relatively rapidly changed away from parenthetical style and has existed as normal citations for the last 8, or so, years. I did not make a detailed study of it, but it appears that there has never been complete uniformity in reference style in this article.

The question is should we change all the references to one format? If so, which one?

[As a side note: I have replaced all instances of the deprecated |coauthors= parameter with the appropriate numbered authors parameter. This was done to head-off it being done by the bot which is going around doing so. I understand that this discussion may result in needing to change these parameters to some other format and I accept that my making this change commits me to implementing any such consensus based change on those citations if it is not done in the general implementation of any such consensus based change.]— Makyen (talk) 00:23, 1 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

In my opinion, the easiest option for a uniform style is the default formatting of the CS1 templates (e.g. {{cite journal}}, {tl|cite news}}, {{cite web}}, etc.). Other formats are, of course, acceptable. However, anything other than the default will require constant changes on the part of editors watching the page as new citations are entered without specifying the non-default usage.
If something other than the default CS1 style is used, my personal preference is for not the Vancouver system. I dislike loosing the existing data of full first names already existing in many citations. I dislike having the initials stated as "AB" instead of "A. B.". While I think that mashing the first initials together is an issue for the citations being accessible and understandable by the predominantly lay people reading Wikipedia, my main objection to the Vancouver system is the insistence on highly abbreviated journal names. I believe that having the journal names in a format which is basically incomprehensible to the uninitiated severely reduces how accessible articles are to our readership. The primary justification for doing so in paper-based medical and technical journals is to reduce the space required by references and thus the cost of printing the journal. We do not have the issue of increase cost to provide full names for journals and authors. Admittedly, this is not as significant an issue when a link exists to click through to the actual cited article.
I am not arguing that we should go through and determine full names for all authors where they do not already exist on the page. I do object to tossing out information which already exists in the article. — Makyen (talk) 00:28, 1 June 2014 (UTC); brief re-look striking text which does not assume good faith. 17:05, 1 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
As long as we replace cite doi and cite pmid with cite journal I do not care. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 02:52, 1 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
The {{cite pmid}} and {{cite doi}} templates have been replaced.
I believe a wholesale change to the Vancouver system would make the references less accessible to people not already familiar with the conventions. Thus, I oppose doing so. — Makyen (talk) 05:39, 1 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
@Makyen: "As best I can determine, that is a complete fabrication.". Below is a list of key citation format changes in history of this article:
Extended content
  • The first contributor to journal citations that included author names used the Vancouver system on 16 June 2005: diff
  • Additional references were added that included first name author initials with periods on 29 June 2005: diff
  • Non-inline references were moved to separate template on 29 September 2005, almost all references used first name initials: diff
  • References moved back to main article from template and parenthetical referencing used on 7 December 2005: diff
  • References linked using the now obsolete {{Ref}} templates on 12 January 2006: diff
  • References converted to {{journal reference}} templates with a single author parameter on 8 February 2006: diff
  • {{journal reference}} replaced with {{cite journal}} templates maintaining single author parameter on 12 February 2006: diff
  • Replaced "id={{PMID}}" with "pmid" parameters on 14 January 2008: diff
  • Standardized using Vancouver author format on 10 March 2008: diff
  • Vancouver author format still the predominate style on 9 May 2012
  • May 2012 → present: gradual introduction of "first, last, coauthor" parameters using RefToolbar.
In summary, the Vancouver style authors was established by the first major contributor to journal citations that included authors in June of 2005. From September 2005 to at least May 2012, initials were used for authors first and middle names. From February 2006 to at least May 2012, a single author parameter was used in a large majority of the references. From March 2008 to at least May 2012, Vancouver style authors were used in a large majority of the references.
@Makyen: "I do object to tossing out information which already exists in the article" – Spelled out first names of authors is not essential information. The vast majority of Wikipedia readers are not familiar with the authors of these papers in the first place, hence having the full name spelled out adds very little value. Those that are familiar with the literature would immediately recognize authors with or without the first name spelled out. In almost all cases links to the original articles are provided if someone has a burning urge to know an author's first name. In addition, Vancouver style authors IMHO are cleaner and easier to read. Finally WP:CITEVAR encourages consistent formatting within the same article. My edits restored a consistent citation style that was established in June 2005 and re-established in March of 2008 and maintained to at least May 2012. Hence my edits are completely consistent with WP:CITEVAR. Boghog (talk) 06:22, 1 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
@Makyen: "This has the detrimental effect of corrupting the COinS reference data generated by the citation templates.": Why clutter up articles with "first1, last1, first2, last2, ..." parameter bloat? To generate metadata that no one uses? If a citation has many authors, it is unreasonable to force an editor to add each author to a separate author fields in GUIs such as the RefToolbar. It is much more practical to use a single author parameter.
The main reason that has been used to justify generation of metadata is so that citation can be reused. However I think it is also important to keep in mind:

[Wikipedia] may not consistently be reliable because work submitted to Wikipedia can be edited, used, and redistributed—by anyone.
— WP:WINARS

This includes citations. Reusing citations that may have been vandalized or contain honest mistakes is a bad idea. It is better to reload them fresh from reliable external databases such as PubMed. For this, the only metadata that is required an identifier such as a PMID, doi, etc.
Per WP:CITESTYLE, there is no such thing as a house WP style for citations and the Vancouver system is specifically mentioned as one of several styles that are used in Wikipedia articles. The advantage of Vancouver style authors in a single author parameter is that the resulting cite journal templates are significantly more compact and this compactness does matter. Verbose citation templates makes it harder for editors to read and edit the prose around the citations. That reduces editor productivity which in turn hurts everyone.
The best long term solution may be a modified version of {{vcite2 journal}} (and vcite2 book, etc.) that would produce clean author metadata by parsing the author parameter data (Vancouver system authors are comma delimited and hence trivial to parse) while avoiding "first1, last1, first2, last2, ..." parameter clutter. Boghog (talk) 08:49, 1 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
"my main objection to the Vancouver system is the insistence on highly abbreviated journal names" – I have no objections whatsoever to full journal names. In fact, my edits did not change any of the journal names. If a full journal name was there before my edit, it was still there after my edit. Furthermore it would be a trivial matter to modify my script to replace all journal abbreviations with their full names for citations that have a pmid if there is consensus to do so. Boghog (talk) 12:34, 1 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I just noticed that the Wikipedia template filling tool that was used to generate many of the references in this article (see discussion) has an option to "Use full journal title". We could change that from an option to the default. Boghog (talk) 13:02, 1 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Boghog, I appreciate the detailed response. In order to reasonably respond to you I need to take more time to re-read your response and the associated links in detail and do more looking around at the history of this article beyond the time I have already spent prior to my first post here. Unfortunately, I need to be doing other things in real life today. However, it is clear that how I worded my original post did not do a good job of assuming good faith. I have struck a portion of my original post. In part, the reduction in my assuming good faith was because:
  1. It appeared from your contributions that you were doing this across multiple articles making similar changes;
  2. You are in the bot approval process for doing at least a part of the edits which you made. It was unclear if these were the actions of that bot, or just assisted based on the code for that bot. Although obviously, they were not performed from your bot account.
  3. The consensus you cited in your edit summaries explicitly states that it "Probably not a good idea to address the author issue" at the same time as the edits to replace {{cite pmid}}, {{cite doi}}, and {{cite isbn}} as this will require more discussion and is a separate issue. thus, it was explicitly stated that conflating substituting the above templates and changing authors should not be done at the same time.
  4. There are ongoing discussions at Help talk:Citation Style 1, in which both of us are/have participated, where such changes are being discussed, including objections to such edits by other authors. Although those have stalled for the last 10–11 days.
  5. I had assumed that there would be a hold placed on edits which remove reference information from articles while such discussions continued due to it being much easier to remove such information than to recover it once removed.
From the discussions at Help talk:Citation Style 1 it is clear that there is opposition to making such changes from multiple editors. Those discussions imply that there has been at least one other discussion about such changes on another article talk page. Given all that, it appeared clear that making such edits was contentious, particularly across multiple articles. Doing so at the same time as substituting in the {{cite pmid}}, {{cite doi}}, and {{cite isbn}} templates was specifically against the consensus you cited in your edit summary. — Makyen (talk) 17:05, 1 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Makyen, thank you for your calm, constructive response. A couple of additional points:
"use whatever author format is already present" – I assume this means the predominate citation style used in the article (or more properly the first established citation style) and not necessarily the style used by the {{cite pmid}} template. Correct? Boghog (talk) 05:34, 16 March 2014 (UTC)
Yes Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 08:24, 16 March 2014 (UTC)
  • This is perhaps a subtle point, but my edit summary stated "per consensus, substituted cite doi and pmid templates; replaced deprecated coauthor parameter; per WP:CITEVAR restored originally established style". This summary was divided into three parts, each separated by a semicolon and each independently justified. In the first part, I was using the consensus discussion to justify the substitution of the cite templates and in the third part, using CITEVAR to justify the restoration of the originally established citation style.
  • In the discussion at Help talk:Citation Style 1, most editors seemed to be more concerned about abbreviated journal names rather than the Vancouver style author format. And as I stated there and above, I have no problem with full journal names.
  • The only references were I have replaced author first names with initials are references where there is also a pmid. PubMed generally also stores the full author names as supplied by the journals. Hence if it is absolutely required at some point to retrieve the full author names for use in Wikipedia citations, a bot could easily do this by calling PubMed E-utilities. Again, IMHO spelled out author first names are of limited if any value to readers. Also is it really necessary to clone external databases like PubMed within Wikipedia? Basic bibliographic information along with links to the corresponding entries in external citation databases as well as links to the original source if available should be sufficient.
Boghog (talk) 18:44, 1 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
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