Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous)

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Many anatomy and disease articles are too human-centric.

Hey guys, I just want to address a problem I found on so many anatomy articles and that is how human-centric a lot of anatomy articles are even if said article is not exclusively referring to human anatomy.

First for some minor examples of this human-centric problem is that many, many articles on general anatomy or diseases that can be found in other animals link to human anatomy articles. Articles such as knee and cheek link almost exclusively to human anatomy despite many animals have them. I fixed those.

But my biggest problems arise in how many anatomy and disease articles are written exclusively about humans despite animals having them. A lot of these do not have an animals section which they should if animals are capable of getting those diseases or have those anatomy parts too.

For example supposedly your dog gets sick and they tell you it has (insert disease name here) so you look up that disease's article only to find out there is no information for non humans.

As an encyclopedia, the sheer amount of anthropocentrism (human-centric worldview) is ridiculous and I want to try and lessen it down.

And I want any volunteers with capable knowledge to expand these articles to be more general.

AnimalRights Thanks. 2001:44C8:4551:3D07:A4CB:AA6E:A3D4:6739 (talk) 17:29, 13 December 2023 (UTC)

Wikipedia is based on reliable sources. If, as I suspect, most sources on most diseases are about humans then we reflect that. If not then you can edit articles or start talk page discussions about specific deseases. Phil Bridger (talk) 19:07, 13 December 2023 (UTC)

Further, Wikipedia is written by volunteers. In many cases our volunteers, being humans themselves, are understandably more interested in writing about these things from a human perspective. It'd be nice if people would address some of the topics more generally, but so far in many cases no one with the requisite writing skill and sources has stepped up. Anomie⚔ 22:03, 13 December 2023 (UTC)

WP:Featured Articles are required to be "comprehensive" and "a thorough and representative survey of the relevant literature". For example, Meningitis and Pancreatic cancer both have such coverage[1][2]. It might be interesting to watch the queue of featured article candidates for this type of article and see if there are WP:RS which cover those diseases in animals and if there are (and the article doesn't already cover it), put in a review pointing this out and see what happens. And please ping me to the review because I'd be interested to see how it plays out. RoySmith (talk) 00:13, 14 December 2023 (UTC)

+me for the ping request. One example of a FA w/o reference to animals is Dementia with Lewy bodies; SandyGeorgia maintains it a bit so they might know. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 09:00, 14 December 2023 (UTC)

I have never read or seen a reference to DLB in animals; I did find information with respect to REM sleep behavior disorder (one symptom of DLB), and long ago added it to that article. It is something FA writers routinely check for, so I don't think RoySmith's reminder is necessary re FAC (it's in WP:MEDORDER, which serves as its own comprehensiveness check for medical content). I dealt with it at Tourette syndrome in 2008, and nothing has changed. The next medical FA coming up is prostate cancer, so we can ask Ajpolino if they have ever come across in animals information (I haven't). I am fairly certain medical editors routinely watch for and add this info where sources warrant it. (He certainly added it at Buruli ulcer). With respect to general anatomy articles like knee, User:Tom (LT) might have an opinion. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:01, 14 December 2023 (UTC)

I don't think anyone is maintaining the very old FA meningitis and Johnbod is the person for pancreatic cancer. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:05, 14 December 2023 (UTC)

I'm afraid I do very little there now, but others keep it in decent shape I think. Johnbod (talk) 15:38, 14 December 2023 (UTC)

@Colin and Graham Beards: SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:13, 14 December 2023 (UTC)

I know On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog, but I suspect most Wikipedians and readers of Wikipedia are human. Unlike the OP, I wouldn't assume they all have a dog or spend any portion of their lives thinking about dogs other than when out for a walk, someone else's uncontrolled dog rushes up and jumps all over you, or when you have to deal with their mess. On the other hand, many of us and our readers spend hours of each day concerned about the health of humans. Nearly all published articles we might uses as sources are about anatomy or diseases on humans, so in a way, Wikipedia is somewhat odd in having "Oh by the way, other animals have this..." consideration. For most publications, you'd actually have to pick up a vet or animal biology book to learn about that. -- Colin°^Talk 11:26, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

And I just checked every common condition in the breed of my dog, and all mentioned animals, except cataracts. I'm not sure a general reminder here is necessary; editors interested can join the WikiProjects on anatomy or veterinary medicine-- I'm not seeing any alarming level of a problem other than a reflection of how many editors we have to do anything-- much more alarming is the overall state of our medical content. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:24, 14 December 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for the ping @SandyGeorgia. This old (and valid) chestnut! I agree WP certainly does have an anthropocentric perspective on most issues, including anatomy, medicine, history, natural disasters, and politics to name a few. I would love to see more animal content on Wikipedia including for anatomy + medicine, however as Anomie astutely identifies, the issue is usually that there aren't editors who are writing that content. In addition, in my experience there are less reliable sources that cover anatomy in animals to the depth that would be needed for writing on this encyclopedia. In these discussions usually a lot of steam gets vented about this particular issue but rarely if ever does additional content get written. I think the tags mentioned by Mach61 are a good way to start to identify articles where the lack of animal coverage is particularly noticable. Cheers Tom (LT) (talk) 05:22, 19 December 2023 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:WikiProject Veterinary medicine for a group of editors interested in animal health. PamD 09:29, 14 December 2023 (UTC)

From the talk page this doesn't seem very active. Johnbod (talk) 15:38, 14 December 2023 (UTC)

And WP:ANATOMY. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:15, 14 December 2023 (UTC)

Tagging with {{anthropocentric}} or {{missing}} could help draw attention Mach61 (talk) 04:53, 16 December 2023 (UTC)

Spam: Frequent mention of Guiness Book of World Records?

Over the past couple of years I've noticed an increasing appearance of links to Guinness World Record. These often appear prominently in articles. I just saw another one this morning when reading a "Did you know" article and came upon Japanese idol which has a link to "Guinness World Record" very prominently at the top right.

It looks like about 6,000 to 12,000 articles link to it, I think.

I suppose Guinness is a valid source, but it is a private company, and is advertising a commercial product. Does this bother anyone else? Has anyone in WP proposed a guideline where articles should simply say "... holds the world record ..." and the word "Guinness" is put into a citation/footnote? Noleander (talk) 17:49, 16 December 2023 (UTC)

This may be a variation on Wikipedia:We don't care what happens to your website. Who cares if it's a private company? We're saying it because it's true, and we're being specific because there are other groups that track world records (especially in sports). WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:43, 18 December 2023 (UTC)

If someone is spamming references and links to Guinness World Records, then that world be a problem. Otherwise I agree with WhatamIdoing, we shouldn't care if it helps or hinders them neither are the reason for editing the encyclopedia. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 16:59, 19 December 2023 (UTC)

As WAID and ActivelyDisinterested note, we're agnostic to whether or not a source is commercial or not—but perhaps that's the wrong question to be asking about all these links.

It may be worth examining whether all of those links and references are sufficiently relevant and noteworthy of mention. Are all these Guinness references running into issues with WP:INDISCRIMINATE? In places where they are relevant, are they duplicative of other, better sources? (Or should they be flagged for replacement with better sources?) In a related vein, it's worth noting that Guinness does a fair bit of promotional partnership these days. A growing segment of their revenue comes from the recordholders (and would-be recordholders) themselves, who want to have the gloss of a world record, and pay handsomely for Guinness to provide adjudicators and consultants...and promotion.

Looking at the first few (non-list) entries at Special:WhatLinksHere/Guinness_World_Records,

• Agatha Christie, cited for best-selling fiction author of all time. Probably all right, though we might find better sources for sales.
• Arabs, cited to describe the University of Al Quaraouiyine as the oldest continuously-operating degree-granting institution in the world. Also footnoted with UNESCO, a better source.
• Andhra Pradesh (the state in India), cited to support the claim that D. Ramanaidu has produced more films than any other person. Seems a bit of minutiae, at best, given this article is about the entire history of a region with 50 million people.
• André the Giant, cited as being the world's highest-paid wrestler (ever) in 1974. Probably relevant and appropriate.
• Adam Carolla, cited for most downloaded podcast in 2011. Probably okay.
• Atari 2600, used as a footnote for (presumably-record-shattering) sales figures. Not actually used for a named record. Sales figures might better be sourced to trade publications of the era, or even mainstream news coverage.
• Amr Diab, cited for winning the Best Selling Middle Eastern Artist category of the World Music Awards more often than any other artist. Does this need to cite Guinness at all? Presumably this factoid could be pulled from a music publication, or even from the World Music Awards themselves.

...and so on. That said, it would be a mammoth undertaking to review and revise so many links. As Noleander notes, there's around ten thousand of these things. (minor edits for typos) TenOfAllTrades(talk) 19:51, 21 December 2023 (UTC)

Redirects to nowhere

I have penned a new essay/public complaint. See Wikipedia:Redirects to nowhere. —ReadOnlyAccount (talk) 03:55, 18 December 2023 (UTC)

I think you left out the last step, in which the redirect is deleted because the merged-in and later removed subject matter isn't mentioned by name in the current version of the article. Thus instead of indicating that Alice Actor (probably) had something to do with this television show, we give readers nothing at all. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:41, 18 December 2023 (UTC)

You may well be right, but of course, once your "last step" occurs —and I don't know how frequently it does— even information in the history becomes invisible to ordinary users. So that means absent special privileges, you and I can't prove there ever was a there there. So I can't focus on that. What I can focus on is that even the supposed "merge" that comes earlier often isn't one, because in actuality, those who decide to "resolve" a request for sabotage (that's what it is) by "merging" frequently simply turn the victim article into a redirect and merge absolutely none of its content into the target article. It ought to be possible to report those who do that as acting in bad faith, but I would not know where. —ReadOnlyAccount (talk) 09:06, 22 December 2023 (UTC)

I understand your position, but I find the invocation of "genocide" - in the very first sentence! - a tad distracting and off-putting in an essay about incautious merging of Wikipedia articles. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 19:29, 22 December 2023 (UTC)

Review Article

Hi, can anyone who may be interested in railways articles, and has some background knowledge of technical terms, help me clean up this draft article if possible? Thank you. Riad Salih (talk) 18:24, 20 December 2023 (UTC)

I have posted your request at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Trains, where you may find someone who can help. Phil Bridger (talk) 18:42, 20 December 2023 (UTC)

A major issue that I am trying to fix. (Also break notice)

Hey. I just wanna say this.

If you have looked at my edit history, I have been trying to remove a major issue I found on a lot of articles while also losing my OCD sanity.

That is, linking human anatomy on general anatomy articles. (and also trying my best to generalize general anatomy articles that almost exclusively talks about human anatomy) I find it scandalous that SO MANY articles that talk about general anatomy, not just human anatomy, almost always link to human anatomy if that anatomy part has a seperate human anatomy article. For example, almost EVERY single eye and leg related article, many of which are in fact general articles that are human exclusive, link to "human eye" and "human leg" respectively, including 90% of individual eye and leg anatomy part articles, despite many of them being present in almost every animal ever. It is ridiculous that these articles of anatomy parts NOT found only in humans link to human anatomy. To me, doing that makes you feel like these parts are ONLY found in humans and in no other animals (looking at you "wakefulness". Prior to my edit this article claims it is a HUMAN BRAIN only state but if that were the case all animals would be sleeping for eternity lol), which is not ok, as it feels like people are treating animals like they are nothing, and I hate that as an animal rights advocate. This is why I've been trying to change these whenever I could find any and it has turned into an OCD ritual that's draining my sanity with every edit.

I've also attempted to tweak a bit from pages like "face" and "body fluid" as these general anatomy pages lack anything on other animals and have had discussions related to this at one point but have yet to be generalized as of writing this.

I also just requested someone write an "in other animals" section on "puberty" and gave sources I could find about animal puberty (there is a LOT of them these are just ones that I think are the most reliable) as I want more people to know that puberty is not a human only thing and it happens in a lot of animals as well.

Well, I think its time to take a break. I need to stop my OCD ritual of madly fixing links like a madman and losing my soul and sanity in progress because its impacting my mental health (if I could think of an anatomy word I rush to that word's article to edit it and I will get irritated if I don't and its killing me right now). I'll probably leave Wikipedia for some time to restrain my sanity and find a new hobby before I start editing again.

Meanwhile if anyone wants to help me generalize articles just do it. It helps make me happy that more articles have content on animals, and it helps everyone reading those articles too.

Thanks. 2001:FB1:97:D678:3524:F23B:4AF8:4072 (talk) 13:08, 21 December 2023 (UTC)

Dear IP editor: You say "If you have looked at my edit history", but because you are on an IP address which appears to change, there are only two edits in your edit history, one being this. If, when you return, you want to be able to show your work, discuss things with other editors on your talk page, etc, please register as a named editor. You, presuambly, made 11 edits using the IP address used in the section further up this page. We can't see what other edits you have made. PamD 16:56, 21 December 2023 (UTC)

See also Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous)#Many anatomy and disease articles are too human-centric.

2001:FB1, it would be a good idea for you to read Wikipedia:Redirect#Do not "fix" links to redirects that are not broken. If the content of the paragraph is meant to be human-specific, the links to human-specific words should be kept. This is because there's a chance that in the future that Lung would become more general, and a separate, human-specific article would be re-created at Human lung. Right now, that redirected link sends people to the general article, but if, in the future, a separate article for human lungs gets split off, then we would want the links to still point to the desired target. Similarly, if the content is not human-specific, it would ideally point to the general subject (or the most relevant one, e.g., Hip dysplasia (canine) rather than Hip dysplasia) even if a link to the human-specific redirect ends up taking the reader to the right place at the moment. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:23, 21 December 2023 (UTC)

Steamboat Willie POTD discussion

The POTD talk page doesn't have nearly as many watchers as the VP, so posting here about a discussion about whether to make Steamboat Willie the POTD on January 1st (when it enters the public domain) and the logistics involved.

Wikipedia_talk:Picture_of_the_day#Steamboat_Willie

— Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 23:15, 21 December 2023 (UTC)