User talk:Lehacarpenter

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Your recent edits[edit]

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Welcome[edit]

Hello, Lehacarpenter! Welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. You may benefit from following some of the links below, which will help you get the most out of Wikipedia. If you have any questions you can ask me on my talk page, or place {{helpme}} on your talk page and ask your question there. Please remember to sign your name on talk pages by clicking or by typing four tildes "~~~~"; this will automatically produce your name and the date. If you are already loving Wikipedia you might want to consider being "adopted" by a more experienced editor or joining a WikiProject to collaborate with others in creating and improving articles of your interest. Click here for a directory of all the WikiProjects. Finally, please do your best to always fill in the edit summary field. Happy editing! WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:simple/complex 17:11, 22 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Getting Started
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Please note for the BHRT page, it may be fruitful to review a couple specific policies and guidelines:

In addition, we have a simplified ruleset which is a good place to start familiarizing yourself with the rules.

I point to these policies because they are often brought up to justify changes, or object to others. Having a theoretical knowledge of them at this point will almost certainly be helpful over the long run. Thanks, WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:simple/complex 17:11, 22 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you, WLU. It's nice to hear from you. I will definitely work toward reading all of the above references, and applying the knowledge therein. I just got through the style guide and cheat sheet last night and thought I was doing good! (-;
There's an amazing and many-threaded history going on with the BHRT article! I'm trying just to read and absorb it all, but it's a lot, and kind of distributed in many locales. I do understand that there are a lot of particulars for what is or is not appropriate for Wikipedia. My main thrust with regard to this article is that I want it to help women (such as myself) to understand and navigate the many faces of BHRT. I know the definitions are vague (and I strongly feel that some kind of normalization is in order), but the problem is that I can walk into my mainstream Western doctor's office and ask about BHRT and she will say, "yes, we can do that; we have a pharmacy in Windsor ..." and when I try to ask what it is we would be doing, the answers are extremely incomplete. I can see that Wikipedia is not the place to be generating definitions, but it is the first place I go when I need answers that I can't get from experts, and I think that's true for a whole lot of people. Doesn't it seem like it would be okay to offer in the article the same kind of perspective you do in your talk page discussions? Something along the lines of "BHRT is first and foremost, a term for which the meaning is disputed ..." then go into the set of definitions and the problems and so forth? I felt totally lost when I started reading the article for the first time--like I had just dropped into the middle of the opera with no program, and it was being sung in Martian. I think part of this stems from the back and forth editing from opposing views, which is why I asked for cohesiveness.
Honestly, I understand the frustration of working so long on something and running up against so much contention, but I do see both sides of this, sort of, anyway. I think that it's possible to begin mend the differences, at least, just with some basic logical structure to the article that puts the facts, such as they may be, on the table in the intro, and then addresses the controversy and who says what more specifically in subsequent sections. Does that make sense? (I know you're probably so sick of it!) Thanks again, and I do promise to do my homework. Leha Carpenter (talk) 19:26, 22 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
If I may suggest - ignore the talk page for now. Focus on getting what sources you can, and reading those first. The talk page will inevitably change in a very short span of time, but ultimately we should be working first from the sources. The talk page is essentially for discussion of how the sources should be interpreted and represented. There's a lot freely available, so the easy task, if you're interested, is to start with them. WP:OR and WP:NPOV forbid us from doing "what we think is right" with the sources - we have to work with what the sources say and use our judgement to determine if this is representative (and the "our judgement" part is certainly part of the talk page problems - my judgement says there's no reason to say BHRT is unjustly maligned, but others disagree).
I would guess the answers you get from your doctor are incomplete for the very reasons the page is such a morass - there's a lot of popular interest, and not much science. On top of that, the compounding/saliva testing issues muddy the waters considerably.
Deciding on definitions is certainly a good starting point, but first you have to decide where your definitions come from. The majority of sources treat BHRT as a single thing - endogenous molecules with compounding and saliva testing. This is then roundly criticized. A small number of sources take care to tease out compounding/saliva testing/marketing/"natural" from the "just endogenous hormones". They are unfortunately written by people with considerable conflicts of interest (selling hormones from their practice or working for companies that make BHRT preparations) and they are not backed up by substantive reviews from a variety of scholars (and are contradicted by many sources that state BHRT is bunk - but are they talking about compounded, endogenous molecules, or both?) and most "anti" articles close with the idea that there's simply no data from which to claim "BHRT is better". WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:simple/complex 21:42, 22 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Wow, yeah. That all makes a ton of sense. Okay, so I'm going back to my position of "I can help with typos and stuff" until I learn more about who is saying what and why. The thing that worries me, though, is that I do know there are special interests in the medical industry and in Washington, as well as in "fringe" practices. I know it's not Wikipedia's place to question the former, but I still do; and that's why I keep looking for primary sources and trying to interpret what they're saying, in order to formulate my own sense of what might be true. Maybe I have a conflict of interest--with Wikipedia's mission! (-:
BTW, how do you do an em dash in here? Leha Carpenter (talk) 03:43, 23 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Check out Dash#Rendering_dashes_on_computers and MOS:EMDASH. The latter page is our "manual of style" - virtually any question about punctuation, spacing, style, etc. can be found on those pages.
The "drug companies have the politicians and journals in their pockets" claim has been thrown about several times, with nary a respectable source to use as a citation. In my experience it's an alternative medicine tactic that's used to justify the fact that there is no evidence basis for the interventions. Since there have been no citations to support this idea, it hasn't reached the page. I have brought up the fact that many of the "pro" articles and authors are people who directly prescribe these hormones in private practice, and thus have a direct income stream from BHRT. Conflict of interest goes both ways, and unlike private practitioners, academics normally pull a salary independent of their research findings - not always, not universally, but in my mind it's far less of a COI than getting money in your pocket for each prescription sold. The only way to answer questions about BHRT is through further research, and there seems to be more interest in proselytizing than in performing the studies.
Regarding "truth", note that wikipedia is about verifiability, not truth. We can have personal truths and beliefs of course, but everything here must be based on reliable sources, which we may summarize, but must do so fairly and representatively. Further, primary, secondary and tertiary sources have different uses - the first should be used very rarely. The second should be our main source of and justification for text on the page. The last is really only useful for very basic info, since wikipedia itself (which is not a reliable source) is a tertiary source. In medical articles, per Wikipedia:MEDRS#Respect secondary sources a "primary source" is considered an article reporting on an experiment directly. A secondary source would be review articles - and should be what we build the pages on. Issues like cherry picking, single-study exceptions and older sources can lead to biased or skewed articles, which is why we insist on recent, secondary sources. Cochrane reviews are among the best, and there is a hierarchy of journals as well - the NEJM and JAMA carry more weight than Climacteric say, but less than Science.
Wikipedia is a huge time-suck; even just learning the policies. This is a good? article to start with because you will have to learn them, but also a hard one because the issues are complicated and messy. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:simple/complex 12:19, 23 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

E-mail[edit]

Also note that there are many sources that can not be accessed freely on the web. If you enable your e-mail you can request PDF reprints from other editors (you can't attach from wikipedia, the person must reply to an e-mail and attach it there).

Many editors have wikipedia-specific accounts via gmail, hotmail, yahoo, etc. Keeps things neater and means your work or personal e-mail doesn't get clogged up or potentially passed around the internet. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:simple/complex 17:16, 22 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you. I've updated my email settings. It will be nice to see some of the articles I've been missing if/when I'm given the opportunity. Leha Carpenter (talk) 19:01, 22 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Just post a request on the talk page, or contact an editor. I think I have most of them, I don't recall anyone else mentioning a source that I was interested in that I didn't eventually get.
You may also want to review WP:TALK and WP:TPG for how to use talk pages. In particular, post threading helps a lot - the colons at the start of a new line indents five spaces for every one used. Add a colon for each single new post you make to indent the whole post:

Initial

:Reply

::Reply to reply

:::Reply to reply to reply

.

.

.

:::::::::::::Too many colons

Undent, start over.

when included in the edit pane becomes:

Initial

Reply
Reply to reply
Reply to reply to reply

.

.

.

Too many colons

Undent, start over.

You also should keep your signature on the same line as your last comment, otherwise it'll dangle if your initial comment had any indent at all.
Expect this page to be unusually contentious by the way - most do not get this much regular traffic and disagreement. This is quite nonrepresentative of wikipedia as a whole. It is also a very tricky issue because of the policies that are being disagreed about. WP:NPOV and WP:OR are tricky, particularly when it comes to undue weight and syntheses and generate the strongest, and difficult-to-resolve issues among editors. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:simple/complex 19:12, 22 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Will be mindful of indents. Question: I notice when people undent they often say so in the first line. Is that a policy to indicate that we are still on the same thread, but just undenting because there are too many indents? Should I practice that, as well?

I will try to make the policies you mention here a top priority to read, so I understand the issues better. What a hard thing. I was a host on the Utne Reader "Cafe" years ago, before there were really a lot of threaded forums, and we used to get into some of the most convoluted meta issues--ugh. There was a whole conference that seemed like it was just about how we could talk about talking about talking about what we were talking about, and I became quite familiar with the whole sock puppet thing (although I thought the Meat Puppets was a band from the '90s).

I try very hard to avoid getting sucked into personal disputes and heel-digging. I really want to see a better end product for all, and will work hard to address only specifics, which can be dealt with on their own inherent merits (or lack thereof).Leha Carpenter (talk) 19:42, 22 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

See how you forgot to indent with three colons and it spaced to the margin? That's pretty typical, don't forget to use the preview feature to catch that. I'm a huge hypocrite here, I keep making errors easily caught with preview. You are correct, undent is used to say "this isn't a typing/indent mistake". Sometimes people intersperse new comments in old discussions, and that makes it hard to read through. The "Undent" helps with that. Also keep in mind that there are policies (very little wiggle room), guidelines (good ideas, but not binding) and essays (someone thought it was a good idea, some people agree, others don't).
Though I disagree with other editors, I have never seen evidence to make me suspect sockpuppeting, or even meatpuppeting. Polar disagreement, but never puppeting.
The best way not to get dragged in is to stick to the sources and policies/guidelines. Sources are always, always paramount and fortunately there are a lot of them. Unfortunately, there's a lot of room for interpretation. Experience with policies helps with the interpretation, but there is definitely a lot of subjectivity there, the only way to address this is to garner input from the community. Hard to draw others' in when the issues are very source-based and people can't just pop in an opinion. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:simple/complex 21:47, 22 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, I got it now.
See?
The one place I have suspected duplicate usernames for a single user was, oddly, Amazon.com reviews. I wrote a negative review of a self-published book, and was blasted by the author. Even though I tried to address her concerns and reiterate that I was criticizing the problems, and not the person, she kept adding more comments in a clear attempt to discredit my review. Finally I stopped replying, and then, within a day, another "user" showed up, also trying to discredit my review on the same irrelevant point. I decided to remain silent, as I think she pretty much dug her own grave.
As I said elsewhere, I think I'm going to follow your advice, read up on sources and Wikipedia policies, get "adopted" if I can, and focus on typos and minor edits for a bit until this all soaks in. It's amazing, because I've been using Wikipedia pretty much constantly from its onset, and thought I had a sense of it, but there is a whole separate world when you step behind the curtain--especially with this particular article! Leha Carpenter (talk) 03:57, 23 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Yup, five-colon indent. Now you have to remember to do it each time
Welcome to the world of the Web 2.0, Wikinomics be damned. Please don't follow my advice though - read the sources, policies and guidelines yourself and do your best to follow them. I like to think that my edits are guided by the P&G, but I haven't re-read most of them in months and my interpretation could be skewed. If you're looking to get adopted, you can start with the {{subst:dated adoptme}} template on your user page.
Yes, behind the curtain and through the rabbit hole lies madness and wikipedia's talk pages. For the most part, reliable sources solve problems and articles are generally built without much fuss but when it is controversial, it usually ends badly. If you really want a headache, check out talk:abortion, talk:creationism, talk:satanic ritual abuse, talk:Ancient Egyptian race controversy. Usually conflict tends to end with a better article, but getting it to that point is aggravating, time consuming and horribly, horribly frustrating. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:simple/complex 12:27, 23 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Maybe especially time consuming--I don't know how people can keep up. I definitely don't need to get in on the list of most controversial articles on Wikipedia. I'm barely treading water here... Leha Carpenter (talk) 23:23, 24 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Minor edits[edit]

Just a note that given the number of "minor" edits you have made that aren't really minor, it looks like you've got the "Mark all edits minor by default" option turned on in your preferences. Generally replies on talk pages that are substantive (i.e. adding paragraphs rather than punctuation or changing a word or two) aren't considered minor. Helps when you're reviewing another's contributions.

Also, if you see problems with the main article, be bold and change it - particularly if it's grammar, punctuation, spelling or minor wording. You don't usually have to discuss stuff like that on the talk page and it's generally something discovered by a fresh set of eyes. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:simple/complex 19:18, 22 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, darn it. I'm going to change that setting, because I keep forgetting to uncheck it. And, thank you; I will go ahead and make copyedits when I see them. I was just kind of scared, as I know there was an attempted moratorium of sorts on editing the page, and as you've seen, I don't yet know Wikipedia rules well enough to know whether that meant copyedits as well. I appreciate all your help! Leha Carpenter (talk) 19:31, 22 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
You're new here, it's expected you won't know all the ins and outs right away. I'm a micro-managing pedant with a penchant for lecturing so I tend to pepper new editors with advice. When I was new I liked that kind of thing because it helped me improve my editing very quickly. Other people find it irritating and would rather I shut up. If you're interested in steepening your learning curve, you could try adoption. A good mentor will point out areas for improvement and answer questions. Another option is asking an admin for help, they're usually friendly and well-versed in the P&G. You are welcome to ask me questions about technical issues and minor stuff, but if it's about the page, I would suggest you ask someone else. One option is to use the {{helpme}} tag on your talk page. It will quickly attract the attention of an experienced editor who can answer your question. Simply paste {{helpme}} (no fancy formatting, just 2 open squiggle-brackets, helpme as one word, two close squiggle brackets) on a new section of your talk page with your question below it. There's a special, highly monitored page for people asking questions. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:simple/complex 21:53, 22 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Comments[edit]

Hi,

A couple comments on these edits:

  • The proper template is {{fact}} rather than {{citation needed}}, but that doesn't really matter - a bot will take care of that at some point in the future. It does the same thing but {{fact}} is a bit shorter.
  • Since you're adding CN templates, but there's a lot of missing citations, you may want to use the single {{Refimprove}} at the top of the page rather than tagging every single one. Saves you a bit of time since adding the {{fact}} every time is time-consuming and it's a systemic problem.
  • If you've got the time, you could always see if you could fill in the info - google, google books, pubmed, and google scholar are good places to start. Reliable online sources (WebMD, Mayo Clinic, NIH, CDC, etc) are also good. You may also try the infobox at the top of the page - for instance the OMIM link has some information, and is probably reliable. If you do use pubmed and find an article, you can very easily create a citation template using diberri's citation generator. Very, very handy, and also works with ISBNs for books.
  • Note where you added the second use of Cohen with the full template <ref name="pmid17655751">{{cite journal |author=Cohen PR |title=Sweet's syndrome--a comprehensive review of an acute febrile neutrophilic dermatosis |journal=Orphanet J Rare Dis |volume=2 |issue= |pages=34 |year=2007 |pmid=17655751 |pmc=1963326 |doi=10.1186/1750-1172-2-34 |url=http://www.ojrd.com/content/2//34}}</ref>. The ref name tag <ref name="pmid17655751"> that comes before the {{ allows for re-use without the whole template being duplicated. Add a slash just before the final > and you don't need to re-paste the whole template. F'rinstance,
First use,[1] second use,[1] third use[1] all produce the same thing:
  1. ^ a b c Cohen PR (2007). "Sweet's syndrome--a comprehensive review of an acute febrile neutrophilic dermatosis". Orphanet J Rare Dis. 2: 34. doi:10.1186/1750-1172-2-34. PMC 1963326. PMID 17655751.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: unflagged free DOI (link)
But if you edit the box, you'll see the difference between the latter two citations. I've adjusted here so you can see what I mean. Note that if you forget that slash, the tags will capture everything after the ref name until it finds something to terminate the tag - basically the next time it runs into the </ref> close tag.

Regards your comment here, technically it's called wikihounding; whether it's a problem or not depends on your reaction and if you ever find it more harassing than helpful, please tell me and I'll stop. One of the more interesting social aspects of wikipedia is being able to see what other people are doing.

And finally, for questions like the one you just posted on the talk page, you might try the manual of style. It's got a lot of information for various articles, both general and specific. Sometimes it's a pain to navigate but it's also pretty comprehensive. As I said on that talk page, so long as your intent is to improve wikipedia, you can and should be bold and try to improve to the best of your knowledge and ability. Any editor worth his/her salt will assume good faith and correct any errors. The really good ones will also drop you a note to say so, and why they made the changes they did (usually with reference to a specific policy or guideline). Because the first page you dropped in to was the BHRT, you may get the impression that all pages are busy, heavily-monitored and active. I assure you, they are not! For innocuous changes, you don't need to ask permission. The person "overseeing" the article may very well be you, particularly if it's a medical article about a rare condition. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:simple/complex 18:35, 7 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Awesome! WLU, you are a wealth of information, and you can "wikihound" me all you want, because I can certainly use the tips!
So, does the {{Refimprove}} go in the very first line of the page on a line by itself? Leha Carpenter (talk) 19:13, 7 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
If you're really curious, I'd suggest looking on the Refimprove template page itself (always better to go to the source - just click on the blue link in your last message, or type "Template:Refimprove" into the search box - minus quotation marks) but in my experience (and my habit is to do this) it goes right at the very beginning of the article. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:simple/complex 20:22, 7 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you--I will look it up! Leha Carpenter (talk) 20:24, 7 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Help with dermatology-related content[edit]

I am looking for more help at the dermatology task force, particularly with our new Bolognia push 2009!? Perhaps you would you be able to help us? I could send you the login information for the Bolognia push if you are interested? ---kilbad (talk) 18:59, 7 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, Kilbad: I would love to help, but am still pretty new to all this. I have researched Sweet's Syndrome pretty thoroughly, so feel comfortable improving that article, if I could start there. Once I feel like I have the dermatology style and so forth a little under my belt (along with everything else there is to learn about contributing to Wikipedia), I would feel better about jumping in on a new article (but I'm going to have to get a mentor, or risk exhausting WLU!). Is there a good place to begin learning about the Bolognia list? Leha Carpenter (talk) 19:24, 7 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
You are almost certain to not overwhelm me, I actually really like helping people with questions. It's an antidote to much of the acrimony that turns up on controversial articles and thus actually helps me be a better editor.
Also, don't sell yourself short. Being able to do research, summarize and proofread is a huge asset to any editor on the project. See it as an opportunity to learn, I'm sure you'll be able to rise to the challenge. If you ever have any questions, I can usually respond to them within a day, even if just to refer you elsewhere. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:simple/complex 20:20, 7 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I appreciate that so much--and am doubly glad if it helps you to get some perspective on the more contentious conversational trends in the back pages! (-: Leha Carpenter (talk) 20:29, 7 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Ok, I e-mailed you the login information for Bolognia, which may help you with the Sweet's article. Also, if you are interested in the "Bolognia push" you can see WP:DERM:MA on how we are using the source. ---kilbad (talk) 22:55, 7 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

"typos and stuff"[edit]

A couple of your recent edits corrected me. Correctly. Thanks!

(Am so tired of warning & chastising vandals; decided a few positive messages were in order for my own mental health. :-)) - Hordaland (talk) 19:33, 19 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you! I love positivity! Also, I sometimes feel a little like a drive-by, because I never seem to add any content, just fix typos, disambiguate, and that sort of thing. But hey, I'm a frustrated editor, I guess. (-:
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