Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 19:34, 16 June 2009

This user is busy in real life and may not respond swiftly to queries.

"I have previously been blocked from editing as User:NootherIDAvailable. I agree to editing restrictions and mentoring: 1) I will only edit my own user pages until the Misplaced Pages community lifts this editing restriction. 2) I will restrict my edits to specific suggestions for how to improve Misplaced Pages 3) I will not behave at Misplaced Pages as an advocate of homeopathy or proclaim any personal partisan point of view with respect to the efficacy or medical value of any treatment, therapy or style of medical practice. I now recognize that such advocacy disrupts Misplaced Pages and does not help to improve the encyclopedia. 4) I now understand the goal of creating neutral Misplaced Pages articles that describe, in a balanced way, what is said in all reliable sources about each topic."-Avathaar (talk) 12:00, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

Welcome to Misplaced Pages

Welcome!

Hello, Avathaar, and welcome to Misplaced Pages! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are some pages that you might find helpful:

• The five pillars of Misplaced Pages
• Tutorial
• How to edit a page
• How to write a great article
• Manual of Style

I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your messages on discussion pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically insert your username and the date. If you need help, check out Misplaced Pages:Questions, ask me on my talk page, or ask your question on this page and then place {{helpme}} before the question. Again, welcome! --JWSchmidt (talk) 17:28, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

continuing old conversations

professional qualifications and licenses

This thread started on another page

I inserted a WHO document which showed that professional qualifications and licenses are needed in most countries, which was accepted and that's why I asked that the term, "quackery" be removed. <another topic removed - JWS> -NootherIDAvailable (talk) 03:22, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

Are you satisfied with Homeopathy#Regulation and prevalence and Regulation and prevalence of homeopathy or do you think more needs to be said about licensing and government regulation of homeopathy? What is the "WHO document" you mentioned? --JWSchmidt (talk) 17:34, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

Dear John,

Thanks for taking all the brickbats and still helping me.

The WHO document talks of regulation in different parts of the world.

The wikipedia articles don't mention that professional qualifications and licenses are needed in most countries (this is a must in India).

Thanks again for all the help.

Regards,

Avathaar (talk) 12:28, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

• Can you provide a link to this particular "WHO document"? I agree that Misplaced Pages should describe homeopathy in India, since it is well known that India is a leading nation for the use of homeopathy. --JWSchmidt (talk) 14:16, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
  • Avathaar is obviously referring to this. This document has long been a reference for Homeopathy, where it is currently footnote 7. (By the way, I am watching this talk page and there should normally be no need to send me email, especially not with long documents that are also on the web. I agree that the WHO document supports mentioning Hippocrates, but since it's not a particularly reliable source on the history of medicine we can't use it to say homeopathy is based on Hippocrates. Perhaps we can add somewhere that he had similar ideas, though.) --Hans Adler (talk) 14:26, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

AN thread started on User:Dr.Jhingaadey

A thread has been started to discuss this whole matter:

• Appropriateness of allowing multiple banned sockmaster Dr.Jhingaadey to return

-- Brangifer (talk) 17:53, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

Question

{{helpme}}In the article on homeopathy every statement has been criticized, not to mention inflammatory terms like placebo therapy, pseudoscience and quackery (scientific studies which show it is effective aren't being allowed into the article)-I hope you can do something to make it as neutral as the articles on osteopathy, naturopathy and chiropractic.-Avathaar (talk) 12:36, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

The above seems to totally contradict your statement number 3 at the top of this page. 龗 (talk) 12:51, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

request for User:龗: Can you explain what you mean? I do not see the contradiction. --JWSchmidt (talk) 14:13, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

I'm inclined to agree with 龗...whilst "quackery" has been a term facing considerable dispute on the homeopathy talk page, "placebo" and "pseudoscience" are very well established by high-quality sources. Avathaar's hyperbole (that scientific studies supporting homeopathy "aren't being allowed into the article") is divisive and incorrect. The "Research on medical effectiveness" section draws extensively from sytematic reviews and meta-analyses of the literature precisely because there are hundreds of primary research articles from which it's remarkably easy to cherry-pick data. The reviews overwhelmingly note that the measured efficacy homeopathic treatments negatively correlates with the design quality and power of clinical studies.

This is bordering on advocacy (in violation of #3 above), in my opinion, because it's clearly a "personal partisan point of view" with no attempt at providing any evidence to support his claims. It's merely an assertion that others are doing bad things and a call for someone to "do something" on his behalf.

If Avathaar wishes to suggest inclusion of any source(s) not currently used, or an alternate interpretation of those that are, he would be wise to demonstrate some familiarity with reliable sourcing, especially as it pertains to scientific and medical claims. Let me assert this now: do not post that giant list of studies that you've spammed a dozen times before. Pick an article--a review would be strongly preferred--and present an accurate and neutral description of the work. — Scientizzle 15:24, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

He said, "scientific studies which show it is effective aren't being allowed into the article", which I suspect can probably be demonstrated from the edit history. The terms 'quackery', 'placebo' and 'pseudoscience' can be inflammatory when mis-used. The issue of how these terms are used in the Homeopathy article is a valid topic for discussion. I think this page should try as much as possible to function as a place for discussion of specific suggestions for how to improve Misplaced Pages articles. Is there an important scientific study that should be mentioned in the Homeopathy article but is not there yet? Is there a better way to discuss the placebo effect in the Homeopathy article? Are terms like 'quackery' being correctly used to describe quackery or are they being used without adequate care? --JWSchmidt (talk) 17:09, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

He's been banging this drum ("Every statement is criticised and no defense is allowed") for months now (i.e., ) without ever offering anything specific or constructive in the way of supporting data or workable suggestions. I agree that, if this experiment is to work, this location should be a place for discussion of article improvements...However, I'm still waiting for any evidence that this editor is willing to discuss specific improvements without resorting to petulant allegations of bad-faith editing and conspiracies. I don't think it's a good sign that Avathaar's first foray into this new plan is a re-hash of the same ol' stuff from the last year; my hope is that it changes...

Avathaar, my support for this endeavor--your mentorship by JWSchmidt--will be strengthened if you can provide valid, useful critiques of the article and reasonable (policy-based) suggestions for improvement; it will evaporate quickly if you choose to continue in the manner of this thread's opening statement. Please take JWSchmidt's questions seriously. — Scientizzle 18:45, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

I think the plan was to keep the disruption to a minimum by Avathaar staying on his talk page. If we start fighting the same old battles here that we used to do on the homeopathy talk page, it seems to defeat the purpose. I thought it was implicitly part of the contract that we don't do this. In the same way that it was implicitly part of the contract that canvassing using the helpme template is simply not on. Apart from that there seems to be the danger of a many cooks effect. --Hans Adler (talk) 19:34, 16 June 2009 (UTC)