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Process

Hi MastCell. I responded a bit impulsively today in the heat of the moment in the thread that alleges misrepresentation of sources. I sort of wish now that I'd held off, since I really appreciate your suggestion that we get back to the process we started. I think that's a good suggestion. TimidGuy (talk) 00:29, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

OK. But since you're here, I want to ask you something. Our content on the purported health benefits of Transcendental Meditation is heavily influenced by editors affiliated with the TM movement. Do you think that raises questions about bias (either conscious or unconscious) in our coverage? I think the best practice (one that is recommended, but not demanded, by WP:COI) would be for editors with close connections to the movement to participate in talkpage discussion, but for independent, unaffiliated editors to manage the actual editing of article content.

I'm not a big fan of analogies, but let's say that our coverage of an antihypertensive drug from Merck were dominated by a small group of single-purpose accounts closely affiliated with Merck. That situation would rightly raise concerns about our ability to present accurate and unbiased medical information. I see a similar problem on the TM articles, at least as far as they intersect with medical claims. Do you?

Finally, I'm sort of disappointed in the lack of restraint shown by TM-affiliated editors. Frankly, there are a number of Misplaced Pages articles, both medical and biographical, which I avoid because I want to manage any potential conflicts of interest on my part. These are areas where I believe I could undoubtedly improve our coverage, but I recognize that my connections (which are not financial, but rather personal or professional) would potentially bias me. So I don't edit those articles, as a simple but healthy form of self-restraint. I sort of wish that some level of introspection would take place here so that people wouldn't need to beat the drum confrontationally about it. MastCell  17:53, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

Arbitrary arbitration with no accountability?

I'm beginning to think that there is an even more fundamental flaw in the so-called dispute resolution mechanism here on Misplaced Pages than I expressed earlier.
The main point of interest I have is whether or not there is a review mechanism--other than an appeal to Jim Wales--regarding arbitration proceedings.
Is it perhaps unreasonable to demand such a review mechanism. --Ubikwit_{見学/迷惑} 18:25, 4 September 2013 (UTC)

There is no review mechanism for ArbCom decisions. If you disagree with them, you have no recourse, other than waiting for a change in the composition of the Committe. At least that's been my experience.

The only time I can remember the Committee correcting an erroneously decided case was Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Matthew Hoffman. And that case—an obvious travesty—wasn't corrected until 1.5 years had passed and the Committee's membership had undergone nearly a wholesale turnover. I've complained vocally about other decisions I considered badly misguided, for example Misplaced Pages:Arbitration/Requests/Case/TimidGuy ban appeal. It doesn't accomplish anything other than making the Arbs pissed off at you. They might reconsider in a year or so when the dust has settled, but not now.

Last year I got so fed up with the conduct of a specific Arbitrator that I decided I didn't want to work on the project as long as he remained on the Committee. So I just stopped editing. Then, after he was removed in the 2012 election, I felt optimistic enough to start again. Those are pretty much your options.

Frankly, I'd suggest letting it go. Do something else for awhile. Being topic-banned from Tea-Party-related articles is a favor, not a punishment. Those articles are magnets for the worst editors (and worst editorial tendencies) on the project. When it comes to ArbCom, the best you can hope for is that you argue your case clearly. You can't change the result; all you can do is decide whether you still want to contribute to the project under the terms they've imposed, and vote in the next election. MastCell  03:53, 5 September 2013 (UTC)

Didn't they correct themselves on the WMC-Cortonin case? Guettarda (talk) 03:59, 5 September 2013 (UTC)

Here: imposed and reversed. Shaving three days off the ban! Guettarda (talk) 04:02, 5 September 2013 (UTC)

But just to clarify - listen to MastCell. Nothing good comes from appealing arbcomm rulings. It's really hard to see the light of day from within a case, but the best thing you can do is prove them wrong, contribute constructively, work well with people you disagree with, and wait six months. There are several people on that list who I'm pretty sure won't be able to earn a reprieve in six months. From what I've seen of your editing Ubikwit, you probably could. Just stay out of fights and work on constructive collaborations. Stay away from controversial articles - for the most part, they'll sort themselves out eventually. (One of the main reasons the arbcomm goes for these 'pox on both your houses' rulings is that they work. If you clear out all the current warriors - who, often, have gone beyond content disputes into seriously not liking each other - then peace is very likely to come to the article. That creates room in which a decent result can be hammered out - or at least, it keeps the problem quiet enough that the rest of the community isn't bothered.) Guettarda (talk) 04:10, 5 September 2013 (UTC)

Opinion request

Hi there MastCell, I am requesting outside opinion for the Asaram Bapu article. The talk page section in question is "Edit warring on the "potency test". I have read Misplaced Pages:Canvassing to be certain that I am within WP policy guidelines, and it is my understanding that my request is not considered canvassing, but if I'm wrong just let me know. I left the following edit on the article talk page:

I believe that the arguments offered here have not shown reasonable rational for inclusion of a few early reports that stated that the girl's hymen was intact, while refusing to allow very widely reported information regarding the fact that, contrary to to a statement that he was impotent, a test has confirmed his potency. Since it appears that the editors here believe that they have offered adequate argument and are reverting any attempts to add any mention of the potency test, I wish to draw a wider range of informed, but uninvolved, editors who have participated in previous discussions on the same or closely related topics. User:Binksternet has done a lot of work with women's issues, User:MastCell has medical-related knowledge, and User:Roscelese has worked on rape-related articles. I will place an invitation to comment on their talk pages. Of course, other editors are welcome to ask for other opinions as well.

Thanks. Gandydancer (talk) 12:42, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for thinking of me, but I'm not sure I want to get involved. This case has all the makings of a typical wiki-disaster, and frankly I don't have much confidence in my fellow editors to handle high-profile rape allegations against a polarizing figure in a sensitive and diligent manner.

I guess I'll say a few things in the relative privacy of my talkpage, though. I think the focus on the "medical" aspects of the case is misplaced on both sides. First of all, the notion that an intact hymen precludes sexual assault is medieval and, one would hope, not an actual part of the legal process in India or anywhere else. Leaving aside the obvious reality that rape need not involve vaginal penetration, it's clear that even in cases where penetrative sexual assault has taken place, the hymen often remains intact (see, for example, Pediatrics 2009). So from a medical perspective, there's no reason to mention the issue as it has no bearing on whether or not a rape took place. One wonders why this detail made the pages of a purportedly reputable source in the first place.

Likewise, it's a bit questionable whether erectile function can be medically "proven". Without knowledge of the tests performed in this case, it's a bit hard to speculate, but most commonly a nocturnal penile tumescence test is used to determine whether erectile dysfunction is organic as opposed to psychological. However, an NPT test depends on a cooperative subject, and I've never heard of its use in a sexual-assault case to "prove" potency. I'm not aware of any test that can "prove" potency in a criminal situation with an unwilling participant. Again, I think this detail is best omitted, unless the defense case revolves around a claim of impotence.

I hope that's helpful, and good luck; it's always nice to see your name around Misplaced Pages and I hope you and yours are well. MastCell  23:45, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for your detailed and intelligent response. Some time ago an editor asked me for help and I simply said that considering the group of editors that s/he was up against, I'd rather have my fingernails pulled out than get involved.

Regarding the "medical tests", it is for good reason that India has been called the most backward country in the modern world when it comes to women's rights. In India, rape is the easy part compared to what a woman and her family go through if the rape is reported. Suicides, murders and forced marriages are not uncommon. Consequently very few are reported, but of the thousands that are almost none result in prosecution. Prior to the 2012 Delhi gang rape case, India was commonly using the "two finger test", but that case was so horrific and well-publicized that India did make sweeping changes in the definition of rape--but real change does not come overnight and who knows how much actual change has really come about. Regarding the so called "potency test", it was widely reported in all the Indian papers and described in detail. I'll find the details if you are curious. If I remember correctly, this 72-year old man did surprise the doctors when he responded to only physical stimulation. :-)

Thanks for your best wishes, but I have really had a terrible summer. It started in the spring when I again returned to serious gardening when I expected that as the weeks went by and I became more active my joints would not be so sore. When they didn't get much better I thought it was just a sign of age. But the worst thing was feeling so fatigued all the time. Each day I'd plan to get a lot of gardening done and just never had enough energy to do much. Then a couple of weeks ago I thought of the dozens of tick bites I've had over the last few years and asked for a Lyme disease test, which turned out positive. I'm pretty sure that I got it last year, if not before. I'm having a few neuro symptoms, pins and needles, here and there... I'm on doxycycline, but from what I've read the symptoms may last for a long time--hopefully not forever? Do you have any info?

I've talked to you about my sister Judy who has MM. It's been four years now. We went to Mayo for a second stem cell transplant about a year ago. She is still up and about and doing OK. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gandydancer (talk • contribs)

I'm really sorry to hear about your difficulties. I know very little about late manifestations of Lyme disease, but I will say that you should be careful - there is quite a bit of misinformation and outright quackery out there when it comes to Lyme disease, partly because there are some real unanswered questions about its late manifestations. Just be sure that you're getting information from a source you trust. I don't diagnose or treat Lyme disease and have no relevant expertise or experience, but I will say that the peripheral neuropathy (pins-and-needles) are potentially a manifestation of Lyme, and my understanding is that neurologic manifestations of Lyma are typically treated with IV antibiotics (e.g. ceftriaxone) rather than oral doxycycline... but I don't want to second-guess the treatment you've gotten, because as I said I have no relevant expertise or experience and at the end of the day (going back to my point about trustworthy sources), I'm just an anonymous Wikipedian. :)

I'm glad your sister is doing OK. Myeloma is such an unpredictable disease, but things are hugely better than they used to be 5-10 years ago, with the advent of a lot of new treatments. In fact, new treatments for myeloma have come along so rapidly that they've outpaced clinical trials, and no one is completely sure of the optimal way to use them. Obviously she's in good hands at Mayo. The transplant process can be tough, especially the second time around, but I'm glad she's bounced back well. MastCell  19:38, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

Precious

"hope—the most important thing in life"
Thank you, master of edit summaries, for quality contributions to articles on medicine, for advice on arbitrary arbitration, your compliments, for placing "hope—the most important thing in life" on top, but not without The Cynic's Guide to Misplaced Pages, - repeating: you are an awesome Wikipedian (2 February 2009)!

--Gerda Arendt (talk) 22:03, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

Thank you - that's very kind of you, and much appreciated. MastCell  22:29, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

Nathan

This briefly blocked user recently requested permission to edit via a VPN, which I declined and you accepted. He lives in Vermont, USA according to his userbox, and I was unable to fathom the reason for his request; he stated in his request it was to increase his security. Obviously I will not argue the point or indeed input any further into this case, but I would be interested to know why you felt that my action was not appropriate. He demonstrated the ability, while the VPN was blocked, to edit directly here, and unless Vermont has been translocated to the Peoples' Republic of China or North Korea I see no reason why he needs the additional security that a VPN possibly affords. I am probably missing something, but would be grateful for enlightenment as to what this may be?--Anthony Bradbury 21:30, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

Nathan (talk · contribs) has been around for a long time, and has an excellent record as an editor. He's never been blocked. I'm very confident that he's not going to abuse the IP block exemption. (If for some reason he does, then I'll take partial responsibility). When an established editor in good standing with no history of misconduct requests IP-block-exemption, then I think the default should be to grant the request. His rationale - that he prefers to use a VPN to access the Internet from home - sounds entirely plausible to me, and I guess I feel it's not my place to skeptically deconstruct his explanation. Presumably his 5+ years and 10,000+ constructive edits here warrant some level of trust. My general feeling is that we should make it easy for good editors to edit here, rather than make it harder. MastCell  22:07, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

I had, and have, no reason to suspect him of planning any form of abuse, and concede his unblemished record. I felt that his rationale was questionable, but hey, such is life!. (I did feel that the criticism expressed in your posting to him was slightly hurtful, but no matter.) --Anthony Bradbury 19:46, 15 September 2013 (UTC)

I'm sorry - I apologize for my tone. I mean, I really apologize, not the usual passive-aggressive Wikipedian "apology". I shouldn't have expressed myself as harshly as I did. I suppose I've gotten a bit burnt-out here, but that's no reason to snap at you. Although our paths haven't crossed much that I can recall, I've got a generally positive impression of your work and I should have been kinder and less hurtful. I appreciate you letting me know that my tone was inappropriate, and I'll try to take that on board going forward. Cheers. MastCell  21:04, 15 September 2013 (UTC)

Please don't feel that I was moaning at you; we all have bad days sometimes, me as much as anyone. All friends here. --Anthony Bradbury 15:13, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

• This is unacceptable. An official Misplaced Pages apology is supposed to follow the standard form "I'm sorry that your has caused you to take offense at my harmless comment." This looks suspiciously like an actual apology, which as you know is forbidden by policy. Even worse, this appears to be an actual acceptance of an apology, with no lingering grudge registered, which is also severely frowned on. As admins, you're both expected to conform with site best practices. I'm disappointed in both of you. Please begin bickering immediately. --Floquenbeam (talk) 15:42, 16 September 2013 (UTC)
  • :-) I was most offended to read "to take that on board going forward". Have you been on a management course recently? Taking Floquenbeam's comment, though, I'll have to consider that my weak British genes mean any offence is entirely my fault and go read WP:NOTCENSORED as self-punishment. Colin° 18:10, 16 September 2013 (UTC)
    • No, I sentence you to three weeks of participation at Talk:Shooting of Trayvon Martin, which would be enough to turn even Candide into a cynic about human nature. As far as management-speak, what can I say? In the past few weeks, I've had a lot more contact than usual with the corporate side of my employer. You know, dialoguing, promoting synergy, identifying our organizational North Star, working on lean production methods so we can be more like Toyota (and who doesn't want their medical care handled like an automobile assembly line?)... so I guess I've been infected going forward. MastCell  18:23, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

Just to chime in - there are a bunch of different reasons to edit from behind a VPN and/or use other methods to increase the security of ones Internet traffic. I've been doing it for awhile, but you might see a surge (relatively speaking) in IPBE requests related to people taking security steps in a post-Snowden world. It also adds some protection for information that should remain secure, reduces the visibility of your identity to marketers and others who would like to use your Web activity for business purposes, and defeats some attempts by ISPs to filter traffic based on type (i.e. preserves a degree of net neutrality).

I think it might make sense to become a little more liberal in the criteria for granting the exemption, and I've always found it a little distasteful that we interrogate those requesting it and then make an inexpert judgment about whether they "really need it." It's invasive, carries the potential for placing the requester at risk, and relies on administrators to draw conclusions about circumstances despite the typical absence of any relevant knowledge or expertise. My geographic location, for instance, provides little information about my particular situation or whether I would have a legitimate interest in the security provided by my VPN... yet Anthony points it out as though it were definitive proof that I couldn't possibly have one. I suppose my response to his decline was a little snippy too, but he ought to admit that his rejection was curt and not particularly thoughtful or courteous. Calling it silly is a pretty mild form of reproof. Nathan 17:48, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

Nathan, please note that you were not interrogated by anyone about your need to edit through a VPN. I am sorry if you felt that my rejection was curt. The dialogue above was clearly not meant to be taken seriously, and Mastcell and I are not in any sense confrontational. --Anthony Bradbury 19:23, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

You said yourself that you declined it because you couldn't see why I might need to use a VPN. That implies that it was on me to justify that to you. The policy, by the by, makes clear that administrators are supposed to determine the circumstances and justification for granting an IPBE in this circumstance. And don't worry, I'm not taking the dialogue about apologies seriously - and most of it was posted after my comment came in, fwiw ;) Nathan 21:44, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

This could get silly if we are not careful. Are you saying that you think I should have interrogated you about your need for a VPN? Because I did not and do not feel that I should do so. Can we close this discussion here?--Anthony Bradbury 21:50, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

Userbox request

Dear MastCell - I am an admirer of the presentation and in strong agreement with the sentiment expressed in your WP:CIV userbox. May I have one on my page? Ta, Plutonium27 (talk) 17:38, 15 September 2013 (UTC)

Of course! They're public domain, but it's very... civil of you to ask first. :) You just need to transclude {{User:MastCell/UBX-CIV}}. Enjoy. MastCell  17:57, 15 September 2013 (UTC)

User: Rangoon11

Hey, I noticed you were the editor who put an indefinite block on User:Rangoon11. I was wondering if this editor has had issues that you know of with continuing to sock after this indefinite block was put in place. Thanks!--Yaksar (let's chat) 20:41, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

The issue came up recently here. I haven't followed Rangoon11 since the block, so can't really comment on whether there have been additional issues. MastCell  21:25, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

Ok, I seem to have come up in an edit war against his socks so I was just curious, thanks.--Yaksar (let's chat) 21:47, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

controversy about vitamin c

I am unable to edit on pages related to the topic of my concern, as a result of discretionary sanctions, so as a last ditch effort, I thought I'd appeal to you, an active editor on the orthomolecular medicine topic, and present my case. What you decide to do with it is your business. These are my concerns:

The fact that some people dropped out of the study means that it is not very helpful to make conclusions about them in the study (e.g. - you state that the stabilization rate in the Monti study was 50% - this includes the people who dropped out. However, if we include the people who actually completed the study, 7/9, or 77% had stabilization - higher than the 60% average of treatment with the traditional drug alone). Also, your statement about the nature of the stabilization (purporting 0% regression) can be challenged by figure 3 of the trial: http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0029794.g003/originalimage, showing that there was regression, but regression lower than the required standards of RECIST criteria for it to be reported as such. Partial response criteria is at least 30%: http://en.wikipedia.org/Response_Evaluation_Criteria_in_Solid_Tumors#Response_Criteria, so your statement about ascorbate lowering efficacy seems unwarranted, as gemcitabine/erlotinib do not qualify as drugs evoking partial response, according to the study you gave.

There are some other interesting observations from the study that are noteworthy: "Overall, the safety data do not reveal adverse events other than what might be expected for progression of pancreatic cancer and/or treatment with gemcitabine and erlotinib. Deaths of three patients who died before completing the study were attributable to underlying and rapidly advancing disease, as affirmed by the Data Safety and Monitoring Board. primary tumor size ... specifically decreased in the three subjects who received the highest ascorbic acid dose. It is noted that RECIST 1.0 criteria for stable disease are inclusive of a 19% increase in target lesions . Other studies of gemcitabine efficacy in pancreatic cancer that categorize disease as stable do not provide details concerning target lesion increases under 20%, meaning that subjects with target lesion size increases up to 19% are still considered stable disease. Therefore, the importance of our finding of target size decrease in 8 of 9 subjects may be underestimated. In particular, unlike many cancer therapies, ascorbate does not appear to have toxicity on rapidly dividing normal cells such as those in intestine cells, hair follicle cells, and bone marrow. Because of the absence of apparent tissue toxicity, effects of ascorbic acid treatment on human tumors might be expected to be more gradual, and as a corollary to require longer treatment. This possibility is consistent with observations from case reports of patients who received intravenous ascorbic acid as treatment for several types of cancers. Given the possibility that longer ascorbic acid treatment is necessary to see disease improvement by RECIST 1.0 criteria, and the somewhat encouraging findings in the nine subjects in this trial, studying a longer treatment period at the 100 gram dosage seems warranted."

Animal studies also support synergy, like this one, which concludes that "Gemcitabine-ascorbate combinations administered to mice bearing pancreatic tumor xenografts consistently enhanced inhibition of growth compared to gemcitabine alone, produced 50% growth inhibition in a tumor type not responsive to gemcitabine, and demonstrated a gemcitabine dose-sparing effect. These data support the testing of pharmacologic ascorbate in adjunctive treatments for cancers prone to high failure rates with conventional therapeutic regimens, such as pancreatic cancer." (emphasis added): http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21402145

There is a view that ascorbate interferes with chemotherapy. The source for this review is very problematic. As one response to it noted, "On the basis of cell and animal experiments with dehydroascorbic acid, Heaney and colleagues state, "These results suggest that supplementary vitamin C may have adverse consequences in patients receiving cancer therapy". Selectively referring to dehydroascorbic acid as vitamin C throughout the majority of this work may send a clouded message to patients and their caregivers. All known actions of vitamin C are mediated by the reduced molecule ascorbate, not the oxidized molecule dehydroascorbic acid. Mice lacking the tissue transport protein specific for ascorbate (Slc23a2) do not survive because of severe vitamin C deficiency, despite having no impairments in dehydroascorbic acid transport.": http://cancerres.aacrjournals.org/content/69/22/8830.1.long

A review I highlighted a while ago also noted, "Dehydroascorbic acid was termed as and was used interchangeably with vitamin C, which is incorrect and misleading (79, 80). Such misnomers can muddy the underlying science, and as a consequence of the Internet, may result in confusion among patients and caregivers.": http://advances.nutrition.org/content/2/2/78.full

Anyway, this view is refuted with this systematic review: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17367938

And particularly with ascorbate administered at high doses intravenously to subjects with cancer, there are differences in pharmacology. See the study "Pharmacologic doses of ascorbate act as a prooxidant and decrease growth of aggressive tumor xenografts in mice": http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2516281/ - the pharmacology of this discrepancy (given the different physiological environment) is explored here: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0304419X12000509

Recall again this article (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16157892?dopt=Abstract), showing how ascorbate at very high levels can act as prodrug to deliver a significant flux of H2O2 to selectively kill cancer cells, and also the fact that "ascorbate does not appear to have toxicity on rapidly dividing normal cells", quoted in the above trial. Ascorbate has different action in different environments. As an aside, for most people, high dose iv vitamin c is safe. As this review concludes, "Other than the known complications of IV vitamin C in those with renal impairment or glucose 6 phosphate dehydrogenase deficiency, high dose intravenous vitamin C appears to be remarkably safe.": http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20628650

As far as synergy is concerned, another trial also shows some efficacy for ascorbate treatment, as admitted in the conclusion: http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00280-013-2070-8

I will admit bias, as I was witness to my mother's suffering with chemotherapy, but at the same time acknowledge that there is a dearth of data on viable alternatives to standard treatments. Because of this, I gained some interest in complementary (and, as we now know, in some cases, synergistic) treatments like ascorbate, after the period of her treatment, so that others would not suffer as much. It is thus important to note that there are 2 studies showing improved quality of life, that show that while it does not have value as an alternative treatment, it does have value as a complementary treatment. One of these is this: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/6811475, and also there is this: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22021693, which concludes, "Complementary treatment of breast cancer patients with i.v. vitamin C was shown to be a well tolerated optimization of standard tumour-destructive therapies, reducing quality of life-related side-effects."

I was banned from editing the article per WP:ARBPS (there was a premise that I was "edit warring", I do not feel that the data from the history supports that - see the history of the article edits - I made just one edit before I was reported, and reverted one edit after I was reported because I feel that the "edit warring" pretext was illegitimate, since it was used to revert my article, and I only made one edit). I feel that the fact of reconsideration being pushed in mainstream journals: http://advances.nutrition.org/content/2/2/78, http://ar.iiarjournals.org/content/29/3/809.long - means that the WP:ARBPS policies do not apply in this case. My initial concern was to accurately reflect the reviews (which are not accurately reflected in the article at this time).

Phase I trials are discouraged under WP:MEDRS, so I don't think it is appropriate to put them in, whether they be positive or negative. I think a better edit (and you or another user would have to put it in), in light of this information and the discussion on the talk page, keeping everything simple, would be (I am using pseudo-wikipedia code here - the reasons the reviews suggest reevaluation are pharmacokinetics, case series, animal studies, and other pharmacological observations):

"Some research groups have recently suggested that the use of ascorbate in cancer treatment be reevaluated.( http://advances.nutrition.org/content/2/2/78 )( http://ar.iiarjournals.org/content/29/3/809.long ). A retrospective, multicenter, epidemiological cohort study showed that complementary treatment of cancer patients receiving traditional chemotherapy and radiotherapy with intravenous vitamin c improved quality of life.( http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22021693 )"198.189.184.243 (talk) 01:59, 25 September 2013 (UTC)

My apologies to MastCell for butting in (and feel free to delete this comment if desired) but I have just one question: why is it so important to you that this be reflected in the article? Cancer doctors are unlikely to drop into the orthomolecular medicine page on Misplaced Pages to figure this out. Nor is the NIH going to be coming here to determine what they should fund. In any case, the relationship to orthomolecular medicine is a bit tangental at this point since synergy wasn't really the argument as far as I'm aware. Vitamin_C_megadosage#Cancer has a pretty recent and fair summary. II | (t - c) 03:16, 25 September 2013 (UTC)

The anti-wikiproject "wikiproject" that is focused on a core tenet of the encyclopedia

It has begun. This is your official invitation. Would you like to sign up? I think you'll find the talk page comment interesting. Feel free to comment/join. Would you recommend anyone? I will follow up with an email. Thanks. Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 11:01, 29 September 2013 (UTC)

Conflict of interest

I think your input would be valuable at Misplaced Pages talk:No paid advocacy if you have the time and desire. alanyst 19:16, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

OPV-HIV pusher

Do you think Harold88 is

I'm going to bed now. Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 22:16, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

Probably most, if not all, of those are him. There just aren't too many people who obsess over that particular belief. The contribs are a good match, and Harald88 does tend to go on about how the French Misplaced Pages is more sympathetic to the subject than we are, so the geolocation data makes sense. Not sure it's worth doing much about - he's already well over my WP:SHUN threshold. MastCell  22:22, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

Mutual acquaintances

Hello, it's a small fringe world after all. We happen to be connected through this person and this person. The former is currently violating his/her topic ban again and is largely responsible for the current full protection on the Rupert Sheldrake page. No AE action is taken yet so feel free to join in (or not).

Regarding the latter, it is somewhat amazing that this happened and then this happened. In particular this is shocking, wherein lame excuses are proffered with no remorse, e.g. "basically people I have introduced to editing". I would never have checked into any of this were it not for this user's completely weird behavior. I'm not asking you to do anything here; just expressing general surprise and expectations of high conflict. vzaak (talk) 02:15, 21 October 2013 (UTC)

Well this person began canvassing, so conflict is here. I wrote up a behavior-related ANI but was told that WP:RFC/U was the proper place. However it's unclear that the requirements for RFC/U are fulfilled. Is WP:AE an appropriate place for pseudoscience-related topics generally, or does the user have to be sanctioned before going to AE? vzaak (talk) 21:02, 23 October 2013 (UTC)

I vaguely remember the Lou Sander sockpuppet investigation. As I recall, I had a strong sense that something very fishy was going on there, and I think we're not being leveled with, then or now. But whatever. As to the Sheldrake situation, I'm avoiding it, for reasons given toward the top of this list. MastCell  04:51, 27 October 2013 (UTC)

Pharma companies exempt from Bright Line Rule?

Many thanks for your comments about my contributions on this thread on Jimmy Wales' talk page. I'm still active, although, not so often as before. My open letter to pharma companies was meant to initiate discussions with them. My point was that they choose somebody from their company to reveal all conflicts of interests on his/her Misplaced Pages page and only suggest contributions to entries about their own products. This way we could transparently monitor their activities but they could ask our community to help with their entries. NCurse _work 13:15, 23 October 2013 (UTC)

No worries. I figured you meant something along those lines, and it bothered me a little to see people going off without actually stopping to think or talk to you directly. MastCell  04:49, 27 October 2013 (UTC)

edits

I reverted the edits made in defiance of the tea party ban; since your responses would not have made sense without them, I removed the whole section. NE Ent 01:31, 24 October 2013 (UTC)

Er, OK. MastCell  04:20, 24 October 2013 (UTC)

direct sentences look good. thank you.

Kiss.  ;-) 69.255.27.249 (talk) 20:04, 26 October 2013 (UTC)

No problem. The Yoda-speak was really bothering me. I'm a big believer that sentences should generally start with a subject, not a predicate—especially when the goal is to communicate clearly and simply. MastCell  04:48, 27 October 2013 (UTC)

vitamin C and the common cold page

Dear mastcell, thank for your positive comments. I am on a different computer and I don't have my password with me, so I don't get signature here (Hhemila; I must keep password with me in future ...). I decided to write some comments on the basis of your text.

I have been doing research on vitamin C and the common cold for over 20 years (I do have other topics also...), so that my first systematic review on that topic was in 1990 in Finnish. Term systematic review was not used at that time but it was one. Now I am in charge of the Cochrane review on the topic. I must say to you that I am extremely (sic!) uncomfortable in writing a text that has 100% references to my own papers. That is not caused by intention to undervalue other peoples work, but that is caused by the very low interest in the topic in the academic circles so that I am personally not aware of relevant reviews that could be used for the sentences I wrote, in addition to my own papers. There are some reviews commenting the topic by other authors, but some of them are just taking conclusions from the Cochrane review, or picking unsystematically some original trials, etc. so I do not consider them very good (those which I know). Please, try to find something sound and add it/them. That would decrease my uncomfortable feeling, and people might take the page more seriously thereby.

You proposed that the page could be extended. I agree. One possibility is to add sentences about the immune system, and another about the history so that the increase in interest in early 1970s and the decline in interest after the middle of 1970s are described in slight more detail. I deleted the old references, since they are not relevant for "what we currently know," but they are relevant for understanding the history...

One big problem with vitamin C is that many people have strong emotions and beliefs associated with it. Some claim that it is a kind of cure all, and others claim that it does not have any other effects than preventing scurvy (truth is somewhere in the middle). Because of such emotions, I do not know how stable this kind of page can be in Misplaced Pages "vitamin C and the common cold". I mean that it does not make sense to work for a "good page" if some believers from either extreme come and mess it extensively and often. In any case your suggestion is very good and it does not take much time to formulate some statements e.g. on immune effects and history. I you want to go forward with your suggestion, I will participate.

Best wishes Hhemila 213.28.101.91 (talk) 08:56, 28 October 2013 (UTC)

Reply on RfC on No paid advocacy

Since I only read and edit Misplaced Pages very irregularly lately, it has been 2 weeks since these comments, but I'd still like to address them (copied from Wikipedia_talk:No_paid_advocacy#RfC:_Should_Wikipedia:No_paid_advocacy_become_policy.3F):

• Oppose, largely per Risker above. The quality of Misplaced Pages is till very poor in so many (especially scientific) areas, that we should welcome scholars and scientists to write about their work, rather than prohibit it. I understand where this proposal is coming from, but ignoring the fact that academics might be the most valuable contributors Misplaced Pages can have, is not helpful. --Reinoutr (talk) 19:59, 14 October 2013 (UTC)
  • I don't follow this reasoning. Paid advocacy is not going to improve the quality of our scientific coverage. This proposal is not going to prohibit scientists in general from contributing. MastCell  20:54, 14 October 2013 (UTC)
  • User:Reinoutr I agree with MastCell - how do you get there? Thanks! Jytdog (talk) 01:19, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

Nowadays, scientists often are required, by their employers or funders to make sure that their research and results reach the general public as well. Contributing to the Misplaced Pages articles on the subjects they work on is an excellent way for them to do this and is increasingly happening, greatly improving the (often poor) articles on many scientific subjects on Misplaced Pages. But, since they do it as part of their work or because their funder requires them, this would strictly speaking, constitute a "financial conflict of interest" and the proposed new guideline would therefore, when strictly interpreted, prohobit scientist from editing articles on the topic of their expertise. --Reinoutr (talk) 13:30, 30 October 2013 (UTC)

I doubt this occurs. Rather, some individuals occasionally edit articles to try and promote themselves. It tends to be in a fashion that is a net negative for the article, IRWolfie- (talk) 23:18, 30 October 2013 (UTC)

Reinoutr: I don't think the situation you're describing actually exists. I am not aware of any case where an institution or funding agency has pressured—much less "required"—a scientist to publicize his/her results on Misplaced Pages. We do sometimes see instances where scientists cite their own work extensively here, but that's covered under WP:SELFCITE/self-promotion, and is separate from the issue of paid editing/paid advocacy. More generally, I find that Wikipedians often have very deeply held (and very deeply mistaken) ideas about the world of scientific research, and how it operates. MastCell  21:59, 1 November 2013 (UTC)

I'll leave it at this. With regard to your last point, I do feel I have to point out that I actually am an academic scientist and therefore well aware of how "the world of scientific research" operates. I never said that funders require information to be put on Misplaced Pages. I said that funders nowadays require scientists to disseminate their research results also to the general public. Misplaced Pages is but one way of doing that, and not the best, apparently. --Reinoutr (talk) 10:02, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

Hello again!

Hey,

I just had a bunch of time away from Misplaced Pages due to my third year of med school. I've arranged an independent elective like the UCSF deal, but since it's just me I'm focusing on repro health subjects, especially abortion and contraception.

Right now I'm shooting the moon by trying to solve the lede problems over at abortion. I have some smaller goals planned for the month, but thought I'd check if you had any suggestions. Things you think one editor with a bunch of free time could fix.

Triacylglyceride (talk) 04:34, 10 November 2013 (UTC)

PS: guess I should mention that I'm asking you because you had some good advice for me a year or two ago on talk:abortion, and because I was impressed by your edits. Triacylglyceride (talk) 04:36, 10 November 2013 (UTC)

Haha Tri, I make no secret of the fact that I'm a MastCell groupie.  :) BTW, your posts have been very good as well! Gandydancer (talk) 22:16, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

Help please

Hi there MC. Could you please get rid of this editor --at least the last seven edits have been childish BS changes. Thanks. Gandydancer (talk) 22:12, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

That particular IP doesn't have many edits over the past 1-2 days so I'm not sure a block will make much sense. I'd be willing to temporarily semi-protect Ojibwe people, though, since it seems that several IPs have been edit-warring against consensus there. Would that solve the problem, do you think? MastCell  22:35, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

If it was in my power to do so, I would without question warn, and then block if they did not change their problematic editing, an editor that changed the accepted spelling, "Ojibwe" to "Ojibwa" without discussion on Nov 7,8, and 11. Add to that, their contributions show 3 section deletions since Oct 21, and disruptive edits on other pages as well. But, from what I have seen when it comes to blocks, new editors that are clearly not helping with the work here are often treated with kid gloves, as though they will somehow learn on their own to quit being know-it-alls and/or smart asses. Gandydancer (talk) 16:15, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

I totally understand your frustration. And honestly, if it were a named account I'd probably just block it for the long term. But because it's a shared IP, we generally don't employ long-term blocks for fear of collateral damage (whether this fear is well-grounded or not is up for debate, but I'm bound by standard practices here). And a short-term block of this IP is not likely to accomplish much, as it's only intermittently active. I'll go ahead and semi-protect Ojibwe people for a few weeks, which should be enough that s/he gets tired of messing with it. I think that will be the most practical solution, given the constraints we're operating under. MastCell  16:21, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

Thanks. I did not realize that it was a shared account--I suppose school kids. As for frustrating, not so much for me as it is fairly easy to just delete. But I don't understand why admins waste their time when it would be easy enough to have a group of editors that handled this sort of thing. Gandydancer (talk) 18:22, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

Glad to be back.

For all the headaches it is still a great project. I'm sure I'll be asking for help on things, please ask me if I can do anything for you. JodyB _talk 17:32, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

Hey there

Thank you for being on board. Danger^Mouse (talk) 18:41, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

Hug

I know, you are a Very Serious Administrator of a Very Serious Project, but here is a kitten that represents a Hug, which you deserve because you are awesome.

petrarchan47tc 23:10, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

I'm allergic to that adorable little bastard, but the thought behind it is much appreciated. :) Cheers. MastCell  23:38, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

Ooph, a sneeze was not what I wanted to give you. Next time, Baklava! (Gluten free, just in case.) petrarchan47tc 23:41, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

Sick and tired and not gonna take it anymore

Education noticeboard. I'll just keep going as long as they (meaning paid staff, of which there are more by the day) ignore it. It is time to get a disclaimer on our medical articles. Not just a little note at the bottom that no one will see-- a real disclaimer at the top. It is not possible to keep up. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:43, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

You're preaching to the choir. I've come to think that our successes in building medical content (through WP:MED and elsewhere) are actually harmful in the long run. There is some high-quality, or at least reasonably decent, medical coverage on Misplaced Pages—we've both dedicated a lot of time to ensuring that. But that credibility carries over to the extent that people likely believe that most or all of our medical coverage is good (which is a dangerous mistake).

I think that the current disclaimer satisfies the legal minimum and protects Misplaced Pages from lawsuits, but ethically we should probably try to do more. It's a tricky balance, because I've seen instances where people have genuinely found Misplaced Pages to be a helpful and extremely valuable health-information resource. But we just don't have the tools to succeed here. It's impossible to deal efficiently with abusive editors, thanks to our ridiculous dispute-resolution pathway and the ever-increasing volume of wiki-public-defenders whose sympathy for the underdog—any underdog—outweighs common sense and critical thinking. It's impossible to deal with conflicts of interest (for instance, our articles on Transcendental Meditation were more or less advertisements for the product, written largely by editors affiliated with the movement, and ArbCom ratified that state of affairs).

I haven't dealt much with the education/class-project aspect, but I can empathize with your frustration. I think these projects have the potential to be awesome, as a way to get new editors interested in Misplaced Pages and to improve our medical coverage. But the new editors aren't provided with the necessary oversight and advice. Becoming a good editor (and getting acculturated to Misplaced Pages) takes months of editing and trial-and-error. These projects turn loose a bunch of editors, set them a difficult task (writing high-quality medical content) which many of us still struggle with after 6 or 7 years on the project, and expect instant success with little or no investment of support. The results are predictable. It's unfortunate, because a well-run program of student engagement, with adequate support, could be a huge benefit to the project as a whole and to WP:MED specifically. In any case, thanks for your hard work in trying to provide the missing oversight. MastCell  20:08, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

I'm pretty much ready to quit, this is horrible and the info we have is so bad it is morally irresponsible and indefensible. But I'm stubborn enough (and now mad enough about the number of paid staffers benefitting from bad medical info that unaware consumers don't even know was written by RandyFromBoise), that I want to see something done about this. This has gotten orders of magnitude worse in the two years since I resigned from FAC on the naïve notion that we would be able to fix the problems in medical content, and specifically with student editing. Google onboard? Our information becomes even more dangerous.

Colin, Anthonyhcole, Zad68, Jmh649, Choess, Looie496, Jfdwolff, Laser brain, Jbmurray. Do you think it feasible, and is there interest, for pushing for a visible disclaimer on medical content? What is most discouraging is that the medical project has gone so moribund that I don't see how we can even get critical mass to push for anything. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:29, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

User:SandyGeorgia, I'm quite disappointed with you here. This is the first time I've ever felt let down by you. You would be preaching to the choir if you weren't trying to construct false narratives for yourself that spin things in the worst way imaginable. I'm sorry, but that bit of ignorance has been removed. You can see on my user page where I make the ethical argument. You are preaching to the choir, but please don't shoot yourself (and the project) in the foot while you do it. Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 08:56, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Sorry! Choess had already corrected me, I acknowledged my ignorance, have now struck. Holy cow, you actually deleted someone else's post ? Whatevs ... I won't object, since it was based on ignorance, but that's not generally a very good idea. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:00, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Google Hangout is just an online meeting tool—that's not a corporate sponsorship thing. On your question, I'm doubtful it's feasible simply because trying to get consensus on any sweeping policy change like that is nearly impossible these days. It might be worth trying, but I wouldn't be surprised if someone decides it has to be filibustered at all costs. If so, I think the best way to go about it would be to try trolling medical articles for seriously wrong/dangerous information, and compile a list of what those errors are and how long they've been there. That might shock people into recognizing that quality control can't keep up, if there's some long list of dangerous errors that have been lingering for years, as I expect some have

That leaves open the question of how our medical articles could ever get better. Looking at the big picture, I think what we're hitting is the limitations of the crowdsourced editing model. As our sourcing and reliability requirements become more stringent, it's getting harder and harder for the typical editor to make a change that will improve, rather than damage, these articles. (It's particularly profound in medicine, but true to some extent across the encyclopedia.) The problem is that no one seems to have a really good model for editor credentialing. Citizendium tried it and failed so disastrously (turf wars between overlapping magisteria, fringe quacks given authority over their subjects—although I understand we've done that with Transcendental Meditation now, in essence) that people will shy away from that idea for some time. I have no idea how to fix this, of course. Choess (talk) 22:30, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

thanks for the google info-- glad to know. I was thinking of another approach to pushing for the disclaimer-- I put it on the FA I authored (Tourette syndrome) as a gesture of how strongly I feel about this. Would anyone back me? The shocking cases are much too easy to find ... more interesting might be one medical FA author willing to stand up and say IAmRandyFromBoise, talk to your doctor, do not trust me. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:34, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

I think the whole education programme needs a reboot or abandoned. The programme has been based on the misconception that there is an army of volunteers willing and able to do all the necessary work to publish a great encyclopaedia article provided some undergraduate doing an "Introduction to ..." course can knock up the first draft the night before some deadline. Wrongheaded thinking that all Misplaced Pages needed was more raw material and the existing community could refine it to gold. But wouldn't it be wonderful if academia were actually so clued up about how to create great articles that wikiprojects were queueing up with requests for new or rewritten articles? That people begged for the University of XXX to take on their subject as they knew they'd do such a great job. That rather than fear the next semester of students, we looked forward to new recruits to WP:MED. That universities respected Misplaced Pages so much they coordinated its improvement with professional care rather than fill it with B-grade essays. Why instead have we settled for such a low goal, and let the encyclopaedia we built be abused as an online homework exercise complete with unpaid teaching assistants. -- Colin° 22:42, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

But that horse is already out of the barn ... echolalia and agraphia were hit by unregistered courses. The word of mouth is such that profs are doing it on their own now. Hence, we need a disclaimer. We now have worse than RandyFromBoise generating medical content-- we have students who know next to nothing about the topics they are writing on, and we can't keep up. The WMF could stem the tide by putting out a very visible press release. Well, of course they won't do that. D'oh. I believe the community would back us if we pushed for an open disclaimer. I am willing for this to be the hill I die on. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:47, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

Time for the community to strike back against unhelpful and unregistered courses -- Misplaced Pages:Assignments was an attempt at a policy that says "No" to the "anyone can edit == let any prof do whatever they want" mindset. -- Colin° 09:00, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Three of us from Misplaced Pages gave a few hours of talk (via the web) to the five 4th year medical students who will be starting soon from UCSF. I will be directly keeping an eye on the 5 articles that they are editing. We discussed the keys around sourcing and paraphrasing. The prof is very engaged. Work to set up this educational effort has been going on for nearly a year. We will see if it works.

With respect to the medical disclaimer. I would see it as reasonable on everything that is not either GA or FA. Would be an extra reward for bringing the article to that level. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 23:00, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

Our FAs and GAs are not necessarily any better, and a disclaimer should apply equally. Autism (FA) is entirely out of date per DSM5, and Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (GA) is not in shape for prime time. I'm glad the UCSF program may work out, but one course possibly working will not address the big problem in here. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:10, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

There is still discussion on if the DSM5 is truely an update or not. Our GAs/FAs are generally better than most of our articles.

We are starting small at UCSF. The expectation / hope is that the students who go through the course will help mentor the next batch of students. If this turns out to be true and is effective than we may be able to increase the number of students we take on through this sort of program. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 00:20, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

I'll throw out a "I feel your pain" and "I'd like to help" but beyond that I'm not sure what else to say. Is there a link to the disclaimer we're discussing? I don't think WP:MED is "moribund", isn't it one of the more active Wikiprojects? I personally have been a bit busy IRL so I haven't been stopping in there as often as I'd like but will surely pick up as things settle down. Zad68 03:28, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Many real requests for help there are going unanswered-- that was not historically the case. Instead, there seems to be a lot of jockeying and info related to external events. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:04, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

The thing is that newspapers do not carry this warning. Have you looked at the press around HIV cures lately. Take this one for example People can do a lot worse than Misplaced Pages. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 07:34, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

I support a simple but prominent disclaimer at the top of all articles tagged with {{WPMED}} (and pending changes for all such articles). I came across an article with dosing information the other day. Given that anyone could write any nonsense in our articles - they're by any definition not reliable and we should ensure our readers know that.

Choess, we could form our own scholarly review sub-project, with an independent editorial board inviting independent experts to review our best work. Once an article has passed scholarly review, the disclaimer at the top of the current version can be replaced with a link to the latest expert-reviewed version. Getting the right people for the editorial board is key, and they would probably have to pay the reviewers if we want the best. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 08:20, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Review for journal articles is typically done for free. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 08:29, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

I know. But if we set up our own scholarly review subproject and want the highest quality reviewers we'll need to pay. We're not Nature. And I would oppose anything like this that didn't use the top minds. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 19:24, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

I'm not that keen on a prominent disclaimer because I'm not convinced it will have any effect. Plus one has to consider that the other crazy harmful websites out there that encourage people to avoid vaccinations or take herbs for their cancer don't have disclaimers. -- Colin° 09:00, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Catching up, well unless this small group is on board, I guess that idea is dead in the water. Jmh649, putting a disclaimer on some content, and not FA/GA, would open up all kinds of legal issues, like someone assuring that FAs and GAs are good info, which is problematic. And even if they are "today", they might not be five minutes from now (anyone can edit), so that just wouldn't work. But if this group won't fight for a medical disclaimer, I'm not sure for how much longer I can contribute to this sinking ship. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:03, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

I didn't say I'd oppose one. It might make us feel better. But will someone then think the Daily Mail is a more reliable website as it is written by professional journalists (cough cough)? -- Colin° 19:11, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

I'm not part of this group, but I have long wondered why there is not some sort of a warning placed in all medical-related articles. Keep in mind that there is the usual stupidity of people, and add to that the fact that people really do not understand how Misplaced Pages works. They really just do not get it that any goddamn fool can, and sometimes does, edit. Sandy is absolutely correct, and if my medical editing amounted to much of anything I'd say the same thing. Gandydancer (talk) 17:27, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Thanks Gandy ... what alarms me is the number of people I meet IRL who have absolutely no idea that RandyFromBoise writes Misplaced Pages. The average person on the street thinks these articles really are vetted, and when you mention you edit Misplaced Pages, they think you are paid. It's dangerous. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:37, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Check this out; that sort of claptrap is the source of our malaise with respect to student medical editing, and Jami Mathewson is getting some position starting today. She has a new best friend :) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:37, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

I've taken a stab at a disclaimer template at User:Alanyst/sandbox/reliability disclaimer; what do you guys think? It's intended for placement at the top of articles that might be susceptible to misuse as legal/medical/financial guidance. I envision it being eventually located at {{Reliability disclaimer}}. Edits/suggestions/criticism welcome at User talk:Alanyst/sandbox/reliability disclaimer. alanyst 17:55, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Thank you so much Analyst! But I would think something less "warning" looking, more "general statement" looking ?? And about a third that size? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:02, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Appreciate the feedback. I've modified it though perhaps not as much size reduction as you envisioned. If you'd like to help me further refine it, let's move over to the sandbox talk page so we don't notify-spam MastCell. :) alanyst 18:46, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

I'll be out most of the rest of the day-- will get over there as I'm able. Thanks again !! SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:53, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

MastCell, do you remember User:Encephalon? He was my first Misplaced Pages mentor. Well, so, anyway ... after two most insulting questions/propositions were posed at WP:ENB, I wrote this response as a tribute to you. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:28, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

I don't think I ever interacted much with Encephalon (talk · contribs). The people who were role models for me when I started here were Jfdwolff (talk · contribs), Samir (talk · contribs), Eubulides (talk · contribs), and a bunch of others whom I'm unforgivably neglecting to name. As far as the student projects, like I said, I think there's enormous potential there but the students don't seem to be given the support they need to succeed here. Your points were all good ones, in my view. In particular, I appreciate you standing up for the idea that poor-quality or misleading medical content is potentially harmful in a unique way (or maybe not totally unique, but analogous to BLP violations). MastCell  04:15, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

Medical content also seems to be uniquely difficult to source. If I'm writing about, say, ferns or minerals or something like that, I can go to the primary literature and (provided I've done an adequate literature search) I can generally work with it without fear of putting something totally nonsensical in an article. E.g., I just put a fern through DYK about which one sentence exists in the secondary literature (Flora of North America). If you started insisting that all the zoologists and so forth eschew the primary literature completely when writing articles, they'd laugh you out the door. So I think it's not all that surprising that people try to transfer what seems like a successful practice in other domains to medicine ("Let's go look up a bunch of articles in reliable scientific journals about this!") and come to grief against the wildly fluctuating results of medical studies. Choess (talk) 05:34, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

You know. To the clueless ditzs who say we are demanding too much, sheesh-- is it really too much to ask students to add a PMID, so that the few of us trying to hold down the fort in here can more easily check sourcing ? And re the "wildly fluctuation results in medical studies", heck, Doc, Zad and I recently had a discussion about which is the best of the highest quality secondary reviews for a given topic-- how good is that !?! SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:52, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

I'd completely endorse the requirement for all MEDRS citations to include at least one of PMID, DOI, ISBN+page, OCLC+page, or URL. This at minimum should be required for GA status. wp:CITEMED would seem the proper home for details. LeadSongDog come howl! 17:52, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

As someone who argued forcefully for the secondary-sources prioritization, I sometimes wish we were a bit more flexible. I think it's actually totally reasonable to cite primary sources in many cases, particularly uncontroversial ones. The problem arose because editors were cherry-picking primary sources to "rebut" secondary sources - it wasn't a problem with primary sources per se so much as with their misuse. MastCell  17:58, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

Um, MastCell, you were editing before Eubulides :) :) But, it is true that we would never have gotten the autism mess under control without him (and I don't know who is going to update the autism suite of articles-- they are in bad need). I'm tempted to add to my argument at the ENB, but it's kinda late ... but some of us old-timers know that Misplaced Pages played a role in the anti-vaccination deaths. And some of us know exactly which editors have blood on their hands. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:48, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

I think the same is probably true of Misplaced Pages's early credulous (if not outright favorable) presentation of AIDS denialism. Someone reading our suite of articles back in 2005-2006 might well conclude that HIV is likely harmless and that HIV testing is usually inaccurate—actively dangerous nonsense which Misplaced Pages has played a role in promoting. That was one of the things that got me involved here in the first place, back in 2006. MastCell  17:58, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

I see a couple of issues with primary sources 1) they can be used to add content that is fringe / wrong 2) they add undue weight content such that important aspects of diseases are lost in pills of undue weight text. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 23:40, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

But we do sometimes use them, appropriately. I allowed them when students hit (the ridiculously unworthy my time article at) klazomania, because there is nothing written about klazomania; you (Doc James) recently highlighted a worthy use at WT:MED, and I left a few of them at agraphia because they were only being used to cite definitional stuff (but I tagged them). But, yea, WP:UNDUE is the huge issue. Which reminds me, speaking of undue ... someone needs to look at Talk:Osteoarthritis. I am not a Dr. and I don't even play one on TV ... SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:51, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

Yes agree there are a few that should be used and as per here I recently added one but this was only after discussion and the fact that it was published in the NEJM and the number of patients in this single trial is twice what was in the previous meta analysis.

Here we discussed a primary source and decided not to use it. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 00:08, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

Excellent example of why we do not use primary sources. Talk:Electronic_cigarette#Primary_source Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 00:36, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

It at the very least illustrates that you need to explain yourself better when addressing such issues. I'm far from a fringe editor, and i very much accept the possibility that i could be completely and utterly wrong - but you aren't really explaining the issue well. --Kim D. Petersen 01:06, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

While I'm not familiar with the underlying article nor content dispute, in my experience Kim is an excellent, thoughtful, and constructive editor, so I'm hopeful that this dispute can be resolved amicably with additional discussion. MastCell  19:01, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

(←) I am coming very late to this discussion. I am humbled by MastCell's tribute. Unfortunately demands on my time in meatspace have substantially reduced the time I can spend on Misplaced Pages.

I think the core medical articles have been significantly improving in quality, mostly thanks to hard work by James. There is a huge amount of work to do, and I agree that unsupervised editing as part of educational projects is not something I can support anymore - there have been too many incidents and the course directors are themselves too unfamiliar with our community to see how badly wrong things can go. On the other hand, I think we have had much less trouble with POV trolls than we used to in the past. Even massively controversial topics have lively debate and attempts at consensus forming that would have been unimaginable in 2005.

The WikiProject has a huge scope and not as many editors as we might have wanted. That means that some more obscure topics are festering a little bit. Hopefully the consistent drive for improvement in the core articles will eventually "trickle down" to these topics also. JFW | T@lk 14:22, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

Thank's Jfd for your vote of confidence. Hopefully real life will quiet down for you and we will see you back more :-) Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 14:39, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

Medical disclaimer

After discussion on multiple talk pages, it was revealed that multiple other language Wikipedias do have medical disclaimers.

This proposed version for use on en.wikipedia emerged from discussion at User talk:Alanyst/sandbox/reliability disclaimer and several other on-Wiki talk pages and external websites:

I am planning to install it on Tourette syndrome (where I am the only significant contributor) unless a significant consensus against emerges. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:42, 29 November 2013 (UTC)

Discussion at Template_talk:Bullying#RfC:_Template_links

You are invited to join the discussion at Template_talk:Bullying#RfC:_Template_links. Lord Sjones23 (talk - contributions) 05:37, 22 November 2013 (UTC)Template:Z48

Thanks for the invitation. I don't really have strong feelings, other than to say that my immediate response on viewing Template:Bullying is that it's way too big. It can't possibly be necessary to include a link to our article on yelling (which is actually a piped link to vociferation, which in turn is a redirect?!?) or insult, right? In any case, I'll leave it up to folks who are already discussing at the RfC. MastCell  18:10, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

I voted...

...and I even managed to find 6 people I could live with supporting for ArbCom this year. MastCell  18:54, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

... aaaaand I voted again, because of the technical screwup. Oddly enough, this time I only supported 5 people. I can't remember exactly how I voted the first time, but I wonder who lost a vote because of the technical glitch. MastCell  17:20, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

User:MastCell/ACE2013 isn't being filled out then? I ended up getting seven, but I could easily have talked myself to dropping that down to four. NW (Talk) 17:30, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

No, I gave up. I just don't have the energy to say thoughtful things about 20-some candidates, especially when most of them would be polite but firm opposes. I'd be happy to talk about any specific candidate, but the whole guide-writing thing wasn't happening for me this year. MastCell  17:36, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

(watching) I did not write but let the candidates speak, in a sortable list, - link from "vote" on top of in the new infobox on my user page, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 17:46, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

• Would you be willing to simply mention your choices? It's so much easier to copy someone else. ;) II | (t - c) 05:02, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

• I don't know how you came up with five or six. Four supports, seven abstains, 11 opposes. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:27, 2 December 2013 (UTC)
  • @ImperfectlyInformed:, there are 3 people whom I was genuinely enthusiastic to support: 28bytes, Floquenbeam, and Seraphimblade. I'm not sure how many of them will be successful; for instance, I think Seraphimblade has done excellent work at WP:AE, which is probably the single most challenging and demanding administrative arena on the project. But by virtue of working WP:AE, you make enemies of some of the most obsessive, vindictive people on the project, which makes it hard to get elected. But I'm completely confident that these 3 will make excellent Arbs.

    I was willing to support Gamaliel and AGK, albeit with serious reservations. I think I abstained on LFaraone and GorillaWarfare - they both seem competent and well-meaning, but I haven't seen either of them put themselves out there in any way that I've noticed. Maybe that's not a fair criterion, but I've been here awhile, and if I haven't encountered someone in the trenches taking on difficult situations in some capacity, then I can't feel comfortable supporting them. I've just been burned too many times by seemingly innocuous ciphers.

    The two current Arbs were the toughest call for me. I'm pretty ambivalent about AGK, but NuclearWarfare's endorsement swayed me, because NW sees a lot of the stuff that goes on behind the scenes, and apparently AGK has been a hard worker there. I ended up opposing Roger, which was a really tough call. I think he's been an excellent Arb over the last 5 years. I agree with 90% of his thinking. But his handling (and his thought processes) on the TM case, and the wider issue of COI editing, are way too evasive and seem totally divorced from and unsympathetic to the plight of those of us who actually edit controversial articles.

    I think the problem is that Roger has been on the Committee too long. Five years is too many. Even someone like Roger (sensible, with good instincts) ends up totally out of touch with the reality that the rest of us live in. The real pisser, though, is that we have 9 empty seats and we don't have 9 candidates who are better than Roger. If he loses, his seat will be taken by someone worse. That made it hard to oppose him, but in the end, five years is just too long.

    GeorgeWilliamHerbert is someone who seems reasonable, mature, and sensible. But when presented with a situation, he almost invariably comes to what I consider the completely wrong conclusion. I said as much when he ran in 2010, but back then I supported him anyway. This time I can't.

    I opposed Bwilkins and Beeblebrox, for pretty much the same reasons in both cases. They both seem to attract negativity and criticism, and they're both pretty bad at dealing with criticism. The mere fact that they're shit magnets doesn't mean that they're doing anything wrong - sometimes the obsessive nutcases who circle this project latch onto someone because they smell blood and not for any good reason. But if you attract a lot of criticism, then you have to at least be able to deal with it maturely. I don't think these two can. That's a recipe for disaster if they're elected to the Committee, where the targets on their backs will be exponentially larger.

    The rest of the candidates, I opposed either as well-meaning but unqualified, or as dear-god-if-this-person-is-elected-i-quit-effective-immediately (I'll call the latter a "Jclemens oppose"). If there's someone specific that I haven't discussed in detail whom you're curious about, let me know and I'll elaborate. Cheers. MastCell  00:52, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

    • Thanks, I'll take a closer look at Seraphimblade and Gamaliel who I hadn't really recognized. I only know about the major ArbCom cases in broad strokes (even though I've got like half a page in Nixnote to refresh my memory), but I appreciate that some clearly seem to do a load of work. I also appreciate that AGK seems relatively communicative. I feel slightly guilty voting because I'm so imperfectly informed but I think it should be OK. Although my views are still evolving, I'm probably in the minority view on the 'civility' issue and I feel like I have limited tolerance for unnecessary drama-stirring rudeness. I really wonder if a strong civility policy would just further reduce our userbase or would eliminate those who have a net negative effect on our userbase. Incidentally, been reading Thinking Strategically: The Competitive Edge in Business, Politics, and Everyday Life and how game theory applies to Misplaced Pages. Sometimes punishments need to be extreme to be effective deterrents. II | (t - c) 07:54, 2 December 2013 (UTC)
• Frankly, I think people are far, far too hard on candidates. I can see at least 10 who would be acceptable, and will oppose only those whom I believe will actually cause harm. People have to grow into the arbitrator role; expecting people to be able to be perfectly prepared before they have any experience with the majority of the work is a bit ridiculous. Several of the most productive, sensible and/or effective arbitrators we've had were just above the cut-off; several of the least productive, sensible and/or effective arbitrators we've had were at or near the top of the rankings. I should go vote, I suppose. Risker (talk) 00:45, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

• I'm overcompensating; the record shows my standards have been too low for many years :) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:53, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

Yes, I can understand where you're coming from. Perhaps this is a classic example of things looking different from the inside. There's no such thing as "perfect" (although I'll admit the 2009-10 arbcoms were very good), but there will always be an outlier or two in the group. The challenge is not having them at each other's throats or disrupting the overall process. I've now voted, with 10 supports, 5 abstentions and 8 opposes. My supports went to candidates who met at least two of these criteria:

• • • • Evidence of maturity with life experience
      • Evidence of having clue
      • Some degree of technical expertise (you'd be surprised how valuable this really is)
      • Experience in more than one area of the project
      • Self-identified membership in a significantly underrepresented demographic (women, in particular - this is my personal bias)
      • Evidence of critical thinking
      • Experience with dispute resolution
      • Steady participation (no really big gaps in the past year)
      • Not being an administrator (I'd really like to see at least one non-admin make it through)

I'm very much of the belief that Arbcom needs a "reset", and that too many arbitrators selected in the last few elections were either (a) incumbents or former arbitrators, (b) arbcom clerks (past/present) or (c) checkusers/oversighters; in fact, there were only two arbitrators at the start of 2013 who didn't fit into one of those categories at the time they were elected. While I'm not excluding all candidates from those groups, several of my opposes and abstentions are going there. I think, as well, that we really ought to bring on at least one non-admin; the further away arbitrators get from the days before their adminship, the less they remember the frustrations and sense of impotence that many non-admins experience.

Well, we'll see how things go. Risker (talk) 04:34, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

They're interesting points, for sure, and I've always valued your input on this matter. I suspect my perspective is still closer to MastCell's and SandyGeorgia's. I know at least in the former's case, dissatisfaction with previous cases has led to a wish to a caution in whom to support. I had much the same reaction in the past, and sadly, I'm going to end up tarring one of your favourite committees here. The 2009 committee rendered WP:ARBMAC2, which basically told nationalists to walk all over any admin who tries to edit for neutrality; eventually you'll get them desysopped, and an arb will even accuse them of having an "Atlas complex". And sadly, I had previously supported that arb for his position, as well as the drafter of that decision. I think you can see how I became very cautious about whom I'm willing to support.

In summary, I really do find your insider's perspective fascinating and have used it to moderate some of my own views lately. It doesn't change the fact that I've seen first-hand the ability the committee has to screw both users and the encylopedia over, and that the implication that seems to carry is to be careful whom you lend support to. Heimstern Läufer (talk) 05:07, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

Advice please?

Hi MastCell: Can you tell me please what I've been evasive about? And what you find so troubling about my thought processes? Can you please tell me what the committee (who were remarkably unanimous) could and should have done differently in the TM case?  Roger Davies 10:11, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

ALEC

RE this edit, I was thinking the exact same thing, ha! --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 23:34, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

Threats to escalate disruption and use sockpuppets

Are you aware of these threats by User:Orrerysky? They should be factored into the length of any blocks:

• "EdJohnston, please provide advise on how to make an escalation within your system. I would like to talk to your customer service department if possible or with someone in corporate. Bull is showing bias, has been uncooperative and misrepresenting events. Also, I don't mind taking a time out. This is not a threat, but merely a statement of good customer service. I would rather not have to create accounts and tunnel masked I.P.'s and make this a bigger issue. Let's get this issue resolved in a civil fashion. I want your escalation process sent. I want to talk to the service department for corporate. I deal with customer issues like this every day, I will call wikimedia's corporate office if necessary and raise all kinds of heck if I do not get a different admin to help administer this issue." (source)

These are threats to "escalate" his disruption (WP:BATTLE), use sockpuppets, and likely meatpuppets. Since one of the first things that happened after his block was a revert on the Plasma cosmology article by a new editor, long-term protection of Misplaced Pages may be necessary. Read the edit summary here. -- Brangifer (talk) 04:38, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

Ahh, they're so cute when they're new :-) LeadSongDog come howl! 04:49, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

Thoughts?

Does any of this interest you? --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 17:42, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

Notice of Neutral point of view noticeboard discussion

Hello, MastCell. This message is being sent to inform you that there currently is a discussion at Misplaced Pages:Neutral point of view/Noticeboard regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. The thread is Section Blanking Reason NPOV.The discussion is about the topic Cholangiocarcinoma. Thank you.24.0.133.234 (talk) 19:04, 29 November 2013 (UTC)

Paid editing and the Foundation

I took the liberty of deploying your recent comment on Sue Gardner's talk page on my user page, where I already had a brief rant on why paid editing is a problem that needs to be dealt with by the Foundation. This used to be part of a much longer rant on paid editing, which I removed after concluding that I was working myself into a sweat about a problem that 1) I couldn't impact and 2) in which the people most directly affected were silent. Coretheapple (talk) 22:42, 30 November 2013 (UTC)

Help?

Hi there Mast Cell,

I noticed you worked a bit on ALEC, and bumped into Dr F. Because I have only short bits of time to spend on wiki, I am going to be very blunt. Something needs to be done about the fact that multiple editors across multiple articles are dealing with what I am going to call a spin doctor. I don't care about proving COI. We are not brain dead. "If it quacks like a duck" must come into play at some point, no? Anyway, please consider assisting at Edward Snowden where the Dr continues to play games. It seems he feels comfortable simply complaining. We are too nice to Snowden, or we have too much information about him and not enough of the government's stance.

Two things that struck me tonight: the US government considers Snowden an enemy, and is charging him with espionage, making the USG a most POV voice with regard to this article. Therefore, it is doubly prudent to look into whether the USG has - for whatever reason (good luck?) - an editor representing them, or editing and commenting in a way that looks identicle to someone who does. At the recent anti-paid editing discussions, I kept hearing that Wiki has a great response in its guidelines to POV editing, but frankly, unless some PR firm, or someone working in the US Senate building, gets busted red handed, I see no common sense action take place.

The other thing that struck me, when considering the consistent onslaught of the complaints, is that there might be an attempt simply to take time away that could be spent updating and doing needed work on the article, .

At the end of the day, it seems disrespectful to other wiki editors to allow this to go on. I still say, from my experience here of late, wiki seems to consist of around 90% spin doctors and/or über-conservative idiots (I am not referencing anyone specific with this comment). Thank you for your time, petrarchan47tc 11:26, 2 December 2013 (UTC)