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Revision as of 15:12, 27 August 2014

hello!

Hi - pleased to meet you! Nice to meet another science-oriented person on WP. I recently did a quick blast over the Armyworm related articles. They were a big, smeared mess and I separated them out into stub articles and created a main disambiguation page for armyworm (that is what is linked above) but the various articles could definitely do with some bug-expert knowledge. Ditto agriculturally important Ostrinia sp and Pink bollworm.... again, pleased to meet you! Jytdog (talk) 17:49, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

Pleased as well Jytdog. I haven't been in the articles you've mentioned much yet, but I saw some other sloppy entomological articles and decided to actually get into a bit of editing on Misplaced Pages finally (although that's rolling out rather slowly since research takes priority over hobbies). I'll definitely be taking a look over them when I get a bit more time. I have lurked in the ag articles that tend to get more passionate edits (e.g., the biotech related ones) as well, so I may pop into those on occasion with edits, but I imagine that could turn into more of a time sink than I could handle pretty quickly given the amount of edits you've put into them. I'd definitely like to clean up some of the entomology sections over time though, so we'll see where that leads.Kingofaces43 (talk) 18:09, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

that would be amazing! thanks for being willing. Jytdog (talk) 18:10, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

Hand foot and mouth disease

Can you provide a reference discussing the new HFMD vaccine? I would be very interested to see it. If it comes from a reliable source, I will be sure to discuss it in the article. Thanks King! TylerDurden8823 (talk) 08:12, 30 May 2014 (UTC)

Hi TylerDurden8823. I originally made the edit after browsing through Timeline of vaccines and seeing the vaccine listed there. I used the same source from the BBC as on that page, which also links to the original study at http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736%2813%2961049-1/abstract. It's a primary literature source, so it's probably best to stick to saying a vaccine exists at this point, but that in the quick browsing I could find nothing is that commercially available, efficacy on HFMD as a whole (since it's only for one virus), etc. I don't have much expertise in vaccines, so I mainly just wanted to make sure the point was made that a vaccine does exist in some fashion after seeing the discrepancy between the two pages. Beyond that, it seems the currently developed vaccine is still being studied, so it doesn't seem like there's much more to say at the moment, at least from my cursory browsing. Kingofaces43 (talk) 16:32, 30 May 2014 (UTC)

Got it, thanks for the clarification. I'll see if I find any citable secondary sources mentioning the vaccine. If not, I'll keep a watchful eye for future reviews mentioning this. Perhaps we'll see a vaccine released to the public in the near future. TylerDurden8823 (talk) 21:01, 30 May 2014 (UTC)

Questions about deletions

Hi, I would love to know why you removed "Bayer strongly denies the allegations" citing http://www.britishbeekeeping.com/ and the possible cause of Bt GMO crops on honeybees colony collapse disorder from and ? EllenCT (talk) 22:47, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

On the specific note of Bayer's response, it was out of place after making the other deletions in that section since it was a standalone statement. The other problem is that it's ambiguous what the allegations were, and what was particularly being responded to. Either way, unless there was scientific evidence being presented against something, a group simply denying something without evidence shouldn't have any weight in a section that's describing scientific research. Now if we had proper sources saying a specific claim was made, but another grouped responded saying the methodology was wrong, etc. and the latter view was shown to be readily accepted, then the former statement would simply be struck. There just doesn't appear to be a place for "group X denies claim Y" type statements in this context as that's not how science is written about. Either there's evidence refuting an idea and we strike the claim, or the claim remains if there isn't evidence. If all we have is a denial and no evidence, it's not relevant here.

On GMOs, I removed the content from the initial paragraph because that topic was not describing a possible cause per se, but a topic that have been looked at and mostly disregarded or has very little evidence. Basically, it was weighting the intro paragraph to list the main factors that are getting the most attention or have good evidence behind them, while leaving out other things where we say in the actual section that the current evidence shows that factor isn't a concern. It's like how we don't give undue weight to miasma theory as an actual potential cause of disease in an article about germ theory of disease. The way the current section is written, Bt isn't affecting honeybee health (it's a largely insect order specific protein so you don't get broad nontarget effects like you do with pesticides), so we shouldn't be listing it as a possible cause, but rather something that was looked at and largely refuted. It's mainly a nuance trying to say that it was once something that was looked into as a possible cause, but that research points to it not being an issue. That's why I deleted it from the intro sentence, but left the actual section to describe what research was looked into on the topic. Kingofaces43 (talk) 01:57, 11 June 2014 (UTC)

I was under the impression that honeybees are insects. What are the sources you determined rule out Bt GMOs as a possible cause of CCD? To what extent do you believe evidence of corporate astroturfing, when it exists, should be included in pertinent articles? EllenCT (talk) 02:19, 11 June 2014 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) This discussion belongs on the relevant article's Talk page. EllentCT. With respect to Bt, see Bacillus_thuringiensis#Colony_collapse_disorder. (yes bees are insects but as Kingofaces just told you, Bt does not kill every kind of insect; it only kills some kinds -- some "orders" -- of insects; this is what he meant when he wrote "it's a largely insect order specific protein so you don't get broad nontarget effects"). EllenCT, I would suggest that if you want the article(s) to explicitly discuss alleged corporate astroturfing, please bring that up on the article's talk page, or boldly make edits to the article, and let the community react. Jytdog (talk) 11:59, 11 June 2014 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) EllenCT, I was surprised to find out that you are the subject of ArbCom proceedings, and your interactions with Kingofaces was recently cited there by a third party as part of the evidence of a pattern of disruptive editing. Coming to the Talk page of an editor whom you have directly queried about COI, as you did here and whom you seem to have directly accused of COI and paid advocacy in this edit note, and then asking about their personal view on discussions of astroturfing, looks somewhat like harassment and will not help you at Arbcom. For what it is worth, you should take the discussion at Arbcom as a wake-up call to change, and to work very carefully to focus on content, not contributors. Jytdog (talk) 12:27, 11 June 2014 (UTC)

@Jytdog: I appreciate your concern and efforts, but Kingofaces43 offered this Bayer-sponsored consultant-authored paper when I first asked him for a peer reviewed literature review here. Do you believe that is a literature review? Bacillus thuringiensis#Colony collapse disorder says "German researchers have noted in one study a possible correlation between exposure to Bt pollen and compromised immunity to Nosema" but none of the references in that section are peer reviewed secondary sources. Do you think there is any evidence that Bayer has not engaged in a decades-long astroturf campaign on this issue? I stand by my edits, and appreciate yours. EllenCT (talk) 04:05, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

Ellen, I echo Jytdog's sentiments exactly. If you were going to take this conversation on content any further I would have suggested bringing it to the article talk page (although it should have been there from the get go). If you have content and related reliable sources to discuss, it should be discussed at the article. As I've mentioned before, try putting down the paid editing/astroturfing pitchfork and rely on editing by content and reliable sources like the rest of us. If someone has a pitchfork in hand often, there's a tendency to want to use it when the situation doesn't call for one. This can result in WP:Advocacy that I'm assuming is unintentional on your part when you bring paid advocacy claims into articles without appropriate evidence for it. Focus on content in the future and potential issues with that content should be apparent within the guidelines we have for editing here on Misplaced Pages. Kingofaces43 (talk) 21:36, 11 June 2014 (UTC)

I asked you for a literature review, and you gave me a Bayer-sponsored primary source and argued quite strongly for it until I brought actual peer reviewed literature reviews' conclusions on the topic to your and other editors attention on the appropriate talk page. Then you deleted those WP:SECONDARY sources and the well-documented astroturf efforts of Bayer. Therefore which one of us brought paid advocacy into the discussion? EllenCT (talk) 04:05, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

Ellen, I can't say I've brought paid advocacy into the conversation at all. The literature review I provided that you are referring to is a secondary source (that's what peer-reviewed literature reviews are by nature), and didn't have anything particularly different than the other literature reviews we were citing. It's simply one of the most recent. My deletions of your content were either of primary literature or claims being made that were not supported by the sources or extremely ambiguous lines about Bayer denying some unspecified allegations. Again, we've already discussed this on the talk page. If you have additional content to discuss on the article, bring it to the article talk page. Kingofaces43 (talk) 05:05, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

EllenCT, just in this small discussion, you have failed to understand something that Kingofaces said very clearly (explanation about selectivity of Bt) and mischaracterized a reference as a primary source which is clearly a secondary source - a reference that you have apparently been talking about for quite some time. All in the context of throwing around accusations of COI, astroturfing, and paid advocacy. I don't know if you are moving too fast to really read and think and be accurate, or if you really don't know what you are talking about and are plowing ahead anyway. Either way, the result is garbage in, garbage out, and the fierceness with which you are advocating changes to content, based on such a weak foundation, is really intolerable. Your user page says that you are an analyst, writing reports on various industries and are "part of a team responsible for hundreds of millions of dollars in outstanding commodity and foreign exchange futures and forward contracts used to hedge import-export and industrial trade for dozens of large corporate clients." I can't believe that you would tolerate this kind of sloppiness with regard to fundamentals from others at your job or that your colleagues would tolerate it in your work -- I imagine you would get thrown off the team in a heartbeat if you advocated strategies based on such flawed understanding. Why do you think it is OK to be sloppy and undisciplined here? Real question.Jytdog (talk) 16:05, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

@Jytdog: are you suggesting that a literature review of "current and proposed guidance in the United States and Europe for assessing the risks of pesticides to honeybees" is the same thing as an unbiased review of "risks of neonicotinoid insecticides to honeybees"? About how many peer reviewed papers do you believe are in each of those two sets? Why do you believe that implying there is any overlap at all in the contexts of industry-sponsored and consultant-produced work and decades of astroturfing is not sloppy and undisciplined? is an example of actual literature review, as opposed to a position paper which includes a review of adjunct but non-overlapping literature. I stand by my edits, and am saddened that someone of your stature feels the need to resort to attempts at personal attacks. EllenCT (talk) 02:39, 13 June 2014 (UTC)

all I can say, is wow. And, I am not continuing this here. I will respond with respect to your behavior on your Talk page, and will give my thoughts on the source on the article Talk page. I would suggest we copy the above (starting with my comment "EllenCT, just in this small discussion...") to your user Talk page, but I will not move your comment above without your permission. Jytdog (talk) 07:03, 13 June 2014 (UTC)

@Jytdog: I am not interested in fragmenting the discussion further, so I will reply here. Were you able to find a discussion of the review methodology in the paper in question? EllenCT (talk) 08:04, 13 June 2014 (UTC)

Ellen, this is a user talk page. Take the conversation on content to the article talk page where the conversation has direct implications like we suggested earlier. Kingofaces43 (talk) 13:02, 13 June 2014 (UTC)

some helpful advice that i received

User_talk:Jytdog#Helpful_shortcuts_.26_templates Jytdog (talk) 11:43, 27 June 2014 (UTC)

Thanks! It's always tempting to purse such folks, but the thing I like about Misplaced Pages is that it's relatively easy to defer to content and Misplaced Pages's guidelines to diffuse such situations. Ironically though, WP:ASPERSIONS brings the next section to the very top of my screen "Allegations that an editor may be violating the policy on the protection of children". I'll admit I was a little confused until I scrolled up to see the actual section being referred to. Kingofaces43 (talk) 13:30, 27 June 2014 (UTC)

Ellen

Take a look at her talk page. I think I've said enough there. Perhaps if you'd like to comment further.... But your edit to the Whitewash thread doesn't address article improvement issues. Thanks. – S. Rich (talk) 04:05, 8 July 2014 (UTC)

Thanks, S. Rich. I'll admit I was a little iffy on posting as much as I did about on an article talk page since it's an odd mix of behavior and content issues, but I mainly wanted focus on the actual content and reiterate how content was actually being handled by other editors previously and hopefully shift discussion back to content. Anything beyond that is getting too far into editor behavior and isn't something I really want to deal with in this case. I don't really intend to comment further in the whitewashing section as it currently sits since I don't see that section going anywhere in terms of additional content discussion. Kingofaces43 (talk) 04:33, 8 July 2014 (UTC)

Yup. I saw that. But I want to give encouragement to you. Admittedly it is difficult to respond constructively when there is a mixture of article-related and editor-related comments on the article talkpage. – S. Rich (talk) 05:00, 8 July 2014 (UTC)

Primary sources

Hello: I'm not clear on why you describe the references here as primary sources. Aren't these vetted WP:SCHOLARSHIP-type articles as opposed to primary research papers? Thanks. – S. Rich (talk) 18:53, 14 July 2014 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) the standard way that scientists think about primary/secondary/tertiary sources is described here and here. The section you cite,WP:SCHOLARSHIP was poorly written; I just edited it to clarify the distinction between secondary and primary sources. thanks for calling that confusion out. Jytdog (talk) 19:09, 14 July 2014 (UTC)

Thanks. I'll take a look. – S. Rich (talk) 19:13, 14 July 2014 (UTC)

Jytdog got it pretty much. It can be a little confusing because a primary research paper (one describing an actual experiment for the first time) is vetted by the journal and peer-reviewers, so in some forms it is a secondary source for what the general public might be used to. However, in the scientific world we call that primary research. Later on, other scientists will come along and summarize a general topic and cite notable papers (mostly primary research) to summarize the research to date on the topic. That is called a review paper and is what is considered at secondary source by Misplaced Pages. I’ll admit I get confused by Misplaced Pages’s guidelines sometimes because I’m used to the scientific notation when reading the general source reliability guidelines, but a secondary or primary source can be something slightly different once you get outside of peer-reviewed scientific sources. Kingofaces43 (talk) 19:59, 14 July 2014 (UTC)

I'll recommend that you use the term in the WP:PRIMARY sense – that would save me from confusion too. @Jytdog: perhaps you can clarify "primary research paper" on that page. – S. Rich (talk) 20:24, 14 July 2014 (UTC)

S. Rich, I'm a little confused since I'm not sure what you mean with respect to WP:PRIMARY. It states, "a scientific paper documenting a new experiment conducted by the author is a primary source on the outcome of that experiment . . .". That's the notation we're using here. Kingofaces43 (talk) 21:02, 14 July 2014 (UTC)

Maybe I confused the situation. (Sorry.) The diff (above) referred to the Guardian & Nature articles. But aren't those articles referring to the other, original studies? If that is the case, then they are acceptable secondary sources. (Thanks for helping me understand more about this topic.) – S. Rich (talk) 21:18, 14 July 2014 (UTC)

Please take a look at the diffs here: . Can you guys help a bit with clarifying the guidance? (Or am I still confused?) Thanks. – S. Rich (talk) 21:27, 14 July 2014 (UTC)

I don't think the rationale for the reversion provided in the edit note was correct, but generally you don't want to make changes to any policy without discussing. I was very bold in making changes to the guideline that I did, but I wouldn't change a policy without proposing it first on Talk. You are likely to get a pretty thoughtless revert, as you did. (I do agree with the reversion - I don't think that your addition added clarity...) Jytdog (talk) 21:35, 14 July 2014 (UTC)

In terms of scientific research, those are not reliable secondary sources. Reporters typically do not have the background to assess the validity of scientific findings. That's why we rely on other scientists in the field to do so in their reviews, and that's why review articles are considered reliable secondary sources . WP:MEDRS and WP:SCIRS outline how journal articles should be used and what issues come from folks at Misplaced Pages using them when especially the primary source articles are intended for a scientific audience who can assess the validity of the paper, not the general public. As for your edit you mentioned, Jytdog summed it up well. The reason for reverting was technically incorrect, but the text before your addition already described what a primary source is when it comes to journal articles and the like (i.e. don't define a term by using that same term in the definition). When questions of what is a primary vs. secondary source come up, it's better to point them out to the scientific guidelines like I did for you. Science is tough, and even more so when trying to source it on Misplaced Pages without being familiar with some of this background, so good work on trying to tackle it. Kingofaces43 (talk) 21:46, 14 July 2014 (UTC)

(S Rich notified me of this thread, so I just add my thoughts after my earlier revert). Perhaps my edit note was a bit short - but in my view the "a scientific research paper (that is a primary research paper)" implies that all scientific research papers are primary research papers. And while you may argue that literature reviews and metaanalysis are no research papers (already something not necessarily agreed upon in all fields of science); historical and legal research is almost exclusively secondary analysis of sources, so many of their research papers will not be primary. (to make life miserable -I would definitely classify position papers as primary sources - although for many they will look and feel like literature reviews).

To be honest I think the current text makes it clear enough that bringing new data (from your own experiment) to the table is a primary report on that data. So I do not think we need to change this line at this moment. Cheers Arnoutf (talk) 07:47, 15 July 2014 (UTC)

I think the confusion here is in what is being called a research paper. We've been specifying primary research papers and not just research papers in general, so that does distinguish from reviews for those who know the difference already. I would have reverted the text as well though, but it would have been because one shouldn't include the term being defined as part of the definition. Either way, I think that content is fine as is. Kingofaces43 (talk) 12:20, 15 July 2014 (UTC)

I see the discussion continues on the article page, but I'll try to understand a bit more (as a non-scientist) here. As I understand primary research, scientist X climbs Mt. Everest and measures the speed at which a dropped apple falls. The scientist goes to Death Valley and does the same experiment. The paper which X announces the results is the primary research. But along comes the reporter from Force of Gravity News who reads X's paper. (FOG News, by the way, is the Lancet of these newsletters.) When the reporter writes the story about X's work, we have a secondary source. (Am I in a fog?) Thanks. – S. Rich (talk) 02:59, 16 July 2014 (UTC)

I'd take the article conversation with a grain of salt. Gandydancer has a tendency to want to include primary sources on that article it seems even though the general consensus among most Misplaced Pages editors is that primary sources are typically not preferred when it comes to scientific topics. As for your question, you are correct that it is a secondary source, but it is not a reliable source because the reporter doesn't have the background to assess whether the experiment was done correctly, what the results actually mean, etc. When a primary study passes peer-review, that isn't a stamp of approval for the general public to take it at face value. Instead, that means the peer-reviewers thought the results were interesting enough that it warrants giving the study a wider venue to other scientists in the field to read and determine it's validity. You can still have a poorly designed study at this point that reviewers didn't catch, or incorrect assumptions that will be caught when scientists read the study. It's not until a scientist writing a review citing the results of the study that you have a truly reliable secondary source. Kingofaces43 (talk) 03:18, 16 July 2014 (UTC)

Got it. For article purposes it looks more like a WP:CONTEXTMATTERS evaluation. Thanks. – S. Rich (talk) 03:30, 16 July 2014 (UTC)

But is is a fact...

... that you are edit warring. That you want to ignore that is understandable. But as I said numerous times before: the persistent removal of everything positive about organic food is making the article POV. No matter what excuse is used for removal. The Banner talk 14:53, 27 August 2014 (UTC)

I believe this is the third time I pointed out that the content isn't positive or negative, but neutral and isn't even a topic of discussion. It's the sourcing that's the issue. We've been discussing how to improve the content at the talk page per WP:BRD and WP:STATUSQUO rather non-eventfully prior to your recent involvement and are hopefully moving forward. I highly suggest you step back for a moment, and join the conversation after reading what we are actually discussing. It's a rather straightforward course of action here. Kingofaces43 (talk) 15:12, 27 August 2014 (UTC)