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Off-Site canvassing

FYI, @Novem Linguae: there is an ongoing discussion on r/conspiracy about how we are "trying to erase gain of function history" when we remove WP:UNDUE content or content that is not from reliable sources. --Shibbolethink 13:30, 10 June 2021 (UTC)

Good to know. Thanks for mentioning. If it gets out of control, we can WP:RFPP it. –Novem Linguae (talk) 13:32, 10 June 2021 (UTC)

Why is that a problem, if reddit gossips about goings-on on Misplaced Pages? lol "power mods"! We don't have power mods here, as it isn't reddit! They gossip about anime and Gawker too. Shibbolethink even links to his reddit posts opining on the natural origins of COVID-19 and how anything contrary to that is a conspiracy, right on his Misplaced Pages user page. No, I'm not stalking him. Rather, I'm confused, because I have been editing Misplaced Pages since 2011, and do not see any of the usual editor names that get involved in medicine related articles. (Also, it gives the appearance, although we know Misplaced Pages strongly discourages this, that Shibbolethink has "taken over" or "owns" this article.)--FeralOink (talk) 12:19, 12 July 2021 (UTC)

One more thought: I believe that Novem Linguae is correct, in giving serious consideration to WP:RFPP'ing this article, even without redditors. GoF research is, and will continue to get a lot of attention, because SARS-CoV-2 origin theories get lots of attention, and there are lots of extremely conspiratorial "Frankenvirus" stories running rampant everywhere now.--FeralOink (talk) 12:25, 12 July 2021 (UTC)

Hey FeralOink. Off site brigading is concerning on any article (not just this one) because it often causes a bunch of WP:SPAs to arrive and edit the article. As WP:SPA mentions, these editors sometimes have issues with conflicts of interest and advocacy. I don't find your "oh Shibbolethink does it too" argument very convincing, since he isn't going around on Reddit posting links to Misplaced Pages articles trying to get people with a certain POV to edit them. –Novem Linguae (talk) 18:24, 12 July 2021 (UTC)

Hey Novem Linguae. I agreed with you! I will now quote myself saying what I said in my reply to you before: "One more thought: I believe that Novem Linguae is correct, in giving serious consideration to WP:RFPP'ing this article, even without redditors" (the possible interference thereof). I am not going to make any further contributions to this article, to covid19 or anything else where I will get called out even when I agree with other editors. You win, okay?--FeralOink (talk) 13:13, 13 July 2021 (UTC)

FeralOink, if you'd like to accuse me of WP:OWN or WP:CANVAS behavior, please do so on my user talk page, with specific diff-based examples of behavior I've exhibited consistent with a violation of wikipedia policy. Or bring it through the process of dispute resolution (the preferred venue), ARBE, or ANI. Typically, it's not kosher to begin accusations of user misbehavior on article talk pages, because this is a place for discussions of content, not conduct. Additionally, accusing other users of misbehavior without citing any evidence or reasoning is discouraged per WP:ASPERSIONS, although the pattern is the problem, not the single mistaken event like this. It's particularly discouraged to accuse others like this, because it discourages user involvement and runs counter to consensus building. I don't believe I've exhibited ownership behavior of any kind. I've only responded to discussions on this page, and engaged in large-scale rewrites of parts of this article, both of which are entirely reasonable behavior for a content expert like myself. --Shibbolethink 18:47, 12 July 2021 (UTC)(edited 01:11, 13 July 2021 (UTC))

2021 NIAID/NIH funded GoF

https://grantome.com/grant/NIH/F30-AI149928-02?fbclid=IwAR0GpjoUpEzz6NqiAZA2Q8tenZPNlVy0hXFLeD9csgvu-wRtx7fY-tdu7Ko "I will completely characterize the ability of mutations to the Lassa virus entry protein to mediate antibody escape from three human monoclonal antibodies currently undergoing therapeutic development. These complete maps of antibody resistance will determine from which antibody it is most difficult for the virus to escape and help evaluate and refine potential antibody immunotherapies." This grant is currently active. Isn't this the definition of GOF? Here is a perma-URL to the general subject https://www.facebook.com/groups/1154470481693356 You need not log on to FB. Charles Juvon (talk) 01:57, 12 June 2021 (UTC)

Hi @Charles Juvon: that is not a wikipedia-preferred reliable source that demonstrates notability or worthiness of inclusion. So we should not put it in the article. If you can find a reliable source that describes this grant and its projects as noteworthy or special or newsworthy in some way, then maybe it should be included. But even then, it should be multiple WP:RSes. And it should be covered in the proportion that scientists are talking about it. Which, personally, I have to tell you there are multiple lab groups all over the world conducting this exact type of research. This single example is not special.

As an aside, I have to tell you, as someone who generated "escape mutants" against Lassa and Hanta in the lab in grad school, it is not dangerous. I know that term probably sounds really scary, but all it means is that this single antibody no longer able to bind the virus. The virus itself generates these exact mutants many millions of times every hour inside the host. So what we are doing in the lab is just isolating those mutants and studying them, to see how to make better vaccines or therapeutics. We are looking, based on where those antibodies are binding and how easy it is for the virus to get out of that binding, if it is possible to make a cocktail of antibodies that cannot be "escaped." We're just taking what the virus does in nature, and removing all the variables and the complexity, to study it.

Viruses are always in an arms race with antibodies. Your body is making better and better antibodies, and the virus is mutating to avoid those antibodies. Doing this in the lab on a much smaller scale with fewer antibodies means we can observe this process and figure out how to make better drugs and vaccines so that the virus can't mutate out of them. Escape mutants of individual antibodies are fundamentally less dangerous than what happens in nature, because this is what the virus naturally does, on a much larger scale, every minute of infecting humans or other animals in the wild.--Shibbolethink 02:48, 12 June 2021 (UTC)

An NIH grant application is a reliable source. BTW, where is this work on Lassa and Hanta? I only see your Zika publications. Charles Juvon (talk) 05:12, 12 June 2021 (UTC)

A grant is a WP:PRIMARY source, hence not useable to determine whether something is significant. It can be used for more details if and only if there are secondary sources reporting on it RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 13:09, 12 June 2021 (UTC)

RandomCanadian is right, a grant is a primary source, reliable for matters of fact but not for establishing notability. Here is the Hanta paper (which formed 1/3 of my dissertation) and the Arenavirus stuff (viruses related to and including Lassa, which were collaborations with another member of my lab). You can find all my publications on my Google scholar page.

We actually generated, isolated, and characterized escape mutants of chimeric versions of these viruses (made with vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV), which is basically inert in humans). We did it this way because it's easier (these VSV chimeras are easier to visualize and stain in the lab and can be used at BSL2). But we also did neutralization experiments at BSL3 (and 4) with the true full natural viruses, and this very likely created escape mutants, just like any time you let a virus replicate with an antibody present, we just didn't isolate and characterize them. We only wanted to make sure the antibodies were capable of neutralizing.

And, as a result of that work, and showing that the antibodies neutralize in different places, recombinant versions of our antibodies may soon be a very effective treatment. In a cocktail, just like Zmapp against Ebola Zaire. Because while the virus may be able to mutate out of one antibody's binding, the more unique antibodies you add into a cocktail, in high enough amounts, the harder it gets for the virus. Eventually, mutating out of one antibody's binding makes you more susceptible to others, and so a cocktail approach like this can actually be curative.

Interestingly enough, the human body gets worse and worse as we age at making many multiple different antibodies during an infection, and "prunes" down to one or just a few similar antibody specificities. It's really complicated but suffice it to say, the way the immune system works is not very well built for launching multiple antibodies all at high levels simultaneously, it instead often defaults to very few "clones." But it's also an issue because it takes so long (14-21 days) for the body to produce these antibodies to a useful extent. To the body, each new virus is completely new and needs a new "R&D effort". We can take what other immune systems have already figured out about the virus (these antibodies) and give them to people right at the beginning of infection, skipping those 14-21 days, so the virus never has a chance to get started. And this also means saving lives, because a lot of people die in those 14-21 days before the immune system starts to win. So the cocktail approach can have the best of all worlds, and help by arming people who have not yet generated their own antibodies. So these escape mutants are just the beginning of a long and thorough process that ends with saving lives. Here is some further reading on antibody cocktails.--Shibbolethink 15:36, 12 June 2021 (UTC)

Interesting. Quibbles: a bit absurd to talk about a treatment that doesn't exist as being "very effective". Also, ZMapp was hardly a "very effective" treatment. Heck, it's been retired. Probably better than nothing, but half the patients who took it died anyway.

And Regeneron's REGN-COV2 bites; it only improved mortality a paltry 6% in the biggest study. --50.201.195.170 (talk) 04:39, 30 June 2021 (UTC)

I don't know where you got the 50% figure for ZMapp, but I don't think it's right, when Zaire Ebola's mortality rate is already 30-50%. When you're talking about ebola patients, 22% mortality in those who took ZMapp versus 37% in those who took placebo is actually pretty darn good. Oh, are you talking about the head to head trial in 2018? Well, I mean when the overall case fatality rate of that outbreak was 81% in untreated people, 50% is actually pretty good. MAb114 (35%) and REGN-EB3 (33%) (a new generation of the anti-ZEBOV mAb cocktail, similar to ZMapp) were still better, though. It's great that better therapeutics are being developed all the time.--Shibbolethink 04:59, 30 June 2021 (UTC)

It was 49%, vs 75%, so possibly about 1/3 less mortality. (From the Wired source in our article on it.) Agreed; progress is good. Still, it's a long way from "pretty good" to "very effective". And ignoring/suppressing "very effective" existing therapeutics in favor of potentially better ones is a great evil, which the jamaletter barely hints at. (Not claiming you're part of the effort.) --50.201.195.170 (talk) 07:07, 30 June 2021 (UTC)

Censorship, fabrication

{{fv}}{{cn}}tags I added have been removed and falsely labeled (with a quote now) that still does NOT adequately support the content. In particular, no evidence to support him claiming an overall exemplary worldwide record of lab safety over the last several decades isn't verifiable. {{Controversial}} added. Some admin involvement may be warranted to deal with the ongoing censorship.

We have http://www.scientistsforscience.org being used as if it's a MEDRS source despite the badly soiled reputations of some signatories, but http://jamaletter.com, without such problems, is effaced. --50.201.195.170 (talk) 04:14, 30 June 2021 (UTC)

For statements of opinion by a group of people, a letter that they signed saying those things, especially when also covered by secondary sources (which this is), is appropriate. I cannot find any WP:RSes that cover the jama letter you linked.

Re: your quote, I paraphrased the NPR article. If you have a problem with the specific paraphrase "an overall exemplary worldwide record of lab safety over the last several decades" then why don't we work together on a rephrasing. I admit that was a very broad paraphrase that I did, based on a combination of the letter and the NPR article. However, that does not change that this is a content dispute, not a conduct one. Your admin tag is probably unnecessary.

How do you feel about: "One of the group's founding members, University of Pittsburgh virologist W. Paul Duprex, has argued (ca. 2014) that the then-recent few events were exceptions to an overall good record of lab safety." Just a more mild paraphrase.

Here's what the NPR article says:

There are multiple events that have come together in a rather unusual convergence," says Paul Duprex, a microbiologist at Boston University. He sees the recent reports of lab mistakes as exceptions — they don't mean you should shut down basic science that's essential to protecting public health, he says.

How would you paraphrase that same sentiment? Let's find which parts we agree on.--Shibbolethink 04:32, 30 June 2021 (UTC)

Re paraphrase: Sounds good. I hadn't identified who had made the change, and I've pulled the tag. (I was assuming you left all the space between your paragraphs because you welcome interspersed comments. Nope, I see.) --50.201.195.170 (talk) 05:59, 30 June 2021 (UTC)

All good :) I just find it confusing to have interspersed stuff, and I leave spaces between my paragraphs to separate thoughts. Sorry if that was confusing in any way.--Shibbolethink 06:06, 30 June 2021 (UTC)

:-). (I vaguely recall that there's evidence that there likely have been some major lab leaks in the past. TBH, I don't recall the quality of the evidence, however. Sound familiar? If not, do ignore me 'till I provide sources. :-) ) --50.201.195.170 (talk) 06:10, 30 June 2021 (UTC)

https://pubmed.gov/26286690 is one.--50.201.195.170 (talk) 06:32, 30 June 2021 (UTC)

That isn't relevant to how we paraphrase what someone said. This entire paraphrase is with attribution, as in "X said Y." When we do that, it isn't necessary or even relevant to discuss the accuracy of Y. Only the notability/due weight of including X's thoughts. and given the NPR coverage, it's pretty hard to argue that what Duprex said isn't important.--Shibbolethink 12:12, 30 June 2021 (UTC)

Re conspiracy: Possible connection between SARS-COV-2 and GoFR now in public Congressional hearings

Since there have now been publicly released videos and documentation of former NIH physicians and other physicians corroborating Fauci's emails to Auchincloss that are supportive of funding of Wuhan Lab work, we should at least take out the 'conspiracy' word.

"The next day, on February 1, 2020, Dr. Fauci exchanged emails with Dr. Auchincloss about timing of gain of function research and grant funding at the NIH."

See here for source, Newly Released Emails From Dr. Fauci Show Need for Greater Transparency at the NIH. It doesn't matter that it is Republicans! There are also multiple videos of a panel of physicians concurring in hearings before the same or other committees. The evidence and the physicians are not Republicans.--FeralOink (talk) 15:37, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

There are multiple RSes describing the gain-of-function origin hypothesis as a "conspiracy theory."

See these sources which explicitly describe "bioengineering" or "an engineered virus" or "genetic engineering" of the virus as a "conspiracy theory" or "fringe theory":

And these reliable topic-relevant sources where one or more experts describe this concept as a "conspiracy theory":

And here are academic review articles published in reliable topic-relevant peer-reviewed journals (WP:MEDRSes) which depict this idea as a "conspiracy theory":

We need to be extremely careful here, to only discuss sources which are referring to the theory that the virus was "genetically engineered" in some way. The "accidental leak" has gained much traction. But the "intentional engineering" theory is still regard by many RSes as a conspiracy theory, and rightly so. It alleges multiple conspiring actors who performed secret experiments that have no known purpose or mechanism. It's entirely supposition. I have seen no actual proof that the virus was engineered that passed even the smallest amount of scrutiny.

But, suffice it to say, with this overwhelming amount of evidence (the many sources I linked above), it is entirely appropriate to describe the "gain of function" connection as a "conspiracy theory" in wiki voice. Indeed I think it should stay in wiki-voice until either A) enough MEDRSes and RSes arise which directly explicitly say "the deliberate engineering of coronaviruses to create COVID-19 is not a conspiracy theory" or B) until such a theory is shown to be "correct" by multiple RSes or MEDRSes. At the moment, we don't have either A or B.--Shibbolethink 20:36, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

I also wanted to be more specific, and say, FeralOink, it does not necessarily matter what the "truth" of this is. Misplaced Pages and its editors do not report the "truth." We do not pick sides or determine whether a conspiracy theory is true. We are, instead, duty bound to report what the secondary reliable sources tell us. I am referring mostly to WP:V and WP:NPOV, but also the essay WP:NOTTRUTH and explanatory supplement, WP:RSUW. It does not matter what congresspeople think about this theory, or what is entered into the congressional record. Senator Huey P. Long's recipes for preparing "pot likker" and fried oysters are also part of the congressional record. During the Watergate hearings, Senator Howard Baker Jr. advocated for the abolishment of all middle initials on the grounds that they were superfluous. The congressional record is not a reliable source for the purposes of Misplaced Pages.--Shibbolethink 21:18, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

We ARE allowed to include what is public knowledge and documented on US government websites and in Congressional hearings! We did that with Fusion GPS, and everything to do with every article on Misplaced Pages of which I am aware. You are making new rules. We need to take it to ANI if US Congressional hearings and responses to FOIAs released by WP:NPOV from WP:RS are no longer considered sufficient for Misplaced Pages sourcing of a single sentence, or a mere word order change, which is all I did. Also, you reverted my edit to Hugh Auchincloss BLP, on the same matter. Why?--FeralOink (talk) 23:35, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

(edit conflict) It's not that they are not sufficient for sourcing, it's that they are PRIMARY sources and are, therefore, unsuitable for controversial topics. And, more specifically, they are NOT secondary sources and are therefore not useful to determine WEIGHT and due inclusion. I would not recommend taking this to ANI as I perceive this discussion as a relatively simple content dispute that would be inappropriate for such a venue. But if you would like to take it there, I can't stop you. Re: Hugh Auchincloss, I have no idea what you're talking about. Could you be more specific? And perhaps provide a quote of material I reverted? Thanks.--Shibbolethink 23:46, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

Congressional record and internal documents are primary sources. We are heavily restricted on how we can use them. ANI doesn't do content disputes, BTW. WP:RSN would be a better location if you have questions on the suitability of a specific source/claim pairing. VQuakr (talk) 23:44, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

I actually had a look at some of the sources that you posted. Keep in mind that SARS-COV-2 could have spread due to a lab leak despite it NOT being a product of GoF research.

The 1st, in the Denver Gazette, says that Daszak had a clear conflict of interest and that 3 of the original 27 scientists have pulled out of claiming the virus was NOT bioengineered.

The 2nd source with DOI was published in February 2020; a lot has changed about our understanding of SARS-COV-2 since then.

The 3rd source from The New York Times is coverage of the Dr. Shi Zhengli (the key bat coronavirus researcher at the Wuhan Lab) reiterating that it isn't GoF nor a lab leak and to say otherwise is wrong; okay... that isn't WP:NPOV exactly!

The 4th source, from The New Yorker, explicitly states the following: "But, although the lab-leak scenario figures in many conspiracy theories, it is not itself a conspiracy theory; the consensus is that it is unproved, but plausible." Plausible, not a conspiracy theory. Hmm...

The 6th source, Politifact, opens with this, "When this fact-check was first published in February 2021, PolitiFact’s sources included researchers who asserted the SARS-CoV-2 virus could not have been manipulated. That assertion is now more widely disputed." Politifact provides a link to their updated version as May 2021 which has quite different content. It quotes various physicians and virologists: "So far, there is no hard proof to support either the theory that the virus had natural origins or the theory that it leaked from a lab, said Richard Ebright, a professor of chemistry and chemical biology at Rutgers University, who has frequently been cited by proponents of the lab-leak hypothesis, including Paul. "At this point in time, all scientific data related to the genome sequence of SARS-CoV-2 and the epidemiology of COVID-19 are equally consistent with a natural-accident origin or a laboratory-accident origin," he told PolitiFact. Scientists open to the lab-leak theory have cited three pieces of circumstantial evidence in support of the hypothesis..."." This is NOT the stuff of conspiracy theories.

Finally, Misplaced Pages does NOT accept Forbes contributor posts as WP:RS for economics nor even fluffier topics. Forbes contributor posts are certainly not WP:RS for molecular biology! Yet you have listed not one but TWO Forbes contributor articles, e.g. The Wuhan Lab Leak hypothesis is a conspiracy theory not science to support your refusal to allow me to make a minor change in wording to that sentence, despite the fact that I kept the word "conspiracy" in the sentence!

I am not going to check the publication date and content of the remaining six sources you cited, given that these ones do not justify the claim that the lab leak hypothesis, with or without GoF research, is a conspiracy theory according to WP:RS. Please address my concerns. I am not going to go to ANI. I am probably just going to go away, yet another defeated female XX chromosome Misplaced Pages editor, who was not allowed to slightly modify ONE SINGLE SENTENCE in this article, despite providing plenty of evidence to support my views. Or rather, YOU have done my work for me! Half of the sources that you claim in support of "conspiracy theory" in fact support "once deemed conspiracy theory but subject to further inquiry and a variety of other possibilities as to its origin" or whatever I wrote and you reverted.--FeralOink (talk) 11:48, 12 July 2021 (UTC)

Sorry, I somewhat muddled the distinction between lab leak versus bioengineered-and-lab-leaked. Many of your sources in defense of the "not GoF" are in fact, "possibly lab leak" more so than "possibly GoF and lab leak". A few of your sources do say that the bioengineered, i.e. "manipulated" aka GoF possibility IS a matter of discussion (dispute) among scientists. At least one of your sources that even goes into the unique furin cleavage site for SARS-CoV-2 unlike the other SARS, and how RaTG13 doesn't have it (yes, yes, I know, just because they're 96% similar doesn't mean the furin cleavage for SARS-CoV-2 is necessarily a result of bioengineering of a GoF sort...) but they don't say it can be ruled out either. That's the scholarly journal article by all the Chinese scientists from two medical institutions in China. Regardless, the only sources that say "SARS-COV-2 as GoF" is definitely a conspiracy theory is Forbes. The others don't say it is impossible, which means it isn't a conspiracy theory.--FeralOink (talk) 12:07, 12 July 2021 (UTC)

FeralOink, Something doesn't have to be impossible to be a conspiracy theory. If you'd like I can provide exact quotations where the sources I provided (particularly the literature sources) show this is FRINGE. For now, I don't have time to go back through it. Anyone is welcome to do so. I would prefer we discuss quotations and not summaries. Thanks.--Shibbolethink 17:00, 12 July 2021 (UTC)

FeralOink, VQuakr was correct to revert you, as house.gov is indeed a WP:PRIMARY source, and we need good secondary sources to cover that particular part of the story. I would suggest we include this Fox News article and this CNBC article , as per WP:NPOVS. I would also suggest also to include something from this Politico article to mention how politicised this issue has become .

Shibbolethink, I think it would be okay to include the WP:OPINIONs of Amy Davidson Sorkin of the New Yorker article, or Jerry Dunleavy of the Washington Examiner article. It's important however that we cover this story with WP:BALANCE and an WP:IMPARTIAL tone, and not to present one POV to the exclusion of another, as that would be a gross WP:POVOMISSION. Wit that said, the Lancet published a long awaited addendum to the Daszak et al letter and recused of him from their origins investigation , so we can no longer use it to label lab origins hypotheses as conspiracy theories . The Lancet published a new letter with Daszak and some of the signatories of the previous letter , which has been given lukewarm coverage in several secondary sources . This new Lancet letter is toned down significantly compared to the last one, and doesn’t associate lab origins hypotheses and bioengineering with conspiracy theory, thankfully. We need to be extremely careful regarding the WP:MISINTERPRETATION and WP:MISCITATION of the Hakim and Fruitos et al papers. These papers have been extensively misinterpreted and miscited by WP:NOLABLEAK proponents in the past. One WP:YESLABLEAK proponent said he reached out to Dr Hakim by email, and that he confirmed this distortion. I would be glad to do the same and copy you in, if necessary.

Please see this conversation with admins HighInBC and DGG on how to cover this topic properly. Ali mjr got banned for including this topic in Peter Daszak and Thepigdog got cautioned for including it in COVID-19 investigations. We don’t want any more bans or cautions. CutePeach (talk) 13:52, 12 July 2021 (UTC)

FeralOink please see related discussion here . CutePeach (talk) 13:54, 12 July 2021 (UTC)

@CutePeach: It would be very inappropriate to include the opinions of journalists about the topic of molecular biology. They are not experts. Especially not a journalist publishing in The Washington Examiner, which we do not use as a reliable source per WP:RSP. @FeralOink: As to the sources I included to support the fact that this is perceived as a conspiracy theory and is therefore covered by WP:FRINGE, the literature sources are perfectly reliable.--Shibbolethink 16:46, 12 July 2021 (UTC)

Okay, CutePeach. I hear you and Shibbolethink loud and clear. THERE WAS NO LAB LEAK. Also, FORBES CONTRIBUTORS ARE WP:RS for molecular biology on Misplaced Pages.--FeralOink (talk) 12:43, 13 July 2021 (UTC)

FeralOink, I'm sorry but I think you've mischaracterized my position. I totally agree with you about the Forbes contributors, I hadn't even considered that possibility, I thought "contributor" in that context was like any news room's "contributing journalists." Or The New Yorker or The New Republic's "contributing editors." But I see now they're different and we view them differently on wikipedia. I'll tell you I even tried to figure out who the authors were, and they seemed like any other journalist. But I see now that Forbes is different with its contributor columns and we do not view them as RS, likely only as attributional quotations. I would not cite them for this, as they are not experts in this topic.

I agree we should default to the best available scientific peer-reviewed sources for matters of science. Which in this case, are the secondary reviews published in topic-relevant journals that I quoted in the subsection below.--Shibbolethink 12:46, 13 July 2021 (UTC)

FeralOink, Also worth saying that Misplaced Pages's view of what counts as "FRINGE" is different from a typical understanding of what is a "conspiracy theory." See WP:FRINGE. Also worth saying that a belief system or theory doesn't have to be a "conspiracy theory" to qualify for WP:FRINGE, and doesn't have to be a strictly labeled "conspiracy theory" to merit only cursory inclusion in this article. The fact that the scientific literature sources either A) barely mention this, B) disregard it completely, or C) say it is extremely unlikely, all are consistent with this being a WP:FRINGE belief. Likewise, the complete lack of evidence to support this theory is consistent with it being WP:FRINGE. The fact that we have content experts and secondary peer-reviewed literature reviews in academic journals describing this as a "conspiracy theory" is why we can say it's a "conspiracy theory" in wiki-voice. It is not simply an alternative theoretical formulation. As a result, we should not include a discussion of it if the only sources we can find are newspaper sources, when the very high quality scientific peer-reviewed literature sources, as presented above, do not consider it viable.

Even if this were not the case, and this were just an "alternative theoretical formulation," then we would have to present it in proportion to its coverage in secondary WP:RSes, per WP:DUE. You would want to find all applicable sources about "gain of function" research and figure out how commonly this theory is mentioned in reference to GoFR, not the other way around (finding sources about Fauci and this grant, and then seeing how often "GoFR" is mentioned), which is what it seems is being done here. And since it is so controversial, by the sources above, the appropriate way to cover it would be with attributed quotes from content experts who are covered in secondary RSes. That would be if it were not fringe. But I believe the sources I presented above (particularly the scientific peer-reviewed sources in academic journals) demonstrate that this is extremely WP:FRINGE and therefore should be covered here in only a very limited way (as we already do in the COVID-19 section of this article).--Shibbolethink 18:59, 12 July 2021 (UTC)

Quotes from scientific peer-reviewed literature sources describing SARS-COV-2 engineering as a "conspiracy theory"

I had a few minutes after work, so here are some quotes that explain quite handily why it is appropriate to keep the word "conspiracy" in the article text:

Hakim (2021) in Reviews in Medical Virology (a review and hence a secondary WP:MEDRS):

Currently, there are some fictitious and pseudoscientific claims as well as conspiracy theories associated with the Covid-19 pandemic.19, 21 Some people have alleged that SARS-CoV-2 is of laboratory origin and the result of deliberate genetic manipulation. According to these conspiracy theories, a novel virus is a human-made biological weapon, not the result of natural evolution and selection.22-24 SARS-CoV-2 is said to be engineered by the Chinese government with economic or political background and agenda.17, 19 There are also rumours that SARS-CoV-2 ‘leaked’ from a famous laboratory in Wuhan working on bat CoVs, the ancestral virus of SARS-CoV-2.23 Believers in conspiracy theories also alleged that this current pandemic was ‘created’ by physicians or pharmaceutical industries to distribute new vaccines against SARS-CoV-2 for financial profit.

BTW, to address CutePeach, it doesn't actually matter all that much what Dr. Hakim has said over email, because his article here has gone through peer review. Those reviewers and the journal editors helped decide how to frame the discussion here. And all of that is consistent with the scientific community viewing this idea as "fringe" and a "conspiracy theory." This is similar to how artists and authors don't necessarily decide what genre their books and songs are published under. I think the text here is quite clear, that these beliefs are viewed as "conspiracy theories" by most scientists.

Frutos et al (2021) in Infection, Genetics and Evolution (a review and hence a secondary WP:MEDRS):

The other issue to be addressed beside the origin of SARS-CoV-2 is how this virus infected human beings at the first place. The marginal conspiracy theory of a voluntary released of an engineered virus forwarded by the press, blogs and politicians...However, no epizootic, no animal reservoir and SARS-CoV-2 virus have ever been identified. Incidentally, this failure in identifying the virus and the reservoir species in the natural environment facilitated the development of conspiracy theories linking SARS-CoV-2 to genetic engineering.

Evans (2020) in mSphere (a review and hence a secondary WP:MEDRS):

Some may verge on the unbelievable, such as the conspiracy theory that gain-of-function research conducted on severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS)-like coronaviruses in 2015 is connected to the emergence of COVID-19 that made it to British tabloids

Grimes (2021) in PLOS ONE (a primary research article which demonstrates through mathematical modeling how unlikely this conspiracy theory is):

COVID-19 has seen a plethora of conspiracy theories adopted worldwide, specific to the pandemic, which has been propagated heavily across social media. Much of this is organic, arising from already existent conspiracy theories...COVID-19 is a hoax / deliberately engineered: Since the dawn of the pandemic, a dichotomous set of narratives either dismissing the novel coronavirus as an outright hoax or alternatively insisting it has been engineered and spread have garnered serious traction...One could argue that if COVID were an engineered bioweapon, then a “single event” conspiracy confined only to a small number of conspirators might in principle be possible. There are however several objections to this hypothetical framing, outlined in detail in the discussion section

Because of these sources, and the considerable lack of scientific peer-reviewed literature sources describing this as a viable hypothesis, it is entirely appropriate to describe this idea as a "conspiracy theory" in wiki-voice. And maybe provide one or two expert opinions explaining why the theory is not viable, which I believe we already do. It would be inappropriate to give it much more attention than that. There are, admittedly, many lay press sources which discuss this as a "former" conspiracy or as "formerly labeled" a conspiracy, but I would also point out that these are often describing all "lab leak" theories and not specifically bioengineering, as FeralOink described above. It is worth it to note that, given WP:SOURCETYPES and WP:SCHOLARSHIP, the academic experts decide how we describe things on Misplaced Pages. And so these lay press sources are trumped by the academic literature sources above. --Shibbolethink 19:27, 12 July 2021 (UTC)

Dr. Hakim's article has lots of errors, regardless of having gone through peer review! Not the science part. I am not going to raise objections about the scientific content of his review. The scientific content is (mostly, other than in a few passages) written so as not to rule out the possibility of SARS-CoV-2 as 'lab leak', or 'lab leak of GoF research' on bat coronaviruses, if new information or research findings should come to light in the future. Rather, there are puzzling and very real errors about the conspiracy theory portions, which are apparent based on simple chronology. Simple chronology is a form of due diligence. I know the article has been through peer review. Regardless, there are errors. No, I do not have the audacity to question the science. I do know about due diligence. Some of the findings regarding conspiracy are clearly incorrect based on the references that Dr. Hakim cited himself. I mention this because we are using this paper to support the allegedly conspiratorial nature of anything other than a natural, organic origin of SARS-CoV-2. Since Shibboleththink observed that my prior discussion points consisted of an insufficient number of direct quotes, and instead, my commentary on them, I will be more precise here. Before I begin, note that my objective is NOT to find fault with Dr. Hakim's review. Rather, my intent is to demonstrate why more political balance is called for in this article, regarding portrayal of the gamut of conspiracy theory enablers (i.e. anti-vaccinationists). Given the vigor and length of objections that have been brought to bare upon me for making one modification to one sentence a few days ago, I am fearful of being subject to more of the same, should I make any other modifications to the article that do not first pass muster with talk page participants.

The publication date of Dr. Mohamad S. Hakim's SARS-CoV-2, Covid-19, and the debunking of conspiracy theories is 14 February 2021. That is the first and only version of the review. I confirmed this using the Crossref bibliometric service, Crossmark. The manuscript was received on 27 December 2020. Yet Dr. Hakim repeatedly refers to the potential for Covid19 to become a public health hazard. He uses evidence for politically influenced conspiratorialists by describing what Roger Stone said. Roger Stone is a minor GOP political operative. Instead, a better example of an anti-vaccinationist would be current U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris. In October 2020, during the VP candidate debate with Pence that was televised live, she said that she would refuse to be vaccinated for COVID19 if the vaccine were developed during the Trump administration CDC because she considers Trump so disreputable. Next, Hakim discusses some of the Bill Gates conspiracies, about how the vaccine will contain microchips. He quotes and sources his material to an April 2020 Gates Foundation blog post in which Gates repeatedly says that a vaccine is unlikely to be available for another 18 to 22 months, perhaps at the end of 2022 or even 2023. That was a reasonable supposition at the time, but surely Dr. Hakim would have known, by December 2020 when he submitted his paper, that a vaccine was in sight very soon. There are lots and lots of inconsistencies in the article like that. Finally, I don't see any evidence of a "mathematical analysis" establishing why the COVID19 virus has unquestionably natural origins. You said that. You keep quoting sources to respond to what I say on the talk page here, yet when I read the sources, they don't support your claims! I am done. I will go off and make spelling corrections while great minds such as yourself quote Forbes magazine.--FeralOink (talk) 12:55, 13 July 2021 (UTC)

FeralOink, We are not peer reviewers, and we should not spend our time "looking for errors" in peer-reviewed articles. We should defer to the experts. Even as a trained virologist, I defer to the experts here, because on wikipedia that's how it works.

I don't see any of the errors you've pointed out, and some of this comment verges on WP:SOAPBOX and WP:POINTY, particularly the political content and remarks about the Forbes article. Johnuniq, could you take a look at this as an uninvolved admin? I may be wrong, but I think it at least merits a look, and if you agree, a warning given the political nature of this soapbox in a scientific article.

FeralOink, please stop citing the Forbes piece, as I said above , it is no longer relevant to determining how to write this article.

"Finally, I don't see any evidence of a "mathematical analysis" establishing why the COVID19 virus has unquestionably natural origins. You said that" -- No, I said it presents a mathematical model demonstrating how unlikely "this conspiracy theory" is, referring to the gain-of-function origins hypothesis, which should be the topic of this conversation, given the topic of this article. Please be precise and take relevant conversations to relevant pages.

I'm sorry for how frustrated you appear to be, but I'm not sure what you mean with regards to "quoting sources to respond... don't support your claims." I have only quoted literature sources above where they explicitly (or very plainly) describe this idea as a conspiracy. Which of those scientific journal article sources do not do this?--Shibbolethink 13:34, 13 July 2021 (UTC)

As an aside, anyone here who is of the opinion "News sources are more cutting edge, and the scientific literature is just slow to adapt. We should go with the faster news sources and disregard these 'old' scientific sources", I would encourage you to read the following essays and WP:PAGs: WP:WIP, WP:NOTNEWS, WP:RECENTISM, WP:MEDPRI, and WP:MEDDATE. Misplaced Pages is meant to be slow. It is never "finished" and we would all be more mentally healthy and happy if we read Meta:Eventualism more often.

Maybe the lab leak idea proponents will eventually be proven correct, maybe they won't. But on Misplaced Pages, the only thing that will decide this is if the lab leak theories (especially the gain of function origin theory) become an accepted and supported explanation in the wider scholarly community (historians, scientists). Not if journalists think it's "hot" enough to publish news reports on it. Once again, Misplaced Pages is not a newspaper, it is an encyclopedia. And scholars set the tone for what counts as "true" and "verified" around here.--Shibbolethink 23:37, 12 July 2021 (UTC)

What scientists investigate is significant, including the erroneous trails they follow. We need eventually to say what the actual cause is, and it seems increasingly clear that it is not likely to be from a laboratory. But the investigations about whether it was is a part of science regardless of the conclusions. Science progresses through the proposal of theories, followed by research to determine which of them are are correct, not because it miraculously proposes the unquestioned truth at the first go. It's only in the most elementary textbooks for beginners that science can be presented as an unbroken sequence of progress. This particular circumstance is a remarkably interesting example in the sociology of science, where something that was first proposed as a xenophobic conspiracy theory, became recognized as a potentially valid hypothesis worthy of full investigation, before (very likely) being disproven by the proper methods of science. I cannot immediately think of a similarly important example. And I can certainly not think of one where the very possibility of the incorrect theory has and will serve as a major influence in terms of social policy--the fact that it was not a priori unbelievable will, depending on your viewpoint, establish necessary social controls of possibly catastrophic experiments, or tragically prevent research that might prevent future catastrophe. We who are trained in science do not operate independently of the rest of the world. Nor can those working in science, or any.other profession, be completely relied upon to criticize their own practices. There is a differnece between Fringe, and Incorrect, between Fringe and mMinority, between totally unlikely, and ;possible by not actually true. We at WP have been using the term Fringe much too freely. What is needed is a re-examination of the basis on which we use this term., and I intend to try to find a suitable place for this, where we can do it out of the context of any one particular issue. DGG ( talk ) 04:13, 13 July 2021 (UTC)

Hi DGG! Yes, yes PLEASE do that! We need that very much, i.e. what you just said,

"We who are trained in science do not operate independently of the rest of the world. Nor can those working in science, or any other profession, be completely relied upon to criticize their own practices. There is a difference between Fringe, and Incorrect, between Fringe and Minority, between totally unlikely, and possible but not actually true. We at WP have been using the term Fringe much too freely. What is needed is a re-examination of the basis on which we use this term, and I intend to try to find a suitable place for this, where we can do it out of the context of any one particular issue.

I hope you are well, by the way, and am glad to see you here. You expressed yourself beautifully.--FeralOink (talk) 13:01, 13 July 2021 (UTC)

DGG, to address some of your points here, in brief... Because this is such a complex overarching ongoing conversation...

What scientists investigate is significant, including the erroneous trails they follow -- I would agree only if it is covered in secondary peer-reviewed scientific journal articles (particularly topic-relevant reviews written by experts and peer-reviewed by experts). Anyone can call themselves a "scientist" in any field, but we don't cite Joe's garage-based perpetual-motion experiments in our article on the First law of thermodynamics.

We also do cover these ideas some, where relevant, but from the lens of mainstream experts, exactly as WP:NPOV and WP:DUE and WP:FRINGE tell us we should cover them. We do not give them more weight than is necessary, and we couch them in the criticisms of the mainstream scientific community. See our coverage of the lab leak in the Investigations article.

This particular circumstance is a remarkably interesting example in the sociology of science, where something that was first proposed as a xenophobic conspiracy theory, became recognized as a potentially valid hypothesis worthy of full investigation, before (very likely) being disproven by the proper methods of science. - I think we actually strike this balance extremely well in the Investigations article. If we don't, I would love to hear specific criticisms from you on how we could cover it better, over at the relevant articles' talk pages. Or see a draftspace rewrite of it. But right now I think it does it actually very well, and here we are discussing the GoFR theory.

We cover the lab leak, we cover the accidental release, we cover the genomic engineering. Among these, the genomic engineering hypothesis was dismissed earliest and most handily, and so we give it the least weight. It is covered the least in secondary scientific sources. This, to me, is completely appropriate.

There is a differnece between Fringe, and Incorrect, between Fringe and mMinority, between totally unlikely, and ;possible by not actually true. We at WP have been using the term Fringe much too freely - Could you be more specific about the gain-of-function theory here? Do you think this is not a fringe idea? And if so, how so? What mainstream coverage has it received in the scientific literature? To me this is a clear case of a fringe theory, based upon its extremely scant, dismissive coverage by the mainstream scientific sources.

I greatly appreciate your insight here as a fellow content expert, but I think you may be talking in too broad of terms to be useful for discussion's sake. I am personally only interested in making very encyclopedic articles, and I think FRINGE, in its current state, absolutely helps us do that. We are getting deep into the weeds, differentiating "accidental leak of a natural virus" from "intentional leak of a natural virus" to "genomic engineering of a virus before accidental release" to "intentional leak of an engineered virus." These have varying degrees of coverage, and are thus not all strictly WP:FRINGE. Of these, the accidental leak of a natural virus is the least fringe. So we give it the most coverage. It has nothing to do with this article (GoFR), so we don't discuss it at all here. The "genomic engineering" "gain of function" origins hypothesis has the least coverage in mainstream scientific venues, so we cover it the least. I believe that is entirely appropriate, not only per WP:FRINGE, but also per WP:DUE.

How would you have us do these things differently? I am interested in specifics and quotations and specific targeted reworkings of content, but I empathize with how complex and ridiculous this controversy has become. And why that has made our work on this area of the wiki so difficult. However, I don't think changing FRINGE will fix that. See the extremely fraught and drawn out RFC at WP:BMI... I think Colin is right in particular, that changing content guidelines in the middle of a content dispute is basically never a good idea. So if we do it, we should only do it in the lens of looking back on this controversy a few years from now, in my opinion.--Shibbolethink 13:12, 13 July 2021 (UTC)

I got pinged. I've read some of the discussion, particularly what DGG wrote and his suggestion of trying to reconsider FRINGE "where we can do it out of the context of any one particular issue". I'm not sure the matter is "where" to do it but "when". Largely I see FRINGE being used to limit the weight (to zero, sometimes) given to an aspect of the Covid story by considering only the science or biomedical aspects of that, and ignoring entirely the political, social and human aspects. At another discussion where the weights of aspects of biomedical articles were being considered, I warned against having a community discussion around guidelines any time soon. Here's what I wrote:

Have a look at Template:COVID-19 pandemic and open up all the collapsed boxes. I'm not sure how many links there are, but my text editor says the wiki text has 1539 pairs of open brackets. Wrt Covid, DUE left the building and went somewhere nice on holiday quite some time ago.

There are too many editors with Covid blinkers on and agendas to promote (on all sides) for there to be any chance of a reasonable debate on this issue right now. I think better to accept Covid-19 is an outlier and just make sure that what people write about is as accurate and fair per reliable sources as we can. The dogma that works for both common-or-garden and controversial biomedical topics is broken for Covid, and not proving to be acceptable to a large number of editors. If we are too dogmatic about Covid, then that mob will wreck the guidelines and good practice used and seen elsewhere.

So given that we have a bazillion articles on Covid, I think the endless arguments we have about whether or not to mention some development in the investigations around treatment or origin or whatever, is focussing too much energy on something that doesn't particularly matter. If we can have articles about the effect of Covid on Marvel character movies, then surely there is some room for stories that make newspaper headlines in reliable mainstream media.

We are evidently not short of space nor of willing writers of material. If what we do write is fair and as accurate as we can, per the sources we consider reliable for particular claims, then I think it does more harm for Misplaced Pages to say nothing at all, than to say something. Spend less time flinging WP:UPPERCASE at each other, and more time just thinking "What will readers expect us to cover right now?" Shibbolethink linked to Meta:Eventualism with an argument to take a slow approach to including material. Actually that essay takes the opposite, inclusionist approach. Eventualism says let's stop bickering among ourselves and write something our readers will find informative, and we can worry about refining it later. And if later it turns out that little story was a forgettable blip then we can delete it. Wiki actually means fast, but I'm not suggesting we completely forget all the recommendations about breaking news and controversy as it happens. I'm just saying we can afford to be a little more laid back and take the long term view, rather than being dogmatic and ultra exclusionist and constantly at war. -- Colin° 14:05, 13 July 2021 (UTC)

Colin, this discussion is about whether to exclude the term "conspiracy" from this article, not about whether to include some new development, of which there haven't been any. Perhaps the congressional hearings would qualify, but only re: their coverage in secondary sources. I would absolutely support inclusion of some material about the more recent hearings re: the Fauci GoFR controversy, and I believe we already have some of this in the article, it's just a bit vague. But WP:DUE (which I absolutely don't want to throw out the window) would tell us we should do a literature search on "Gain of function" and see how often this Fauci-relevant controversy comes up. Mostly, we have to be careful that it is covered in the right way per WP:BLP. We cannot suggest that a scientist "lied" or committed malfeasance if we do not have a direct source for it.--Shibbolethink 14:10, 13 July 2021 (UTC)

It is the job of scientific journals to report on advances in scientific research. Whether or not a lab was conducting gain-of-function research it not a scientific or biomedical claim but a bog standard human "Well, were you?" question. That some scientific journals have published papers, editorials or opinion pieces discussing these suggestions about covid origins reflects rather than they are stepping on the toes of what journalists normally do, not the other way around. I'm sure scientists are interested in the latest gossip as much as anyone else. Why are you restricting your quotes to "scientific peer-reviewed literature sources"? Is there a scientific process that determines whether something is labelled "a conspiracy theory" or not? I'm curious exactly what kind of "peer-review" or indeed "evidence" such statements might receive. Let's examine the first article: SARS-CoV-2, Covid-19, and the debunking of conspiracy theories. You mention this is "a review and hence a secondary WP:MEDRS". But it isn't really your typical review of the primary research literature. It is really just an opinion piece that cites other opinion pieces and editorials. The author makes many claims for which no sources are included at all, for example "Even worse, some people (including those holding high political office) believe that SARS-CoV-2 and its associated disease Covid-19 do not exist at all". An example citation for "conspiracy theories" is PMID 32152585. The opening lines of that article are "Last week, my 6-year-old daughter would not go to school. A friend had told her that “the virus” was coming and that everyone would be sick. I sat down with her and, before the school bus arrived...". Yes, even Nature Medicine is capable of publishing a "Mom" story that wouldn't be out of place in any newspaper. Coming back to the original paper, the sentence "There are also rumours that SARS-CoV-2 ‘leaked’ from a famous laboratory in Wuhan" is so gossipy I can imaging the author using a hushed voice and making little air quotes for "leaked". For goodness sake, Smallpox leaked from a laboratory and the major (fortuately localised) incident and lengthy investigation prompted labs round the world to cease their work on the virus. This isn't a theory where one can snigger at the silly non-scientists for their foolishness with homeopathy and crystals. This is the paper you are citing to inform us about professional style, tone and language-use when discussing a controversy? Hmm. The conclusions of the paper (essentially, educate the dumb masses with more science) is well known to be a failed approach. I've read far better articles by respected scientists in The Guardian. -- Colin° 15:14, 13 July 2021 (UTC)

Cherry-picking and Misinterpreting sources

@Shibbolethink: you've made three replies above on what is essentially a request to change one word in a "Society and culture" section in the footer of this article.

RE: it was actually you that linked the Washington Examiner. The Denver Gazette article you provided is actually a print syndication from the Washington Examiner. If I wasn’t WP:AGF, I would have thought you are engaging in WP:POVSOURCING by offering up the one Washington Examiner article that supports your POV, without mentioning any of their other articles on the subject. I performed a search on Google for "Washington Examiner" and "gain of function", and I found plenty of articles possibly worthy of inclusion here .

RE: these peer-reviewed literature sources are offered to justify the conspiracy theory label, based on further WP:POVSOURCING and also WP:MISINTERPRETATION. In the first paper, you cherry-picked an ambiguous statement from the introduction, while ignoring or discounting the rest of the paper, like section 3.2, where the author unpacks the earlier statement and concludes that only an independent forensic investigation can prove or disprove this speculation. If you read the whole paper - or even only section 3.2 - you will realize the author does not mention conspiracy WRT lab origins or gain of function. This has been noted up by many other editors in many previous discussions, including My very best wishes here .

Cherry-picking sources to support your POV, while ignoring or discounting other sources, including peer-reviewed literature sources, like PMID: 33558807 from as early as August of 2020, or PMID: 34168168 from a couple of weeks ago - is in violation of WP:NPOV and WP:POVOMISSION. There is no consensus that we need WP:MEDRS or even WP:SCHOLARLY sources to cover this controversy, especially when we have sources that report that these some journals are possibly compromised on this issue , , , . Without stooping to the Washington Examiner level, we can find plenty of good RSs to cover this topic, like this NY Times article . CutePeach (talk) 08:28, 13 July 2021 (UTC)

I did not intentionally cite the Denver Gazette as a syndication of the Washington Examiner, that is my mistake. I even checked RSP for the Denver Gazette, but I see that we often have difficulties with syndication exactly like this. We can just disregard that source. But it is immaterial to this discussion, given the secondary literature sources above. Re: my 3 replies: every single time this comes up, we must go to the original quotations that are cited in support of statements. This is what I have done. It honestly becomes very frustrating when these same arguments are made repeatedly without any new evidence in WP:RSes. I'm not only arguing about this particular instance, but also all the subsequent times that someone else will make a similar argument without providing much new evidence in high quality sources.

Re: Hakim: All I can say is that I disagree with you that this source is cherry picked here. For one, this is far from the first, or the last, conspiracy theory that can “only be disproved” with a thorough investigation.

I disagree completely with your citing of a single low-quality primary source and a single low-quality secondary review (neither of which are published in well-regarded topic-relevant journals) to invalidate multiple secondary literature reviews which are published in well-regarded topic relevant peer reviewed scientific journals. I am not "only citing sources that support my POV," I am citing the only scientific review articles in high quality scholarly outlets which mention this at all. Environmental Chemistry Letters has absolutely no relevant editorial expertise in virology, biosafety, or biosecurity, and has published discredited and fringe articles about this topic, so I didn't cite it.

As to your news sources (which should not trump literature sources), they are all about The Lancet, which I haven't cited here in any way. I think WP:FRINGE is very clear about arguments that "the journals are suppressing the truth." (is that your argument?) This reminds me of WP:FLAT. Only the NYT article even mentions "gain-of-function," but it does not describe the "gain-of-function" origin hypothesis as a mainstream idea. What is your point in citing it here? Could you please use quotations? Thanks.—Shibbolethink 11:41, 13 July 2021 (UTC)

ArbCom Clarification Request

FYI: I have just requested clarification on whether this article is affected by the Arbitration Committee decision on COVID-19. You can see the relevant request and make comments in the section over at the ArbCom Requests page. Thanks.--Shibbolethink 01:50, 13 July 2021 (UTC)

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