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:: The process for retaining a star is no different than we should expect of our medical content ''anyway''-- that is, it should not be ten years outdated, regardless of article status. And featured articles have the benefit of a bit more protection from uninformed edits because of their community review. I am unware of any "lack of understanding of concessions" that need to be made for medical articles, and I suspect if something like that existed, I'd know about it. And finally, there are plenty of resources for maintaining important articles current, albeit focused in other directions. I'm not aware of you ever having worked on articles at the FA level,[https://xtools.wmflabs.org/ec/en.wikipedia.org/CFCF#top-edited-pages] so it would be helpful if you refrain from discouraging others who might be willing. [[User:SandyGeorgia|'''Sandy'''<span style="color: green;">Georgia</span>]] ([[User talk:SandyGeorgia|Talk]]) 22:57, 7 March 2020 (UTC)
:: The process for retaining a star is no different than we should expect of our medical content ''anyway''-- that is, it should not be ten years outdated, regardless of article status. And featured articles have the benefit of a bit more protection from uninformed edits because of their community review. I am unware of any "lack of understanding of concessions" that need to be made for medical articles, and I suspect if something like that existed, I'd know about it. And finally, there are plenty of resources for maintaining important articles current, albeit focused in other directions. I'm not aware of you ever having worked on articles at the FA level,[https://xtools.wmflabs.org/ec/en.wikipedia.org/CFCF#top-edited-pages] so it would be helpful if you refrain from discouraging others who might be willing. [[User:SandyGeorgia|'''Sandy'''<span style="color: green;">Georgia</span>]] ([[User talk:SandyGeorgia|Talk]]) 22:57, 7 March 2020 (UTC)


::::I deter your ad hominem regarding my contribution SandyGeorgia. It is both false and not to the point.
::::What we see may likewise be the article FA status on... acting as a brake on article improvement. While I can’t point to any study, my personal experience is that FAs are often so zealously guarded that editing them is a pain. I’m quite well aware that I am not alone in feeling this, even if others avoid voicing their opinion.
::::Being a general editor, having worked in different capacities over thousands of medical articles — it is simply not worth the consternation of working on either an FA, FAC or FAR for the extremely modest reward of being featured on the main page.… Why care about a one-time jump in readership of 200k, when I know my efforts on 10 different articles can be seen by upwards of 10,000,000 readers in a month?
::::I would prefer we had fewer FAs in order to avoid them falling into disrepair because people think they can't edit FAs. [[User:CFCF|<span style="color:#014225;font-family: sans-serif;background:#D0F0C0">'''Carl Fredrik'''</span>]]<span style="font-size: .90em;">[[User talk:CFCF|<sup> talk</sup>]]</span> 15:46, 20 March 2020 (UTC)
[[File:Medical FAs + GAs.png|thumb|The number of medical [[wikipedia:FA|FAs]] and [[wikipedia:GA|GAs]] up to 2017 ([[doi:10.1136/jech-2016-208601]]).]]
[[File:Medical FAs + GAs.png|thumb|The number of medical [[wikipedia:FA|FAs]] and [[wikipedia:GA|GAs]] up to 2017 ([[doi:10.1136/jech-2016-208601]]).]]
:::A bit late to this thread, but I agree with Sandy. Keeping FAs up to scratch, and promoting new GAs and FAs is a logical high priority for the Med community. Although FA and GA focus quite a bit on style and formatting, the checks on readability, up-to-dateness, and references are very valuable quality assurance procedures. It also serves as a commitment of the community to nurture even well-developed and established pages. The challenge (as always) is having a large enough editor community, but it's an area that many newcomers find themselves drawn to if given opportunity and support. [[User:Evolution and evolvability|T.Shafee(Evo<small>&#38;</small>Evo)]]<sup>[[User talk:Evolution and evolvability|talk]]</sup> 11:09, 13 March 2020 (UTC)
:::A bit late to this thread, but I agree with Sandy. Keeping FAs up to scratch, and promoting new GAs and FAs is a logical high priority for the Med community. Although FA and GA focus quite a bit on style and formatting, the checks on readability, up-to-dateness, and references are very valuable quality assurance procedures. It also serves as a commitment of the community to nurture even well-developed and established pages. The challenge (as always) is having a large enough editor community, but it's an area that many newcomers find themselves drawn to if given opportunity and support. [[User:Evolution and evolvability|T.Shafee(Evo<small>&#38;</small>Evo)]]<sup>[[User talk:Evolution and evolvability|talk]]</sup> 11:09, 13 March 2020 (UTC)

Revision as of 15:46, 20 March 2020

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    Welcome to the WikiProject Medicine talk page. If you have comments or believe something can be improved, feel free to post. Also feel free to introduce yourself if you plan on becoming an active editor!

    We do not provide medical advice; please see a health professional.

    List of archives


    Daniel J. Drucker

    Hello medical experts! I toned down and expanded this article about an endocrinologist, and added some newspaper references. Since I'm not familiar with this topic, can someone with medical knowledge please check it out to make sure I haven't introduced any incorrect information? Thanks.—Anne Delong (talk) 19:15, 2 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    the article( and that image) may need to be trimmed it looks a bit PROMO-ish….IMO--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 11:04, 5 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    Thanks for taking a look at it, Ozzie10aaaa; you should have seen it before! I don't think the image is that bad, although a picture of him teaching or in his lab would be more interesting. I added some non-controversial career details to make the Awards section less overweighted. There's a discussion on the talk page about which articles should be in the "Selected publications" section; perhaps you or someone else with medical knowledge here would like to weigh in, and make changes if appropriate.—Anne Delong (talk) 13:14, 10 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    This group's scope

    I'm looking at WP:MED? (where we list what kinds of articles we want to support, and what we don't), and I'm wondering whether that list is still accurate. Do we want to support:

    1. Biographies (e.g., patients, researchers, healthcare workers) – overlaps with .Wikipedia:WikiProject Biography/Science and academia
    2. Businesses and organizations – hospitals currently sent to Wikipedia:WikiProject Hospitals; pharma companies currently tagged for Wikipedia:WikiProject Pharmacology; medical device manufacturers currently tagged by us. Wikipedia:WikiProject Business and other WikiProjects also work in this area.
    3. Schools (e.g., medical schools) – overlaps with Wikipedia:WikiProject Higher Education.
    4. Dentistry – Wikipedia:WikiProject Dentistry has never been very active.

    As a group, we get to decide what we want to work on. We haven't had a discussion about what should/shouldn't be brought to us for a long time. My impression is that people aren't very interested in biographies or businesses. If we don't want to support those articles, it's okay. We should just make that decision and adjust our documentation and templates accordingly.

    What do you think? WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:50, 4 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    While the Dentistry project has not been very active, there is nevertheless a lot of continuing edits to Dentistry articles. Furthermore the field of Dentistry has a high degree of overlap with Medicine, therefore I think there is a strong argument that the Medicine WikiProject should support Dentistry. Boghog (talk) 19:04, 4 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    This list is quite active and there are large groups of students in the UK and U of Toronto that I am aware of that are active through the Wikipedia Collaboration of Dental Schools: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Dentistry/Participants. JenOttawa (talk) 13:20, 5 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    Wikipedia:WikiProject Directory/Description/WikiProject Dentistry lists the names of just three editors who have participated on the group's talk page during the last three months. This is an improvement compared to this time of year for any previous recorded year (2015, zero; 2016, zero; 2017, one; 2018, one; 2019, one). WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:27, 5 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    • Mixed support. I am in favor of setting standards for appropriate and in-scope discussions on this talk page to maximize new user engagement. I agree, we are here for development of medical content and not directly biographies. I think this WikiProject should get news of any kind of medical themed programs in this space, including for biographies or schools, but our best response to requests for non-medicine support is having a plan to refer people elsewhere.
    I think that the future of managing all this is in D:Wikidata:WikiProject Medicine. I contribute to the meta:WikiCite project and Scholia which both seek to generate profiles of people, medical schools, and hospitals. This has lots of applications, but the one which I think English Wikipedia WikiProject Medicine should watch is the significant media criticism Wikipedia gets for claims of discrimination against women in creating biographies. We should keep our stake in such controversies by being aware and having conversations here, even if we do not actually organize the editing. Here are some examples of automated profiles. I think that eventually we will have something like this for every person, school, and hospital. Wikipedia Infoboxes are part of this also.
    I develop this project as staff meta:Wikimedian in Residence at the University of Virginia.
    Blue Rasberry (talk) 15:14, 5 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    WPMED should support all of the above; we don't restrict posts to projects on topics that are within our knowledge base. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:20, 5 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    Yes, being inclusive is better than being exclusive. Also, the question of anatomical articles. I'd say include but there was an idea to separate out to Wikipedia:WikiProject Anatomy some time ago. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 19:15, 5 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    Unfortunately there are fewer and fewer long term editors which are the life blood of Wiki Projects. One solution to re-establish project critical mass is to merge closely related projects. A recent example was to merge a variety of molecular biology projects (see Merger discussion Wikiproject:BIOL) which I think succeeded. In a similar spirit, I think it may make sense to merge WP:DENTISTRY into WP:MED. Boghog (talk) 20:20, 5 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    As a related note, WP:Molecular Biology recently merged WP:GEN, WP:MCB, WP:COMPBIO, WP:BIOP, WP:RNA, WP:WPMP and WP:CELLSIG. T.Shafee(Evo&Evo)talk 08:43, 7 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    I would be supportive of removing biographies. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 15:12, 15 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    Coronavirus (COVID-19) edits

    Hello, WP Medicine,

    Over the past few days, I have put most of the coronavirus-related pages on my Watchlist and I find many of them are being edited throughout the day, usually changing totals of people diagnosed with no accompanying change in sources. I have spot-checked a few but if we could get a few more eyes on them, actually any of the pages in Category:2019–20 coronavirus outbreak, that would be helpful. I think inflating the number of those afflicted with this virus is not helpful for readers who might be consulting these articles, looking for information about this health crisis. Thanks! Liz Read! Talk! 00:39, 6 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    I agree it is really problematical to have figures inserted without sourcing. My advice would be to simply revert them with the edit summary "revert unsourced". There's no rush to keep tallies, and Wikipedia is not a news outlet. It's better to have a slightly older, sourced statement that an unsourced speculative one, especially when it comes to medical content. --RexxS (talk) 01:17, 6 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    Many pages and templates are relying on this BNO News source. The sources it relies on are questionable. Liz Read! Talk! 18:49, 6 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    Liz, I've had partial success in similar situations by adding editorial comments within the article. For best results, put them within the figure. Thus
    93
    becomes
    9<!-- PLEASE do not change this number without updating the reference. BNO is not a reliable source. -->3.
    Adrian J. Hunter(talk•contribs) 04:56, 8 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    You might find the editnotice feature useful for displaying a note/warning for editors. We have done this in WikiProject Motorcycling with some success – it's not perfect, of course. ☆ Bri (talk) 02:06, 14 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    Hi as a matter of urgency we need to populate the wiki medicine related to COVID 19 so it’s the goto page for reliable info.There is so much misinformation . This will save lives . SabziK (talk) 14:47, 18 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    Good article nominations

    1. Trauma-sensitive yoga (talk | history | start review) (Reviews: 243) Chiswick Chap (talk) 21:29, 12 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    2. Bipolar disorder (talk | history | discuss review) TylerDurden8823 (talk) 23:49, 14 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      Review: this article is being reviewed (additional comments are welcome). (Reviews: 11) Ajpolino (talk · contribs) 16:17, 2 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    3. Pancreas (talk | history | discuss review) (Reviews: 8) Tom (LT) (talk) 03:37, 5 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      On hold: this article is awaiting improvements before it is passed or failed. (Reviews: 11) Ajpolino (talk · contribs) 00:13, 20 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    4. Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (talk | history | discuss review) Signimu (talk) 20:18, 7 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      On hold: this article is awaiting improvements before it is passed or failed. (Reviews: 11) Ajpolino (talk · contribs) 04:56, 11 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    5. College health (talk | history | start review) Manlymanstan (talk) 23:30, 18 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    6. Human nose (talk | history | start review) (Reviews: 1) Iztwoz (talk) 18:17, 21 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    7. Substance use disorder (talk | history | start review) Ash.kaush (talk) 01:03, 25 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    8. Strømme syndrome (talk | history | start review) (Reviews: 1) SUM1 (talk) 00:26, 9 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      Note: My first 3 nominations. All 3 are rare diseases with less than 50 patients each, so I've done my best to make them as big and comprehensive as they possibly can be. SUM1 (talk) 04:51, 9 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    9. CDK13-related disorder (talk | history | discuss review) (Reviews: 1) SUM1 (talk) 01:48, 9 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      On hold: this article is awaiting improvements before it is passed or failed. (Reviews: 34) Canada Hky (talk · contribs) 00:11, 3 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    10. Okamoto syndrome (talk | history | start review) (Reviews: 1) SUM1 (talk) 01:48, 9 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    11. Bladder cancer (talk | history | start review) Astroketh (talk) 20:09, 10 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    12. Thymus (talk | history | start review) (Reviews: 8) Tom (LT) (talk) 09:07, 13 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    13. Homeopathy (talk | history | start review) Heptor (talk) 13:26, 25 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    14. Vitamin B12 (talk | history | start review) David notMD (talk) 11:04, 3 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    15. Complete blood count (talk | history | start review) (Reviews: 1) SpicyMilkBoy (talk) 05:30, 25 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    There is a long list of articles in the Wikipedia:Good article nominations process. Some of these have existing reviewers and could use a nudge or a helping hand; others need a reviewer. If you are interested in starting a review but are holding back because you think you'll do it wrong, then please WP:Be bold. Step #1 is well within your ability: just read the article. You don't even need to click the "start review" button until you've done that. Several of us here have done GA reviews before and can walk you through the whole thing. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:52, 7 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    Homeopathy has a few questionable sources, as revealed by WP:UPSD. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 18:33, 11 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    We need another name for that. The "questionable" sources this script highlights in health-related articles aren't WP:QUESTIONABLE sources. "Journals that need individual investigation", maybe? WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:39, 12 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    See the legend and common cleanup and non-problematic cases. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 22:42, 13 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    Just a note to encourage folks to review a GA nomination if you've got the time. Nominators tend to improve these pages in a burst of activity while they have sources handy. When nominations languish for six months in the GA nomination feed before they get reviewed, nominators have often moved on to other projects, are busier in real life, or have left the project altogether. Responding to the review is then more painful and less productive than it would've been had the review been timely. The end result is that we waste more editor time, and get less article improvement. Reviewing a nomination is a bit of a time investment, so make sure you've got the time to undertake a thorough review before you sign-up (but don't worry about the one-week deadline on the GA instructions page, and if things get busy and you can't carry-on the review, just post at WT:GAN and someone can take over for you). Instructions are at Wikipedia:Good article nominations/Instructions. If you have any questions, ask at WT:GAN. Thanks all. Ajpolino (talk) 03:39, 14 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    Featured article removal candidates

    Featured article removal candidates
    Anarky Review now
    Isaac Brock Review now
    0.999... Review now
    Mariah Carey Review now
    Pokémon Channel Review now
    Concerto delle donne Review now
    The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask Review now
    Geography of Ireland Review now

    Two medical Featured articles are candidates for removal, with four more in the pipeline (notification has been given that a Featured article review is needed).

    WPMED has the resources and knowledge to update and maintain these articles but unfortunately that has not been done, even with notifications given on talk.

    FA Dengue fever and others are also in need of updates, but only those that have been formally noticed on talk per the instructions at WP:FAR are listed in the FAR template.

    I see a long listing of GA reviews needed as well; a reminder that GA is a one-person process, not a wider community process as FA is (that is, GA status reflects the impression of one editor only so can never carry the same weight as an FA). It is unfortunate for articles that have been maintained to FA status for at least a decade to lose their bronze star, when these could be saved with a bit of elbow crease and collaborative effort. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:28, 7 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    I think this is about members here not prioritizing FA, in part because the process has become needlessly bureaucratic – and lacks understanding of what concessions need to be made for medical articles. I'm inclined to posit that whereas WPMED may have the knowledge, the resources are severely lacking; and not only on WPMED's side. I have no issues with stripping all medical articles of FA-status. Carl Fredrik talk 20:49, 7 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    The process for retaining a star is no different than we should expect of our medical content anyway-- that is, it should not be ten years outdated, regardless of article status. And featured articles have the benefit of a bit more protection from uninformed edits because of their community review. I am unware of any "lack of understanding of concessions" that need to be made for medical articles, and I suspect if something like that existed, I'd know about it. And finally, there are plenty of resources for maintaining important articles current, albeit focused in other directions. I'm not aware of you ever having worked on articles at the FA level,[1] so it would be helpful if you refrain from discouraging others who might be willing. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:57, 7 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    I deter your ad hominem regarding my contribution SandyGeorgia. It is both false and not to the point.
    What we see may likewise be the article FA status on... acting as a brake on article improvement. While I can’t point to any study, my personal experience is that FAs are often so zealously guarded that editing them is a pain. I’m quite well aware that I am not alone in feeling this, even if others avoid voicing their opinion.
    Being a general editor, having worked in different capacities over thousands of medical articles — it is simply not worth the consternation of working on either an FA, FAC or FAR for the extremely modest reward of being featured on the main page.… Why care about a one-time jump in readership of 200k, when I know my efforts on 10 different articles can be seen by upwards of 10,000,000 readers in a month?
    I would prefer we had fewer FAs in order to avoid them falling into disrepair because people think they can't edit FAs. Carl Fredrik talk 15:46, 20 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    The number of medical FAs and GAs up to 2017 (doi:10.1136/jech-2016-208601).
    A bit late to this thread, but I agree with Sandy. Keeping FAs up to scratch, and promoting new GAs and FAs is a logical high priority for the Med community. Although FA and GA focus quite a bit on style and formatting, the checks on readability, up-to-dateness, and references are very valuable quality assurance procedures. It also serves as a commitment of the community to nurture even well-developed and established pages. The challenge (as always) is having a large enough editor community, but it's an area that many newcomers find themselves drawn to if given opportunity and support. T.Shafee(Evo&Evo)talk 11:09, 13 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    But combining the two in a graph is misleading, because GAs are not community reviewed, and GA status has no meaning beyond one editor's opinion. Considering the very bad shape that the medical FAs are in, I shudder to think of the state of the GAs; most of those that I've checked shouldn't be GAs at all, but I don't engage to have them re-assessed because GA has no meaning beyond one editor, and the time spent to delist them is better spent in generating FA content, IMO.
    Also, although surprisingly no one here noticed it the first time that publication was posted here, the conflict of interest in that publication is shocking, considering that those articles are self-assessed as "Good articles", often by the same group of editors who then published the results. We wouldn't accept that level of conflict of interest in our medical content sources; why do we accept it here? That is a seriously flawed publication, whose author did not seem to understand that GA is not a community-wide assessment and has no useful meaning for this context. Simply put, whatever that publication claims about quality content at WPMED is based on flawed data and quite the opposite is demonstrably true. Measuring quality by self-assessed status (GA or B-class) is misleading, and that those results were published with such a glaring error is surprising.
    Medical FAs in medicine have flatlined since 2015, and the Medicine group has not kept pace with other Project production of FAs; the good news is that by bringing these outdated articles to FAR, they are now receiving attention from the broader community. Please join in to maintain our top content. There was a time when our Featured content was on the main Project page here; how little regard this Project has for producing top content is evidenced in the focus of the project page. A good comparison can be made to Wikipedia:WikiProject Military History, where producing top content is truly a goal, which they achieve quite well. Looking at the focus and processes of that group is instructive.
    FAs are the standard by which other articles should be judged, and a guide for new editors as to what they should aim for; we should be concerned that our top content serve as an adequate model for other articles. As of now, almost none of the medicine project articles do that on any level. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:28, 13 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    Percentage Growth in FA Categories, 2008–2019, Legend:

    Considerably above average, Above average, Average

    Below average , Considerably below average, Disastrous

    Featured Article Category as of Feb 23,
    2008         		Sep 16,
    2008         		Sep 16,
    2010         		Dec 1,
    2011         		Jan 1,
    2015         		Jan 1,
    2020         		Pct chg
    Feb 2008
    to 2011     		Pct chg
    Feb 2008
    to 2020
    Art, architecture and archaeology 65 72 117 128 175 271 97% 317%
    Awards, decorations and vexillology 24 26 28 27 26 24 1.3% 0%
    Biology 130 155 261 326 456 625 151% 381%
    Business, economics and finance 16 19 22 44 73 116 175% 625%
    Chemistry and mineralogy 29 31 34 37 40 46 28% 59%
    Computing 17 17 17 18 16 14 5.9% −18%
    Culture and society 40 48 61 65 77 104B 63% 160%
    Education 30 34 36 38 40 40 27% 33%
    Engineering and technology 35 37 38 40 43 49 14% 40%
    Food and drink 11 11 9 13 17 21B 18% 91%
    Geography and places 148 158 181 185 213 232 25% 57%
    Geology and geophysics 9 12 18 20 23 29 122% 222%
    Health and medicine 31 36 42 43 51 52 39% 68%
    History 146 154 189 201 239 308 38% 111%
    Language and linguistics 17 15 13 13 12 15 −24% −12%
    Law 29 34 41 49 65 72 69% 148%
    Literature and theatre 108 134 161 191 258 316B 77% 193%
    Mathematics 13 14 19 17 18 18 31% 38%
    Media 159 171 221 231 324 424 45% 167%
    Meteorology 61 78 111 126 147 168 107% 175%
    Music 153 182 232 254 331 398 66% 160%
    Philosophy and psychology 12 13 12 12 12 14 0% 17%
    Physics and astronomy 67 82 98 101 127 153 51% 128%
    Politics and government 62 67 98 117 166 217 89% 250%
    Religion, mysticism and mythology 36 44 73 84 105 121 133% 236%
    Royalty, nobility and heraldry 75 90 94 108 124 173 44% 131%
    Sport and recreation 119 162 268 298 365 449 150% 277%
    Transport 47 74 107 128 171 213 172% 353%
    Video gaming 72 96 127 137 180 222 90% 208%
    Warfare 145 173 318 366 537 729 152% 403%
    Total 1,906 2,239 3,046 3,417 4,431 5,695 A 79.3% 198.8%
    • Note A: Total is off by one; not worth looking for the error.
    • Note B Three food biographies moved [2] per discussion at WT:FAC
    • Note: The very odd dates used in earlier years result from pulling old data from the talk page at WP:FAS.

    SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:11, 13 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    I don't want to side-track this conversation or escalate, especially since I agree with the majority of your points. Minor clarifications: I agree that separating GA and FA would have been better for the graph and have now done so for the version on commons; The paper it's adapted from had multiple authors, not just one; I wasn't sure whether you were saying that GA has shocking COI, or the JECH publication, but the JECH paper included a competing interests section and includes a sentence summarising the reviewer number difference between FA and GA reviews; I agree that we'd not accept GA review for medical content sources, though FA review wouldn't either (but FA is clearly the superior process, and actually has some facets that are superior to traditional academic peer review); . T.Shafee(Evo&Evo)talk 03:10, 15 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    I like the new graph; it demonstrates the problem we've had since 2015. At any rate, moving forward to solutions ... I have separated your posts to continue below. Next, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:20, 15 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    MilHist successes

    I agree that FA is a far more valuable process than GA. Though that don'est necessarily mean that GA is valueless as a checking mechanism. It has been pretty common for articles submitted for FA to go through GA first as a screen for obvious issues. However I'd definitely support a focus on FA content (both maintenance of existing and promotion of new). Is anyone able to provide a short summary on how & why Milhist has been so successful in its content quality focus? It might be good to invite a few of them to write a post here summarising learning points that could be applied to medical content. Were there any significant changes around 2009 (other than the changes observed wikipedia-wide) within the MED community focus that lead to the FA plateau? T.Shafee(Evo&Evo)talk 03:10, 15 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    I will next put up some examples of things MilHist does right, and invite some of the MilHist FA people to comment, but separately for now ... there is a problem with ALL medical assessments being done (whether FA, GA, B-class or this alleged external peer review ... and that is that none of them are maintained. A GA pass five years ago on an article that is not maintained transmits potentially dangerous implications about the accuracy of medical info on Wikipedia. Ditto for all classes. Many (not all) MILHIST FAs are somewhat static and don't require ongoing updates and assessments as medical articles do. As a Project, WPMED has lost focus on the importance of maintaining information in the bodies of articles current, as it has shifted focus to leads only. And yes, I can provide for you a history of the changes that occurred at WPMED that led to this decline. Give me half an hour to put all this together. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:26, 15 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    Here are some of the things MILHIST does right (as an explanation of why they dominate top content production at every level on Wikipedia):
    What is most obvious is that they set goals for top content production, and have processes in place to track those goals and help achieve them. While WPMED has removed from its Project pages any pretense of aiming at top content production, replacing it with an almost exclusive external focus. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:47, 15 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    SandyGeorgia, speaking as just one editor, I don't think that anyone at MilHist pays much attention to the targets and I believe that they play little or no role in MilHist's relative success. I think that a working ACR system is a key component of it though, so far as the better quality articles are concerned. So is the contests and awards thing; partly in the way they incentivise newer and/or less prolific editors. This may be part of what I think is a second key component (alongside ACRs) of its success: the way the project welcomes, fosters and encourages newcomers. In my possibly biased opinion MilHist is an area which actually lives up to (mostly) those good old-fashioned Wikipedian values. As I wrote in this month's Signpost "Members of the Military History Project have collegially made the project a comfortable place to work in such a natural, even graceful, way that what they have achieved seems normal." Which brings me to thirdly: there is an esprit de corps.
    I am not in any way attempting to suggest that these do not apply to WikiProject Medicine. This is my first visit here and I would not know. Although I note that hard-nosed external commentators speak well of the project.
    I think that the major difficulty in comparing is that this project deals with information which changes in real time. MilHist deals with things where changes to the established "facts" usually evolve quite slowly, if they evolve at all. Once I have a FAC promoted, it is done. I suspect that this is rather less the case around here. Which will inevitably mean that editor time is taken away from working on new topics to maintaining the currency of the existing articles. I don't think that this is a fault or a flaw or a problem. To a large extent it is an inevitable outcome of the different subject areas.
    Gog the Mild (talk) 18:33, 15 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    Addendum. It was only last October that I gave a little help to Almaty in heaving Digital media use and mental health over the line to FA status. (I realise that this is not tagged as of interest to this project.) So the occasional article in the broad area of health is still being promoted, even if not medicine ones. Gog the Mild (talk) 19:26, 15 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    I echo Gog's comments. To me, our A-Class review process (and its associated awards system) is what really sets us up for high achievement at FA, but it also reinforces the collegial attitude within the project. Our A-Class is close to FA, but there is a focus on the technical content rather than MOS and readability issues, something that would be of obvious benefit for WPMED. One relatively recent innovation of our ACR process is to include an explicit source review, where sources and controversial statements are challenged and discussed. This has resulted in a step change in the quality of our A-Class articles, and if you were going to adopt a ACR process, I would recommend including that. The fact that at least three people with a strong interest in and generally good knowledge of military history have looked over the article before FAC is a major advantage. But Gog is right, to my mind, medical matters are much more subject to changes via the publishing of new research than historical subjects, where change is rarely rapid except with current events. So the effort required in maintaining FAs in the WPMED space is naturally going to be greater than for most Milhist articles. Cheers, Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 00:22, 16 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    Thanks to both of you for weighing in! I think we must also mention that what makes the MILHIST ACR successful is that many editors reviewing there are also accomplished FA writers. The Medicine Project, on the other hand, has not prioritized feedback from those who have experience writing FAs; it has instead opted to go other directions, which at times has meant explicitly ignoring best practice on FAs. Unfortunately, external reviewers don't always understand the ins and outs of writing for an encyclopedia, and even some internal reviewers aren't well versed on FA requirements. MILHIST brings experienced FA reviewers to collaborate on all of its articles. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:31, 16 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    In addition to what Gog and Peacemaker have said, obviously one of the things that work in Milhist's favor is the number of participants in the project. I don't know if anyone is keeping track, but I'd bet a not insignificant sum that we're the largest project, which is probably the single most important factor in how we're able to maintain our A-class system. Like any project, we have a core group that produces most of the higher-quality content, but because of our size, it's a large enough group that it's capable of sustaining the review process if we all help review other articles. In addition to the fact that military history tends to be the most popular historical genre, history in general also a significantly lower barrier of entry compared to other areas of study. I'd wager it took a bit more expertise to write Alzheimer's disease than it does for me to write articles about old warships.
    One idea to help a MED review system get off the ground would be to partner with us (or any other project) to generate outside interest. I know we did that with WP:VG years ago. Parsecboy (talk) 12:21, 16 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    I want to say here there's a societal/professional expectation of historians to write. For them, writing an encyclopedic article is fairly second nature. This is pretty much what they specialize in. The end goal is the promulgation of historical knowledge. For pretty much every other topic, this societal/professional incentive isn't there. As a scientist, the skills required for me conduct research and publish scientific papers is fairly different than the skills required to write an encyclopedic article. While there is some overlap with my background as a science educator, there's still a huge difference between how/what I teach and what is needed for a Wikipedia article. Writing Wikipedia articles is harder. Much harder.

    I also suspect that is true in medicine. The skills you have as a medical practitioner are (presumably) not easily transferable to that of a general encyclopedia writer. You could be the best damned physician in the world, and be just as stumped as anyone else when it comes to writing a general encyclopedic article. And while writing an article is relatively easy, writing one to the standards of an FA is a significant effort. And for many, they're just happy to write 'good enough' articles useful to most medical professional and students alongside scientifically literate people, and not worry about doing having to do a review of reviews and polish everything so everything is understandable to everyone in their extended family. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 00:54, 16 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    What User:Gog the Mild said about history being "done", and science not, resonates with me. I think that the FA process is tuned for content that is fully understood, rather than content that is half-known and changing.
    Two FACs stand out most in my memory. One was Thyrotoxic periodic paralysis in late 2010. It's moderately technical, and none of the reviewers knew anything about the subject matter, so it sailed through in three weeks without any significant difficulty. The other is Acne in early 2017. Everybody showed up with their personal POVs (e.g., is this a 100% medical subject, or does it matter than people with severe acne have trouble getting jobs?) and pet peeves. Everyone was convinced that their POV and pet peeves were the right ones, and nobody's mind was changed. Much of it was more painful than it should have been. We saw a bit of this idea that it's more important to have The Right™ sources (which almost nobody reads) than to write the sentences that precede them. Some of it was absurd, to the point of someone thinking we needed MEDRS-style sources to support a statement that Concealer exists. Our approach to this dispute was mostly 'tis/'tisn't arguing, and not by developing a shared understanding of whether Cosmetics are biomedical products. After more than two months of this kind of stuff, someone sensibly archived the FAC. In neither case do I see the FAC process contributing much in the end. Acne was moderately improved by it (especially if you count changes made after the FAC was closed), but the cost of those improvements to individual editors may have been higher than the benefits. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:04, 17 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    Just to clarify, Thyrotoxic periodic paralysis did not "sail through without any significant difficulty". Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Thyrotoxic periodic paralysis/archive1 had quite a time, and came close to failing on good grounds. Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Tourette syndrome is what "sailing through with no difficulty" looks like, and that was on the heels of MONTHS of medical and non-medical editors reviewing, fine-tuning and pointing out areas that lacked clarity. That is what is needed pre-FAC for medical topics, and it is similar to what happens at MILHIST A-class review.
    I was not participating at FAC when Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Acne vulgaris/archive2 happened, but I would have argued for it to have been withdrawn sooner. Ill-prepared articles cannot be fixed at FAC; withdrawing them sooner helps avoid the unnecessary. FAC is not the place for sorting out the ill-prepared, and WAID is right that the pain in those cases is unnecessary and unhelpful. In all such cases, extended high-level review from WPMED in advance is helpful, but it should be complemented by bringing in non-medical FA writers for review as well, as those people can point out where there is too much jargon or a lack of clarity for non-medical writers. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:25, 17 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    Ok, my FAC experience is now a decade old but the principles are the same. I don't think you should view the FAC nomination process as a place to work on an article till it passes. Preparation is the key and if you are getting significant knock-back at FAC then you've failed. The ketogenic diet article passed without difficulty. I'm not the fastest writer and it took me a long time to gather the necessary sources and finish something comprehensive that I was happy with. I got some early talk page review comments from Graham Colm. Then I put it through GA and was lucky to get Tim Vickers to review. Then I put it up for peer reivew and got Eubulides, Maralia, Awadewit, Graham Colm, Fvasconcellos and Mmagdalene722 to comment and edit. I asked Awadewit to copyedit it for me. She was one of our finest article writers and much in demand, so I had to be patient. Then I asked the lead researcher in the field, Eric Kossoff from Johns Hopkins Hospital, to review it and he gave helpful comments (offline) that I incorporated. Then, only after thousands of words of review and hundreds of edits by a team of editors each talented enough to produce their own FAs, did I nominate it at FAC. So I agree with Sandy, it is months of teamwork that will get a FAC, of editors who wouldn't dream of revert warring with each other, who respect each other and show that by being critical of the text and encouraging of the person.
    The cares more about having citations to the right sources than having the right sentences preceding them comment is so so true but not restricted to FAC at all and quite deeply embedded here today. FA was originally called "Brilliant Prose". Who wants confused, barely literate prose with MEDRS-compliant citations? Not our readers, who can find high quality professionally written medical content elsewhere in 2020. Don't you want to write brilliant prose? If you love a subject, aim to get an FA in it. -- Colin°Talk 17:15, 17 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    WPMED History

    Last year, WhatamIdoing said:

    We used to be focused on writing brilliant articles filled with precisely delimited claims and superb sources. Then we went through an anti-woo phase: almost anything's okay, as long as it hurts the spammers and alt-med proponents ... Now we seem to be talking more about issues of health policy, which is a more approximate subject area with a focus on practicalities, like approximate prices. Which is naturally going to frustrate both of the previous groups, because it's not up to the standards of the first group, and practicalities sometimes don't produce the proper anti-woo signals.

    But the "anti-woo" focus is not the only factor that led to a decline in participation by WPMED at the Featured article level. Other issues can be explored by the other frequent medical FA writers and reviewers (@Colin, Graham Beards, and Jfdwolff:).

    WikiProject Medicine History
    • 2004, WikiProject Clinical Medicine started by Jfdwolff
    • 2005, November, WP MED started by Knowledge Seeker (talk · contribs · logs) [3]
    • 2006, by year-end,[4] WP MED has an active list of members tasks, stub sorting, a portal, a weekly collaboration {{CurrentMCOTW}}, news & announcements {{MCOTWannounce}}, and a very active [5] Featured content and GA page. {{Medicine trophy box}}
    • 2006, Summer, Manual of style (MEDMOS) started and refined by Stevenfruitsmaak (talk · contribs · logs) and Davidruben (talk · contribs · logs)
    • 2006, November, Identifying reliable sources in medicine (MEDRS) started as a proposed guideline [6] by Colin (talk · contribs · logs)
    • 2007, Spring, MEDMOS is accepted as a guideline [7] with efforts by Colin (talk · contribs · logs), SandyGeorgia (talk · contribs · logs), Fvasconcellos (talk · contribs · logs) and copyediting by Tony1 (talk · contribs · logs)
    • 2007, Refinements to MEDRS [8] by Colin (talk · contribs · logs), Nbauman (talk · contribs · logs), SandyGeorgia (talk · contribs · logs), MastCell (talk · contribs · logs), Davidruben (talk · contribs · logs)
    • 2008, Nmg20 (talk · contribs · logs) and Eubulides (talk · contribs · logs) join in [9]
    • 2008, September, WP:MEDRS, promoted to guideline [10]
    • Around 2012, beginning with student editing drives by WMF,[11] a switch to an external focus, away from focus on article improvement on English Wikipedia. A once vibrant community, WPMED has not produced a featured article since 2015, and most of the current FAs are out of compliance with WIAFA, no longer well maintained. Guidelines MEDRS and MEDMOS began to be used as bludgeons to force a certain structure into articles and leads, and to whack alt-med proponents, alienating some of the very people who helped write those guidelines. When these trends started, many FA writers stopped trying to produce top content.
    • By 2018, WPMED's switch to external focus, away from development of English Wikipedia content, was more noticeable: no more collaboration of the week, no article improvement drive or tracking, FA and GA box completely gone, internal content improvement drives replaced by partners, translations, offline apps, and Off-Wiki partners [12] with focus on only the leads of articles, while content in the bodies of articles is extensively neglected.
    • 2020, WPMED focus is noticeably external, leads and articles forced to a certain structure (via misapplication of the very guidelines developed by most prolific FA writers) and maintained at the expense of developing content in the bodies of articles: Medicine#Partners
      In the curent environment, MEDMOS and MEDRS guidelines are applied as if they were policy, and policies (WP:NOT and WP:V on pricing) are ignored as if they were guideline. Since FA writers must uphold policy and guideline correctly, this has led to alienation of FA writers and no more featured content. Almost all of the current medical FAs were written between 2008 and 2015; almost none are currently maintained. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:39, 15 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    Another thing I would add about the "anti-woo" factor. Bringing delusional parasitosis to the best level attainable is a FAR MORE EFFECTIVE way of dealing with the woo factor [13] than endless and unproductive discussion at Talk:Morgellons. The best defense is a good offense. I saw this very clearly a decade ago when talk page brawls were all the norm at MMR vaccine controversy. I ignored the mess on talk and set about to make the article as tightly written and sourced as possible. Expanding that article accomplished much more than arguing on talk with quacks and trolls can. [14] These days, WPMED is more focused on anti-woo battleground than simply producing the best content possible, which generally answers the woo factor. Hint, hint. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:00, 15 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    Different strokes for different blokes, as they say. Both are needed and contribute to improvements. It's good if both styles are in the same person. But there's nothing wrong with focusing on removing woo either. If you want to know why some people are more focused on removing woo than writing articles, it's simply that it's much easier to identify and remove woo. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 00:59, 16 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    True, but ultimately, arguing anti-woo takes more time than writing a quality article. I rewrote delusional parasitosis to updated sources in one day, and in the process, found answers to some of the Woo arguments at Morgellons. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:04, 16 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    Not in my experience. Remove the woo and that takes care of 80%+ of it with a link to WP:RS/WP:FRINGE or similar. If people re-introduce it, ask people to follow WP:RS/WP:MEDRS and to take it to the talk page/WP:RSN/WP:FRINGEN if they disagree. That takes care of another 15%. That leaves a 5% that requires heavier engagement.
    As for how much time it takes, that all depends on how you measure your time, but especially how you measure your return on invested time. I'm entirely fine spending half an hour to purge content cited through Pacific Journal of Energy Medicine or some other nonsense journal. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 01:38, 16 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    In the cases of Morgellons or anti-vaxxers, I measure it in "did I give them the information that might sink in some day and help address their delusion". That is priceless and immeasurable. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:46, 16 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    Although the MILHIST milestone targets might not necessarily translate completely, there are a couple of things from other projects that might be useful: The /Article alerts summary (collapsed below) has been quite useful in WP:MCB and WP:GEN for heeping ppl informed on current items. We had it on the main wikiproject pages but for WP:MED, it might be more logical at the top of the talkpage?

    Extended content

    Did you know

    Articles for deletion

    (13 more...)

    Proposed deletions

    Categories for discussion

    (1 more...)

    Redirects for discussion

    Featured list candidates

    Good article nominees

    (1 more...)

    Good article reassessments

    Peer reviews

    Requested moves

    Articles to be merged

    (15 more...)

    Articles to be split

    (5 more...)

    Articles for creation

    (35 more...)

    I've not seen much info on best ways to attract new users to submit and review FAs, but growing that community may be more effective than trying to refocus existing editors who have their own valuable specialisations (e.g. readability, lead optimisation, partnerships, accessibility, dissemination, translation).

    Again at WP:MCB and WP:GEN, one of the most productive periods was a pair of blitzes on enzyme than gene pages which saw 3-10 editors go through those articles top-to-bottom. The GA/FA framework was useful for front page visibility as well as keeping better track of them as high-quality articles. However it's been difficult to recapture that energy with subsequently floated ideas (e.g. genetic engineering and CRISPR-cas9, but I don't have a good explanation for why.

    Another GA/FA-focused community is WP:WikiProject Tree of Life. They've got a great newsletter organised by Enwebb that includes highlighting these and raising their profile and awareness within that editor community. T.Shafee(Evo&Evo)talk 10:39, 17 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    New medical FAC

    This article appeared at FAC last month. Noting the conversations above about MILHIST collaboration, when this article appeared last month, [[Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Leptospirosis/archive1, it did not appropriately use recent MEDRS sources. It has again appeared at FAC without, as far as I can tell, being vetted by WPMED. This is an example of where better WPMED collaboration might be helpful. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:00, 16 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    Death-grip syndrome

    I've had a look at the death-grip syndrome article, and I'm quite concerned at the state of the it. For an article about a "syndrome", there is a remarkable lack of WP:MEDRS; at least one of the cites does not appear to support the statement it is attached to, there are a bunch of hard-to-check cites from books, and in general the whole article has a feeling of WP:SYNTHESIS. I think at the very least, it needs a thorough inspection by medically knowledgable editors, if not a rewrite. -- The Anome (talk) 23:13, 8 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    yes agree, it needs a rewrite--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 00:34, 11 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    Students

    I recently blanked and redirected Medical use of MDMA and now I see it's part of a student effort on various, mostly medical, topics.[15] I see Cannabidiol as a treatment for anxiety has recently appeared as a result of this too. I'm not sure how this is meant to work but aren't student editors made aware of WP:MEDRS when then embark on medical topics? Anyway, more eyes probably needed ... Alexbrn (talk) 15:23, 11 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    The list of articles edited is here. I've just tagged one as a copyvio... SpicyMilkBoy (talk) 15:44, 11 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    Please add list of problems to the thread I started at WP:ENB, Wikipedia:Education noticeboard#Another writing course editing medical topics SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:58, 11 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    Some of the same instructors' earlier courses may need to be checked and referred to WP:ENB if there are problems:

    SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:22, 11 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    Barren ongoing merger discussion of Late onset congenital adrenal hyperplasia

    Posting this here because it's been a month with no third-party replies on a merger discussion of Late onset congenital adrenal hyperplasia to Congenital adrenal hyperplasia.

    Link

    · • SUM1 • · (talk) 18:24, 11 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    Pandemic prep

    Given the unfortunate but real possibility that some of our medical editors might be getting very busy dealing with the coronavirus in real life, does anyone want to suggest regular wiki tasks that they're currently doing, but might need others to take over if crisis hits? Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 19:22, 11 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    Draft review request: Tropical ataxic neuropathy

    I've created a draft article at Draft:Tropical ataxic neuropathy. The sources cited are not brilliant, though I may well have missed some good sources. There's a BMJ review — from 1968. There's some 21st-century reviews; while Pubmed categorizes them as reviews, and they do review past work extensively, they also present their own new data. And finally, different studies contradict one another. There just does not seem to be much known about TAN(s), whatever it is (or they are). Who said that science was the practice of carefully documenting your ignorance?

    This is clearly a topic that should be covered in Wikipedia, but I have refrained from mainspacing it, and I'd be reassured by reviews. I would also be very happy if people more knowledgeable than me would make any improvements they think good. HLHJ (talk) 00:02, 12 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    per its synonym...Pryse-Phillips, William (2009). Companion to Clinical Neurology. Oxford University Press. p. 966. ISBN 978-0-19-971004-1. Retrieved 12 March 2020.--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 00:12, 12 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    AA

    Alcoholics Anonymous is in the news[16][17] because Cochrane decided there is evidence that it helps (some) people (with alcohol but not drug problems). I'd expect to see some editing at those articles.

    Also, it's been declared cost-effective because it's "free", but it is only free if you ignore the enormous amount of volunteer labor involved. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:26, 12 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    thank you for posting WAID--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 23:44, 12 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    AA is free to the prospective participant, which I think is the point. From a labor economics perspective perhaps it's not "free", but I'm not sure that's relevant in this context. (I might be missing something, so please educate me if I am!)   - Mark D Worthen PsyD (talk) (I'm a man—traditional male pronouns are fine.) 23:54, 12 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    I think the only context they care about in this case is that the healthcare system (or justice system) doesn't get a bill for the service. The costs I know about include participants' time (e.g., lost work hours), local leaders' time, the individual mentors' time, obtaining a space for meetings, and the work of the central organizations (e.g., to train leaders).
    This matters if you're trying to set up an organization (that "free" service may cost you a fortune), and it may cause over-prescription (because the judge can order you to AA without worrying about the budget, but ordering people into medical therapy is going to result in people whining about the budget at the next meeting).
    The medical literature produces this result all the time. The only cost of a surgery is the bill, not the days of pain and debility; breastfeeding is free, because the mother's time is worthless and we forgot about the 500 extra calories' food she needs to eat each day; the cost of incontinence doesn't include the enormous pile of unrecycleable materials in the garbage bin. The problem isn't us. We know what can happen when you put millions of hours of volunteer labor into something. The problem is the bias in most of our sources. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:38, 13 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    Ah, I understand now. I agree.   - Mark D Worthen PsyD (talk) (I'm a man—traditional male pronouns are fine.) 15:19, 15 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    Michael Persinger

    This article is... well, read it for yourself.

    But I've yet to see an article so-deeply based on primary sources of a complete quack/nutjob/predatory nature. There's at least 4 predatory journals, plus classics like NeuroQuantology, Entropy (journal), and Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research. There's certainly some WP:ABOUTSELF stuff, but the extent of it is mind-bogling, with very little balance to make it clear those ideas are completely without support in the scientific community. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 19:20, 12 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    By the way, I wrote Wikipedia:Based upon a little while ago. Every now and again, someone finds the phrase confusing, and I thought I'd have a go at explaining it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:40, 13 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    Written mostly by one editor: [18] SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:47, 13 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    God helmet is also related. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 22:35, 13 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    Let's get social distancing up to speed

    Social distancing has received an explosion of views recently (check out this hockey stick curve), and I expect it will receive even more now that it is wikilinked from the intros to COVID-19 and 2019-20 coronavirus pandemic. It's still a C-class article, though, and there's a lot of low-hanging fruit in terms of areas for improvement. Please come help get it to a higher level of quality! Sdkb (talk) 05:44, 13 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    yes needs some work, thanks for post--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 22:13, 14 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    Comments would be welcome re the last section on the talk page. Adrian J. Hunter(talk•contribs) 23:18, 15 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    Requested article: 1812–19 Ottoman plague epidemic

    In 1812 there seems to have been a significant plague outbreak in the Ottoman Empire, which seems to have begun in Constantinople and traveled to other parts of the empire including Egypt, and later also spread outside of the empire's borders.

    It seems to have had a massive impact, but it is barely covered on Wikipedia. There's an article about Caragea's plague which hit Wallachia (then an Ottoman vassal) in 1813–14, and I am currently in the process of writing an article on the 1813–14 Malta plague epidemic. Both seem to have derived from the 1812 Constantinople outbreak (it arrived in Malta via Egypt).

    I think it would be useful if there would be an article covering the entire outbreak - would any members of this WikiProject be willing to help out? A source about the outbreak in Odessa can be found here.

    I am also making this request on other WikiProjects including WP History, WP Turkey and WP Egypt.

    Xwejnusgozo (talk) 15:24, 14 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    Wikipedia:Be bold--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 16:04, 15 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    @Ozzie10aaaa: I went ahead and created the article 1812–19 Ottoman plague epidemic. I couldn't find many sources so it is still a stub and further expansion is definitely needed. Any help would be very welcome! --Xwejnusgozo (talk) 18:55, 15 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    Given the amount of deaths (I found a source which mentioned a death toll of 320,955 but I'm not sure if that's for Constantinople only or the whole empire), would it be classified as an epidemic or as a pandemic? Xwejnusgozo (talk) 19:03, 15 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    answered at article/talk--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 20:13, 15 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    COVID-19, any data on baseline medication?

    There is a number of commonly used medications that might in theory affect infection risk or the risk of severe disease.. I tried to find data regarding baseline medication (unrelated to COVID-19 treatment efforts) but could not find anything. Did anyone have more luck? Richiez (talk) 20:16, 14 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    2019-20 coronavirus pandemic and Coronavirus disease 2019 might want to look there--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 22:10, 14 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    Emerging infectious disease

    Are Emerging infectious diseases, "high consequence infectious diseases" and "high consequence infectious pathogens" synonymous? Thinking of link to "high consequence infectious diseases". Whispyhistory (talk) 08:44, 15 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    From my point of view (no formal medical training but years of experience in emergency management) they're not synonyms. An outbreak of bubonic plague or smallpox wouldn't be "emerging", but would certainly be "high consequence", while e.g. a new strain of herpes would undoubtedly be emerging, but if it wasn't fatal or debilitating wouldn't be high consequence. ‑ Iridescent 11:58, 15 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    Thank you, makes sense @Iridescent:. Are emerging and re-emerging diseases talked about together? Smallpox is on the emerging infectious diseases page. If different, should we create High consequence infectious diseases? Whispyhistory (talk) 12:21, 15 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    Wait and see what people with specific experience in epidemiology have to say, as there may be formal definitions of 'emerging' and 'consequence' here of which I'm not aware. ‑ Iridescent 20:18, 15 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    A suggestion: would it be possible to have a Corona-related WP:MED article as WP:TFA very soon? A possible candidate is Virus (found in this list). It was TFA in 2009. Of course, having such a TFA would make extreme relevance. Hurdles to take: 1. Argue for a second TFA listing of this article (which is not prohibited a priory anyway); talk here. 2. Propose to jump que into March 2020, or at least April. 3. Check & improve for possible quality degrading. -DePiep (talk) 14:32, 15 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    First, the place to make that request is not the link above, rather
    Second, TFAs are re-run regularly now, but they are also scheduled out a month in advance, so you would be asking for a change in an already scheduled TFA. See Wikipedia:Today's featured article/March 2020.
    But third, and most importantly, before advancing this proposal, it would be wise to consult Graham Beards who is our virus expert and was additionally a WP:FAC delegate. He could state which virus article is in best shape.
    SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:48, 15 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    My personal opinion is that if Graham Beards says one of the virus articles is in good shape, TFA should run it. I have long argued that, when they went to scheduling so far in advance, TFA lost the ability to feature relevant topics on the main page. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:49, 15 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    Virus, rotavirus, influenza. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:53, 15 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    Thanx. Yes, these are the questions/answers I listed. Including the notion that IMO there is a strong argument to jump que into March, moving an other scheduled TFA. Exceptionally, of course, it would show good acting by our Wikipedia community. -DePiep (talk) 15:01, 15 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    Additional argument: I have been gathering data on March 2020 TFAs, and apparently our readers appreciate medical topics. But, since TFA already ran a medical topic in March, it might be early to request another one. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:03, 15 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    Mainpage pageviews
    (TFA plus three days)     		Article Mainpage dates
    55,704 König-class battleship March 1 to 4
    68,846 Palmyra March 2 to 5
    90,959 Tourette syndrome March 3 to 6
    57,555 A Wizard of Earthsea March 4 to 7
    45,201 J. R. Kealoha March 5 to 8
    47,322 Water pipit March 6 to 9
    32,072 Interstate 675 (Michigan) March 7 to 10
    38,504 Inter-Allied Women's Conference March 8 to 11
    47,543 Hurricane Hattie March 9 to 12
    144,729 Bombing of Tokyo (10 March 1945) March 10 to 13
    64,029 Coffin Stone March 11 to 14
    Sure it would be a second MED article in short time. To this, I can say: why not WP:IAR, or better: just relax this one rule? It would show wiki knows what is relevant.
    BTW, this is the pageview for Virus, 14k/day last 2 months. Hard to imagine that readers would get "bored" with this second MED TFA. -DePiep (talk) 18:15, 15 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    Summary

    Thanx to all for your contributions. I note:

    1. Virus, rotavirus, influenza are FA and candidate for TFA (in this sense).
    2. Yes, there is no cut and clear descisive point to make this TFA.
    3. Also, there a not killer — so far.

    So my suggestion might be worth proposing it appropriately. -DePiep (talk) 22:54, 15 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    Asking Graham Beards: could you give an assessment re article viability for this, as SandyGeorgia proposed? -DePiep (talk) 23:13, 15 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    At this time of renewed interest I suggest Introduction to viruses (FA) might be more suitable. I have updated the references since it was TFA in 2012. There is also Social history of viruses (FA), which includes a section on the SARS coronavirus, which could be expanded to include recent events. Graham Beards (talk) 23:25, 15 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    I could get behind both of Graham Beards' suggestions (Introduction to viruses or Social history of viruses), but think we should hear from the @TFA coordinators: as to whether they would be willing to entertain the proposal to juggle out another March TFA, before bringing this forward as a formal proposal at WT:TFA. I have long hoped that, for circumstances such as these, we would be more flexible with TFA scheduling. I would hope we could schedule one of these in March, and another in April. (Perhaps, first the Introduction article, with Social history scheduled in April, to allow time to add COVID.) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:33, 15 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    Thanks. I will keep you informed & pinged. -DePiep (talk) 23:36, 15 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    I don't see it as a big issue. March is @Wehwalt:'s responsiblity, but I think his laptop died and he's having some issues getting a lot of time. If he doesn't reply by tomorrow, I'll try to reschedule something. (I've been a bit busy with a hubby who broke his wrist at work on Friday - which entailed me having to drive 12 hours to pick him up ... it was a case of me being up 24 hours before getting home. I'm still recovering!) --Ealdgyth (talk) 23:50, 15 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    I'm back. My view of it is that DePiep, as Sandy suggested, should start a discussion at WT:TFA and allow for community discussion. It may SNOW, or it may not, in either case, the virus will still be here, and I think some TFA participants might be ticked off if I acted based on a discussion they would have no way of knowing was going on. And I would suggest some updating where possible to cover current events, otherwise what's the point? It's got to be worth doing for me to upset the calendar so late.--Wehwalt (talk) 00:02, 16 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    Graham, is there anything the rest of us can be doing to help on the virus suite? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:44, 15 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    Sandy, I can't think of anything specific but they might benefit from general scrutiny such as for WP:MOS compliance for example. Graham Beards (talk) 00:44, 16 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    Graham, if something is scheduled, I will do my MOS-y thing. For now, I want to turn my attention back to dementia with Lewy bodies, to update my two-year-old citations to four new reviews. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:51, 16 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    re Wehwalt: yes, going to talk:TFA is was my point. I was just testing the waters here (which delivered better articles per Graham Beards). It's just: I did not want to open an uninformed, DOA talk over there. -DePiep (talk) 00:20, 16 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    It is time to initiate that discussion. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:51, 16 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    WT:TFA discussion

    See discussion at Wikipedia talk:Today's featured article#Proposal to re-run virus-related TFAs during Coronavirus pandemic SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:31, 16 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    Last call

    To look over Introduction to viruses, to be proposed for WP:TFA. Graham Beards has updated to include mention of coronavirus. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 06:28, 20 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    Discussion here

    Discussion on going regarding giving the pandemic more prominence on the main page. In my opinion a good idea. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 15:04, 15 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    commented (concur per 3.5 million views this is not going away, will be noteworthy for some time)--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 16:00, 15 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    WikiProject COVID-19

    I've created WikiProject COVID-19 as a temporary or permanent WikiProject and invite editors to use this space for discussing ways to improve coverage of the ongoing 2019–20 coronavirus pandemic. Please bring your ideas to the project/talk page. Stay safe, ---Another Believer (Talk) 16:44, 15 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    a Task Force might have been better... (however its for a good cause)--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 18:25, 15 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    An informal task force would be better indeed. Just don't create a WikiProject banner. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 18:30, 15 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    And.... {{WikiProject COVID-19}} has been created. Sigh. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 20:04, 15 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    This is WP:Recentism. It's incredible how there are hundreds of articles about the ongoing pandemic, while List of epidemics mentions epidemics which literally killed millions but which do not even have a single article on Wikipedia (and who knows how many epidemics are not even mentioned in this list!). Coverage of these would improve drastically if only a fraction of the effort being made in writing articles about COVID-19 is put into articles about historic epidemics. Xwejnusgozo (talk) 22:33, 15 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    OTOH, when I preliminary proposed something today, I was attacked for canvassing (by an admin no less) [19]. At the end of this day: I am with User:Another Believer for being bold. -DePiep (talk) 00:11, 16 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    Thanks. The project already has 30 participants, which clearly shows an interest and demand. Sorry didn't go your way, Ozzie10aaaa (I joined), Headbomb, and Xwejnusgozo. ---Another Believer (Talk) 00:14, 16 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    Quick note: If you're interested in this subject, then you might want to look at the country-by-country articles. Readers want information about their own area, especially at the very start of an outbreak (when fewer other sources are available). WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:50, 16 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    Touro College physical therapy program editing 2020

    Hello, I am writing to invite anyone to review edits from Touro College's physical therapy program. Here is the list of their edits in the meta:Programs and Events Dashboard.

    The ongoing log of their events is at WP:Touro. This school has been a great sport for Wikipedia editing now in their 4th year. Also, they are doing physical therapy content, which otherwise is an unrepresented perspective in Wikipedia's medical articles. I just did a workshop with them today, virtually of course because of COVID-19. Thanks. Blue Rasberry (talk) 18:43, 15 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    Thank you for sharing this! Your past iterations of this course have been really well done. JenOttawa (talk) 12:49, 16 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    WP Medicine praised

    Nice to see some public acknowledgement of this WikiProject's great work on Wired. Thanks for your vigilance! Liz Read! Talk! 20:51, 15 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    very nice--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 20:05, 16 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    I was just catching up on my news feed outside of editing and I just want to say a big thank you to everyone at WikiProject Medicine for all the hard work you all do both here at Wikipedia and in RL! I honestly didn't realize the extent of what this WikiProject did for the articles it supports until I read the Wired article and I'm very appreciative of this WikiProject especially during these trying times. If there is ever anything I can do or something I need to know to improve upon to support your project while working in other areas like WP:NPR just let me know. Alucard 16❯❯❯ chat? 07:40, 20 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    New COVID-19 article proposal

    Please see Wikipedia:Village_pump_(miscellaneous)#Medical_(best)_practices_of_countries_during_the_COVID-19_outbreak. 2607:FEA8:1DDF:FEE1:5DD6:AF90:39E8:BC8E (talk) 22:18, 15 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    thank you for post--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 22:24, 15 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    Important disease naming discussion

    Is it OR to state that novel Coronavirus can be transmitted by common communion cup?

    commented--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 22:16, 19 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    Discussion on getting the 2019-20 coronavirus pandemic talk page under control

     You are invited to join the discussion at Talk:2019–20_coronavirus_pandemic#How_can_we_get_this_talk_page_under_control?. Sdkb (talk) 04:47, 17 March 2020 (UTC)Template:Z48[reply]

    commented--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 17:37, 17 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    Need help in promoting the Leptospirosis article to FA status

    This article is in the process of being nominated for FA. However, there are many of Style (MOS)] issues that need to be rectified. Any help is very much appreciated. Thank you! Cerevisae (talk) 12:41, 17 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    Cerevisae talk page messages go at the bottom of the page. Also, the article is not in the process of being nominated; it has been nominated at Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Leptospirosis/archive2. As I suggested at this second FAC, the best time to involve WPMED is before a FAC nomination. Attempting to fix an ill-prepared nom during a FAC is an uphill battle, and asking for help during a FAC could also be construed as canvassing for support. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:30, 17 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    Leo Galland notable?

    This seems to be some quack HuffPo writer which boats to have been recognized as one of "America's Top Doctors" (a listing by Castle Connolly [20]). Extra eyes are needed there, I think. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 21:39, 18 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    Red light therapy

    I noticed Red light therapy because it appeared in the robot report for new physics-related articles. It looks like it could use better sourcing, at the very least. XOR'easter (talk) 20:54, 19 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    Angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 & Talk:Angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 require review

    Thanks, folk. I don't have too much time to do so and it's somewhat beyond my knowledge. --Reciprocater (talk) 13:23, 20 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    Many new editors in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic

    While it certainly isn't positive for anyone, the coronavirus pandemic has brought in many quite active new editors. I have created the following text for use on new editors pages. Feel free to use it!

    {{COVID invite}}

    Carl Fredrik talk 15:24, 20 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Medicine&oldid=946502564"