Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Medicine/Archive 58

Since Wikiversity Journal of Medicine is not yet acceptable as a reference itself, its main function is now to be an entry point for texts and images that qualify for inclusion in Wikipedia in their own right. I think that qualification is best discussed even before publication in this journal, and therefore I will now make entries on Wikipedia talk:Wikiversity for new submissions to the journal, starting with the most recently peer reviewed submission, Table of pediatric medical conditions and findings named after foods. Please join its discussion at: Wikipedia talk:Wikiversity#Include "Conditions and findings named after foods"?. Mikael Häggström (talk) 05:50, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

Sounds like WP:TRIVIA. These lists are kept in social media domains but it doesn't sound encyclopedia. JFW | T@lk 12:58, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

it probably is--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 14:22, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

Thanks JFW and Ozzie10aaaa for your comments. To the best of our knowledge we are not aware of such lists existing in the social media domains (unless they have originated from the published literature or they are spontaneous lists - of debatable quality - that have not been peer reviewed). In addition to the several references that we cite in our article, here are more examples of such lists in the published literature.^{[1] [2]}

Also, WP:TRIVIA that you refer to states, "Trivia sections should be avoided. If they must exist, they should in most cases be considered temporary, until a better method of presentation can be determined." Our list is not temporary and has been presented in a way accepted for scholarly material as highlighted by our references. Our list falls under Medical eponyms (eponym - named after a person, place or thing) making it undoubtedly encyclopedic material. LK and GM. Part (talk) 04:27, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

The WP:MED page has some welcome templates for new editors. Some of these give out of date information, and in any case, I see no reason to have so many with so little variation. I am removing these from the project page and marking them as deprecated.

• Template:WPMED-welcome
• Template:MedInvitation
• Template:MedGreeting

I put these in Category:WikiProject Medicine archives. Blue Rasberry (talk) 14:53, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

Bluerasberry I still use those fairly often. Why couldn't they simply be updated? JFW | T@lk 23:59, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

Jfdwolff They could be updated. I had no way of knowing if they are being used, but since I thought the two big ones were giving outdated information, I thought they were not being used. The short one I imagined that no one would use because of the trend of longer welcomes to new users.

Should I update both of the big ones? Do you use the small one too? Blue Rasberry (talk) 00:06, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

I also use the second one in that list (it's an easy way to provide links to WT:MED), and I can't imagine how the very small amount of information in it could be "out of date". I normally use David Ruben's {{MedWelcome}} instead of the first one in your list, though. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:57, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

WhatamIdoing I deleted the second one thinking that no one would use it because it was short, only gave two links, and one of the links is to the portal. I assumed that no one here promoted the portal. Here are the changes to the portal since 2006 - I think it would not be entirely wrong of me to say that no one has developed the portal in the past 9 years, and because I felt the portal was neglected, half the pitch in that welcome, and not promoted in other templates, I thought that this template was outdated. You might have another perspective but I hope you can see a bit of mine also. I will post the second template back to the WP:MED front page so that new users can find it, and not pursue further changes with it unless someone else wishes to discuss it. Blue Rasberry (talk) 15:19, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

I don't really care if it's listed on the page, so long as it doesn't have a "historical" tag on the top of the template. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:28, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

I would like to propose the creation of a bot to first replace the {{cite PMID}} template with {{cite journal}} template on all medical articles. And than to regularly run on medical articles to make the change when new ones are added. We previously replaced these on our top 1500 most viewed articles per consensus here. User:Boghog previous developed the bot. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Doc James (talk • contribs) 18:39, January 15, 2015

Can someone please review this edit that I've been slow edit warring over. Thanks SmartSE (talk) 21:23, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for the heads up. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 00:37, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

It has been proposed to add a line for: causes, affected regions, treatments, further developments and prevention to the infobox disease. Have started discussion here Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 01:13, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

A proposal to rename the above navboxes has been made here. Your input is welcome. Boghog (talk) 11:05, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

Appears like they need to be moved back. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 22:38, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

..seems to show a discrepancy between the WHO 3,000 fatality count and the objective numbers it offers--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 20:46, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

We typically ignore the popular press. The telegraph is not known for its reliability. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 22:42, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

your correct about the press, however this isn't the first time Sierra Leone fatality count has been questioned--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 22:51, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

Yes and when a review article questions it, we will include it. The telegraph is such a bad source. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 00:33, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

very well--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 01:00, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

Looking more closely. WHO says 3062 deaths in SL. Telegraph says "Sierra Leone is now the worst-infected of all the West African nations hit by the Ebola epidemic, with 3,062 of the 8,429 deaths across west Africa so far" What is the issue exactly? Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 01:10, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

if you look towards the start of the article,"exactly how many of the 4,400 corpses laid to rest here since August are victims of Ebola is impossible to say,"..again your right about the source, but come now with more than 10,000 cases (per WHO) the CFR is clearly off. Having said that a review article is in order--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 01:21, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

Which "case fatality rate"? It is between 25% and 90% and 35% is in that range. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 01:36, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

so,,, Guinea is 2,817/1,821 is 65% CFR, Liberia is 8,362/3,556 is 43% CFR, SL is 10,150/3,067 is 30% CFR and these are the three most infected (the numbers are per Ebola_virus_epidemic_in_West_Africa now that deviation must have a reason--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 01:50, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

..CFR reference (one of many used for Ebola_virus_epidemic_in_West_Africa & [[ ,,a little more reputable--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 02:03, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

Some of you doubtless helped this young man in his quest: http://blog.wikimedia.org/2015/01/16/high-school-student-cancer-test/ WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:45, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

I'm currently looking at our article on noopept, and it brings me back to a problem I've perceived several times before. There are a substantial number of Russian "patent medicines" that were invented in Russia and are backed only by Russian literature that makes dubious claims for their efficacy. For many of them there are good reasons why they're unlikely to work as advertised -- some for example are homeopathic. Of course there is some Russian literature that is perfectly fine, but it's clear that there is also a boatload of Russian literature that is extremely dubious. It's hard to find any systematic way of distinguishing the good from the bad, though. Basically I'm wondering whether there is any policy-compliant way of getting these facts across in an article. Has there ever, for example, been a high-quality review of the quality of the Russian pharmacology literature? (It's not just Russia, by the way -- Ukraine and other former-Soviet nations also.) Looie496 (talk) 14:43, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

From :

• "One of the best illustrations of this phenomenon is the total absence of negative results in Soviet science. In 2002 the first author of this paper, in his role as editor of a medical journal, announced a prize of a free subscription to anybody who could provide an example of a medical dissertation with negative results. In two years no single example was offered."
• "Articles published in Russian medical journals can provide a distorted picture, as they cannot claim to lack outside influence. Up to 50% of articles in major Russian journals are connected to advertisements published in the same issue"
• "Medical journals are far behind the international practice in promoting editorial independence, adopting peer-review processes and other standards of modern scientific publishing."

--Sunrise (talk) 21:41, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

It depends. If the statement is that of the Russian government and we are commenting about the position of the Russian government than sure. But otherwise care should be taken if nothing exists in English. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 22:41, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

How would you suggest handling something like the noopept article, where dubious statements are made solely on the authority of Russian literature? The problem can partly be solved by dumping primary sources, but some of the sources are secondary. It seems to me that it would be helpful to come up with some sort of generic statement indicating that drugs supported solely by Russian literature should be viewed skeptically, or something like that. (To clarify, I'm specifically not talking about Russian government publications. I'm talking about Russian medical journals. I have never even looked at a Russian government publication.) Looie496 (talk) 03:00, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

Trim the primary sources first and see if anything is left. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 08:57, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

Saquinavir and ritonavir are historically important drugs, as their back-to-back approvals marked the beginning of the age of HAART and was immediately followed by a plummet in the U.S. AIDS death rate by roughly 2/3s. Prior to these approvals deaths were running at 50K per year and increasing at an annual rate of about 5,000 per year.

With the advent of better protease inhibitors, and of non-nucleoside pol inhibitors with an increased barrier to resistance development, the use of each of these protease inhibitors as antivirals has fallen to near zero. Ritonavir is still used as a pharmacokinetic booster at doses of 25% or less those formerly used for HIV treatment, and saquinavir utilization appears to be essentially zero, irrespective of whether one is referring to developed or developing countries. In spite of this our articles on these two drugs look much as they would if they had been written in 1998, when these drugs were mainstays of HIV therapy.

I propose to rewrite these two articles as follows:

• Ritonavir: emphasizing the use as a PK booster and its historical importance as an HIV drug. The AE section will be rewritten to emphasize those AEs seen at the PK boosting dose of 150 mg, which is that experienced by 95% or more of current users.
• Saquinavir, in my opinion, is no longer primarily a drug article but a historical one. Twenty years ago this drug was associated with the conversion of HIV from a certain death sentence to a chronically managed disease. Under MEDMOS, this episode is not discussed until the 8th paragraph of the article, instead giving priority to its medical use today by a few thousand people worldwide. This seems very strange to me. I propose to change it, emphasizing the historical aspect, and dropping the MEDMOS organizational scheme.

Feedback in advance of these proposed edits would be appreciated. Formerly 98 (talk) 21:26, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

Both are on the current WHO_Model_List_of_Essential_Medicines so while they may be of historical importance in the United States it does not appear that they are in the developing world.

The ref you link to states "Lopinavir boosted with low-dose ritonavir (LPV/r) was the predominant protease inhibitor, received by 95% of adults." Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 00:30, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

Being "on the list" doesn't mean that they're used much. I would expect it to be very difficult to get an HIV drug removed from that list. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:06, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

Were in the paper Formerly does it say their use has fallen to near zero? Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 01:12, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

So is your position that if even 1 person somewhere is still using this drug, that MEDMOS dominates its historical importance as the birth of the HAART paradigm that is now the basis of ALL HIV treatment? God help us if we had an equally adamant History Project with its own style guide. ;-) Formerly 98 (talk) 01:49, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

No that is not my position. I am not seeing that these medications are rarely if ever used "yet". I may simple have not looked hard enough. Which part of that paper says use have fallen to near zero? All I am asking is for a quote of the passage so that we can at least be working from the same text. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 02:34, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

Yup, we are on the same page on ritonavir as being used mainly as a PK booster. But the ref shows most developing world pts who use a PI being on lopinavir, which is a superior drug and also generic. So aside from the fsct that saquinavir is not mentioned individually in the article, it also is inferior to other generic PIs, so hard to imagine getting much use. I'd say its historical significance greatly outweighs its current medical significance. Is there an established procedure for removing drugs from the WHO list? Hasit ever been done? Formerly 98 (talk) 01:28, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

Not sure if meds have been removed. Interesting question though. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 02:34, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

This 2013 paper says "Our results support WHO guidelines6 for selection of second-line antiretroviral therapy using ritonavir-boosted lopinavir plus two or three NtRTIs. The results also support an alternative strategy of switching to an NtRTI-free regimen of ritonavir-boosted lopinavir plus raltegravir." Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 02:40, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

Let me look for some more papers on this. The "ritonavir boosting" refers to the use of ritonavir as a CYP3A4 inhibitor. It extends the half life of a lot of other drugs this way and is used in a lot of HIV regimens for this purpose. It is also part of Abbott's HCV regimen for this same reason. Formerly 98 (talk) 14:58, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

This ref from 2009 says "Ritonavir-boosted saquinavir is a frequently used and widely available protease inhibitor (PI) for the initial and salvage treatment of HIV disease." Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 01:12, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

If you want to know whether something is used, then you want sales data, not guidelines. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:42, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

In my experience, some academicians don't really have a clue of what drug markets look like and throw phrases like "widely used" around pretty promiscuously, as drug markets are outside their interest and expertise. Have I misunderstood the paper that I cited above? Based on actual survey data and not just as an unsupported statement in a paper introduction, it states

"the vast majority of adults (98%)were receiving first-line regimens and 2% of patients were receiving second-line regimens. A vast majority (99%) of people on first-line ART, and 87% of those on second-line ART, were receiving regimens recommended by the WHO."

So we have 98% treated with first line regimens, which according to the WHO recommendations include only triple nucleoside combinations and combinations of two nucleosides plus a NNRTI. Protease inhibitor based combos are not recommended 1st line. Ritonavir-boosted saquinavir is one of several recommended second line agents taken by the other 2%, but Figure 1 shows that only 11% of this 2% (0.2%) are taking non-lopinavir based regimens. Table 2 shows 2008 saquinavir utilization at 0.00 million person-years, or <5,000 out of a total of 10.3 million person years of antivirals. Assuming triplet therapy this is 3 million people, so we can estimate saquinavir is used by <0.2%. Formerly 98 (talk) 08:43, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

Yes number for SQV are low (less than 20,000 individuals). Numbers for RTV are 160,000 to 480,000 individuals if I am reading the table correctly. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 08:55, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

So are you OK with the following?

• Reorganizing the the saquinavir article, expanding the history section and moving it up?
• Possibly doing the same with indanavir, which according to the same paper appears to be even less used than saquinavir. Indanavir was the PI with which the persistent effiacy of HAART was first demonstrated, but it reached the market later than saquinavir and ritonavir.
• Expanding and emphasizing the AE profile of ritonavir at the lower dose (150 mg) used for pharmacokinectic boosting and reducing discussion of the AE profile at the 600 mg dose formerly used when ritonavir was used as a protease inhbitor in its own right. In addition to the up to 480,000 using ritonavir as a pharmacokinetic booster in HIV regimens you noted above, there will be large numbers taking the 150 mg dose as part of Abbvie's HCV regimen in coming years. So the utilization of the 150 mg dose may be 100x as common as the 600 mg dose at this point.

Formerly 98 (talk) 14:47, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

This is not a medicine issue but it is in the field of genetic analysis, which many of us deal with. I'm in a sourcing dispute about population genetics or maybe better, Genetic genealogy with another editor and have opened a thread at RSN here: Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard#Secondary_vs_primary_sources_for_population_genetics_in_Mexicans_of_European_descent. Please comment. Thanks! Jytdog (talk) 16:31, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

Dear medical experts: Here's another health-related AfC submission which will soon be deleted as a stale draft. Is this worth improving instead? —Anne Delong (talk) 04:33, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

we already have an article on it - see Mesoamerican nephropathy. Jytdog (talk) 04:36, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

...and I see that there is already a redirect with a similar title, too. The draft has been deleted. Thanks, Jytdog. —Anne Delong (talk) 04:43, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

Dear medical experts: This draft was never submitted to be added to the encyclopedia. A lot of work has been put into it, but to me it doesn't seem much like an encyclopedia article. Is this something that should be kept instead of being deleted shortly as a stale draft? —Anne Delong (talk) 01:47, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

Does not look useful. Tones of primary sources. Unclear what the article is actually about (bipolar versus ADHD). Someone handing in their school work on Wikipedia by the looks of it. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 02:20, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

Okay, Doc James, it's gone. Thanks for taking time to look at it. —Anne Delong (talk) 15:43, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

Special:Contributions/75.82.147.215 did some funny edits, verging on outing and WP:BLP violations. He/she may have a point that Wilson and Carnes have a WP:COI in respect to those articles, and it is not so much that I disagree with the ideas of this editor, but I find his/her way of doing it troublesome. Tgeorgescu (talk) 20:20, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

Could some editors from this WikiProject please have a look at the website http://cortisone-info.com and the edits from Linotte01 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)? It came across as inappropriate linking to me, but I think it would be a good idea to have some additional opinions. Thank you. Deli nk (talk) 11:46, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

According to Contact Cortisone-info, the website is financed by the ARCEMI (Association for Clinical And Epidemiological Research in Internal Medicine) which appears to be non-profit and independent of pharmaceutical companies. The site does appear to contain useful information which is relevant to corticosteroid and hence including a single link in the external links section ‎to this web site may be appropriate. Boghog (talk) 12:30, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

I also think the source looks fine. But the way the source was added amounts to linkspam - I was on the verge of reverting myself but Deli nk beat me to it. I think it could be usefully used. Jytdog (talk) 16:32, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

There seem to be two issues about the use of the website in Wikipedia.

1. The editor Linotte01 is adding the website as a reference to the Wikipedia articles on corticosteroid, prednisone, prednisolone, and dexamethasone. WP:MEDRS describes several sources including biomedical journals, books, and major medical/scientific organizations. The cortisone.info website fits into the "Other sources" category. While the material on the website seems to be uncontroversial, as far as I can tell, it is not peer-reviewed. Linotte01 is using the website to support statements that are well documented and uncontroversial. Moreover, the website is often being added to an already existing reference. I recommend removal of the website from referencing in Wikipedia.
2. "including a single link in the external links section ‎to this web site may be appropriate" – Boghog; "I also think the source looks fine.... I think it could be usefully used." – Jytdog . According to WP:ELNO, a link to "any site that does not provide a unique resource beyond what the article would contain if it became a featured article" should be avoided.

Axl ¤ [Talk] 14:00, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

I had a long discussion at WT:V last year about this sort of situation. Here's the story:

Given: The material in question is known to be accurate, appropriate, and encyclopedic. You do not want to change the sentences in question at all, not even the spelling.

Situation: Someone adds a source that is okay—not great, and maybe not even all the way to good, but not obviously unreliable, either. Maybe it's a newspaper article that says that hernias can be treated with surgery. Maybe it's an altmed journal article that says antibiotics don't kill viruses. Maybe it's a website that contains information that you happen to know contains accurate information. But it's not obviously a very good source, and you personally would like the article to contain the best possible sources. (Notice that this discussion did not cover WP:REFSPAM situations, and I do understand why adding so many links to the same website might be worrisome.)

Question: What are your policy-supported options?

Answer: You have exactly two options:

1. To upgrade the source yourself.
2. To accept it and go work on something else.

In this case, Linotte01 seems to have added sources to articles that were (mostly) under-sourced. In some cases, such as when another source was already present, this may have been more enthusiastic than necessary, but there's nothing wrong with that. Ideally, the links would not have been WP:Bare URLs, but it is flatly unreasonable to expect a new editor to be able to cope with our complicated citation formatting. (mw:Citoid's coming, but probably not for a couple more weeks, because of WMF staff event schedules.) It would have been preferable if Linotte01 had removed the {{citation needed}} tag when she supplied the citation, but, again, that's a detail that new editors can't be expected to understand, and most of them feel uncomfortable doing so, because it seems arrogant to mark your own work as being good enough to remove the tag. In short, IMO these edits constitutes an improvement, however slight, to the articles, and should have been (mostly) kept and built upon in a collaborative manner.

Linotte01, if you'd like to try citation formatting, then I have a suggestion that might make it easier. Go to Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-betafeatures and choose the "VisualEditor" item. Save your prefs, and go back to the article. That will give you two buttons for editing: "Edit source" (what you've been doing) and "Edit beta", which works like a word processing program. Inside that, you'll find a "Cite" menu. You can "Cite web" and just have to fill out a simple form. VisualEditor is widely used at the French Wikipedia these days. If you want technical help in French, then User:Trizek or one of the other regulars at w:fr:Wikipédia:Forum des nouveaux will be able to help you out. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:03, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

This is Linotte01's first edit. Linotte added the website as a reference 15 times. Of these, 10 are clearly added to existing references and create unhelpful duplication. I am confident that the remaining five statements could have been supported by the existing high-quality references. (If you choose to challenge this, I shall spend/waste more time to demonstrate it.) I am unsurprised by Jytdog's suspicion of a possible conflict of interest. Linotte01 appears to have denied any conflict of interest. I am willing to assume good faith on this matter.

The best course of action is not to leave all of these references in the text. Rather, we should politely direct Linotte01 to a better way of finding and adding references.

Your comments about WP:BOLD, citation formatting and "citation needed" tags are irrelevant to this discussion. Axl ¤ [Talk] 13:15, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

actually my query about COI was based on the likelihood that Linotte works for the organization that created and maintains the site. In the diff you linked to, that issue is not addressed, and Linotte has not responded to my query on her talk page. This remains an open question for me. Jytdog (talk) 13:20, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Yes, Linotte01's comment at Deli nk's talk page is somewhat vague. I am not surprised that you remain cynical. Axl ¤ [Talk] 13:27, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

I wouldn't call it "cynical". It's a typical behavior for a newbie editor with a COI. In my view COI is not a bad thing per se, it just needs to be disclosed and managed. It becomes a bad thing when it is not disclosed and managed.Jytdog (talk) 13:33, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Wow, the above is depressing. Doesn't anyone think to welcome and guide new editors before dumping on them? LeadSongDog come howl! 17:27, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

good point......welcome (don't be discourage ,good luck)--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 21:27, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Linotte01 (talk) 18:02, 21 January 2015 (UTC) hello everybody. Thanks for all your comments. All of this is a bit new to me and it is not totally clear. I understand that I cited to much pages from cortisone-info.com but most of the links I added were to illustrate data that were mostly unsourced. It is a good idea to link the website as an external ressource instead of citations. I will try to do that this next week-end. Not sure that I will succeed but I will try.... — Preceding unsigned comment added by Linotte01 (talk • contribs) 18:00, 21 January 2015 (UTC) and thanks Axl for your help! I am sure that User:Trizek will be very helpful

Hello everyone,

The Wiki Education Foundation has gone ahead with some changes to the student training. Of particular interest is the addition of a new section intended for students who may touch medical articles, including psychology.

This section of the training is now live, here.

Thanks to BlueRasberry for contributing to this project, and we are, as always, looking for further suggestions and feedback!

Eryk (Wiki Ed) (talk) 23:55, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Thanks Eryk (Wiki Ed) for compiling this.

Other news is that Helaine (Wiki Ed) has a "course onboarding checklist" which Wiki Ed is using as inclusion criteria when it supports classes. Here is the medical criteria from this initial version of this checklist:

• If there are more than 50 students in a medical or psychology course, we have actively discouraged them from doing a Wikipedia assignment in this course.
• The instructor has indicated that students might edit medical/psychology articles.
  • mail the medical or psychology brochure to each student
  • follow up: will instructor actively discourage if the topic of the course is not primarily medical or psychology (e.g., an information studies or composition course)?
  • add a Wiki Ed category to the Course Page so WikiProject Med members can monitor if they want

Red Flags:

• may edit medical or psychology articles

Blue Rasberry (talk) 20:45, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

For those of you that missed it on the news yesterday, a CT surgeon at the Brigham in Boston was shot and killed by the son of a patient. I feel we should have a page about him, since he's been on the front page of CNN, etc, and it doesn't look like we have one. Here's a good article about the shooting from a few hours ago from Forbes.

As a physician who works across the street from where the shooting took place, I feel I'm a little involved to be completely objective about this, but I'd like to help. BakerStMD T|C 16:16, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

Might be best to give it some time. We're an encyclopedia, not news. Giving it some time will help us avoid WP:RECENTISM. Kingofaces43 (talk) 16:22, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

still, though we are not news ,we can place the more objective information, his contributions not only as a physician but as a human being,Davidson, on paper and by reputation, was a star. Degrees from Princeton and Yale, a residency at Duke, all leading up to a staff position at the Brigham & Women’s Hospital in Boston, one of the nation’s finest medical institutions. A 44-year-old cardiovascular surgeon known for “saving lives and improving the quality of life for every patient he cared for,” the hospital said in a statement on Tuesday. my condolences "Bakerstmd"--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 17:23, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

Is that really notable though? It sounds like standard obituary material. Otherwise we'd have a page for every doctor out there. His main claim to fame for Wikipedia would seem to be his murder, so that's why I'd be wary right now. Kingofaces43 (talk) 17:31, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

fine, wait--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 17:39, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for the thoughts, Ozzie. I appreciate it. Aces, we do write articles about people who are only notable for the manner of their death, particularly when it garners much outside attention and focuses a larger debate. I'm thinking of Michael P. Murphy, although it's an imperfect analogy. BakerStMD T|C 17:44, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

There are multiple options here. Perhaps a biography is warranted. If the focus is on his death, though, it's probably going to be named "Death of Davidson" (maybe later being moved to "Murder of" if the shooter is convicted). It's possible to add a paragraph about this incident to the article about the location where he was killed; this would be most appropriate if that changes policies at the hospital. Finally, it might be appropriate to see whether we have enough information to build a list of healthcare workers killed by patients of their families. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:08, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

Bakerstmd, I'm quite in agreeance that Wikipedia does have articles where a person is notable because of their death. The problem is that if that death just recently occurred, we need to wait a bit for the reasons I mentioned above. That'll let the sources settle down and let further developments be documented before someone goes to actively start writing it up. We're supposed to be behind the ball as an encyclopedia, so best to let things develop first. Kingofaces43 (talk) 23:17, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

@ user:Kingofaces43, I certainly understand the reasons we should wait, and waiting might well be the prudent course for the reasons you mention. However, there isn't likely to be anything that changes about the facts of the shooting: The shooter killed himself after shooting Dr. Davidson, so there won't be a trial. While I think the long-term impact will become clear over time, the basic facts are set, and the facts are reasonable for an encyclopedia. And @ whatamIdoing, i was thinking too that it might be reasonable to title such an article "Michael Davidson Shooting" or "Brigham and Women's shooting" rather than just a biography. BakerStMD T|C 23:29, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

I just came across the template for Talk pages, guiding folks to good sources. (there is so much i am ignorant of in WP still.) What a great tool! i want to use this everywhere. But it discusses "medical" content, and I think it might be better if it mentioned "health" instead.

I started a discussion here. thx. Jytdog (talk) 16:35, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

Agree and done. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 00:36, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

Thanks~! Jytdog (talk) 00:47, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

Doc James is there a way to make it so the article name is in quotes for the searches, so they are better delimited? (e.g "organic food" instead of just organic food) I tried to do it and it broke the template :0 which I then undid. Jytdog (talk) 01:28, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

Not sure. Would be nice though. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 02:48, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

WhatamIdoing do you know how, or do you know someone who could help, add quotes to the template, so that the search is better delimited? Thanks~

I just noticed that Template:Find_sources_AFD is able to launch searches of external sites of a string (in quotes) using Wikipedia:Lua. I am going to ask Mr. Stradivarius to apply that to our template... hopefully he will. Am assuming that will be OK with folks. Jytdog (talk) 13:47, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

he pointed me to use "%22" to create the quotes, and that worked. hooray! Jytdog (talk) 14:30, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

The target of uploading 100,000 high resolution historical images from the Wellcome Library to Wikimedia Commons was hit last month and there is a Foundation blog post telling the story of out today. Fill your boots! Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 13:42, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

This follows previous notices here:

• Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Medicine/Archive_34#Wellcome_Trust_and_Cancer_Research_UK
• Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Medicine/Archive_45#Wellcome_Images
• Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Medicine/Archive_54#Amazing_multilingual_AIDS_advertisements

Blue Rasberry (talk) 17:37, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

That is a great wealth of free information. Many thanks to all involved. Chillum 17:46, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

a very generous gift thank you--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 09:31, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

I believe that the most sincere form of thanks will be to find an image and use it appropriately. Also, please keep in mind that there are ~280 other Wikipedias, and it's generous to give them a hand if you can. Our treasured bilingual and multilingual editors can do this, of course, but I tried it a little while ago using pictures of famous historical figures. It turned out to be pretty easy, because the caption can be just their names, which I copied from the local articles. I checked back later, and none were removed and several local people had written much better captions. Collaboration works.  ;-) WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:28, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

So I learned something today that might interest some of you:

The Android app for Wikipedia (NB: not the mobile view that you get in a browser) has some interesting features. For example, you can save copies of Wikipedia articles to read when you're offline. (I hear the sound of some people with travel-heavy jobs clicking to the Android app store; we'll wait for them to get back.)

The Android app also has a different page layout, which is fine, I guess, but it's got one quirk that matters to us: the first image on the page, no matter what that image is, will be displayed as the top third of the first screenful. Recently, if you went to an execution-related page, you would see, as if it were the "lead image", a map of a particular country, which leaves the reader with a sour, non-neutral association, as if this were the only place in the world where this mattered. You can see the difficulty: open up an article about any crime, and put put some WP:BLP's image as the first one on the page, and it's now "the lead image" on the Android app, even if it's actually at the end of the page. Even with a caption like "Alice is a professor of law enforcement who studied this crime", it's still going to have an undesirable, non-neutral effect on the article over all.

This is particularly complicated for medicine-related articles, because we sometimes explicitly do not want to shock readers with gory or highly technical images as their first (and very large) impression of a subject. We want them to learn, not to run away, and most of us know how to find the scientific research that proves that neither strong emotions of disgust nor feeling overwhelmed and discouraged is conducive to learning. Also, if your image is highly relevant to a later section, then the image won't be present in the section where you are referring to it, because it will have been swiped for the pseudo-lead image.

The solution is pretty easy: add another image, anywhere above the one that you want to keep in the lower section. I think that most of our articles are probably fine, because we tend towards images of cells or anatomy drawings in the infoboxes, but I encourage you to keep an eye out for articles that might benefit from the addition of images that comply with WP:LEADIMAGE even if the image isn't explicitly placed in the lead. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:54, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Yikes. This feels like something that should be raised with the developers. Have you taken this to WP:VPT or some other venue? An image that isn't in the lead section (or maybe the first section of the article body) almost certainly won't be sufficiently general to act as that sort of 'title' illustration. While the result of this design choice (when it goes wrong) will usually just be disjointed or bizarre, it has the potential to be horrific or libelous. (The problems are obvious with our most sensitive classes of material: biographical articles and medical topics.)

Incidentally, I'm not sure that infobox images necessarily get included. The mobile app doesn't show any images above Ahuatlán (to take a random article), for instance, though the article contains three images. The city seal and the flag of Mexico (included through a template) are both part of the infobox at the top of the article; they both appear in a collapsed information box in the mobile app. The third image, a locator map, appears in the navbox at the bottom of the regular article; the navbox is omitted in the mobile version. In other words, it's not 100% clear to me what the conditions are that enable an image from an infobox to appear as the 'title' image for an article, and we shouldn't necessarily rely on infobox images to 'insulate' use from the negative effects of the mobile app's design choices. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 21:29, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

I believe that the devs have already had a couple of very bad examples pointed out them. I don't have any Android devices, so I can't check the details for myself. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:52, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

There are other problems, too, such as images cropping badly; see screenshots in Commons:Category:Wikipedia mobile app beta bugs - 2014-12-18. I [raised this https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/mobile-l/2014-December/008441.html with the developers] on the mailing list, during beta testing, but they seemed unconcerned, and released the app anyway. (Some heuristics are applied, to exclude things like (IIRC) maps and coats of arms.) Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 13:56, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

I asked; images that are in infoboxes should be used just like any other. Perhaps what Andy says about omitting maps and such is responsible for that Ahuatlán's infobox images not being pulled out. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:55, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Acupuncture closed by motion on 12 January 2015. The result is that all articles and all edits about complementary and alternative medicine, "broadly defined", are now covered by Wikipedia:Discretionary sanctions.

• If the article is about CAM, then discretionary sanctions apply.
• If the edit is about CAM, even if the article is about a different subject (for example, if you're writing that Joe Film uses an herbal supplement), then discretionary sanctions apply.
• If there's even a hint or a question about whether the article or subject is about CAM, then discretionary sanctions apply.

This is going to affect thousands of articles, including a few hundred supported by this WikiProject.

If you're not familiar with this system, this is a "one strike and you're (maybe) out" system that applies to everyone, as a result of the bad behavior of other, previous editors. If an editor causes even a small problem at an article, and the editor has already been officially warned about the existence of the sanctions (this message doesn't count, because no one could prove that anyone else read it), then he can be blocked, topic-banned, or otherwise punished by any single uninvolved admin.

Discretionary sanctions are supposed to be applied even-handedly according to editor behavior, not according to an editor's beliefs or viewpoints. It is not supposed to matter whether the editor's work is pro-science or pro-altmed or anything else.

It is likely that we will see an increase in the number of formal RFCs and other efforts and dispute resolution as a result, and I hope that uninvolved editors will be willing and able to keep responding to them. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:22, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

*sigh* Kudos to those editors who waded through the pages of repetitive arguments and managed to reach a sensible compromise (sort of). Axl ¤ [Talk] 15:04, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

I sense a negative tone above, but I think discretionary sanctions are needed (if they didn't already apply under fringe science). It's the kind of situation DS was designed to handle, where editors have uncompromising/entrenched views in an "area of conflict". One problem is that CAM advocates can potentially WP:EXHAUST run-of-the-mill independent editors, whether or not that is the intention, and this can cause articles to be less conforming to Wikipedia policies and guidelines. Yes, DS applies to all parties, and admins do not rule on content, but CAM advocates seem to more commonly exhibit WP:IDHT behavior, which is sanctionable. Manul ~ talk 17:20, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

We could equally say that anti-CAM editors WP:EXHAUST run-of-the-mill independent editors by their focus on adding the word pseudoscience, excessively quoting their favorite skeptics, and even blocking efforts describe the subject itself (because of their POV that all the reader needs to know is that its efficacy hasn't been scientifically proven to their satisfaction).

To give you a glimpse into this side of the problem, we have had articles about obviously non-scientific religious beliefs that have claimed that religious actions like Prayer are pseudoscience. Every basic source about the demarcation problem says that religion cannot possibly be pseudoscience (because it does not pretend to be any kind of science at all), but that doesn't seem to stop some editors from trying. The problem is certainly not all on one side, and I am concerned that an analysis of our enforcement actions compared to editors' POVs would prove to be embarrassingly POV-driven. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:01, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

I would certainly be interested in seeing such an analysis of enforcement actions. No matter what, CAM articles are desperately in need of many more dispassionate and uninvolved editors. Herbxue (talk) 01:00, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

I'm unsure what to do about this edit. Will someone knowledgeable about this subject check it out, and the other edits by the IP? -- Brangifer (talk) 02:54, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

This article was recently created. I am posting about it here because I want to see what other medical editors think about it. Everymorning talk 02:18, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

I rated it as class=Start and importance=low. That's about what I think of it. I don't think it should be deleted though. BakerStMD T|C 19:09, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

yes, I think that's how it should be, with a little work im sure it can go up in class, good luck--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 21:24, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

There is already an article over at Electrodiagnosis, and I suggest we merge them. Electrodiagnosis is an important and substantial part primarily of clinical neurophysiology. The Electrodiagnostic medicine article doesn't mention ECG at all, though electrodiagnosis does. ECGs aren't the first thing that pops to mind, even though they build upon the same phenomena I would think electrodiagnosis normally refers to nerve-cell function? If we merge the articles I'm not sure if ECG should be in the hat-note or have a separate section? Any ideas? -- CFCF 🍌 (email) 09:57, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

Looks like Electrodiagnostic medicine is a more substantial page than Electrodiagnosis, so probably logical for the latter to be merged with the former. I'd say ECG should be mentioned in the lead in a prose statement of the commonly performed electrodiagnostic tests ("common electrodiagnositc tests include ECG, EMG, etc"). Underlying the field is the physiologic concept of Membrane potential which occurs in nerve and muscle cells, allowing them to generate and conduct electrical potentials, the byproducts of which we can measure. That should probably be mentioned in there somewhere too. BakerStMD T|C 22:16, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

Please take a look at Nicorette. I think that more information is needed on the efficacy (that will probably be very close to NRT) and not just vs. placebo but other non-nicotine medicine (like cytisine and other). -- Bbarmadillo

I think it might be best to place it under 1. "nicotine replacement therapy" as the article looks a bit commercial in nature, it does not seem IMO to fit into standard "manual of style" mode. 2. there is already a page tag suggestion to merge with "nicoderm"--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 11:54, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

The article is about the brand, not the therapy. There is no need to merge it with "Nicoderm" - see my explanation on the talk page of the article. I think that you are probably right that the efficacy should be at NRT article. -- Bbarmadillo (talk) 12:03, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

Should merge to the generic nicotine gum. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 22:05, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

If the subject is actually the brand, then you should not merge it away. Tylenol is not "just" paracetamol. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:49, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

If you make it to para 2, you read: "Nicorette product range consists of chewing gum,[2][3][4][5] lozenges,[3][4] patches[5] of two kinds (transparent and non-transparent),[3] oral spray (Nicorette QuickMist),[6][7] inhalator,[3][5] sublingual tablets (Nicorette Microtab)[3] and nasal spray.[3][8]" Johnbod (talk) 00:57, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

The question is whether there is anything particularly notable about this brand in particular vs the generic. In this instance, I don't see it. (with tylenol we had the cyanide thing, etc). Having an aritcle on the brand in this case just seems like PROMO to me. Jytdog (talk) 23:28, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

yep--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 23:42, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

Very few articles on Brand names should not simple redirect to the generic term. Tylenol is one of the few. Most of the time it simply results in duplication of content. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 00:27, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

Well you may say that but you are running against WP orthodoxy, where half the contents of an American supermarket have articles. It is the old consumer product vs pharma argument that runs on at Electronic cigarette. Personally I think, as the oldest brand, Nicorette and its history are unquestionably notable, but the pharma-like sections should be removed, with links to the generic articles. In any case far too many different products are covered in the one article for these to be useful. Johnbod (talk) 00:55, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

Can I interest anyone here in taking a look at Sophora flavescens? Though it is an article about a plant, I think members of this WikiProject are well suited to fixing its problems because most of the content is about its potential medical uses. The article has been marked with a "factual accuracy is disputed" tag for about 4 years and the problem has never been dealt with. Most of the medical-related content seems to be in violation of WP:MEDRS. If no one here wants to try to deal with the article, I will (but you WP:MED experts would probably do a better job). Gnome de plume (talk) 22:16, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

I cleaned up and consolidated the chemistry information. I removed medical claims related to individual chemical components because those claims aren't relevant to properties of the plant itself. There are many additional medical claims in the "Research" section that still need review from a MEDRS perspective. -- Ed (Edgar181) 11:56, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

it looks as if it would benefit, from a good CE--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 10:03, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

Is occurring here Talk:Autism#DiscussionDoc James (talk · contribs · email) 04:59, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Hey All. We have a medical illustrator who has recently. Please welcome User:VHenryArt Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 09:02, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

welcome--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 10:50, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

Happy to be here! -- VHenryArt (talk) 14:50, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

I just looked at File:Obstetric Fistula Locations Diagram.png, and I have three things to say:

1. Wow.
2. There are three lines leading from the label "areas fistulas commonly occur", but there are four "red hot" spots in the diagram. Should the anterior vaginal wall also have a pointing line?
3. Would you mind making a separate one that uses numbers instead of words? Words in a drawing are best, unless the words aren't in your own language. If it says "1, 2, 3, 4" instead of "Bladder, Bowel, Vagina, Areas fistulas commonly occur", then it could be used in any language, with the translations given in the caption. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:22, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

Agree with "Wow" – this is great! More quality artwork on disease-related pages would be a great benefit – encyclopedic images which most of our general readership, I think, are comfortable with. And much better, imo, than prominently filling pages with *repellant* (for many) clinical images and *undecipherable* (often, for many) pathological images, etc – material which mostly would be better off tucked away in relatively unobtrusive galleries that are still readily consultable by readers who choose to. 86.134.203.235 (talk) 09:35, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

Thank you! I agree that illustrations can often do a better job at visually describing a concept than a photograph (and not just because I am a medical illustrator!). I am excited to lend my talents to the world of Wikipedia (and notably the WikiProject Medicine) to hopefully help people get a better understanding of what it is they are researching.

--To address WhatamIdoing's suggestions, I added an extra leader line to the fourth fistula position - good catch. For the labels, I have uploaded a couple of options (http://vhenryart.com/ObFistula_Labels.jpg) and I'd like opinions on which makes more sense. One option is a combination of words and numbers (this means there isn't a need for multiple versions of the file). The second is just numbered. Both versions would include corresponding numbers in the image description - where a translator can make changes. I am open to doing either. VHenryArt (talk) 22:05, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

I think that either of those are workable. (I'm assuming the "box" on the second would go away. I don't like the box covering up your diagram.) Having only numbers means that a non-image-editing person can easily label it. Some Wikipedias strongly prefer to never see any English. (Most probably don't care much, and would just provide the translation in the caption.) Who else has looked at this and has a view? In addition to hoping that some of our translation-oriented folks would take a look, I'll ping User:TylerDurden as well. Tyler's been working on writing in plain English, and he'll probably have a sound opinion on what will be most easily understood by readers. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:13, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

the art is awesome (numbers would be better)--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 10:36, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

From my limited understanding... the ideal solution would presumably be some^[feasible?] way whereby the named labels could simply be relabeled in the target language. Matching labels to numbers requires more cognitive work by readers, at the expense of focus/assimilation. Bilingual labeling systems would probably be the least preferable option for the lay reader (though they might actually be convenient for some students/professionals who need to familiarize themselves with terms both in their own language and in the scientific lingua franca of English. 2c, 86.134.203.235 (talk) 12:55, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

- These are all good points and this is a good discussion to have. I can see the benefit to being able to adapt an image for translated pages. But, I do agree that having the labels directly on the image is the best approach, and so I will keep English labels on the main version. I've uploaded the version with the numbers and labels and included a corresponding table in the description. While I think the look of the combined version is less visually appealing than either just labels or just numbers, it does provide a nice compromise. I don't know if there is a way in the Commons to add dynamic text onto an image. I will look into it and see what I can find out.

- I would like to mention that it is very easy for me to make an alternative version of the image with translated labels in place of the English. Should a translator feel it would be beneficial to have that version he or she is more than welcome to request it. I have added a note to translators in the image's Discussion section informing translators that they are free to request a specific translated version of the image. VHenryArt (talk) 22:40, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

VHenryArt, greetings and welcome to WP, thank you so much for your willingness to contribute your talents. Seems the easiest way is two copies one with English and one with numbers. The one with numbers could be used for multiple languages other than English. Alternatively how about "numbered English" this would preserve the label in the drawing, give the lingua franca English and provide numbers that could be used for adding other languages. I agree it would be good to hear from the translation folks. Again thanks. - - MrBill3 (talk) 06:02, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

both could be used, but perhaps if it were just numbered,this might be best (all languages would be equal)--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 10:49, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

If the images are in SVG format, any labels in them can also be easily translated using this tool. --WS (talk) 10:58, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

It is good to know about the SVG format labels. I have uploaded a file in that format, but only the lines and text are vector since the drawing is raster.(File:Obstetric Fistula Locations.svg) The labels can be edited by a translator, should they not want to use the tool, if they are comfortable with downloading it and editing the XML directly in any text editor. I found another quick solution to the label issue by adding annotations to the image. Annotated version (Wikimedia Location). It seems like a bit of a hack, but it gets the job done. Anyway, now there are multiple version of the file to pick from. This has been a good exercise, I've learned a lot. Thank you all for your participation! VHenryArt (talk) 19:17, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

thank you for bringing your extraordinary talents, readers benefit from illustrations very much, and the articles will therefore be much better--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 10:40, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Here's a rather interesting issue that's come up that is at least partially relevant to folks here. Essentially, the folks over at Wikiproject Dr. Who want to redirect the term "the doctor" to Doctor (Doctor Who) whenever someone searches for that specific term. Currently, searching for either "doctor" or "the doctor" will lead to the same disambiguation page, Doctor. Does anyone here see issues with having the two terms lead to different disambiguation pages? One disambiguation could eventually lead to a single primary topic, but that's not really the question I'm posing right now at least. It seems like a silly distinction at first (I thought so too) but it seems like something that could use a look by the wider community. Discussion on this question is at Talk:Doctor#Propose_splitting_out_all_.22The_Doctor.22_terms. Kingofaces43 (talk) 22:52, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

At Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2015 January 25#Template:MUNAnatomy, we are talking about deleting links to the Memorial University of Newfoundland, because they are dead and unarchived, as far as we can tell. If anyone knows if there is another source for these pages, a comment at that discussion would be appreciated. Thanks. —PC-XT+ 06:57, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

Hi All - I'm a Canadian pharmacist and pharmacy prof at the University of Waterloo. I'm learning how to edit Wikipedia. I'd like to eventually teach my students to contribute their knowledge as well. I'm open to any tips and tricks and welcome any feedback. Kagpharm (talk) 16:07, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Welcome. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 16:30, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

hi glad to have you here--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 11:40, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

An RFC at Talk:Autism, related to books authored by women. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:40, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

Opinions are needed on the following matter: Talk:Intimate partner violence#"Gender symmetry". A WP:Permalink to the discussion is here. Flyer22 (talk) 03:21, 28 January 2015 (UTC)