User talk:CFCF/Archive 30
On the Alternative medicine articleHello CFCF. Since you've been doing a lot of editing of the Alternative medicine article lately, I hope it's okay to come here to continue the discussion from the article talk page. I'll try to be more precise about what I think is unclear and unintentionally alienating about the article. The point of view in almost all of the article is the one quoted in the lede from Roger Fisken in his British Medical Journal article: everything either is medicine or not medicine, either scientific or unscientific, and there's no middle ground. But at the same time, if one reads the article carefully, one sees that it is conceded that there is a middle ground, namely, "traditional medicine". But, in the first place, much of "traditional medicine" is commonly included in "CAM". It is, after all, an alternative set of treatments to rigorously science-based medicine. In the second place, certain traditional treatments or "home remedies" are widely used today even in modern industrialized societies with beneficial effects -- sometimes but not always caused by the placebo effect. Even in the absence of rigorous clinical studies, there can be other evidence of safety and effectiveness in certain cases. Wouldn't the fact that a certain plant or home remedy has been widely used for a certain purpose and has a good reputation in widely different parts of the world be a type of proto-scientific or quasi-scientific evidence of safety and effectiveness (assuming knowledge of appropriate use and dosage)? Some examples (that I mentioned before): 1. Perhaps someone with an eye irritation should ideally go to a doctor or at least to a pharmacy and buy Visine or a similar pharmaceutical. But if they live in an impoverished region of the world, or even if they live in a wealthy country but far from a pharmacy, or if they simply want to soothe the irritation without spending money and without waiting to make a trip to the pharmacy -- wouldn't it make sense to use a moist teabag? Would Fisken say (as quoted in the lede) that they're being "magical, childish or downright absurd"? Would you say that the teabags are only effective because of the placebo effect? 2. In many parts of the world certain herbs are ingested (usually in teas) to reduce the chance of pregnancy. The eminent historian of medicine and pharmacology John M. Riddle has written about this extensively. I do not know of any rigorous clinical studies of the safety and effectiveness of such teas. But there has been scientific verification of their abortifacient properties in animals. And, in fact, this folk knowledge probably came about from observation of animals. Some people ("ethnobotanists") might even say that the collective observations and experiences of many generations of women in disparate locations constitute a type of scientific basis for the folk knowledge. Whether or not you or I feel comfortable broadening the definition of "science" in that way, the people who would say that are not quacks or charlatans or fringe. 3. I similarly don't know whether mate de coca, used in the Andes to reduce the risk of altitude sickness, has ever undergone rigorous clinical study. But, if I'm not mistaken, in practice travelers report that it's safe and effective, and most likely not because of a placebo effect. In short, not everyone in the world has easy access to modern pharmaceuticals or even to doctors. In the U.S. there are many people who don't have insurance or have inadequate insurance. In Cuba, in part because of shortages caused by the U.S. embargo, they have been using herbs for many things, including herbs that have never been subjected to rigorous clinical studies. This is the reality, and I think the Wikipedia article should reflect this. At present its tone is likely to come off as hostile toward anyone who uses or recommends any treatment at all that is not fully within science-based modern medicine. That's why I'm raising questions about NPOV and balance. Thanks for reading this. NightHeron (talk) 00:11, 29 March 2018 (UTC)
Signpost issue 4 – 29 March 2018Is The Signpost on its last legs?
Wikimedia events, group recognition, and individual appointments are ongoing.
Arbcom considers new discretionary sanctions for infoboxes and an extension of 1RR.
Diplomats join Wikipedia for International Women's Day, the perfect "Human", how fringe theories are sustained, and perennial plagiarism from our pages.
Wakanda still fascinates; the Oscars happened; Winter Olympics come to a close; and International Women's Day gets over a million page views.
A plethora of content.
Reviewing a browser skin providing equal emphasis on both content and editing tools simultaneously.
Retrospective on article creation trial.
Nostalgia and trips down Memory Lane. Medical TranslationsHello CFCF, I would like to contribute to the Medical Translations projects by translating in German. However, there is no section at the Sign Up-Page, there I could add my name. How can I add a new language - German - to that page? Thanks! — Preceding unsigned comment added by GentianB (talk • contribs) 18:49, 27 March 2018 (UTC)
BRDAt talk page for WP:CONSENSUS we have disagreed about BRD. Here is what I saw.
self revert requestHello.... If you assume good faith..... the section on consensus by discussion does not have a shortcut. I genuinely and in good faith think it should. You slapped a POINTY claim on my proposal. Please self revert that. If you wish to out dent the section heading to == Shortcut for discussion section == or something, then please do! Of course under TPG no one owns section headings so you would not need my permission, I'm just saying if you would prefer it that way to reduce inadvertent and unintended POINTY feelings maybe that will help. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 13:23, 1 April 2018 (UTC)
Translation taskforceHi Carl, would you please edit {{TTF tabs}} so that it doesn't remove the page name, Wikipedia:WikiProject Medicine/Translation task_force? Otherwise, it isn't easy for new editors to see which page they've landed on. It currently looks like a personal webpage belonging to the three named editors. SarahSV (talk) 15:36, 3 April 2018 (UTC) DiscussionPlease do not archive discussions that people are still engaged in. SarahSV (talk) 15:42, 30 March 2018 (UTC) Also, if you move an active, important discussion that is linked from high-visibility, high-traffic locations like WP:CENT, WP:VPP, and User talk:Jimbo Wales, please remember to update those links to point directly to the new discussion. Maybe use some edit summaries, too. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 16:18, 30 March 2018 (UTC)
That was very nice ... feel free to remove mine and the whole thing, for a fresh start ... I commented mine out so you can choose to delete it if you wish. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:45, 3 April 2018 (UTC) On "Next steps"...For whatever it's worth, I was very impressed by your "Next steps" post. I don't feel at all confident that, given similar circumstances, I would have been capable of similar introspection. Kudos! --Xover (talk) 05:54, 4 April 2018 (UTC) This Month in GLAM: March 2018
About This Month in GLAM · Subscribe/Unsubscribe · Global message delivery · Romaine 14:48, 10 April 2018 (UTC)
Books & Bytes - Issue 27Books & Bytes
Arabic, Chinese and French versions of Books & Bytes are now available in meta! Sent by MediaWiki message delivery on behalf of The Wikipedia Library team --MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 14:50, 18 April 2018 (UTC) Upcoming changes to wikitext parsingHello, There will be some changes to the way wikitext is parsed during the next few weeks. It will affect all namespaces. You can see a list of pages that may display incorrectly at Special:LintErrors. Since most of the easy problems have already been solved at the English Wikipedia, I am specifically contacting tech-savvy editors such as yourself with this one-time message, in the hope that you will be able to investigate the remaining high-priority pages during the next month. There are approximately 10,000 articles (and many more non-article pages) with high-priority errors. The most important ones are the articles with misnested tags and table problems. Some of these involve templates, such as infoboxes, or the way the template is used in the article. In some cases, the "error" is a minor, unimportant difference in the visual appearance. In other cases, the results are undesirable. You can see a before-and-after comparison of any article by adding ?action=parsermigration-edit to the end of a link, like this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Foss?action=parsermigration-edit (which shows a difference in how {{infobox ship}} is parsed). If you are interested in helping with this project, please see Wikipedia:Linter. There are also some basic instructions (and links to even more information) at https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-ambassadors/2018-April/001836.html You can also leave a note at WT:Linter if you have questions. Thank you for all the good things you do for the English Wikipedia. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 21:18, 19 April 2018 (UTC) The Signpost: 26 April 2018
Following Kudpung's op-ed "Death knell sounding for The Signpost?" in the 29 March issue, user comments encouraged a burst of enthusiasm to keep the newspaper in print.
How to revive and evolve The Signpost? Big blue-sky proposals and small concrete proposals from the community and from two regular Signpost contributors.
Finally a free image Kim Jong-un. WMF wins legal battle. Stephen Hawking death tops all Wikipedia hits.
Internet companies use Wikipedia to police truth; Citogenesis proven yet again; early birthday greetings; and trains
A recent Community Health Initiative survey found only 27% of respondents are happy with the way reports of conflicts between Editors are handled on the Administrators' Incident Noticeboard (ANI).
New major editing policy starting immediately: creation of articles in mainspace is to be limited to users with confirmed accounts
The standards have been raised for sources used in judging the notability of nonprofit and for-profit organizations.
Wikipedia's myth of the clean Wehrmacht and what you can do about it. Or, how not to be one of "the worst distributors of pro-Nazi perspectives and the Wehrmacht myth".
Can Wikipedia mobilize the same energy to fill other gaps in coverage?
What should we do about Portals? Keep them, delete them, or mark them as historical? Or should they be more closely connected with their WikiProject(s)?
Quiet month for the Arbitration Committee
Combat, weapons, monuments and personalities.
What we learned about reader motivation from a recent research study
You might not get all excersized about essays but they can be as fun as talk pages
The most popular articles from March 25 to April 14.
Plus the latest tech news and userscripts.
Material promoted from March 2 through April 20.
Honoring a day in military history, as well as peaceful borders Thank you for being one of Wikipedia's top medical contributors!
Thanks again :-) -- Doc James along with the rest of the team at Wiki Project Med Foundation 03:02, 26 April 2018 (UTC) Disambiguation link notification for April 27Hi. Thank you for your recent edits. An automated process has detected that when you recently edited Cherry-red spot, you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page Posterior ciliary arteries (check to confirm | fix with Dab solver). Such links are usually incorrect, since a disambiguation page is merely a list of unrelated topics with similar titles. (Read the FAQ • Join us at the DPL WikiProject.) It's OK to remove this message. Also, to stop receiving these messages, follow these opt-out instructions. Thanks, DPL bot (talk) 09:33, 27 April 2018 (UTC) Could there be a Criticisms of physics page?Hi, I'd like to respond to a comment of yours on Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Criticisms of medicine directly to you rather than on that page, since I already expressed my objections once to the calls from different directions to delete Criticisms of medicine for all sorts of reasons. I had had doubts about writing the Criticisms of medicine article in the first place -- because I anticipated that the response would be exactly what I'm now seeing on the deletion discussion -- but User:BullRangifer, a very experienced editor and strong opponent of CAM, suggested that I do so, and gave me helpful suggestions about revising my draft before posting it. Yes, I think that an article Criticisms of physics (or, in the words of my original title, "Shortcomings of mainstream physics") would be worthwhile if enough RS could be found. I know there have been criticisms that physics is too much dominated by theory (for example, the Nobel prizes generally go to advances in foundational questions, not to anything practical -- although historians say that Alfred Nobel himself wanted his prize to benefit humans in the immediate sense and would not have been happy rewarding theory alone). Also, there's been a lot of criticism of "string theory" in physics on the grounds that it's not supported by experiment. Similarly for some other work in physics, such as "parallel universes"; and there's been some criticism of physicists for over-hyping quantum computing. But I wouldn't want to write such an article because, in the first place, I don't know the subject and don't know where good sources would be; and, in the second place, I have no doubt that many physicist editors would take offense, move it to WP:Articles for deletion within a few hours, and then find all sorts of reasons to support deletion. In other words, yes, perhaps there should be an article Criticisms of physics, but such an article would not be likely to survive the wrath of physicists.NightHeron (talk) 23:59, 2 May 2018 (UTC) This Month in GLAM: April 2018
About This Month in GLAM · Subscribe/Unsubscribe · Global message delivery · Romaine 11:52, 10 May 2018 (UTC)
The Signpost: 24 May 2018
A busy office with minimal staff.
Kudpung has some thoughts on the reasons for becalmed forums and the reluctance of candidates to (wo)man the rigging.
Thoughts on how looking for the truth on Wikipedia brings out unexpected things in the real world.
After a recent Village Pump discussion, the Signpost looks at WikiProject Portals.
A busy month for discussions on major topics.
Science, sportspeople, video games, and history feature heavily in the community's picks this month.
Has an attempt to prevent historical revisionism become a content battleground?
De-recognition of Brazil user groups; brute-force attack on Wikipedia; Wikimedia Conference 2018; and assorted other silly things.
And the burning question of the day, is the monkey selfie going to space with the rest of Wikipedia?
No surprises here as the summer movie season begins.
Improved mobile app, searching, citations, inline maps, voting, and more.
Editor SusunW delves into reasons why she has created hundreds of articles about women.
Too many women still don't know that Wikipedia is editable.
Down the rabbit hole into the realm of third-grade mind.
May 25 is National Wine Day in the United States.
The dark and twisted world of Wikipedia's most powerful media institution: The Signpost. Ping at ANIJust a friendly tip. Your ping of me didn't work. You didn't get my username right when you posted, and you edited your own post to correct it, but you must correctly spell my username and sign at the same time for a ping to work. You didn't re-sign. That said, you seem to have managed just fine without me thanks to Swarm.--Bbb23 (talk) 23:56, 4 June 2018 (UTC)
Fraudolent material?CFCF, You wrote me a message in my talk page about the allegedly "fraudulent material" I inserted for the term "healthism". Could you please specify why you are considering my text a fraudulent material? I am a great fan of Wikipedia; still, I recognize that especially for social sciences a better job could be done. "Healthism" is classical example of that. It is a sociological concept, but the larger section is about the book of a physician (Skrabanek). Also, the sociologist at the centre of the final section, Nikolas Rose, never put at the centre of his reflections the concept of "healthism", and the quotation is actually fraudulent. When I saw that I tried just to ameliorate the text and to correct the mistakes. I am not an expert Wikipedia editor and I revised the text following the advice of a Wikipedia administrator, who made me notice that the first version had copyright problem. Anyway, you can verify any piece of information I gave in the earlier version. So, your sentence does make any sense to me. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mauroturrini (talk • contribs) 08:35, 6 June 2018 (UTC) This Month in GLAM: May 2018
About This Month in GLAM · Subscribe/Unsubscribe · Global message delivery · Romaine 19:29, 8 June 2018 (UTC)
AN/I topic ban discussionCould you drop by the thread you started at WP:AN/I#Topic banned user commenting on topic ban violation on said topic? Ideally, you should probably endorse withdrawing your report (as the user you refer to wasn't actually under a topic ban at the time), but at the very least I would appreciate it if you confirmed that you had read and understood my most recent post. Thanks, TenOfAllTrades(talk) 20:52, 8 June 2018 (UTC) (It would also be a worthwhile gesture for you to apologize to Mathsci for your error.) TenOfAllTrades(talk) 20:54, 8 June 2018 (UTC) Books & Bytes – Issue 28Books & Bytes
Arabic, Chinese, Hindi, Italian and French versions of Books & Bytes are now available in meta! Sent by MediaWiki message delivery on behalf of The Wikipedia Library team --MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 19:33, 20 June 2018 (UTC) The Signpost: 29 June 2018A Wiki not so Simple, a mayor motivating an editathon, a Marshall Plan, and a Wikimania under a cloud of criticism
Further developments on New Page Review and Articles for Creation work sharing
Admins volunteer to be abused – or so it seems
So it shouldn't get credit for our work, either.
Major grants announced, a new milestone for Afrikaans Wikipedia, a new WMF technical engagement team, an effort to start up a new library, two new admins – or maybe three fewer depending on your math.
Several online battles are juxtaposed with stories about cooperation and good deeds, Arbcom hovering over it all; notwithstanding, a good action movie script is not necessarily found here.
Community discussions include style updates to project-wide icons and the main page, procedural questions on royal names and jettisoning unsuitable drafts, and deeper questions of compliance with European privacy laws and the perennial issue of shrinking admin corps.
Enjoy the superb content
British politics case enters workshop phase and German war effort closes workshop, goes to Arbcom for proposals.
Two celebrities hang themselves, and the FIFA World Cup is underway
An AI assistant comes to watchlists; better mobile compatibility; new bots, tools and scripts; and more
Colorful and moving.
WMF appeals to Turkish Minister of Transport, Maritime, and Communications Ahmet Arslan to lift the block of all language versions of Wikipedia for over a year.
Studying ourselves: 'driven by a sense of mission' according to researchers.
In our next episode...
Some essays are funny, some are serious; some are just, well what exactly?
Revisiting an editor's warning to count our kidneys and keep the wolves at bay Alternative medicine editsThat was quite a tour de force on Alternative medicine. I'm not quite sure I see how that was inspired by the unsourced edit I reverted, but jolly good show! — jmcgnh(talk) (contribs) 20:49, 16 June 2018 (UTC)
This Month in GLAM: June 2018
About This Month in GLAM · Subscribe/Unsubscribe · Global message delivery · Romaine 11:46, 9 July 2018 (UTC)
Nomination for deletion of Template:Protests against Trump footer
Facto Post – Issue 14 – 21 July 2018
MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 06:10, 21 July 2018 (UTC) Factual basisNot being quite omniscient myself Need help for WikiProject medicineBrother!, I'm from Bangla Wikipedia. I copied WikiProject Medicine format for— bangla wikipedia উইকিপ্রকল্প চিকিৎসাবিদ্যা . Everything is working well but one Template Template:WPX member box is not working well in Bangla Wikipedia, link for Bangla wiki Template is টেমপ্লেট:WPX member box. English template produce a "preload template text" when user try to join the project or click the button "Join WikiProject" but in Bangla Template it's not producing the "Preload Template text"!. I tried but it's not working. Please help me to solve this problem. Arian Writing Talk 12:28, 26 July 2018 (UTC)
The Signpost: 31 July 2018
Ships and shoes – and if you don't like it here, just go away!
How admin would-bes run the gauntlet.
Wikipedia referees wag a finger at Professional Wrestling editors.
New admins and Kudpung finally leaves NPP after 7 years.
One secret cabal that watches out for conspiracy theories, and another one out to stymie venture capitalists?
And more: a new user group for editing code, Women in Red, and arbitrator articles.
Spanning the gamut from warfare and destruction to pop culture to celebrations of nature and humanity's achievements.
We don't have "state agents" in a political debate, but couldn't talk about it if there were.
Finding the mathematician and Supreme Court nominee in this list is like playing Where's Waldo?.
Useful new gadgets.
Depictions of July events in several countries.
Those who study ancient Egypt.
And other recent findings, plus a roundup of research presentations at Wikimania.
Merge WikiProject Professional wrestling and ANI.
Get over it!
They say the road to hell is paved with good intentions. This Month in GLAM: July 2018
About This Month in GLAM · Subscribe/Unsubscribe · Global message delivery · Romaine 05:09, 9 August 2018 (UTC)
Nomination of Fake news for deletion![]() A discussion is taking place as to whether the article Fake news is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted. The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Fake news (2nd nomination) until a consensus is reached, and anyone, including you, is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines. Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article. -GDP⇧ 04:26, 20 August 2018 (UTC) Facto Post – Issue 15 – 21 August 2018
MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 13:23, 21 August 2018 (UTC) Books & Bytes – Issue 29Books & Bytes
Hindi, Italian and French versions of Books & Bytes are now available in meta! Sent by MediaWiki message delivery on behalf of The Wikipedia Library team --MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 16:02, 25 August 2018 (UTC) The Signpost: 30 August 2018
Keep straight on – there are trolls in the hedgerows.
"Imagine a world in which every single human being is a Wikimedian. That's my commitment!"
WMF pays possible Orangemoody ring for user research, and ditches MediaWiki for publishing its own blog. Knife-edge closures at RfA.
But unfortunately its output is incompatible with open licensing.
Plus: Simple English Wikipedia stays open, a discussion on draft header templates, bias blind spot by admins offered cash?
Astronauts named Armstrong, babes of the Brits, Cortinarius caperatus and all that.
"Bridging knowledge gaps, the ubuntu way forward".
Very high and very low hits; love and loss.
Citation bot and mapframe enhancements; new licenses for Data space; possible hiccup on 12 September; per-user page, namespace, and upload blocking; and miscellaneous new bots and tools.
Some of the best pictures of 2017.
Readers prefer the AI's version 40% of the time – but it still suffers from hallucinations.
Nothing funny about it.
Remind you of any Wikipedia articles?
The Wikipedia Plays. Invitation to participate in studyHello, I am E. Whittaker, I am working with Wikimedia’s Scoring Team to create a labeled dataset, and potentially a tool, to help editors deal with incivility when they encounter it on talk pages. A full write-up of the study can be found here: m:Research:Civil_Behavior_Interviews. We are currently recruiting editors to be interviewed about their experiences with incivility on talk pages. Would you be interested in being interviewed? I am contacting you because of your involvement in Wikipedia’s Women in Red project. The interviews should take ~1 hour, and will be conducted over BlueJeans (which does allow interviews to be recorded). If, so, please email me at [email protected] in order to schedule an interview. Thank you Ewitch51 (talk) 19:29, 31 August 2018 (UTC) Nomination for deletion of Template:MThow
This Month in GLAM: August 2018
About This Month in GLAM · Subscribe/Unsubscribe · Global message delivery · Romaine 13:23, 8 September 2018 (UTC)
Orphaned non-free image File:Hathitrustlogo.png![]() Thanks for uploading File:Hathitrustlogo.png. The image description page currently specifies that the image is non-free and may only be used on Wikipedia under a claim of fair use. However, the image is currently not used in any articles on Wikipedia. If the image was previously in an article, please go to the article and see why it was removed. You may add it back if you think that that will be useful. However, please note that images for which a replacement could be created are not acceptable for use on Wikipedia (see our policy for non-free media). Note that any non-free images not used in any articles will be deleted after seven days, as described in section F5 of the criteria for speedy deletion. Thank you. --B-bot (talk) 17:21, 9 September 2018 (UTC) IllustrationDear Carl Fredrik, on the Danish wikipedia we have translated alternative medicine and also used your illustration File:Altmed function 2.svg. There has been a discussion of this illustration. Do you know if there exists a source for these 5 pathways by which alternative treatments "work"? If so, we would very much like to add this source as a reference in the caption.--Weblars (talk) 14:34, 17 September 2018 (UTC) Facto Post – Issue 16 – 30 September 2018
MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 17:57, 30 September 2018 (UTC) The Signpost: 1 October 2018
We keep on publishing as long as you keep on reading.
Wikipedia dodges a bullet in Brussels... maybe.
Can Wikipedians help save the world's knowledge and shine a light on current events?
Plus: signatures, shortcuts, and reliable sources.
No valid new requests for arbitration, no new cases.
Fourth highest view count of the year; lowest view count since 2014; death, sports, and movies ever constant.
Plus the latest scripts, bots, and tech news.
A pictorial ode to the end of summer.
As the global community of volunteer Wikimedia editors mourns the destruction of this amazing museum, this post pays tribute to all editors who have contributed restlessly to tell the story of the National Museum, our history.
And other recent research papers.
What is a four-letter word for...
You know you should... Precious anniversary
--Gerda Arendt (talk) 06:10, 6 October 2018 (UTC) This Month in GLAM: September 2018
About This Month in GLAM · Subscribe/Unsubscribe · Global message delivery · Romaine 05:29, 13 October 2018 (UTC)
Books & Bytes, Issue 30Books & Bytes
French version of Books & Bytes is now available in meta! Sent by MediaWiki message delivery on behalf of The Wikipedia Library team --MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 03:43, 25 October 2018 (UTC) The Signpost: 28 October 2018
A slightly thinner issue, but out on time.
Is a missing article on a Nobel laureate a fail? What if her draft biography was declined as non-notable?
And it's richer than ever.
Breitbart begone; rescued by archivists; celebrating trolls?
Plus: two pending changes-related discussions, notability, and naming conventions.
Who's reading what?
Bots can do anything you want – well, almost.
WMF continues to stonewall development; NPP wishes again relegated to stocking fillers.
SPARQL adds sparkle to WMF projects.
We are all writing for Amazon.
No special effects here, just beautiful celestial images.
If it weren't free, of course.
Wikipedia has a long history of talk page tomfoolery.
The reviewer who declined the article gives his perspective.
The "holy-shit" slide. |