User talk:SandyGeorgia/arch101

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Happy New Year![edit]

Dear SandyGeorgia,
HAPPY NEW YEAR Hoping 2015 will be a great year for you! Thank you for your contributions!
From a fellow editor,
FWiW Bzuk (talk) 21:02, 1 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

This message promotes WikiLove. Originally created by Nahnah4 (see "invisible note").

Cucurbita at FAC[edit]

You asked to be notified. It is finally there! Your input and review would be greatly appreciated. Thank you so much for you MEDRS help. Zad68 and Doc James helped after you looked at it. The main reason I got serious about editing was to improve this article. HalfGig talk 00:21, 1 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Could you direct me to review conflict of interest specifications[edit]

I see some highly questionable reviews, and would like to understand the related rules for exclusion. Could you help me find that wiki page? Happy New Year.32cllou (talk) 23:00, 1 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

32cllou, I am not clear what you are asking. WP:COI is the page on conflict of interest; based on your article talk page posts, it is beginning to appear that you may have one with respect to certain theories about diet and pollution as they affect autism. WP:MEDRS is the page explaining sourcing for medical articles. I don't know what you mean by conflict of interest specifications and rules for exclusion as they pertain to what you are calling "questionable reviews"; could you please clarify? It would be conflict of interest for an editor to promote their own work, and it would be improper to use someone's own work to support their work, but I'm unaware of anything like that going on in the autism suite of articles.

While you are here, I do wish you would read WP:OWN#Featured articles and take greater care to discuss your edits on the autism suite of articles, and to gain consensus before removing sourced text that is still accurate. The theories about diet and pollution may pan out, and they may not, but we don't need a repeat of the MMR vaccine controversy in these articles, by pushing theories that aren't yet well established or proven. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:09, 2 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I was not the one using that thesis. And the PNAS just to source obvious stuff everyone in the field knows.
Doc has stated (in general) those reviews are too old to use, as well as being dis-proven by newer cited secondary. Please refer me to exactly which edit you objected to.
You've helped me understand how very restrictive Wiki is regarding NO primary research. I only sought to use that PNAS to support the fact that there are many ongoing studies and why it's under intense study (sulforaphane); I've found secondary to support all that, but need to go to the library for the full texts. Again, I edited in no findings.
I got the idea about problems with review literature when the ~Urologist Assoc put out a review to recommend the PSA test right after several top notch independent bodies published their statements that it is not recommended. Who pays for, and the reputation/conflicts of interest of the authors is critical to neutrality. Note, I was alarmed that two of the scientists in the PNAS primary have conflict of interest (patents on sulforaphane). I was surprised folks like you didn't care about the Urologist PSA test promoting review being in Wiki. Makes me remember a newspaper article about wiki now being dominated by money interests. Point is, isn't it a conflict of interest for a strongly interested party to produce / publish a review, and aren't there wiki rules to follow? Where is the wiki page detailing limits on use of secondary research? How I anonymously post my findings.?32cllou (talk) 19:51, 3 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
PS I appreciate the value of your time, and help. I try not to offend. I did not touch/change the vaccine text, or if I did, it was by mistake. Again please direct me to my error.32cllou (talk) 19:59, 3 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Talk page discussion[edit]

Just wanted to invite you to a discussion on the following talk page about a possible rename in the future: Talk:2014_Venezuelan_protests.--ZiaLater (talk) 22:44, 3 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Another Derwick Associates COI user?[edit]

I saw you bring up the COI topic and was wondering if I have spotted another COI user. I could be wrong but it is interesting how I have encountered a new user just days, possibly hours after the COI case was brought up editing material around the subject. I'm not sure about Wikipedia's privacy policies and would like to assume good faith, but this is very fishy to me. You should probably take a look for yourself. --ZiaLater (talk) 04:11, 7 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not seeing anything, but perhaps I'm not looking in the right place. Because of the legal issues involved there, I'd be extremely careful of anything said here. If there is something specific you want me to look at, perhaps you could email me. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:57, 7 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Never mind ... I see your concern now, and will watch that editor. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:02, 7 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Neurodiversity[edit]

Dear SandyGeorgia: I see that you removed our conversation about the evaluative diversity section of the Neurodiversity article. I didn't think that conversation was finished--you removed a bunch of my submission as off-topic, I gave you an explanation of why I thought it was relevant, and was expecting you to respond. If you feel the conversation should happen elsewhere, then where? Langchri (talk) 15:23, 8 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Article content is discussed on article talk pages; I moved your comments to Talk:Neurodiversity. Since then, I have also examined Evaluative diversity, where I see rather substantial problems. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:27, 8 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I'm confused by your comment on the article talk page. Are those references you listed? which sections need citations? FWiW Bzuk (talk) 18:55, 12 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, Bzuk; those were left over citations from another section on the talk page-- now fixed! SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:29, 12 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Mail[edit]

Hello, SandyGeorgia. Please check your email; you've got mail!
It may take a few minutes from the time the email is sent for it to show up in your inbox. You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{You've got mail}} or {{ygm}} template.

Flyer22 (talk) 06:35, 13 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Flyer22, I have no mail ?? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:09, 13 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Flyer22, never mind! I found it in my spam file (??), but now I'm outta time to read it! SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:18, 13 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I replied to your email. Did that go to the spam box? Flyer22 (talk) 12:52, 15 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, I got it, just have been WAAAAY busy IRL. No prob on my end! I unwatched long ago. Best, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:25, 15 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

New article discussion[edit]

Hello SandyGeorgia,

I am discussing on creating a new article on this talk page. Since you have been recently involved in similar articles, I would like for you to be part of the discussion.--ZiaLater (talk) 17:34, 13 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Ugh...[edit]

So other editors and I took care of some possible sock puppetry after I noticed something and started a discussion. This is not the same user I brought up earlier, but we have stopped the possible sock puppetry for now. Just figured you should know!--ZiaLater (talk) 01:52, 15 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for letting me know, ZiaLater. Paid editing has long been a problem in the Venezuelan suite of articles, and I suspect as word got around Caracas about how easy it was to OWN Venezuelan articles on Wikipedia (that word was "on the street" in Caracas as far back as 2009), people got careless and it became more brazen. So, I urge you to take care with WP:BEANS; you want to keep things quiet enough that future paid editing will be detectable. Bst, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:27, 15 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I have done some more work on this article. Take a look, especially at the recent edits. FWiW Bzuk (talk) 01:17, 19 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Do you think this is notable independently of Simon Baron-Cohen, or should it be redirected there? I'm asking you because I see you have edited the article a lot. Everymorning talk 19:43, 30 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I found two recent secondary reviews that mention E-S theory, but you'd have to get hold of the full journal reports to see if the topic warrants its own article. PMID 23575643 and PMID 22674640 SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:58, 30 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you[edit]

Greetings! I hope you are having a lovely day today. I am sending you this brownie because I wanted send you my thanks for all that you've done on Wikipedia. You have put so much effort into Wikipedia, it is truly inspiring.

And in case you're wondering, I know we've crossed paths at some time or another though I don't remember when. That said, I've been on Wikipedia for over 9 years now (hard to believe!), so I understand full well how great discussions can be.

Thanks again, for everything you have done over the years. Have a wonderful day. Best wishes! hmich176 18:56, 11 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

A barnstar for you![edit]

The Original Barnstar
love Sedgcdhcfolx (talk) 01:07, 19 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

2002 Venezuelan coup d'état attempt[edit]

Bet you didn't see this coming. I've been attempting to clean up the 2002 Venezuelan coup d'état attempt article because, simply put, it's a mess. It's very outdated and many of the sources are not great or biased. There is a lot of meat to it so I was wondering if you could assist.--ZiaLater (talk) 09:40, 8 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@ZiaLater:, sorry for the delay, so busy ... I don't think you can rewrite that article without accessing several books. Like Silence of the Scorpion, and others ... SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:47, 12 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I was going to look into that but I have been busy as well. A reply is better than none, so thank you!--ZiaLater (talk) 16:52, 12 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

GAR noms[edit]

Hey Sandy. I don't know if you're active at the GA reassessments, but I'd like an opinion on Billion Dollar Babies and Blues for the Red Sun. Thanks in advance.--Retrohead (talk) 23:19, 9 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@Retrohead:, sorry for the delay, I've been quite busy! No, I have never gotten involved in the GA process, unless I've been drug there kicking and screaming. Best, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:48, 12 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Enamorada de Ti[edit]

I assume you pinged me for a copyedit. I have no problem doing it per se, but looking at the sourcing issues—well, I'm not sure I want to copyedit text that'll then be deleted over poor sourcing. Perhaps after the sourcing issues are dealt with you could ping me again? Curly Turkey ¡gobble! 02:31, 12 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@Curly Turkey:, no, I wouldn't do that to you! It's not really feasible to copyedit that article accurately given the number of Spanish sources (unless you speak Spanish). I pinged you because you passed it GA (years ago), and I don't believe it is still GA. Best, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:24, 12 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, I did do that, didn't I? I don't even remember the article. It would've been one of my first attempts at GA reviewing, so I wouldn't be surprised if I botched it. Curly Turkey ¡gobble! 23:39, 12 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I'm sure it has changed, and GA is not FA! SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:02, 13 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Articlehistory[edit]

I wanted to fill you in on some minor technical changes to the articlehistory template, so you don't have to read through all the discussion on the talk page. The gist of it is that articlehistory has been very carefully rewritten in Lua, to make it faster and more robust. User:Mr. Stradivarius wrote the code, and he and I went through a zillion testcases in an exhaustive effort to make sure the new version produces results consistent with the old one. There are only a few changes, most of them improvements:

  • The only significant difference in display is that the breakpoint for collapsing is three or more items. We can change this easily if needed.
  • No more hardcoded limits: We can now use an unlimited number of actions and also otd, itn, etc.
  • More consistent parameter names: It was confusing how some parameters were styled differently from others (we had |action2date= but |dykdate2=, for example). All the old parameters will still work, but functionality has also been added for all parameters to be styled like action parameters: dyk2date, otd2date, etc.
  • Specific error messages: Any error that would have simply put the page into the error category now also outputs a specific red error message on the page itself.

The change went live last night. The new error category, Category:Article history templates with errors, is linked at the top of the template talk page. The new, tighter code has enabled us to catch about 50 pages that had bad data (mostly due to stray characters/vandalism in action dates or oldids). Once we get past the initial push of error fixing, we'll start discussing some suggested improvements. I'll ping you when we get to considering functional changes, so you don't have to wade through all the technical crap. Maralia (talk) 16:05, 12 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you, Maralia-- you are such a dear! I saw that on my watchlist, and was dreading having to catch up on this. Your post is just what the doctor ordered, and I hope you know how much I appreciate all the work you continue to do! Best, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:09, 12 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Glad I could catch you before the panic set in :) I do have one situation for you to think about:
  • a former FA that becomes GA gets the currentstatus "Former featured article/Current good article".
  • a former FA that becomes GA then loses GA gets the currentstatus "Former featured article".
Do you see a case for changing the latter to "Former featured article/Delisted good article"? I am starting to think that I do, especially since so many "former FA" designations are truly historical (brilliant prose era). I don't want to descend too far down the rabbit hole, though. Let me know what you think. Maralia (talk) 16:37, 12 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I'm biased on that count, so I'll leave that to you! I've never been in favor of all of that other crap (meaning, anything below FA) even being in part of the articlehistory template. Too much maintenance for processes that have no accountability ... if bots can do it, grand, but we tend to lose our bot operators :) Best, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:43, 12 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Maralia, sample of my concern: two months, not touched by a reviewer. Although I worry that FAC and FAR are headed the same way ... SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:45, 12 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Hyalophagia[edit]

Thanks for the ping at Talk:Hyalophagia and for working with the student/'s contribution. Just letting you know I've reached out to the prof to make sure they went over the relevant material. I believe they have, based on past communications, and know they have the psych brochures, but it certainly doesn't hurt to check. --Ryan (Wiki Ed) (talk) 18:53, 12 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@Ryan (Wiki Ed):, indications that they have digested MEDMOS and MEDRS are, so far, not good ... but time will tell. (And the prof doesn't know how to use talk pages ... he is posting to student user pages.) It would be unfortunate for a student to take on hyalophagia, as there is next to nothing to be written about it in MEDRS sources as far as I can tell ... it will likely end up a redirect to pica (disorder). Will wait to see if the student has any real sources, but I haven't located any. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:56, 12 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Pinging Ian here as well as he would be more able than I to provide guidance to the student regarding article selection. --Ryan (Wiki Ed) (talk) 19:05, 12 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
cool beans. While I have you both, we need to remind the student editing hyalophagia not to repeat info that belongs at pica (disorder); the student editing minor depressive disorder not to repeat info that belongs at mood disorder or major depressive disorder; and the student editing posttraumatic stress disorder already mentioned adding text that belongs in other articles (see talk on hypervigilance and arousal). Common student editing mistake: adding info to the wrong article, in the wrong place, without considering wikilinks or understanding overall article structure. Thx, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:13, 12 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, I'm the prof of the class and students in question here. We have spent more time discussing psychology sourcing/formatting than the medical guidelines, but I will speak with students about these concerns. I last assigned a WP assignment two years ago; at that time "being bold" was a big emphasis. It was with that spirit that I asked students this past week to add one or two sentences directly to their target articles. For their next step, they will be staying to the talk pages of their respective articles and posting bibliographies and outlines there. Regarding me not knowing how to use talk pages, I posted comments on my students' user pages for ease of reading. ScottPKingPhD (talk) 20:42, 12 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the feedback ... I'm not following on the "ease of reading" issue, since posting to user pages isn't something you should do, and it may give your students the idea they should follow suit. Regards, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:49, 12 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Re. the user pages, I'm using a modified version of this syllabus, provided by Wiki Edu, in my course page. You'll see that in their Week 3 content, it states "Research and list 3–5 articles on your Wikipedia user page that you will consider working on as your main project. Ask your instructor for comment." ScottPKingPhD (talk) 13:59, 13 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for pointing that out! I hope Ryan (Wiki Ed) and Ian (Wiki Ed) will get that clarified. It does make sense for the student to list that on their user page (which is their home); that handout does not instruct you to reply on the student user page -- it asks you to comment, which should be on user talk. Best, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:07, 13 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Pings case sensitive apparently[edit]

Pings must be case sensitive on usernames...no big deal as I knew this article needed to be updated, along with several others I worked on 7-8 years ago now! I'll get it back in shape but it may be a slow process over a month maybe more. Take care.--MONGO 01:47, 18 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the note-- those pingie thingies are real buggers! SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:51, 18 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Invite to talk page[edit]

I wanted to invite you to this discussion on a talk page. (Disclaimer: This is not an attempt at canvassing)--ZiaLater (talk) 02:25, 18 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Ping[edit]

Hey there! Just curious, does this ping actually work!? MusikAnimal talk 02:29, 18 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Wait I see. Interesting. Will have to look into adapting this for other projects! MusikAnimal talk 02:30, 18 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I hope so! SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:36, 18 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

You accidentally a thing[edit]

This was surprising! Heh. I've re-added it now. ResMar 01:57, 20 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know how I did that, but thanks for fixing it! SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:24, 20 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Those pings[edit]

I noticed yours worked, which is good. I went around and did a bunch of manual notifications (which we've forgotten how to do) and forgot about half the people I've been pinging, including you. Victoria (tk) 03:16, 20 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Darn things ... we come to depend on them, and sometimes they work, sometimes they don't! SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:16, 20 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

MEDRS help?[edit]

Hi Sandy! I hope you're well. I've been working on integrating Cochrane reviews from the Occupational Safety and Health group, and I've run into some problems with MEDRS over at sitting with the existing material. I'm presuming that since it's discussing medical claims, the "Health risks" section needs to comply with MEDRS and only cite good recent reviews, since there's a plethora of them...would you mind taking a look if you've got a minute? I'd appreciate it greatly - I haven't edited the article yet because I want to make sure I'm only removing what should be removed. Thanks so much! Emily Temple-Wood (NIOSH) (talk) 02:53, 20 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, Emily Temple-Wood (NIOSH)! That article is chock full of primary sources, and most of the content they are citing are most likely things that can be taken from a secondary review. To avoid having problems there, you might first add the recent reviews to "Further reading" with an edit summary saying you are planning to upgrade the article to comply with these newer, better sources. Next, go through and delete every piece of primary sourced garbage; it's much faster to delete and rebuild than to try to clean up someone else's primary source junk. And finally, rebuild from the secondary reviews. I would be surprised if anyone gave you problems with that approach-- I don't see how anyone can argue for the usefulness of all of those primary studies, (which usually turn out to be added by COI IPs, who are probably authors of those studies). If you are hesitant to take it on, let me know and I'll watchlist. Best, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:02, 20 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Sandy, thanks so much for your help! I'll start digging in now. :) Emily Temple-Wood (NIOSH) (talk) 03:06, 20 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Emily Temple-Wood (NIOSH), nice work there-- I'm going to unwatch now. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:49, 25 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks very much for your help! Emily Temple-Wood (NIOSH) (talk) 20:49, 25 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Child Bipolar, and evidence based medicine editing[edit]

Hi, SandyGeorgia, I appreciate all the work that you are putting into monitoring pages. I have been reading up on MEDMOS and other Wikipedia editing guidelines, trying to learn the new skill set before doing unintentional damage to pages. Two reasons I am reaching out to you:

(a) Short term, the edits that I am making and you are reverting are pretty benign and clear cut matters of fact, where I am either adding citations or correcting edits. I was trying to start with relatively small baby steps.

I am digesting the Dispatch. I "get it" why the changes were reverted. This particular edit isn't that important, which may make it an excellent opportunity for us to discuss the different standards and help me form a constructive synthesis. More soon... :-) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Eyoungstrom (talkcontribs) 04:03, February 23, 2015

(b) Longer term, I would like to have a dialog and figure out how to work together to increase the content on Wikipedia, particularly around evidence based assessment and clinical decision-making (not just around bipolar disorder). I realize that I made some rookie mistakes last fall (I should not have had local resources in the sandboxes when I invited people to look at them, and I also should have cleaned up the DSM content to avoid potential copyright issues). I am working to learn, and I am a member of a demographic group that I believe Wikipedia would like to engage more (i.e., middle aged or older content expert with little or no coding experience). Looking forward to next steps, and thanks!Prof. Eric A. Youngstrom 17:11, 21 February 2015 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Eyoungstrom (talkcontribs)

Eyoungstrom, thanks for reaching out here. First, technical stuff:
1. You can (should) sign your edits on talk pages by entering four tildes after them ( ~~~~ ); that will add your sig and a timedate stamp, so others know who made the post and when, and avoid edit conflicts caused by the signbot.
Thanks; I had put the tildes in the edit summary. :-)
2. Discussion of edits to articles goes on article talk pages-- see my comments at Talk:Bipolar disorder in children.
Thanks; just wrote a response there. Proof of concept that I am learning. :-) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Eyoungstrom (talkcontribs) 04:03, February 23, 2015
3. You re-added an old primary source,[1] contradicted by a recent secondary review (PMID 24800202), after I removed it once [2] and started a talk page discussion. [3] Please have a look at WP:BRD, WP:3RR and WP:EDITWAR-- those are very important pages to read, and you really should discuss first on talk.
Thanks, makes sense. I am getting familiar with the etiquette. I will do more with talk (and see below)
I think it actually was this pair of sources that I replied about. If I can find the right words and get past my ineptitude with the coding, I hope that we'll have a fun discussion about that. It is cool to start to recognize the very different lenses getting used to look at the same sources. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Eyoungstrom (talkcontribs) 04:03, February 23, 2015


Now ...
1. You are citing primary studies for text that is covered in (and contradicted by) recent, freely available secondary reviews; have a look at WP:MEDRS, WP:PSTS, and the Dispatch I cited on article talk-- we can review these issues further on article talk.
I will go back and look at the specifics there. In general, I am struggling a bit with the hierarchy of evidence. I am familiar with peer reviewed literature in the social sciences, and with the standards of evidence in Cochrane/EBM. I have been reading up and understand that Wikipedia wants NPOV and reliance on secondary sources (though the instructions about sourcing seem different for Psychology and medical articles than other pages). Where I get stuck is when a secondary source states something that is probably wrong, and a primary source in a higher quality journal is available. In the contexts I am used to, the primary source trumps the misquote or misstatement in the secondary source. I really need help understanding how to work though situations like this -- thanks!
2. More importantly, be sure to review WP:COI when it comes to citing your own journal papers. If we have recent secondary reviews, they should be used-- and in this case, we have many. The best thing you can do for that article is to rewrite it from recent, high-quality secondary reviews, such as the one I list on talk. Try to avoid citing yourself or adding text that supports a personal viewpoint.
I have read the WP:COI, and it makes sense. Child bipolar is a page that I am going to need help with. I am heavily involved in consensus statements and review papers. Is a reasonable approach to draft sections, keep it in a sandbox or talk on the page, and ask for you and other people to review and post if they approve? Is it helpful for me to declare a COI on this? Or is that redundant if I work the plan outlined here (post drafts, invite comment, ask others to post after discussion). Thanks for helping me learn how to navigate things.
Best regards, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:15, 21 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Also -- any tips about formatting when responding "in line" like this? Double colons did not indent more, so I added italics to set my inline responses apart. Old dog, looking for another new trick. :-) Prof. Eric A. Youngstrom 22:49, 21 February 2015 (UTC)
There is a lot to respond to here, and I made things unnecessarily complicated (for you) by numbering the bullet points. Responding to bullet points is a bit trickier than responding to normal indentation, and is something you don't really need to learn yet. But generally speaking, you always respond by repeating what the post above yours had, and adding one colon (in this case, you needed to add my bullet point first, without spaces between). If you want to learn that complex indentation of numbered bullet points, you can see how I reformatted your response here, but a better suggestion is that I rejig this to avoid the numbering. I'll do that next, in a way that you will only need to add one more colon. Give me a second :) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:55, 21 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
With this edit, I converted my numbered bullet points to hard-coded numbers, so now you can just add one more colon for the next indent. Next, is figuring out why your sig isn't working correctly. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:00, 22 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
With this edit, I converted my numbered bullet points to hard-coded numbers, so now you can just add one more colon for the next indent. Next, is figuring out why your sig isn't working correctly. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:00, 22 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the extra work on the formatting. I am fading for the night, but I will spend some time in coming days trying to get better with the formatting. When responding inline, is the etiquette to sign each "chunk," or only once per batch of edits? Prof. Eric A. Youngstrom 04:03, 23 February 2015 (UTC)

I'm going to set up separate sections below, for helping sort out your sig (which isn't working correctly), separate from responses about editing. I hope editing each section will be easier for you than having to learn the indenting at the same time. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:05, 22 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Your sig (Talk Page Stalker help needed !!)[edit]

Eyoungstrom, to make editing easier while you are learning, I've created separate sections. You can just edit each section to respond. Your signature isn't working correctly. If you look at the bottom of this page after you edited it, you will see that I cannot click on your signature to be taken to your talk page. I am never good at explaining what you need to fix, so I am hoping one of my talk page stalkers will weigh in here to help you fix that. I think you added the tildes, but they aren't creating a sig. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:08, 22 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Is the signature working now? I just tried changing a setting in my account, toggling between "nickname" and "signature." Let's see if this works. Prof. Eric A. Youngstrom 04:03, 23 February 2015 (UTC) Prof. Eric A. Youngstrom (talk) 04:33, 23 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, Eyoungstrom, now you have a working sig! SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:36, 23 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Other editing issues[edit]

Where I get stuck is when a secondary source states something that is probably wrong, and a primary source in a higher quality journal is available. In the contexts I am used to, the primary source trumps the misquote or misstatement in the secondary source. I really need help understanding how to work though situations like this -- thanks! This is tricky, because of your expertise and knowledge in the field, and because of your COI, you'll benefit by being extra careful in these situations. The best thing you can do is the same thing you would do in any situation on Wikipedia: discuss it on article talk and gain broad consensus before adding anything sourced to a primary study. As you gain editing experience, you will understand better when and how to use primary sources ... I suspect, though, that what is happening in the case of childhood bipolar is only semantic (that is, to which population the 6% applies -- that may be mentioned in the primary source, but not the secondary review -- and the thinking in those cases is that, if the primary source info were significant/relevant/important, the secondary review would have mentioned it). So again, discussing it on talk is the way through that dilemma. When you come to an impasse, asking at WT:MED will help. Unfortunately, in most circumstances, you will need to do a lot of convincing to get other editors to accept that a primary study is correct, while a secondary review is wrong ... but it can happen! Additionally problematic is that there is simply no good psych Wikiproject, and very few good psych editors, so you will always get better feedback by asking questions at WT:MED. The other side of that issue is that we really really really need psych editors to become knowledgeable and proficient in Wikipedia guidelines and policies, and I am more than willing to help someone who is willing to learn !! SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:15, 22 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

This is a very helpful response. I wish I knew how to juxtapose it with the thread at the talk page for child bipolar. In a week or so, I may have grown my skills to the point that we can talk about the etiquette for reorganizing conversations like this. You are giving me a lot to mull over. I want to make the long term commitment to helping edit Wikipedia. I am thinking in terms of five year chunks, so this hopefully is the beginning of a long association. I will do my best to provide a good return on investment for your time. :-) Prof. Eric A. Youngstrom 04:03, 23 February 2015 (UTC)

Is a reasonable approach to draft sections, keep it in a sandbox or talk on the page, and ask for you and other people to review and post if they approve? Is it helpful for me to declare a COI on this? Or is that redundant if I work the plan outlined here (post drafts, invite comment, ask others to post after discussion). I'm not an expert in this area, but my personal opinion is that what you have divulged on your user page is adequate; anyone can see the level of your involvement and expertise, and it is clear that some of the childhood bipolar sources are your journal articles. I don't think you need to declare anything else, and your helpful attitude here indicates we're not likely to encounter the kinds of difficulties that are typical of researchers who are only here to push an agenda (and there are PLENTY of those!). Once you really learn and understand the use of secondary reviews on Wikipeda vs primary sources, you are unlikely to need further feedback, but while you are learning, the best things you can do are ... always discuss on talk once someone has removed an edit of yours (per WP:BRD) before readding the text, and always discuss on talk anything that isn't strictly sourced to a high-quality secondary review (such as this 6% biz). Sandboxes work as well, but I suspect you are above the level of needing to do that :) The best thing you can do is use the article talk page often!! I'll warn you that, while I'm willing to help you learn, I live in a small town with no university library, and I have limited journal access, so I can't always write or rewrite text if I don't have access to the actual source, but I can flag problems and help you learn guidelines and policies.

Okay, thanks for the feedback re: COI. Much appreciated. And lesson learned about reverting etiquette, too -- thanks! (You don't have the benefit of seeing me blush; I do it well, especially with no hair to cover it as it goes all the way up my face and over the top of my head).

re: access to journal articles, do sites like ResearchGate help? Or are you basically working with OpenAccess and whatever government funders require to be accessible on PubMed? If it would ever be helpful for me to provide a source on something we're discussing, let me know. I definitely want to learn the guidelines and policies; I am also trying to understand your parameters and see if there's anything helpful I can do there. Prof. Eric A. Youngstrom 04:03, 23 February 2015 (UTC)

Have you figured out yet how to step back through diffs to read edit summaries? That will be the first/next thing you will need to learn. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:22, 22 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I know how to do that, and I will be consistent about it from here on out. I still am running amok with the formatting, but I promise I am trying to learn (and the evidence should be visible soon!). Thanks a ton for everything. Best regards, Prof. Eric A. Youngstrom 04:03, 23 February 2015 (UTC)
Progress! You need not blush-- for months after I started editing Wikipedia, I had something on my user page about "who wrote the manual for this thing, anyway". I have a painful memory of how hard it was to learn to edit here.

On how to respond to talk page posts, different people have different pet peeves, and one of my mine is interrupted conversations, because I was the delegate at Featured article candidates for years, and had to read through very long, back-and-forth discussions where it was important to know who was saying what. From that, I developed the habit of numbering my bullet points so that people could make one response underneath, without interrupting my post, and referencing my numbers. That works at FAC with experienced editors, but was a bad idea for someone who is learning to format talk page responses! So, generally, look back from the top of our conversation to the places where I have added an unsigned template. On my talk page, it's relatively unimportant that you sign, indent or format correctly-- I'm only doing this to help you learn. It's my talk, and we both know who is saying what :) But when it comes to longer discussions on Project or article talk pages, clarity will be more important. So, again, read back through this talk page, and think about how you would do it on a discussion involving more editors. My personal preference is to make one response to everything where possible, and to avoid "interruptions" of another editor's post, but not everyone posts that way. Best regards, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:58, 23 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

PMID vs. DOI[edit]

Hi, again! I am seeing if I have "sussed" how to create a subheading, and also following up on a suggestion/request you made about including PMIDs when adding sources. I was using the approach laid out in the "Editing Wikipedia Articles on Psychology," 3rd page, under "Cite Your Sources." I have the PDF of the article on my profile page, too. Sorry if this all seems pedantic as heck -- I am trying to be specific, and I have no idea yet how the "Cool Kids" on Wikipedia would link to this (just a sinking feeling that it is not any of the approaches I just tried!).

Here's the substantive question, and the rub -- the style guide that Psychology uses, the APA 6th edition, requires us to include DOIs, not PMIDs. I personally saw no use for the DOIs until I used the Wikipedia tool (then I felt a brief surge of joy before reading that DOIs might not be good practice on Wikipedia?). I have been building my Endnote reference library for my whole career (my wife actually started it before I even was in grad school). I am up to 23,700 entries, and most of them don't have PMIDs attached.

Can you please explain what the value add of the PMID is? If there is one, I will gladly go ahead and start adding it (to my Endnote library as well as when I attempt to edit Wikipedia).

If DOI and PMID are interchangeable, then DOI will be easier for people who grew up with or work with the APA Style Guide, since DOI is a required element for that, and PMID is ignored.

If PMID has a clear added value, but psychologists and psychology students have spent years gathering DOIs instead, is there a way to hack the "Cite Journal" script so that it tries to autopopulate the PMID? (If that already exists, and I missed it, then there will be another big blush on my part). Who would be the right person to ask or suggest that to?

Thanks, as always, for the guidance!

Prof. Eric A. Youngstrom (talk) 02:35, 27 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

There are several values on Wikipedia of the PMID.

First, no medical article will be taken seriously without them :) That only matters if you intend to go for Good article or Featured article :) Journals that are not PUBMED-indexed are suspect, so it's good practice to show you are using Pubmed-indexed articles. It's a matter of having your work being considered high quality, and not creating work for other editors-- in other words, if you don't look up PMIDs, others will have to do that for you. You can find plenty of articles that are B-class, C-class or start class without PMIDs, but it's unlikely you will find an FA or GA missing them.

Second, another advantage of PMID is that the Pubmed database has a field that (usually) clearly identifies secondary vs. primary sources (reviews, case reports, news, etc). (That's explained in the Dispatch I gave you above.) If you don't use PMIDs, others have to go through the work to determine if your work is correctly sourced, which is easier if they can just click on the PMID. That info is easily found in PubMed; if you don't provide the PMID, we have to look it up to determine if you are using review articles (that is, people like me who don't have journal access, so have to rely on the PubMed fields).

Third, the Pubmed database indicates when free full text is available, with a link to it, and that is a big deal !!! We like free full text. And free full text via PubMed Central will always be free-- it won't disappear like some journal URLs may.

Fourth, because most medical editors on Wikipedia use PMIDs and the BogHog/Diberri citation format, we have this handy-dandy tool for citing articles from PMIDs: all you do is plug in the PMID, and it returns a full cite journal template, including DOI when available, and including full-text when at PubMed Central. And that tool is so handy-dandy that right now it's not working, so I can't give you the link :) See the userbox on my user page, where there is a Boghog/Diberri template filler. I will ping Boghog to this discussion so he can tell you where to find the tool, and so he can answer your other question. I believe that either Boghog or Rjwilmsi knows how to run a bot to add PMIDs when there is a DOI, so I've pinged both of them. Thanks for asking-- most appreciated. Keep at it! SandyGeorgia (Talk) 06:22, 27 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, yet again! I am sold on the virtues of PMID.

One musing -- for Psychology as a discipline, there are a set of journals that are not indexed in PubMed, but they are in PsycINFO or ERIC (especially education-oriented research). This will be true for other social sciences, as well -- there will be things that are indexed in Social Sciences Citation Index or SCOPUS that won't be in PubMed. The PubMed indexing is a great shortcut for quality sourcing for *medicine*, but it will penalize the social sciences, especially as they move further away from medicine. What is the thinking in the WikiSphere about how to source content in these areas?

This doesn't apply so much to my areas of professional interest -- bipolar disorder definitely is in the zone that overlaps between psychology and psychiatry. Assessment could be something that good quality work (and especially reviews) get published in journals that are indexed in PsycINFO but not PubMed, though. Thanks, as always, for the guidance!

Oh, and I put a different thread up at the top of the list. It was an experiment, and I am guessing that it is not good practice, because you responded to this and not it. My bad. But if you could check out my response to the student on the talk page, I would be glad of any feedback. I also want you to know that I am trying to be proactive. :-)

All the best, Prof. Eric A. Youngstrom (talk) 12:45, 27 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Eric. The tool Sandy mentioned above may be found here: Wikipedia template filling. There was a temporary tool server outage this morning (none of the other tools were accessible either), but it is now up and running again. There are numerous advantages to including PMIDs in citations. These include:
  • Quality – According to MEDLINE/PubMed's Journal Selection criteria, journals are selected for indexing by PubMed based in large part on the "quality of editorial work" and "especially on the explicit process of external peer review". Furthermore, the coverage of high quality medical journal by PubMed is very thorough. Hence if a medical publication has not been indexed in PubMed, one immediately is suspicious of its quality.
  • Primary vs secondary – PubMed indicates whether a source is secondary (reviews and meta-analyses) or primary (original research). Wikipedia strongly prefers secondary sources (see WP:PST and WP:MEDRS). Including a PMID link quickly enables one to determine whether a source is secondary or not.
  • Related publications – PubMed provides a list of related publications and these lists can be invaluable in locating high quality sources or additional sources to expand the article.
One obvious limitation of PubMed as you have already mentioned is scope. PubMed is focused on medical sources and its coverage of psychology and psychiatry journals appear to be less thorough: ( Psychology 214, Psychiatry 190, Medicine 1872, and All 5615). If a psychology/psychiatry source has been indexed by PubMed, that certainly increases ones confidence that the source is high quality. However given that the coverage of psychology/psychiatry journals in PubMed appears to be more limited, lack of indexing by PubMed doesn't automatically disqualify it. As PsycINFO is also "devoted to peer-reviewed literature", indexing by PsycINFO would also increase one confidence that the source is high quality. The bottom line is that if a psychology / psychiatry source has a PMID, by all means include it in the citation. Boghog (talk) 15:02, 27 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Hi, again, Eyoungstrom! Yes, I missed the earlier post, but not because doing that is a bad idea, rather I was quite busy elsewhere and didn't check my page history. I will go look for it next. Generally, indenting and threading a discussion to respond where the query occurred is not a bad idea.

When you use the paragraph break on Wikipedia (<p>), you don't enter a carriage return after it-- that breaks the formatting.

Yes, as Boghog explains, most regular editors are aware of the PubMed limitations in scope. When a PMID is not provided, that doesn't automatically mean in all content areas that the journal is suspect: it does mean that we have to go find the abstract and do more work to determine the quality of the source, and I at least also then have to go do a PubMed search to see if the info is current, better sourced elsewhere, etc. So, in general, the issue you raise shouldn't be a problem (although sometimes I have to inquire on talk about the source since I don't have access to a university database). Specifically, I'm aware of those issues for example in the education and psych realms. In my area of focus, though, I can almost always find better sources in PubMed. When I have a question about the value of a source, I often have to inquire at WT:MED.

Also, you mentioned that you have a personal database full of DOIs ... many of those may be primary sources, and as your editing on Wikipedia grows, you may notice that you develop a much smaller stash of secondary reviews, since many of those primary sources won't be used here.

By the way, this (PMID vs DOI) is the kind of discussion that would have been better held at WT:MED, as it would have given you broader input from more editors than moi :) I don't mind at all that you post questions here, and I'm happy to help, but I also don't want to lead you astray by inflicting all of my personal preferences on you! SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:12, 27 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

As I was pinged: I have scripts to add PMIDs to existing citations with DOIs using citation templates, however that normally depends on another Wikipedia article having a citation for that PMID and DOI. I dont' currently have a script to find a PMID based on the other fields (author, title, journal, volume etc.), have to do that manually like everybody else. The citation bot can find a PMID without a DOI, but the citation bot unfortunately can get over-eager filling in authors (and to a smaller extent some other less important parameters), which can conflict with the WP Medicine preferred style. Rjwilmsi 12:07, 3 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Further, with regard to the APA databases, I was able to take a look at their record structure documentation, and it does provide for a field they call "Methodology", equivalent to PubMed's "PublicationType" field. The value of this field can serve Wikipedia as a published objective indicator for selecting secondary articles. Among the listed values for the "Methodology" field are: "Literature Review", "Systematic Review", and "Meta Analysis". Any of these three, we would consider secondary sources, though our preference would be for systematic reviews. The other values for "Methodology" would almost always describe primary content which should normally be avoided, or used with circumspection per wp:MEDRS. LeadSongDog come howl! 18:52, 3 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Other[edit]

Hi, SandyGeorgia! I have a quick question. I am putting it at the top, and I think that this will be quick for you, and we may also be able to teach me the etiquette about deleting things from talk pages as we "check them off the To Do list."

One of the students in my class completed the training I assigned, and then went and created a page The_Carolina_way. They emailed me to let me know, and their email indicates that they know that it is not a durable contribution to Wikipedia. I went ahead and replied to them on the talk page Talk:The_Carolina_way for the page in question, and also by email (to be sure they got the message). If you could peek at what I wrote and give me feedback, I would be grateful.

I am trying to walk the line between getting the students engaged and being respectful of the editors and the time involved in cleaning up these sorts of "edits."

One more piece of context -- Chapel Hill got ~8" of snow, which is somewhere past "crippling" but not quite "catastrophic." The university closed, classes were cancelled, lots of people have been without electricity or Internet... so things have been even more slow and chaotic here. I will see the students again next Tuesday, barring any more weird weather. Any other feedback I have with them is going to be via email.

The Executive Summary is that I am trying to teach them to be responsible. We are just getting started (launch was Tuesday, and we were missing ~1/3 of the students due to an earlier snow), and I am trying to shepherd under uncharacteristically challenging conditions. I am glad of the rapport you and I are building, and I don't want to strain it when students appear to be "going rogue." If I am responding appropriately, then I think this could be an excellent "teachable moment" -- recognizing that I won't be getting to do any face-to-face interaction with the students until Tuesday afternoon.

Any coaching or advise about how this looks from your side of the Wikipedia Continental Divide much appreciated.

Thanks a ton! Prof. Eric A. Youngstrom (talk) 01:59, 27 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Yea, putting a new query that at the top didn't work, and actually made it less likely that I would see it :) Talk page posts should be in chrono order, and you would insert a response to an earlier post at the top, indented, where it occurred, but a new post should go at the bottom. So I moved this down. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:17, 27 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
OK, I had a look at The Carolina way and your post on talk. I see that another editor has already prodded the article, meaning in seven days, an admin will delete it, unless an editor contests the deletion, and then it would have to go to Articles for deletion. As you've noted, all of that wastes other editor time, so you suggested the student go ahead and take it down. That's not something that can typically be done (once you write something on Wikipedia, it's no longer in your control), but in this case, the speedy delete G7 may work: see here, since no one else had edited it. The editor can try the speedy delete, or you can just wait seven days for it to be deleted. If a class is Wiki Ed supported, I suspect the admins working at WP:ENB would get to it ... but I'm not an admin, so this isn't my area. Either way, when a new article is created, other editors have to patrol the article, check the sources, and in this case, an admin has to delete it ... so do remind students to please work in sandbox.

On the general issue you raise about interaction with your students, I am thrilled with your attitude and desire to learn, but I would find it easier if Wiki Ed staff were on board because this is way too much work for me and a few regular editors. I cannot yet say about your class/students, but with the other classes I'm following now, I am extremely dismayed at the time I am having to spend on really low-level basics. What I'm seeing in some undergrads is that no matter how much time other editors spend or how much I type, the students just don't care, don't interact, or simply do not have the core competence in either writing or researching to be adding anything to Wikipedia-- some of the basic grammatical issues are just alarming, in terms of what universities in the US are about these days, and they don't seem to have the capacity to digest work written at the journal level, determine what should be added to the article, and rewrite it in their own words. Their planned contributions are gibberish-- not a good result for the amount of time I'm expending on trying to bring them up to speed. I can't yet say anything like that about your class, and even if your students end up contributing nothing, at least we will have a psych editor (you!) well versed in Wikipedia. But I am worried about the size of the class, because if all of them contribute gibberish like I'm seeing in other classes, it will be overwhelming.

Thanks for letting me know about the snow-- stay warm and safe, and watch the back on the shoveling! Best, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:34, 27 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, speaking as something of an expert at shovelling snow and certain other things, please take it easy. It can be surprisingly dangerous for the unwary. Warm up and flex before shovelling. Lift with your knees, not your back. Don't twist your back under load. Pay attention to your heart rate, and take a break when you feel winded. In the long run, smaller shovel loads don't slow you much, but they are safer. If you have to drive, keep in mind that even if you have good traction, the other driver may not. Brake early and gently.
In regards The Carolina way, there does seem to be a substantial literary use of the phrase, but that does not mean the term has encyclopedic value. The book of that title might merit an article if there have been substantive literary or other reviews published about it, but I would suggest simply replacing the current article text with a wp:REDIRECT to the article about the author. The simpler approach, of course, would have been to avoid creating mainspace articles until a decent draft is ready in a sandbox. There is wp:NODEADLINE for Wikipedia, an article can always wait for improvements. LeadSongDog come howl! 20:02, 27 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Supported/unsupported WikiEdu classes[edit]

Moving this part here. Hope that's alright. It looks like the present case will be resolved relatively soon, but I'd like to offer a broader answer to your question as it's a question that came up last term, too, I think.

I'd also like to qualify my response[s]: In order to keep discussion more or less open on-wiki I feel like I should say that while I'm using my "(Wiki Ed)" username, I'm only speaking as someone who is part of Wiki Ed, rather than speaking for Wiki Ed (in the sense of making official policy statements, for example).

Ryan (Wiki Ed) can you please explain what you mean about "not a WikiEd-supported class"? If that means Wiki Ed staff is not available to help here, I don't know how "we" can keep up with three dozen students who don't yet have clue about Wikipedia.

Based on feedback and best practices, classes we support have certain things in place: milestone assignments, clearly posted dates, mandatory student training, using talk pages, working in sandboxes first, etc. These are based on our experiences as well as feedback from people like yourself. We build tools and have strategies to get instructors on board with these best practices. For the most part, we try to get everybody to use the assignment design wizard, which automatically includes these sorts of things. In a few cases they don't use the ADW because it's not practical for the assignment they have in mind, so we work with them to add the important elements that may be missing, explaining the importance of each. Generally, people are into the idea of our support so make these changes, and because of these ground rules several classes who might not have had these best practices in place now do.

But there are also classes, as there always have been, which (a) don't know we exist; (b) don't want our help; (c) do not meet the minimum standards for support. In these cases all we can do is to reach out and to try to keep communication open with those instructors in the hope we can guide them to what works. In those cases where we don't hear back, where professors want to go their own way, etc. I'm not sure what else we can do aside from continue to try to communicate, try to explain why these things are important, maybe send brochures, etc. A good part of Helaine's/my job is this sort of "onboarding", and to that end it's invaluable to have members of the community let us know when they see problems with classes so we can try to work with them. But we can't force people to do anything. Your question of how to keep up seems like the same question you could ask about how to keep up with all of the editors all over Wikipedia (i.e. by treating students just like everybody else). Meanwhile, we'll be trying our best to work with the instructor to get them on board.

I think that maybe the uncertainty/frustration you're expressing is due to the fact that the class in question now is still operating in the Education Program namespace? It's first important to point out that WikiEd is not the only group that uses the course page extension. But whether it's WikiEd or another part of the Education Program, the typical practice is that once a professor has the instructor right, he/she has it indefinitely and can create course pages at will in the future (which may be supported by us, may not, and may be something unrelated to education like an editathon). There may be a discussion to be had regarding whether the instructor right should be a term by term thing. I don't know how much support that would have and frankly don't know what discussions have happened in the past on the subject. But that also wouldn't prevent an instructor from reusing an old page. It seems like a pretty uncommon phenomenon, but maybe we should talk about whether they should be locked after the class is over? Again, I don't know what discussions have occurred on the subject in the past.

In the present case, based on his most recent message and past communications it does seem like a mix-up and a matter of time/not getting around to developing the course page, so I'm hopeful we can get it set up with the key information soon. But that sentiment of "in process"/"soon" regarding unsupported classes may also be confusing to outside observers -- and it certainly doesn't help that Ian (Wiki Ed) and I are both enrolled in the current course as online volunteers. I think we've typically signed ourselves up when it looked like we'd be supporting a course simply out of convenience, but I think going forward we'll hold off as I can see where it would be misleading. There's currently not an obvious way to tell supported from unsupported classes. If you edit a course page (or the assignment page for classes created using the assignment design wizard), supported classes are indicated by a "wiki_ed=yes" parameter. Switching that on also activates the dashboard feature for that class, so any class listed on the dashboard can be assumed to be supported. I should probably also ping Sage (Wiki Ed), who can provide better insight on the technical side of things.

Acknowledging that we cannot track and fix the work of every editor who happens to be a student, but can be persistent in attempting to reach out to their instructors (through students if necessary) to offer guidance/support, what sorts of information, communication, etc. would help you and others? (sorry for the very long post) --Ryan (Wiki Ed) (talk) 15:54, 27 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the long explanation, Ryan (Wiki Ed). You may know from my past posts on ENB and ENI that a lack of response when it comes to student editing increases the frustration. I guess I'm left with two questions: 1. I assume, perhaps incorrectly, that the ENB and ENI noticeboards are bringing up issues with all student editing, not just education program classes? Because depending on that answer, then I need to know whether to take issues to ENI or ANI in the future. Dealing with HUGE classes hitting a watchlist is not regular editing, and if/when issues occur and I need to take them to ANI, I need to know how to distinguish. 2. It's most frustrating how this whole interface is set up. It's different from other areas of Wikipedia editing, and now I see that even course pages aren't something I can count on understanding. So, I guess all I can add is that ... this continues to be most discouraging, and a de-motivation to me to continued editing. The contributions that I have seen so far from Education Program:Shenandoah University/History and Systems of Psychology (Spring 2015) are simply dreadful ... it is alarming that university students are operating on the level of the posts I've seen so far, and I submit that what we are asking of these students is more than they are capable of. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:43, 27 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
To answer SandyGeorgia's specific questions:
1. For anything related to specific problems with classes — whether Wiki Ed is supporting them or not — ENI is the right place. And for general issues related to the education program and class editing — whether specific to Wiki Ed's system or not — ENB is the right place.
2. Wiki Ed requires the use of course pages, with an accurate description of the assignment plan, for any class we support. We discourage instructors from flying under the radar or working outside of our best practices, and we try to contact any instructors (from the US or Canada, at least) who are not following them and strongly encourage them to do so, so that — as much as possible — we can count on course pages to accurately and consistently track which classes are working on what. For the Fall 2015 semester, we're planning to roll out complete replacement for the current course pages, which will use conventional wiki pages instead of the non-quite-a-real-wiki-page Education Program: namespace pages that are currently used. That will mean that all the usual wiki tools will work on course pages.
--Sage (Wiki Ed) (talk) 19:52, 27 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I have to admit, I've come rather late to WikiEdu discussions, but what I see rather confirms Sandy's concerns. Forgive me if I ramble and rant somewhat here...
  1. The profs generally mean well, but have not done the necessary wikiwork themselves to understand what they are asking of the community. When they bring on a new flock of students, we have the blind leading the distracted blind. Some form of skills training and validation for the profs should be in place before they are asked to run classes. Perhaps some participation in a regional edit-a-thon would be in order? I know that I would have been mightily vexed to find that I had scraped together tuition money for a course, only to find I was getting it from an instructor/professor/whathaveyou who was just learning the subject themselves. How much worse to find that the useful material was freely available to me online?
  2. Even the existing community members seem to be missing some basics. How is it that classes can effectively require students to out themselves as soon as they sign up for a course? Once the course ends, how many have continued participating? Are they all then forgotten, able to start afresh with a clean slate? What happens to the work they did? Should they get full marks on an article that never makes it to the mainspace?
  3. This really should be a considered process, not the present ad-hoc stack of practices. The nature of student assignments should be much more incremental, to ensure that they grasp the meaning and basic use of the wp:5P before they hurl headlong into a weeks-long research effort. I would much rather a student just identify one good, reliable source for expanding an article than have them spew pages of valueless (even if correct) original research.
  4. The barely literate are not going to develop substantial new writing skills in a semester, but any who have such skills can learn the basics of functioning on-wiki. I'm thinking particularly of discussing and disputing edits with others. A common thread in the classwork is that the students avoid onwiki discussions, which raises the question of just where they are having them. It should be made clear early that this is not accepted behaviour. Collaboration on-wiki is collaboration on the open record.
  5. One change that might help with many of these aspects is to ask that assignments be structured jointly between physically dispersed participants, ideally worldwide. This would have the added benefit of allowing skill-poor resource-rich participants to work with skill-rich resource-poor ones. Imagine the effect of getting rural African students access to sources from urban libraries. (Oh, wait a second, didn't Jimbo once say something about "...the sum of all the world's knowledge..."? :-)
  6. Another area that should be explored further is engaging students in translation work. Many institutions have a substantial proportion of foreign students with bi- or even multi-lingual skills. Translating high-importance articles in either direction is work that can be done with a minimum of research skills, but of course the prof needs the ability to read the work product.
  7. If anything can be done about getting profs wiki-skills up in advance of teaching a class, it will, to my mind, be one of the most effective ways of advancing this work from just painful to painful-but-productive. LeadSongDog come howl! 19:00, 27 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Under vaccine controversies[edit]

I wasn't being sarcastic when I said you are helpful. Even though you obviously have a different opinion, I used the resource you gave me to post the Miller article. We'll see what happens :)Dcrsmama (talk) 23:43, 1 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Dcrsmama, I don't know why anyone would assume you were being sarcastic.

Now that you have raised the issue at WP:RSN, though, you should have a look at WP:FORUMSHOP-- it would be a good idea to stop debating the same issue at Talk:Vaccine controversies, since you have now moved it to a broader forum.

I should also point out that you don't seem to have yet fully digested WP:PSTS, WP:MEDRS or WP:OR. This page may help your understanding of how sources are used for medical content on Wikipedia: Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2008-06-30/Dispatches. I should also point out that, considering this is a "fringe" topic, you could end up sanctioned or blocked if you don't carefully read and digest what I-- and every other editor-- am telling you about Wikipedia's guidelines and policies. Regards, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:37, 2 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Schizophrenia Commission[edit]

Doesn't the report in Schizophrenia#Environment count as a reliable source, as a review or position statement by a body of experts? The commission was chaired by Robin Murray and includes Clare Gerada and Martin Knapp. DrKiernan (talk) 21:38, 3 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the query, DrKiernan. I would accept that source for any number of statements, but the statement it is sourcing is something that should be/could be found in recent secondary reviews-- that is, not just as the position of one organization in one country. The tag that is really needed is one that says something like, for an FA, a better source could be provided for this. I have pinged WT:MED to see if someone can fix that up.[4] Bst, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:58, 3 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Ref format[edit]

If another format for the authors is prefered we should get the cite tool in the edit box changed. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 23:26, 3 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I (and almost every medical FA) use the Diberri/Bohhog format; which tool are you using and where is it? I don't think we can get anything changed Wiki-wide, because it's mostly medical articles that use Diberri ... pinging Boghog. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:19, 4 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I think Doc James is referring to WP:REFTOOLS which is enabled by default is found the top of the edit window:
(Cite button on right, which if selected then shows a "template" pull down menu on the left with cite journal, cite book, etc as choices).
Because RefToolbar is so easy to use, it has become widely used. Unfortunately RefToolbar will only generate citations with "first1, last1, first2, last2, ..." parameters. One can add |name-list-format=vanc to the template so that it at least renders the citation correctly, but one is still left with the parameter bloat.
We need to convince the maintainers of Module:Citation/CS1 to add support for |vauthors= so that it can be used in {{cite journal}}, etc. templates and then convince the RefToolbar maintainers to add an option to store the authors in the vauthors parameter. Boghog (talk) 16:11, 4 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Ah, ha, thanks Boghog! I had never seen that, and now I understand where that awful parameter bloat in citations is coming from. I try to avoid interacting with the "maintainers" of the citation module (perhaps you remember a go-round we had a few years back?). And since they are parameter-driven, I don't know if you can get it by them. Maybe we can just convince Doc James to switch over to the Boghog template filler when he's operating on an FA? I only worry about this on FAs since they need consistency in citation format,[5] and I HATE the parameter bloat that mucks up articles with multiple name fields. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:28, 4 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I add so many references and the RefToolbar is so easy. Happy to try to get the RefToolbar changed. Can someone draft what it should be changed to? Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 18:34, 4 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
"Ah, there's the rub!" If we want wp-wide consistency, then we need CS1 parameters (|first1=A.B. |last1=Smith |first2=C.D. |last2=Jones) to be used everywhere. If we want WPMED consistency, then we need pubmed-style (|authors=Smith AB, Jones CD). No consensus has been reached so far as I can tell. The pubmed inconsistent practice in use of first versus use of inits doesn't help much. It's also discouraging that after all this time we don't have a replacement operator for citation-bot. Not that anyone sane would take on the rat's nest of requirements it is expected to address. LeadSongDog come howl! 19:11, 4 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
yep ... I would not want to open this can of worms. Really, Doc James, I don't mind switching the authors behind your edits on FAs to maintain citation consistency (and I prefer the med/Diberri/Boghog style on authors because it's so much less clunky). It only matters on FAs, and fixing edits behind you is preferable to tangling with that crowd of bot-folk who love chunking up citations with parameters! Bst, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:14, 4 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
No worries. Happy you do not mind. I will try to use the other format for FAs Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 20:20, 4 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

How...?[edit]

How ever did you find my message to the Teahouse visitor having a rough day?

  Bfpage |leave a message  13:52, 5 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I prefer to keep conversations together, so have responded on your talk. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:58, 5 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Taiko FAC[edit]

Hey Sandy. I've got an FAC open for Taiko, and I wanted to ask if you might be willing to do a second spot-check of sources ensure they accurately support claims in the article. I was told recently that the FAC will be withdrawn without a spot check, and so if you are able to review the article's sources, I'd be very grateful. If not, that's perfectly fine. Thanks, I, JethroBT drop me a line 21:02, 7 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Response to question about fringe science and sanctions[edit]

You asked a question here: [6]. 2 years ago, arbcom clarified that the discretionary sanctions on pseudoscience was on fringe science broadly construed [7]. So if a disruption continues in the topic area you can file a request at Arbitration enforcement for a warning (sanctions can't be given before a warning, unless (s)he has already been warned about sanctions). Second Quantization (talk) 11:38, 8 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you, Second Quantization for answering ... Problems with that particular user have subsided, but should there be some sort of Arb notice placed at the article talk page? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:00, 8 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
It's generally not necessary or the done thing, particular for pseudoscience and fringe science. This is because pseudoscience and fringe science issues can appear in any article. There are some templates floating around too. Second Quantization (talk) 14:05, 8 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

A barnstar for you![edit]

The Original Barnstar
Thanks for your really helpful explanation here. It was one of the clearest I've seen and it really made the job easier. Thank you once again. Chase me ladies, I'm the Cavalry (Message me) 22:54, 10 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Chase me ladies, I'm the Cavalry, and thank you, too! SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:19, 11 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Help Jee create more high quality, freely licensed, photographs of beautiful insects in Kerala, India[edit]

Sandy, I hope you forgive this little plug for a Wikipedia-related fund-raising campaign. My good friend Jee takes wonderful photographs of the wildlife in his home of Kerala, India. Over 500 Wikipedia articles benefit from his pictures and he's uploaded over 1000 to Commons. Jee is one of the best photographers we have, particularly of butterflies. And he's done all this with a compact camera. He's now got a quality DSLR camera as a gift, but needs funds to buy a macro lens and other essential equipment for taking professional-quality images. A group on Commons organised an Indiegogo crowd-funding campaign, which met it's very modest initial target in one day and runs till 24th March. Clearly we underestimated the generosity of Wikimedians, and donations continue well beyond this initial modest wish. Now Jee has the opportunity with more funds to buy the sort of essential kit every DSLR photographer requires such as a good bag, tripod, flash and the "digital darkroom" (computer/software) to make the best of each image.

I'm posting here because I know you and your friends appreciate the finest, featured, content on Wikipedia. The campaign is

Thanks :-) -- Colin°Talk 12:27, 28 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

MEDRS and pseudoscience[edit]

I think that there might be a bit of a possible problem with MEDRS regarding whether potentially insulting terms which can be or have been applied to what might be considered nominally medical disciplines would have to have such descriptions sourced from sources which meet MEDRS or not. So, for instance, if something is called a pseudoscience in an otherwise reliable source, but that source might itself not meet MEDRS, would that be considered sufficient sourcing to say the subject is described as a pseudoscience or not?

I figure you know a lot more about this than I do, and considering I am basically a lazy bastard I figured that if there were any reason to make changes to accomodate this you might know better how to do it than I would. John Carter (talk) 23:39, 2 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

(talk page stalker)The question of whether something is pseudoscientific or not is not a biomedical question, so WP:MEDRS doesn't apply - it's a question more in the realm of philosophy of science. In some cases sources considering the pseudoscience question may be good medical sources too - see the opening para of the Homeopathy article for examples. Alexbrn talk|contribs|COI 05:16, 3 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Changes in the Signpost contribution stream process[edit]

I've been making extensive changes and simplifications to the way that Signpost solicits contributions. This included modifications to the Featured content dispatch workshop to bring it in line with the revamped internal special and op-ed submission streams. For more details see Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Newsroom/Content guidance. I know how invested you are in the FCDW; I wanted to give you a heads up about the changes. The next issue should include an editor's note on the changes. Submissions are auto-collated at the Newsroom. Regards, ResMar 22:33, 3 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks so much for the consideration and the notice ... I will look into it as soon as I have a free moment! SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:35, 3 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I pulled the trigger a little early—now it should be ready. Also: would you be willing to list yourself as contact-person here? As Ed is listed here. ResMar 01:00, 4 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Ack ! I still haven't had time to look at everything, and I'm out most of tomorrow ... by when do you need to know what? Give me deadlines ... I'm in prioritizing mode! SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:11, 4 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
There'll be a nice bump in traffic once we publish in 19 hours (if we publish in 19 hours). ResMar 01:41, 4 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Casliber is currently working on something that'll likely be publishable under the FCDW banner, though I opened the ticket through the special desk. See 1, 2, 3. Best, ResMar 03:29, 8 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Talk page discussion[edit]

I would like to invite you to a talk page discussion. '(Disclaimer: This is not an attempt at canvassing)--ZiaLater (talk) 02:49, 8 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]


adults with adhd[edit]

Hi Sandy Georgia,

I very rarely edit wikipedia and am new to it. I just made a request for some changes in the adults with adhd section. Can you have a look?

Thanks!

Dispatches indexing[edit]

An automatically updated list of dispatches, generated via Lua (credits to User:Mr. Stradivarius), follows: (snipped for brevity):

{{#invoke:Signpost|tag|dispatches}}

I've replaced the template-based indexing in the FCDW with this because it requires zero overhead on the part of editors. ResMar 23:43, 12 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Dr. Blofeld has given a complete copyedit to the article. Does it look better now? — Ssven2 Speak 2 me 15:03, 13 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

NBSP[edit]

Hi SandyGeorgia. Sorry if this is a stupid question, but I can't quite remember whether or not the non-breaking space is used in dates (e.g., March 14, 2015; 14 March 2015; March 2015). As I recall, it used to be recommended, but I don't see it in many articles and I think it may no longer be en vogue. Could you please advise? Thanks in advance for your time.-RHM22 (talk) 04:15, 14 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

RHM22, I can't recall all of the specifics, but agree with you that they were once used but it was decided they were unnecessary for dates. Where they are needed on film, music, etc articles are on units of measure and Top 10, Top 5, Top 100 etc. Thanks for the work! SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:18, 14 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the clarification! I'm glad to help with the article, and I hope that the FAC can be salvaged. My initial thought was to take it to PR, but I checked and it was already there just recently. I'm still going over it to pick out all the obvious stuff, and then I'll give it another look for minor MOS things. I'll ping you on the FAC when I'm done, as requested.-RHM22 (talk) 15:12, 14 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, RHM22-- I think that PR was part of the problem. The nominator thinks it was thorough, but all it did was suggest some issues that needed to be dealt with, but apparently weren't. The commentary on the FAC from Tim riley furthered the problem of a misperception that the article was FAC ready, but apparently he doesn't feel the need to follow up ... so we have an ill-prepared article lingering at FAC with premature support. Thanks for taking it on ... I am not a fan of rewriting ill-prepared articles during a FAC, and always think that work is best done off FAC, but if you can make it happen, kudos! SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:23, 14 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
It is certainly not my preference to engage in such thorough editing during the FAC process, but I don't currently have any article work of my own, so I can assist where needed. The article seems to have all the information necessary, but it has globs of fat all about which need to be trimmed and reshaped. (This will sound patronizing, although I don't intend it to) I think the nominators may come from a different language background, so I don't want to judge too harshly, but I do hope that if this FAC manages to pass, they are a bit more cautious in the future. Anyway, I will do my best, with no promises made.-RHM22 (talk) 15:38, 14 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you (I think), SandyGeorgia for mentioning me here. I thought your ping was to alert me to the illegal download, rather than the quality of the article, on which, as I said, I have commented and have no further observation on, pro or con. I did not suggest that the page was ready for FAC. The cinema bores me stiff and I review film articles solely to oblige when requested. Your motive for pinging was unclear or I'd have explained this earlier. Tim riley talk 15:42, 14 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Tim: I thought that was what you meant, but I didn't want to comment on your behalf in case it wasn't so.-RHM22 (talk) 15:49, 14 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Tim riley, my motive for pinging you was to keep the conversation in one place (and I didn't really understand why you felt no need for follow up, so thanks for explaining).

When a knowledgeable reviewer and nominator implies (or states) that an article is FAC ready (no reason to oppose), that can weigh heavily in promote/archive consensus ... so my suggestion is that you might have kept it watchlisted so that you could amend your commentary as needed. It helps the delegates know whether to close a FAC; my suggestion is that the support on that FAC is either premature or driveby, and the FAC should be withdrawn, but delegates can't really act on that suggestion when an experienced reviewer says there is no reason to oppose. I hope you'll take a closer look at comments subsequent to yours on the FAC, and the work that has already gone into attempting to bring the article to standard (which is more than should be expected at FAC IMO). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:53, 14 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Just to let you know (in case that unreliable ping maintains its unreliability), I've done all that I'm going to do as far as copyediting the article. There may be some minor things (I'm going to add in the nbsps after I post this here), but I think I've covered most of the major stuff. I'm pretty certain there are ref issues as well, so I guess it's your call on that.-RHM22 (talk) 19:01, 14 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Ah! Two nations divided by a common language. My saying that I neither supported nor opposed meant what it said. But no doubt you're right, and non-English readers might mistake politeness for encouragement. I cannot easily bring myself to write "I don't care – ask someone who does": it seems so rude, though of course I recall Alexander Haig's comment about another "duplicitous English bastard". Perhaps I shall try to be less tactful if a similar matter comes up. – Tim riley talk 19:06, 14 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Indian cinema articles generally have a very tough time at FAC. It certainly doesn't help that a lot of people are unfamiliar with it, and what might seem very notable to an Indian looks like unencyclopedic trivia to westerners. A lot of the prose written by Indian editors in various articles, I see similar things in some of the Indian newspaper sources themselves, the barrier doesn't help here. Also I think a lot of people will think it's a dumb Asian film about a silly robot and shut off. Given the sourcing it's not easy to produce a very high quality article on a contemporary Indian film. Something like Mother India (1957 film), a classic Hindi film which I got up to FA a while back with some of the others at least has more scholarly material and seems more encyclopedic. So it doesn't surprise me that Sandy thinks it poor quality and bland and has picked up on MoS and the prose. I did see FA potential (at least in comprehension) in it at an earlier stage though, and at least from my perspective I've rarely been wrong about it when I see it. I don't think the article is bad enough to warrant an immediate withdrawal, especially after mine and RHM's edit to it, and I've seen dozens of articles get a similar treatment of copyediting by multiple editors during FAC. But it's not an ideal situation I agree, and it's difficult to see how anybody is going to further support it at the current FAC after what has been said. I don't think it stands much chance as it is; perhaps it would be better for Sven to withdraw until more people are convinced.♦ Dr. Blofeld 19:34, 14 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, I think it has a really good chance at FA if some fixes are made, but when I suggested withdrawal, I meant a temporary withdrawal until the refs are fixed and everything is polished, which will also give it a clean slate. As it is, I don't think many people will really want to stick their neck out to support because of all the negative stuff on the FAC. That's just my opinion, and I hope I'm not being overly intrusive. I don't think I'd much care for this film, but I certainly take it seriously and I hope the nominators don't get discouraged.-RHM22 (talk) 20:12, 14 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, my feeling on the matter is the same.♦ Dr. Blofeld 20:28, 14 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
@Dr. Blofeld and RHM22: Honestly speaking, as per your suggestions, I will temporarily withdraw the FAC nomination for the article and open up another peer review to address the remaining issues the article has. It has greatly improved with copyedits from you two and Eric Corbett. BTW, I don't know how to withdraw an FAC, can anyone of you help me with that? As for the references, is it ok if I remove the author's names (those which have single author names)? — Ssven2 Speak 2 me 02:05, 15 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Ssven2: I think that is the right decision for now. You can ping one of the FAC coordinators (on the FAC page), and they should be able to close the nomination for you. The coordinators are Graham Beards, Laser brain and Ian Rose. Please ping me when you open the peer review and I'll do my best to help you get it to FA status. As for the references, are you referring to the sfn templates? If so, I'd leave them as they are for now, because they look fine to me.-RHM22 (talk) 02:41, 15 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
By the way, you can also use {{@FAC}} to contact the coordinators.-RHM22 (talk) 02:43, 15 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
@RHM22: I was asking about the authors' names in the newspaper and website refs. How do I standardise that? — Ssven2 Speak 2 me 04:42, 15 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]


Shah Rukh Khan[edit]

Hi Sandy, is it possible you could give Shah Rukh Khan a read and post some feedback on the talk page in the next week to 10 days? He gets over 1 million hits annually. Not easy to write a neutral article on somebody who wins awards for most films with a massive fanbase, but I think it's a good idea if you could give it a full read and report on what needs to be done to make it FA worthy before it hits FAC. I have a job seeing some of the MoS issues you often pick up on at times! Bollyjeff and myself were planning on nominating it by the end of the month.♦ Dr. Blofeld 20:03, 15 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for looking at it. And the input on the talk page!♦ Dr. Blofeld 19:48, 20 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I have opened the 2nd PR as the article's first FAC is now withdrawn. Feel free to leave comments. — Ssven2 Speak 2 me 13:51, 17 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Please do let me know if there are any more MoS and prose issues that I need to solve. — Ssven2 Speak 2 me 14:50, 19 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

A quick question, for the quotes, should I insert the full stop before or after them? — Ssven2 Speak 2 me 13:17, 21 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Have a look at WP:PUNC; it depends on the quote. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:25, 21 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Can you explain deleting my work?[edit]

Hi,

I spent a whole day, morning to night, researching and writing a section about the health impact of prolonged sitting. I directly cited articles from ten different medical institutes and journals and for most or all of my citations I included direct quotes from these sources so that anyone could verify them. Here's my version: [8].

I also used a few newspaper articles, and for these I was careful to only use articles that directly quoted studies or researchers involved in studies. For example, I didn't quote a journalist of the Washington Post but instead relayed a quote from a researcher as found in the Washington Post.

I put loads of care into this and you deleted a third of it with the summaries:

  • rather than fix poor citations, just remove primary sources
  • remove primary sources, too much time correcting citations that won't be used anyway

If you think you found a mistake in my work, could you tell me or raise it on the Talk page? It's obvious I'm willing to put work into this, so if explain your concerns then I'll probably try to address them and we'll end up improving Wikipedia. Thanks. Gronky (talk) 11:41, 23 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Gronky, are you familiar with Wikipedia's sourcing guidelines for biomedical and health statements? Most of what was there has now been replaced by secondary review sources. (The laypress gets it wrong more often than right ... and quoting them sometimes amounts to cherry picking or advertising that can result in misinforation. ) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:20, 23 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Sandy,
Unfortunately, if you check the diff you'll see that what was there has not been replaced by anything. One portion was deleted by you, and another portion by another wikipedian.
As mentioned, only a minority of my sources involved the laypress, and for that minority I was very careful.
If you check again and find that there are problems, could you mention them on the talk page so I can look into them? Thanks. Gronky (talk) 13:31, 23 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Hi, Gronky ... I am not seeing the problem you mention (that is, I'm unsure which specific text you want re-added). As I read it, everything that should have been mentioned based on secondary reviews was readded by Keilana. She is probably following talk, and has access to broader sources than I do, so if you can mention there what specific text you would like re-added, she will likely review. Bst, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:36, 23 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Here's the text to be re-added: [9]
If there are any problems with it, please let me know (probably best on Talk:Sitting).
(I assumed you had a problem with the text because you deleted a bunch of it. If you don't have a problem with the text, then that's good news to me.) Gronky (talk) 13:40, 23 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
That diff doesn't help me understand your concern, as it points to a full page rather than specific text you want re-added ... I've pinged Keilana to article talk, but it would help if you would specifically state on article talk which text you want to use from which sources, and justify why you think non-MEDRS sources should be used when we have secondary reviews ... let's move to article talk for that, and I defer to Keilana as she has broader access to sources than I do. Bst, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:44, 23 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the ping, Sandy, I've commented on article talk. Best, Emily Temple-Wood (NIOSH) (talk) 15:46, 23 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Manual of Style - invitation to comment[edit]

Subsequent to my posting on Wikipedia talk:Featured article criteria I have sand-boxed and revised the Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Mathematics/sandbox pages. Can I ask you to comment on this page, as I know you would need to refer to it when doing a FA review. What needs to be done to the the page to make it easier to use? Maths has 25 FAs what needs to be done to MOS/Mathematic to make them more achievable?-- Clem Rutter (talk) 17:54, 14 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]