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Watching Anti-Science POV admin candidates

• None for now.

Articles on Quackademic Medicine

Below are articles articles, mostly medical but some in the sciences, that promote ideas or POV's that might endanger human life. Feel free to add your own, but I'm watching and cleaning up these articles. Please sign if you add something.

• List of medicinal herbs-lacks any references, and implies these drugs can help.Orangemarlin 00:52, 12 July 2007 (UTC)
• Herbalism-same as above Orangemarlin 00:52, 12 July 2007 (UTC)
• Homeopathy-ridiculous Orangemarlin 00:52, 12 July 2007 (UTC)
• Attachment therapy-don't let your children go there Orangemarlin 00:52, 12 July 2007 (UTC) This has been rewritten since User:AWeidman (Dr Becker-Weidman) and his 6 socks were indef banned. Fainites 16:45, 11 November 2007 (UTC)
• Medicinal plants of the American West-more unsourced POV edits Orangemarlin 00:52, 12 July 2007 (UTC)
• Alternative medicine-more of the same Orangemarlin 00:52, 12 July 2007 (UTC)
• Naturopathic medicine-Actually not completely off the wall, but some parts are bad. Orangemarlin 00:52, 12 July 2007 (UTC)
• Er, Duesberg hypothesis and poppers could both use more work, and talk about endangering lives... especially the former. MastCell 18:54, 12 September 2007 (UTC)
• I'd also add ephedra to the list... I did a lot of work cleaning it up and it's not so bad anymore (it actually references the serious harms and deaths associated with ephedra supplements in a way that goes beyond referring to the FDA as jackbooted thugs, now). But much of the same material is duplicated in ECA stack, which I haven't been as successful with, and which I fear gives an erroneous impression as to the safety record of ephedra-containing dietary supplements. MastCell 19:20, 12 September 2007 (UTC)
• Arguably, Reflexology, though that's probably not actually dangerous, just ridiculously oversold. Adam Cuerden 00:51, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
• Vaccine controversy. Anti-vaxers are really dangerous. -- Fyslee / talk 08:27, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
• Hulda Clark. A dangerous scam. -- Fyslee / talk 08:27, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
• Gary Null. Advocates nonsense. -- Fyslee / talk 08:27, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
• Joseph Mercola. Advocates nonsense and repeated run ins with the FTC. -- Fyslee / talk 08:27, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
• rebirthing, reparenting, Power therapies. Primal Scream therapy. I would treat Neurolinguistic Programming as the main hub for many of them though. Its a subject that seems to be the main pseudoscientific umbrella that is used by most of them to give the false impression of scientific appearance. Its incredibly widespread and extremely misleading to the less scientifically literate. Here is a good source; . Phloem (talk) 05:33, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

anyone who wants to work on this complex of article, I'll be glad to help. Time we got to the pseudo-psychology. DGG (talk) 21:18, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

try Eisner in The death of psychotherapy, Chapter 3 "Cathartic Therapies:From Primal to est". A little out of date but .... Fainites 22:20, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

• coral calcium. I just put in some references, but there is a lot more that can be done. That someone would think that coral calcium can be used as a panacea for all types of cancer when in fact excess calcium can, in some cases, be detrimental to certain cancer treatments means that we should be very careful how the claims of the coral calcium fanatics are treated. ScienceApologist (talk) 21:38, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

Medical articles

Below are articles that I believe, along with any trusted science and medicine editors who may wish to contribute, meet the simple test of being well-written, do not give undue weight to fringe theories, and are either WP:GA or WP:FA:

• AIDS
• Alzheimer's Disease
• Rotavirus

From Graham

Hi OM, I know you know Rotavirus is a FAC and belated thanks for your timely edits. "You know who" is fortunately silent at the moment, (but fingers are still crossed). I've been feeling guilty for months over Herpes zoster— I think I caused many problems by incorporating too many primary sources. I've just looked at the article and, having just passed Herpes simplex and Genetics to GA today, (or yesterday, it's getting late in the UK), I can't see why Zoster is not GA. If you are amenable (? spelling), I would be grateful if you would let me collaborate (? spelling again), with you once more. Graham. --GrahamColm 23:17, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Anything you can do to promote Herpes zoster back to GA? OrangeMarlin 17:12, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Seriously, I don't own the article, and I never had an issue with your edits. I think "you know who" created a maelstrom that caused it to collapse. It needs to get back to GA, because frankly, it should be GA even now. I've played with a few edits here and there to improve it. BTW, if you want to amuse yourself, look at "you know who's" edits to Talk:Alzheimer's disease. Luckily, several people jumped in. But let's HZ one more time, and maybe we can get it promoted to FA. And I'll start looking at other medical articles in the FAC process. OrangeMarlin 00:42, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Orangemarlin, I haven't forgotten your request to look at Alzheimer's disease. Every time I look at my talk page it gives me a guilty feeling. Trying to balance the little time I have at the moment between reviewing and writing my own stuff. I see you have some stability problems, which puts me off doing a detailed review of the prose just yet. I may have some time tomorrow evening, so is there anything you particularly want another opinion on? BTW: I remember you enlightened me a while back about Osteopathic medicine in the United States. This is now at FAC and, although I think the text isn't ready for FA, I wonder if you could comment on the handling of the subject -- something I'm too ignorant to comment on. Colin° 20:41, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

I think that AD is getting close to FAC. When you have a chance, can you jump in? OrangeMarlin 17:13, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Are you asking me or Graham? Alzheimer's hasn't changed much since I reviewed just the Epidemiology section (which hasn't changed at all). The sort of checks I did need to be done by the editors who have access to all the sources and can rewrite weak text or re-source weakly sourced text. I don't have the time, knowledge, ability or access to the material needed to write Alzheimer's. I'm just about to head off on holiday -- back on the 25th. Let me know which section(s) you think are FAC-worthy and I'll look at them then. Colin° 18:32, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Alzheimer's

Just in case you don't spot it (it is no longer the last item on the talk page), I've added a review of just part of AD. Taking this to FA is going to need a serious commitment of time--doing the sort of text-source checking I've done + actually writing material.

Whichever medical article you decide to concentrate your efforts on, if you are heading towards FAC, let me know and I'll be happy to have a look (eventually :-). Colin° 07:32, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Alzheimer's disease belongs in the FA group of articles. It's a little weak right now, but several editors have gotten involved with it over the past few months and really began a process of clean-up. I've focused on it in the past, but if there are a number of editors ready and willing to join in, it's time to start. OrangeMarlin 13:04, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Well, I'm offering to help in the way I helped Graham on Rotavirus--that is, someone else did the research and wrote the content. My research/content time is committed elsewhere. How about creating a TODO list on the talk page, and ask the editors to take a section each to scrutinize and fix (or, at least, point out what needs fixing). Colin° 13:53, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

AIDS

See here; you might want to initiate and shephard the WP:FAR. I just don't have time. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:12, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Look at some of the other FARs at WP:FAR, as well as the instuction page; you're supposed to post the links about the notifications like on other FARs, notify all relevant WikiProjects (I got Med for you), check articlestats for most involved editors, and leave a record on the FAR that notifications were done. That's the kind of time-consuming stuff I used to do on every FAR, and I just don't have time for anymore. In fact, as I recall, when I did the notifications for Intelligent Design, I was, um ... attacked as canvassing :-) See the other FARs on the page. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:16, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

I did go through the article stats to notify editors. I decided to ignore editors who haven't touched the article in 2 years or so. But how far down the list do I go? Editors that only appeared to revert vandalism don't seem to be too involved. I forgot about the project. I'm learning. OrangeMarlin 22:10, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

How far to go depends on the article and the stats; you can usually sorta tell where to draw the line by wherever there is a big dropoff in participation. I think you probably got everyone who's interested, but you have to post them back to the FAR. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:17, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

I'll look at other FAR's to see how to do that. Oh boy, I just love the cutting and pasting. OrangeMarlin 22:19, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Chiropractic

You're at 3RR, yourself. I submitted a WP:AN3 report, but I can't block as a participant. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 02:20, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, I was aware of it. It appears that several editors were reverting this character, yourself included. I would hardly consider what we were doing as edit-warring, however. We were just trying to keep the consensus version. Oh well, he's been blocked!OrangeMarlin 06:13, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Rollback feature??

Hey. Are you an administrator? If so, can I get the rollback feature? I'm a good person, I promise. I'll use it responsibly.  :) Saritamackita (talk) 17:44, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

No, I am not an administrator, and I have no control over it. Anyone can use it, but it's really complicated to set up--in fact, I did nothing to set it up, someone helped me out. Once you have Twinkle, there is an expectation of using it properly. I got admonished for placing incorrect warnings on many users talk pages, so I've learned to be somewhat nicer. A few times, I clicked the wrong button accusing editors who actually are my friends of being vandals. That was very embarrassing. Anyways, go to WP:TWINKLE for more information and assistance. OrangeMarlin 17:49, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

I wonder why people keep mistaking you for an admin? It must be your air of authority. :) MastCell  18:03, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Because of a high level of crankiness that is the major characteristic of all admins. Interestingly, I've thought about being an admin, and despite the fact that it would be the most interesting RfA in years, I can't see what you have that is very useful. I only care about the articles I care about, so I couldn't block anyone on those articles because I'd be involved. I have all the tools of undo, posting warnings, and admonishing anonymous vandals. And I have the pleasure of getting warnings from you, Dave Souza, Tim Vickers, and few useless admins for being a jackass whenever I want. I have the best of both worlds. Though you get paid a lot more for your job than I do.  :) OrangeMarlin 18:11, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Paid? We (admins) get paid? :LOL: — Arthur Rubin (talk) 18:14, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

That's the rumor. I hear it's around $0.02 US per hour, because everyone keeps giving you guys their 2 cents worth. Was I misinformed? OrangeMarlin 18:16, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Paid good money grief. El_C 18:17, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

RfA often turns out to be a forum where any mistakes one ever made (forgot to pet a cat on Tuesday, etc.) gets magnified exponentially compared to all the good that one does. I was lucky to undergo mine early on, with only 600 mainspace edits! El_C 18:17, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

You forgot to pet your cat??????? You horrible, evil admin. I'm posting an RfC right now to have you permanently banned from editing any cat-related articles. OrangeMarlin 18:22, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Just an example, I assure you: entirely hypothetical! El_C 18:25, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

I feel better. As I recall, I've see that some very cute cats own you.  :) OrangeMarlin 18:29, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

There's only one of me, but I keep him busy! Kitty 18:31, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

One cute kitty. How is it living with a Jewish Communist? I hope he only lets you eat kosher tuna from a third-world independent fisherman who utilizes sustainable fishing techniques. OrangeMarlin 18:48, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

← I was tempted to say it was your more... irascible moments that led people to think you were an admin. But that would have been too easy. I wouldn't let your involvement in those articles stop you; apparently, you can block people with whom you're involved in a dispute, under WP:IGNORE. See, if they're arguing against you, they must ipso facto be wrong. If they're wrong, then blocking them improves the encyclopedia. If it improves the encyclopedia, then you can ignore the blocking policy. QED - or am I missing something important? MastCell  18:40, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

You just gave me a migraine. Thanks. Oh, please see the section below. Talk about someone who both needs to be ignored and blocked. OrangeMarlin 18:48, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Chickenpox

Hi there. I don't believe that the text you removed was a fringe view, per WP:WEIGHT. However, it did mis-state the NHS's published reasoning for not implementing childhood vaccination. I've fixed it and provided two references. BTW, I'm not into quackery and I speak as one who suffered from chickenpox as an adult two years ago ... richi (talk) 23:01, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Maybe I used the wrong wiki recommendation. The problem is that although that might be the view in the UK, it's hardly common elsewhere. And besides, Herpes zoster can be prevented by not getting chickenpox or by adult vaccination if you have had chickenpox. It is a very useful vaccination. What has happened in some places is that there has been a concerted attack on vaccination. This is unfortunate. And I had no idea who had written the comment, so please don't take it personally. OrangeMarlin 23:14, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

No offence taken. I have no data that says whether the vaccination is routine outside Australia and North America or not. The main article does imply that most of Europe chooses not to. In terms of land area and population numbers, my guess is that routine vaccination is actually a minority phenomenon. I agree with you that anti-vaccination sentiment is usually ludicrous pseudo-science; e.g., the MMR "debate" here in the UK. In this case, however, there are real questions over the overall usefulness of routine zoster immunization. IMHO, bodies such as NICE generally do a good job of weighing up the pros and cons of a complex issue such as this, without being too influenced by a profit motive ... richi (talk) 23:36, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Here's a fun one....

Infant formula...check out the article history and talk page. Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 23:44, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

I think I'm missing something. OrangeMarlin 06:07, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Interesting IP popping up and removing material critical of formula, leading to some page cleanup. Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 06:10, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Only 'fun' by being an amusing edit history with 3RRs etc...Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 06:11, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Remember I ain't been involved with usual trench warfare on med articles...Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 06:11, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

OK, I saw that. I checked out the IP if it resolved to say Nestle WW HQ!!! But no. Im trying to reduce my involvement in trench warfare. OrangeMarlin 06:12, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Oh no. My favorite (said with extreme sarcasm) medical editor is involved. That article will be a mess in a few days. Oh well, time to move on. OrangeMarlin 06:15, 22 March 2008 (UTC)