User talk:Hkynefin

Welcome to Wikipedia from the Medicine WikiProject!


Welcome to Wikipedia from WikiProject Medicine (also known as WPMED). We're a group of editors who strive to improve the quality of medical articles here on Wikipedia. One of our members has noticed that you are interested in editing medical articles; it's great to have a new interested editor on board. In your wiki-voyages, a few things that may be relevant to editing Wikipedia articles are:


 * Thanks for coming aboard! We always appreciate a new editor. Feel free to leave us a message at any time on our talk page. If you are interested in joining the project yourself, there is a participant list where you can sign up. Please leave a message on the WPMED talk page if you have any problems, suggestions, would like review of an article, need suggestions for articles to edit, or would like some collaboration when editing!
 * Sourcing of medical and health-related content on Wikipedia is guided by our medical sourcing guidelines, commonly referred to as MEDRS. These guidelines typically require recent secondary sources to support information; their application is further explained here. Primary sources (case studies, case reports, research studies) are rarely used, especially if the primary sources are produced by the organisation or individual who is promoting a claim.
 * The Wikipedia community includes a wide variety of editors with different interests, skills, and knowledge. We all manage to get along through a lot of discussion that happens under the scenes and through the bold, revert, discuss editing cycle. If you encounter any problems, you can discuss them on an article's talk page or post a message on the WPMED talk page.

Feel free to drop a note on my talk page if you have any problems. I wish you all the best on your wiki voyages! Zefr (talk) 05:15, 3 October 2018 (UTC)

October 2018
Hello, I'm Zefr. I noticed that you made one or more changes to an article, Justicia spicigera, but you didn't provide a reliable source. It's been removed and archived in the page history for now, but if you'd like to include a citation and re-add it, please do so! If you need guidance on referencing, please see the referencing for beginners tutorial, or if you think I made a mistake, you can leave me a message on my talk page. ''We use reviews for citing anti-disease effects, not primary research. Please review WP:MEDRS. '' Zefr (talk) 05:16, 3 October 2018 (UTC)
 * On my talk page, you said: "I noticed you left a comment on my talk page about my edits to the Justicia Spigera page. I see nothing wrong with the sources used to back up the medicinal claims for this herb. Primary literature is just as good as review literature, as research has to start somewhere. The phrasing of the claim is important - drawing heavy conclusions from primary studies should be avoided, but stating that there has been research in support of a claim is not a heavy conclusion. It is important to include even preliminary research when citing evidence for a claim, because preliminary research contributes to the scientific body of literature. It is important to include all relevant sources with qualifications, rather than to only include evidence that has been well-established by a huge scientific body. Many plants and herbs are obscure and have not yet drawn much research interest. For that reason, I believe I am correct to include this scientific evidence, as I have refrained in my phrasing from drawing heavy conclusions and have treated the evidence with tentative claims. I will add the evidence back in.
 * Your explanation might be fine for the Discussion section of a book chapter or journal article, but it does not apply to an encyclopedia. Primary literature is work-in-progress, not sufficiently confirmed by repeat studies or reviews, and does not provide the typical encyclopedia user - who most often is not trained in science - with factual summary information. That's why we use WP:MEDRS sources as also described in WP:NOTJOURNAL, #6-8. --Zefr (talk) 15:03, 3 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Primary literature is evidence, and is not a work-in-progress. It can stand on its own. Repeat studies and review literature strengthen findings and provide a concerted body of robust evidence which can be used to draw confident conclusions. It is not an all-or-nothing affair. Science is a continuous and nuanced dialogue and ALL contributions to that dialogue should be included, even in an encyclopedia. The strength of a conclusion drawn from scientific literature should correlate in a nuanced way with the strength and historical nature of the findings. Wording is crucial to an accurate portrayal of the facts and it is NOT all black or white. The public must not be assumed to be incapable of parsing nuance in phrasing, even if they are not trained in a scientific field. Indeed, the strength of an outlet such as Wikipedia comes from its flexibility as a platform and the fact that it can be easily updated with new and NUANCED information. Another strength of such an outlet comes from the flexibility of users to adapt to new paradigms that may override the usefulness of traditional paradigms. The modern encyclopedia should be as fluid as the modern Way of Knowledge. Just because something is the Traditional Way does not make it necessarily superior. There are aspects of the traditional academic road that need to be questioned as we create new knowledge paradigms in the online world. Science is about precisely this: naming all the facts in an unbiased manner, questioning established paradigms, and accepting the new along with the robust in a totality that can integrate all facts into a recognizable sense of Truth. Truth is not a rigid structure but a constantly evolving one. So while there may be established methods for citing literature according to the already established groups of Wikipedia editors, these methods can and should be questioned. I don't agree with the paradigm you're using, and you have not proven to me that it is a better paradigm than my paradigm, so I see no reason to abide by it. Just because something is "the way things are done" doesn't mean it is the way things *should* be done. People deserve free access to all information. I am here to defend those rights and will continue to do so. If you think you can prove the validity of your methods then by all means attempt to do so. Hkynefin (talk) 00:03, 4 October 2018 (UTC)