User talk:Jfdwolff/Archive 1

Welcome
Thank you, Angela (talk), for your welcome welcome.

Pediatric gerontologist
Hi. Did I expect List of unpopulated professions to survive? No. It came about as a bit of midnight musing as I was dropping off to sleep, and turned into a little bit of humor to offset some of the grotesqueries of the VfD page. If it gets a laugh on its way out, I couldn't ask more.

BTW, that's 'Denni' with an "i".

Haemochromatosis
Hi, sorry for the delay in replying. IFrom the talk page, I assume this is settled now, but just to clarify; Wikipedia doesn't support the use of American English over other types. The Manual of Style explains that both are acceptable, though articles should be internally consistent. If an author has chosen to write an article using British English, it should be left as that, and vice versa. Normally American topics are written in AE, but other than that, there is no requirement to use AE, so the article being at Haemochromatosis with a redirect from Hemochromatosis is perfectly acceptable. Angela. 16:17, Mar 23, 2004 (UTC)


 * I don't know of any other guidelines apart from those already linked to on Talk:Haemochromatosis. The only mention of the issue on Meta that I know of is Linguistic merging. There's also the Guerilla UK spelling campaign if you want a different take on things! Individual articles will never be a "mishmash" of spelling variants, though there isn't really anything that can be done about the overall consistency of spelling between articles. You could always start a new discussion page on meta: if you feel that is necessary. Angela. 19:43, Mar 23, 2004 (UTC)

Imatinib
What is this imatinib you keep creating redirects for? -Nilmerg 08:50, 29 Mar 2004 (UTC)
 * I see. I thought it strange that you write the redirect before the actual article. - Nilmerg 09:07, 29 Mar 2004 (UTC)


 * Referring to the colon in the redirect; nothing wrong with it, it seems, just unnecessary (and I remember correcting some redirects like that that did not work in the past). (Sorry about the late answer, got back into net just today) - Nilmerg 08:19, 2 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Neutrophil granulocyte
Neutrophil granulocyte sounds redundantly redundant to (at least some) ears, as there are no neutrophils that are not granulocytes. And in at least American English, the adjectival form of neutrophil is neutrophilic so the expression neutrophil granulocyte sounds ill-formed: one expects neutrophilic granulocyte, not neutrophil granulocyte. Is this really how they say it in your neck of the woods? - Nunh-huh 22:39, 29 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Thanks for your response: I gather then it's not a British thing then. I'd much prefer to use the terms as used by those who use them; that's more or less the WikiWay. We have nothing against colloquialisms. How about keeping/moving the articles to their usual names, with redirects as needed so that we are not forced to use pipes to conceal their "oddness"? -- Nunh-huh

I'm still concerned about the notion of "neutrophil granulocytes" and the like. Colloquialisms are in fact generally left alone ("Naming conventions (common names)") which is why we have Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter. The idea is that names used commonly are easier to link, and link correctly. Of course, Wikipedia is not entirely consistent on this, but that's supposed to be the general rule. I wouldn't classify "neutrophil" as a colloquialism: it's simply the name of the cells. I know no one who says "neutrophil granulocyte" when referring to "neutrophils". Nor is the phrase "polymorphonuclear neutrophil granulocyte" particularly appealing. I thought that this might be one of those Britishisms, but the response so far at Talk:Neutrophil granulocyte doesn't indicate that, only that you consider it more correct. I agree that changing redirects is a chore, but going back to simple and commonly used nomenclature for blood cells would, I think, be worthwhile. If it were done, I'd gladly help you with it. You could still use neutrophil granulocyte in any text where it would be needed, and it could redirect to neutrophil. The same applies to basophils, eosinophils, and the other changes. -- Nunh-huh 19:04, 30 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I agree with you that arguing is perhaps the least pleasant thing to do at Wikipedia. I like to think we were just getting a feel for what ought to be. It won't hurt to wait to see other peoples' reactions before changing anything!  - Nunh-huh 09:55, 31 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Medicine in Wikipedia
Hello,

I'm glad someone brave has taken the plunge and started to clean up and improve medicine in WP.

IMO this subject/section is in a rather messy state and needs a huge amount of work.

I think the pivotal question for us to answer is who is going to be our aimed reader. A patient, a student, a student of medicine or a qualified healthcare professional maybe ? I don't see any possiblity to write or work collaboratively on more than one. We can send students to Wikibooks so we are facing choosing layman and professional approach. For me it would be no fun to write a middle of the road version but I think it is quite plausible to decide on one of them and start doing it. We have quite a lot of articles imported in toto from various US governmental pages and these have been clearly aimed at patients.

Once I proposed a two tier system with corresponding "patient information" pages eg Diabetes mellitus (a state of the art scientific article) and Patient information on diabetes mellitus

I'd advise to discuss things first and work on some work schedule.

Best regards, Kpjas 17:29, 8 Apr 2004 (UTC)


 * Re: my commitment. I have been looking more closely on thyroid lately so this is one of my areas of interest. So are diabetes, asthma, hypertension and some of endocrinology. But please don't count on my doing a large field alone. I'd rather help out with something smaller or with polishing something that is already there (diabetes for example). Kpjas 20:39, 8 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I have a Ph.D. in Pharmacology. I have taught medical school physiology, embryology, microbiology, and biochemistry. I have in the past done a bit of work on some Wikipedia medical articles, but I tend to spend more time on Wikipedia basic science articles. The WikiDoc project looks like a good idea. JWSchmidt 02:18, 9 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Hey, thanks for the message on my talk page. I'm not a medical doctor (though I do have a bachelor's degree in physiology), but I'm definitely willing to help improve WP's coverage of medical topics. I'm especially fond of improving existing articles (e.g., adrenal gland) and I've also created some new ones (e.g., patent ductus arteriosus). --Diberri | Talk 03:39, Apr 9, 2004 (UTC)

A Wikipedia doctors group?
Hi, glad to notice another doctor around. I was wondering if you might be interested in a more coordinated effort on the medical side of wikipedia. I'm getting jealous of all those nice blue boxes at the bottom of non-medical wikipedia articles :-). Do you know what happened to the "WikiProject Medicine"? JFW 10:08, 8 Apr 2004 (UTC)


 * Yes, there are a few of us. Users with medical backgrounds would be a nice list.  Article, not.  Is there a mechanism in wiki to allow seaches for users with certain backgrounds?  A young anesthesiologist, Alan, I believe, was editing the medicine article, where I met him.  I didn't hear about the Medicine project.  Now that would be REAL work.  Interesting idea, though.  The wiki structure allows rapid editing of the text, with the inherent plusses and minuses of that.  There are some nicely formatted articles out there.  How come the non-medical superformatters are not applying such artisanry to the medical pieces?  Kd4ttc 14:05, 8 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Thank you for your kind reply. It appears you have also moved your name to the "doctors" list on User:Jfdwolff/WikiDoc! I'll be updating the WikiDoc page with some of the feedback I've been having. Would you mind directing any feedback at my talk page? A kind General Practicioner from Poland (User:Kpjas) gave me some useful advice on determining the kind of readership Wikipedia medical articles should be aimed at. I'll try to write some sort of proposal. JFW 19:27, 8 Apr 2004 (UTC)

PS The formatting is probably hard for someone who's got little medical background. A non-medic might put paroxysmal nocturnal hemoglobinuria under the urology header (it is one of the occasions gastroenterologists and hematologists have to cooperate: when a PNH patient develops Budd-Chiari syndrome). I'll see if I can trace Alan.

Oh, I agree completely. The PNH example is a good choice. I was thinking of formatting in the very low level of how to put in side bars. A few of the military articles have nice examples of that. What you are talking to is the need for a system of specialized sysops. Sort of what an editor would be rather than mechanical in nature as the sysops are presently. (No offense intended. Th system works well)  I like how lay folk go in and edit, even in medical articles. Much improved readability. I like participating in a general encyclopedia. BTW, I have in mind redoing the Celiac article. A special interest of mine.
 * I will copy this to your talk. Email for me is a good technique.  sholland@napervillegi.com Kd4ttc 20:55, 8 Apr 2004 (UTC)


 * Alan turned out to be Erich (see WikiDoc for more).   JFW |  T@lk  23:39, 8 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Hey, welcome to the project. I'm a former yeshiva bochur myself, though no longer dati. I am glad you will be breathing some life into the medical material. If you need any help, please let me know (I am not a doctor, but I can help you figure out some of the ropes and tricks around here). Danny 01:05, 9 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Wikiproject

 * How do I arrange for those nice "blue boxes" at the bottom of a collection of pages?
 * Just create a page at Template:Medicine or whatever you want to call it. Then, you can use to insert it in a page. List any you create at MediaWiki custom elements.
 * Are you aware of any medically grounded sysops around Wikipedia?
 * I don't. None of those listed at Wikipedians by fields of interest appear to be. However, it isn't really relevant as being an admin is just a technical thing that lets you carry out jobs like deletion. It doesn't give you any editing rights, so there is no reason a Wikiproject needs a sysop.
 * Might there be a case for one of us (not me!!!) achieving adminship for this effort?
 * No, people aren't granted adminship on the basis of things like this. Anyone can apply to be an admin if they are a trusted member of the community. Involvement in a wikiproject is not a requirement of that.

Angela. 01:14, Apr 9, 2004 (UTC)

Hi, yes, I'm an admin (and a hardcore Litvak). Angela just explained how to make the boxes on the bottom. If you tell me what you want, I will be happy to make one for you. Also, you should check out the Requested Articles. There are a few medical topics that people have been asking for. Danny 01:21, 9 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Hi. Check out this page. It will give you all the instructions for using MediaWiki. MediaWiki namespace. If you are not sure, let me know. Danny 01:40, 9 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Very nice! Danny 02:21, 9 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Blue box for medical topics
(copied from Diberri's talk page)

I've introduced a "blue box" in medicine. Please comment; considering you're working on the "basic science" level, how about something similar in the health-related sciences (anatomy, physiology, etc.)? After I got some help from Danny and Angela (see talk page) it turned out to be hugely easy. JFW | T@lk  09:42, 9 Apr 2004 (UTC)


 * The blue box looks great, and covers medical topics as well as I can imagine. I just made a minor technical change to use &amp;amp; instead of &amp; in the wikitext.


 * It sounds like you're suggesting similar blue boxes for anatomy/physiology pages. If so, I think a nice approach might be to create one blue box per organ system; in each box, we'd have a list of major components (organs, glands, etc). So we might have (or somesuch), which would link to pituitary gland, adrenal gland, pancreas, etc. Similarly for  and others. Let me know if I've got the right idea before I start adding the appropriate MediaWiki pages. --Diberri | Talk 23:17, Apr 9, 2004 (UTC)

JFW, thanks for your kinds words on my talk page. Also, regarding which organs to place on the Template:Endocrine system blue box, I agree with you that simplicity is key: I'll remove those organs that aren't primarily known for their endocrine functions. Thanks for the suggestion! --Diberri | Talk 23:41, Apr 15, 2004 (UTC)

I put blood under cardiovascular system because I think that categorizing under organ system rather than branch of medicine might make navigation easier, but maybe it could be put under both. Fuelbottle 15:04, 18 Apr 2004 (UTC)


 * Blood is historically part of hematology. While it may go under cardiovascular system, what about other diseases of the blood (ie: abnormal hemaglobins?) Ksheka 16:19, Apr 18, 2004 (UTC)


 * I was thinking that there should be blue boxes that can be used to navigate all organ systems down to cellular level like Template:Blood and Template:Endocrine pancreas. Blood diseases are already covered by  Template:Hematology, so maybe this should be added to the blood page too. Fuelbottle 02:44, 19 Apr 2004 (UTC)

You're right, Fuelbottle. The difference here is between physiology and diseases. Diberri and you have been doing some great work in making all those loose bits stick together. Wikipedia does not have a real hierarchical structure (e.g. Football is a sub-class of ball-centered team sports, itself a member of sports), and the "blue boxes" overcome this problem. I think I've covered most of the diseases in Hematology with the Mediawiki:Hematology box. I'm wondering whether gastroenterology or endocrinology is next... JFW | T@lk  10:35, 19 Apr 2004 (UTC)

JFW, thanks for those changes to the organ system boxes I've been working on. I believe the capitalized versions are more aesthetically pleasing. And why I excluded anus from Template:Digestive system is beyond me :-) --Diberri | Talk 01:46, Apr 20, 2004 (UTC)

A mass-redirect question
Hi. I've been working on a few medical pages, and the page for Heart attack really annoys me a bit. Maybe that's not the right word -- I would like to move the entire page over to Myocardial infarction, and have "Heart attack" redirect over there. The problem is that there's a lot of pages that reference the page.

I feel that Myocardial infarction is much more professional for the wiki (and just about any other encyclopedia).

Is it okay to do the move? Do I need to get permission from someone? Does it need to be orchestrated in some way? Or should I just let sleeping dogs lie?

The last thing I want to do is break a hundred pages by doing this move... Ksheka 16:27, Apr 15, 2004 (UTC)


 * Heart attack is the common name for the problem. As a general interest reference this seems appropriate to Wikipedia.  I understand what you mean, though.  Kd4ttc 17:16, 15 Apr 2004 (UTC)

This is, again, a question that boils down to the medical side of WikiPedia in general (WikiDoc effort). Some points: Please tell me if you need help with redirects. I'm personally in favour of moving the whole page to myocardial infarction. JFW | T@lk  18:42, 15 Apr 2004 (UTC)
 * Personally I find it educational to be redirected
 * Whenever a non-medical user types in "Heart attack" he will still see the relevant information.
 * In the scientific fields, terminology is everything. "Heart attack" is imprecise, as it does not specify the nature of the insult, nor the exact location of the insult.
 * Is every heart attack a myocardial infarction? Many patients who have suffered acute coronary syndrome have escaped with low or negative Troponin T, and have technically not had an MI, yet talk to everybody about their "heart attack".
 * I've had the same discussion with another user on neutrophil granulocyte, and the change also involved >30 redirects.


 * Okay. I'll do the move this weekend.  Any tips on redirection would be appreciated.  I guess that the proper way to do it is to manually change all the links??? Ksheka 01:41, Apr 16, 2004 (UTC)

Previous experience has taught me that - unless you're capable of writing a bot do to it - moving it manually is the best way. I'll see if I can find some time on Saturday night (after Shabbat, when I'm dewikified) to help to perform the procedure. JFW | T@lk  11:11, 16 Apr 2004 (UTC)

PS: ''I've copied all this to the Heart attack talk page as well. JFW''

Cgi-bin
Hey, thanks for the heads-up on cgi-bin. Just a note--when something is patent nonsense like that, then it can be speedily deleted. If that's the case, you don't have to list it on vfd, just put, and mark it on Speedy deletions. Thanks again. Yours, Meelar 22:05, 15 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Re:adminship, it couldn't hurt the project, and this place needs more admins anyway. Feel free to nominate Alex at Requests for adminship, if you think he deserves it--has he been involved in any huge edit wars? He's been here long enough, and has enough edits, that I'm fairly confident he'd make it in. Actually, I had been thinking about nominating you--remind me in a month or so? God knows I'll forget otherwise. Anyway, if you know anyone who deserves it, feel free to nominate them. Good luck on the medical project. Yours, Meelar 22:21, 15 Apr 2004 (UTC)

LDH and Elastase
Hi JFW, I read your (vastly improved) rewrite of lactate dehydrogenase, and give it my blessing :-) Your statements about exudates and transudates are absolutely true (although I'm not familiar with the spelling "exsudates" -- is this a British variant?). The article could still use some biochemical info on LDH, which I'll put on my to-do list. Cheers! --Diberri | Talk 16:50, Apr 18, 2004 (UTC)

Your recent additions (elastase, A1AT, and A1AD) are great. I'm especially impressed by the rate at which you're adding these well-written entries. Compliments to you on your fine work! --Diberri | Talk 21:10, Apr 19, 2004 (UTC)

I've made minor touch-ups to Heyde's syndrome mostly for readability. I also renamed the "Heyde's syndrome" section to "History" because I think the latter name better encapsulates the content of the text within. Also, I have an itch to move all the citations to a "References" section to further clarify the text. What do you think? --Diberri | Talk 21:12, Apr 19, 2004 (UTC)


 * By the way, congratulations on the beautiful baby girl! --Diberri | Talk 21:34, Apr 19, 2004 (UTC)

Well done on the edits to Heyde's syndrome. I noticed that you changed the year it was characterized from 1953 to 1958. Which is correct?

Those pretty pictures for lactate dehydrogenase (and fetal hemoglobin, for that matter) were produced with a molecular visualization tool called RasMol. Just open your protein's Protein Data Bank (PDB) file in RasMol, select a color pattern (by atom, chain, group, etc.), and export it in your favorite graphic format. --Diberri | Talk 23:39, Apr 19, 2004 (UTC)

hepatitis
Top banana, JFW. Glad you are around to assist; if I find any more casualties on my travels, I'll send 'em your way. Good luck with WikiDoc. --Tagishsimon


 * btw, you might want to announce the WikiDoc project at WikiProject with a new main heading for Medicine --Tagishsimon

Leftover from Cleanup page (In vivo staining)
I pulled this from the leftovers list at the cleanup page. In vivo staining - should move to pages needing expansion or to wikitionary. I'm not really knowledgeable on the subject (I mainly deal with dead cells or just molecules). I first thought about integrating it into Microscopy, but that doesn't really take into account the "in vivo" part. So I thought I'd pass it to a WikiDoc.

Can you please integrate this into another article? --MGM 20:27, Apr 20, 2004 (UTC)

P.S. Apparently Cybermedicine needs a cleaning as well. It was on the same list - MGM

There actually several types of invo staining. The microscopic stuff can be done using confocal microscopy. Additionally, there are a number of dyes that change flourescence with changes of calcium ion or other ions. Then there is immunostaining and the classic obesrvations of capping and inedcytosis in immunology. Endoscopically, one does Chromoendoscopy to stain tissues during endoscopy, one of the advanced techniques of Endoscopy. Lastly, there is in vivo staining at surgery, where one is looking for bladder leaks during surgery. So the in vivo stuff is at several levels. It ought to have several articles, some stand alone, so as part of others, as in Endoscopy. Kd4ttc 20:46, 20 Apr 2004 (UTC)


 * The article is too stubbly for words, an probably factually incorrect (I find it hard to merge the present contents with Steven's comments). To stain organelles, they generally need to be fixated etc. after biopsy. Perhaps a full rewrite would be in order.
 * Re: cybermedicine. This is an esoteric subject, and most Wiki Doctors would probably prefer to work on subjects they're slightly familiar with.   JFW |  T@lk  08:59, 21 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Imatinib
I'm afraid my user page was out of date - I'm actually a struggling second year-er. I have been writing about mechanism based cancer therapies for a project, so I thought I might adapt it for wikipedia (just done the same for p53_gene and theres more I think might be suitable). I'd be delighted to join an effort to help work on the medical content. I have to conceed that since my life seems to be ruled by exams I can't guarentee how often I'll be around. But then again I suppose it might be good revision to type a few notes up in to wiki form... --Sodium 21:26, 23 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Syndrome X
Noticed that you're working on Syndrome X. What do you think about making Syndrome X into a disambiguation page (Metabolic Syndrome X & Cardiac Syndrome X), and move the metabolic stuff over into Syndrome X (metabolic), or something like that? Ksheka


 * Agreed. I'll do that.   JFW |  T@lk  19:49, 27 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Large anonymous additions to Marco Polo
Yeah, it's pretty unwieldy. I did a quick google test to see if it's not copy&paste by any chance, but amazingly enough it doesn't seem to be. I don't mind if it's removed. --Shallot 16:31, 29 Apr 2004 (UTC)

User:209.242.30.26
Thanks for cleaning up the mess. This isn't the last time he's mass edited pages. I few months ago I had to fix the main pages of about 40 artists - I was dreading cleaning up again Dmn 21:12, 29 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Medical nomenclature
Hi, I suggest you have a look at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Peerage which had a related issue. The people working on that wikiproject mostly wanted articles to include peerage titles, but this went against the common naming conventions, which is like what the medical project now wants to do. You will need to get community consensus on the change if it is violating any existing policies, but that doesn't mean it's impossible. I'd suggest you make sure all the discussion is collated, rather than having some of it at Talk:Heart attack, some at Naming conventions, some at User talk:Jfdwolff/WikiDoc etc. Also, the wikiproject might have more standing if it was in the Wikipedia: namespace rather than your user namespace. After that, you might want to consider a poll in the same way the peerage project did. Angela. 08:37, May 2, 2004 (UTC)

I suggest you put the discussion on a talk subpage of the wikiproject once it's moved to the Wikipedia namespace. This will make it easier for people not involved in the medical project to comment without having to read through things not related to naming conventions that are on the main talk page. Congratulations on the birth of your daughter. :) Angela. 11:34, May 2, 2004 (UTC)

Other...
Hi JFW: Thanks. Yes, Rabbis Kamenetsky and Kotler still need articles. As for monitering the "NPOV"'s of articles, I can't think of anything, but if I do, I will try to let you know. IZAK 20:32, 2 May 2004 (UTC)

Pathogen
Maybe you could improve on the pathogen article. It's been coming along, but you might have the knowledge to make it better. heidimo 22:55, 3 May 2004 (UTC)
 * Perhaps it's redundant, and a merge needs to happen. It just seemed to me that you might have what it takes to improve it, whereas I already used up my knowledge of the topic on previous edits.
 * Have you seen my scary photo yet? Click on my name if you want to see my self-portrait.  Also, if you have not already, please consider joining the alternative medicine project.  We need people with knowledge who can handle the intensity of POV disputes and improve the standards of the articles on alternative medicine.  If you're not interested in being officially involved, perhaps I could call on you on occasion to look over articles for POV.  The links are on my user:talk page.  Thanks!  heidimo  23:47, 3 May 2004 (UTC)
 * I could see how surgery would cure you! It's not scary to me either, of course, though surgery might still make me break a sweat!  Congrats on your nomination, and thanks for your willingness to check POV on alt med articles per request.  I'm sure I'll be contacting you again soon.  Oh, and anything you want to contribute to pathogen is great; no pressure.  heidimo  00:02, 4 May 2004 (UTC)

Adminship
After looking at your activities, I decided to nominate you for adminship. If you'd like to be an admin, you can accept at Requests for adminship. Good luck! Meelar 23:21, 3 May 2004 (UTC)

Lescol
I'll be forever curious why you made a redirect about a not-very-prominent drug (Lescol) to a - then - non-existing article (fluvastatin). That's why I was wondering... what prompted you? :-) (Several other statins are now in place, including simvastatin and rosuvastatin.) JFW |  T@lk  14:02, 5 May 2004 (UTC)
 * Okay... um, I have a confession to make. I'm actually a teenage witch.


 * Okay, so I'm not Sabrina. I saw it on "New Pages", and went to the article, saw it, saw the drug had other names, created redirects. Is there a stitch in time, between Brampton, Ontario and Edgware, or am I actually so much of a Wikipedholic, that I knew this article was going to be created, just minutes after I create the redirect... -- user:zanimum

Fine, there's a rational explanation then. I was not expecting many Wikipedians to be on statin drugs... Good of you to create plenty of redirects. Most patients do not know the generic names of their medication, unless they're oldtimers (one of my patients referred to metformin, his anti-diabetic drug, as metmorphine...) JFW |  T@lk  14:23, 5 May 2004 (UTC) - PS Thanks for supporting my admin vote.


 * No problem, a quick check of your edit history proved to be consistantly top-notch. -- user:zanimum

Re: Weibel & Palade
Thank you for your message and for starting my User talk page, Dr. JFdWolff. Yeah, I was pleasantly surprised to find that ancient JCB article online. (They even have it in pdf format !!) I originally had the URL ready on George Emil Palade. I removed the external link because I felt that Weibel-Palade bodies deserve a Wiki-page on its own and decided to save the URL for it. I don't know when I'll get to make this yet-to-exist Wiki-page. (I need to read up on W-P bodies first ...) If you feel like it, please go ahead and make the page. Have fun with it. ;-) PFHLai 14:59, 2004 May 6 (UTC)

Link deletion
Why did you delete the new online resource I added to the links page for "Purim". This resource provides essays on the festival of Purim - it is not spam.

Please advise

Thanks
Thanks for helping in editing hemolytic anemia --drsolomonvolg 14:02, 1 November 2011 (UTC)