User talk:Mdaniels5757/Ethosuximide closure

Original Section 1
I'm objecting to your non-admin closure at Talk:Ethosuximide. I don't agree that there is a consensus against the the question Should the lead of ethoxuximide summarize the section on cost as "As of 2008 it was generally affordable in many areas of the world." At least five editors gave their opinion that the textbook was a reliable source to support the statement, and another supported some statement summarising the cost section. In contrast only two editors disputed the source, one more was equivocal, and another simply objected to the RfC format. In the discussion, I see no evidence that any of the participants changed their minds, so I cannot see how you reached your conclusion The consensus was that the 2008 textbook based on 2001 data did not sufficiently support the disputed lead's statement that "As of 2008 it was generally affordable in many areas of the world".

Secondly, I object to your statement "There was also sentiment that the disputed text violates the letter or spirit of the WP:MEDMOS2020 drug pricing RfC." There is no consensus for that. Quoting an argument from one side is unbalanced and does not belong in a closing statement.

Finally, I object to your carrying out the removal of the text from the article. I'll draw your attention to Advice on closing discussions : "You should not usually perform the results of closes yourself, unless specifically requested by the editors in the discussion."

Please revert your close and your edit to the article. --RexxS (talk) 21:01, 31 May 2020 (UTC)
 * . Confirming that I have read this and am reviewing. --Mdaniels5757 (talk) 01:46, 1 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Thanks for seeking my review here. Starting from your last point, I've reverted my edit to the article pending resolution of this issue. Re your second point: it is entirely proper to "[quote] an argument from one side" in a closing statement, even if there is not consensus on the issue, and I don't think that anyone will confuse that statement with a finding of consensus. See, e.g., WP:MEDMOS2020 bullet 3 ("Whether to include prices in the infobox was not widely discussed but is unlikely to find consensus."). I note that ARBCOM appears to share that sentiment of some opposers, as the proposer of the RfC is about to be TBANned from making drug pricing edits in mainspace.
 * Before I get to the merits, I wish to note that I will be updating the closing statement to reflect the results of this review. For reference in the future, the original statement I am referring to is located at Special:Permalink/960028021.
 * On the merits: As you of course know, determining consensus is not simply a matter of counting votes, but rather evaluating the arguments of each side and weighing !VOTEs accordingly. Indeed, when closing discussions I don't particularly find the word that is bolded near the beginning useful in evaluation of consensus -- only the rationale next to it and the subsequent discussion. (A (not-so-)brief aside: stated that "My own view doesn't fall neatly into "Support" or "Oppose", but the (very) few editors who use this style tend to disregard comments in the "Discussion" section when they're trying to figure out what the conclusion is, so it doesn't even feel like it would be worth it to say what my view is.". WhatamIdoing, I am happy to report that you were wrong -- your subsequent views in the Discussion section were helpful, and accounted for in my closure.) For what it's worth, RexxS, my count of not-votes is different from yours: the number of not-votes expressing approval of the source's reliability and support of the statement was 5 vs. 3, not 5 vs. 2.
 * The proposed source was a 2008 textbook, which stated that "For most patients living in these countries, only phenobarbital, phenytoin, and ethosuximide may be [available] at prices affordable by the general population, and many of the newer drugs may not be [available] at all." Even ignoring other arguments against the proposed text, the argument that "As of 2008 it was generally affordable in many areas of the world" does not follow from the source is strong and entitled to a fair amount of weight—the source only states that it "may be [available] at prices affordable by the general population" in some countries. Colin raised a number of serious methodological concerns about the source's methods as well, which were not rebutted. Rather, the proposer added six new proposed sources, all of which were noted to be at least one of the following: (1) old, to the point that they may not accurately reflect the facts, (2) U.S. only, and thus not supporting the statement, (3) an article from med city news dot com which was churnalized from a press release and only mentioned pricing relative to two other drugs, not affordability, or (4) comparing older drugs in a group to newer drugs in a group, and therefore not supported the statement. The one semi-exception was James' 5th proposed source, which Sandy could not access, so it went unchallenged and unremarked upon by all others. Since it was unchallenged, I treated it as standing for what Doc James was citing it for.
 * Upon further review, I find that I should not have done so. I could access that source, and the relevant portion was a table with three columns, in roughly the following form:
 * {| class="wikitable"

! Area !! Traditional AEDs !! Newer AEDs
 * Clinical experience || Less extensive || More extensive
 * Cost || Less expensive || More expensive
 * }
 * (Ethosuximide was among the group of Traditional AEDs). This source could fairly be cited for the proposition that "Traditional AEDs" are, as a group and in general, less expensive than "Newer AEDs", which are "more expensive" as a group and in general. I think we'd agree that it does not stand for the proposition that it was cited for: that ethosuximide is "generally affordable in many areas of the world". In closures, I normally do not go and verify that sources cited by an admin and WMF board member stand for the proposition they are cited for on the grounds that it would be a waste of time because the admin/board member should be able to be trusted. I therefore thank you for this request, for I would not have done so otherwise, and this would thus not have come to light. Finally, I am mildly amused by how James found those sources: apparently by searching Google Scholar for " ", which does not seem calculated to bring up results that will lead to a neutral article.
 * The opposers, however, did come with some sources that helped make their point. They cited GoodRx, the British National Formulary, and *sigh* The Sunday Post (although they were clear that that one does not meet WP:V). However, upon further reflection, I don't think that this is enough to make "do not include" the consensus. The issues with the supporters' position, though, are too numerous to have that be the consensus either, so there must be no consensus.
 * Closers, like everyone else on Wikipedia, generally rely on the good faith of others. Among other things, they rely on the commenters in discussion to seriously evaluate evidence before citing it. Although I do not believe Doc James is acting in bad faith, it is hard to look at the above and not come to the conclusion that James was being less-than-honest in his citations. In my opinion, if only sources that supported the proposed text were presented, there would have been a consensus, one way or the other.
 * I think that there is a way forward that is better than my initial closure. Doc James is about to be TBANned from drug pricing related edits in mainspace. Multiple arbitrators have expressed that the situation w/r/t drug pricing may improve without his input. I am not crazy enough to think that everyone-1 who participated in the RfC can get together, write proposed text that meets sourcing standards, agree that it is warranted to mention in the lead, and sing kumbaya. However, I am crazy enough to think that everyone-1 who participated in the RfC can get together and write text that 1) could "fit" in the lead (even if they believe it to be unwarranted) and 2) have that text be accurate and meet sourcing standards. Once they do that, I think that a RfC could be conducted, and I think that there would be some form of consensus on that. What do you think?
 * Ping everyone (I think): --Mdaniels5757 (talk) 03:44, 1 June 2020 (UTC)
 * To the people I just pinged: sorry for greeting you with that big wall of text. --Mdaniels5757 (talk) 03:46, 1 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Also pinging User:Barkeep49 for input (only chose them because they reminded me to sign my closure). --Mdaniels5757 (talk) 03:50, 1 June 2020 (UTC)
 * I respectfully decline to weigh in on this close while the ArbCom case remains open. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 04:00, 1 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Because of its spill over into the PD, I will strike my previous stance and say what I think of this close and that is I think it's a bad one which has veered into WP:SUPERVOTE territory. First I have not read the whole RfC. So the outcome could be sound but having read the explanation here I do feel comfortable saying the reasoning that got there is not, in my view, sound. It is, in my view, the role of the closer to evaluate the consensus of the participants, as weighted by the policies and guidelines. The defense above is very light on analysis of those policies and guidelines through the lens of the discussion of this RfC. Anytime we overturn a headcount I would expect such a close to be heavily buttressed by applicable policeis and guidelines. It is instead heavy on Mdaniels own interpretation of the sources. That interpretation would no doubt be useful but its use is best served with Mdaniels as a participant in the RfC, making those points, rather than as a closer. I don't know if Mdaniels knew that they were stepping into a minefield with this close, or not, but they seem to have not knwon the advice about not implementing an RfC close (which to be clear is advice and not a policy or guideline and thus something that editors can ignore but should do so knowingly). This suggests to me they might not have been the right closer for this discussion. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 16:25, 1 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Thank you for your thoughtful response. I have reverted my closure. I will respond/summarize below shortly. --Mdaniels5757 (talk) 16:30, 1 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Mdaniels5757, thank you for being bold and daring to step into this difficult area. I agree with a lot of what you have written, particularly that we don't just count votes. The source that you examined but said was initially unchallenged, was in fact challenged by me: see the bit starting "I got the book you couldn't read." I conclude exactly the same as you, that it was too general a statement to support the text. I am a bit alarmed that you just took Jame's word for it wrt price verification and hope you have learned a lesson there. I think there are four points that make retaining the current text clearly and straightforwardly untenable.
 * The text claims "As of 2008" but cites a source from 2004. While this mistake occurred because Google books got aspects of their citation wrong, it is still a factual error.
 * The third and fourth editions of this exact textbook drop ethosuximide from the list of drugs that may be available at prices affordable... Whether this is because the second edition had a factual error corrected in a later one, or because the price changed meanwhile, it is hard to argue that the third and fourth (i.e. recent) editions are weaker sources and form a weaker argument than a second edition from sixteen years ago. This is a clear "No longer supported by the source in recent editions" reason for removal.
 * The price has increased since the source made that statement, and not just by a small amount, but by 40x. While evidence for this comes from primary sources, that doesn't make that evidence incorrect. This should also make it imperative that anyone arguing to retain the price demonstrate why a comment from sixteen years ago might be still relevant today, especially when the authors of that comment have retracted it.
 * Editors aren't just arguing if the text is notable enough to belong in the lead, but have found evidence that the claim made is in 2020 100% wrong and misleading to our readers. Ethosuximide is in fact currently quite an expensive anticonvulsant and is not generally available (at any price) in many areas of the world.
 * I would encourage you in your initial convictions: the proposed text should not remain. Retaining it is not a "neutral" option. I see Advice on closing discussions is just an essay, so I don't know what weight you should award it wrt your removal of the text. If in doubt, I suggest getting the advice of a neutral admin. For what its worth, removal of the text is a straightforward conclusion of your close and I don't see that essay justifying that it need be more complicated than that. If editors wish to discuss alternative text with modern citations then they are welcome to open up a new talk page section to do so (it doesn't require an RFC or a vote). -- Colin°Talk 09:33, 1 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Thank you for your explanation. I remain concerned that your interpretation of consensus does not match its normal use on Wikipedia. We all agree that a simple count of !votes only makes a very rough measure of consensus, but I count Doc James, Ozzie10aaaa, Ian Furst, Atsme, and myself as arguing that the answer to the question "Should the lead of ethoxuximide summarize the section on cost as "As of 2008 it was generally affordable in many areas of the world." should be yes, with Whispyhistory arguing that a qualitative description does not contravene NOTPRICE (a point I also made), and that it is important enough to have in the lead. I make that six arguing in favour, not the five that you count. I accept that Colin's subsequent position hardened, changing from "even if this 2008 source, based on 2001 data was correct then ..." to a rejection of the source based on his original research that the price has increased since 2008. Nevertheless, there were twice as many arguing in favour of the proposition than against it. During the course of the discussion, none of the participants moved their position. I remain unable to see the consensus that agrees to remove the summary from the article that your close states.
 * Just as importantly, I need to remind you that your job as closer is to weigh the strengths of the arguments in order to assess the consensus of the debate, not to form your own opinion on the question posed. IF Colin's OR is correct, then there is indeed encyclopedic value in the question of availability and pricing of ethosuximide, as it would then be the case that the price has been artificially increased over the last 20 years, presumably to provide manufacturers with higher profits. We have a cited reliable secondary source (cited by Google books as "By David Fish, W E Dodson · 2008" and "Published: 15 April 2008") that discusses the cost of treatment of epilepsy in the following way I don't find your argument convincing that the statement in question "does not follow from the source". Regardless of Colin's assertion that "Google got it wrong", we have a 2008 source stating that for 40% of the world population, ethosuximide may be one of only three drugs available at an affordable price. The strength of argument of the supporters lies there, while the opposers have merely argued that that Google got the date wrong (twice), and that the price has increased since then. Yet the source given in the RfC proposition is clear, and I don't see how you can assign so little weight to it that you can completely discount the firm views of the majority of participants to the extent that you can find consensus for the opposers' arguments.
 * In addition, it is inappropriate to give prominence to a single view expressed by the minority, especially one that has been so strongly rejected by the majority of participants. The 2020 RfC was asked a question about three numerical prices and both sides of the debate accepted the distinction between quantitative prices and qualitative pricing, so you are wrong to draw the conclusion that it had any findings (in letter or spirit) that rejected reliably sourced, descriptive pricing information. Nor does WP:NOTPRICE, which is actually a section explaining that "Wikipedia articles are not ... Sales catalogues." You won't even find the shortcut 'NOTPRICE' in that section because of its misleading nature; it is more accurately given as WP:NOTCATALOG. Your highlighting of one viewpoint held by almost none of the participants has no place in an unbiased closure.
 * It is obvious to me, at least, that very little consensus was reached in that RfC. Further I see a strong argument that the question of qualitative pricing of ethosuximide has encyclopedic value worthy of inclusion in the article. I agree that the exact wording has little consensus, but that is not an argument to remove all reference from the lead, as you chose to do. Despite what Colin thinks, you should take note of the advice in Advice on closing discussions; it is a generally accepted norm and is linked from both Requests for comment and Closing discussions. None of the advice should be disregarded without good reason. --RexxS (talk) 11:33, 1 June 2020 (UTC)
 * RexxS, you are ignoring the fact that the third and fourth editions of the book retracted that claim. I suggest you reconsider your insistence that the book was published in 2008 and that this is just "Colin's assertion" as it is very easy to demonstrate you are wrong. Follow the link to the Google Books page and scroll the bar all the way up to the top of the book. There you will discover that this book was published in 2004. If you choose to research the book elsewhere, you will discover: second edition, first published 1 January 2004, third edition, first published 22 July 2009, fourth edition, first published 2 October 2015. While research with primary-source databases such as the BNF can establish that the price has indeed increased dramatically, that does not in itself justify encyclopaedic significance. There may be reliable secondary sources commenting on the increase in price of ethosuximide in the UK, but I have not found them yet. -- Colin°Talk 11:51, 1 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Colin, you're carefully skirting the fact that the reliable source cited made that claim at that time, and that's what supports the statement. There was no "retraction" in later editions, although you should feel free to add something to the Cost section of the article if you can do so without original research. You have only to follow the link supplied to the RfC: https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Treatment_of_Epilepsy/vFQFePTM-oAC to see that the publication date is given as 2008 twice, in fact as 15 April 2008. Searching on ISBN:9780470752456 soon shows that the second edition was copyrighted in 2004, but that a "second, revised edition" was published as an e-book in 2008. Whether or not the text was changed significantly between those two dates is immaterial: the source cited was accurately dated and came with the usual assurance from a major publishing house that it was reliable, and that the content could be trusted. Your attempts to denigrate the source based on your own opinion on the cost of ethosuximide carry no weight. When you have reliable secondary sources that say something other than what the 2008 source said, we can look at how they impact the content of the article. Until then, we should stick with accurately summarising what can be found in reliable sources. --RexxS (talk) 17:43, 1 June 2020 (UTC)
 * I'm not skirting that fact at all. As I said, there are two possibilities. Either the statement was wrong in 2004 or that the statement is outdated and no longer applies. I don't know why you say the claim wasn't retracted. The same sentence appears in the later editions, but without the word "ethosuximide" in the list. Someone removed that for a reason. Are you seriously expecting the authors to say "Oh, by the way, when the 2nd edition said ethosuximide may be affordable, that isn't correct, and so we've dropped that for the 3rd edition". You don't get a commentary on the diffs between editions of a 1000-page book. And there are next to no secondary sources commenting on the price of ethosuximide at all, which is just really basic WP:WEIGHT that we shouldn't be saying anything at all, correct, or incorrect.
 * I don't know why google has the publication data it does, but they are not infallible. I did search for 9780470752456 and there are only two results, which should be a warning. The first is the google books page itself and the other is a South African general retailer called "Loot" who don't appear to be in the ebook market and don't in fact have that book for sale. I suggest that "second, revised edition" refers to the fact that the second edition is indeed fully revised from the first edition, as Wiley say themselves. I have the PDF of this book, and just like the Google Books page, the frontmatter says 2004 and gives an ISBN of 0-632-06046-8 which is identical to the paper book. If this PDF really was a revised-revised ebook second+ edition, the frontmatter would say so.
 * RexxS, the point is that this really old claim about ethosuximide was published in 2004, sixteen years ago, and the authors removed that claim (while keeping the sentence that includes phenobarbital "may" be affordable) in their later editions. I'm not "denigrating" the source. It might have been fine for Wikipedia to make that claim in 2004 (ignoring WEIGHT, etc for now) but it isn't in 2020. AGE MATTERS says "Be sure to check that older sources have not been superseded, especially if it is likely the new discoveries or developments have occurred in the last few years. In particular, newer sources are generally preferred in medicine." -- Colin°Talk 20:32, 1 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Colin, you're over-egging again. There was no retraction: a retraction is when the author states "I was wrong that ethosuximide was affordable". The word you're looking for is "omission". The rest of it is just your original research and speculation about why it was omitted from the list of three affordable drugs. We write articles based on what reliable sources say, not what we guess they mean by not saying something. Verifiability is all we have to go on, and I can verify that in 2008 ethosuximide was generally affordable. Your detective work is commendable, but doesn't alter the fact that we have a sourced statement about a descriptive drug price at a point in time, and no other reliable source that contradicts that. You have adduced no policy why the article shouldn't make use of that source in the article. Wikipedia has many facts that are dated, but that does no make them unencyclopedic. AGEMATTERS indeed, but that simply applies to sources that have been superseded, and I don't see what reliable source you're bringing to the table to supersede the 2008 one. If we find one, I'd be delighted to update the wording to accommodate it, but you can't use advice designed to favour the newest reliable source in order to delete all mention of a fact after an arbitrary cut-off date. --RexxS (talk) 23:00, 1 June 2020 (UTC)
 * In 2004. I've corrected it in the article, and you two can quit arguing over this detail now and get on to the part that actually matters, which is whether anyone should care what the price was in a previous decade, or at any other non-recent arbitrary point in time.
 * If there remains anyone who doesn't think that the book was published in 2004, then you are welcome to request a scanned copy of the cited book's copyright page via Special:EmailUser/WhatamIdoing. The file is already on my hard drive, so it'll be no trouble to send it to you.  Just as for the file named "Ethosuximide textbook copyright page showing 2004 2020-06-01.png".  In return, I request that anyone trying to convince their fellow editors that it's really a 2008 book to please provide me with a scanned copy of the copyright page from their own copy of the book, preferably in advance. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:08, 2 June 2020 (UTC)
 * If you want a link to the Google books page that shows a version of the book containing the text was published in 2008, I'll gladly supply it. If you think the fact that ethosuximide was one of only three affordable AEDs for most of the world in 2004–2008 is not encyclopedic, feel free to take it up on the article talk page. You'll find that the community's sentiment is that issues of pricing of pharmaceutical drugs is very much a topic of interest, even from a historical view. --RexxS (talk) 18:53, 2 June 2020 (UTC)
 * ,, I don't understand why this discussion is being had here instead of the article talk page. This discussion has lots to do with the content and little to do with the close. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 19:26, 2 June 2020 (UTC)
 * I'm sorry this has been driven so far off-topic, but I hope you'll be able to understand how that happened. My initial post was a challenge to the close on the grounds that consensus was not demonstrated, as it should have been. Unfortunately Colin chose in his initial post (above, at 09:33, 1 June 2020 (UTC)) to start to re-litigate the RfC and made inaccurate points that I subsequently refuted. Colin has a habit of overwhelming discussions by sheer weight of posting, and I was unwilling to see him do the same here, so I reluctantly replied and rebutted him post for post. The other alternative of letting him dominate every thread he participates in by sheer weight of posts is unacceptable to me in this particular case. Sorry. Please feel free to hat the off-topic part of the discussion any time you choose. --RexxS (talk) 20:40, 2 June 2020 (UTC)
 * RexxS, WorldCat has a "book page" that says that one edition of that textbook was published in 2067 (yes, forty-seven years in the future from now). I don't want someone else's metadata.  Metadata can be wrong, and I've cleaned up enough citations based upon Google Books to know that it is very often wrong in some detail.  I want to know what you think the book itself says its publication date was.  If the book itself says it was published in 2004, then we should say 2004 in the article.  If it says some other date, then we should say that other date.
 * It happens I've now looked at the book itself and found that it does, indeed, say 2004 twice on the copyright page (also 1996, which was the first edition, and 2003, which is the date of the NLM class number in the Library of Congress record, plus an irrelevant mention of 1998 in the title of a copyright law). The cited source says 2008 (also 2007 and 2067, which WorldCat also asserts are plausible dates for the same book with the same ISBN) exactly zero times.  I conclude from this that the publication date of the source was 2004.
 * I don't think that any single editor should settle the question of whether the price changes over the span of almost two decades is worth mentioning in the lead. I am only hoping that editors can have that discussion without any more bickering about whether Google knows the publication date better than the book's own copyright page. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:43, 3 June 2020 (UTC)
 * WAID, if I Google for "ISBN:9780470752456", the first thing I get is a set of 18 different varieties of ISBN, year of publication and format for The Treatment of Epilepsy. The years range from 1996 to 2015 (including 2004 and 2008) and the formats comprise several 'Hardcovers' and 'E-books' as well as one 'Paperback'. There is certainly evidence of a hardcover published 21 Jan 2004 (ISBN: 9780632060467), also available online from Wiley (ISBN:9780470752463); and there are the two 2008 online versions that we're already familiar with from Google Books and the loot.co.za advert (both ISBN:9780470752456). Now, I contend that there are just two possibilities: (1) either an E-Book version was re-published/re-issued on 15 Apr 2008; or (2) the folks at Google Books mistook "21 Jan 2004" for "15 Apr 2008" and loot.co.za followed suit or made the same mistake. I do understand you think the latter is more probable, but I'm afraid that for me Occam's razor says the former is more likely. I won't try to convince you any further if you promise to do the same for me. Deal? --RexxS (talk) 02:35, 3 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Do you not have access to the source, so you can't actually see what the source says its publication date is? I'm trying to figure out why you wouldn't just look at the copyright page. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:20, 4 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Is your understanding of an E-book different from mine? What makes you think I can't see an e-book online and read its metadata? The copyright says 1996, 2004, but there's nothing that says copyright dates = publication date. It's not at all unusual for a work to be published in hardback, paperback and e-book formats in different years. --RexxS (talk) 21:03, 4 June 2020 (UTC)
 * I'm sorry this has been driven so far off-topic, but I hope you'll be able to understand how that happened. My initial post was a challenge to the close on the grounds that consensus was not demonstrated, as it should have been. Unfortunately Colin chose in his initial post (above, at 09:33, 1 June 2020 (UTC)) to start to re-litigate the RfC and made inaccurate points that I subsequently refuted. Colin has a habit of overwhelming discussions by sheer weight of posting, and I was unwilling to see him do the same here, so I reluctantly replied and rebutted him post for post. The other alternative of letting him dominate every thread he participates in by sheer weight of posts is unacceptable to me in this particular case. Sorry. Please feel free to hat the off-topic part of the discussion any time you choose. --RexxS (talk) 20:40, 2 June 2020 (UTC)
 * RexxS, WorldCat has a "book page" that says that one edition of that textbook was published in 2067 (yes, forty-seven years in the future from now). I don't want someone else's metadata.  Metadata can be wrong, and I've cleaned up enough citations based upon Google Books to know that it is very often wrong in some detail.  I want to know what you think the book itself says its publication date was.  If the book itself says it was published in 2004, then we should say 2004 in the article.  If it says some other date, then we should say that other date.
 * It happens I've now looked at the book itself and found that it does, indeed, say 2004 twice on the copyright page (also 1996, which was the first edition, and 2003, which is the date of the NLM class number in the Library of Congress record, plus an irrelevant mention of 1998 in the title of a copyright law). The cited source says 2008 (also 2007 and 2067, which WorldCat also asserts are plausible dates for the same book with the same ISBN) exactly zero times.  I conclude from this that the publication date of the source was 2004.
 * I don't think that any single editor should settle the question of whether the price changes over the span of almost two decades is worth mentioning in the lead. I am only hoping that editors can have that discussion without any more bickering about whether Google knows the publication date better than the book's own copyright page. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:43, 3 June 2020 (UTC)
 * WAID, if I Google for "ISBN:9780470752456", the first thing I get is a set of 18 different varieties of ISBN, year of publication and format for The Treatment of Epilepsy. The years range from 1996 to 2015 (including 2004 and 2008) and the formats comprise several 'Hardcovers' and 'E-books' as well as one 'Paperback'. There is certainly evidence of a hardcover published 21 Jan 2004 (ISBN: 9780632060467), also available online from Wiley (ISBN:9780470752463); and there are the two 2008 online versions that we're already familiar with from Google Books and the loot.co.za advert (both ISBN:9780470752456). Now, I contend that there are just two possibilities: (1) either an E-Book version was re-published/re-issued on 15 Apr 2008; or (2) the folks at Google Books mistook "21 Jan 2004" for "15 Apr 2008" and loot.co.za followed suit or made the same mistake. I do understand you think the latter is more probable, but I'm afraid that for me Occam's razor says the former is more likely. I won't try to convince you any further if you promise to do the same for me. Deal? --RexxS (talk) 02:35, 3 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Do you not have access to the source, so you can't actually see what the source says its publication date is? I'm trying to figure out why you wouldn't just look at the copyright page. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:20, 4 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Is your understanding of an E-book different from mine? What makes you think I can't see an e-book online and read its metadata? The copyright says 1996, 2004, but there's nothing that says copyright dates = publication date. It's not at all unusual for a work to be published in hardback, paperback and e-book formats in different years. --RexxS (talk) 21:03, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

Executive order: No more arguing whether the 200(4|8) textbook was actually published in 200(8|4). Go edit war about it at Ethosuximide's footnote 5 instead this is a joke please don't. --Mdaniels5757 (talk) 02:50, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

Housekeeping
My talk page has become a bit of a mess because of this, and my notifications are going nuts. As such, I am going to move this all to a subpage (which I will of course watch and participate in). I will leave a link on my talk page to it.

Introduction
First of all, I'd like to thank the above editors for their constructive criticism. I did know that this was a very contentious area, subject to an arbcom case, but still did not expect it to be quite this much of a minefield. I reverted my closure after a thoughtful analysis from a kinda-involved administrator. After having time to sleep on it, I am inclined to somewhat defend my closure, at least in the result.

Selected background
I will not attempt summarize the wiki-mess that is ongoing related to drug pricing information and medical articles in general. Suffice it to say that it's a s#!tshow.

It's always important, of course, to not lose sight of what the RfC is about. The question presented was Should the lead of ethoxuximide summarize the section on cost as 'As of 2008 it was generally affordable in many areas of the world.'? (cleaned up). This text was challenged.

WP:BURDEN, part of a Wikipedia policy, requires, inter alia, the following:
 * 1) "All content must be verifiable."
 * 2) "The burden to demonstrate verifiability lies with the editor who adds or restores material[.]"
 * 3) The burden to demonstrate verifiability is only "satisfied by providing an inline citation to a reliable source that directly supports" the challenged statement.

The initial source
The proposer cited a "2008 textbook" (the textbook, although actually published in 2004, was listed on Google Books as having an e-book version published in 2008, and thus the discussion and myself at times refer to it as the 2008 textbook), which stated For most patients living in [a group of 28 developing countries], only phenobarbital, phenytoin, and ethosuximdie may be avaliable at prices affordable by the general population, and many of the newer drugs may not be avaliable at all.

Accuracy and verifiability
The 2004 textbook cited by the proposer is outdated, and two editions have been published since. The next two editions (published in 2009 and 2015 respectively, although the 2015 book is also referred to as being published in 2016) both do not mention ethosuximide in that sentence. The fact that two subsequent editions of the book no longer make the statement you are citing to indicates that something may have changed in the sixteen years since your source was published. This was pointed out in the discussion, and not effectively rebutted. Additionally, the source is not exact about ethosuximide being affordable ("may be" and "is" are two different things).

6 more sources were provided in a post-hoc search for sources to support the challenged statement in response to a request. (Although I would not normally imply that a search for additional sources in response to a request was intended to provide the answer the searcher wanted, rather than to help clarify matters, the fact that they were found by searching  provides plenty of evidence to do so.) Later analysis by opposers found that they all had at least one of the following problems: (1) the sources were old, to the point that they may not accurately reflect the facts. (2) The sources were U.S. only, and thus not supporting the challenged statement that "generally affordable in many areas of the world. (3) A article that was churnalized from a press release and only mentioned pricing relative to two other drugs, not affordability, and therefore did not support the challenged statement. or (4) comparing older drugs in a group to newer drugs in a group, and therefore did not support the challenged statement. These concerns are meritorious.

A behavior-related aside: Most people do not have access to some of the materials cited (medical articles are often paywalled, and some of the cited ones are as well). I believe that, when citing such sources, editors have a heightened duty of candor to other editors requiring them to scrupulously ensure that the sources stand for what they are cited for, as other editors often must just take others' word for it. I regretfully have come to believe that that responsibility was breached, as expressed by me in section 1 (problems with the cited sources simply not making the claim in the challenged sentence were, of course, also raised in the RfC).

Back to the merits: the opposers also brought sources saying that the challenged statement at least does not present a full picture. They cited GoodRx, the British National Formulary, and a review of all epilepsy drugs, which referred to the drug as expensive. As such, their concern that including only information about its being "generally affordable" for some people in some countries would give the reader a misleading impression is meritorious.

Notability and weight
You'll note that above, I did not mention notability of the prices (I mean notability not in the WP:N sense, but the Where secondary sources discuss pricing extensively (insulin being a frequently cited example), that information may be worth including in the article; where there is little discussion of pricing in secondary sources, it generally should not be included. (Special:Diff/947686699) sense) or the editorial decision as to whether the weight given to pricing in the lead is undue. I find that, due to the verifiability issues above taking up most of the space in the discussion, there is no consensus on that as it was not adequately discussed (although it was contested). In light of the above, however, I believe such consensus is unnecessary.

On supervoting
I don't think that my closure was a WP:SUPERVOTE. Per that essay, there are different kinds of supervoting. One is "if a discussion has concluded for a particular action, based on solid policy reasoning, but a minority takes a different view that has less backing[, it] is supervoting to close in favor of the dissenters." I don't think that it applies: the minority's views are backed by solid, WP:V-based, reasoning. Another type of supervoting is if a "discussion has an emotive majority in favor of an outcome, but it is clearly against policy[, it] is a supervote to close the discussion in favor of the majority as such, ignoring the policy faults of their arguments." I think that my closure avoided this outcome. The sources offered to back the challenged claim have serious issues, and to close in favor of the majority would, in my opinion, fall into this category of supervoting. I don't think the other two problematic types of supervoting are relevant.

Stepping away from that essay, I recognize the concern that the closure is based on my personal interpretation of sources. However, consensus on Wikipedia is, of course, based not on the number of votes, but the weight of arguments. The issues I cite above that I relied upon in my closure were raised by other editors. I offer a rhetorical question: if I am not to evaluate whether the positions of others have merit, how am I to assign the weight to their argument based on its merits? I submit that any closure must grapple with the right-ness or wrong-ness (or shades thereof) of each argument in order to do so.

Of course, it is improper to consider one's own views on what the outcome should be in a closure, and it is also improper to consider arguments you could make up, but that were not raised in the discussion. I did not do so. I evaluated the merits of the arguments raised by participants and proceeded accordingly.

Conclusion
There have been many words written about whether drug prices or pricing information belongs in the lead of most articles. This closure was not about that. This closure was about whether the sources provided back the challenged claim put forth.

I believe the consensus is that they do not. At a minimum, however, the arguments against inclusion of the challenged claim are strong enough that there is no consensus. If there is in fact, no consensus to include the claim in the article, the information should still not be included per WP:ONUS. Thus, any debate as to whether the result of the discussion was "no consensus to include" or "consensus against inclusion" is without actual consequence.

Moving forward
Any next steps regarding re-closure from neutral parties would be appreciated. Thank you all for your participation, --Mdaniels5757 (talk) 18:26, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

The cost of a drug is an integral part to understanding that drug
See The cost of a drug is an integral part to understanding that drug. This is a well known fact. Don't ask doctors or patients. Rather, it is best to read reliable sources on the subject matter. In this regard, it is pertinent content to summarise in the lede the cost of a drug. QuackGuru ( talk ) 22:33, 2 June 2020 (UTC)