User talk:Mfischl

June 2017
Hello, and welcome to editing Wikipedia. I hope you have a successful time here. I see that you made some changes to the article Hoffmann's sign, and I have a few comments to make about them.
 * 1) You should not make comments about an article or about editing it in the article itself, as you did with the statement "I am not aware of the definition below but did not want to erase it", nor should any editor of a Wikipedia article mention himself or herself at all. The place for comments of that sort is the article talk page, in this case Talk:Hoffmann's sign. (I made exactly the same mistake when I started editing Wikipedia, so this is not a criticism of you, it is an attempt to help you learn what the accepted standards are.)
 * 2) As far as I can find, "flexon" means a quantum of acoustic energy associated with bending. Is that what you meant? The only place where I have been able to find a use of the word which seems to bear any connection to your use is at http://www.flashcardmachine.com/emergency-nursing.html, where the word is used in reference to Phalen's sign. That may mean that Phalen's sign is indeed a quantum acoustic energy (though that seems improbable to me, particularly as I don't see how that can be a reflex) or it may mean that there is another, much more unusual, meaning of the word which is relevant here, or it may just be a mistake; I can't tell which. In any case, even if the word is correct in this context, it is very unlikely to be understood by most readers of Wikipedia, and from my experience it is unlikely that they will easily be able to find what it means either. Moreover, if it does mean a flexon in the sense that I mentioned, it is not at all clear how such an acoustic quantum can occur in the situation that the article refers to, so that really needs explaining. I have reverted your edit for now, and I suggest that if you put it back then you explain what a flexon is and how it occurs in this situation, so that readers can understand what you are saying.  The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 19:05, 15 June 2017 (UTC)

Aah, with a bit more searching I believe I have solved the mystery. I have found several sources which use the word flexion, not flexon, in connection with Hoffmann's sign, so apparently both you and the writer of http://www.flashcardmachine.com/emergency-nursing.html just made a small typo. I have also found numerous sources agreeing with your claim that it is a flexion, and none agreeing with the definition as a tingling sensation. Checking in the article history, I see that it originally did give the flexion definition, which one editor replaced with the "tingling sensation" definition in June 2010. I have restored the version of the article from before that editor changed it. Thanks for calling attention to the problem.