Wikipedia:Featured list candidates/WHO Model List of Essential Medicines/archive1


 * The following is an archived discussion of a featured list nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured list candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The list was promoted by PresN via FACBot (talk) 00:32, 19 May 2017 (UTC).

WHO Model List of Essential Medicines

 * Nominator(s): Doc James  (talk · contribs · email) 13:13, 30 January 2017 (UTC)

Over the last 4 years a number of us have been worked to improve all 414 medicines on this list. The leads of each item now provides a decent well referenced overview of the subject in question and an article exists for each of the medicines / combinations. The WHO just released an image under an open license for use to us. World Health Day is April 7th and 2017 also marks the 40 anniversary of the EML. Would be nice to get this ready for the main page for that date. I also believe it meets the FL criteria. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 13:13, 30 January 2017 (UTC)


 * comments Ozzie10aaaa

perFeatured_list_criteria


 * Criterion 1- is consistent with professional standard


 * Criterion 2- is consistent with Manual_of_Style/Lead_section (and WP:MEDMOS where applicable)


 * Criterion 3- a. covers the scope of WHO Model List of Essential Medicines very well
 * b. consistent with Stand-alone_lists and does not violate Content_forking


 * Criterion 4- African trypanosomiasis........ Medicines for the treatment of 1st stage African trypanosomiasis...seems to be "two" headers, would you be willing to merge or get rid of one of them?


 * Criterion 5- a.consistent with Manual_of_Style, makes good use of text layout, minimal redlinks
 * b.could use between 2-5 images to bring more interest in the "list" for our readers?

--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 17:17, 30 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Criterion 6- is stable, no Edit_warring.............
 * Have adjusted the headers let me know what you think. Doc James  (talk · contribs · email) 10:33, 31 January 2017 (UTC)
 * perfect,and consistent with the rest of the list, thank you.
 * the other issue is images as indicated above (2-5 images) as our readers will be more interested when they see as well as read. --Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 11:43, 31 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Okay will pull in a few more :-) Doc James  (talk · contribs · email) 12:02, 31 January 2017 (UTC)

as a result of and  in reference to this Featured_list_candidates nomination I therefore
 * support--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 11:29, 1 February 2017 (UTC)


 * BlueRasberry
 * Delete per Copyright in lists . No evidence is provided that the WHO released the copyright to this creatively compiled list, nor is any argument made that this list is ineligible for copyright. This is an ordered ranking based on judgement, separating medicines which matter more from ones which matter less. The WHO's copyright policy is at http://www.who.int/about/copyright/en/. They forbid anyone from having access to their health information with only some exceptions, and it seems that they do not find it essential for anyone to have access to their essential list of medicine.  Blue Rasberry   (talk)  18:57, 30 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Hmm, well that could be problematic. Can we obtain permission to use it like we apparently did with ICD-10 (Talk:ICD-10)? (Though I'm a little confused by how we are using ICD-10 unless the WHO relicensed it CC-BY-SA, which I don't think they did.) Sizeofint (talk) 04:41, 31 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Thks Blue. Will work on solving copyright. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 08:14, 31 January 2017 (UTC)
 * User:Bluerasberry I have gotten formal release of the list under a CC BY SA 3.0 IGO license. Have sent the permission to permissions-en and cc'ed you on it. Here is the ticket 2017013110007321 Best Doc James  (talk · contribs · email) 10:30, 31 January 2017 (UTC)
 * P.S. will work on the ICD stuff next. The prior director recently retired. Not sure who has replaced him. Doc James  (talk · contribs · email) 12:11, 31 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Keep All copyright concerns are resolved. This article should not be deleted because it has a free and open license. I processed the OTRS ticket and posted a note at the top of the talk page documenting the free license of this list. This is no longer a deletion discussion, and can now resume as a review of a candidate for featured lists.  Blue Rasberry   (talk)  13:14, 1 February 2017 (UTC)
 * User:Bluerasberry anything else? Doc James  (talk · contribs · email) 14:54, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

suggests that this article include more discussion of the items in the list. That user also suggests merging essential medicines to this article, saying "There isn't really a massive amount of content in Essential medicines anyway – a merge probably wouldn't be entirely unreasonable." I had these thoughts too, and I think other people would.
 * Support from bluerasberry

I do not think these articles should be merged because this article already has a large browser size Article size and should not be made longer. Also, this list is complicated enough already, with 400-500 technical terms to maintain.

I agree that the "essential medicines" article is short but that article could be much longer. On the talk page there, I posted links to sources about the history of determining what is and is not an essential medicine, and to discussions of drug patents for essential medicines, and the impact of identifying essential medicines. Each one of those concepts probably passes Wikipedia's WP:Notability guidelines and could be its own Wikipedia article. Besides that, these concepts each apply regionally - so the story about history, patents, and impact of the essential medicine concept in India will be different from Brazil. It seems like there are sources to tell these stories from the perspectives of multiple countries.

There is another muddled concept here. This list is for the "model list", which is sort of general and global, whereas individual countries may have their own list. Like for example, a country with tropical diseases may need medicine which a colder country would not need, and both of those countries may have their own modified lists separate from the model list. There are thousands of papers published on this concept and it seems like at least 100 of them are comprehensive enough to cite. I am not aware of anyone with broader plans to summarize all this in Wikipedia, but combining the list with the concept compromises both. If this model list were combined with information about regional variation, then that confuses the purpose of the model list.

I am not bothered that only a few self-published sources are cited here. Typically on Wikipedia we establish notability and neutrality with third-party sources, but in this case, notability of this list is not in question and the WHO is the only authoritative source for the list.

I did question whether there should be a section about the history of revisions to this list. I would not mind it, but neither do I think it is essential. List articles do not always go into such detail, and I think that history of the concept is better placed in the "essential medicine" article, leaving this article to be a well-considered copy of the list.

The criteria are at Featured list criteria. Points 3-6 I take for granted; the list is comprehensive, has the correct wiki-structure, follows Wikipedia's manual of style, and this is a non-controversial article. I will comment that not every featured list has established Wikipedia articles for all its list items, but this one does, and that is superb.

Criteria 1 is about the prose, which is suitable. Criteria 2 is the toughest one. I addressed the issue above by talking about what should and should not be in the article. I fail to recognize a sort of additional prose content which could be added to this article to complement the list. Right now, the lead introduces the concept, describes the ordering of the list, describes the historical list versions, and describes a derivative concept. There are other derivative concepts, particularly lists for countries, but I think it is fair to mention the children's list because that one too is a model list where as country lists are not. I am open to conversation but I say pass. ✅  Blue Rasberry   (talk)  21:08, 31 March 2017 (UTC)

Support from RexxS

This is a commendably comprehensive list in Wikipedia terms – not just because of the breadth of its content, but because of the depth of coverage provided by all the linked articles on each individual medicine, a factor sometimes overlooked when assessing whether a list deserves to be described as "one of Wikipedia's best works". The contributors to those articles deserve our gratitude for the immense amount of work put into them as well as this list.

I usually try to assess lists for common breaches of accessibility compliance, and baring two minor concerns, I believe that the list meets our accessibility requirements in general: However, the use of the dagger typographical symbol † might be worth re-considering. Older versions of some of the most common screen readers don't read that symbol, although I'm told that support for many symbols has been improved in the latest versions of JAWS. To address that problem, we have a template † which substitutes an image and alt text that all screen readers can speak. The only other small concern is the lack of alt text in all five of the images, but as those images serve merely to illustrate the appearance of particular medicines, rather than making a point, the caption alone serves the main needs of alternative text. In these sort of cases, I wouldn't feel that the lack of alt text a sufficient issue to prevent promotion, although I'd naturally encourage editors to provide alt text where they feel able. --RexxS (talk) 15:40, 10 February 2017 (UTC)
 * 1) The list is properly structured with sections and headers meeting Manual of Style/Accessibility ;
 * 2) it contains no text that is too small to read per MOS:FONTSIZE;
 * 3) no use of colour makes text unreadable, per MOS:CONTRAST;
 * 4) no information is conveyed solely by use of colour, per WP:COLOR;
 * Thanks User:RexxS will fix. Doc James  (talk · contribs · email) 09:37, 14 February 2017 (UTC)
 * Hum, the article uses ref which does not accept that other template. Might take until I get home in a couple of days to figure it out unless someone beats me to it. Doc James  (talk · contribs · email) 09:47, 14 February 2017 (UTC)
 * Yes, that template ref is being misused as it's designed for each ref to have a corresponding note, rather than just one note (which breaks the backlink). I have a look at the documentation a little more closely and see if I can find a simple solution. --RexxS (talk) 17:21, 14 February 2017 (UTC)
 * Thanks :-) Added alt text for completeness. Doc James  (talk · contribs · email) 03:20, 15 February 2017 (UTC)

User:RexxS have switched to an "Alpha" symbol. Does that solve the issue? Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 10:52, 18 February 2017 (UTC)
 * That's likely to be an improvement, as most screen readers can make some sense of some Greek characters. You never really know unless you have the time and facilities to test large numbers of screen readers, and there are often settings that can be enabled to speak text that is not voiced by default. Anyway the web helps sometimes: for example, there's a resource at http://accessibleculture.org/research-files/character-references/jaws-we-all.php that gives a survey of what characters JAWS and Window-Eyes will speak. If you really, really want to be sure all screen readers will speak a symbol, you have to stick to normal text plus the symbols you get on a standard English keyboard, like *, #, $, etc. Anyway, I'm not suggesting you should change the symbol again, as one could spend forever trying to cater for every possible case. --RexxS (talk) 14:48, 18 February 2017 (UTC)


 * Strong oppose I'm sorry to be such a Debbie Downer, but I really don't think this article is good enough just yet to be featured. I see that this candidacy has already achieved support from four editors, but I'm pretty sure that two of them have never even reviewed a FL before and one is apparently "not bothered" by the lack of sources, which raises something of a red flag for me.
 * I really don't think that this article is of as high a standard as it could be. As I've mentioned previously, there's very little in the way of prose – the Notes section is longer than the lead, which I don't think I've ever seen in a FL before. Speaking of which, the difference between core medicines and complementary medicines should actually be the in lead, not buried away in a note at the bottom.
 * The layout is a little uninspired – it's just the list itself with half a dozen images dotted about. The WHO structure this list in a table, which contains much more information – could that layout just be copied?
 * If nothing else, at the very least the lead image issue needs to be resolved, which, for my money, is this article's biggest issue. If that image isn't used yet by the WHO then including it in this article to illustrate this subject is original research. If it might be used by the WHO then it violates WP:CRYSTAL.
 * As I've said before, this was a challenging article to improve, as there are currently no similar FLs – when this article reaches FL status, it will probably set a precedent for similar lists. But I do think it should perhaps it would benefit from a thorough peer review first. Thanks, A Thousand Doors (talk &#124; contribs) 07:55, 2 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Yes getting images is an issue as getting WHO to adopt an open license is a slow effort. I guess all we can do right now is wait and see if they use the image unless you have a better one in mind.
 * World Health Day is now over. The lead does and has for some time discussed the difference between core and complementary. Doc James  (talk · contribs · email) 02:47, 8 April 2017 (UTC)
 * If you want an example of a different layout that this list could use, I would expect it to look something more along these lines (not collapsed, obviously):


 * Now, I suggest the above as an example only: you may want to do things differently. Perhaps you can think of another column or two that might be useful to include. Perhaps you think the bolding is unnecessary. Maybe you have ideas for better images that could be used. Maybe you'd like to include appropriate use of colour in there somewhere (e.g. to differentiate between Core and Complementary, perhaps). But a layout similar to the above would, I believe, be more representative of Wikipedia's best work, and would therefore make this article a better candidate to be featured. Thanks, A Thousand Doors (talk &#124; contribs) 22:37, 23 April 2017 (UTC)
 * We do not typically include dosing information per WP:PHARMMOS for a number of reasons (1) we do not consider mediawiki a stable enough platform and (2) it is more than general knowledge.
 * Also not a big fan of putting all our content into tables. One issue with tables is they format poorly on mobile, and most of our readers are on mobile (look at your suggestion on mobile, pictures are so small, you need to scroll side to side, the list becomes way way long). The other is that they are harder to edit which makes updating more difficult.
 * Some medications or complementary in their entirety while for others only certain formulations are complementary. We already use "α" to indicate that a med is complementary. Is that point significant enough to give it more emphasis? I am not convinced.
 * By the way the list currently formats very nicely on mobile. This is something the FA process need to take into account to a much greater degree. Doc James  (talk · contribs · email) 17:06, 26 April 2017 (UTC)


 * Comments from DarthBotto
 * In the lead, the first sentence reads, "The WHO Model List of Essential Medicines is a list, proposed by the World Health Organization (WHO)..." It says it's a list that's a list. Would it perhaps be better to describe it as an inventory or catalog proposed by WHO?
 * It is a list though and not an inventory (which is more physical in nature) or a catalog. We could use the term enumeration but IMO that is overly complicated. I have however linked to that term. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 14:59, 6 March 2017 (UTC)
 * I suppose that flies-- and we don't want to over-complicate, convolute or mislead with the opening descriptor. D ARTH B OTTO talk•cont 19:59, 6 March 2017 (UTC)


 * The flow of the lead gets off the tracks in the third paragraph, where it blurts out a series of short statements with little synergy between one another, save for the connection that it says it is on a two-year basis, with the last one being in 2015, thereby implying that the upcoming one will be this year. Could you include a statement with a source about the upcoming list, if that is possible? Is there a special significance about the 2005 list that I am missing? Perhaps bridge the 2015 mention with the two-year mention, as well.
 * Yes. A new list is supposedly coming out in a couple of months. I can find no sources talking about it though. Do you know of any? The reason why the number of items in the 2005 list is mention is because that is the only source I can find. Doc James  (talk · contribs · email) 14:59, 6 March 2017 (UTC)
 * I've been looking around and I cannot find anything that talks about the 20th list, I am sorry to say. Damn, that would really have been a great addition! D ARTH B OTTO talk•cont 19:59, 6 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Details on the 20th list will be avaliable in a couple of months and will add them than. Doc James  (talk · contribs · email) 22:38, 6 March 2017 (UTC)


 * The organization of the sources is very well composed and reliable. The notes are succinct and so far as I can tell, aptly placed.
 * I do get nervous around the volume of primary sources, specifically Reference 1, but assuming that there are no easily accessible alternatives, I suppose it works.
 * It is a statement by a major medical organizations and therefore fulfils WP:MEDRS. I could also add the Lancet review to that statement but not sure it is needed. Doc James  (talk · contribs · email) 14:59, 6 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Thank you for pointing me in the direction of MEDRS. It was certainly not the most pertinent question in my mind, but this satisfies what little doubt I may have had. D ARTH B OTTO talk•cont 19:59, 6 March 2017 (UTC)


 * Looking at the fourth paragraph makes me realize that the lead is somewhat disorganized. You have some history components between the third and fourth paragraph that is intertwined with content about the core functions of the list. Could you reorganize said paragraphs, so the third discusses core functions, like the fourth discusses the history?
 * Adjusted Doc James  (talk · contribs · email) 14:59, 6 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Very well done! D ARTH B OTTO talk•cont 19:59, 6 March 2017 (UTC)


 * All in all, I don't believe extensive work will be necessary. The deterrents are in the flow and organization of the lead. If you could give these core points proper attention, I would be glad to support this FLC. D ARTH B OTTO talk•cont 09:53, 6 March 2017 (UTC)


 * If I may say so myself, this list satisfies all six of the criteria for Featured List status- you have my Support vote. If you could spare a bit of time to review Featured list candidates/List of Alien characters/archive1, it would be greatly appreciated! D ARTH B OTTO talk•cont 19:59, 6 March 2017 (UTC)


 * User:Giants2008, USer:PresN, and User:The Rambling Man was hoping to have a health related list on the main page for World Health Day on April 7th. The review has run slower than I had hoped but wondering your thoughts? Doc James  (talk · contribs · email) 15:22, 1 April 2017 (UTC)
 * For us to schedule it now, this FLC would need to be promoted in the next day or two. I can't edit the TFL blurbs in the final couple of days before a main page appearance because I don't have the necessary admin tools. Colleagues, do you think a consensus has been achieved here? Giants2008  ( Talk ) 23:04, 1 April 2017 (UTC)
 * I am heading to the mountains tomorrow and likely will not be able to address any further issues. Doc James  (talk · contribs · email) 02:40, 2 April 2017 (UTC)

Comment huge list, more like a glossary, one thing that struck me was that all the footnotes are unreferenced. The Rambling Man (talk) 03:08, 13 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Does this work? Doc James  (talk · contribs · email) 05:17, 13 April 2017 (UTC)

Comments by Dudley
 * ✅ "The WHO Model List of Essential Medicines (EML), proposed by the World Health Organization (WHO), contains the most effective and safe medicines needed to meet the most important needs in a health system." I think "published" would be better than "proposed", and "contains the most effective..." implies that WHO is infallible. Maybe "lists the medicines considered most effective..."
 * ✅I assume the list includes drugs under patent as well as generic ones, but I think it would be helpful to spell out the position.
 * ✅I am not clear what the list includes. You refer to a main list and an adult list as if they are different, but you say that all medicines in the children's list are in the main one, which implies that there is no separate adult list.
 * Fixed


 * ✅ You use the α symbol to indicate a complementary item, but you say some are only in the complementary list and some are in both, and it is not clear whether the symbol covers all complementary or those only in the complementary list.
 * For those ONLY on the complementary list. Will clarify. Doc James  (talk · contribs · email) 02:35, 3 May 2017 (UTC)


 * You say in the notes: "An α indicates the medicine is a complementary item, for which specialized diagnostic or monitoring or specialist training are needed. An item may also be listed as complementary on the basis of higher costs or a less attractive cost/benefit ratio. The following is supported by:" I think these comments should be in the lead (or a note at the beginning of the list) as it is needed by the reader at the start. Eg (for the last part) "The list and notes in this article are based on the 2015 edition of the WHO main list."
 * Have adjusted some. Let me know if that works. Doc James  (talk · contribs · email) 02:40, 3 May 2017 (UTC)


 * The use of header levels is confusing. For example, you have a four dash level for Antiretrovirals, five for Protease inhibitors, and six for Fixed-dose combinations, but these all just show as identical bold text to the reader. You need to delete all levels below four or use some other method of distinguishing lower levels such as indentation.
 * I remember something in the MOS that one should stick with headers.Manual_of_Style/Accessibility I do not really understand the exceptions User:Dudley Miles What do you suggest? Doc James  (talk · contribs · email) 01:52, 3 May 2017 (UTC)
 * I do not know but I do not see any point in header levels which are indistinguishable to the reader. You could try asking for advice with a . Dudley Miles (talk) 09:00, 3 May 2017 (UTC)

Dudley Miles (talk) 20:13, 2 May 2017 (UTC)
 * Thanks will go through these. Doc James  (talk · contribs · email) 21:49, 2 May 2017 (UTC)

I'd like to finally get this closed one way or another- other than that header issue, are you fine with Doc James's changes? {[re|Doc James}} it appears that the headings are messed up in the Estrogens section- you have a level 3 followed by other level 3s? Or is it that Estrogens is an empty section (in which case, why is it there?).

As to the use of level-5/6 headers, and their visual similarity to level-4 headers- yeah, I think something has to be done here. You're eschewing tables, and that's fine- I'm not sure what relevant information you could put in the table that isn't covered by the "subsection" the drugs are in already- but by using a list instead of a table you're also dropping the big advantage of the table, which is that it makes structured data, especially hierarchical data, easy to parse. If you're going to lay that all on the subsection headings... then they have to be able to do the job. And they're not right now- you can't tell the difference between the bottom 3 levels, so it becomes a muddled mess. Example: Antiviral medicines; it goes Antiviral medicines->Antiretrovirals->Protease inhibitors->Fixed-dose combinations, and there's literally no way for a non-medical reader to know that's the hierarchy, because the last 3 headers look identical. And they don't seem to even be used consistently- the next level-4 section, Antihepatitis medicines, uses bare text as a psuedo level-6 header instead. I'd recommend just making all level-5 headers italicized (to distinguish them from level 4), and all level-6 headers bare text, so that at least there's some visual distinction. -- Pres N  16:14, 15 May 2017 (UTC)
 * I will be happy to support if the header issue is fixed. Dudley Miles (talk) 20:36, 15 May 2017 (UTC)
 * User:Dudley Miles and User:PresN Does this work Doc James  (talk · contribs · email) 22:32, 15 May 2017 (UTC)
 * Hmm, I'm okay with it, but I'm good with small text- what do you think? While using 'small' tags in a heading is generally frowned upon as per MOS:FONTSIZE, it does give us the advantage here that Doc James can keep the text in a level-6 heading instead of breaking it out into bare non-heading text. -- Pres  N  01:43, 16 May 2017 (UTC)
 * Having headings is pretty valuable for screen readers, so please don't use pseudo-headers (formatted/bare text without the header markup). The problem you see is because the MediaWiki CSS chooses to display  as 100%;  as 108%; and  as 116% of normal font size, which seems to be insufficient difference for you to distinguish between them. This is a problem common to all Wiki software, not just English Wikipedia, and certainly not just this list. The solution really should be to alter our MediaWiki:Common.css so that heading levels 4 to 6 become more distinguishable. For now, ' work-around (small for h5 and small-italic for h6) seems a workable solution. It doesn't result in any text smaller than 85% for old folk like me, and the small/italic markup won't be noticed by most screen readers. Given what we start from, it's likely the best compromise. --RexxS (talk) 11:29, 16 May 2017 (UTC)
 * I don't think that italics for level 6 works as showing a lower level, and I would much prefer a hierarchy of indents, but I see no point in pursuing the matter further. I support this first rate list. Dudley Miles (talk) 14:30, 16 May 2017 (UTC)
 * I there a way to indent a true heading? Doc James  (talk · contribs · email) 14:57, 16 May 2017 (UTC)

Yes. use something like this: which gives:

Small indented level six heading
You can experiment with the 1.7em value to change the amount of indenting. Does that help? --RexxS (talk) 18:44, 16 May 2017 (UTC)
 * Cool thanks. Do people prefer this? If so feel free to update to it. I am heading off hiking for a week. Doc James  (talk · contribs · email) 18:54, 17 May 2017 (UTC)
 * I do think it's better, now done. Source review passed, the only outstanding oppose is about the list of terms vs table issue which the other reviewers and myself disagree with, so, promoting! -- Pres N  15:45, 18 May 2017 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.