Wikipedia:WikiProject Medicine/Featured topics project/Poliomyelitis

Articles for inclusion
Poliomyelitis •  Poliovirus •  Polio vaccine • Post-polio syndrome • Poliomyelitis eradication • History of poliomyelitis •  List of polio survivors

Discussion regarding articles
As most of these articles were created or expanded by me while preparing polio for FA, I thought it might be helpful to include some of my thoughts on the state of each of the articles. Overall the articles will require some sort of a navigational template. Most are well referenced and illustrated, and since it was pretty much just me writing them, all are going to need a fine toothed copy-edit.


 * Poliovirus (28kb) This article is by far the most technical, and it probably needs to be. I tried to keep this article focused on the virus itself versus the disease caused by the virus. The information is really pretty complete, and there is a lot known about this particular bad boy, but some of the language could probably be simplified and some of the concepts better explained, especially in the "life cycle" section. Additionally, “life cycle” may need to be split into subsections. The figures are quite good in this article. I found the life cycle picture to be problematic, however, and I'm not sure how to best present the information. The other virus FAs (Influenza and Rotavirus) probably aren't going to be much help here as they include the disease as well. Influenza A virus subtype H5N1 is a GA and could be a useful model.


 * Polio vaccine (36kb) First off, this article needs a better introduction. The “great race” section is reasonably complete, fact/historical based, but could obviously be expanded a great deal. Koprowski, for example, feels a bit neglected, he was a major player. The section about VDPV probably needs better definitions. “Schedule”, “Efficacy” and “Contamination” are pretty much directly from either the UK or US health agencies. Although “vaccination schedule” might be criticized as not providing a worldwide perspective, I found that other countries just don’t seem to publish as much detailed information in this area on the internet (or in English); perhaps others will have more luck? “Efforts” was essentially a drive by addition, and I’m still not sure the section is needed in this article. If so, I think it needs to focus more on the vaccine and not the vaccination campaigns. HPV vaccine or Bacillus Calmette-Guérin might provide some pointers here.


 * Post-polio syndrome (18kb) This article wasn’t a spin off and it will probably require the most work. It is poorly referenced and some parts are obviously controversial. Multiple sclerosis is possibly a good model.


 * Polio eradication (30kb) Needs a better introduction, and the progress section feels a bit listy to me. Maybe expanding some of the earlier progress sections would reduce this listy feeling. The major issue here might be the article’s inherent instability. It will need to be updated regularly, and will undoubtedly lack some information. I don’t see these as major stumbling blocks, but I'm not sure how this angle will be received at FAC. Don’t see any other articles being of help here for, well, obvious reasons.

--DO11.10 (talk) 22:22, 28 August 2008 (UTC)
 * History of poliomyelitis (41kb) This was my favorite article to write, so I may be biased in thinking that this one is probably the closest to FA. I’m not sure what else needs to be added, but for sure it needs a good copy edit.

General comments

 * I've opened the page on poliomyelitis for discussion. Comments regarding the project should be posted above, whereas comments on the article improvements themselves should be placed on the article talk page. —Cyclonenim (talk · contribs) 18:14, 21 August 2008 (UTC)


 * I didn't know about this until D011 left a note on my talk page. I'd like to help where I can if this is OK. Graham. Graham Colm Talk 17:39, 4 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Sure thing, it'd be great to have your help. Seems we're having a little trouble getting started. Our first priority is to get the above topics to at least GA. —Cyclonenim (talk · contribs · email) 18:21, 4 September 2008 (UTC)
 * I've already successfully nominated Poliovirus. Graham Colm Talk 18:50, 4 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Ooh okay! Thanks, I've marked it as such. —Cyclonenim (talk · contribs · email) 18:57, 4 September 2008 (UTC)


 * I think, going in order at the page, we need to get Post-polio syndrome, Poliomyelitis eradication and History of poliomyelitis and up to at least GA before we can consider even start getting to the idea of nominating this topic. I'm tempted to start on the former first as it's pretty well developed. Also, do you suppose we need an entire article on the history, or should we condense the information into the poliomyelitis article? My first thoughts are no, since it's so well developed already, but we'll see what you guys think. Regards, --— Cyclonenim | Chat 18:19, 21 July 2009 (UTC)


 * I don't think it would be wise to condense and merge the history article. Having a check through the GAC, I don't really foresee many problems with this article. Perhaps a thorough copy edit would be enough to suffice, after which we could submit it for review? WRT Post-polio syndrome (which has improved a lot, since we last checked in) I came across some very good information that might be added to the article here. I think this one is reasonably close. The eradication article still needs some work, but I haven't given this one much thought, any input would be appreciated!--DO11.10 (talk) 16:45, 22 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Marvelous, I'll get to a decent copyedit session over the weekend sometime, got a few things I need to do with respect to real life. I'll probably take a look to the eradication article next week sometime; one step at a time and all that jazz. Regards, --— Cyclonenim | Chat 15:51, 23 July 2009 (UTC)