User talk:Colin
Barnstar
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Scholarly Barnstar | |
| For creating WP:MEDRS, one of Wikipedia's best guidelines. Graham Beards (talk) 08:46, 21 October 2025 (UTC) |
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The Barnstar of Integrity | |
| For sticking with WP:MEDRS, even if that meant a false label. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 09:47, 21 October 2025 (UTC) |
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WikiProject Medicine Newsletter - November 2025
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- Issue 25—November 2025
- WikiProject Medicine Newsletter
A lot has happened in the WikiProject over the last 11 months. Next year promises to continue that trend with Vital Signs 2026, a campaign to achieve our goal of having all our top-importance articles at B-class or above.
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WP:MED News
- Asthma, HIV/AIDS and Meningitis are all in need of some tender love and care, with a median source date between 2008 and 2011. Many clinical guidelines note changes from earlier versions, so updating diagnosis and management sections may be doable even if you have less time on your hand.
- Interested in which articles were most edited recently? That feature is back after a year hiatus. Recently, the Discussion overview stopped working. Can you help get it fixed or replace it?
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MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 08:17, 23 November 2025 (UTC)
Concerns about your comment at ANI
[edit]I know I pinged you there, but I'm linking to the comment here just to ensure you see it. Thanks, Barkeep49 (talk) 18:39, 8 January 2026 (UTC)
Barkeep49, Ethmostigmus, can I explain/explore something away from the toxicity of ANI.
I thought editors were being ridiculous and demonstrating prejudice and ignorance about AI. Other people disagree and are free to do so. I wanted to give an example of where editors focused on the thing or person that created a work (image) rather than the work itself. Focusing on that is prejudice. That a work is pre-judged to be irredeemably unusable because of how it came about. I had not anticipated there might be editors (admins even) who didn't understand the meaning of the word prejudice, or, it now seems, what an analogy even is and is not. I wanted also to give an example of the sort of ignorant justifications for prejudice that happen when people focus on the thing or person that created a work, rather than the work itself. I picked an example from history, which we are all familiar with. It seemed very clear to me that the three following scenarios were examples of "prejudice and ignorance":
- That someone might complain that an image was created by [a woman].
- That someone might launch an RFC to replace it with an image because it was created by [a man]
- That someone might justify such argument with ignorant beliefs that seemed reasonable to them and were enthusiastically supported by like minded supporters. I'm not going to repeat such beliefs again but they are indeed what was historically used to justify this prejudice and the brightest [male] minds of that time thought nothing wrong about it.
With hindsight, I should have used another [example] of prejudice and ignorance about the thing or person who created a work. I've mentioned before that some editors believe Wikipedia should only be edited on an open source operating system. And I've come across photographers and illustrators who believe Commons should only host works edited with open source software, vs commercial Adobe or Microsoft software. And they give arguments about a free content project encouraging free software by banning the use of commercial software. But that's rather a nerdy example, and there's always a danger one just encounters people who think that's actually perfectly reasonable. And AI creations do share some of the issues of "who" created something rather than "what was used": we accuse it of hallucinating, of inventing, and of not understanding, which is never something we'd accuse MS Paint of. Or I could have picked a fictitious one about an Englishman vs Scotsman, or Apple fanboy vs Microsoftie, or Nikon photographer vs Canon photographer. But I struggle to invent any arguments justifying such prejudice with ignorance. Better, I thought, to stick with one that is well known to everyone and universally agreed as an unreasonable position to take.
There is always a danger in picking a real world example that someone finds the comparison trivialising or offensive. Comparing people to Nazis would be a common such example. All analogies are partial similarities. Those wishing to take offence at the comparison tend towards regarding the analogy as equivalence. Those thinking the analogy unhelpful might tend towards thinking the similarity is too weak or that there are no points of similarity whatsoever. The point of an analogy is to communicate an idea: if one is uncertain what idea is being communicated, one need only ask for clarification. If I used the classic analogy of a ship for WMF, say, I might use it to describe an organisation slow to halt or change course. If the response I got was that I was ridiculous because WMF does not sail on the ocean and has no funnels... or that metaphorically a ship is female and thus my analogy is sexist... well there really is no end to the mischief one can do with analogies if one has no real interest in establishing what other person meant vs attacking them.
There's certainly examples of prejudicial rhetoric that I would not repeat on Wikipedia (e.g., slur words for ethnic groups). I don't feel giving such an obviously stupid historical example of male prejudice contributes towards driving female editors away. That even mentioning such things is so triggering and horrific that one feels the need to personally blame me for Wikipedia's "women problem". The scope of male stupidity and prejudice is simply infinite compared to other prejudicial examples against people or things. As I said, with hindsight, it was a mistake to use an example of prejudice about people to illustrate an example of prejudice about a thing, albeit a thing we give some attributes and failings of sentience too (Grok for example, is regarded as sexist and racist, and yet it is a thing). This allowed anyone who felt disagreeable towards me to have a ready weapon with which to club me. But it seems to me that there is probable a suitable example out there that isn't so irrelevant banter as prejudice of Englishmen towards Scotsmen, or of free software fanatics, or one that causes someone to take offence. Making Wikipedia a minefield of possible offence isn't helpful and IMO trivialises genuine and serious cases of misogyny or racism or phobias. A boy who cried wolf problem.
Some editors failed to read those three scenarios as all being "in character" with someone ridiculously ignorant and prejudiced. I'm wondering if this is cultural and that this sort of writing style that doesn't explicitly signpost with quotes and "he said" "she said" isn't parsed the way intended. It is extremely common for example in British newspapers. And I don't see people writing to the Guardian editor that their journalists are suddenly anti-immigrant wingnuts [when in fact they are mocking Vance and Trump] or complain that even examples of anti-immigrant wingnuttery [repeating what Vance and Trump said or might say] are too much for them to continue with their subscription to the newspaper. That, to British readers, this kind of criticism in prose is taken how it is intended, and not at all misconstrued like I saw at ANI. But parsing issues aside, Barkeep49, you have known me for many years. What possessed you to think I might suddenly in 2026 decide to post, in my own voice, sexist nonsense at ANI. Wiki-suicide by cop?
I'm not planning to post further at ANI. You both seem sensible people so would appreciate some feedback in a less toxic atmosphere than that hellhole. But I also understand if you no longer wish to engage in the matter. -- Colin°Talk 10:49, 9 January 2026 (UTC)
- You could be correct that some of this is cultural differences. In my context I'd have expected something more like
We all "know" women have smaller brains and can't control their hormones...
orContinuing the hypothetical, we all know women have smaller brains and can't control their hormones...
(emphasis added). And yes you did use the dictionary definiton of prejudiced correctly. But also given the multiple meanings of wikt:prejudice, and the strong connotations some of them have, I'm not surprised you got pushback. What I think you went completely off the rails isAll analogies are imperfect, but I tend to find that editors who fail to find a way to take the spirit of an analogy as intended, but instead find flaws that are tangential to the point and never intended are, well, not really here to have a good faith discussion.
especially the second time when you put it in bold. I think that comment was a glaring failure to assume good faith - even as I understand you feel that's what you were pushing back against both in your specific context and the broader AI context - and beyond that just like, it seems like several of the bulletpoints of the etiquette guideline were not really followed. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 17:10, 9 January 2026 (UTC)- @Barkeep49, just as WAID spent a lot of that ANI complaining that people were using the WP:ASPERSIONS weapon inappropriately (that it is about serious defamatory claims about a person made with absolutely no evidence, and not claims of minor misdemeanours where editors disagree that the evidence at that point was convincing or sufficient).. I feel again the need to point out where "failure to assume good faith" is an wrongheaded accusation and inappropriately used weapon.
- WP:AGF as about determining if the editor is here to collaborate in order to build the encyclopaedia (vs harming it). As the etiquette guideline summarises it: "We assume people come here to collaborate and write good articles." And we do get rid of people who can add cited encyclopaedic prose if they are unable or unwilling to collaborate when doing that. Collaboration is the key. We are not merely a free-to-read encyclopaedia. We are a collaborative editing project. It says our initial assumption should be they are, that we should give them the benefit of the doubt even when their edits perplex us or appear (or indeed are) harmful, and persist in that attitude if we can as long as it is reasonable to do so. So for example, we might reach out to them and ask, politely, effectively, WTF? But it doesn't ask us to be fools and persist in saintly acceptance when being clubbed to death nor when there is evidence and justification to believe that well, they really aren't, in this moment, seeking to collaborate with me or that other person in order to build.
- Let's imagine some editor comes to your talk page and writes "Barcrap is a wanker". Look, I've learned to signpost and quote and even changed your name so nobody can block me for insulting an admin! While it is possibly they were, a few minutes ago, collaborating with others on the orchid wikiproject on sources for some rare flower article, and they weirdly only have an issue with you, you don't need to go examine their previous contribs or general behaviour to assess whether in that moment their post to you was an effort to collaborate with you to build. It is clear they are not. Your internal rule might be: Post to a user page that consists solely of offensive insults directed at a user. Let's call this the "offensive jerk" rule. How intrinsically, is it different from my rule, which we might call the "analogy" rule (which I do caveat with "tend to find", even though I think it is quite reliable)? Both set some threshold by which you or I might measure a post or response and judge if AGF is still a reasonable position to hold. Now, you and I might disagree where that threshold lies, but not to the degree that one rule is "off the rails" as you put it. And yet, for some reason, you think if I apply that rule, as a "this tends me to believe a threshold has been crossed" that this is "a glaring failure to assume good faith". I don't think it is glaring at all.
- Looking at your post, where you debated a block or a comment, it is clear to me you got the wrong end of the stick with the analogy, and focused on the "how offended we'd be" and the moral contempt aspect of such an analogy. And you weren't alone, and possibly other people's misinterpretations feed further misinterpretations. Whereas the key and limited comparison I was making in the analogy was solely about "creator of the work with attribute X vs creator of the work with attribute Y" when what we should be concerned with is the work, not the attributes of who or what created it. You went beyond the limitations I intended with my analogy. But, but, the very key difference between you and the hot heads who responded differently, is your line "What I think you're trying to do is", where you politely explain how you interpreted it and asked me WTF? And furthermore, you explained additionally how you found the post ambiguous: 'it's no longer clear how much you're talking "in character."' That is a good faith response. And I thought Ethmostigmus's post was similarly in good faith and thoughtful and I appreciated the time and care they good over it, even though I disagree with some of it.
- Compare that to TarnishedPath's post, who I note you don't admonish for glaringly failure to AGF and personal attacks of the most egregious kind. They have assumed I am a fool who went to ANI to post "derogatory statements about another gender", and they remind everyone about my TBAN on a sensitive cultural topic, and I think it would be fair for me to assume they did so in order for the crowd/mob/community to further respond to me in the light of dealing with a transphobe. Which is exactly the sort of personal attack behaviour I anticipated at AE and Arbcom and has seen fruition at very much the first opportunity. I have no doubt that your and other admins failure to deal with that sort of thing will continue to make my time on Wikipedia somewhat hellish from now on. Thanks. The other comments at that point expressed dramatic outrange, sarcasm, taking the piss and so on. Really I think it perfectly fair of me to determine that few of those editors were there to collaborate with me to build the encyclopaedia, vs take the opportunity to mock someone on the internet who they disagree with. Other posts demonstrated a failure to even begin to understand what an analogy is or thought lecturing me on the meaning of the word prejudice while demonstrating to the internet their lack of. I mean, look at the "shockingly disgusting" comment and the "I'm disturbed that I actually have to share Wikipedia with people who would think such a thing." post. Barkeep, are you actually telling me those were made by someone "here to collaborate with me in order to build the encyclopaedia". The "with me" bit is important. It is all well and good feeling that editor X was there to collaborate with the other editors on that page in a kind of Twitter pile-on, but were they, when responding to me, here to collaborate with me? You cannot admonish me for a loss of assuming good faith when I receive that kind of post from another editor. They don't want to breath the same oxygen and live on the same planet as me. I'm shockingly disgusting. They had no intention of taking the spirit of my analogy or endeavouring to discover what that intent was when perplexed about or shocked by it. I don't see them being admonished for that post either: they are an admin.
- An analogy is very much a test of collaborative spirit. It is a shared abstraction. A generous and vulnerable offer to another person to accept a proposition for all its limitations, and benefit from the understanding it offers. Of course analogies can be flawed, and open to criticism. But they really are a kind of trap into which someone not interested in collaborative editing with that other person will fall. And of course, for that reason it was foolish for me to use one at ANI. Have a look next time you see people respond to an analogy. I think you'll find my rule applies pretty often for determining which editors are there to collaborate and which to attack and insult and mock and take the piss. -- Colin°Talk 11:23, 10 January 2026 (UTC)
Vital signs and dementia
[edit]Hope you're doing okay with the above.
Can I bother you with a content question? Given your help getting Dementia with Lewy bodies to FA, would you be able to have a look at dementia and see if it still meets the B-class criteria for the Vital Signs progress table? And if it doesn't, would you be willing to improve the most pressing issues so it does?
In general, it looks mostly okay to my lay eyes, but I do notice some issues, such as an overly technical lead (niacin instead of vitamin B3), this overly technical sentence in epidemiology. For instance, Alzheimer's disease among Hispanic/Latino and African American subjects exhibit lower risks associated with gene changes in the apolipoprotein E gene than do non-Hispanic white subjects.
, and some semi-duplicated content in the epidemiology section. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 08:27, 10 January 2026 (UTC)
- Femke Sandy was very generous in their credit at DLB and insisted I take it when really they did the hard work. I can have a look, though I'm infamously slow and may need reminding (which I don't mind). I have a double IKEA wardrobe to build this weekend, and another room only half painted, in addition to the usual RL demands. -- Colin°Talk 09:52, 10 January 2026 (UTC)
- @Femke, according to my quick-and-dirty method, Dementia is probably still B-class. Specifically, every ===section=== contains at least one citation (every paragraph is the modern WP:GACR standard), it's not missing any obvious sections, and from a grammar standpoint, it looks basically okay at a glance.
- The biggest problem is outdated sources. For example, Dementia#Epidemiology gives worldwide DALYs (which is very good) from 21 years ago (which is not so good). Fixing the sourcing would require hours of work.
- Other opportunities for improvement include adding some obvious and readily available images (e.g., an older person exercising for Dementia#Exercise) and addressing ethical issues head on (e.g., in Dementia#Eating difficulties, there's some question about whether life-extending, pneumonia-preventing measures such as thickened fluids or a puréed diet are the right choice). WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:25, 12 January 2026 (UTC)
- I also cannot decipher what is going on with the above, and hope all is well. Colin deserved the credit at DLB! I wish I could help at dementia, but real life is pretty horrible right now, and it's all I can do to barely keep up with the most important on my watchlist and the historic events surrounding the situation in Venezuela. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:11, 12 January 2026 (UTC)
- Sandy, that sounds so rough. I really hope 2026 will bring calmer waters for your personal life. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 08:58, 13 January 2026 (UTC)
- Thanks, Femke; it won't, but I'm growing resilience and faith as I lose my husband. I hope you are doing well, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:06, 13 January 2026 (UTC)
- Sandy, that sounds so rough. I really hope 2026 will bring calmer waters for your personal life. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 08:58, 13 January 2026 (UTC)
WikiProject Medicine Newsletter - January 2026
[edit]- Issue 26—January 2026
- WikiProject Medicine Newsletter
Happy New Year from WikiProject Medicine. Last year was tumultuous, with large language models competing for readers’ attention. These models often sound authoritative despite frequent hallucinations. They are however effective at writing in clear, accessible language, something research shows we often fail to achieve in medical articles. One of the goals of the Vital Signs 2026 campaign is to ensure that our top-importance articles are understandable, as this is one of the six B-class criteria they should meet.
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WP:MED News
- 2025 saw one Arbitration case related to WikiProject Medicine, related to conduct around transgender healthcare and people. The case saw a number of editors banned or topic-banned.
- Thanks to Earwig, recent article talk discussions are updated again at WP:MED, so you never miss an interesting discussion. Our participant list is working too!
- The Vital Signs campaign has kicked off. We've already removed misinformation from breast cancer, updated the management section of asthma, and assessed what needs to happen at autism. Can you help too?
- Adopt an article, fix obvious mistakes, and assess if it now meets the B-class criteria in the progress table
- Help out with any of the smaller tasks, such as ensuring that the new ICD-11 codes are included, or updated the disease frequency and mortality with the Global Burden of Disease study, published last October.
Newsletter ideas, comments, and criticisms welcome.
You are receiving this because you added your name to the WikiProject Medicine mailing list. If you no longer wish to receive the newsletter, please remove your name.
MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 09:23, 10 January 2026 (UTC)
Featured article review for meningitis
[edit]I have nominated Meningitis for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets the featured article criteria, or help improve the article. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Delist" in regard to the article's featured status (see review instructions). —Femke 🐦 (talk) 21:30, 11 February 2026 (UTC)